Story Discussion, Rumple Foreskin, 2/28/05, main queue

[Boxlicker101]

I don’t understand what the last paragraph was about. Who was Mark Cahill? Who was Bebe Boudreaux and what was her relationship to Jack Boudreaux?

I notice you used the present tense, except for the epilogue, even though the story was set in 1968. Why did you do that?

Was it necessary to keep referring to the sheriff and his deputies as white? The point was made early and there was no need to run it into the ground. This kind of thing did happen but by 1968 it was less common than it had been. Even at that, it was 37 years ago and writing about it now is like picking a scab off a healing wound and can serve no purpose except to promote infection.

It is not necessary to refer to a widow-woman. The “woman” is redundant because all widows are women. In dialogue it is allright if that is the way people talked at that time and that place, but that would not apply to narrative.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Box,

I was afraid that last paragraph could confuse folks who like to cut straight to the chase and might miss this in the introduction:

The style of the opening is very different from that of the novel. To give you a feel for the difference, I'm including the paragraph that follows this piece. Feel free to judge this as a short story, an opening, or both.

I also worried fast readers might skip right on by this line that preceded the last paragraph:

END OF SHORT STORY/OPENING

BOX: I don’t understand what the last paragraph was about. Who was Mark Cahill? Who was Bebe Boudreaux and what was her relationship to Jack Boudreaux?
RF: Mark is the protag in the novel, a nice guy with, by local standards, fairly liberal leanings. He's very loyal to a life-long friend who's black. Bebe Boudreaux is the party girl he's always lusted for. After years of rejections, she now wants him to marry her so she can stay near her father, Jack Boudreaux, who is head of the local Klan and whose activities and beliefs she strongly supports. - There are more complications, but I'll spare you.

BOX: I notice you used the present tense, except for the epilogue, even though the story was set in 1968. Why did you do that?
RF: I used present tense for the added sense of drama and to differentiate it from the rest of the book. That last paragraph, the one you called the epilogue, is the first paragraph of the rest of the novel.

BOX: Was it necessary to keep referring to the sheriff and his deputies as white? The point was made early and there was no need to run it into the ground.
RF: In my opinion, it was.

BOX: This kind of thing did happen but by 1968 it was less common than it had been.
RF: Your right. In fact, part of the novel's storyline is the last stand of the local racists. There's a scene later in chapter one, where Mark is about to enter a cafe and sees one of those "We reserve the right to refuse service to you" signs.

He’d seen many similar signs and messages during his twenty-one years on earth. Most went unnoticed. That’s what he preferred. Thinking about all they represented had become a total downer. But tonight, something made him stop and study the old sign. It had once been bright and defiant. Now, like the hatred it represented, it was fading but still around.

BOX: Even at that, it was 37 years ago and writing about it now is like picking a scab off a healing wound and can serve no purpose except to promote infection.
RF: I've got to disagree you and agree with George Santayana:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

BOX: It is not necessary to refer to a widow-woman. The “woman” is redundant because all widows are women. In dialogue it is allright if that is the way people talked at that time and that place, but that would not apply to narrative.
RF: Techinically, you're correct. But in commercial fiction, the only unbreakable rule is, don't bore your reader. The actual phrase the sheriff used was "widow-lady." That was a common rural usage at one time. The person in question was both a widow and a lady. I repeated the phrase later in narrative to bring out the contradiction in how one widow was being treated as opposed to the other.

Hope those answers actually answered some of your questions. If not, let me know.

Rumple

 

[angelicminx]

Just putting my two cents in here.

I live in a small town in Kentucky. The black population is limited. Phrases like "widow-lady" are STILL used here. As a matter of fact, a lot of Rumple's story and the dialogue itself still happens.

 

[neonlyte]

Rumple
I started a crit on this piece before RL intervened and disrupted the flow, much of the same ground has been covered by other contributors from reading through the thread.

I'd like to step back a little from the close examination of the piece and comment on the use of the piece as an intro to your novel.

I very much like the idea of this intro and its subsequent referencing through the novel without returning to the characters other than by way of their use as a kind of backbone for the ongoing narrative. It would be enlightening for me, and perhaps others, if you have gleaned anything from publisher rejections, you mention somewhere the novel and its period have not found favour.

Are your thoughts any clearer as to what might be wrong? For example, is it the story per se, the setting in time, cultural shift away from close examination of a troubled past? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

I assume you sent more than the this intro to publishers and your initial questions in your intro are along the lines of needing to grip a publisher from the outset. You seem to be questioning 'Does this intro do the job?'.

For me - I have to answer no.

