Story Discussion: March 26, 2007. "I Want To Play A Game" by Wesley King.

[king_wesley]

The Introduction:

Hello, I am Wesley King.

I started writing about 15 months ago. My writings pretty much exclusively fall under the mind control category and the one I have chosen to share with you all is no exception.

It is called "I Want To Play A Game" and as the title may suggest is loosely moulded around a popular horror franchise, but the tale is completely sans blood and gore and other such nastiness.

The whole story comes in two parts which total around 12000 words. As I am aware this is a lot of reading, I am happy for the discussion to be centred around the opening half of the story, but if anybody wishes to read further and comment, those views will be equally welcome.

 

[king_wesley]

The Story

As mentioned before the story comes in two parts. The first part is the text I am officially submitting for discussion but I am also going to give a link to the conclusion for those who may wish to read on.

Of course readers are free to comment on as much or as little as they like.

Part One

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=294389


Part Two

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=294414


Happy reading

 

[king_wesley]

The Discussion:

When it comes to writing I am aware that I am lacking in some pretty vital areas. As I mentioned before I have been writing for 15 months and when I say that, I mean that the first piece of fition I wrote period was 15 months ago. Until then my only writing experience is through school and university essays.

I enjoy coming up with ideas and twisting known concepts. Therefore I am interested on what people feel about the premise and story given here. My hope is that it does work regardless of your familiarity with the film it parodies.

I also experimented here with the absense of character descriptions, leaving readers free to visualise the scene to their tastes. I do not know if this was successful though.

Overall, any opinions you wish to share are welcome, be it about the writing or the story. I am aware that this genre probably is not a favourite amongst forum members here, but i hope there are some aspects of the piece from which you can take enjoyment.


Thank you for your time.

Wesley King.

 

[Varian P]

Hi, Wesley.

There are some fun elements to your story. I appreciate the humor implicit in your parody of the “Saw” movies, and the related spin on the moral flaws of the characters which have landed them in the game. I'll confess in advance that have have only the scantiest familiarity with the horror parody genre, so take my paltry bit of advice for no more than what it's worth.

I enjoy coming up with ideas and twisting known concepts. Therefore I am interested on what people feel about the premise and story given here. My hope is that it does work regardless of your familiarity with the film it parodies.

At times the plight of the four women felt like a a light, titillating spoof delivering a post-feminist cautionary tale, and at other times the story felt more like scenes of awful violence perpetrated against “bad” women who “deserve” to be raped, wrapped up to look ironic. So I wavered between being amused and being a bit revolted, which in some ways is not so far from the reaction I experienced with the original movie.

I also experimented here with the absense of character descriptions, leaving readers free to visualise the scene to their tastes. I do not know if this was successful though.

I didn't mind (or even really notice) a dearth of physical descriptions of the characters.

What did detract from the story, though, was that it lacked any real atmosphere. I realize this is a parody of the horror genre, and that you're not necessarily trying to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. But I'm guessing you'd either like the reader to feel real suspense, or else really laugh at the parody, or maybe vacillate between the two. At this stage, I don't think you've quite managed either.

Your opening paragraph is a perfect opportunity to make me feel seriously scared and creeped out (which you could then exploit for a laugh, if you want, when you reveal the parody). Trisha waking up in a druggy haze in unfamiliar surroundings is a horrifying situation, made more terrifying a few lines later with the discovery she's been bound, but the prose makes it all almost blasé. There's nothing sinister or mysterious about the description of the furnishings in the workshop, and no sooner do we learn her wrists and ankles are shackled than that is dismissed as not her “main concern.” Instead of glossing over the terror of waking up tied down in some unfamiliar locale, I suggest drawing out the tension and building it, realization by realization.

Part of building up the suspense is giving the reader a chance to feel and empathize with the character's sensations and emotions. Details like her head spinning, her blurred vision, realizing she can't sit up to look around—those are great. But let me feel the sensation of the restraints – is it cold metal pressing against her wrist and ankle bones? Or leather or fabric digging into her soft flesh? How does she realize she's naked? Is it the cold air raising goose bumps? The press of the cold surface of the table she's on against her back and ass and backs of her legs? When she feels something pressing against her pussy, her first instinct would probably be to clamp her legs closed—her helplessness to do so is another great opportunity to build on the initial terror of discovering the restraints.

