EPT
Short Story: Foreign Exchange
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
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Empyrean
17066 Posts
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
On February 21 2011 14:58 Empyrean wrote: I came in here expecting to advise you against trading in foreign currencies, but ending up being pleasantly surprised. Thank you. (What's wrong with trading in foreign currencies?) | ||
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Empyrean
17066 Posts
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
Overall, I think the story came alive once the dialogue came in because it was fresh, unpredictable, and entertaining to read. The handyman was quite a mystery and kept me going down the lines. Stylistic/Structural issues: First, it's considered bad form to use a mirror scene as the vehicle for character description. It's cliche and a telltale that the writer is inexperienced. Second, to begin the story with character description and info dump is another clunky decision. It turns readers off because they are asking themselves why do they care the entire time. And for an editor, the why should I care quickly becomes I don't care and then the story gets tossed in the rejection bin. Conflict should be introduced first, not setting, background, or the character's looks. In fact, I think you could simply start the story at "There was a knock at the door..." While mystery man at the door is another rather cliche situation, at least there's mystery and the cliched aspects of the scene take no more than a few words to get past. Then it jumps into the dialogue, which I thought sparkled. Third, after the MC spots the Benz, he runs into his house and devolves into a series of rather bewildering histrionics. It struck me as maudlin and excessive. First, because there was this strange zig off to metafiction, where the MC wanted to write it all down, perhaps a commentary on the character of writers, then it zagged over to Marta, who's entire story is then just put on us without any previous foreshadowing, mention, or development. The whole thing just comes out of left field. Then there is another bizarre plot development in which he tries to kill himself, then decides to crash his father's gift into the workman's van. By the end, I interpreted it as a story about a guy who's bumming off his dad, is selfish and jerkish and consumed by his ego-driven writing, and then has a moment of intense guilt triggered by the Benz, which then galvanizes him to destroy the source of guilt by driving recklessly. Either that or he wanted to just wallow in his guilt and go balls-out self-destructive. My question, though, is why do I care? I'll admit right off that I'm not a fan of literary writing and this piece strikes me as such, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Literary writing often has rather inexplicable and ridiculous plots because the point is to expose some aspect of humanity in dramatic fashion rather than to have a good story. Foreign Exchange certainly does that so maybe it's catering to that sensibility. But, as a general reader, I have trouble sympathizing or caring about the character and I feel the meat of the story is rather pedestrian. A spoiled kid feels guilty then self-destructs. It's just not something I find evocative or memorable. And the way the story is fleshed out, each aspect of it feels very put-together, as in I can see the bones that the writer was working with. Do a nose in the mirror scene, and then have symmetry with the nose being broken at the end. Have the Benz be a symbol of the father's patronage/material aid, and then have the MC crash it. And the repairman which takes up the whole middle is simply a plot device to get the MC to go to the garage. When looked at in total, the story feels like a very by-the-numbers symbolism/thematic piece where I am not surprised, moved, or sold on its believability at any point. I was probably most disappointed because I was intrigued by the handyman and where that would lead and he ended up being nothing more than an example of the dad babying his kid. And the story in general was basically tantrum of a grown-up toddler. | ||
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
On March 12 2011 04:26 StorkHwaiting wrote: I noticed you asking for story feedback in another thread, so thought I'd give your story a read. Overall, I think the story came alive once the dialogue came in because it was fresh, unpredictable, and entertaining to read. The handyman was quite a mystery and kept me going down the lines. Stylistic/Structural issues: First, it's considered bad form to use a mirror scene as the vehicle for character description. It's cliche and a telltale that the writer is inexperienced. Second, to begin the story with character description and info dump is another clunky decision. It turns readers off because they are asking themselves why do they care the entire time. And for an editor, the why should I care quickly becomes I don't care and then the story gets tossed in the rejection bin. Conflict should be introduced first, not setting, background, or the character's looks. In fact, I think you could simply start the story at "There was a knock at the door..." While mystery man at the door is another rather cliche situation, at least there's mystery and the cliched aspects of the scene take no more than a few words to get past. Then it jumps into the dialogue, which I thought sparkled. Third, after the MC spots the Benz, he runs