posted
In open discussions you might remember me asking about presenting a story about a overweight guy who projects his self loathing on all overweight woman. That he had a belief that FAT was EVIL, but he did not see himself as evil. Then one day he attracts the attention of a particular evil woman who happens to also be fat.
Anyway if you do remember great then you might get a better idea of what I was asking.
If not let me know what you think of the lines posted here.
JB Skaggs
******* David stood in the grocer checkout line clutching a box of cupcakes. Work today had been tough. I deserve some cake. Several cakes, he thought and smiled to himself. A hand fell on his shoulder. Startled, he spun and beheld an enormous fat woman. She stared at him with tiny eyes smeared with green makeup. She groped his shoulder the way a butcher might grope a young calf for the killing. Jeez! What a cow! He thought.
“Those things are evil!” She spurted and pointed to the cupcakes. She squeezed his shoulder with the other hand.
“Yeah. I know,” he said and chuckled.
“You think I am making a freaking joke?” Her face trembled and darkened.
“No, I uh-”
She shook him as savagely as an abusive mother with a toddler. “You shut up! I said those are evil! Put them down!”
“Hey lady!” David cried.
“I said now!” The fat woman wrenched his shoulder with one hand and slapped the cupcakes away with the other. The box of cakes tumbled to the floor.
[This message has been edited by JBSkaggs (edited March 01, 2005).]
posted
I liked this quite a bit. The only line that sits wrong with me is the "several cakes" line; it's just too heavy-(NoPunIntended)handed for my tastes.
You have opened the door to the possibility that he's overweight. I would just hold back on the confirmation for a little longer. It will make more of an impact that way. Michelle
posted
I think it works. Great opening sentence. The only thing that tripped me was the calf reference (which was clever and ominous) coupled with him thinking of her as a cow. It caused conflicting cow images in my head. Maybe have him think of her as something else other than a cow or maybe just, Jeez, she is the biggest woman I have ever seen.
Posts: 579 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
The cow / calf thing was deliberate. But As in discussions I am very open to suggestions for a better insult than fat cow. I just have't found anything better.
If anyone wants to read anymore of this let me know.
posted
I think that the fact that he feels the need to justify his purchase pretty clearly shows that he is aware he eats too much cake, even though it could be a matter of some medical condition rather than being a bit overweight.
I do have to say that the character seems a bit exaggerated. I would (ironically, I suppose) tend to characterize him as something of a lightweight on the basis of his rather shallow perspective.
You definitely need more epithets than just "fat cow". I was already noticing the lack of variation by the end of this segment. And a guy that's used to being a little overweight and noticing people heavier than himself is going to have a large vocabulary of insults at hand, so it really is a valid concern. Various heavy animals will do for starters, "elephant", "hippo", "whale" and others. Some that aren't suitable as simple epithets can be used for more expressive imagery. Consider the bull elephant seal, they really aren't designed for land, but that's where you usually see them, wallowing around like enormous self-propelled sacks of blubber. Smaller animals that are famed for overeating work as well, of course. Calling someone a "sow" (or an enormous sow) is pretty understandable.
Anyway, you probably need expert advice on how to do this, and I'm not well versed in this field (I belong to the "work out more" rather than "eat less" camp, and I think that weight isn't that big a deal if you've got the muscle mass and bones to go with it).
posted
An (obnoxious) acquaintance of mine has taken to yelling "booh-vine!" when talking about fat women...I think bovine might be a good alternative to "fat cow".
Posts: 1041 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
He is a big guy and yeah he does have a medical condition known as Bulimia. Everything he eats has both positive and negative emotions attached. For forbidden foods the feelings he has are so strong it's almost like having an affair. I get into this later on in the text. But you are right about my insults I don't know many.
Posts: 451 | Registered: Dec 2004
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posted
>I deserve some cake. Shift in tense and person confused me. How about "He deserved some cake."
>an enormous fat woman. Seems a little redundant: if she's enormous, she's fat.
>“Those things are evil!” She spurted and spurted makes me think she threw up
I'm too puzzled so far as to his reactions -- and hers: they're weird, so weird I'd think he'd be afraid she's about to pull a knife -- to believe yet, or know what to be hooked by.
posted
Well, I have to quibble with the second point. It is certainly true that the current text uses "fat woman" twice, and that's once too often in my opinion, since it's a bit...well, anyway, the point is that a woman could be "enormous" in several ways that wouldn't involve her being particularly fat. Without the specification that her enormity was fat related, I would tend to imagine something along the lines of a seven foot giantess with forearms bigger than my calves. I don't know if that's wishful thinking or the result of reading too much heroic SF, but I can't be the only person likely to think that way. Or maybe I am.
More important, those other points are pretty dead on for all of me. Particularly if this guy is supposed to be bulimic. For one thing, bulimics are a bit fanatical, as you would expect from the kind of person that goes beyond socailly expected weight control behaviors to weird and dangerous extreme measures. You need to throw some of that kind of "more important than life and death" attitude into the guy's thinking from the start. Particularly in his reaction to this woman, he might well be caught between terror and genuine horror.
Also, it is rather atypical for bulimics to believe that they are an acceptable weight compared with others. So I have to wonder how this jibes with your earlier description of the character. Unless you mean that he has a psychological condition that doesn't result in bulimia but resembles it in some ways.
posted
The internal dialog in the first paragraph wasn't italicized, that through me off a bit. But the rest of the style was very good, hard to find things to change. The concept is great, a very believable character.
Alternatives to fat cow (believe it or not, us larger folk actually mildly appreciate originality in insults) might be:
ponderously obese pot-bellied porcine resembles a walrous in mating season the stay-puft marshmellow man in drag
That's all I can some up with for now, post back if you need more.
[This message has been edited by Jsteg1210 (edited March 02, 2005).]
posted
Yes this woman might very well pull a knife and kill him.
Survivor you are correct this woman is about the size of an ogre. She is not just a blob... she is fat like a bear or a boar hog.
I undertsnd your comments. And I am not trying to justify but rather gain some direction. 1. David is fat. 2. David is fat because he has a type of bulimia that does not necessariy means puking, rather it means he eats for sexual, social, and identity purposes. He is a gorger and binge eater- you know the three cheesburger with super size fries type. He is quite likely to become depressed or even cry if he received a small portion size. On the other hand he feels that he is performing some guilt ridden forbidden pleasure everytime he binges. 3. David is strongly attached to his mom, and lived with her into his thirties untill she died. Food was the way she controlled him and rewarded him. Calling him fat and loading his plate up simultaneously.
I am going to ruin the story here but this might help me gain the answers I need.
The fat woman is not real. She is in his head. He acts out these incidents and belives she is doing them, but in reality he is. This is why the fat /food/ identity issue is so strong. She is the very image of the devil to him- a female version of himself.
In this text it is told from his POV and you learn by the end of the story he has become schizo but it's the journey and the roller coaster ride the story is dealing with.
posted
JB – I really liked the first line. “Clutching the cupcakes” evoked images of a mother clutching an infant – possessive, protective, affectionate. A man with a thought pattern as you describe would feel all those things toward the cupcakes. I also liked the justification that he deserved them after a hard day’s work. I do that myself when purchasing a large and expensive coffee drink from the Starbucks in my building after a particularly nasty user has verbally abused me.
The POV shift did throw me off but that is easily corrected. I also had a difficult time visualizing her face trembling. I can see hands tremble or even a person’s whole body if they are extremely afraid or something, but not a face by itself.
I am even more interested in the story now that you have given away some of the particulars regarding the character’s personality. Keep at it.
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