Welcome to Prague - Feedback?

[drksideofthemoon]

Once more - besides the cops, where are the characters flat? What read as flat or cliched to you? I'd like examples, like I've been asking for, so I can put my finger on the spot. Without that, I don't have anything to go on on your claim that they're flat.

Your whole story is flat. Your opening paragraph sounds more like a post apocalyptic city in the first stages of a nuclear winter. Most buses didn't use Jake Brakes. I can see the driver engaging the Jake Brake and having the poor little woman from Poughkeepsie soiling her knickers.

Tom: Metal Soles? I've been around a bit, and I've never seen metal soled boots. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable they would be to walk in? Or how dangerous? Put poor Tom in the park and he would have to walk like he was on eggshells just to keep standing.

His coat, yeah, I know some people don't wear clothes that match the weather, but a military overcoat down to his shoes? The longest, (and heaviest) coat I found was a winter issue that came to mid calf. So either Tom is a five foot dwarf, or his coat belonged to Shaq.

Why is Connie in Chicago? Yes, for her paper in Cleveland. Is she excited to be there? Is she worried? I don't know. She seems fairly young. Why would her paper send a junior reporter out to cover the biggest story of the summer?

Tom, what is he. He seems like he is politically motivated. His first words to Connie are to ask her if she is a cop. Why? I would think he would ask if she was there for the demonstration.

What is Connie's motivation to go with Tom? You said it was clear and valid, I must have missed something. After exchanging a few sentences she is going to abandon her assignment? Does she see a bigger story in going with Tom?

You failed to capture the tension that hung over Chicago in late August of 1968. You quoted Dylan, "Times, they are a changin", but your story failed to deliver on it.

Why did you write this story? It reads like something a student would submit to their college English instructor. To me, it's all style and no real substance.

 

[ninefe2dg]

I like the story.....

......I'm very impressed with the ability of those who have posted to dissect a story and critique it in ways I can't begin to imagine. My perspective is more someone you might see in a focus group giving feedback, or standing in the supermarket wondering which "bestseller" to grab for the next plane ride. In that respect I suppose my opinion "counts" if the way I voted with my pocketbook would ever matter to you.

I liked it. I liked that I didn't like Tom all that much. Now that I think of it, I'm not sure I liked Connie all that much either. I'm not a 60s person, but to me some of the meaninglessness/despair/protest for protest sake seemed to come through very well so in that regard, I found it interesting.

Having burned my brain cells with the likes of Grisham/Patterson/King et al, my ability to get through "heady" (a non-editorial word) material is not where I wished it was. Nevertheless, I got through this story feeling somewhat entertained, and didn't feel as though I was slogging through it at all.

 

[starrkers]

Burned and beaten, but unbowed, the city hunched before Connie, a vast, empty expanse of carbureted, incinerated metal, some iron slabs standing tall and blunt like monoliths, and others twisted into fanciful Gothic forms. She heard the jake brake screech on the next bus in line to park at the Loop station and saw her own pull away. Her shoulder ached already from having carried the knapsack through the rabbit warren of the bus station.

What is her reaction to this overly dramatic description of the city? She barely seems to notice it. She watches her bus pull away, why?

They said both of the main cabbie companies were striking, and she wasn't surprised. Not a single taxi had driven past her since she had headed out the revolving door of the station, and she was dead in the middle of Chicago.

Is she annoyed, philosophical, what?

This was not what she had expected upon heading to cover the Convention.

What had she expected?

She hadn't been writing for the paper a long time, but they had sent her on assignment anyway. Chicago was a place she'd wanted to see for a while, and the convention had seemed the perfect way to see it. There was something strangely isolationist about the city, though, and she shivered a little as she left the station, trying to hail a CTA bus to Halsted and the Stock Yards.

Why did they send her? Why did she want to see Chicago? Why did she shiver?
Was she excited, nervous, determined, bored at being there?

I could probably do this for each para, but I'm hoping you see what I'm driving at. We are looking at Connie without looking into her at all. So there is no "feel" for her character.

She has come to Chicago as a young reporter, to cover the biggest story of her brief career. This could make or break her as a journo - it could guarantee she NEVER has to go back to the fashion and homestyle pages. Yet we get no sense of her emotional state.
And she throws it all away on a whim?
Getting caught smoking dope would end her career. LSD definitely. Failing to get the story will definitely not endear her to her editor.
So why the hell did she do it?

