Link to the piece.
Let me know what you think!
1. What is the worst part?
2. What's the best part?
3. Why is it bad?
4. What should I take out or add?
(^hey, look. I rhymed.)
Saturday, July 19, 2014
Internal Affairs by Sweaty D
Hey, dumb people. I finished this one yesterday, and I'm letting it breathe for a bit before I attack it with a red pen. It was inspired by an old warehouse I explored with a friend. The warehouse was covered in graffiti and stuff, and I found an empty bottle of Zoloft there. So yeah.
Link to the piece.
Let me know what you think!
1. What is the worst part?
2. What's the best part?
3. Why is it bad?
4. What should I take out or add?
(^hey, look. I rhymed.)
Link to the piece.
Let me know what you think!
1. What is the worst part?
2. What's the best part?
3. Why is it bad?
4. What should I take out or add?
(^hey, look. I rhymed.)
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ReplyDeleteOkay, so I'm going to kind of go through this chronologically and type as I go along to attempt to give you the most accurate reader experience and also because it's easier for me to do this than try to remember everything, and so you'll (hopefully) get better results. This is mainly my second reading, but it's been a few days. Answers to your questions are at the end. Hopefully this won't be too long. If you have any questions about it, don't hesitate to ask.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, I love your opening line. The humor is pretty much trademark Daniel. It also gives a nice base to the story, foreshadows that /something/ is going to happen to cause Leon to not remember much, and adds a bit of contrast to a dark story.
I like how you describe the Zoloft as 'totally necessary' but also 'filled to the brim', kind of indicating he's not taken any for some reason. I'm kind of confused by the last line (in a few days, he will have forgotten all of this) because if I remember correctly he is basically unconscious for ten days. I may just not be putting two and two together, but it looks like there are some inconsistencies.
Your description of the deli is almost perfect. The only issue I can find is that I think you should leave the "-ly so" off the "the paint and decorations ate vibrant but but not garishly so", it fits the tone better. I'm also noticing bits of wordplay around here, particularly the deli being ethereal when taking into consideration the rest of the story and the darkening doors -> casting shadows bits. You work humor and playfulness into the story very well.
So you're saying that, unlike Kenyon, Leon is pretty myopic concerning need? It is, though, ambiguous which of the two factories (precision parts and the vinyl factory) you're speaking about right around here and then you aren't clarifying which one you're talking about in the proceeding paragraphs, either.
It's looking(heh) like Leon got the shaft with regards to the mental-health lottery. At this point (right after the first sign mention) I'm starting to feel really bad for the guy. He's also reminding me of an older Holden Caulfield but less whiny, although that may be because of the way you said that the "sign depressed the ever-living hell out of him".
Subaru's seatbelt thing and "corporate America"? I'm starting to see a pretty big unifying theme for your work.
That Subaru paragraph also has a lot of characterization and background info. A few things I'm confused about: how long ago, exactly, did Leon lose his record label job? When did his dad die? And how exactly does he have an entire bottle filled to the brim if he is so dependent upon them? In fact, how can he afford Zoloft? Without insurance, google says it's like 200 bucks for 30 of them, and it'd take more than that to fill the bottle all the way up. Assuming he does have insurance, he's still probably going to be paying quite a bit. Oh, and Leon was in grad school? You never really mention this ever again.
"He wears a blank expression and acts as if he doesn’t notice his parents’ bickering." Yeah. Great line.
“Some of these people,” Abe says, “live their lives by the thing I swear. Obsessed with it.” “Know what you mean. God-damned shame. No thanks.” Very interesting lines, looking back on them with more context.
I'm also noticing how DFW is influencing your writing. You keep your voice & sentence structure and everything, but you parenthetically clarify the occasional ambiguous pronoun, and you use the term "interface".
Oh man, the part you start off with Leo not being thirsty but still buying a water bottle is really subtle. It took me like two and a half read-throughs of the scene to notice it, and I like that.
BIBLICAL REFERENCES! ABRAHAM BEING THE FATHER OF ISHMAEL AND THEN ABE ASKING IF LEON'S DREAM'S BOAT IS LIKE THE BOAT FROM MOBY DICK, WHOA.
