Story Discussion: June 24, 2009. "That'll teach you!" by jacks4u

[jacks4u]

Originally Posted by Jacks
Yes, it is an indictment against me and my knowledge of the form and goals of my story.

Originally Posted by Penny:
I'm not quite sure what you mean here. When you began this piece, did you just imagine your narrator and his situation and start writing without knowing for sure where the story would go or what you wanted to achieve with it?

I suppose I was having a 'blond moment' (yes, guys do have them!) It was actually a moment of self doubt, where I was pondering Raine D8's question as to humor vs. satire, and trying to reconcile that with some responders' comments to this question:

5: Did you find it humorous, at all? I know some people just have a knack for making people laugh at things that really suck. I'm not one of those, and really have to work at it. Did I fail in this?​

and supposing I either 1) asked for comments to humor when i should have asked for comments as to satire content, which is where the self doubt was, in that perhaps, I really didn't know the difference? hence, my apology, and so forth.

As to dialog, I do see now, that some more dialog could have fleshed out Julia's character, and also clarified the narrator's character. In this story, especially, character personality seems to be important, to give the reader meaning to the actions of the characters.

Certainly, with the narrator, there appears no other way to expose his personality. The spouse is a little different, as the narrator can describe her actions/reactions, but perhaps if he recalled a few conversations with his spouse, that might have been better.

It's not over, yet - I do imagin a second chapter, from Julia's point of view, or maybe the boyfriend's point of view.

 

[jacks4u]

1: Does first person, past tense really work here?

I like reading stories in the first person as long as they are consistent. You were so it worked well.

Thank you for your vote of confidence here!

2: Is there enough description of Julia? ie could I have made her more real?

I don't like when authors use numbers to describe characters. Although I kept reading I was a little turned off by the list description of the two characters. Maybe adding dialogue would help develop the character.

I'm actually thinking something re: AH writer's exercises, description in 100 words. But I'll have to figure out how to square that with 1st person past tense narrative. It really does limit an author to describing a character, in the narrators own words. ie: how would a Neanderthal with a 100 word vocabulary describe another person?
as opposed to a published author? I can imagine the first to be something like 'yea, she's a cute chick' while the later would be much different.

3: I know the narrator/husband has little or no description, is this a problem?

I'm assuming that one of the thrills of reading in the first person is that you can become that person. As a short story we as readers can make up our own description of the character.

Interesting. So then, the author writing in first person has to reveal the narrator's personality and other aspects much more carefully, so that the reader can actually in be 'in character' while reading the story?

This actually makes this voice much more difficult for the writer to achieve his goals.

Good comment, this really points me toward other methods of exposing the narrator's character, and as others have pointed out, it would be silly for him to describe himself, especially with a 'laundry list' of details, the way that this narrator described his spouse

4: There was little dialog, would more have been effective. If so, where?

As I said before, dialogue between the couple would have reinforced their relationship.

Yes, many others have also expressed as much. I have much work to do in this area.

5: Did you find it humorous, at all? I know some people just have a knack for making people laugh at things that really suck. I'm not one of those, and really have to work at it. Did I fail in this?

It didn't make me laugh, more like cringed at the thought of crabs. Yucky.

6: were there any problems that I haven't specifically asked about?
(grammar, spelling, word choice, etc...)

I'm bad at grammar and spelling but nothing distracted me from the story.

Overall it was a short effective story that is funny in a weird way. The ending was expected but I'm not sure I would read this story unless I was commenting on it.
Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for taking the time to read my story, I know I have a lot of work to do, both in this story, and as a writer in general, Thank you for helping me along in this journey!

Jacks