Literotica Writer's Group, Sep. 4

[KillerMuffin]

All right, round 2!

Since we figured everyone posting at once was a bad idea, let's try 3 this week. The appointed three are Judo, Mickey, and Steamy Chik since I got the feeling that the others weren't interested in going first. The rest of us will post a writing in 2 Mondays. No rush. Alex will be joining us as a critique artist, since he'll be very busy and may not get a chance to write. Otherwise, he can post a writing sample in two weeks like Me, Bluetrain, and cym will. For this round, we'll use the same objective picture. We'll see how that works out.

Timeline:

Next Monday: All writing samples from Judo, Mickey, and Steamy Chick should be posted, close of business, PST.
Second Monday: Second group, KM, cym, and bluetrain will have the opportunity to start writing. Critiquing of first group ends with first posting by anyone of second group.
Third Monday: All writing samples from group 2 should be posted.
Fourth Monday: All critiquing should end. We do that sit back and figure out how to improve the group thing.

The Rules, as it were:

Please try to keep your post to one word processor page in length. We don't have a tremendous lot of room here and it's about the writing itself, not the story.

Please try to remember that you're supposed to be constructive, not destructive, in your comments. The goal is to help improve the writing, not to be better than anyone else.

If you post a writing sample, you should participate in the discussion of others to help this bad boy work.

Please put an introduction on what kind of help you might be looking for at the top of your writing sample. like this:

Introduction about what we are about to read. A brief description of where we are in the story and what the story is in a sentence or two.

Then, follow with the prose to fill the rest of the page. It doesn't have to be a complete idea, story or thought. But hopefully it does fulfill what you intended.

When it comes to discussion, please put the name of the author whose sample you are discussing at the head of your discussions/critiques for clarity. You may put several in one post, just make sure it's clear what you're discussing.

Some helpful hints on the criticism portion of the postings:

Judo

After you post, the other writers in the group will respond with feedback on what works and what doesn't for them. Either way, responses should be constructive criticism. An idea the writer can build from to improve.

I like to think of this as a "safe space." Which means no judgemental, if offends me, egotistical commentary should be tolerated. Just help us poor writers get better.

Bluetrain

well, whenever we as a class analyze a story, i have my students use questioning that can only lead to formative, constructive answers or discovery.

questions come in three categories:

literal: questions that can be answered yes or no (example: "do you like this character?" or, "do I set up the conflict at all?"

interpretive: questions that can be debated and can be supported by the text at hand (examples: "how can I make this plot more cohesive?" or, "IN what ways can this dialogue sound more real?"

and finally, evaluative: questions whose answers go beyond the text to the critic's and writer's experiences. examples: "do YOU think this story is appropriate for the intended audience?" or, "would YOU ever have a conversation like these characters are having?"

obviously, we focus on interpretive and evaluative questioning, as they lead to better and more developed responses. the answers are only as good as the questions.....

The picture:

by Tal Shpantzer http://geocities.com/hollywood/academy/4134/

 

[JUDO]

Midnight on the Red Line

[Intro: This is the beginning of a story where two people meet and spark on the subway.]

Spazz had been up two days trying to debug the fucking server. He finally noticed that one of the include files had not been updated and recompiled.

Three in the fucking morning and not a Starbucks in sight. Jesus, I hate this goddamned job.

He walked by the noisy hookers on Hollywood Boulevard and let the quiet hum of the escalators take him into the lair of the new subway station. They'd almost destroyed half of glitter gulch building this thing and now there was a giant tunnel underground sitting on God knows how many fault lines. Yeah, that's a good idea.

The spanking clean, post-modern station was dead empty, not another soul on the platform. Spazz waited for the rush of wind that would tell him he could get on board and sleep. He watched. He wavered. He closed his eyes. There it is, the little breeze…

PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH! The Red Line flew into the station, braking to a slow stop. Spazz was at the door when the hydraulics let go. He stepped in the car, took two steps to the left and lay down across three seats. He let his head loll back as the momentum built. Clack-click, clack-clack, clack-click! Faster and faster the train hummed into the dark tunnel, flying along the tracks, taking him to his little apartment in West LA.

He shifted on the seats, trying to get comfortable and half-lidded his eyes so he wouldn't tumble into the aisle. That's when he noticed her.

