Short story

[mixed]

Thanks for reading. I realise what i've written is simplistic but its what I was going for. I can't help having picked up on how simple yet effective Murakamis short stories are. So here I attempted to write something that wasn't dialogue heavy and had a fairly standard and uncomplicated structure. I also wanted to try out changing the stories POV. I'm really not settled into a style of writing. I read books and feel influenced by some of the ideas and try to emulate the style and mix it with my own style. Basically I feel that I have to write a great amount more and simply experiment with different conventions and values. If there is any interest further I will post some shorter writing that is entirely different in style to this.

Also yes, I believe this has some typos here and there which I didn't notice when I proof read. Somebody else commented on a few of them.

Finally what you say about words catching on the tongue, I entirely know what you mean! I did read it through a couple times and still intend to make minor revisions to those I made already but I suppose it is, at times more difficult to pick up on some things when reading your own work.

I was glad to have written this because I often get stuck for length. So writing over 2000 words is something of an achievement for old me

[ie]

Took it down right when I was going to print it out and read it? Oh well.

edit: Had a copy of it open before you took it down, so I'll look it over and post some thoughts later on this week.

[sacrilegend]

mixed said:

Thanks for reading. I realise what i've written is simplistic but its what I was going for. I can't help having picked up on how simple yet effective Murakamis short stories are. So here I attempted to write something that wasn't dialogue heavy and had a fairly standard and uncomplicated structure. I also wanted to try out changing the stories POV. I'm really not settled into a style of writing. I read books and feel influenced by some of the ideas and try to emulate the style and mix it with my own style. Basically I feel that I have to write a great amount more and simply experiment with different conventions and values. If there is any interest further I will post some shorter writing that is entirely different in style to this.

Also yes, I believe this has some typos here and there which I didn't notice when I proof read. Somebody else commented on a few of them.

Finally what you say about words catching on the tongue, I entirely know what you mean! I did read it through a couple times and still intend to make minor revisions to those I made already but I suppose it is, at times more difficult to pick up on some things when reading your own work.

I was glad to have written this because I often get stuck for length. So writing over 2000 words is something of an achievement for old me

Yes, of course it's difficult finding those words in your own work, I have that problem too.

Very happy for you, it wasn't half-bad!

[sacrilegend]

I see you destined to write amazingly!

[mixed]

Aww well aren't you so sweet you make sugar taste just like salt

[sacrilegend]

No, promise. I love reading what you write, just some polishing and it'll be amazing.

[ie]

I actually forgot to print out the short story, so now I don't have it. Sorry mixed.

[sacrilegend]

mixed: Re: Short story
« Reply #29 on Jan 20, 2008, 0:37 »

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lots of smart people post on this forum. I hope that at least one smart persons reads this short. I've shown it to a few other people who had some comments about POV and the ending. Maybe the guess at what he saw being unnecessary. You'll see, have a read. I look forward to some constructive criticism

