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Author Topic: Paramnesia
Jidin
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Another fantasy that begins in the modern day and veers into weirdness. 100k(ish). The main thing I'm working on is keeping readers interested as the story shifts from a realistic scenario into strange circumstances. If anyone wants to read a chapter or two, let me know.

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The phone call of Mark’s dreams shattered them.
His cell phone rang right as he chomped a hot dog in half. He fumbled into his suit pocket, grabbed the jingling phone and pressed the call button.
“Umph?” he asked.
“Mark?”
“Uumph.”
“Mark. It’s Jim. Jim Berkely.”
Mark spat the wad of bun and meat onto the sidewalk. Then he sucked his belly in and cinched his belt up a notch.
“Jim! Yes. Sorry. I’ve been getting so many offers lately I’ve gotten everyone all mixed up.”
Jim chuckled through static. “What offers?”


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Wolfe_boy
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Personally, I enjoy stories that tend to veer off into uncharted and wholly unexpected fantastical realms. Send over a chapter or two (maybe around twenty pages tops?) and I'll take a look over the weekend. As for what you've given us so far...

"The phone call of Mark’s dreams shattered them. " It took me a couple reads to grasp the meaning of this sentence, which can't be a good thing as this is the first sentence. Maybe a good rewording would work. Maybe get rid of it altogether, as this is telling when you could be showing.

"His cell phone rang right as he chomped a hot dog in half." I've read further to know that he is actually chomping on a hot dog, but on my first read through I thought Mark was dreaming that he was eating a hot dog when a phone woke him up. It cleared itself up a few lines later, but, as I mentioned earlier, confusion at this early stage in the game can't be a good thing. Maybe a simple rewording is in order. Or maybe I'm just being obtuse. Either or.

"Mark spat the wad of bun and meat onto the sidewalk." Yuck! Who does this? If he's crude enough to spit his hot dog on to the street, he's probably ill-mannered enough to continue chewing while he talks. If he has enough manners to not spit it out, he probably wouldn't take such a huge bite that he would need to spit it out to talk, or at least be understood.

"...cinched his belt up a notch. If I was answering the phone, particularly an important call, I wouldn't pause to cinch up my belt. I get the image you're going for, but this particular action takes much more time than would realistically pass, unless he has the kind of belt where you just yank on a section of it and it tightens up, in which case, explain that. I'm picturing an overweight guy in a somewhat shabby dress shirt and dress pants barely hanging on to his nonexistent hips below his cavernous belly.

At this point I'd probably read a little more, just to see what's going on, but it seems to me that Mark is a bit of a hill billy with a high opinion of himself, which isn't particularly appealing to me, but might be to some people.

As I said, send a bit more my way - I'll let you know what I think of the rest of it.

Jayson Merryfield


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lehollis
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I don't have a problem with spitting the hotdog out on the sidewalk. This told me that Jim Berkely's call is very important to the lead character. It told me without showing me, in fact. And it told me that the lead character is crude enough to do so.

The first line confused me. I had to read it a few times to get what it meant. I also wonder if its necessary. It did hook me, but it might be an expensive hook.

"He fumbled into his suit pocket, grabbed the jingling phone and pressed the call button."

I don't think this line is necessary. First, I don't picture a cell phone as jingling. That reminds of an old 70's era telephone or something. Further, it's such a mundane detail that I don't feel we need to be told. If you feel you must show the phone being answer (not necessarily bad, but your choice), I would recommend simply putting something like: "Umph?" he asked, after fishing it from his suit pocket.

I agree on cinching his belt up a notch. Sucking in his belly tells me what I need to know. With half a hot dog in one hand and a cell phone in the other, that seems like a rather long or complicated action.

If you drop the first line, I think the comedy of the situation and the interest in why this call is so important can be enough of a hook, for me.


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JeffBarton
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What happened to the other half of the hotdog? ... and the phone? Taking up a belt is often a two-handed task, and not often done on a public sidewalk. I think you mean that he'll accept skipping lunch to take this call. It's a longer stretch to infer that he can only afford one hot dog.

"What offers?" is as close to a hook as this start has for me, and that depends on the 'liner notes' that claim weirdness. Even then it takes extrapolation into my imagination. Does Jim know that Mark couldn't have many offers - guessing job offers here, rather than selling a car. Is Mark such a poor candidate that Jim can hire him cheap? For something weird?


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Jidin
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Thanks, Wolfe_boy. The pages are sent your way. And thanks to everyone else as well for the input. I've already tried to adjust the beginning based on what I've heard so far. I enjoy this story, but have constantly been reworking the beginning so it holds people's attention as it starts out normally enough, before things go down into the dark.
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