Platinum hair, short, stocky, but pretty in a billowy silk dress. She watched him with one eye, exhaling the rest of her menthol cigarette out of the side of her mouth.

"Workin' late?"

Did she say that or…? "Yeah, forty-eight hours."

He tried to look disinterested, but there it was, dim and flickering, the flame of his ardor burned. Why for this woman? Why now? Ah fuck, there's no reasoning with your dick, thought Spazz.

"Man, that's a long shift. Who you work for?" She puffed on her cigarette again, the cloud hanging between them.

Spazz laughed. "Fuckin' dot com motherfuckers... bought a bunch a new servers and none of the software was compatible. Idiots!"

She smiled. Her lips curved into a red chili pepper, shining in the industrial lighting. Spazz liked her face.

"I don't know nothing 'bout all that Internet shit. An' glad I don't. Sounds much too complicated." Her foot started to dance at the end of her leg.

He sat up and crossed his arms, getting comfortable. "Why're you…what're you doin'…?" He yawned and couldn't finish.

"Rave. I'm a DJ…do mixes and shit."

"Really? That sounds cool."

 

[SteamyChik]

Subway Slut

Debra and I loved to ride the rails at night. The darkness, the danger, the clatter of the tracks added to the sexual charge. We usually waited until 3 or 4 in the morning when the trains are deserted except for the occasional tattooed gang member or pusher.

Debra reeked of sex. Her short blonde hair and compact body seemed spring loaded. She had great bones. A strong, mannish nose with deep-set eyes countered a full, pouty, feminine mouth. My dark looks complimented hers.

We stumbled, laughing, running to catch the train our hands all over each other.

“Hurry! The doors are shutting!” Debra raced for the door and stuck her arm inside so the it would moan open again.

I watch her tight little ass wiggle in tight black jeans. “Right behind you, baby,” I said, grabbing her ass and squeezing it tight.

Laughing, she grabbed the bars overhead and monkeyed her way to the middle of the car. She was wild tonight, high, flying on sex and danger and me. I crouched down and approached her, listening to her breathless giggle.

Making menacing faces, I stalked her. She squealed, running for the far door. “Come back here lady! I’m going to fuck you! Right here, right now in that tight pussy!” I grabbed for her and caught her shirt, twirling her around, pushing her back against the chairs. She caught the overhead bar to steady herself.

Pressing her hot, tight body against me, she purred, “Fuck me here, now? Now?” Her pelvis rubbed lewdly against my crotch, my dick already hard and leaking. Tilting her head back, her mouth a sexy target, she puckered her lips.

The train lurched; I grabbed the rail and swayed into her. My mouth coming down hard, our teeth smashed together. Biting her bottom lip, I growled, “Here now, I’m going to strip off your cock-teasing pants, tear off your panties.” I leaned over and bit her hungry neck. “Shove my hard cock into your wet hole, stretching you wide, filling you up.” I felt her arms around my neck, heard her soft moan.

The heat from our bodies fed the flames as the train clattered onward. Our moans, her screams filled the train with the sounds of sex.

“God yes, I’m coming!” Debra screamed in passion, her body contorting itself around mine.

Bellowing, I released my pent up sperm deep into her as the train began to slow down.

Sweaty, gasping for air, we laughed as we yanked on our clothes.

 

[Mickie]

The Karma Train

This was inspired by the game ‘Afterlife’ (which my daughter plays better than me!). I know next to nothing about subways, having only seen them in movies. (I’m from a medium-sized town in Iowa, you know. Subways are mythical creatures that live only in New York City; dragons of the future that have nothing to do with plows and cows. *Grins*) It isn’t finished, obviously, and I could have gone on for pages, but I’m following the rules. What I’d like to know is if the descriptions work. Do they give enough of an impression of the train, and the characters, or is more needed? Too much exposition in the beginning, or is it appropriate to set the scene? If I had more room to write, I would have included other characters within the train, but are they needed?

Mickie

The sky outside the window was dark, dotted with a myriad of stars that could have been other worlds. There was no sight of anything but darkness, although Tom was used to it. Years ago the thought of riding the rails between worlds had produced awe and a terrifying sense of vertigo. His trust in the rails had overcome the dizzy feeling of being about to fall after a century of daily, sometimes hourly voyages through the void.