The Vegetable that hated my Friend too
I hate mushrooms. Revile them in fact. Everything about them, from the way they’re shaped to their slimy texture, smell and colour. To even hear people talk about how good their mushroom platter was the night past fills my head with disgust. I even have some trouble looking at magazine pictures, like those ones you see in fancy cookery magazines or being in the same room as a mushroom. It’s at a stage so bad it’s close to an obsessive compulsion of hatred. I am not alone though. Being the creature I am I’ve perused the internet and found others who share my extreme prejudice toward the vegetable. We talk in forums and some of the organisations founders send strange and angry pictures to mushroom distributors. I didn’t quite realise the cult I would unearth simply by typing a few keywords into Google. The internet is a most powerful tool for extremists.
Tomorrow is the first day of a new job for me. I need a job or I might not have anywhere to live except the streets. Aside from my hatred of mushrooms I am a big fan of fruit and vegetables and it so happens I’ve gotten a job in the produce department of a supermarket.
Todd fell asleep after a reasonable time, drinking his regular pre-sleep smoothie and falling into a dream that was all about a colourful universe adorned with crop, bush and tree of every variant of fruit and vegetable imaginable. At least within the expanse of Todd’s mind. Tomatoes, a favourite of his were animated characters that talked and walked around on green prongs. They had all the power and gave the death penalty to a great number of disgusting vagabond mushrooms who littered around this little pariah, making the place untidy and filling their surrounding area with a disgusting smell which was worse than the piss of cats to the nostrils. Needless to say, Todd enjoyed a happy and restful eight hours before his alarm woke him up. He was a strange boy. He really was.
The sound of the Kink’s ‘Tired of Waiting’ woke Todd up at a quarter past 8. He had chosen to wake several hours before he was required to be in work so as to enjoy a filling breakfast, fully expecting a hard day’s work. Showering quickly he made a quick fry up of eggs, smoked bacon and beef tomatoes. He read a while after this before leaving, shutting the door quietly so as not to wake his unemployed friend whom he shared the house with.
Outside it was raining. The type of rain wasn’t particularly heavy, just very constant so by the time Todd arrived and clocked in with the number he’d been given on a prior training day his coat felt heavy as if weighted down or caught upon something. The head of produce greeted him distractedly, rather rudely in his opinion and went on to pair him up with somebody. ‘Follow what Matt does and he’ll teach you what you need to know.’ Then she was gone. Todd half listened as a guy with glasses and a loud cocky voice began listing the basic duties of the job. ‘Make sure the stock is even, potatoes and onions are here, broccoli is in fridge 4 because it needs storing at a different temperature’ and so on. This guy left Todd to get on with it after this and he began.
Weeks passed and Todd was enjoying the job as much as one can enjoy repetitive mundane tasks. Things were easy and he loved being around fruit and vegetables so much. Todd loved to caress and admire each piece of produce. In a manner not unlike love. Once a popular fruit was sold out, such as the pineapples Todd would secretly mourn what was to him the loss of a family member. He was an odd boy.
Another week went by and Todd continued the job. He was close to the end of a month long trial and hoped with all his heart that the manager, a god in some circles of the store, would grant him permanent employ. Unbeknownst to Todd, in his own little world of moving produce back and fourth people were whispering. A Russian member of the produce staff would be talking to another employee, gesticulating with his hands, shaking his head and sighing. Some of the ‘senior’ staff would huddle together in the lunch room. Of course didn’t Todd notice any of this. When lunchtimes arrived he liked to sit in the room beside the canteen area, formerly a smoking room, and think about all the wonderful fruits he had caressed in the morning gone. Sometimes he thought about how many tomatoes and mangoes he could buy with his first pay check. These little thoughts made him smile until it were time to go back and work. Todd mainly went into this room so he could be alone with his thoughts and fruit salad lunchbox. Sometimes the room was occupied with other staff members though, who were on the stores home delivery team. One of the men, lanky with glasses and a fiddly looking style of facial hair always seemed to be the centre-point when Todd arrived, always telling a long and amusing story which had surrounding people captivated. ‘You ring the bell, wait and hear somebody climbing the stairs. A moment later a kid is crying. Then these women come to the door with baby in arms and they say, oh I’m ever so sorry, could you take it all through to the kitchen?’ This raised a loud laugh from everyone and an especially dumb sounding snicker from a thick bearded ginger man adjacent to the storyteller. Todd smiled at this as he slipped a pineapple chunk into his mouth.
