Revised chapter

[gunhilltrain]

I guess this belongs in Story Feedback

I've never before edited a story for content reasons, but with the generous help of other members, I did do it with this one. It isn't earth-shaking and it isn't Tolstoy; it is what it is. If I hadn't had so many comments, I probably would never have bothered to change it, much less post it. Actually, someone suggested I rewrite it as an experiment; be careful what you ask for.

https://www.literotica.com/s/bronx-park-east-ch-03

It's never going to be completely satisfying (at least to me) because of certain premises I had built into it. And I didn't feel motivated to start over from scratch. But I'm definitely done with it and I'm moving on. The next couple of chapters should be out very soon.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I thought it was a lot more cohesive. It's hard to read this with fresh eyes because I already know a lot about your intentions. Knowing your intentions keeps from reading it the way I would read it if I just came across the story on my own.

There was a lot less in it that left me wondering why you were telling us about a particular thing. No soup! (Good choice.) There was a little more characterization of the friends at the party, but I was still left wondering why they mattered individually. I did get their relevance as a group this time, because they show the narrator's pride about having a girlfriend. I understood Martha was making out with a different guy she came in with this time, but still wasn't sure why that scene was included since it didn't seem to have an emotional impact on the characters. Maybe it was a comment on the fragility of relationships at that age? I wasn't sure.

I can see that Warren's projectile vomiting left an indelible impression on you! I got a different impression of the party this time, and it was probably more in line with what you were trying to portray. The last version referred to "drugs" and a "drug scene," so I assumed it involved multiple drugs heavier than pot. I might just be jaded, but when somebody says "drug scene," I don't think pot. This time, it made more sense why the narrator and Lenore are at this party, especially since it's a new relationship and she doesn't seem like a wild child. I also picked up on Lenore's awkward feeling this time, and didn't before.

One thing you may one to be careful of going forward is drawing a distinction between a description of the narrator's thoughts and attitudes at the time and the narrator's present-day thoughts and attitudes. Although you clarified the narrator's appreciation of Lenore's interest in transportation, what was also clarified was a very condescending attitude. When I read, "Yet I was impressed that Lenore could even grasp one of my interests," I am very likely to hit the back button the browser. It's not that I have to like or agree with everything in a story, but if I feel like the author doesn't understand that the female character is able to "grasp" one of the male character's interests, I'm not going to expect a great deal out of the author. I'm going to expect his female characters to be laughably shallow.

Notice that I switched from talking about what the narrator says to what the author thinks? I believe readers make that jump when the narrator says something so jarring without any sort of comment or device that makes it clear that the author knows better. In a situation like that, you could say something like, "Being a product of my times, I was impressed that Lenore grasped one of my interests. Back then, I hadn't seen girls show much interest in things like transportation." Otherwise, it sounds like the author and the narrator are in agreement that gee, it's amazing Lenore with her poor dumb girl brain can understand even one thing that the narrator understands. I hope that makes sense. I know from other conversations that what the narrator says there does not reflect your current thinking, but the readers don't have that benefit and plenty of them will be alienated.

What was the re-write process like?

 

[gunhilltrain]

I thought it was a lot more cohesive. It's hard to read this with fresh eyes because I already know a lot about your intentions. Knowing your intentions keeps from reading it the way I would read it if I just came across the story on my own.

There was a lot less in it that left me wondering why you were telling us about a particular thing. No soup! (Good choice.) There was a little more characterization of the friends at the party, but I was still left wondering why they mattered individually. I did get their relevance as a group this time, because they show the narrator's pride about having a girlfriend. I understood Martha was making out with a different guy she came in with this time, but still wasn't sure why that scene was included since it didn't seem to have an emotional impact on the characters. Maybe it was a comment on the fragility of relationships at that age? I wasn't sure.

I can see that Warren's projectile vomiting left an indelible impression on you! I got a different impression of the party this time, and it was probably more in line with what you were trying to portray. The last version referred to "drugs" and a "drug scene," so I assumed it involved multiple drugs heavier than pot. I might just be jaded, but when somebody says "drug scene," I don't think pot. This time, it made more sense why the narrator and Lenore are at this party, especially since it's a new relationship and she doesn't seem like a wild child. I also picked up on Lenore's awkward feeling this time, and didn't before.

One thing you may one to be careful of going forward is drawing a distinction between a description of the narrator's thoughts and attitudes at the time and the narrator's present-day thoughts and attitudes. Although you clarified the narrator's appreciation of Lenore's interest in transportation, what was also clarified was a very condescending attitude. When I read, "Yet I was impressed that Lenore could even grasp one of my interests," I am very likely to hit the back button the browser. It's not that I have to like or agree with everything in a story, but if I feel like the author doesn't understand that the female character is able to "grasp" one of the male character's interests, I'm not going to expect a great deal out of the author. I'm going to expect his female characters to be laughably shallow.