into his house and devolves into a series of rather bewildering histrionics. It struck me as maudlin and excessive. First, because there was this strange zig off to metafiction, where the MC wanted to write it all down, perhaps a commentary on the character of writers, then it zagged over to Marta, who's entire story is then just put on us without any previous foreshadowing, mention, or development. The whole thing just comes out of left field. Then there is another bizarre plot development in which he tries to kill himself, then decides to crash his father's gift into the workman's van. By the end, I interpreted it as a story about a guy who's bumming off his dad, is selfish and jerkish and consumed by his ego-driven writing, and then has a moment of intense guilt triggered by the Benz, which then galvanizes him to destroy the source of guilt by driving recklessly. Either that or he wanted to just wallow in his guilt and go balls-out self-destructive. My question, though, is why do I care? I'll admit right off that I'm not a fan of literary writing and this piece strikes me as such, so take my opinion with a grain of salt. Literary writing often has rather inexplicable and ridiculous plots because the point is to expose some aspect of humanity in dramatic fashion rather than to have a good story. Foreign Exchange certainly does that so maybe it's catering to that sensibility. But, as a general reader, I have trouble sympathizing or caring about the character and I feel the meat of the story is rather pedestrian. A spoiled kid feels guilty then self-destructs. It's just not something I find evocative or memorable. And the way the story is fleshed out, each aspect of it feels very put-together, as in I can see the bones that the writer was working with. Do a nose in the mirror scene, and then have symmetry with the nose being broken at the end. Have the Benz be a symbol of the father's patronage/material aid, and then have the MC crash it. And the repairman which takes up the whole middle is simply a plot device to get the MC to go to the garage. When looked at in total, the story feels like a very by-the-numbers symbolism/thematic piece where I am not surprised, moved, or sold on its believability at any point. I was probably most disappointed because I was intrigued by the handyman and where that would lead and he ended up being nothing more than an example of the dad babying his kid. And the story in general was basically tantrum of a grown-up toddler. Thank you for reading and taking the time to write up the length of review that you did. I agree with your criticism, Nick (main character; MC) is not interesting or sympathetic because he is not as well as drawn as he could be. I do need to make him interesting, and very quietly, sympathetic. In short, I want to make him unlikeable but understandable. I like that tension. The Handyman character and his involvement definitely needs to be expanded, or removed and replaced with something else. Pretty deficient right now. Regarding the mirror scene: it is cliche on purpose. Nick, afterall is a writer (though surely an also-ran at this point in his career), the joke is on him. Further, there are a number of short stories involving a nose as its primary symbol, also now cliche. Though I like this idea, I can see that it is not obvious enough to the reader. The arc of the Benz mirrors (ahem) that of the Marta story: unexpected gift / unexpected pregnancy & crashing the Benz / causing the abortion. I've since changed the working title to "The Unexpected Gift". Your judgment of the sum-total is spot-on, none of the elements, though definitely present and organized, do not come together in a satisfying way. His nose is broken at the end, we know it's a symbol and important to Nick's superficial sense of self but it doesn't really go beyond that. The Benz is obviously a metaphor that interacts with his nose, but again where does it land in terms of completing an arc? The connections made are all general. Maybe the problem is that while the nose is a symbol of ego, but Nick's ego is already low, i.e. no tension. He is already too late in accepting the responsibility for the problems he has caused for himself, no tension there either. Funnily enough, now that I've typed that, I see that the story ends logically (not necessarily satisfactory) viewed in light of the previous sentences. It's too late, so the only alternative is self-destruction. Again, thank you for reading my story and praising the dialogue, that's been the only consistent bit of feedback I've been getting on this one. Dialogue: good; everything else: mixed-to-negative. Question: I'm not quite sure of your feeling on the structure. When you say, "it feels very put-together" is this a positive thing or negative? If you could expand on that, I would be very appreciative. | ||
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JackMcCoy
165 Posts
