FAWC 5: Line, Please!

AMoveableBeast said:

This is...Anal Tap!

Click to expand...

I'm seeing a H&S story growing out of this . . . .

Aynmair said:

If this were the Free Association thread I'd pipe in with my faves, the Revolting Cocks. Wrong thread...

Click to expand...

Revolting Cocks. Yes. Loved their take on Rod Stewart's "Do Ya Think I'm Sexy?"

When FAWCker is back in reception mode, he might check his e-mail box.

sr71plt said:

When FAWCker is back in reception mode, he might check his e-mail box.

Click to expand...

I'll do it tomorrow when we get back home. Don't want to save anything like that to the school's computer.

Absolutely right--not something like that. It would fry the computer's memory.

While the gang races about like manic muppets trying to punch their way outta a pack of wet typewriter paper my fawc story posted. Feel free to one-bomb it. I call it FERAL DEMOCRATS IN LUV.

There may be time for one more. I have an idea for a contemporary action thriller I call THE NIGGER COUNTER. Leroy Jackson works for the Department of Justice counting minorities employed in the fine arts at Detroit.

A quick question regarding the aftermath of the FAWC: Will there be a great reveal after x days/weeks who wrote what? Also, can I ask that my story gets a new category once the voting is over? Just curious.

@Beast: Missed the full monty reference, sorry. I shouldn't read high-brow entertainment when I'm half-asleep already. But then, I didn't jump down your throat, did I?

Blind_Justice said:

A quick question regarding the aftermath of the FAWC: Will there be a great reveal after x days/weeks who wrote what? Also, can I ask that my story gets a new category once the voting is over? Just curious.

Click to expand...

Yes. Usually after about a week with them up under Anon Who wrote what will be reveled.

You can have it moved to your page. You can have it changed to a different category. Or you can delete and resubmit. You just have to let Fawcker now what you want to have done with it.

MST

Thanks, MST.

MSTarot said:

Yes. Usually after about a week with them up under Anon Who wrote what will be reveled.

You can have it moved to your page. You can have it changed to a different category. Or you can delete and resubmit. You just have to let Fawcker now what you want to have done with it.

MST

Click to expand...

Just to clarify . . . .

Once the stories go live, I typically leave them up for about a week to allow for voting and comments. Then, at some point, I close the voting and announce the winner. At that point, I ask for those who contributed stories to send me a PM regarding what they would like done with the story. They can be deleted, moved, reauthored, or even retitled.

. . . and I think my brain is now suitably fried after three days at the coast (well, most of three days). Back to the hum-drum of home life.

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

While the gang races about like manic muppets trying to punch their way outta a pack of wet typewriter paper my fawc story posted. Feel free to one-bomb it. I call it FERAL DEMOCRATS IN LUV.

There may be time for one more. I have an idea for a contemporary action thriller I call THE NIGGER COUNTER. Leroy Jackson works for the Department of Justice counting minorities employed in the fine arts at Detroit.

Click to expand...

I think, given that this is at least the third post you've placed in this thread to mention your story, that this must be the most defensive you've ever been regarding your writing. I get the impression you're expecting the worst and hoping for the best. Your version of humility, I suppose.

So I went ahead and read it. Take the following as you will.

I get that you don't want to spend much time on character details or motivations. I get the impression that we're supposed to accept certain built-in character traits; Alonzo's a big black ex-con, so we can extrapolate certain things about him based on stereotypes. But he seems to me to be a little too reserved. That may be because Della's a state employee, so he's wary of going too far, but if Alonzo really was a big tough bad-ass, I'd have expected him to be more aggressive.

Della . . . I was confused from the beginning as to who or what she was. A little backstory -- even just a few lines -- would have helped explain why she decided she would want to take Alonzo home and fuck him. I did like the casual mention of a husband before they got into the trailer, and then the characterizations of Buford. That gave more to the story than anything else.

And that's where the story actually became more than words on a screen for me. Buford was the real story. Della and Alonzo were cardboard cutouts as far as I was concerned. The end was blunt, but not particularly brutal, if that's what you were going for.

Overall, the dialogue could use some work. Most of it felt stilted, as if written into a porno script. You made some efforts to interject a local dialect, but Della seemed like she was switching back and forth between talking like an administrative professional and a hood rat.

The switching back and forth between narrative and dialogue was a bit jarring. I noticed several punctuation errors that interrupted the flow of the story, too.

I would have liked to have seen some scene transitions. You abruptly shift time forward with just a few words in a paragraph when a transition could be more helpful.

