MobileRead Short Story Anthology - [DISCUSSION & REVIEW]

[Katsunami]

I still need to review two stories and start the rewrite of my own. I'll be done before March 31st, but I have a feeling that I'm unable to get started on my rewrite before Wednesday. Damnations; I've got a lot of work to do which I didn't plan (and which originally wasn't mine either ) Sorry that I'm absent for such a long time without giving any more input

[Graham]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I still need to review two stories and start the rewrite of my own. I'll be done before March 31st, but I have a feeling that I'm unable to get started on my rewrite before Wednesday. Damnations; I've got a lot of work to do which I didn't plan (and which originally wasn't mine either ) Sorry that I'm absent for such a long time without giving any more input

No problem. I guess deadline pressure's one of the things we're testing in public with this project!

I'm editing an older SF story now for my second contribution. I ditched the fantasy one that I was originally considering after I obscured every page with editing pencil...

Graham

[gmw]

I hadn't given much thought to a second story, I had hoped there would be more authors participating and it would not be an issue. Given my own work pressures, and other issues getting in the way of my writing, I can't see me writing something new in any reasonable time.

I do have a longer work that just might get finished in time, but it looks like it might come out around 20k words - and it is very odd (the closest to horror I've written). No one else has seen anything of it yet, so there is a chance it might get discarded; I won't know whether I think it is publishable until I've finished it. By both its length and its nature it may be inappropriate to this anthology. I've been struggling with it for months (for various reasons, the nature of the story is just one of them), but I think it's one of those things I have to get out of my system before I can move on.

[Graham]

I've uploaded my second story, another light SF contribution called "Cutting It Fine", to the DropBox folder.

Graham

[arjaybe]

Originally Posted by Graham

I've uploaded my second story, another light SF contribution called "Cutting It Fine", to the DropBox folder.

Graham

Downloading now. (dang, you beat me. I have to type mine up.)

[Katsunami]

Vera's Itch, 1.2

Original story As all the kinks have been worked out of it already, I'll post some more general comments. Most of them could come down to a matter of taste, though.

Spoiler:

"Her stomach wasn't the flat hard surface of a model,
but the gentle roundness of a real woman. And breasts proudly pushed out at the plunging neckline."

I'd put a comma behind 'woman', and make it into one sentence.

"But if the woman was in a hurry then he wasn't going to argue."

I'd change that to: "If the woman was in a hurry however, ..."

"He went to it and ran his hand over the varnished wood, this was seriously good stuff."

I'd split that up into two sentences, using a period after 'wood.'

"...so the old man moves in – it's his building after all..."

Is the change in tenses a conscious decision?

“It was a good itch this time, would you like to scratch it for me?"

I'd change this into two sentences again.

“Maybe later. I missed you, Coop.”
“I was only gone one night.”
...
She didn't need to finish. It had been a long time since their last physical contact.

But... he had been gone for only one night?

A dude that steals first nights. Original

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Vera's Itch, 1.2

Original story As all the kinks have been worked out of it already, I'll post some more general comments. Most of them could come down to a matter of taste, though.

Thanks, I'm always happy to look over suggestions.

Spoiler:

"Her stomach wasn't the flat hard surface of a model,
but the gentle roundness of a real woman. And breasts proudly pushed out at the plunging neckline."

I'd put a comma behind 'woman', and make it into one sentence.

It's one I thought about, not so much joining the sentences as removing the "And" or replacing it with "Her". So far I've always come back to what you see.


"But if the woman was in a hurry then he wasn't going to argue."

I'd change that to: "If the woman was in a hurry however, ..."

Another one I've thought over a few times, the two "buts" in quick succession do seem to be a problem, but I think that second sentence needs it. If I change anything it would probably be the sentence before, but () I still haven't found anything else I like.


"He went to it and ran his hand over the varnished wood, this was seriously good stuff."

I'd split that up into two sentences, using a period after 'wood.'