+ Show Spoiler + It would be almost two hours before Steve regained consciousness. It was the smell that woke him up. The air was saturated and smelt of unmistakable mildew. His hands were tied to the arms of the crude seat fashioned out of an old wooden chair and pieces of loose timber. He struggled instinctively, but despite its patchwork appearance, the chair was nailed together sturdily and would not bend or break to his increasingly frantic tugging and writhing. A solitary lightbulb hung on the end of a long cable in the center of the room. No more than 30 watts, it cast a pallid, impotent glow of light that didn’t even reach the nearest wall. The only thing Steve could see was the bulb itself, and the infinite distance made visible by the darkness. He struggled to summon his last memory. He remembered crashing the car, and the handyman helping him out. No, that was over a week ago. Where was he now? How did he get there? His head was throbbing and he couldn’t focus. He tried to settle his breath and listen for any sounds, but all he could hear were the intermittent drops of water dripping and splashing into a shallow puddle somewhere in the corner. Suddenly, muffled footsteps approach from behind him. Two bolt locks slid out of their housing, and a door creaked and swung open, letting in a draft of fresh, cool air before slamming shut and returning the room to the sweltering, dark greenhouse it had been. This time, the room was occupied by two. “What the fuck is this? What’s going on?” Steve asked, trying to sound intimidating but failing as his voice cracked. The figure walked slowly, with measured pace, around to the front of the chair and stood just underneath the weak bulb, allowing the full scope of his face to be lit in the ghoulish light. “You—You’re Nick, the handyma—“ “That’s Nick, the World’s Best Handyman. Please don’t make that mistake again. I really hate repeating myself.” “What do you want with me? What am I doing here? Where am I?” “That’s a lot of questions at once Steve. Why don’t you try to relax? I mean, normally, this is where I’m supposed to say ‘give me what I want and this will be all over quickly and painlessly.’ But, then I’d be lying. This is going to take a while, and it’s going to be immeasurably painful, but don’t worry. I’ll be right here the whole time to make sure everything goes smoothly, ok buddy?” Nick walked over to the wall and flicked a switch. Suddenly, the miles of strangely comforting blackness snapped close to reveal grey stone walls. To the right, an improvised tack board held a number of tools and utensils. Nick reached up near the top of the collection and lifted down a small crescent wrench. He walked wordlessly towards Steve as he struggled in the chair, his ashen face horror stricken. Before a plea could even escape his lips, Nick placed the wrench around the knuckle on Steve’s thumb and spun the tool in a 360º circle, the thumb bones spiral fracturing and separating as the ligaments and tendons in the area twisted and snapped. Steve screamed out in profound agony as his thumb flapped and dangled next to his bound hand. “Please, please, my Dad—my Dad is rich. Money. You can have money, please, any money. Please, no, please.” Nick smiled and brought the wrench down, hard, on Steve’s clavicle, shattering it instantly. “You know what your problem is, Steve? You’re selfish. You’re always going to be selfish. You will always be a sad, miserable drain on everyone in your life. I’m doing the world a favor here. Well, actually, I’m doing one particular person a favor, but the world will benefit.” “Who—who? Why—“ But Nick, the World’s greatest handyman, just started whistling as he picked up the tire iron and swung it into Steve’s throat. | ||
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
On March 12 2011 05:47 JackMcCoy wrote: I re-wrote your story so that the interaction between the characters is a little more dramatic. + Show Spoiler + It would be almost two hours before Steve regained consciousness. It was the smell that woke him up. The air was saturated and smelt of unmistakable mildew. His hands were tied to the arms of the crude seat fashioned out of an old wooden chair and pieces of loose timber. He struggled instinctively, but despite its patchwork appearance, the chair was nailed together sturdily and would not bend or break to his increasingly frantic tugging and writhing. A solitary lightbulb hung on the end of a long cable in the center of the room. No more than 30 watts, it cast a pallid, impotent glow of light that didn’t even reach the nearest wall. The only thing Steve could see was the bulb itself, and the infinite distance made visible by the darkness. He struggled to summon his last memory. He remembered crashing the car, and the handyman helping him out. No, that was over a week ago. Where was he now? How did he get there? His head was throbbing and he couldn’t focus. He tried to settle his breath and listen for any sounds, but all he could hear were the intermittent drops of water dripping and splashing into a shallow puddle somewhere in the corner. Suddenly, muffled footsteps approach from behind him. Two bolt locks slid out of their housing, and a door creaked and swung open, letting in a draft of fresh, cool air before slamming shut and returning the room to the sweltering, dark greenhouse it had been. This time, the room was occupied by two. “What the fuck is this? What’s going on?” Steve asked, trying to sound intimidating but failing as his voice cracked. The figure walked slowly, with measured pace, around to the front of the chair and stood just underneath the weak bulb, allowing the full scope of his face to be lit in the ghoulish light. “You—You’re Nick, the handyma—“ “That’s Nick, the World’s Best Handyman. Please don’t make that mistake again. I really hate repeating myself.” “What do you want with me? What am I doing here? Where am I?” “That’s a lot of questions at once Steve. Why don’t you try to relax? I mean, normally, this is where I’m supposed to say ‘give me what I want and this will be all over quickly and painlessly.’ But, then I’d be lying. This is going to take a while, and it’s going to be immeasurably painful, but don’t worry. I’ll be right here the whole time to make sure everything goes smoothly, ok buddy?” Nick walked over to the wall and flicked a switch. Suddenly, the miles of strangely comforting blackness snapped close to reveal grey stone walls. To the right, an improvised tack board held a number of tools and utensils. Nick reached up near the top of the collection and lifted down a small crescent wrench. He walked wordlessly towards Steve as he struggled in the chair, his ashen face horror stricken. Before a plea could even escape his lips, Nick placed the wrench around the knuckle on Steve’s thumb and spun the tool in a 360º circle, the thumb bones spiral fracturing and separating as the ligaments and tendons in the area twisted and snapped. Steve screamed out in profound agony as his thumb flapped and dangled next to his bound hand. “Please, please, my Dad—my Dad is rich. Money. You can have money, please, any money. Please, no, please.” Nick smiled and brought the wrench down, hard, on Steve’s clavicle, shattering it instantly. “You know what your problem is, Steve? You’re selfish. You’re always going to be selfish. You will always be a sad, miserable drain on everyone in your life. I’m doing the world a favor here. Well, actually, I’m doing one particular person a favor, but the world will benefit.” “Who—who? Why—“ But Nick, the World’s greatest handyman, just started whistling as he picked up the tire iron and swung it into Steve’s throat. Not quite as funny as your other stuff. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On March 12 2011 05:33 A3iL3r0n wrote: Thank you for reading and taking the time to write up the length of review that you did. I agree with your criticism, Nick (main character; MC) is not interesting or sympathetic because he is not as well as drawn as he could be. I do need to make him interesting, and very quietly, sympathetic. In short, I want to make him unlikeable but understandable. I like that tension. The Handyman character and his involvement definitely needs to be expanded, or removed and replaced with something else. Pretty deficient right now. Regarding the mirror scene: it is cliche on purpose. Nick, afterall is a writer (though surely an also-ran at this point in his career), the joke is on him. Further, there are a number of short stories involving a nose as its primary symbol, also now cliche. Though I like this idea, I can see that it is not obvious enough to the reader. The arc of the Benz mirrors (ahem) that of the Marta story: unexpected gift / unexpected pregnancy & crashing the Benz / causing the abortion. I've since changed the working title to "The Unexpected Gift". Your judgment of the sum-total is spot-on, none of the elements, though definitely present and organized, do not come together in a satisfying way. His nose is broken at the end, we know it's a symbol and important to Nick's superficial sense of self but it doesn't really go beyond that. The Benz is obviously a metaphor that interacts with his nose, but again where does it land in terms of completing an arc? The connections made are all general. Maybe the problem is that while the nose is a symbol of ego, but Nick's ego is already low, i.e. no tension. He is already too late in accepting the responsibility for the problems he has caused for himself, no tension there either. Funnily enough, now that I've typed that, I see that the story ends logically (not necessarily satisfactory) viewed in light of the previous sentences. It's too late, so the only alternative is self-destruction. Again, thank you for reading my story and praising the dialogue, that's been the only consistent bit of feedback I've been getting on this one. Dialogue: good; everything else: mixed-to-negative. Question: I'm not quite sure of your feeling on the structure. When you say, "it feels very put-together" is this a positive thing or negative? If you could expand on that, I would be very appreciative. Hey Aileron, glad to read and crit. And glad I didn't have it too far off the mark in terms of understanding. About the structure, what I've noticed in my own writing, is that when everything is a bit too tidy and neat, it no longer feels real. Real life is messy, it has a lot of weird rabbit trails and doubling back. So when I read a story that's a bit too pat in its plotting, I stop feeling like I'm reading about life and feel like I'm reading someone's writing (which is not what I want). Basically, if I were to draw your story out in a chronological diagram and then drew lines between the initial plot point and then it's resolution, it would look an arc within an arc, almost perfectly proportionate. It's way too symmetrical and congruous in both pacing and sequence of resolution, and therefore difficult to believe. For instance, nose comes first, then repairman, then Benz, then on the back end it's hop in the Benz, zoom past the repairman, crash the Benz, and then break the nose. The only little variation in the sequence really is the repairman resolution could be seen as coming after the Benz, but he's not even much of a resolution so it's really just Nose -> Benz -> Benz crash -> Nose broke. Now, I don't think you should fuss about and purposely make things chaotic, but definitely try to put yourself in the character's shoes and logically go step by step through what the character might do, think, and feel. Really try to sink yourself into the head and body of your character, give info when your character would think of that