The afternoon went smoothly by until Todd arrived back in the produce stock room. A high stack of mushrooms has somehow toppled over. Spontaneously perhaps or perhaps done and left by somebody else. Todd narrowed his eyes. What a huge fricking state. And those, why those? Loose mushrooms were strewn all over the floor and other larger mushrooms had burst from their sellophane packaging from the impact and were crushed. It was like the mushrooms had performed a prison break. As if they had had enough charge to knock themselves down but were too stupid to realise that without legs the plan was very half-baked. Stupid fucking mushrooms Todd thought as he crouched, hurriedly gathering them and placing them back into crates with frequent nervous glances towards the plastic flip door entrance. If anyone sees this I’ll be buggered.
The store manager picked his moment of all moments to arrive. He was a big man and his belly had slapped the plastic doors open before his feet had caught up. ‘What is this mess?’ he demanded, the expression on his face was one somebody else might have worn when terrorists diverted a plane into the north tower. ‘It’s, well, before I got here-‘, having heard enough he cut across Todd like a clumsy hare cuts across a road without looking. ‘Yeah, I see what’s happened here’, an amateur Holmes, ‘you’ve made the mushroom stock unsellable and it’s no bloody surprise. I’ve heard back from section manager and she says that you never put the mushrooms out. Do you know that they contribute to 0.3% of daily sales in our produce department? You are also working far too slowly and handling the produce too much. It needs to be in top condition for sale to our customers. We can’t afford to have them go elsewhere to fill their fruit bowls. I’ve seen enough and I’d like you to leave. You aren’t the sort of person I wish to have employed here.’ The manager had seen enough, apparently, and Todd stood up, glared at the manager and walked past him, pushing out of the doors.
Todd hates mushrooms. He hates them more than I hate running out of things to smoke. I learnt about this when we first moved in together. I was still unemployed but was fortunate enough to have been able to pay my side of the deposit and rent with money I’d stashed away from my weed dealing days. Todd had another job then. I think it was the one in the petrol station. Memory fails me. He worked funny shifts so I was often cooking for him too. He paid the bulk of the rent so I cleaned the house up and cooked for him to compensate for this. One night I was making a stir fry and he comes into the kitchen when I’m just adding the sauce to the chicken and noodles. I greet him and at once he is all serious sounding. ‘Oh no’ he says and goes toward the chopping board. ‘Yup, you put mushrooms in.’ considering this a question I reply ‘well sure, they’re good.’ He stepped out of the kitchen and said in a sombre tone, ‘I can’t eat this Gavin, I loath mushrooms.’ From then on I knew. I’d made a real big stir fry that night and because it had mushrooms in it, Todd wouldn’t touch it. He rang out for pizza. I remember eating it all to myself and washing it down with a couple of beers. Unsurprisingly I was up in the night sick. The large portion washed down with beer was unacceptable to my stomach.
His hatred is certainly obsessive and a mite weird. I could understand because I hate tuna but not so much that I go on hate forums about it like he does with mushrooms. I found out all about this niche habit when I was installing some new virus software on his laptop. When Todd lost his job it was like the beginning of the end. He got home this one afternoon, I think it was Thursday and he instantly got talking to me about how he’d lost his job and that mushrooms were conspiring against him to fuck up his life. Really mad, he was. I made him a cup of tea and went in the garden for a joint. I offered him some but he wasn’t into that sort of jive. Swear he needed it though; he was real agitated about the whole thing. He left his tea to cool and got onto the internet. I presumed he was going to the mushroom hate forum to post his conspiracy theory. Later on one of my mates who live in this flat was having a party cum rave. The weather was great and it was going to be held on top of his flat block. Against regulations you’re right in assuming.
