Story Discussion: Feb.9,09 -"Eclipsing Sorrow" by Christabelll

[christabelll]

Crim - you were going to say?


Thanks every one - it has indeed been an eye opener. I have been busy with it - so perhaps down the line I will repost the whole thing

THANK YOU!

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

Crim - you were going to say?


Thanks every one - it has indeed been an eye opener. I have been busy with it - so perhaps down the line I will repost the whole thing

THANK YOU!

Give me another few hours and I'll come back and post. Last week was a crazy week, and then we had a 3 day weekend with the kids on top of that, so I'm still recuperating!

 

[christabelll]

Give me another few hours and I'll come back and post. Last week was a crazy week, and then we had a 3 day weekend with the kids on top of that, so I'm still recuperating!

ME too!

 

[CrimsonMaiden]

Here - I am looking for -

• flow
• characterization
• too expository?
• believability
• weakest spots
• strongest spots
• suggestions towards clarity
• and just about whatever else you might want to say to me

I really don't think I'm gonna be able to add anything different than what's already been said.

I think the flow went pretty well. I agree that the dream sequence could have been cut short or done away with altogether.

Too expository? Yes, to some degree.

Believability: no problems there for me.

weakest spots: The dream sequence. The overage of details when she fell and got caught under the chair.

strongest spots: the window washer & the bag lady were my favorite sections

suggestions toward clarity: change some of the "big" words to words more readers will understand. I get you wanting to use what you do, but a reader who has to stop and look up a word every couple of minutes is gonna get irritated and stop reading.

I don't know if any of that will help since I think most of it has been mentioned already, but I don't have anything else to add.

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi,

I'd been contemplating writing a story with a similar theme, go figure!

While these opening scenes are well-written, being told again and again how Elizabet feels got kinda old. I think it might work better to just show us what happens and allow us to deduce how she feels. Like when she produces the credit card- it's so sudden, dispassionate, and perfect. I don't think you needed to say anything else about it.

I really liked this paragraph:

Shoulders wedged painfully against steel handles, her legs crumpled and useless beneath her, agony scorched her spine as it twisted under her weight. Small cries bled from her lips as she struggled to pull her self back up. The chair tottered in spite of its counterweights and flipped sideways leaving her stuck against the bed-frame, her left arm pinned underneath the bulk of its wheels. The plastic catheter had a kink in it and unless she could get it un-kinked she risked more than a simple over flowing bag of urine. Visions of bursting bladders and exploding crap danced behind her eyes leaving her sobbing in frustration as she twisted around trying to reach the tubing.

This excerpt says so much about her situation, I just had to wonder why you didn't start with this moment and then let us get to know Elizabet through her interactions with others.

The first thing I noticed about the window washer is that he seems a little too good to be true. I assume this will all be explained in time, but I guess I'd believe it a bit more if she wasn't rescued by Clark Kent's brother, if that makes sense.

Since Elizabet arranged for a window-washer, I was willing to believe he was there when she needed him. I found it more difficult to accept the homeless woman showing up a second time just when Elizabet decides to pretend she's a racing car driver.

Ok, so what's up with this tea? I hope it's not really a cure-all unknown to science or outright magic or something like that. Or will it be a simple placibo? It's really weird how often that works in reality, but does it work in literature? I don't know.

I pictured Elizabet living in classic suburbia, and the images of the happy 'American Dream' family seemed to confirm this, along with smells of flowers and the mountains in the distance, but then homeless persons wander through her neighborhood too? I guess I'm just not sure where she lives.

I'm not really sure why, but I don't feel inclined to share Elizabet's experience beyond this opening. If I could say why, I surely would, but I just don't feel in touch with her at this point, which is kinda weird after turning a similar character over in my mind for some time. Or maybe that's exactly why. Who knows?

Thanks so much for sharing your story with us!

Take Care,
Penny


P.S.

The main character did nothing for me. ... To tell the truth, I was bored within minutes.

I don't have a bad thing to say about it. It drew me in. I want to read more. I want to know what happens. I'm hooked.

I think this shows just how personal an experience reading is. Sometimes the reader connects with a character, and sometimes they just don't.

Pretty word salad can derail a story totally though, IMHO

Well said! I've fallen into the pretty words trap too, who hasn't?

 

[christabelll]

Very good points

Crim, Penelope...


Its an intersting thing indeed...

Since my specialty is paranormal/fantasy romance - this is fitting in there ---but subtley very subtle in the form of the Bag Lady. However that is not the main driver behind this character or story.

Hahah - You are the second person to declare that Patrick is either Clark Kent or the Brother of said. He becomes very important to the story in the ensuing chapters. And yes his appearance is rather 'heroic'. But its important that he be so for her.

Reading all these comments - and rereading the story - I can really see where I need to bring more of what actually happens as she shifts from hopelessness to hope etc. I think also now I should have included the first chapter - spinning in the dark - It explains so much - how she got here, why her mindset is so bleak etc.

Will be be pruning the 30 and 40 dollar words back into the 5 dollar range.


And yes the reading experience is quite different for each person. The few 'I didn't like it" comments I have gotten have been truly quite informative. And while the I loved it ones are very gratifying - I learn quite a bit from both.

This is not a short story. I cannot tell it in 20 or less pages But I will deepen it. I will show her struggle and not quite beat you over the head with how it feels. But - knowing how she feels is important - and why she feels it even more.