That is why the plot is contrived. I can think of no valid reason, given what little we know of this character, why the hell she would risk her mainstream career to fuck some hippie in the middle of a park.

 

[fcdc]

Your whole story is flat. Your opening paragraph sounds more like a post apocalyptic city in the first stages of a nuclear winter. Most buses didn't use Jake Brakes. I can see the driver engaging the Jake Brake and having the poor little woman from Poughkeepsie soiling her knickers.

And what's wrong with the postapocalyptic feeling? That was the feeling I was trying to convey.

Tom: Metal Soles? I've been around a bit, and I've never seen metal soled boots. Do you have any idea how uncomfortable they would be to walk in? Or how dangerous? Put poor Tom in the park and he would have to walk like he was on eggshells just to keep standing.

Stetson boots, 1940s work boots, etc. have metal soles.

His coat, yeah, I know some people don't wear clothes that match the weather, but a military overcoat down to his shoes? The longest, (and heaviest) coat I found was a winter issue that came to mid calf. So either Tom is a five foot dwarf, or his coat belonged to Shaq.

As someone who is under five feet tall myself, I may have misinterpreted coat sizes by an inch or two. Mid-calf vs. ankle seems like a very scant difference to dwell on.

Why is Connie in Chicago? Yes, for her paper in Cleveland. Is she excited to be there? Is she worried? I don't know. She seems fairly young. Why would her paper send a junior reporter out to cover the biggest story of the summer?

Why wouldn't they? The paper is not the focus of the story. The fact is that she is there. Whether she is excited to be there or not is the point of the first section - it's not meeting with her expectations, needless to say.

Tom, what is he. He seems like he is politically motivated. His first words to Connie are to ask her if she is a cop. Why? I would think he would ask if she was there for the demonstration.

You misread Tom as being someone who gives a shit about the demonstration's ideals itself, versus acting and bringing down the establishment and all that jazz. Don't make him out to be more idealistic than he's shown to be.

What is Connie's motivation to go with Tom? You said it was clear and valid, I must have missed something. After exchanging a few sentences she is going to abandon her assignment? Does she see a bigger story in going with Tom?

Simple: She's twentysomething and was disappointed in what she saw when she arrived there, so she impulsively heads off at the first opportunity. It's the old running-off-to-join-the-circus alternative.

You failed to capture the tension that hung over Chicago in late August of 1968. You quoted Dylan, "Times, they are a changin", but your story failed to deliver on it.

You say that, but once more it's just words. I don't mean to pull the "anonymous lurkers support me" bullshit, because that's what it is (bullshit), but I received about a dozen E-mail responses from people saying I did capture it. Whatever it is that isn't clicking for you, starrkers, and Jenny, must be clicking for other people.

Why did you write this story? It reads like something a student would submit to their college English instructor. To me, it's all style and no real substance.

That's your opinion, and I'll have to respectfully disagree. Why did I write the story? I was struck by the Rubin quote, and wanted to write a story around it. I feel I've delivered on that quote, and you're welcome to disagree.

 

[fcdc]

What is her reaction to this overly dramatic description of the city? She barely seems to notice it. She watches her bus pull away, why? ... Is she annoyed, philosophical, what?

Overly dramatic? It's three sentences of setting, and if you don't like the anthropomorphizing of the city, that's fine, but it doesn't really require a reaction from Connie other than "She hadn't expected this." What more would have worked? "She hadn't expected this. She had expected far better, far more vibrant things" would have been repetitive.

What had she expected?

Obviously, better things than that. Like it says.

Why did they send her? Why did she want to see Chicago? Why did she shiver?
Was she excited, nervous, determined, bored at being there?

She shivered because the city was isolationist, lonely-feeling, impersonal, despite all the people coming and going. Like the story says.

I could probably do this for each para, but I'm hoping you see what I'm driving at. We are looking at Connie without looking into her at all. So there is no "feel" for her character.

Like I said - I think it's clear from the opening what her feelings about the city are - it's burnt out, beat-up, busy, and impersonal, and she's not looking forward to the assignment that she was sent to do.

She has come to Chicago as a young reporter, to cover the biggest story of her brief career. This could make or break her as a journo - it could guarantee she NEVER has to go back to the fashion and homestyle pages. Yet we get no sense of her emotional state.
And she throws it all away on a whim?