It's well written, though we all have minor quibbles over specific words, scenarios and descriptions. It's almost prosaic, almost a romanticised description of a travesty (I assume it's a travesty because of its setting in time). It lacks the spark that would make me want to read what happened after - I've seen this scene in film and print and this intro makes me suspect there is nothing new coming along. I'm probably wrong and from your description of the form of the novel you've taken a different approach, BUT after reading this intro, I'm not sure 'as a publisher' I'd want to read more, other than to be delighted by the way you tell a story, and I'd miss what ever new slant you placed on the period.

I'm thinking the piece is too short, it needs some human dimensioned pathos, the intro conveys a society wide pathos of the period and is just another period piece because I can't, in this short section, get into the human emotions that would make me want to discover what happens to the characters. I accept the characters do not appear again in the novel, other than by reference, but that should not deter from introducing pain and anguish at the human level that would make me (and a publisher) understand from the outset the thrust, drive and reason for the novel.

Personally, I'd read on simply because I like the language and the feel, I'd take the risk that there is more coming along, but if I was proofing submissions in a publishing house, I'd probably not go past the intro.

Just my thoughts on whether the piece will grab a publisher by the throat.

neonlyte

 

[Boxlicker101]

I was considering this to be a stand-alone story, not the beginning of a novel or I might not have made the comments I did

I said: Even at that, it was 37 years ago and writing about it now is like picking a scab off a healing wound and can serve no purpose except to promote infection.


And you responded: I've got to disagree you and agree with George Santayana:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I tend to agree with those sentiments but this is something that is still frersh in the national memory. If you were referring to something more remote such as the rise of facism in the 1930's, I would agree with you.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

I was considering this to be a stand-alone story, not the beginning of a novel or I might not have made the comments I did.

Box, your comments were fine, and helpful. This is a stand-alone story that has already appeared in a lit mag. I thought some SDC input might improve it. Thanks to folks like you, I was proved right.

However, it's also, in effect, the preamble to my novel. Like you, I thought opinions might vary depending on the context. That's why I "double-dipped" by mentioning that fact and how the style was different.

--

I said: Even at that, it was 37 years ago and writing about it now is like picking a scab off a healing wound and can serve no purpose except to promote infection.

And you responded: I've got to disagree you and agree with George Santayana:
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

I tend to agree with those sentiments but this is something that is still frersh in the national memory. If you were referring to something more remote such as the rise of facism in the 1930's, I would agree with you.

Box, on this one I have to disagree. For people under forty, both black and white, the civil rights movement, along with everything else that occured prior to their being about five, is ancient history.

This isn't a knock on "young" folks, it's just human nature. I lived through the Korean War. But I have no personal memories of that conflict and had to learn about it the same way I did the Punic Wars, as history.

Rumple Foreskin

 

[Colleen Thomas]

This isn't you best work Rumps. It's too heavy handed, to straight forward, too cut and dried. It's just too easy to fade out and take it in like another Mississippi Burning wannabe.

IMHO, you need to go back and add some of the subtleties that are lacking. Amos needs to sweat, he needs to fear, in that time period, white folks banging on your door could just as easily mean a lynching as an arrest. Blacks had no trust of the Sheriffs or of the authorites in general, you need to convey that.

He is far too detached. It's far too matter of course, and no matter how many times he had been rousted, whites banging on your door in the night was never matter of course.

I can understand where you don't want him resisting. I can even understand his being mostly docile and protesting only mildly. But I can't reconcil the lack of fear I got out of this. If any emotion permeated the life of a black man in the Jim Crow south it was fear. In the rural south, you're talking about the kind of fear we usually think of only in connectin with the Gestapo.

I would suggest, at a minimum, some sweat, nervousness and perhaps raising the whispers to audible level, the mother begging him not to go outside, him trying to comfort her, something to raise the level of trepidation to tangible, palpable, hanging in the air.

The sheriff needs to be either, more vindictive or more duplicitous. If, he realy believes this black man was staring at a female relative's private parts, he's going though the door not beating on it. If this is a Kaln fix, and he knows it, he is going to do a lot more proclaiming loudly. In short he's going to be more theatrical. Whichever way you go, at the moment, he is just too 2-d. Too professional. Too accomodating. I get no sense of righteous anger nor playing it up, and I really think I should get a hint in his actions of what is motivating him.

On the up side, it has your usual visual flair and the descriptives, where you use them are used to good effect. I can clearly see the street, and hundreds like it I have seen in life.

The detached naration is new to me from you. I think it has a lot of potential.

I guess my bottom line is, I can see the street, the cars, the police, the Klansmen very well. I don't feel the fear, the angst, the tension. With such good visual desciptions, the lack of emotive response is glaring to me.

Hope this helps

*HUGS*

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Greetings,

I do believe a pattern is starting to emerge. I'm including selected bits from several crits. They all seem to agree the sheriff needs more personality while Amos need to show more fear. In tandem with that is Neon's thought that the scene needs an emotional element, preferably one that would better tie it to the main story.