Hehhe--- without revealing the rest of the story - the Bag Lady is a healer. And while she might look like some down and out vagrant she isn't. ANd no the tea is not a cure all, but herbal medicines are quite beneficial when used correctly. 10000 years of chinese medicine proves that out

Oh and - Ever been in old country towns? Town square - then radiating out neighborhoods some stately , industrial-commercial areas, some crowded tenements etc - - - depending on which direction you go. Missoula - is one such town - suburbia as it were is only a few blocks from the pulse of the city. She lives in that area. (at least it was when I lived there!).....And the disenfranchised roam the entire area - especially along the Clark Fork river that runs through it. There is a HUGE rivers edge park that runs the length of most of down town Missoula - everyone goes there and in some places within four blocks neighborhoods start ... thats what I am pulling on....


Thank you again for commenting - hope that clarifies some things... without giving the rest of the story -



and yes it seems to be a theme recently!

 

[Tarakin]

Okay, here are my two cents on your story. Please keep in mind that I'm no native speaker, I'm German and live in Germany, so my grasp of the English language is far from perfect and thus my points may simply be misunderstandings on my part. This said, here are my thoughts for the beginning until Patrick appears (btw – why does he introduce himself as Doc?):


When I started to read your story I thought Elisabet's feelings were a rollercoaster, going up and down by the second. This way I pictured the credit-card scene as her taking command. Then I read the apathy-lines (after the first dialogue) and had to change the tone of Elizabet's credit-card-words in my mind from strong toward defeated or at least not caring. I read back to find the point I missed or that was not clear for me and found this:

'However, she was not allowed to be defeated. The insurance settlement had finally come through and she could start over.'

This sounded to me like she had found her way back toward life. She was not allowed to be defeated by whom? Just by the insurance? I assumed by herself, but I erred in this. 'She could start over' sounded too positiv maybe, that she saw the opportunity for herself to start anew. An adverb describing her tone would have cleared up the matter. I've read most people (including Stephen King it seems) are arguing against adjectives and adverbs, but I think they are necessary to build the right picture of things, at least occasionally. Elizabet's feelings are a lot better explained in the next paragraphs btw, but in the beginning of a story it's most important to get a clear picture of her.


The dream sequence (and it's vocabulary) was mentioned by others already. I just want to add that I liked 'the dervishes of sleep' a lot. It didn't fit perfectly with the bridges mentioned a paragraph above, for dervishes invoke desert-pics in my mind and bridges water-pics, but that's a minor point.

When she woke up, I liked 'Laboriously she rolled to her side, dragging her upper body to meet her knees in a fetal curl empty of comfort.' also, but it may have been better presented in two sentences, the 'empty of comfort' forming the core of the second one. Thomas Mann uses hypotactical (long sentences) writing a lot, and though he is very famous (Buddenbrooks for instance) many readers fight with his style. Shorter sentences can be helpful sometimes. This is one of the few cases were I'd suggest this, though, usually I like the length and complexity of your sentences (if not vocabulary ).

I hope my ramblings are of any use to you!

 

[christabelll]

Thank you Tarakin (((((TAR)))) good to see you by the way.

I begin to believe I did you the readers a disservice by not including chapter one.

All I can say is this -

Its much easier to recover from horrendous injury - both emotional and physical if one has a support base. If one doesn't its easy to yo yo almost as fast as you can say the word with your emotions. If physical recovery is especially difficult this becomes even more of a problem. And I am not talking about those people who are so "positive" they make you think of sugar over load (they have a support base bigger than the sky)- this is a woman who apparently had everything and lost it all.

Elizabet - has been divorced by her husband after his infidelity, her best and really only friend has been killed in a plane crash, she had spent more than a year in the hospital recovering from a near fatal and completely disabling accident - and there is no one to ease it or help make it better. She is alone - so the wild vacillations are actually quite normal....

To be motivated for any length of time is hard for her. Just turning over in bed is difficult, let alone getting into her wheel chair. I really want the reader to understand how the mood of the heroine (protag) truly affects her recovery - her ability to summon the will to do more than let herself slip away.

The dream sequence is a very important look into her subconscious mind - she has no control over her body - and it wounds her - deeply to dream of dancing of all things - it may be "just" a dream but it represents all that she has lost - the freedom, the ability to control her body, where she goes etc.... Perhaps I should have had a beautiful man trying to partner with her while she dances uncontrollably? All that spinning and dipping etc keep him from coming closer? bringing the pain of not having that at all closer to the surface?

If none of you have ever been a situation of recovering from severe/acute injury or illness - then its going to be hard to understand Elizabet. But if you have - its easier to understand - for though the recovery may have been shorter - everything she thinks about feels experiences internally (and yes has been wallowing about) has happened to the recover"er" in microcosm. (this is a specific generalization - no insult meant or implied to anyone).

In the current version - I have cleaned up the over abundance of 30 dollar words.... I have included deeper aspects of her challenges - the fight she has within herself etc.... Right now she is just coming to terms with everything - really - literally starting from scratch.

The sardonic -"She was not allowed to be defeated" - well that - she can play the public game at the moment - stoic, taking care of things.... but as stated no one sticks around and she can drop the mask that everything is all right.



All of this from everyone- has really helped me clarify Elizabet in my mind.... fired off a whole slew of self examinations tooo - lol ----

Thank you! x 12 dozen for all of you.