Yes, because she's in her early twenties, and kids are stupid.

Getting caught smoking dope would end her career. LSD definitely. Failing to get the story will definitely not endear her to her editor.
So why the hell did she do it?

See above. Kids make reckless, stupid decisions that wreck their whole career on even more of a whim than this. Maybe you're expecting her to be a more stable, grounded character, when she isn't intended to be. You are reading her as far more logical and far older and more rational and self-possessed than she is, if that's the case.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

deleted.

 

[fcdc]

I saw this on the new lists, and I opened it up, curious. I started reading... but you lost me at: "The city was burnt and beaten, but it hunched alertly before Connie, a vast, bleak expanse of carbureted, incinerated metal."

It jolted me as a "trying too hard" sort of phrase. I rolled my eyes and clicked back. Done.

Then I came across this thread and you asking for feedback. Okay... I bit the bullet and decided to read all the way through.

The next sentence isn't much better in terms of trying too hard... "Some iron slabs stood tall and blunt like monoliths, while others had been forged and twisted into fanciful Gothic forms."

What specifically was trying too hard about these sentences? It's a fairly clear description of Loop Chicago, which does, and did, have that burnt, metallic feeling about it (even now, despite the high-tech). There are monoliths, not graceful buildings there. (Sorry, fellow Chicago-area folks.) I'm not seeing what's an absolute deal-breaker about those sentences.

Reading the next, I perked up: "She stood near the departure queue and heard the jake brake screech on the next bus in line to depart Chicago, many yards from where the buses heading into the city had dropped her off."

Okay! Here we go... people... character... now we're talking... still way too much telling in this sentence, but maybe...

and then...



Ugh.
More telling.

The entire first section could go bye-bye as far as I'm concerned. Totally unnecessary. Doesn't do a thing for me, and doesn't advance your character at all. It simply gives tone, setting and background, all of which could be done in the next section.

The story started out as a city-description piece for the "cardinal directions" thread in the authors' forum and elaborated from there, hence starting out with all the setting details. I think there is a point to advance the character here, as mentioned in the previous posts. It gives Connie a reaction to run off with Tom when she shows up, instead of sticking to her assignment, because the city is so fucking depressing and impersonal, and she came there expecting different things - like it says, this wasn't what she expected. The workmen, not a single taxi, etc. thing, is showing, not telling, if we're using that old differential (and presuming that's what you meant?). Like you identified, it's a terse style, but it's showing.

The rest gets better... I don't mind your style. Short and terse isn't a bad thing. It's stuccato, but it's not bad. What stops me is I don't care... I didn't care if they had sex, I didn't care WHEN they had sex, I didn't care if they both ended up beaten to death...

You didn't make me care about either of these people. I know Connie a *little* better than I know Tom, but not much. Only because I get to see inside her head. This is one of those stories that appears impressive in a frame but doesn't hold up under closer scrutiny. It's like looking at some version of modern art that most people don't understand... everyone stands around and murmurs and nods, but no one is really feeling anything...

You aren't supposed to necessarily like either of the characters, as nine (thx nine) identified. They're stupid, irrational kids, and they act like stupid, irrational kids act. If the problem is (again) that they're not acting reasonably, like grown-ups would, and thus you don't care, then the story's had its intended effect.

that's the problem here... there's no feeling... you've received the same general feedback all the way around, you can probably assume there's at least a marginal bit of truth in it. Even if people can't put their finger on WHY, the fact remains, it appears to be so.

Not "all the way around," again. In fact, the critique here is starkly different to the E-mailed and PMed replies (again, total bullshit to claim that to prove a point, so feel free to disregard), which is why I think there may be a different set of expectations that the two groups have.

You're not necessarily supposed to like either of the characters, agree with their actions, or whatnot. That wasn't my intention at all.

By the way, just a stylistic thing... wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy too many -LY words here... I counted 41 in a 4000 word story... using adverbs is fairly lazy, in terms of description... try not to use them.

If anything is specifically blunted by a specific adverb, please let me know. It's par for the course with a terse style, though: 'He said sleepily' is more terse than 'He said, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned.' One out of every hundred words being an adverb - thus, less than one per four paragraphs - doesn't strike me as particularly damning from pure mathematics, given that.

 

[fcdc]

In my opinion, you failed miserably. I don't think you came here looking for honest criticism, I think you came hoping to get your ego stroked.