Now the only thing that bothered him was the silence. His passengers sat in the seats, waiting to disembark without a sound. They were heading toward new lives at a speed that should have terrified them, but they traveled without even a single chirp of amazement, even those who came from primitive worlds that had never seen a subway.

Except today. Today was different, and Tom had to leave his comfortable chair in front of the controls.

“I don’t want to leave you.” The woman was pleading now; her face was marked with tears and pain. She stared up into the eyes of a man who had been with her in life.

A flash of memory assaulted Tom; a painful remembrance of something he’d lost and forgotten somewhere in the routine runs through the void. He sighed and let the feeling flow through him, knowing it would fade again. “Are you planning to ride the rail for the rest of eternity, then?” he asked, sliding into the chair in front of the couple. “As much as I’d like company, it sounds like a boring way to spend the rest of your existence.”

The woman turned her eyes to his face, anger flashing over her expression. Her hands clenched on the back of his seat before she leaned forward. “We didn’t ask to die,” she hissed. “Some drunk son of a bitch was driving on the wrong side of the road, and we’re being punished for it!” Her voice was crawling upward into the region of a scream.

Tom shook his head, placing on hand over her white knuckles in a comforting gesture. “I know. You have a right to be angry, but this is the way it’s supposed to work.”

“Don’t tell me that God has a plan for us,” the man said, his voice no less angry, although his tone was soft. “We had plans, too. I was driving Sara home from our wedding rehearsal.”

“It’s a human tragedy,” Tom said, patting the woman’s hand before turning to her husband-to-have-been. “The councilors probably told you about the soul’s need to move on from one life to another.”

“Of course they did.” Sara hiccuped, the strain of holding back the copious weeping forcing the sound from her throat. “They were all so understanding and kind, but none of them would help us.”

“They don’t have the power to change fate.” Tom patted her hand again. “The drunk driver that hit you had free will. He could drink and drive at that particular time. You chose to drive away from the church at that particular time. If anyone stopped you or him from doing what they chose to do, even though it would have saved lives, it would have impeded your free will. That’s what I was told, anyway, and it made sense to me.”

“Then let us stay together after death,” Sara said, drawing her hand from under his on the back of the chair. The hand moved to grasp the man’s fingers, holding them with the same white-knuckled ferocity. “Chris needs me in his life.”

The man, still dressed in the running outfit he’d worn to his wedding rehearsal, nodded. “We need each other.”

It still amazed Tom that, although a soul had no need of a physical form, everyone, without exception, remained as they’d been at the last happy moment of their physical existence. He, himself, had appeared naked at the gate, having died in his sleep after the most sublime sexual experience he’d ever had. It had taken him at least a year to figure out how to make clothing appear on the physical aspect of his soul. “So you expect to be apart in your next life?” he asked.

“What if Sara is born in India and I’m born in Canada?” Chris asked.

The man was so reasonable, so patient. It was obvious why Sara, who seemed to be more emotional and visceral, would find a need for him. Tom smiled, noting that the expression seemed to creak into being on his face, as if the muscles were unused to being used.

(Because I don’t have enough room to write more, and perhaps some of the crit is going to center around the fact that the picture has them standing and kissing, the scenario I was writing toward is when they finally agree to go on, and the kiss is the goodbye before they step out to begin their new life.)

 

[Mickie]

Sorry, folks, my paragraphing didn't come through. That's what happens when you're in a hurry!
Mick

 

[JUDO]

2 weeks!

Hey Mick!

What's the rush? We got two weeks before the critiques are finished on these three measily pages.

How about editing for your paragraphs?

Otherwise, I'm afraid a lot of your criticism will center around the formatting.

Take your time, you don't even have to finish submitting until next Monday, if you want. (Although, with the three of us having submitted already, I think "Critique Season" is open.)


- Judo

 

[Mickie]

Thanks, Judo, I'd forgotten about being able to edit a post. Silly me. Actually, though, I was in a hurry at that moment, not to write, but to get off the computer and go do the chores before the other half came in. I finished the bit this morning during coffee and donuts.

So, it's all fixed now. Let the critiquing begin! (sound of trumpets playing off key.)

Mickie

 

[KillerMuffin]

*pouncing on unsuspecting stories* Critique season is indeed open! I hope someone else notices...

Anyway.

Judo, you first.

I'ma ignore any mechanical errors. I'm sure you're smart enough to find them on your own in a re-read.