‘Todd, come to this party with me, chill out, few beers, get your mind off of this business.’ Todd didn’t seem that convinced but his agitation had broken a little from earlier and he murmured, ‘maybe.’ He was dressed and ready by the time I’d said to be so we ended up going together.
It really was a decent evening and the flat blocks rooftop was covered with an assortment of umbrellas, some of which looked very like the ones you see poolside in foreign countries. No doubt stolen on drunken missions. A barbecue was going in the rooftops corner and loads of people were huddled abound smoking, talking, laughing.
Todd went right for a table set up with alcohol. Saying a few passing hello’s to people he thought looked familiar. Whether they were or not it probably didn’t matter, the party seemed to have been going for a while and most people appeared merry. They were walking Spanish back and fourth from the alcohol table. Teetering back and fourth like new walking babies. Some people came by with sausages precariously balanced on blue paper plates. Sausages and burgers had already been dropped on the concrete ground, mostly under chairs it appeared. Todd grabbed a beer and one for Gavin, who has already settled into a deck chair beside a girl with dreadlocks and a nose ring. Todd approached them in mid conversation. ‘And I was like fuck it, ya know, not even worth my time mate.’ She had a scratchy voice Todd instantly disliked. Nor did the opening sound of conversation seem especially eloquent. He sat down, passed a beer to Gavin who seemed enthralled by her common dialogue and reached for his key ring which had a mini bottled opener attached.
The evening passed averagely and Todd kept wishing he was at home, damning mushrooms on the internet. To quell the voice of the girl and the smell of her marijuana Todd drank more. He gulped beer from every continent, ideally free of charge, until he was fully exceeding the limits of sober. Basically he was quite trashed. His head was lolled and he had long since given up trying to participate in any conversation. The nose ring girl had been talking for what seemed close to forever and Gavin still seemed so interested. To Todd what she was saying was irrelevant. In his drunkenness her words were reduced to the raw cadent scratching of her voice. He could no longer understand what she had been saying for the last decade. Other people had come and gone under their particular pepsi cola parasol but now it was just the three of them.
They were laughing. ‘Hey Todd, I know, I know you think mushrooms have ruined everything for you but Kiera has some you might enjoy.’ Gavin was quite drunk also and he giggled, punching Kiera’s arm playfully. She giggled back and Todd looked into their eyes which were very hazy looking. Todd didn’t understand why but his voice spoke and said, ‘what the fuck’ in a welcoming tone. More laughter was followed by Kiera reaching into her cardigan pocket and bringing out three shrivelled up things. ‘Mushrooms’ Gavin announced. ‘Enjoyable goodness.’ He took one from Kiera who then leant across and placed one on Todd’s knee. They laughed more and counted down from 5 before eating the mushrooms. Todd didn’t join them on the countdown but slipped the mushroom into his mouth, tasted nothing and returned to staring at the floor vacantly.
Five minutes went by and the laughter had stopped. If a sober person had seen this they would have seen three people staring into space looking as if they were lost in the countryside. Blank faces, faces which were likely seeing the effects of mushrooms. Gavin’s eyes were fixed upon the parasol which to him was now a large orange snake that was pivoting up and down in slow comforting motions. Kiera’s eyes were to the sky and she was watching a battle. The clouds had come alive and a fierce black cloud was trying to blow a kind looking white and fluffy cloud away.
Gavin knew what Kiera had experienced from a conversation they had shared some months later. He never found out what Todd had seen. Maybe it had been mushrooms with pointed implements coming toward him or a big smiling tomato in the night sky. For several minutes after he had slipped the mushroom into his mouth he stood up from his chair, ran a short distance to the buildings edge and without hesitating hurled himself off into the night.
In a bizarre area of the internet, inhabited by strange radicals who hated mushrooms, they may have speculated that the mushrooms had hated Todd (forum handle killthemushrooms54) too.
END