As the story goes on, I feel like the premise is amusing, with lots of potential. But generally, as with the opening, things feel rushed. More detail—especially in the physical and emotional reactions of the characters to their predicament—is needed to let me feel scared or laugh or get turned on (and I think your premise easily allows for all three).

-Varian

 

[king_wesley]

Hi, and first let me thank you for taking the time to read the story, it is apreciated. Sorry I could not come back earlier, university has been very hectic this week so I haven't been able to get here.

Hi, Wesley.

What did detract from the story, though, was that it lacked any real atmosphere. I realize this is a parody of the horror genre, and that you're not necessarily trying to raise the hairs on the back of my neck. But I'm guessing you'd either like the reader to feel real suspense, or else really laugh at the parody, or maybe vacillate between the two. At this stage, I don't think you've quite managed either.

In essense, my intentions for this story was to try and write something entertaining. I don't necessarily mean funny but at the same time, I find it very difficult to write anything without attempting to throw in humour here or there (Sometimes it can even go too far and appear just for the sake of it.)

I was not attempting to scare or horrify people despite the situation and inspiration. This may prove an impossible task as readers will naturally connect things with the film for one and secondly, imagining this as a real scenario is far from light.

Your opening paragraph is a perfect opportunity to make me feel seriously scared and creeped out (which you could then exploit for a laugh, if you want, when you reveal the parody). Trisha waking up in a druggy haze in unfamiliar surroundings is a horrifying situation, made more terrifying a few lines later with the discovery she's been bound, but the prose makes it all almost blasé. There's nothing sinister or mysterious about the description of the furnishings in the workshop, and no sooner do we learn her wrists and ankles are shackled than that is dismissed as not her “main concern.” Instead of glossing over the terror of waking up tied down in some unfamiliar locale, I suggest drawing out the tension and building it, realization by realization.

Point taken, I probably truth be told did rush the opening in an attempt to basically just get the situation down on paper. I realise there is plenty of space for elaboration and I intend to keep this in mind if I ever decide to return to this universe again.

Especially considering if I relate back to the films, a lot of emphasis is placed on drawing out the 'players' discovery of exactly what lies in store for them, I agree there were opportunities missed here.

Part of building up the suspense is giving the reader a chance to feel and empathize with the character's sensations and emotions. Details like her head spinning, her blurred vision, realizing she can't sit up to look around—those are great. But let me feel the sensation of the restraints – is it cold metal pressing against her wrist and ankle bones? Or leather or fabric digging into her soft flesh? How does she realize she's naked? Is it the cold air raising goose bumps? The press of the cold surface of the table she's on against her back and ass and backs of her legs? When she feels something pressing against her pussy, her first instinct would probably be to clamp her legs closed—her helplessness to do so is another great opportunity to build on the initial terror of discovering the restraints.

Definately agree here. I possibly focused a lot on what was going on inside her head and less about what she was feeling. Reading through this I can see that a room and set up that was very clear to me has remained in my head so I have inadvertantly kept it secret from the readers.

I can definately agree that written again, the opening sequence to this chapter could be a good few hundred words at least longer.

As the story goes on, I feel like the premise is amusing, with lots of potential. But generally, as with the opening, things feel rushed. More detail—especially in the physical and emotional reactions of the characters to their predicament—is needed to let me feel scared or laugh or get turned on (and I think your premise easily allows for all three).

-Varian

I am glad that you can see the concept itself working even if the execution left something to be desired. I will admit I have one or two confessions to make here which I hope will not cast me in to bad of a light here with the better authors.

The story was written in word pad, not by choice but because I had just at the time moved to Korea and the only access to computers I had were internet cafes designed for playing games and so lacked proper word processors. This situation meant I was a) writing within an uncomfortable programme and b) was paying to write by the hour when money was short so I lot of the time I was writing with a sort of get to 1000 words by x pm and then come back tomorrow. Now since then I have moved to a place where I have MS Word readily available so that should not have been an excuse.

I am hoping to improve at this and the hardest part for me is getting what is inside my head into written form. At times I see the writing part of storywriting as purely the means to the end, the part that has to be done and I more hope what is written reads like what is in my head then take any real pains to make sure of that.

I am trying to rectify these points, and acknowledge there is still a long way to go. Hearing comments such as this at least give me some pointers as to which directions I need to focus on most and I thank you for that.

