Shondell stuffed the last of the Big Mac into his mouth. He chewed with his mouth open, as he nearly always did, especially when it would irritate somebody. There wasn’t anyone, at the moment, but he liked to do it anyway, and pretend that he was dissing some ofay. Not that he hadn’t been taught different—the back of Conky’s hand and the floor had seen to that. Conky would knock him right out of the chair and make him stay on the floor, “You wanna eat like an animal? Animals eat on the floor!” Shondell had seen DCFS bring the cops to arrest Conky, and send Shondell back to his mother. But that had been like punishing him, not Conky, and it wasn’t enough. So now, whenever he ate, especially if there was a honky he wanted to annoy, he had his revenge. Besides, if he was making the noise, it sounded good.

But then, I've never been able to understand the big deal about chewing with your mouth open. I honestly never notice whether someone's chewing with an open mouth unless a)food is coming out or b)I'm waiting for that person to answer a question. I don't usually chew with my mouth open because most food tastes better with my mouth closed, but when something tastes better if I leave my mouth open you can bet I let it hang out.

So it would never occur to me that chewing with my mouth open would be a particularly meaningful way to offend anyone. If I want to offend people I set my aura of darkness on "high" and throw the evil eye around.

But despite the basic weakness of the material, I think this is very engaging writing. One line edit I'll suggest is that you cut "and the floor" after "the back of Conky’s hand". Also, that part could be more than one paragraph.

Your style of writing engaged me immediately, even though there is not much going on here that is otherwise of interest. What struck me about this character was not that he is "disgusting" or anything similar, it was the rebellious nature of the character. Shondell seems to be rebelling against life itself and no one in particular, hence his perverse joy in engaging in an offensive behaviour, even though there is no one around to offend.

My hope is that some true action will be forthcoming soon, as this passage has nothing in particular to hold my interest further, beyond the glimpse into Shondell's nature. You might consider moving the action, assuming it is close at hand, to the first paragraph or two and giving us this insight of your character's motivations a bit later.

If my voice seems stiff or off this morning, that's because I am being deprived of decent coffee. Our coffee maker died yesterday and we've been reduced to instant. Weep! Wail!! Gnashing of teeth!!! Growl, grump and growf!! *ahem...*

How long is this piece and what genre? Are you seeking critiques of the entire tale?

Welcome!

Susan

EDIT: By the way, I just love the title!

Good opening line! It could be me, and probably is, but it may be too soon to dwell in his past, at least in the second paragraph. It's kind of a quasi-flashback, and IMO just a tad too soon.

RetinoBlastoma:
<I had a hard time finding something I liked about this character.>

We don't have enough information to know if the viewpoint character is a protagonist or an antagonist. There are times when a reader roots against the viewpoint character.

This may be a character story. This is how he is now, but something is about to happen, and by the end of his story the transformation may well render him likable.

First and foremost, thank you, each and all, for your responses. This was a frustrating week, until I came back here and found these.

I'm sorry I didn't make my intentions known. Yes, I would like to have the entire piece critiqued, if any are willing. I will try to reply to each of the items you bring up in the order that they appear.

Survivor, let's NOT do lunch… Your comments are interesting, and frankly, flattering! Unfortunately, your prediction of the character's fate is close, but not quite dead on. Oh, BTW, when you throw your evil eye around, how do you keep the cat hair from sticking to it…? (Just teasing—the image popped into my head and wouldn't leave!)

RetinoBlastoma (now there's an intriguing handle!) This character is not supposed to be likable or sympathetic. He is supposed to be slightly (at least) disgusting. See below.

shaowynd: He is very rebellious—against almost everyone. You are spot-on, both in your insight to the character and what I perceive as a possible weakness in the story.

You can be forgiven anything considering your current dire, unhealthy, unstable, and possibly life-threatening circumstances. May the Supreme Bean be with you soon!

The entire piece is just under 10,500 words. I think the closest genre handle would be modern fantasy—not urban, because most of the action occurs in a distinctly rural setting, although to an urban character.

Magic Beans: Very definitely not white bread (if you know your African-American slang.)

ChrisOwens: It is a character story—Person learns better. As far as the quasi-flashback, that's something I need to think about. Your comments to RetinoBlastoma are acute.

Michaelpfs: Thank you for your praise. Interesting comment on "rough draft." I'd like to see your suggestions.

shadowynd (second post) Aye, there's the rub.

Rahl22: The second paragraph was evocative enough!?!? I put the first paragraph in because I did not see much of a "hook" in the original first paragraph. You have made it very clear to me that I need good critiques, not only to help me find the poorer parts, but to see some of the good ones, as well.

Sorry to run on

If any of you would like to read the whole thing, please post here and I'll send it to you. Let me know what platform and OS you are using, and any restrictions on size or attachments your e-mail server has.

i have no real restrictions for my email -- 1gig of space, and any file formats are acceptable, gosh i love google...

and i use windows xp pro with office 2003 as my main system, i also sometimes use windows xp pro with works 6.0... as my third, and most seldom used, gentoo linux with openoffice.org...

basically, send it to me in ms word 2000/xp format and i should be able to read it no matter what system i am using at the time

Anyway, I'll read it if you like. Rich Text Format is my standard reply to questions of file type preference, but Open Office is able to open most things I've been sent. My evil eye has an energy field which repels cat hair (it also repels the rest of the cat--along with most other mammels--incidentally).

I won't be able to get to it until after this weekend, however, and I'll likely be slow about the reading of it. Next week is going to be mucho busy for me. I have to do all of my T'giving cooking and preparations then, as my husband is going back into the hospital for some "scheduled maintenance" the 23rd-25th.

I will be spending both days at the hospital with him, sitting around being bored. Or rather, reading or writing instead of sitting around being bored! If I cannot read much before then, that will probably give me the opportunity to finish it (and catch up on some others that I had to set aside for a while).

Word doc or .rtf, either format is fine. Please put "Hatrack" somewhere in the subject so that my filters know where to file it.