**Huh? It's right there?

[ie]

Yeah, that looks like it's it. Well, life's gotten a little more "interesting" since I last said I'd read it over, but I'll try sometime and eventually make a post about it. Maybe. Hopefully.

[mixed]

sacrilegend said:

No, promise. I love reading what you write, just some polishing and it'll be amazing.

Thankyou, that means a lot to me.

[malicious32dll]

tl;dr

[dontdigonswine]

This has no title yet, but I somewhat like it. I just felt like ripping into feminism, after reading "The Awakening" for English class.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

"Listen, I want you to come home with me."
She glanced up from her book - a romance novel, he noticed - and stared, flabbergasted yet unmoved. He looked back in her eyes for a moment, then felt her unease, and drooped back into his shy shell.
"I'm sorry. I wanted to say something... and I didn't know what."
Her state was persistently emotionless, in a zone of entranced confusion. He felt her unresponsiveness* in his rapidly thudding heart, without looking up from the carpet he was transfixed on.
This was NOT the first time this had happened.

Honesty, he felt, was a virtue. What Herschel did not know, however, was how to convey honesty in a sincere form. He lathered his words with bluntness and awkward phrasing, and puked them towards the world in an unattractive fur ball of festering desperation. Communication was a serious issue.

The bright bathroom lights beat down on him contempt and realization. Washing his hands and slapping his face with a coat of cold water, Herschel decided that libraries were NOT the best place to find the girl of his dreams. He glared at his face in the mirror in front of him, at the fool he had just made out of himself.
"Look at you. Just... look at you."
He said it out loud, it was the first thing that came to his mind, clear as the mirror he was saying it to. The words clung in the air like a fog, separating his reflection from himself. He said it, and looked through the fog, through the mirror, through himself.

Herschel briskly walked out of the men's restroom, into the dreary dim realm of literary exploration. He walked not away from the lavatory, from the mirror that helped clear his mind; but to the momentary answer to his problems.
The romance department. Four thick metal cabinets, twelve rows each - packed full of estrogen brainwashing bibles. He paced past the first two cabinets, nostrils stifled by the feminine self-indulgence that had stained every paperback he passed. Herschel reached the last row and noticed a woman, crouched at the bottom shelf, fingering through titles and numbers, searching for that one special story.
His steps were not slowed at this curious sight, and his walk maintained its nonchalantness.* He sternly stepped in front of the lady, taking five books she was hovering over. Her sneer of observing sheer rudeness only contributed to his testosterone high.

After a few suspicious glares from other women and a library receipt, Herschel's hands braced his steering wheel and his mouth worded with enthusiasm the Ramones song his stereo was blaring. His newly borrowed books blankly rode alongside him in the passenger seat, unaware of their grim future. In his orgasm of romantic escapism, while his throat sung man tunes, testing his voice volume capabilities, Herschel had a profound thought. He wondered what the books would look like if they could materialize as humans. He imagined her in the seat next to him, in full female form, bickering at the eardrum-throttling noise level. He imagined her beautiful eyes rolling in annoyance, her smooth lips forming a sneer to conquer all sneers, her shiny fingernails flicking her radiant hair in feminine fury. He felt no remorse for what he was about to do.
At that moment, he spotted it - the nightly homeless men huddled around a barrel, inside of which was the heat they felt could keep them warmer than their tattered blankets. Herschel pulled his car into the parking lot in which they were gathered. In a moment's time, he was there with the hobo clan, staring into the salvation of flickering fire that left an eerie glow on everyone's faces. Herschel stared long and deep into the flames, the evening sun. For a split second, he saw himself, one amongst the hopeless, searching for a reason to care. The dense fog reappeared and separated him once again from his reflection. It was not fog, but smoke - the fire was beginning to die.
Herschel tossed each mini novel, one by one, into the barrel. He departed from the festivities a hero; a saint without a cause. He filled a dark crevace of the world with light, from the most glorious act of censorship ever performed by man.

[ie]

Read the story mix'd wrote.

It made a lot more sense front to back rather than jumping right in (I do that a lot, but usually I can get it just fine). It could use some work, but I think you mostly pulled off what you were trying to accomplish. The main thing I can suggest to you is to write with more subtle language and words. Hyperboles and other literary devices don't work that well unless you know how to integrate them into a story without seeming forced. Remember, it's all about the flow, you know?

I'll get around to double d on swine's short soon. Maybe I'll even write my own? Hmm... not likely, but the thought is there.

[mixed]

Ok thankyou for your useful input ie

[ie]

mixed said:

Ok thankyou for your useful input ie

No problem.

[sacrilegend]

I love dontdigonswine's story! It's so beautifully, perfectly written. Wow!

[dontdigonswine]

sacrilegend said:

I love dontdigonswine's story! It's so beautifully, perfectly written. Wow!

Thanks a bunch. Someone told me it is too wordy, and I think I do that sometimes.

By the way, the asterisks are for places I used awkward words because I couldn't think of any better ones.