Thanks for the constructive advice.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

deleted

 

[fcdc]

You were never looking for advice.

Please stop spoiling for a fight. You won't get it tonight.

I was indeed looking for advice, by the way, but "this is cartoonish" and "these characters are caricatures" isn't advice; it's statements that don't help anyone edit. What am I supposed to do with someone just blanket-telling me that? There's no way that anyone can improve from those statements, and that's all I was asking for.

I don't understand why you have to be outright insulting and flaming just because I asked for elaboration so the points you thought were flat could improve, but whatever, enjoy it. C'est la vie.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Your story evoked no emotion in me. How do I explain why? I didn't find Connie or Tom realistic. Nothing made them stand out. How do I explain that? No where in your story did you capture the powder keg feeling of Chicago in August of 1968.

Your introductory paragraph was over the top. Simple as that.

Tom is cartoonish, I can see him wearing army surplus combat boots, and a field jacket, but not metal soled boots and an overcoat. In my mind he looks a bit like Combat Willie from WWII.

You tend to gloss over criticisms. Like Starrkers, I had a problem with Connie. In 1968 a newspaper wouldn't have sent someone like her to Chicago to cover what was the biggest story in the country. She's a junior reporter. As Starrkers says, this is her big break. Simply saying she was impetuous and young doesn't cut it.

I think your story would have been better told from Connie's point of view. Let you characters breathe a bit. To use an 1968 anology, your story felt like it was being narrated by Walter Cronkite at times.

There is nothing wrong with the style of your writing, it just needs more life breathed into it.

As for emails, comments, and all that hoopla, I have a bucket full of comments that say I'm greatest thing since white sliced bread, and I should be published. Do I believe any of it? Nope, not for a second.

 

[writelove]

fcdc,

I apologize that I read your story after a couple of drinks. It's precisely midnight at the moment and as Jenny Jackson says, drinking helps the creative juices. I agree.

I have not read all the responses to your story, but will say this. Something interesting must be happening because you are definitely generating the feedback. You should certainly be pleased. I wish my stories did that.

I believe in detailed reviews, unfortunately this will not be one of them. Sorry about that. I will try to do better later.

I don't know how much writing you have done, but you're close to having a great story (in my opinion).

Every once in a while I did wince from a phrasing that just didn't work. I agree that the beginning line about the city burnt and hunched over like that Victor Hugo character was too much. So it isn't perfect, but I will say this. Your story kept my interest. I read it all the way through and that is more than I can say for many other stories that cry for feedback.

I think the idea of rounding your characters out more is a good one. I love science fiction, enjoy the way it stretches my imagination. However, the characters are a bit two dimensional generally. Your characters are a bit like that. However, it's still a hell of a read.

You probably are a bit too defensive to the feedback you are given. It doesn't make sense to argue about another persons opinion of your work. Criticism is a good thing. Not everyone is going to like what you write. They aren't always going to be able to articulate the exact reasons. It doesn't matter. You've got talent. Keep writing.

 

[fcdc]

fcdc,

I apologize that I read your story after a couple of drinks. It's precisely midnight at the moment and as Jenny Jackson says, drinking helps the creative juices. I agree.

I have not read all the responses to your story, but will say this. Something interesting must be happening because you are definitely generating the feedback. You should certainly be pleased. I wish my stories did that.

I believe in detailed reviews, unfortunately this will not be one of them. Sorry about that. I will try to do better later.

I don't know how much writing you have done, but you're close to having a great story (in my opinion).

Every once in a while I did wince from a phrasing that just didn't work. I agree that the beginning line about the city burnt and hunched over like that Victor Hugo character was too much. So it isn't perfect, but I will say this. Your story kept my interest. I read it all the way through and that is more than I can say for many other stories that cry for feedback.

I think the idea of rounding your characters out more is a good one. I love science fiction, enjoy the way it stretches my imagination. However, the characters are a bit two dimensional generally. Your characters are a bit like that. However, it's still a hell of a read.

You probably are a bit too defensive to the feedback you are given. It doesn't make sense to argue about another persons opinion of your work. Criticism is a good thing. Not everyone is going to like what you write. They aren't always going to be able to articulate the exact reasons. It doesn't matter. You've got talent. Keep writing.

