The first thirteen for my entry, tentatively titled "Freaks", are below. The story is complete, though very rough, at just under 700 words. Comments on the first thirteen are welcome, but I'd like readers for the whole thing who could give me thoughts direction: what could be expanded? What works as is? What doesn't work, and should it be cut or altered?

UPDATE: New version in a later post.

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Being married to the bearded lady showed me that beauty, if it's really in the eye of the beholder, isn't even skin deep. It starts in the atmosphere, stubble's-length from Sheila's cheek.

That's not totally fair. We had plenty of beholders when we traveled with the circus, and they thought we were cool. Being the strong man seemed like a dream to the boys -- and probably to most of the men, too, tied down as they were by domestic life and sessile careers -- and the bearded lady had plenty of admirers. But we belonged there, in the circus, and we never stayed for very long. Here, in an apartment in Duluth, we're like an alien invasion.

This is our third apartment. We tried San Francisco first -- the place has the greatest freak density per square mile of any

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Thanks in advance,
Oliver

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Being married to the bearded lady showed me that beauty, if it's really in the eye of the beholder, isn't even skin deep. It starts in the atmosphere, stubble's-length from Sheila's cheek.(1)

That's not totally fair. We had plenty of beholders(2) when we traveled with the circus, and they thought we were cool. Being the strong man seemed like a dream to the boys -- and probably to most of the men, too, tied down as they were by domestic life and sessile careers(3) -- and the bearded lady had plenty of admirers.(4) But we belonged there, in the circus, and we never stayed for very long.(5) Here, in an apartment in Duluth, we're like an alien invasion.

This is our third apartment. We tried San Francisco first -- the place has the greatest freak density per square mile of any

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My first impressions/nits:

1. This combination of adages confused me. Also, the POV character starts out by a statement of affirmation, "being married...showed me that," but then goes right into an "if" statement that weakens the conviction he's trying to get across. I like the sentiment you're going for, but is there a different way it could be said with more clarity and certainty?

2. The word 'beholders' as a noun immediately makes me think of the D&D monster. That may or may not not be true for the majority of readers of Writer's Digest. In either case, it's an association to be aware of, just in case.

3. I like the word 'sessile,' but not here.

4. The immediate question that springs to mind on hearing the bearded lady has admirers is - why? Is she gorgeous, aside from that beard? Does she have a winning personality? As a reader, I'll be looking to know why the author made that statement, and I'd be disappointed if it didn't pan out into an interesting facet of her character. In other words, the strong man's allure is explained sensibly, but the bearded lady's admirers have a less clear emotion behind them.

5. I'm not sure exactly what this sentence is conveying. They belong at the circus, but the pair of them hopped from circus to circus, or they belong in one particular circus that moved around a lot? It's a bit of a grammatical thing that just needs some subject clarification, I think.

For an entry this short, I feel that the writing could be a little punchier, but I'm interested to see where you take the prompt.

I'm willing to take a look at it if you'd like to send it along :)

And I actually don't know where Duluth is, but I'm generally ignorant about US town geography. If you want to instantly convey an image of a town, maybe you could reference a state or something. I don't even know if it's in the US. I love your comment about SF, though I have to say, Berkeley might be a fair rival!

The bit about the bearded lady confused me a little, too, but I thought maybe she has a very alluring personality, or maybe some people have beard fetishes, I don't know.

Over all, it caught my interest. I think I would like to have a greater sense of the personality of the bearded lady, even if it's only a glimpse, a quote, or something.

At any rate, I'd love to read it, if you like.

Here's my latest first thirteen revision. It's still very rough, so everything is still subject to radical change, and it's guidance on those changes that I'm looking for from readers.

Speaking of which, Annepin, I probably still haven't given enough of a feel for the bearded lady in the latest version, but I'll be interested in your thoughts specifically on that once you read the whole story.

quote:

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You want to learn about beauty? Marry the bearded lady, like I did. In the eyes of all the beholders around me, beauty isn't even skin deep. It ends in the atmosphere, stubble's-length from Sheila's cheek.

I'm not being totally fair. Plenty of people beheld us when we traveled with the circus, and they thought we were cool. I was the Strong Man, hero to the boys -- and probably to most of the men, too, tied down as they were by domestic life and tedious careers. And the Bearded Lady had plenty of admirers as well, for maintaining her charm and wit among throngs of gawkers.

We belonged there, in the circus, and we never stayed in one place for very long. Here, settled into an apartment in Oklahoma City, we're like an alien invasion.

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Being married to the bearded lady showed me that beauty, if it's really in the eye of the beholder, isn't even skin deep. It starts in the atmosphere, stubble's-length from Sheila's cheek.

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Why 1st person? Otherwise, I'm interested. Not clear what type of response Sheila gets about her stubble.

quote:

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That's not totally fair. We had plenty of beholders when we traveled with the circus, and they thought we were cool. Being the strong man seemed like a dream to the boys -- and probably to most of the men, too, tied down as they were by domestic life and sessile careers -- and the bearded lady had plenty of admirers.

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I know what sessile means, but it isn't a particularly common word. The paragraph assumes we'll know Sheila gets crap for having stubble, but the wording says *beauty* is in the atmosphere a stubble's length from Sheila's cheek.

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But we belonged there, in the circus, and we never stayed for very long. Here, in an apartment in Duluth, we're like an alien invasion.

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Never stayed in any one place? I assume the POV character and Sheila stayed in the circus.

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This is our third apartment. We tried San Francisco first -- the place has the greatest freak density per square mile of any

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At this point I know the POV character is a strong man and Sheila has stubble (presumably she is the bearded lady that had plenty of admirers in the circus setting). What did the folks who admired the bearded lady admire about her? From the reference to San Francisco being a collection of freaks, I'm getting that this is set no earlier than 1980. Why would people in the 1980's and later admire a carnival strong man (they could buy posters of Arnold Schwarzenegger)? By the 1980's folks started getting surgery to change their sex (I myself spent several hours with a former man who was headed to a major city to get facial hair permanently removed - not a fact I used in my story, by the way). To continue that thought, there is no reason Sheila couldn't have received hormone therapy and/or electrolysis hair removal in the implied time period, if her facial hair is causing distress.

I expanded it a fair amount in directions that people recommended, and then cut it back. (Even though I cut pretty well, it's always tough to cut your own work.) Right now I have eight words to spare, and I'm reasonably happy with it. It's not due until 9/10, though, so I'm going to let it sit and get back to it for final edits by about 9/6.

Meg, thanks for your comments, too. I'll look at them when I look at the whole thing next week. After that, may the best story win!

Here's the first 13:

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If you want to learn about beauty, marry the Bearded Lady. That's what I did. I learned that in the eyes of most beholders, beauty isn't even skin deep. It ends in the atmosphere, stubble's-length from Sheila's cheek.

I'm not being fair. Some people could look past the scruff and see the grace she displayed among the gawkers: her cheerful calls to pointing children, her tolerance of the occasional hostile stare. They pointed at me, too, but I was the Strong Man, a hero to the boys -- and to a lot of men, I'm sure. Sheila and I were quite a pair, two tickets for a four-minute show. We belonged there, in the circus, though we were never rooted in any one spot.

Here in Omaha, we're aliens. We had wanted to settle down,

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Of course, the first 13 doesn't really fit this contest, but that's okay -- it still gives enough of a feeling and flavor to make people know what I'm about.