[mixed]

This is a real messaround I wrote for a class, when I was in uni

Sort of a stylistic mess but it was all good fun and it was well received by the teacher...

Julia rifles through a large stack of papers that are yellow with the age. Austin is crouched on the floor in the kitchen, shock indenting his face. Eyes wide and gleaming in the light he’s staring glazed in this way as if he’d returned home and shut his cat in the door, mashing its head real good and bringing it to that point between dying and standing no chance of living.

Julia’s hair is entirely unkempt. Silvery whisps are here and there on her face. Closer in you can see this vein pulsing in her neck. Her expression is odd, like she is recently bereaved.

The space between them is an ocean. The day is warm but the inside climate feels cold and uncertain. Midway through the stack of paperwork Julia’s expression changes. A smile that embodies grim satisfaction and sadness is now upon her. The document she is looking for appears to be poking out of the pile, slightly less yellow than the other unidentifiable papers. The poking corner bears the emblem of the general register office.

Julia gets up from the chair and hers and Austin’s eyes meet for a fraction of time. Document in hand she is making toward a shelving unit. Envelopes are kept in here. Austin must know. He moves from his crouched position and fiddles with the drawers. He is shaky and at first attempts opening the drawer beneath the sink. The dummy drawer. That drawer which continues the pattern. That drawer which is inoperable and its existence pointless. The inclusion of this drawer so pointless. Maybe some designer felt that a dummy drawer was imperative and useful with regards to the separation of the cutlery drawer and the odds and sods drawer. Kitchen aesthetics. Anyhow, he is now in and out of the cutlery drawer, general cut stuff knife in hand.

Whilst he is readying to cut cheese, Julia is all done with the document with the general register office logo on and is surfing the net, apparently for an address.

With a bemusing swagger, Austin is at the sink, peering out of the window rather than the lino floor he enjoyed contesting before. The net curtains are old. So fucking old. They hang miserably and they aren’t the white they sold as. Grimy, spiders have come to live on them and a few of the delicate edges have little rips in them. He stares and taps the knife against the sink, in sync with the dripping of the tap. The tap is old and won’t tighten fully anymore.

A post-box is outside the window of this sad apartment. Julia has gone to this box, door snapping shut confirms this fact. She is there now and slots it in without a second thought. It’s in and suddenly her hands are to her face and Austin see’s her and knows that she is crying.

Austin isn’t tapping the knife against the sink now. He is putting it to it’s proper duty which is that of cutting.

And just for a chnge of pace, here's a poem! I don't write poetry or understand it too well so this is probably a mess....but eh

White walls, brown floor

A nicely furnished corridor

Pictures of flowers on the walls

And loads of stoners acting fools

No use are their peripherals

All set and shiny

Communication vague, voices whiny

A dog arrives and she thrives on the language of the room

Sidling her way toward the sill where the swans are

Sitting beneath, Jack and Jill who’s sleeping, like a well laid driveway

Jack is ill and thinking of leaving

[sacrilegend]

Love the poem so much!

[mixed]

I just flashed back to stoned me and made some observations
I love that pencil sketch of yours btw, I put it as my desktop background in fact

[sacrilegend]

dontdigonswine said:

sacrilegend said:

I love dontdigonswine's story! It's so beautifully, perfectly written. Wow!

Thanks a bunch. Someone told me it is too wordy, and I think I do that sometimes.

By the way, the asterisks are for places I used awkward words because I couldn't think of any better ones.

Not at all... That's what makes it so perfect for me?

I'll look and see if I can think of better words, kay?

[sacrilegend]

mixed said:

I just flashed back to stoned me and made some observations
I love that pencil sketch of yours btw, I put it as my desktop background in fact

Oh wow! Thanks for making my day!

That's a cool idea. I wonder what poem stoned me would write? I'll think about it.

[dontdigonswine]

sacrilegend said:

dontdigonswine said:

Thanks a bunch. Someone told me it is too wordy, and I think I do that sometimes.

By the way, the asterisks are for places I used awkward words because I couldn't think of any better ones.