Writelove, thanks. Regarding defensiveness, criticism is good, but not simple invective; when someone says I failed miserably, and doesn't articulate why, I think there's a right to be a bit flummoxed at the lack of helpful detail, but that's neither here nor there, and I repeat myself (like I haven't repeated myself enough already.) Anyway, I'm cool with people disliking it, but I need an answer to 'Why?' in order for that to be of any use to me.

You're right that the majority of my influences are in science fiction, obviously, and that I'm approaching it like a SF writer. Maybe that's the difference here, as what I expect out of writing and what some readers expect are two different things.

The city being burnt, hunched, etc. was starting off from a different place than the rest of the story - it was originally a tone piece, however showy of one, for the 'bitch' thread in the authors' hangout, and then grew into story form. I'll agree that the city anthropomorphism maybe sticks out (though I'm fond of it as, despite however "too much" it is, it's pretty much on the money, however melodramatically.) I'll see what I can do to iron that out.

To drkside: I think you just hit upon the difference. See, this was intended to be an external piece - you're not supposed to identify with either of the characters per se, because my intent was to describe them making the decision that twentysomethings would make at that time (being 26, I can say that I'd lean close to that sort of extremism, given the right situation.) It wasn't intended to be viewed through Connie's eyes to any certain extent, because to me she is not a grounded enough character to narrate from, and it would obviously be unreliable narrator all the way.

People made, and continue to make, absolutely retarded, suicidal decisions every day. As an example, I'm sitting here watching 'To Catch a Predator' in which you see people - broken ones, mind you - throwing their lives away to go find a young kid they talked to on the internet. Was Connie's decision as bad as the stuff on TV? No, because she only harmed herself. But as someone who got kicked out of my first college for a similarly stupid decision, I can say that stupid behavior of young kids can lead to desperate situations.

If you can identify: Where did the powderkeg feel lacking, if there are specific points? There are obviously things that could be done to bring more crisis into the scenario (the original plot had them being interrupted by the cops beating down their tent, although that is admittedly quite broad-stroke as well). I could work in more tension when they're going through the camp, though. I think the powderkeg comes through in the 'war' section and in the bridge-crossing, personally, so I'd probably be concentrating on intensifying the walk through the park etc.

As far as E-mails comments etc. - Like I said, it's a bullshit argument, but the E-mailed feedback's been significantly better than this (and interestingly, from literally all guys (and a few ambiguously-E-mail-addressed people), for what that's worth. Psychoanalyze that, heh.)

 

[starrkers]

Overly dramatic? It's three sentences of setting, and if you don't like the anthropomorphizing of the city, that's fine, but it doesn't really require a reaction from Connie other than "She hadn't expected this." What more would have worked? "She hadn't expected this. She had expected far better, far more vibrant things" would have been repetitive.



Obviously, better things than that. Like it says.



She shivered because the city was isolationist, lonely-feeling, impersonal, despite all the people coming and going. Like the story says.



Like I said - I think it's clear from the opening what her feelings about the city are - it's burnt out, beat-up, busy, and impersonal, and she's not looking forward to the assignment that she was sent to do.



Yes, because she's in her early twenties, and kids are stupid.



See above. Kids make reckless, stupid decisions that wreck their whole career on even more of a whim than this. Maybe you're expecting her to be a more stable, grounded character, when she isn't intended to be. You are reading her as far more logical and far older and more rational and self-possessed than she is, if that's the case.

You asked for explanation. I gave it. You threw it out.
You say I expect more than she was intended to be. OK, you need to show us that earlier on. You give her a massive responsibility as a junior FEMALE reporter. For her to have been granted that responsibility, she must be a lot more rational and self-possessed than you intended her to be.
There is almost no chance a junior female reporter would've been given that job. We are talking about the 1960s here. For her to get that chance she needed to be exceptional.
Yet you turn an exceptional person into a reckless, stupid kid.

 

[fcdc]

You asked for explanation. I gave it. You threw it out.
You say I expect more than she was intended to be. OK, you need to show us that earlier on. You give her a massive responsibility as a junior FEMALE reporter. For her to have been granted that responsibility, she must be a lot more rational and self-possessed than you intended her to be.

What if she were a college journalist from one of the podunk colleges near Chicago? From having worked on a college paper and currently attending said podunk college, I can say that college papers will send anyone and everyone, and that you don't have - and didn't have in the '60s - a boys' club mentality going on, which is I think partially what you're getting at. I do know my university sent folks in on the train during the era, so that wouldn't be a stretch. She'd be slightly younger, but only by a year or two, and even more likely to just say 'Screw it.'