Notice that I switched from talking about what the narrator says to what the author thinks? I believe readers make that jump when the narrator says something so jarring without any sort of comment or device that makes it clear that the author knows better. In a situation like that, you could say something like, "Being a product of my times, I was impressed that Lenore grasped one of my interests. Back then, I hadn't seen girls show much interest in things like transportation." Otherwise, it sounds like the author and the narrator are in agreement that gee, it's amazing Lenore with her poor dumb girl brain can understand even one thing that the narrator understands. I hope that makes sense. I know from other conversations that what the narrator says there does not reflect your current thinking, but the readers don't have that benefit and plenty of them will be alienated.

What was the re-write process like?

Thank you for your response.

I think I mentioned that since these people wouldn't show up again in the series, I didn't really describe them well. It might have better to fictionalize it more and recreate characters from scratch instead of relying on dim memories. But it didn't seem worth it for a rewrite.

The drug scene I knew was mostly pot, with some psychedelics used by some of the "in-group." That's the way it was my own small social circle. The narrator does suggest that the wider scene was different - "the 1970s were saturated with drugs."

I keep getting into trouble with that damned elevated train. I thought the narrator made it clear that many New Yorkers, in fact many Americans, no little of transportation, history, or anything else. (Like in those Jay Leno videos where he finds people who know everything about pop culture but can't name one combatant nation in World War II.)

Maybe he should have been clearer that he would have found it notable that a guy would be interested in that. It seems pretty clear in the series (or it will anyway) that he respects Lenore's intelligence and finds that one of the most appealing things about her. That reflects my own experience with a girl I met in 1975 (mostly not the model for Lenore) who is now my ex-wife. She is now a lawyer specializing in land use and zoning. And yeah, she joined that same newspaper.

Actually she did know in 1975, or would know soon after, everything that Lenore knows. My own memory was that I was pleased but not that surprised about that aspect of her - and many other aspects. (Right now she could tell you what a PCC streetcar is, which 90% of Americans probably couldn't. Oh, yeah, she does know a huge amount about World War II, the Holocaust and other historical matters.)

I didn't describe what Martha was up to because I never knew what the real one was motivated by. I think she was still with the original boyfriend in the next year.

I got the rewrite done in a single afternoon. I never intended to make a bigger deal out of it because I wanted to move on. It was interesting as an experiment.

 

[Enchantment_of_Nyx]

I think the problem was the way you said it: "Yet I was impressed that Lenore could even grasp one of my interests." Being surprised she could "even grasp" a subject suggests being surprised she had the capacity to understand it. The fact that it's "one of [your] interests," suggests that you're surprised she can grasp any of your interests - not just elevated trains. If you'd said "I was surprised Lenore shared my interest in elevated trains - not many people did," I would have gotten a very different impression. Maybe it was just that one sentence that colored the rest of it.

Was it a drag doing the rewrite, or was it rewarding to make the fixes? I've got a chapter I've been thinking about rewriting, but I haven't made up my mind.

 

[gunhilltrain]

I think the problem was the way you said it: "Yet I was impressed that Lenore could even grasp one of my interests." Being surprised she could "even grasp" a subject suggests being surprised she had the capacity to understand it. The fact that it's "one of [your] interests," suggests that you're surprised she can grasp any of your interests - not just elevated trains. If you'd said "I was surprised Lenore shared my interest in elevated trains - not many people did," I would have gotten a very different impression. Maybe it was just that one sentence that colored the rest of it.

Was it a drag doing the rewrite, or was it rewarding to make the fixes? I've got a chapter I've been thinking about rewriting, but I haven't made up my mind.

Perhaps I should have fixed that conversation further in the rewrite, but it's too late now. I'll make up for it in later chapters, perhaps.

Just to digress a bit, I'm becoming aware of how much I have been almost unconsciously influenced by my ex-wife, Susan, in my writing. She wasn't at that party, but she later knew all of the people described there. But I've been getting that's it's better to fictionalize things than trying for half-remembered autobiography.

It was satisfying to do the rewrite. Of course, as I mentioned above, even more fixes will come up and one has to stop at some point (like maybe doing it only once) and then move on.

I'm doing another rewrite on a really old story. That brings up the problem: who is going to read it? Did I post a comment in the Feedback section, "Please read this thing from 2018?" Will anyone care?

There are other options you can consider. If it's a stand-alone story, and the changes are significant, you can re-post it here with a new title.

Or, you can do what I did: join another site and start fresh with a new audience. That's not so good for one chapter in a series, but I guess you could republish all the chapters there and see what kind of reaction you get from a different set of readers. Actually, they don't allow for anonymous comments from non-members so everyone avoids stepping on another's toes.