Wesley

 

[Varian P]

I am glad that you can see the concept itself working even if the execution left something to be desired. I will admit I have one or two confessions to make here which I hope will not cast me in to bad of a light here with the better authors.

The story was written in word pad, not by choice but because I had just at the time moved to Korea and the only access to computers I had were internet cafes designed for playing games and so lacked proper word processors. This situation meant I was a) writing within an uncomfortable programme and b) was paying to write by the hour when money was short so I lot of the time I was writing with a sort of get to 1000 words by x pm and then come back tomorrow.

No need to feel sheepish; we all write under constraints of one kind or another, and it's perfectly valid to put a story out there and let readers' reactions inform where you need to go next, in revising a particular story, or with your writing, more generally.

I am hoping to improve at this and the hardest part for me is getting what is inside my head into written form.

I'm certain you've got lots of company, there, myself included. Visualizing a scene in one's head, with every sight and scent and sound and sensation vivid, with a clear sense of the thoughts and emotions one means to put across, is the easy part (and even that's damn hard, sometimes). Getting that scene across with words--choosing just which words and phrases will convey the essential aspects of the scene, and avoiding over-describing inessential things--can feel virtually impossible. I continue to be amazed at how little the scenes I write resemble what I started out trying to depict, and it's always interesting to hear readers' responses and watch the gaps between intention and reality get bigger.

All part of the process.

-Varian

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi Wesley,

I'm not too familiar with horror story franchises, which could make me a valuable or useless critic. I wasn't sure if this one was meant to be scary, sexy, or funny. For me, it was mostly funny.

I awoke to discover I was a naked captive...

This is such a common n/c opening that I really needed something other than what usually follows to keep my interest and you at least did that. What compelled me to read on more than anything else was simple curiosity. I wanted to know what the game would be and whether the characters would figure it out and get away. The riddle is mildly interesting, but it would have been so much more so had it been something I could have tried to figure out too- this would have had the added benefit of helping me bond with the characters.

What didn't work for me was that I couldn't come close to suspending my disbelief and I didn't find a character with whom I cared to identify. This is one of those tales where a wavering POV really bothered me, especially the lengthy digressions involving Mandy and Sarah. The point of these scenes eluded me and I confess to having skimmed the latter. All this left me unsure which character's story I was meant to share or even if I was meant to want the characters to fail- thus I ended up being more an audience to the events instead of a participant.

I didn't even notice that the characters are not described in a physical sense, which suggests to me it was probably the right decision. What I did notice is how the characters, especially in their dialogue, alternate between fresh and stale- sometimes they seem genuinely frightened and other times it's like they're discussing a grade school science fair project. But where's their angst? Do they ever cry? If they do, I missed it. I know I would have cried off and on.

And I'd have been seeing-red-pissed too when I wasn't crying. I'm not sensing a lot of that from either Jade or Trisha. Aren't they upset about having been kidnapped, let alone for ridiculous reasons? Really- who is in the position of responsibility and authority in sex-for-grades or sex-for-career-advancement schemes? And Jade is supposedly subjected to all this for being a stuck up bitch? Oh, and it's ok for Terry to have sex with a strange woman, but the woman is somehow remiss? :roll eyes: The only ire I recall seeing from Trisha and Jade is when one of them yells about it being bullshit- but instead of agreeing, the other says to calm down. Of course, Michelle and Terry are villains and they can harbor unreasonable beliefs- they can even be insane, but Trisha and Jade don't seem nearly so offended as I was toward the nonsensical reasoning of their captors, let alone having been kidnapped in the first place. This is what led me to wonder if I was supposed to want them to suffer for their 'sins', which I was never going to do.

The whole magic drug thing was also just too much for me to believe. The scene where Samantha succumbs is a step in the right direction- showing me that the drug exists- but I still never found it quite credible. Maybe setting the story in the future would have helped? This next thought may stem from my vivid memory of Verdad's heroine injection scene: if needles loaded with the magic drugs were part of the devices, ready to inject Trisha and Jade at any moment- that would have added an element of terror for me. That the drugs are already in their system is less threatening- and less believable too.

Perhaps because of I doubted the drug's existence, I considered the possibility that Samantha might be in cahoots with the captors and faking her transformation. Either way, I think it would have made for interesting situations if Samantha had insisted on receiving sexual favors in exchange for every little thing she did for Jade and Trisha- like turning off the lights.