There is almost no chance a junior female reporter would've been given that job. We are talking about the 1960s here. For her to get that chance she needed to be exceptional.
Yet you turn an exceptional person into a reckless, stupid kid.

Exceptional people can, and will and do, turn into reckless, stupid kids in real life - but if you're reading her that way (I had not intended her to be exceptional in any way), then there does need to be more of an impetus for her to run off, agreed, which would mean (on a very basic level, as I'm not firing on all cylinders at the moment) that meeting Tom would presumably have to spark something from her past, or otherwise strike a nerve somehow. If she does stay 'exceptional' for her job, then I'll see if I can eke something out there.

 

[starrkers]

Oh, now she's a college reporter. I thought she was a real reporter, working for The Man.

Never mind.
You sought critique, but you don't want to accept what you are told as valid.
Fine.
I get it, we've totally wasted our time. You know better anyway.

 

[fcdc]

Oh, now she's a college reporter. I thought she was a real reporter, working for The Man.

Never mind.
You sought critique, but you don't want to accept what you are told as valid.
Fine.
I get it, we've totally wasted our time. You know better anyway.

No, no. You misread what I was saying. I was saying, 'What if...?' and proposing that as a change in the story, potentially taking your advice there. Hence, 'she'd be slightly younger (if I were to change it).'

 

[jomar]

Like science fiction, fcdc, a large part of what people are responding to here is the internal consistency. They'll buy into anything as long as you give them reason. To me it sounds like you understood the characters as you wrote them, but their motivations didn't translate effectively to paper (interweb?). And I too have never heard of metal soled boots - I didn't take you as literally as drkside (it took him out of the story, but rest assured, if it took him out it took many others out as well). I figured you were going for mood and meant the type of work boot that have steel toes and protective metal inserts.

Anyway, everybody got a little frustrated and testy here and if you read the thread it's easy to see how it progressed. Your last response is more in the spirit of objectively looking at your story. I tell you what though, I just hope everybody here will take a look and give such thoughtful comments when my new serial finally gets posted.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I just hope everybody here will take a look and give such thoughtful comments when my new serial finally gets posted.

I dunno... I think you'd have to get pretty testy and refute every bit of feedback with a "The Lady Doth Protest Too Much" defensive response...

you ready to make friends and influence people?

 

[Selena_Kitt]

What specifically was trying too hard about these sentences? It's a fairly clear description of Loop Chicago, which does, and did, have that burnt, metallic feeling about it (even now, despite the high-tech). There are monoliths, not graceful buildings there. (Sorry, fellow Chicago-area folks.) I'm not seeing what's an absolute deal-breaker about those sentences.

and yet, for me, it was a deal-breaker... *shrug* You showed me your hand, instead of drawing me into the story. As a writer, you can't show people what's happening behind the curtain, or it ruins the magic. I saw the wizard, here, instead of the big talking head. I wanted to see the big talking head. Because that's what writers do... we create illusions, and we have to do it with such subtlety and grace that people don't even notice, until it's pointed out, how it's all done.

My OPINION: You failed in that regard.

The story started out as a city-description piece for the "cardinal directions" thread in the authors' forum and elaborated from there, hence starting out with all the setting details. I think there is a point to advance the character here, as mentioned in the previous posts. It gives Connie a reaction to run off with Tom when she shows up, instead of sticking to her assignment, because the city is so fucking depressing and impersonal, and she came there expecting different things - like it says, this wasn't what she expected. The workmen, not a single taxi, etc. thing, is showing, not telling, if we're using that old differential (and presuming that's what you meant?). Like you identified, it's a terse style, but it's showing.

Often, with things that start out as an assignment and morph into something else, the original starting point can be tossed, as the characters develop and the story really takes shape. I HEAR your motivation for using it. The problem is, I didn't see or feel it in the story. Telling me after the fact doesn't count. I need to be able to see and feel that for myself while I'm reading, or your story didn't work. The majority of the people who read the story need to feel that, in fact, or your story didn't work.

You aren't supposed to necessarily like either of the characters, as nine (thx nine) identified. They're stupid, irrational kids, and they act like stupid, irrational kids act. If the problem is (again) that they're not acting reasonably, like grown-ups would, and thus you don't care, then the story's had its intended effect.

