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What are the magic words?

Unfortunately, this link does not work. That would be a good first step :)

Shanglan
 
Magic words? We have magic words?

Dang. I never get to know the secret handshakes ;).

Really, Homer...I went back and tracked down your previous post since the link on this one isn't working. I'm not entirely clear on what you want commented on. You mention that one of your stories is doing really well, and then link to all the stories you have here. Can I just say WOW, by the way...you've got a lot of work up here.

So, since it's the only one you singled out, I read your story entitled "Dad."

Here ya go, hope it's what you were looking for.

You obviously do a lot of writing here, and have a lot of fans. I'm not going to tell you how you should or shouldn't start your stories. I will say that I don't tend to like self-referential introductions, and I think that ones that insult people who have written to you (even presumably fictitious ones) are particularly offputting. I feel like I've gotten a lecture, and you've given yourself a pat on the back, and I haven't even gotten to the story. I'm sorry, it's a content point I know, but there you go.

As far as the epilogue goes...I'm totally divided. It's nice of you to have done this for two particular fans. I'm sure it drove them nuts. It didn't drive me nuts. I'd have included it only in the special email copy I sent them. Maybe that's just me.

On a similar topic: "Now if this next part were a in a story, you'd pan the writer for coming up with anything so clichéd. But so help me, it happened, just as we were heading out of the mall." Don't hand me the stick and then beg me not to beat you with it. Reality, if this really is taken from reality, is no excuse. Make it believable, leave it out, or unashamedly embrace the cliche. But if you appologise for it, if you invite the criticism, you get in the way of my willing suspension of disbelief. You also sound like the a cliche'd Penthouse Forum letter. And really, a cliche'd applogy for a cliche is just too much for my little mind to handle ;) .

Stylewise, you're really clean. You have some of the faults I usually see in my own writing. You tend to occasional run-on sentences. While it's not always true, find the sentences with more than 3 commas and see if there are ways to simplify them.

Also, you've got some mistakes in there that a spell checker won't pick up. "Thought" for "though", that sort of thing. My personal favorite was "loving room" for "living room". Downright Freudian, I actually really like it. But I'm pretty sure you didn't intend it. NOT a big deal, but something you can have a look for.

Finally, there are places you're using commas inappropriately. For example "new tile for the bathroom, a redwood banister for the balcony, tools to make easy, jobs that would never be undertaken." The last one just shouldn't be there. You don't have to use one to set off every inversion in your sentence structure.

My real problem is detail, though. I love a detailed story, I know how real touches can make a story live and breath. But they have to be the right details, and they have to be in the right place.

You start off with too few details, in some ways. The first paragraph has me puzzled. It's the most important part of most stories. It sets the scene, introduces us to the characters, teaches us the rules of your world, and most importantly keeps me from putting your story away and going to find another one. If I wasn't reading this for comments, you might have just failed all of those tests. I get that you want us to meet your narator through the other people's eyes before we know who they are. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't work for me here. In part because I'm getting mixed messages: to my mind, prissy and party girl were antonyms, not synonyms.

"Ralph was working class scholarship"...not sure what went wrong here, cause I'm not sure what you're saying. Do you mean, "Ralph was working class, he'd held a scholarship to Georgetown..."? In any case, I'm not clear on why that's being put in here NOW. You've set yourself a very hard task as it is (one I still think I'd rethink if I were you), telling me what other people are like is just muddying the waters further.


But mostly it just feels like you're throwing a lot of names at me, with very little idea of how these names relate to each other. It's dizzying. It's disconcerting. I wind up not remembering what you wanted me to know at all. It's counterproductive. I applaud you for trying something new and different, I just don't think it worked. Because as I go on, that disasterous first muddle of names just keeps tripping me. I'm overaware now of who's who, of putting together what should've been an effortless puzzle. Right, Ralph's Fred's Son. The narrator is Fred's daughter in law. No, wait....now Ralph's saying "Fred/Dad's out of his mind." He's using his first name, what did I miss? Oh hell, back to the beginning. Who the hell are these people. I'm not trying to be flip, I'm trying to explain the problem by demonstration, as best as I can.

The transition to the flashback to the night when "I" told Ralph about her pregnancy seems to come out of nowhere. It reads like a tangent, rather than a moment that informs the current narrative. I understand that it's important, you want to make clear that Ralph's an unappreciative jerk. You do that really thoroughly. Maybe too thoroughly, but that's a matter of taste. But it comes out of left field, I dont know how to deal with it right away.

And then there are the places where there appear to be too many details. First, there are the medical details. That Ralph was careful about not getting "me" pregnant is important. The fact she can't birthcontrol doesn't seem to flow, or add to the story. Ditto, the relative size of the various bedrooms. And what on earth constitutes an ethnic dedication to the democrats? What ethnicity is Ralph? Does it matter?

You say at one point that "More important, from an earlier fire inspection of that store (some kind of volunteer program) he knew of a parallel passage used for stocking which had proved free of smoke, allowing him to go deep into the store before facing the flames. The reporters didn't care about details. " Gotta say, I agree with the reporters on this one. Might have worked better if you'd done it as a dialogue with the reporter, contrasted with the interview seen edited on TV later in the evening? Dunno, just a thought.

You're trying to tell a rich story with deep and complicated characters. It stands you in good stead later in the writing. But until you hit your stride, it's getting in its own way.

Things seem to get easier for you when you get into the sex. All of a sudden, all the problems seem to evaporate. You're smooth, flowing, lyric and hot as hell. It's like you're better when you're focused in on a limited range of events? Not sure how to help you there, except to say that every event you include in the background story should have just as much purpose as a teasing lick. These are short stories, there's no room for wasted words.


Hope there's something in all that that you wanted to hear!

G
 
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