It never dawned on me that Michelle was the ringleader. I liked that. Was there any foreshadowing related to this twist? Having Michelle silent most of the story may not have been the best choice. She could have had so many great lines! I liked the Barbie doll puppet idea too, though I had a hard time picturing what a homemade version would be, a Barbie doll being the epitome of not homemade- or was that meant to be part of the humor?

The tale was funny in several places and I suppose it could have worked as a horror spoof- but it's not in the humor category, so I have to think it was meant to be sexy or scary. Sexy I don't think it would ever have been for me, but it could have been quite scary with a little tighter perspective. Even with those issues, it was at least an interesting enough tale to keep my attention.

Usually we try not to point out a little grammar issues, misspellings, or typos, but since you're a relatively new writer of fiction, I think it's worth noting that there are some recurring punctuation issues, especially those with sentences containing dialogue. The rules for this are harldy universal and they aren't intuitive either. The Litertica writer's resources has many articles, a few of which relate to punctuation. I don't know if they'll help you, but they did me.
Writer's reasources: http://www.literotica.com/storyxs/writ_stor.shtml
"How To Make Characters Talk" : http://www.literotica.com:81/stories/showstory.php?id=8982
"How to Punctuate Like a Pro" : http://www.literotica.com/faq/05235347.shtml

Another minor note: one of the words I search for when editing my stories is 'was'. For instance: Trisha's head was spinning. It's often better to phrase this in a more active manner, like: Trista's head spun. Another example: The girls' conversation was cut short sounds of distortion coming from the television monitor across from them. What about something like this: Crackling sounds erupted from the television monitor, cutting short the girl's conversation. It's a subtle difference and I wouldn't want to imply that we shouldn't use 'was' at all, but it's often an indication of a passive or otherwise weak sentence.

Well, I think that's enough nitpicking. Two final thoughts:

(a) The wavering perspective is by far the single biggest thing that kept me at a distance from this story.
(b) It's not a bad story at all from someone who's been writing fiction but a year.

Hope you find some of that useful.

Thanks bunches for sharing your story.

Take Care,
Penny

 

[Penelope Street]

The opening paragraph is a perfect opportunity to make me feel seriously scared and creeped out (which you could then exploit for a laugh, if you want, when you reveal the parody). Trisha waking up in a druggy haze in unfamiliar surroundings is a horrifying situation, made more terrifying a few lines later with the discovery she's been bound, but the prose makes it all almost blasé. There's nothing sinister or mysterious about the description of the furnishings in the workshop, and no sooner do we learn her wrists and ankles are shackled than that is dismissed as not her “main concern.” Instead of glossing over the terror of waking up tied down in some unfamiliar locale, I suggest drawing out the tension and building it, realization by realization.

Part of building up the suspense is giving the reader a chance to feel and empathize with the character's sensations and emotions. Details like her head spinning, her blurred vision, realizing she can't sit up to look around—those are great. But let me feel the sensation of the restraints – is it cold metal pressing against her wrist and ankle bones? Or leather or fabric digging into her soft flesh? How does she realize she's naked? Is it the cold air raising goose bumps? The press of the cold surface of the table she's on against her back and ass and backs of her legs? When she feels something pressing against her pussy, her first instinct would probably be to clamp her legs closed—her helplessness to do so is another great opportunity to build on the initial terror of discovering the restraints.

I love these suggestions!

 

[Penelope Street]

I will admit I have one or two confessions to make here which I hope will not cast me in to bad of a light here with the better authors.

The story was written in word pad, not by choice but because I had just at the time moved to Korea and the only access to computers I had were internet cafes designed for playing games and so lacked proper word processors. This situation meant I was a) writing within an uncomfortable programme and b) was paying to write by the hour when money was short so I lot of the time I was writing with a sort of get to 1000 words by x pm and then come back tomorrow.

Why would such dedication cast you in a bad light?!

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Hi Wesely,

Like Penelope, I haven't seen, or am I ever likely to see any of the current popular Horror series.

To me, it read like a mediocre porn movie. The abducted girls show no real emotion at their current predicament.

I found some of your paragraphs, especially the ones at the start of the story very long, and for the most part, not very interesting.

The shock of this caused her mind to clarify almost instantaneously and the full scale of her predicament hit her.