I'm not talking about LIKING... I'm talking about CARING. Big difference. If I cared what these stupid irrational kids were doing, I would have been covering my eyes and wincing from the beginning, like watching two youngsters heading for a car wreck. THAT would have been worth reading, car wreck and all. I don't care if you drop an elevator on an old lady, or shoot a dog, or do whatever your story requires you do... but the first requirement is that you have to make me CARE about the people you're going to do it to. That doesn't mean I have to like them, want to hang out with them, get along with them... If you go over to the SDC and search for Penelope Street's "Polly" character, you will find one of the most odious and annoying characters ever... but she makes me care about Polly enough to finish the story. You can write unlikeable yet interesting characters. In this case, you just... didn't.

Not "all the way around," again. In fact, the critique here is starkly different to the E-mailed and PMed replies (again, total bullshit to claim that to prove a point, so feel free to disregard), which is why I think there may be a different set of expectations that the two groups have.

Like I said, what we have here is people standing around looking at abstract art, not really understanding it, but murmuring and nodding along with everyone else. Damn sheep.

You're not necessarily supposed to like either of the characters, agree with their actions, or whatnot. That wasn't my intention at all.

Fine. But you still need to make people care enough to read on. That didn't happen here--at least, not for the majority speaking up.

If anything is specifically blunted by a specific adverb, please let me know. It's par for the course with a terse style, though: 'He said sleepily' is more terse than 'He said, covering his mouth with his hand as he yawned.' One out of every hundred words being an adverb - thus, less than one per four paragraphs - doesn't strike me as particularly damning from pure mathematics, given that.

I'll quote Stephen King on adverbs: "Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to be created with the timid writer in mind... With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid he/she isn't expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the picture across."

That could sum up your entire piece, frankly. You're the wizard behind the curtain, but your ass is hanging out, and you keep saying, as loudly as you can, "DON'T LOOK AT THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN" in hopes we won't notice.

 

[jomar]

I dunno... I think you'd have to get pretty testy and refute every bit of feedback with a "The Lady Doth Protest Too Much" defensive response...

you ready to make friends and influence people?

Nah, I think I'd take the critiques in the spirit they're intended. I really want to make this next story to be as good as I can (at this point in my, um, development) - I have aspirations. So give me your best shot I can take it - awhile back I got my chops semi-busted in a PM (forget if it was starrkers or V), but it helped me look at my story more objectively. Now that I think about it, I also asked and got got feedback on my poems in the poem feedback forum - they kindly said one sucked and one was good (oddly, the bad on has a score of 5 with 6 votes and the good one has a score of 4.88 with 8 votes).

 

[exalphageek]

I came across this story on another website ...

I came across this story on another website, based on another author's recommendation. I read it. I critiqued it. Then I found it again here.

My critique there:

Good, but not great. The sex was good, the characters were weak, the plot was a little thin, and the drugs were bad.

Great opening, but on the whole, a little disjointed. How do we get from hopping off the bus from Cleveland to fucking in the park on acid to knowing that dumbfuck is stuck in the rehab ward in Cook County Jail? You gotta bring the reader along, not jerk the reader along on a chain.

It was 1968. If Connie was adventurous, but not a card-carrying member of SDS, she would have stashed her suitcase at the hotel, first. Back then, we used suitcases. Watch "Easy Rider" again -- it's a good look at that era. Observe Jack Nicholson's reactions: the meeting scenes were very much the 50's meet the 60's. Written by guys who were there.

A woman in jeans in 1968 -- a college girl who wore jeans was "pretty far out" for that era, much less a "career girl" (which is what she would have been called back then).

And walking out of a fuck in the park on acid to a riot in the street with no loss of coherency just doesn't happen.

Write about something you know. Or create an entire world that exists solely in your imagination, and open up to us the door to that world. Dumbfuck just isn't *REAL* and Connie isn't really that much better. You are. Show us.

I see that I'm not the only victim with the same reactions. Strange how great minds think alike.

 

[Selena_Kitt]

I came across this story on another website, based on another author's recommendation. I read it. I critiqued it. Then I found it again here.

My critique there:


I see that I'm not the only victim with the same reactions. Strange how great minds think alike.

Spot on, I'd say... didn't even think about the jeans thing... definitely wasn't my "era"...

