posted
What I want to know here is: is Marge interesting?
There's not more to read yet, and my deadline is tonight (Tue) -- ! -- but . . . does anything here make you lose interest, feel impatient, etc.?
Background: there's a city-wide disaster Marge doesn't know about yet.
TIA
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When the power went out, Marge was at the mall, picking things up for her grandbaby.
It's the privilege of every grandparent to buy way too much useless stuff for a grandchild, and although Marge did try to restrain herself somewhat, sometimes something would be so cute she just had to buy it -- like this play-suit with the bunny pattern. That's the excuse she'd use, anyway. Then Barbara, her daughter and Robert Junior's mother, would say, "So what were you doing at the mall?" and Marge's answer would have to be, "Hoping I'd find something so cute I had to buy it."
"Lord," Marge's husband Tom said about her last purchase, "bows all over the front? He's a boy."
"Well, they're baby-blue bows!" Marge said, and laughed, because
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited April 25, 2006).]
posted
I like Marge. She seems like every grandmother I know, happy about being a grandma, a little silly, a little extravagant but it seems like she knows that about herself. She's very likable.
Then only issue I had was with the following sentence. It's a little wordy and I had to read it a few times to keep all of the characters straight.
Then Barbara, her daughter and Robert Junior's mother, would say, "So what were you doing at the mall?" and Marge's answer would have to be, "Hoping I'd find something so cute I had to buy it."
Also, this sentence tripped me up a bit.
"Lord," Marge's husband Tom said about her last purchase, "bows all over the front? He's a boy."
Maybe reword it: "Lord," her husband said about her last purchase...
She's not very sensible or mature, and I'm just not turned on by a grandmother who's not sensible and mature.
The first words that came to mind to describe her were 'mother-in-law.' Ugh. Which would immediately dampen my interest in her.
However, I think I could sympathize with her as she struggles through your disaster. In that sense, she reminds of the grandmother in "A Trip to Bountiful." I bawled like a baby at the end of that film.
Whether I could be interested in her is highly dependent upon what you do with her after this opening.
[This message has been edited by djvdakota (edited April 25, 2006).]
posted
I don't really have any particular feelings about Marge from this; I'm guessing it's her first grandchild, and she loved having kids herself (maybe she didn't have as many as she wanted?) so loves the opportunity to redisover her own new-mom-ness in becoming a grandparent. But as a male non-parent, I neither have, nor expect to have, any real identification with her.
I have never come across the term "grandbaby"; it felt really awkward to me (grandson, granddaughter and grandchild would all have been fine), but that may be a cultural thing - the term could be in common usage in the US (again, though I'm passably culturally literate in some matters, I don't move in grandchild-having circles).
posted
I'm not big on Marge right now because I could sum her up with a couple of words: "besotted grandmother". That's it, and it is slightly clichéd (for one thing, none of my grandmothers behave like that, and I don't feel I would either). She's Ok, but I don't find her particularly interesting.
Of course, as djvdakota points out, what you do with her after that opening is very important.
posted
Besotted Grandmother is about the size of it.
The thing is that you portray it well. She's more interested in the imaginary scene when she gives the present (as modeled on the last silly thing she bought) than with the actual surroundings, yet those surroundings are still sensibly present.
I do think that mentioning that the power went out in the first line is a little unnecessary, particularly since you mention it again before the end of the thirteen lines. It can also confuse us, it's possible to think that Marge is sitting there having this mental conversation with herself in the dark.
I'd also rearrange the flashback intro line.
quote:It would be like the conversation with her husband about her last purchase. "Lord," Tom said, "bows all over the front? He's a boy."
I'll also not that it was only on reparsing that sentance that I realized that Tom was her husband, not her daughter's husband. But the main intent is to make the segue into memory clear so that the line doesn't jump into the present.
As for whether Marge is interesting...not until the power goes out. But like I said, you manage that within the first 13, and so it isn't an issue. We get a firm establishment shot of Marge, who is a stereotype and thus easy to establish, and then you turn out the lights.
posted
"somewhat, sometimes something" was odd to read.
Otherwise, I don't think Marge as a character could ever interest me, because I find people getting that giddy over children to be extremely irritating.
posted
It's probably my cold heart, but I didn't feel any identification for her either. The "SSS dissonance" did seem like it should be reworded. I personally try to keep all rhyme and alliteration as far from any story (that isn't written like Beowulf) as possible. Whenever you stack words like that it's an attention magnet away from the story.
posted
I'll fix that SSS thing (how did *that* get past me?) in the rewrite -- unless OSC hates the scene so much I have to throw it out anyway.
Marge is sort of a stretch for me, but at the same time I like her, largely for reasons I couldn't show quite yet. So why couldn't I? Maybe it was OK for me to put this off until she had a disaster to deal with -- or maybe I needed to put it in the first 13.
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