Overall, I like your narrative style. I get a Jack Webb/Philip Marlowe voice-over vibe from it. Direct and commanding, it pulls the reader along. Work on your dialogue, and it could compliment the narrative.

Oh, whenever JBJ is writing a story, he gives a blow-by-blow description of his progress on one or more of his "look at me" threads--and he did some of that on the FAWC 4 thread too. He posts as if he's the only one writing a story and we all are holding our breath for a report on the next 100 words he squeezes out, reinventing the writing technique wheel with each stroke of his keyboard.

sr71plt said:

Oh, whenever JBJ is writing a story, he gives a blow-by-blow description of his progress on one or more of his "look at me" threads--and he did some of that on the FAWC 4 thread too. He posts as if he's the only one writing a story and we all are holding our breath for a report on the next 100 words he squeezes out, reinventing the writing technique wheel with each stroke of his keyboard.

Click to expand...

Honestly, I don't see it as that. I see it as a thinly-veiled query for validation. He's going about the "tell me what you think of my writing" plea while holding a baseball bat.

It's probably several things. It's all rolled into "give me attention," though.

sr71plt said:

It's probably several things. It's all rolled into "give me attention," though.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I see that. But I don't take it as being as intrusive as you might. We all want attention, after all. You often make mention of recently-published books in your posts. I have, too (when I've had new publications). We're none of us immune to the lure of potential praise.

Everything comes in degrees, though. With James, it comes in tons and reports at fifteen-minute intervals.

sr71plt said:

Everything comes in degrees, though. With James, it comes in tons and reports at fifteen-minute intervals.

Click to expand...

And is that really terrible? So he cries for attention more than most. So what? The beauty of Internet forums like this is that anyone can freely read, and freely ignore, anything they want. I read over a lot of the threads here; in fact, probably most of them. I don't always respond, and I don't always care as to the reasons why someone started them. If Jimbo wants to post half a dozen threads a day, let him. Seacat used to do the same thing, much to many people's chagrin. I used to roll my eyes at his threads, especially when they contradicted themselves. But I never attacked him about it.

The way I see it is live and let live. Have some fun on the threads. Post some jibes or taunts, but don't take it too seriously. We're all equals here.

Going back, by the way, to the FAWC 4 thread where you (I think) and others (certainly) posted that they were looking forward to JBJ's critiques of the FAWC stories, I'll note that what you give above is a story critique, and I'll repeat what I posted on the FAWC 4 thread that I've never seen JBJ give an actual critique of a Literotica story. I asked for someone to cite one if they believed he did--and I still haven't seen one from him. He gives shallow judgments, and that's it.

slyc_willie said:

And is that really terrible? So he cries for attention more than most. So what? The beauty of Internet forums like this is that anyone can freely read, and freely ignore, anything they want. I read over a lot of the threads here; in fact, probably most of them. I don't always respond, and I don't always care as to the reasons why someone started them. If Jimbo wants to post half a dozen threads a day, let him. Seacat used to do the same thing, much to many people's chagrin. I used to roll my eyes at his threads, especially when they contradicted themselves. But I never attacked him about it.

The way I see it is live and let live. Have some fun on the threads. Post some jibes or taunts, but don't take it too seriously. We're all equals here.

Click to expand...

Yes, because he gives them in terms of being a guru and he's not. He a neophyte stumbling in tracks long laid down by others (and some going off into the wilderness). He wants to be an easy button writing expert here. That's dangerous when there are other neophytes wandering around here who both value their writing development and are easily suckered.

sr71plt said:

Going back, by the way, to the FAWC 4 thread where you (I think) and others (certainly) posted that they were looking forward to JBJ's critiques of the FAWC stories, I'll note that what you give above is a story critique, and I'll repeat what I posted on the FAWC 4 thread that I've never seen JBJ give an actual critique of a Literotica story. I asked for someone to cite one if they believed he did--and I still haven't seen one from him. He gives shallow judgments, and that's it.

Click to expand...

I admit I was looking forward to an actual critique, not because I think he possesses any sort of expert opinion, but because I actually like his blunt criticism. And I have to admit I was more than a little disappointed with what he produced.

sr71plt said:

Yes, because he gives them in terms of being a guru and he's not. He a neophyte stumbling in tracks long laid down by others (and some going off into the wilderness). He wants to be an easy button writing expert here. That's dangerous when there are other neophytes wandering around here who both value their writing development and are easily suckered.

Click to expand...

True, it could be dangerous, but seriously, when it comes to writing, and taking advice on such, doesn't it say more about the person who believes a single person (such as JBJ), than it does about the person him- or herself? In other words, if anyone is going to follow any single poster's advice on writing -- yours and mine included -- wouldn't that speak to their naivete?