I wanna talk about stream of conciousness.

I didn't feel like you fully immersed yourself into his. Mostly cause you felt the need to put "Spazz thought" in there. Did you get fully into this guy when you wrote it? There were some extremely good lines that were all his colorful impressions of the world around him. Like how they'd torn up glitter gulch and how she had platinum hair. It's not the words themselves so much, but the way you strung them together.

Then there were parts where it wasn't quite so into him, like when he got onto the train itself, and when he started falling asleep.

"PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSH! The Red Line flew into the station, braking to a slow stop. Spazz was at the door when the hydraulics let go. He stepped in the car, took two steps to the left and lay down across three seats. He let his head loll back as the momentum built. Clack-click, clack-clack, clack-click! Faster and faster the train hummed into the dark tunnel, flying along the tracks, taking him to his little apartment in West LA. " <-- this is what he did.

"Platinum hair, short, stocky, but pretty in a billowy silk dress. She watched him with one eye, exhaling the rest of her menthol cigarette out of the side of her mouth." <-- this is what he "thought."

The first paragraph is mostly he did this, then he did that, then he did this again. The second paragraph is his impression of her and what she was doing. The fact that he notices the cigarette smoke rather than her boobs, or the platinum color of her hair rather than it being blonde.

I dunno, I suppose I think his opinion of the car would be a bit more interesting than what he did to get in it.

 

[JUDO]

Spazz

KM -

I was trying to come at Spazz from the sleep deprived perspective. You know, that view of the world you get when all you feel like is warmed-over oatmeal?

I didn't get him out of his office or down the elevator, but past the hookers, to the platform and on the subway. His impressions of her were largely the big things you might see (who knows if he is even able to focus his eyes at this point). The guy just wants to get home to bed and wakeup as a human again.

Then, out of nowhere, this smoking, platinum blonde DJ is in his eye-line and he gets attracted (kind of out of no where). Again, he is just dealing with what is in front of him. I assumed the billowy dress she was wearing was so loose that getting a good look at her figure was beyond what could be seen. But he gets attracted anyway.

I think the fun part for me was going to be two-fold: One, how and why do they kiss upon first meeting? (Is he able to be charming even though he probably smells and can barely stand?) and two, he is puzzled about why he's attracted to this stranger. (The puzzling could be a lot of fun. Him puzzling over why her, why now, while trying to be civil).

In your note, you mention that you thought his "impression of the car (subway car)" might be more interesting than what he did to get in it. I'm not sure I understand. Spazz would be passing his like/dislike of "car judgement" onto the reader (as he boards?)

In a rewrite perhaps the "I have done this a thousand times to get home mechanics of him getting on the car" might come across better. I was attemping to paint a portrait of Spazz and his relationship to the car by the way he rode it when he was this tired after his shit job.

Also, I am not certain what your objection to having "Spazz thought" would be.

And hit me with the mechanical errors. I'm not very smart.

- Judo

 

[KillerMuffin]

"He tried to look disinterested, but there it was, dim and flickering, the flame of his ardor burned. Why for this woman? Why now? Ah fuck, there's no reasoning with your dick, thought Spazz. " <-- this is where the thought came in. I don't think it's actually necessary to point out that's what he thought unless you're slipping in and out of his stream of consciousness.

I'm not too sure why, but that whole paragraph about getting on the subway car was a bit (incrementally, not in yardage or mileage) less than the rest. Maybe he could have kicked his feet up and wished it was padded not hard plastic, or he could have put his head down in someone's graffiti, "like they thought that wouldn't happen." Ordinarily it would have slipped under my radar, this paragraph, but when you have to really think about some writing, some things pop up a little more than others.

Mechanical errors fit in with the stream of consciousness, so if you made them, five or ten read throughs and they didn't blip on the muffscope.

 

[JUDO]

Wired

KM -

Okay, now I getcha. Thx, KM.

And now I see how we are wired differently. Your muffscope detects words, and mine detects...well...

Muffscope?! Couldn't resist.


- Judo

 

[Alex De Kok]

Sorry

Apologies folks, but there will be no critique coming from me this week. I can't remember a time when I've felt less like writing.

Alex

 

[JUDO]

For SteamyChik!

I am doing what I can to try to get my life's focus back on track. So, I am here to begin my critique contribution. Tough as it may be, we all have to start our first steps. Here goes mine...