The problem is that the reader never sees how her current predicament impacts her.

"Hey," called out the girl with the ass device. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I think so," replied Trisha, "How did we get here?"

"Nobody has a fucking clue," responded the girl with the mechanical bra. "We all just woke up here. The name's Samantha, what's yours?"

"Trisha,"

This exchange sounds like the girls are bored, sitting on a bus, making idle chit-chat. The tone, and subtance of their conversation doesn't match the seriousness of their situation.

The part where the monitor comes to life and talks to each of the girls reminds me of a warped Charlie's Angels intro....

I didn't care for the story, it didn't hold my interest at all.

Good luck, and thanks for submitting your story to be looked at.

 

[Penelope Street]

This exchange sounds like the girls are bored, sitting on a bus, making idle chit-chat. The tone, and substance of their conversation doesn't match the seriousness of their situation.

I agree- this first exchange is one of the most stilted and most important too, but it's such a difficult moment to write if one wants it to be realistic. Thankfully I've never experienced a moment of sheer terror like this, but I'm sure the full scale of my predicament wouldn't hit me in anything like a single moment of clarity. I imagine I'd just lose it over the course of several minutes- screaming, shaking, stuttering, hyperventilating, crying, tugging at my restraints, praying, wetting myself. Maybe in the opposite order, lol, but I don't expect I'd calm down until I was out of breath, if then.

I haven't seen, or am I ever likely to see any of the current popular Horror series.

Are those who haven't seen the film missing something? How do the characters in the movie react? Similar to the same way Trisha and Jade do? Is their almost casual chit-chat meant to be a parody?

I probably truth be told did rush the opening in an attempt to basically just get the situation down on paper.

Trying to capture such a moment with words is difficult enough, but I can't even imagine doing so in an internet cafe. I'd be just too distracted. Like Rumple has said on more than one occasion, the opening is the most important part of a story. I'm curious what portion of the time Wesley spent writing this story went into the first thousand or so words.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Are those who haven't seen the film missing something? How do the characters in the movie react? Similar to the same way Trisha and Jade do? Is their almost casual chit-chat meant to be a parody?

I don't know. I'm just judging from VarianP's comment.

I appreciate the humor implicit in your parody of the “Saw” movies, and the related spin on the moral flaws of the characters which have landed them in the game.

I don't know if we are missing something because we are unfamiliar with the movie or not.

 

[Verdad]

Hi, Wesley. I'm a bit late, but I hope not too late.

Like others before me, I first have to confess complete cluelessness about the genre as a whole and the movie you used as inspiration in particular. Without any knowledge of the original, I can't decide how closely you relied on the movie and thus can't decide how much to credit your imagination, but I have to say that as a naïve reader I was pleasantly surprised by the idea and found it quite amusing.

You assessed the situation rather accurately yourself: the execution leaves something to be desired, but you do seem to have a knack for creating an interesting situation. Ideas beyond those of quickly getting two people in bed are often as sorely lacking in the first efforts as is the mastery of the craft, so already this refreshingly wacky idea sets your story apart, as well as the fact that it is a story. The writing isn't bad for an early effort, either, especially if you view it as a rough draft in need of expansion.

As for those pestering little details, you've already got a lot of good suggestions from others, so I'm going to do a lot of reiterating.

One thing that got a laugh out of me is when Darkside said your characters sounded a lot like Charlie's Angels. That was exactly my association as well, and I spent a moment pondering whether that's a good or bad thing. At first I was irritated, of course (definitely not a fan), but then again, I can't deny it helped me 'recognize' the characters and the atmosphere, whether I liked them or not.

In that sense and if that was your intention, I guess it worked well, setting the mood in an economic way. Perhaps you only need to balance it a bit better, so that the characters don't appear as if they're jumping from 'normal' mode to Charlie's Angels gags mode in a too distracting way.

Some of the things that bothered Penny, oddly, didn't bother me, namely the question of the POV and that of the empathic connection with characters. The division between plot-driven and character-driven fiction is generally rather artificial, as are most neat dichotomies, but in this case it seems to come handy, since I was able to enjoy the story for its plot-driven component. The characters I took for deliberate caricatures and didn't miss a much closer connection with them.

Somewhat closer, yes—in that sense which Varian mentioned, of a lot of possible delicious details having been skipped—but not as close as to really slip into their skins. Watching-rather-than-participating is how I'd describe it too, only for me it wasn't a flaw.