We can't control what anyone makes of the writing process. We can't pretend that we offer up invaluable nuggets of wisdom. We only know what's worked for us, and even that is subject to change. And if someone else comes along and throws a bunch of shit in the air, we can't help it and can only trust that "the smart ones" will know how to pick through the grime.

Besides, who are you, or I, or anyone else on this forum, to say that JBJ doesn't, at the least, provoke an interesting argument now and then? Regardless of the reasons why he posts his threads, sometimes, there's an actual kernel that inspires discussion.

I read JBJ's story too. (I read it before reading Slyc's critique on it so I could get my own take on it. It is really short and won't take you long, if you feel like going and checking it out. In fact I probably wrote more here about the story than he wrote of the story!)

I wish he had entered it in the competition rather than just float it out there, although I think I would've pinged it for his anyway. It had some classic JBJishness to it.

The story is carried by crisp dialogue and there's no messing around with backstory. I like that in his work, the characters and the writing just cut to the chase, they don't bother with a lot of stuff explaining why they are doing blah, or how they got there.

He used that first sentence expertly, and built it up into a story with the sheriff's sergeant handing the items over. I was nonplussed by it being a book of poetry. Alonzo didn't seem like the type to carry poetry around. Maybe given the way the story went, it would go better if it was a bible? Although he doesn't seem the biblical kind either. Anyway, I also liked how he picked up the items and seemed to use them in this way that made them/him special somehow, although that didn't go anywhere in the story in the end.

There you can see the Chester Himes influence. I did think this first sentence would be tempting to a Himes fan. Himes often starts his stories with an absurd situation which is explained as the story unfurls.

With the entry of Buford, the story took off in another direction. It was no longer about two people simply enjoying a good fuck. I really liked JBJ's story about Norma (?I think that was her name) - it was so straightforward, a woman and a man who want some getting it. In that story too, back story is given with spare detail, just in a couple of exchanges of dialogue. Whole reams of emotional history are laconically hinted at in a couple of sentences for JBJ's characters, as here with the throwaway remark by Della that she has a husband, but it's not like that.

But you really had to wonder why she had ended up with Buford. From that point it was a different kind of story, and then I guess JBJ got bored so he cut it off short. I gave 3 stars because it was a 4 or 5 star start, then the ending was just quickly scribbled out - a 1 or 2 star effort.

A quick aside, too. That comment about her hair: her mane of curly hair fastened to her scalp with plenty of girly hardware. Wow! that was scornful. Della sure wasn't someone JBJ thought much of! I like how he can convey that in so few words, and apparently as if just making a plain description.

So I wish he had entered the story in the competition, and either written it straight without Buford, just a spare classic JBJ. Or he had worked on it some more and developed the backstory between Della and Buford. That could be done in a flashback after he had topped off the cheating couple? That might be fun for JBJ, to build on his spare writing and start to consider how while retaining that spare, clean, clipped style he could write intense and deep emotion rather than just hinting at it and throwing it away. Then he would really be a Hemingway, and a better writer than Himes to boot.

That would take some time, though, and probably initially people would tear his efforts apart and be mean like Pilot is being. It takes some courage to keep writing when your stories come last in the competitions, but you just say: "Well, I am figuring out my style now, and I got some good comments that help me with that. One or two people said they love my stories, and that I scored low cuz my writing is above the heads of the schmucks who vote on here. Anyway, I am enjoying my writing, I don't care if people 1 bomb me."

And I should know that! LOL.

As for JBJ not offering deep critique on the stories, we can't all be critics as well as writers - that takes a lot of training of a different kind. He makes the effort to read and vote and leave a comment, and I think people do appreciate it. I know one person from last time was quite sad that he skipped on commenting on their story, although they did say they probably ought to be grateful considering the sorts of things he sometimes says, LOL. And personally I am very proud of the comment he once left on my gay fantasy romance, and I appreciate his having taken the time to read it.

I don't read his stories cuz he read mine, y'unnerstand. I just acksherly like his writing style. It's very different to mine and I figure I can learn from it.

Alonzo is white.

Whats bizarre is PILOTs OCD with my pathetic cries for attention. Its like I'm his Siren.

Naoko? Found an excuse to harpoon me with a smile and a guiltless conscience.

JAMESBJOHNSON said:

Alonzo is white.

Click to expand...

Kind of wondered that. Della is black though, presuming from her offer of dark meat to Alonzo?

JagFarlane said:

Kind of wondered that. Della is black though, presuming from her offer of dark meat to Alonzo?

Click to expand...

Advance to the head of the class.