SteamyChik's Subway Slut

I like the setup. The quick explanation of what's going on (liked to ride the rails) and the game of chase me, fuck me that Debra and her dick-packing, fuck-buddy (sorry, no name)were playing.

Everything flowed quickly and smooth right up until the line:

"Here now, I'm going to strip off your cock-teasing pants..."

The dialog from this point forward seemed rushed and a little strange. Almost like the character was speaking to the audience (the reader) rather than his partner. It sounds forced, like he's saying it for someone else to hear it, like was done at one time in primitive theater play-acting.

The sexual descriptions leading up to this point and communicated through the mind of "I" seems to try and go into another level of the 'game' they have been playing, but it doesn't come across that way. Rather than just "the chase", it's time to up it to "the sex."

But instead of a scene between the two characters completely fleshed out (so to speak), it seems more like you got to that point and realized you wanted to finish a fuck before the bottom of the page and rushed it.

Maybe not.

Perhaps if, Debra were to keep her end of the dialog up while the "I" is expressing what he is planning on doing to her, like this:

The train lurched; I grabbed the rail and swayed into her (love that). Biting her bottom lip, I growled, "Here now, baby, I need to get rid of these." I began to pull her jeans off.

"Not here, not now!" She yelled, feigning surprise. I grabbed her hips and spun her around.

I ripped the jeans down to her boots and the panties off her hips. She opened my pants, pulling me free.

"You're not gonna fuck me with that big cock, are you?"

She jacked me quickly. Shivers ran up my spine. I leaned into her and bit her neck. She tasted sweaty and oh, so sweet.

"Right in this wet hole, baby...to fill you...stretch you...fuck you." She threw her arms around my neck, moaning.

A lot of what you have, just written differently. With dialog by her and more "what does it feel like to him" thrown in.

Other than those two things, I would take a lot more time teasing the reader with her attitude and his all the while describing what is happening to their genitals and how it makes them feel. To say it differently, take a lot more time with the sex, emotionally, physically and mentally.

Maybe have them climax under a time constraint, like:

We knew it was only twelve minutes to Union Station from 52nd Street. We'd almost been caught by the janitor, working ourselves to a frenzy in the subway access before the train arrived.

Then, you could have them climax with the hydraulic brakes or just after the station arrival announcement. And get zipped up, just in time to pass the several business men, making morning flights. Or maybe she likes the exhibitionism and leaves her pants off as she leaves, giving the business a show.

Critique Summary

Love the setup. Pay it off with more involvement (action, dialog) by both partners. Heighten the emotion with the time constraint (called "Up(ping) the Stakes"). And give the reader what they are feeling: physically, mentally and emotionally, especially during the sex.

- Judo

 

[SteamyChik]

Judo said: And give the reader what they are feeling: physically, mentally and emotionally, especially during the sex.

Thanks for the thoughts...I'm not sure I can deliver all that in 1 page though!

 

[JUDO]

OK!

If you can't do it in one page, then, that's okay. Do it on page two!

- Judo

 

[Bluetrain]

hey all,

I'm still doing feedback, just on my own sweet timeframe
(i just know you're all simply waiting with baited breath for my critiques..);

hope everyone's getting back on a path in life,

b

 

[Bluetrain]

Judo feedback

What struck me first was how your imagery was metallic in nature: "glitter gulch," "spanking clean," "fault lines," hydraulics," platinum." This is purely an urban story to start, right down to the characters' occupations and descriptions. you do a good job of obliquely presenting the setting without become Dos Passosian in describing it. I wonder if you chose the Red Line simply for the route it takes, or because it could foreshadow the red of passion, or the red of blood infusing Spazz' nether regions?

I found myself disliking Spazz immensely. maybe because i dislike anyone who bitches about a job yet still does it, maybe because he had the help-desk snobbery attitude that can overcome technology field workers. i wanted him to blow whatever chance he might have had with the platinum blond.

KM has hit upon the stream of consciousness points I was going to comment on, so enough with those.

Dialogue: the rhythm sounds natural, but some of the words don't. Here's an example:


"I don't know nothing 'bout all that Internet shit. An' glad I don't. Sounds much too complicated." Her foot started to dance at the end of her leg.

