This is a piece of a short chapter that is part of a rambling novel effort. I'm not sure which chapters belong at this point, so I'm just sifting through. I'd be interested to get any impressions on the pieces. If you'd like to read more, please let me know and I'll be elated to send words your way. Gut-level honesty will help me most, the good, the bad, and especially the indifferent.
Thanks so much... ____________________________________________________ It's dark and I'm crying and the floor is cracking under my feet. Fifty thousand hipsters, it turns out, were not wrong: this is the edgiest party of the year. But hipsters are high or stupid, and what does that make me. I want acceptance so complete it fades to the background and lets me emerge whole in relief. But you cannot be cool and of right mind, and I am cursed with right mind. I hate it.
I am also too old to be here. Warehouse parties with floors that might crumble beneath the partiers' feet should be populated by kids still in talks with immortality. My mortality is like a pet I never wanted, but to whom I grow close over time, despite myself, simply from time spent together. It cozies up to me at night when no one else will. ____________________________________________________
posted
if your MC is too old to be there - why is s/he there? could he be almost too old to be there? that sounds good. on the cusp. P.S. i love it.
Posts: 1304 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
This is a bit reportorial. You have described the scene, but kept us somewhat at a distance - we are not "in" the scene. There is some philosophizing here that I think could better be conveyed through dialogue and actions which would let us "discover" for ourselves the needs of this person.
The floor is cracking under her feet, then the MC goes off on a different tangent - what about the floor? I would be getting out of there. The MC is "cursed" by being of "right mind." Yet if this is so, why is the MC there?
I would like to "see" more of the scene. Flashing lights, throbbing music, strands of drivel hanging from the chins of zoned out tweakers who have their melons on chemical overload, copulating couples on the floor - get us into it.
posted
Naw, alas no wheaties - but I've seen things like this - as an observer, that is. The sounds and visuals are incredible and almost overwhelming - i just think that angle should be played up because there is so much potential for this scene to be very engaging and to really get us into it - IMHO.
[This message has been edited by nitewriter (edited June 09, 2007).]
posted
Hey, I have another question - is the floor cracking or crackling, because of all the stuff that his been spilled, dropped or disgorged on it? (or bugs). It occured to me that maybe I was getting the wrong intent. If it's crackling, and the noise is loud, this would be a tactile thing. If been on balconies during a concert where I really got scared the floor was gonna go. I could relate to that.
Posts: 1304 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thank you for your thoughts and reactions to this. It's so helpful to learn how the words translate once they're outside of my own head.
The 13 lines makes incorporating the feedback a trickier decision, because it doesn't in this case give enough context, I don't *think.* Debhoag, the floor is cracking, and not crackling. The area he's in is actually away from the rave/party--he's wandered off into an empty space. And this opening is a present-tense that is sort of the middle of the story, a take-off point that isn't revisited for a while, so the immediate action of the party isn't relevant.
*However,* I need to really look at this and the impression the first 13 had on you all, and make sure it's effective in the bigger picture.
I was under the impression that she had wandered off, or that she was alone in the building, after the fact. Like, there was a rave, she was too old, everybody left, and now she's sitting on the cracking floor.
I thought the cracking floor was literal though. Like the floor was actually cracking.
As I thought she had wandered off from most of the partiers, and from most of the noise and lights, I felt in the scene. The character was the focus of the scene to me, not the setting. So I thought all of the descriptions (Or lack thereof) were appropriate.
The feelings of mortality part kind of stuck out to me -- As in, it kind of took me out of the story. But, in the story's context, it might make more sense.
posted
You have a very engaging writing voice. Although it's difficult to tell from the little you posted, your writing doesn't appear to be rambling or overly wordy at all.
Posts: 683 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote: It's dark and I'm crying and the floor is cracking under my feet. Fifty thousand hipsters, it turns out, were not wrong: this is the edgiest party of the year. But hipsters are high or stupid, and what does that make me. I want acceptance so complete it fades to the background and lets me emerge whole in relief. But you cannot be cool and of right mind, and I am cursed with right mind. I hate it.
I am also too old to be here. Warehouse parties with floors that might crumble beneath the partiers' feet should be populated by kids still in talks with immortality. My mortality is like a pet I never wanted, but to whom I grow close over time, despite myself, simply from time spent together. It cozies up to me at night when no one else will.
My first problem with this is I don't believe first person present tense. I can't immerse if you are trying to convince me it IS happening as I am reading it.
My second problem is that you are talking directly TO the reader. This makes immersion IMPOSSIBLE. You keep reminding me that it is a story.
Ironically, I wouldn't have had a problem if you'd have had the Immortal (also nameless and gender-less because of the narrative) leaning over someone strapped into a chair and whispering this into their ear.
[This message has been edited by InarticulateBabbler (edited June 12, 2007).]
Printer-friendly view of this topic