info, and do things when your character really would want to do those. If you try to fit character into a plot, that's usually a lot more difficult. If you do it the other way around, it usually guarantees the story will amble around a bit and have some interesting surprises for the reader, rather than be a connect the dots sort of journey. Best of luck  .And yeah, I think there is a definite lack of tension for the character. There's just really not much choices to make, and the choice he does make is really quite odd. It's like, accept the Benz and have a ho hum day, at which point there is no story, or go crash the Benz, which doesn't make much sense, other than if he's going on a binge of self-destructiveness, at which point we as readers do not have enough development for us to really feel for him when he starts to go off the deep end. Some stories can definitely work where the protag descends into madness, but those are like Othello, where we fully understand the circumstances, his previous state, the factors driving him to it, etc. It's actually quite hard to pull off that sort of tragedy in a short story. | ||
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StorkHwaiting
United States3465 Posts
On March 12 2011 05:47 JackMcCoy wrote: I re-wrote your story so that the interaction between the characters is a little more dramatic. + Show Spoiler + It would be almost two hours before Steve regained consciousness. It was the smell that woke him up. The air was saturated and smelt of unmistakable mildew. His hands were tied to the arms of the crude seat fashioned out of an old wooden chair and pieces of loose timber. He struggled instinctively, but despite its patchwork appearance, the chair was nailed together sturdily and would not bend or break to his increasingly frantic tugging and writhing. A solitary lightbulb hung on the end of a long cable in the center of the room. No more than 30 watts, it cast a pallid, impotent glow of light that didn’t even reach the nearest wall. The only thing Steve could see was the bulb itself, and the infinite distance made visible by the darkness. He struggled to summon his last memory. He remembered crashing the car, and the handyman helping him out. No, that was over a week ago. Where was he now? How did he get there? His head was throbbing and he couldn’t focus. He tried to settle his breath and listen for any sounds, but all he could hear were the intermittent drops of water dripping and splashing into a shallow puddle somewhere in the corner. Suddenly, muffled footsteps approach from behind him. Two bolt locks slid out of their housing, and a door creaked and swung open, letting in a draft of fresh, cool air before slamming shut and returning the room to the sweltering, dark greenhouse it had been. This time, the room was occupied by two. “What the fuck is this? What’s going on?” Steve asked, trying to sound intimidating but failing as his voice cracked. The figure walked slowly, with measured pace, around to the front of the chair and stood just underneath the weak bulb, allowing the full scope of his face to be lit in the ghoulish light. “You—You’re Nick, the handyma—“ “That’s Nick, the World’s Best Handyman. Please don’t make that mistake again. I really hate repeating myself.” “What do you want with me? What am I doing here? Where am I?” “That’s a lot of questions at once Steve. Why don’t you try to relax? I mean, normally, this is where I’m supposed to say ‘give me what I want and this will be all over quickly and painlessly.’ But, then I’d be lying. This is going to take a while, and it’s going to be immeasurably painful, but don’t worry. I’ll be right here the whole time to make sure everything goes smoothly, ok buddy?” Nick walked over to the wall and flicked a switch. Suddenly, the miles of strangely comforting blackness snapped close to reveal grey stone walls. To the right, an improvised tack board held a number of tools and utensils. Nick reached up near the top of the collection and lifted down a small crescent wrench. He walked wordlessly towards Steve as he struggled in the chair, his ashen face horror stricken. Before a plea could even escape his lips, Nick placed the wrench around the knuckle on Steve’s thumb and spun the tool in a 360º circle, the thumb bones spiral fracturing and separating as the ligaments and tendons in the area twisted and snapped. Steve screamed out in profound agony as his thumb flapped and dangled next to his bound hand. “Please, please, my Dad—my Dad is rich. Money. You can have money, please, any money. Please, no, please.” Nick smiled and brought the wrench down, hard, on Steve’s clavicle, shattering it instantly. “You know what your problem is, Steve? You’re selfish. You’re always going to be selfish. You will always be a sad, miserable drain on everyone in your life. I’m doing the world a favor here. Well, actually, I’m doing one particular person a favor, but the world will benefit.” “Who—who? Why—“ But Nick, the World’s greatest handyman, just started whistling as he picked up the tire iron and swung it into Steve’s throat. Lol, nice, clean writing Jack. No complaints there. Although, it's cliche enough to make my peepee soft. Any chance you write professionally? If not, you should definitely consider it. Your technical ability is more than adequate. | ||
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A3iL3r0n
United States2196 Posts
Edit: Huh, guess that didn't work. My bad. | ||
Chill
Calgary25998 Posts
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