I hear, and will attempt to obey. Thanks to everyone who posted a crit. I honestly believe I took something from everyone's crit. Please don't hesitate to add any new thoughts.

If anyone else feels left out because they haven't had a good whack at the story, feel free to step right up and take your best shot. Let's face it, I can use all the help I can get.

Rumple

--

Dialogue was a problem for me, but mostly in relation to the sheriff. It seemed a case of "this is how it is, you're going to jail." There was no sense of intimidation that was coming across to me. (Wishfulthinking)

--

For this first scene to be really effective, I think you want to try and convey the terror and confusion of being roused from sleep at some ungodly hour and bundled into the back seat of a racist’s squad car.

You’ve got the pounding on the door right, but I think your sheriff is too polite, and Amos’ responses too reasonable and wide awake. (Dr. Mabeuse)

--

I agree that he would hammer on the door and issue such threats that Amos would open the door before he was fully dressed. Also, that the door would be shoved in as soon as the latch is released. (Virtual Burlesque)

--

I'm thinking the piece is too short, it needs some human dimensioned pathos, the intro conveys a society wide pathos of the period and is just another period piece because I can't, in this short section, get into the human emotions that would make me want to discover what happens to the characters. (Neon)

--

Amos needs to sweat, he needs to fear…. He is far too detached. It's far too matter of course, and no matter how many times he had been rousted, whites banging on your door in the night was never matter of course.

The sheriff needs to be either, more vindictive or more duplicitous. If, he realy believes this black man was staring at a female relative's private parts, he's going though the door not beating on it. If this is a Klan fix, and he knows it, he is going to do a lot more proclaiming loudly. In short he's going to be more theatrical. (Colly)

 

[Poussin]

.....

 

[Penelope Street]

Rumple,

Originally, I liked the idea of fear as an expanded ingredient in the scene, but now I'm not sure. I did read somewhere that this was a small community where everyone knows everyone else, right? The more Amos and the sheriff know one another, and the more Amos knows the real reason behind his arrest, the more I think the scene works fine as is.

As it reads now, I see an Amos that knows what this is really all about, he knows what he's done and he doesn't believe it's a serious offense- his primary goal is to not make a scene in front of his mother. I see a sheriff that is confident Amos isn't really going to cause any trouble- his primary goal is to embarrass rather than restrain Amos. That's a bit cocky, sure, but this sheriff is that type, right?

So, if Amos just went pee in the wrong restroom and he's expecting a night in jail and maybe a fine, then I think both men behave in a reasonable fashion, including the angry reaction to the peeping Tom charge. But, if Amos is clueless as to the real reason for the visit or if the reason is more serious, or if the sheriff has any cause to imagine Amos might put up a fight, then I agree they'd both fear one another more.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[angelicminx]

Rumple,

Originally, I liked the idea of fear as an expanded ingredient in the scene, but now I'm not sure. I did read somewhere that this was a small community where everyone knows everyone else, right? The more Amos and the sheriff know one another, and the more Amos knows the real reason behind his arrest, the more I think the scene works fine as is.

As it reads now, I see an Amos that knows what this is really all about, he knows what he's done and he doesn't believe it's a serious offense- his primary goal is to not make a scene in front of his mother. I see a sheriff that is confident Amos isn't really going to cause any trouble- his primary goal is to embarrass rather than restrain Amos. That's a bit cocky, sure, but this sheriff is that type, right?

So, if Amos just went pee in the wrong restroom and he's expecting a night in jail and maybe a fine, then I think both men behave in a reasonable fashion, including the angry reaction to the peeping Tom charge. But, if Amos is clueless as to the real reason for the visit or if the reason is more serious, or if the sheriff has any cause to imagine Amos might put up a fight, then I agree they'd both fear one another more.

Take Care,
Penny

I agree with Penny.

 

[Rumple Foreskin]

Penny,

Good points and valid thoughts. The only hitch in your assessment was thinking Amos might be aware of the real reason the sheriff is there. Poor Amos hasn't a clue.

At first, he assumes it has something to do with his job (a delivery man for a bootlegger in that "dry" jurisdiction). But he can't figure out why the sheriff has come to his house at night and brought all the cars and deputies. So he's confused and while not terrified, very concerned.

For Amos, the idea he'd risk both his job and getting into trouble with the white authorities by peeping into the window of an old white woman is so ludicrous, he "forgets himself." Instead of keeping his mouth shut and going along with the program (as Carol King so wisely said, "You can't talk to a man, with a shotgun in his hands.") he turns to the deputy to plead his case. Either to save face, or because he's mad, or both, the sheriff then pistol whips him.

Rumple Foreskin