 

[dr_mabeuse]

I was just directed to this story. Turns out I was in Chicago during the '68 Democratic convention, which is why I was interested. Well, not actually. I was living in an abandoned movie theater at the time and there were plans to use our place as a staging area. I knew there was going to be trouble, so I left for California, but I was there before and after and I wanted to see what the story was like.

It seems to me that this isn't really a story so much as it's a piece of reportage or an attempt to recreate a period in time. In other words, it doesn't try to achieve its effect by engaging us in a character's emotions as she negotiates a series of choices, but by presenting her her impressions in the face of given situations, so it's kind of silly to complain about lack of character or plot. It's like saying a home video doesn't have character or plot. It's not supposed to. The things that happen simply happen without cause. The author's painting a picture.

The emotions that are present in the piece are likewise fragmentary and blurred and intentionally so. This is a picture of chaos - hell on the streets. I don't know how many of you even know what happened in Chicago in 1968, and I think that's a big problem a lot of people might have in understanding what's going on in this piece, so first, a little history:

The 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago was very close to an American Apocalypse - violent revolution and chaos in the streets. The issue was the Vietnam war. Tens of thousands of anti-war demonstrators had gathered and were camped in the parks along the lake front for days before the convention started and everyone knew there was going to be trouble. The National Guard had been called out. The city was a ticking bomb. The convention was rigged, the pro-war candidate won, and the city exploded. There was a riot, a police riot, with Chicago cops wading into thousands of demonstrators and reporters, swinging clubs, pushing demonstrators through plate glass windows, beating them senseless, demonstrators throwing rocks and bottles, streets filled with tear gas and blood, absolute chaos and panic, all caught on TV. People at home wept. Cameramen were beaten. It was as bad as anything you ever saw from behind the iron curtain - hence the references to Czechago and other Soviet-style slang. It really seemed like we'd descended into some American Hell.

The author's language is suitably grim and phantasmagoric, I think, but maybe a bit excessive for my tastes. I think there's such a thing as being too hip and too stylish, to the point where it becomes self-consciously so, and almost self-parodying, like a hard-boiled detective novel. That opening passage strikes me as much too strong. Part of the drama of the convention was - in my opinion - that people didn't expect it to be that bad when it started. Coming into the city before it started, Mayor Daley did have the slums "masked" and hidden, and elaborate security barriers set up, but most of the demonstrators were peaceful "yippies" - political hippies. They didn't expect to be be beaten bloody and almost killed by the system they still pretty much believed in. The opening sounds like she's riding into Buchenwald or Dachau, like the worst has already happened

I think too she loads too much into her language. It's hard to find a simple paragraph in which we're not getting multiple meanings. Multiplexed meanings aren't bad in themselves, but used consistently they're fatiguing and confusing and we look for the single-focus paragraph to tell us what's really important. The drug scene especially never settles down into that strong here-and-now focus you (well, I) get from drugs and even as she's fucking we're hearing about her last sexual experience and other extraneous stuff, and the result of all this information is to make the whole thing feel too high speed, as if we've never had time to get our feet under ourselves and get established. Everything happens with the same emotional depth and tone, like watching images on a TV screen. Maybe that was intentional. If so, I don't know if it was the best way to go for this.

I'm thinking of the riot scene too. It's odious to tell someone how you'd do their piece, but violence to me always involves some extremely vivid sensual images almost in stop-frame. That's what I remember - blood and snot flying out of someone's mouth, the sight of the hair on the cop's knuckles, the gravel in the street as you're falling. No thoughts, no emotions, just perceptions.

The author's got a tremendous gift for language and image, but sometimes the talent is in knowing when to reign in that gift. Readers get fatigued and can't keep up, and after awhile it's like watching clothes tumble in a drier. It's too much. All frosting, no cake.

But really, this isn't a typical Lit story. This is a breakneck journey through hell in Chicago in 1968 on a night when the culture exploded. You should read it as such and reconsider.

--Zoot

 

[let3us2be1free0]

first time doing this

I still don't understand the use of the word carbureted. Maybe you would like to explain it.

Your writing reminds me a of a guitar player I once knew. He was a child prodigy. When I met him as an adult, he was about as technically perfect as a musician could get. The problem was his playing was lifeless, there was no soul in it. Just technically perfect.

so you want a story were the person meens what they write, pobably have some personaly deep experience with it, and dosnt try to calculate the story and make it specificaly to be good. (i hope i did this reply thing right)