I can't reconcile her urban speech characteristics of dropping the last phoneme and streamlining her vowels with her saying, "Sounds much too complicated." That last utterance seems like its coming from someone different. Is she switching speech codes by accident?

Also, if she's into raves and mixing, would the Net seem "too complicated" to someone whose life is mixing consoles, sequencers, compressors, gates, looping, etc? Is she simply trying to get him to talk more with her?

Also, that "cloud of smoke" that hangs between them: could that stand for the uncertainty of their relationship? or is it just a cloud of smoke...

good writing, judo,

b

 

[Bluetrain]

Steamychik's story feedback

kudos to steamychick for schwing! symbolism in her story!

to wit:

"Debra raced for the door and stuck her arm inside so the it would moan open again."

Can we get any more suggestive than this? I love it! Especially when you couple (pun fully intended) it with the completely phallic train as a setting. es[ecially the train moving slickly through a tunnel. whew!

again, as judo already covered the discrepancy between the dialogue and the action (I, too, was wondering how they had got their clothes off, especially those tight jeans), i'll leave that alone, except to say that we should all attempt to follow the one page limit, but can disregard it somewhat if we find we're compromising our stories to fit the guidelines (that's too much like real-world publishing!)

only thing to add would be to juxtapose the climax with something to do with thetrain -- the horn, the brakes, the whizzing through a station with lots of WHITE light everywhere...

there's a short story by Kate Chopin, I think, called "The Storm," in which the two lovers consummate a passion while the husband's away. The seduction grows as a thuderstorm grows nearer, climaxes as the storm passes overhead, and afterglows as the storm fades away. Setting/sexual parallels work well.

one thing, though, steamychik: how could you flesh out you narrator's thoughts more?

 

[Bluetrain]

Mickie feedback

fascinating storyline - -especially how you've taken a concrete photo and made it into something ethereal.

great job on physical description; you describe your setting, your characters, and your characters' thoughts quite well. hints of your narrator's past, like his not discovering how to assume clothing until a year had passed, you also present adroitly (I hate using that word, but it fit)

your narrator seems like a latter-day Charon. does he take any form of payment?

at first your dialogue, especially Sara's, seemed stilted, but then I thought it may have been because of the situation she was in. Plus, Chris is the more stoic of the two, and thus more thoughtful, while Sara falls back on cliches.

Is Tom supposed to be as numb and emotionless as he comes across as? Perhaps that's an aspect of his job, perhaps he was like that before death (though, since he died in coitus, he probably wasn't). either way, he gave me the creeps!

 

[JUDO]

Mickie's "Kharma"

Hey Mick!

Interesting premise. A train which ferries souls to new worlds where they will be dropped off in their next lives, yet while traveling, they still retain memories of their past lives.

In my notes for you, there are a few specific items and one big one.

Small stuff
1) WS is better at critiquing sentence structure than I am, but the sentence in paragraph one:

"His trust in the rails had overcome the dizzy feeling of being about to fall after a century of daily, sometimes hourly voyages through the void."

Seems like a bit much for one sentence. Perhaps two. I had to read it twice to make sense of it first time. One of those little 'hiccups' that a reader should never get.

2)When you switch to the first line of dialog, the reader is in the mind of Tom, the "driver." I think you meant the line to be a bit of a shock to the reader...a surprise, but the description of who she is talking to...

"...a man who had been with her in life."

...confused me on first read. Was she talking to Tom? Did I miss something? Somehow, the man she is talking with needs to be presented differently, so that we know he is not Tom. Present the couple together sitting behind Tom or in his rearview mirror or something perhaps?

You reference the couple in the following paragraph, but too late to clear the confusion on my part.

3) I didn't recognize Tom's gentle reassuring touch over the woman's white knuckles as being the same as "...the same white-knuckle ferocity." I had to go back and look to find out how "the same white-knuckle ferocity" had appeared before. Small, yes, but interrupts the read.

4)I like the idea of the clothes puzzlement that Tom has, but it seems like it would be better left for another conversation where it could really be expressed in more detail or paid off in a bigger way. It's a fun bit, but too much for the one tiny paragraph.

5)The silence. Tom mentions the silence that bothers him in the beginning and then it's interrupted by the talk he has with the couple. You attempted to set up the silence being "different" by explaining three sentences later that "today was different." But I didn't know exactly to what that referred. "Today was different" is contained in a paragraph apart from the paragraph that explained the silence which also contains an sentence of Tom leaving his seat (is that also unusual? Tom leaving his seat?). Perhaps, if the "today was different" was in the same paragarph of the silence paragraph (the one before) and Tom getting up was in it's own paragraph, it would be clearer.