I wouldn't.


"...so the old man moves in – it's his building after all..."

Is the change in tenses a conscious decision?

Sort of. It works better in my head, and since it's dialogue I think I can get away with it.


“It was a good itch this time, would you like to scratch it for me?"

I'd change this into two sentences again.

I'll take this one. Thanks.


“Maybe later. I missed you, Coop.”
“I was only gone one night.”
...
She didn't need to finish. It had been a long time since their last physical contact.

But... he had been gone for only one night?

Not sure what you mean here. If you mean insert a "But", then no, I think it works as is.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by gmw

Not sure what you mean here. If you mean insert a "But", then no, I think it works as is.

It is unclear to me how long Vera has been physical at that point in time. It's not clear if there was physical contanct the day before. If there was (or could have been, in some way), 'long time' does not feel correct here.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

It is unclear to me how long Vera has been physical at that point in time. It's not clear if there was physical contanct the day before. If there was (or could have been, in some way), 'long time' does not feel correct here.

Spoiler:

Coop was only gone from the apartment for one night, but that wasn't supposed to suggest they'd had physical contact on the previous night. It has already been explained that she only gains physical presence on a first night (the night of the story), and that "After that she can show herself and talk to you, but you can't touch her". So while it's feasible they did it to someone on the previous night as well (making that another first night), the "it had been a long time since their last physical contact" is intended to suggest this was not the case. (Later, Cooper's thoughts include: "He loved the time he spent with Vera, even when they couldn't touch. But both of them wanted more.")

Is it really that confusing? Do I need to do something more to explain it?

[arjaybe]

v1.0

I've uploaded my second story, The Road by the River. It's about 1875 words.

[arjaybe]

v1.4

You had me wondering what was going to happen right away. That's good.

What is it about cutting the girls' hair that would ruin their business?

Spoiler:

Marie was in a box? A medical treatment pod?

The ending happened a little suddenly. We had no hint that he could choose to stay. Better if he had decided to leave for all the right reasons, then the sudden epiphany.

Jim

[Graham]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

v1.4

You had me wondering what was going to happen right away. That's good.

What is it about cutting the girls' hair that would ruin their business?

Spoiler:

Marie was in a box? A medical treatment pod?

The ending happened a little suddenly. We had no hint that he could choose to stay. Better if he had decided to leave for all the right reasons, then the sudden epiphany.

Jim

I just reckoned they were dissing his hair-cutting technique...

Spoiler:

Yes, Marie was in some sort of life support unit. I saw it as a clear box that had a controlled atmosphere. I'll see if I can make it clearer without breaking the flow there too much.

Thanks for the comment on the ending. That was exactly one of the things that I was wondering about myself. I'm thinking that maybe I have to have him trying to convince himself more that there will be a place for him on Glason 3, then finally realising that there'll still be a place for him here.

I also need to straighten out in my own mind how he's feeling about leaving behind the memories of Marie and his father. Is he looking forward to finally letting these things go? Or is he aware that he'll lose something of himself when he leaves these things behind?

Thanks Jim. I'm just about to put my comments on "The Road by the River" up.

Graham

[Graham]

Originally Posted by arjaybe

v1.0

I've uploaded my second story, The Road by the River. It's about 1875 words.

I've read "The Road By The River". Here are my first impressions.

Spoiler:

It's compelling, but obviously a rather uncomfortable read. It's a study of grief with a glimmer of light at the end. We are witness to the events leading from the car crash to Ricky's eventual arrival at acceptance, to the point where she can finally move on.

However, although Ricky is the protagonist, she takes no overt plot actions during the story until the very end. She is driving and observes, she goes to the river and observes, she sits in a near vegetable state and half-observes, dulling herself with pills, until finally something is thrust in front of her which cuts through and awakens her.