For that kind of approach, omniscient narration seems a perfect choice, and apparently it was the one you chose. I'm saying "apparently", though, because what I interpreted as omniscience, Penny interpreted as a wavering limited POV, and the vagueness of the story in critical places makes it impossible to tell who of us is right.

Even as I read, I caught myself thinking, hmm, omniscience is a great idea, but would you be able to maintain it once you started filling in the details? God knows that's not easy, but for the story to reach its full potential, fill them in you should. If you manage to do it without getting in a POV mess, the result could be very fun and satisfying.

There was one thing about the characters I found problematic, though. So they're quick sketches with a satiric bend and no serious aspirations toward realism. That's perfectly okay. But, they also appeared rather mutually interchangeable, and that's not okay. For me, the biggest charm of a story with a lot of quickly sketched out characters is that each of them have a distinct story/personality. The point of the plot was that they all have something in common, of course, but I would have found the story more memorable and easier to follow if the characters' variations on the same 'sin' were a bit more…varied.

I'll use this opportunity to mention that I didn't miss the physical descriptions at all, and that by this distinctiveness of character I don't mean something like giving each girl a different hair color. I think, in fact, that you should get special points for not having done that… But, while the different bound positions made the initial distinguishing of the characters in the main story easy enough, and while the aspiring actress and the secretary had different enough situations to cope with in their episodes, the history of Mandy, the secretary, appeared virtually identical to that of one of the main three, and at that point it started being both confusing and as if you'd ran out of ideas.

Still, Mandy's episode was the highlight of the story for me, most suspenseful, best drawn, and coming closest to being sexy, with the actress episode next in line even if more roughly drafted, so if you decide to flash out the characters better and make them more distinctive, I'd say it's the ones in the main story who need it the most.

As far as the main premise goes—that of the villain's ability to 'punish' the captives by modifying their behavior—that's where I noticed the same thing as Penny. Of course it's a situation that requires a healthy doze of suspense of disbelief, but even so, I don't think you worked hard enough to convince us of its mechanism.

Another little thing I have to get off my chest is the word "predicament". It's as minor observation as they come, so it's of doubtful usefulness that I share it, but you used it a couple times on a single page and it really got stuck in my mind. Some words are virtually invisible and can be repeated as many times as necessary, but some are not. One predicament per a short story seems to be enough for me…

In sum, I'm finding I have little to add to the excellent advice you got from both Varian and Penelope, except to confirm that what you have is basically a promising draft, but I would like to say a couple words about the message of the story too, because again, like both of them, I too found myself torn about it.

I too wavered between being amused by the tongue-in-cheek post-feminist rationale and offended by thinly disguised misogyny. As Penny said, cartoonish psychotic villains are perfectly entitled to their own twisted interpretations of reality, which is the part that accounts for the amusement, but I couldn't quite pin down the main culprit for the offensive vibe, apart from saying that I couldn't find enough distance between the villain's message and your own.

Probably there were a few reasons for this impression, the placid acceptance of the situation by the abductees being one, their Angels-like shallowness being another, as if it was planted to suggest that with such outlook they deserved their destiny. At the same time, though, these same elements can be inoffensively used for comic effects if balanced right, so my instincts tell me the decisive offender is really the resolution.

Maybe I'm going on a tangent here, but the thing is, I don't think women fantasize about getting back at other women by "turning them into sluts". In million other ways, maybe, but least likely in that one. For men, however, turning women into 'sluts' seems to be a very common fantasy—and that's merely an observation, not a judgment directed toward either.

And so, based on that observation, when it's revealed that the abductor is really a woman, my suspense of disbelief suffers a more severe blow than all the non-existent mind altering substances in the world could have ever given it. I just couldn't buy it. It's a resolution that smacks of dishonesty, one in which I can't help but feel that the author ducked revealing the real culprit, the misogynist male who harbors the idea of slutification as deserved punishment. Dragging him into light and exposing him to his own deserved dose of satire would have restored the balance, and in a way, absolved him; projecting his feelings onto a female character, on the other hand, tipped the balance finally toward the insulting, or it did so for me.