DeleteI feel like the dream itself shows Leon's frustration with 'the system'. You set the boat up as once part of an institution (the Navy, mainly, bringing the US government to mind as the specific institution) that is now no longer in said institution. And a boat's purpose is to sail and keep people from drowning, so the dream is showing that the boat has moved away from it's original ideals and, in doing so, sets its own course for destruction. This mirroring the US governmental/capitalistic frustration that's a theme of the story (and your writing in general), showing that the US has moved away from and bastardized its ideals and is now basically firebombing itself by sort of excluding Leon (citizens, and young people in particular) & their interests and depressing them by claiming to still stand by their original integrities. (I'm explaining this as I figure it out, but I can go back and clarify if you'd like) The swimming ashore line is the government telling citizens it's the citizens' job to fix what the government is supposed to have already fixed. Leon's dream's endings feature his death in all three, but with varying stages of effort put in by Leon, from non-action to little action to desperate, all-energy-consuming action. But they all result in the same outcome. I've interpreted this to mean that, because of how Leon's been affected by the American Bastardization of Ideals, his end is already determined no matter how he reacts or accepts/denies it. I can go on about this later if you want, but this paragraph is getting too long already.
It's also really interesting that Leon pulls his scarf up to "shield his nose from [the] asbestos", again given what he's about to do. Like he's trying to prevent all harm except the self-inflicted kind.
The second to last paragraph was very confusing, and took a quite a few reads to really understand, and even now I'm not quite sure. Leon thinks he took half the bottle of zoloft, fell back to see the sign, and then loses consciousness. In reality he goes to Home Depot for paint, spray paints the factory, puts the paint-thinner bag over his head, and then falls into his own vomit. Right? I'm also not quite sure on the ten day period in between. It looks like he was comatose for a week and a half lying in his own sick and was finally rescued and forced to regain consciousness in a hospital. I'm not well-versed on comas so I could be wrong, but this doesn't seem entirely medically accurate, especially provided he couldn't drink anything for those ten days.
1. The worst part, if I had to choose, was the kind of ambiguity and confusion at the certain points I mentioned. There's so much going on in this that it takes up too much mental processing power to figure these parts out and leaves too little processing power to consider and understand the rest of the story. I'd clear those portions up, and maybe make the timeline more rigid. At least the factory-job-until-now timeline, meaning that you could place the bigger events at certain dates or months or seasons. Then, after that, just clearing up or eliminating the questions I posted you want to answer.
Delete2. The best part is basically everything else. The Dad flashbacks were great in particular, and the dream was very interesting. Above all, I think you did great things with the government/institutional theme I mentioned above and am about to mention below.
3. For a first draft this is really good. As I said before, you can eliminate some ambiguity and confusion and that would make it a lot better. And there are some word choices and small sentences you could trim or cut or modify. Just work on trying to make it a tighter, tidier story and you'll be alright.
4. At this point I'm just repeating myself endlessly (I blame the government), but you could add a timeframe for post-factory events. You could also possibly take out the Cartesian Plane part, but that's only a very vague suggestion. I've only read through it closely twice, and for most of those I was focusing on the institution theme, so I'd have to go through it a few more times later to give you an entirely honest answer on that. Use your own judgement on this: if it fills a purpose, keep it.
I've read this as the story of a young man failing to come to terms and integrate into a façadical society, one that presents itself as following age-old traditional values but in fact has blown past them, bastardizing its ideals and standing at the opposite end of the spectrum. Overall, I feel it was a good piece. I found it compelling & interesting, funny & dark, and just all-around intriguing. I am so proud of you, Daniel. Good job.
Also this is so long, I had no idea
Logan,
ReplyDeleteYou're right about the plot hole with which factory has the sign. I realized like four days later that the factory Leon was going to wasn't the one that I said the sign was in. Interestingly, you're the only one that noticed that.
It was supposed to be kind of middle-finger to "the man" or society or whatever, and the Cartesian Plane was supposed to be another symbol of an arbitrary system thrust onto something. But, yeah, that symbol was kind of underdeveloped/obfuscated to an unreasonable degree.
It's scary that you mention the DFW influence because, at the time, I didn't really consciously choose to use "interface". so Whoa.
Again, thank you very much for reading it so closely. All this feedback helps a lot.