To make this sequence more satisfying for the reader, I think you need to put us right inside Ricky's head throughout. It's inside her thoughts that the character trauma and eventual growth are happening. We aren't as invested in her father, her mother, or Ginnie - other than knowing that her father is a big gentle man we don't know much about any of them - so as written we're still invested in Ricky through the second half, but we're mostly seeing her from the outside.

I realise that's really, really hard to do. An alternative might be to make the middle section - when Ricky is lost to us - from well inside her father's POV. This way we'd find out more about him, and connect more deeply to how Ricky's depression is affecting him, and by extension her mother and sister. We'd then have more invested in her snapping out of it.

It's not clear who gives her the photo which does the trick, but seeing the middle section from the father's POV would give us a good reason to suspect that it was him. (You could even make this more explicit if you show us the father looking at the same picture earlier - with all the attendant emotions that would summon up.)

So, perhaps have a look at the POV choices throughout? At the moment the first section is limited third person, very much from Ricky's POV, but moves to omniscient narrator in the second section, although that section starts still in a way that could still be her POV ("It wasn't very clear to Ricky how she came to be at her parents' place.") which I found a bit confusing. By the time we get to "Her eyes were flat-looking and sunk in their sockets. Her face was waxen and colorless." it's clear we're in omniscient.

Details

Little Michael had been bouncing around the house like a noisy rubber ball the last three days, diving in and out of boxes as he helped them pack. Mostly his two-year-old body had been in the way, and he got his fair share of exasperated scoldings, but he was too wound up to let it bother him. He was excited about moving down south, and especially about seeing Grandma and Grandpa.

This paragraph really brought Michael to life, told us they were moving, evoked the hassle and bustle of packing, and gave us an impression of her parents. Nice work.

She stood rooted on the shoulder, fear fighting an impulse to jump into the water.

I couldn't believe that Ricky wouldn't jump into the river after her son. I don't think it would do anything other than help the plot to let her do this in a failed attempt. It would raise the tension significantly and we'd have more sympathy with her.

She could just see her son's head over the wings of the carseat.

The various descriptions of Michael in the first scene confused me. At first I wasn't sure if he was in the car in front or beside her, but then figured out that she was seeing him up ahead, in the back seat and she could just see the top of his head over the back of the car seat. However, I was bothered by her seeing that 'his blonde head was lolled to one side. ' Car seat backs are deliberately tall things to protect the head, and if lolled to the side you might see just a tiny bit of crown. You've got a great opportunity to ratchet up the tension here, if she mulls that they really need to get him a new seat as he's outgrowing his first one!

However, he then goes from "the sleep of an exhausted baby on a car ride" to "leaning forward and waving enthusiastically" in a few seconds. Again, I'm not sure how she would be able to see more than the flutter of a small hand. Bear in mind that behind the car seat is the Volvo back seat itself.

Also, isn't the purpose of a car seat to prevent a child from leaning forward?

When you say "She could see her husband fighting with the wheel, her son alert in his seat", I think you need to preface it with some comment about the car now having spun to being side on, or slightly face-on to her. She couldn't see that from behind, I feel. Maybe have the rear of the Volvo go over the bank first?

Little things

"The rain let up at Rainbow Summit."

Slightly odd name for a section of road that has a river alongside it.

Ricky

This made my brain do a leap which jarred me out right at the start. It's such a male name that the 'she' that follows it was a surprise. Does it need to be Ricky?

sure enough, there were the lights of a train

I wasn't sure at this point whether she was seeing this oncoming or in her mirror coming up behind her.

Graham

[arjaybe]

Thanks, Graham. I'll get back to this later today.

[mrmarlowe]

Sorry for the MIA guys, but as you all probably know by now, you simply can't get rid of me.

Okay, I uploaded a new story. Hope sir Jacob and others check it out This one is a lame duck compared to my first story but I'm sure Sir Graham can fix it in no time. [As far as the first version is concerned, boredom is guaranteed ]

Dave - v.1-0

Also I have finished the editing and other tweaks on my first story: When My Father 'Died' - v.2-0