That's just an impression, though, and probably too complicated and too badly expressed to be of any use. Also, having said that, I'll also say that I liked the idea of the mouth-gagged woman changing camps at the end of the story, since it was a well-played surprise. It's just that I'd have preferred for her to be in cahoots with the main villain, perhaps, instead of her being the mastermind herself. I had real trouble believing her motivation for that.

But overall, your story was a fun experience, if not a fully realized potential, so be it in the Word Pad or plain pen and paper—keep writing!

Best of luck,

Verdad

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi, Wesley. I'm a bit late, but I hope not too late.

Too late? I thought we were just getting warmed up.

I read the summary of 'Saw' on wikepdia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_(film)

Having read Wesley's story, I noticed right away what the surprise in the movie would be. One major difference I noticed: In the film, the villain pits the characters against one another, but in the story the villains insist the characters work together.

I didn't see any Barbie doll in the summary- so I'm guessing that idea's all Wesley's.

But I'm still missing the Charlie's Angels connection?

Some of the things that bothered Penny, oddly, didn't bother me, namely the question of the POV and that of the empathic connection with characters. The division between plot-driven and character-driven fiction is generally rather artificial, as are most neat dichotomies, but in this case it seems to come handy, since I was able to enjoy the story for its plot-driven component. The characters I took for deliberate caricatures and didn't miss a much closer connection with them.

Good point. Maybe I just don't care much for plot driven fiction. I can enjoy it, to a point, but when it's over I pretty much shrug and go on with my day. If I'm going to be truly involved, on the edge of my seat, I need more. Deeper stories stay with me even when I wish they didn't. My eyes still get moist when I wonder whether or not Idgie and Ruth ever kiss- because if they don't, that's even sadder than Ruth dying.

... Mandy's episode was the highlight of the story for me, most suspenseful, best drawn, and coming closest to being sexy...

I agree.

Although I found Mandy's scene a distraction within the larger tale, it might make a good little story on it's own. That last line she reads - does anyone else think she might be telling the truth at that point?

The scenes involving Mandy and Sarah exist because there are similar scenes in the film, right?

...I couldn't quite pin down the main culprit for the offensive vibe, apart from saying that I couldn't find enough distance between the villain's message and your own.

Yeah. That's kinda what I was trying to tiptoe about, although I always thought it to be the narrator's message, not the author's.

... when it's revealed that the abductor is really a woman, my suspense of disbelief suffers a more severe blow than all the non-existent mind altering substances in the world could have ever given it. I just couldn't buy it. It's a resolution that smacks of dishonesty, one in which I can't help but feel that the author ducked revealing the real culprit, the misogynist male who harbors the idea of slutification as deserved punishment. Dragging him into light and exposing him to his own deserved dose of satire would have restored the balance, and in a way, absolved him; projecting his feelings onto a female character, on the other hand, tipped the balance finally toward the insulting, or it did so for me.

Absolved him? I'm not so sure how his appearance would do that.

I know a few misogynist females. Maybe that's why Michelle being the ringleader didn't phase me so much as the revelation coming out of nowhere. Having read the film summary, I see it's a carryover from the movie that the ringleader is sliently present, to be revealed only at the very end.

For men, however, turning women into 'sluts' seems to be a very common fantasy—and that's merely an observation, not a judgment directed toward either.

I suppose we might fantasize about turning men into sluts too, if it wasn't so much like fantasizing about turning the sky blue on a clear summer day.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

But I'm still missing the Charlie's Angels connection?

The way the screen came to life reminded of how Charlie would speak to the Angels over the speakerphone at the start of each episode....

 

[Verdad]

The way the screen came to life reminded of how Charlie would speak to the Angels over the speakerphone at the start of each episode....

That, yes, and the tone of the dialogue too, exaggeratedly girly in the face of the predicaments.

Absolved him? I'm not so sure how his appearance would do that.

Heh, talk about imprecision in writing… I didn't mean the villain would be absolved. I got in one of those ever so deep thoughts that chase their own tail, but the gist of it is that I thought it would give the story idea more balance, not redeem the villain.

I suppose we might fantasize about turning men into sluts too, if it wasn't so much like fantasizing about turning the sky blue on a clear summer day.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

I suppose we might fantasize about turning men into sluts too, if it wasn't so much like fantasizing about turning the sky blue on a clear summer day.

Are you inferring that all men are natually slutty?

 

[Penelope Street]

Are you inferring that all men are natually slutty?

Maybe.