Not at all... That's what makes it so perfect for me?

I'll look and see if I can think of better words, kay?

Thanks

[sacrilegend]

nonchalantness* --> indifference

Not so wordy, but it slips and rolls off the tongue beautifully, and it isn't as bulky and heavy on my mind. It just fits into the passage without demanding too much attention.

"...packed full of estrogen brainwashing bibles..." you could have a comma after "estrogen", to make it "estrogen and brainwashing bibles" because the way it's written now is kind of confusing.

unresponsiveness* ---> lack of response? I really don't know about this one. "Indifference" comes to mind again but it won't work twice.

Maybe "impervious ... something"? I like "impervious".

[dontdigonswine]

sacrilegend said:

nonchalantness* --> indifference

Not so wordy, but it slips and rolls off the tongue beautifully, and it isn't as bulky and heavy on my mind. It just fits into the passage without demanding too much attention.

"...packed full of estrogen brainwashing bibles..." you could have a comma after "estrogen", to make it "estrogen and brainwashing bibles" because the way it's written now is kind of confusing.

unresponsiveness* ---> lack of response? I really don't know about this one. "Indifference" comes to mind again but it won't work twice.

Maybe "impervious ... something"? I like "impervious".

Thanks for your suggestions. "Indifference" will work well for the first one. I think I might shift the word "unresponsiveness" to be "unresponsive."

[ie]

DD on Swine: I read over your short story a few days ago and just kind of let it sink in (aka been too busy to log in, or in other words, too lazy to respond) and as an overall statement, I'll say it's alright.

Concerning specifics:
- I'd change the setting from a library to a bookstore. I use my library system fairly regularly, so the plot of which you are suggesting is so improbable that it distracts me from the message. But if you trade out the library for a bookstore, minor change really since everything else except maybe having a restroom, would be completely the same. There's just that lack of responsibility that comes from a bookstore. You buy a book, it's yours. You borrow a book, you return it in a couple months or pay fines. (Although you COOOULD play up the responsibility aspect, if you wanted to.)

- Herschel? What the fuck kinda name is that? Ain't no name I ever heard of!

- I didn't really notice a problem with the asterisked words, because I knew both of 'em. It does seem too wordy, though. Try mixing short sentences with long sentences. A paragraph of long sentences is hard to read because if you lose your place, you'll have to start over from the beginning because you wouldn't be sure whether you last read at this exact point, the exact point located here, or even the last sentence with over forty words in the last two thirds of the paragraph. A sentence like that, in fiction, should be split up five ways to Sunday, because it was probably hard to read, and just a slight challenge to write.

- I can't say whether this was a problem with your short story or not, but in general, flow is the most important thing to a story. It should read itself. If your reader can just kind of zone out, read your stort story, novella, novel, technical paper and understand everything, then you've succeeded. But if they have to continually consult thesauri, then that breaks up the flow, and causes reading to go from being an enjoyable past time to being such a bore that they'd rather watch American Idol.


For both you and mixed: Try writing a bare bones story.
No big words or big ideas, just have a clear understanding of the beginning of the story and where it ends up and just write that. With some study and practice, doing that will help with any problems with flow, because all of the non-essentials will be put to the side, with all of the essentials left intact.

On the non-essentials, I know that "God is in the details" and a lot of people look for that, so I've come across a lot of writers (or read from a lot of writers) that shine more focus on the details rather than the actual content itself. So don't worry about small details, directional details or anything like that. Just go in, write the essentials, add the occasional piece of relevant in-sight and always make sure it's readable.

Those are all the pseudo-comments I can give for now.

[sacrilegend]

"The Devil is in the details" you mean.

[ie]

Feb 24, 2008 12:55:12 GMT -5 sacrilegend said:

"The Devil is in the details" you mean.

Same thing.

[BarrSnacks]

Some very well written short stories here. I would comment them all, but I don't have the time right now.

Anyways, I have always liked writing, so I might post something on here. I saw a satire up there, so I might post one I recently wrote (for english class).