The BIG thing

Paragraph to paragraph, the level of intimacy with Tom and his own thoughts and the intimate, frustrated portrayal of the couple feels more like the prose lurches forward with an unusual, almost interruptive rhythm.

Tom is engaging the couple into thinking about their situation and at the same time, his mind wanders into "deep thoughts" that run away from the emotion at hand. For example, the clothes aside, the smile aside, the examinations of the couple's appropriateness "his resonable patients as compared to her visceral emotion," His painful rememberance of something almost forgotten.

When Tom goes into his brain, I stopped thinking about what was going on with the couple and felt distracted (like Tom's thoughts touched on something very deep and needed more fleshing out) when we returned to the couple's story.

How to Fix?

Well, gee, I'm really not certain how to fix it, perhaps it doesn't need fixing, but...a couple of ideas: 1) Perhaps, spend more time in Tom's mind each time you go there. Make certain the relevance of his deep thoughts relating to the situation in front of him is easily understood and clear to him (and us). 2) Use related adjectives and adverbs to get the deep thoughts of Tom to "connect" with the descriptions of the couple and their actions.

Summary
Great work, Mick. Seems just to need an overall polish. The unusual rhythm you establish with the deep thoughts of Tom and the immediate frustration of the couple might have been intentional. Perhaps, this is what gave bluetrain the feeling that the piece felt "ethereal." In which case, just make it more consistent throught the body of prose.


- Judo

 

[JUDO]

Semi-conscious

bluetrain -

Funny how almost all of the stuff you hit upon in reading my page was semi-conscious on my part. I didn't think about them, they just came out.

The mettalic stuff, my mind was in the setting of the new stations they have in Los Angeles...underground, new, clean, late at night, metal, plastic.

Yeah, Spazz can certainly be a pain. He gets paid very well, but is a burn-out. He's been doing what is expected to be a burn-out job well past the burn-out limit. He needs to move on, but for whatever reason, he hasn't.

And a couple of great takes on how to play out the story, if I were to continue it. Spazz would definitely not "get the girl" instead, the DJ would end up being a frustrating tease after drawing him into her mystery. He would go home with a "what might have been" and feeling that he had to quit his job or go sexually insane. hahaha!

Such an ending would certinaly keep with the modern techno noir I've started with.

Thanks.

Oh yeah and the cloud of smoke between them was intended for the fuzzy visual his POV would have looking at her, but the symbolism really comes into play with the above new ending scenario inspired by your critique.


- Judo

PS - O, one other thing...is Charon the river Styx boatman?

 

[Bluetrain]

yes, in Greek mythology, Charon was the boatman who ferried the dead across the river Styx into Hades. Ancient Greeks would place a coin beneath the decease's tongue before burying or burning the body as Charon wouldn't ferry without payment.

Charon was notoriously crusty and irritable (though Virgil and Dante gave him his due in Dante's Inferno); Tom seems a more kindly and empathic "boatman," though he still seems rather discompassionate. But perhaps that's his nature as a soul conveyer.

 

[JUDO]

Water the plant!

Alex, Mickie, KM, Steamy -

Are we just dying on the vine here?


- Judo

 

[Alex De Kok]

Sorry!

I've been a little occupied.

First, mother-in-law is now out of hospital, hip pinned. She gets around her little apartment on her zimmer OK, but if she wants to go out into the great outdoors it means my wife and/or myself as wheelchair attendant. We don't mind, she is a great old lady.

Then I had the shock of being invited for interview for a JOB! Shock, horror, I haven't worked since 1995. Been too busy with my degree studies. I started work Monday last.

Things are settling down and I actually looked at some of my writing last night. I still haven't read the stories from JUDO, SteamyChik and Mickie properly (i.e. critically) , and I haven't actually written anything since my dialog(ue) experiment when we started this group. I hope to do something soon, but perhaps what I need is to come in on a fresh start. I haven't gone away!

Alex

 

[Mickie]

Sorry, I've been a bit pre-occupied for a while. I'll be reading through everything this afternoon and posting a proper feedback as soon as I can.

Mick