All Comments by ericswyatt

I think you are right Silver. Within reason. And, I'm still going to try to cut out the words... :-)

I'm quite happy the word limit has been loosened, even if just a bit. The first pass I made at the story clocked in at 2,600 or so, and I've whittled it down to like, 2,024. But I may be able to add a couple lines back in now, that I think are important...thanks!

Abagail!>!? so familiar....

:-)

what a great start. you've got a very tight story started here. well done!

That's the point of writing and critiquing...it is a process of fine-tuning the craft. It is hard work, and takes time, to do it well.

Keep at it!

Lots of description here. Very intricate, and obviously you see this all well in your mind's eye as you write it.

It is a bit heavily worded, for me. There isn't much to break up all of the narrative. That is a personal preference, but something that tends to make me feel like I'm "forcing" myself to read. There is a definite feeling of "otherworldliness" to this though, which is good.

One suggestion...
You write:
Time stood still, everything slowed in that state of awareness, he became one with not only his weapon, but his mark. He called to the target, willing it to his bullet. He breathed out emptying his lungs, took one last assessment and squeezed the trigger.

In a paragraph like this, there is no reason to say "time stood still". You are doing a good job of describing/showing that, without saying it. It is a redundant use, and un needed.

Oh, I'm working to continue the story...I'm not sure where I'll post it though...I'd like to keep it for my own site or something, likely.

Annabelle with a checkered past?!? well, yes. everyone has one, really, on some level, and she's no different. in my reality, though, her checkered past doesn't come knocking on the door or calling on the phone! :-)

OH, and a word of warning: Do NOT attempt to read this story aloud if you have a Cindy Brady-like lisp. UNLESS of course it has been assigned to you to read by your speech therapist. (There are a LOT of 's' words in this piece....yikes.

Thanks so much Jakestar.

Hopefully the person I wrote this for will be as happy with it as you are!!! (I wrote this sample in an attempt to land a ghost-writing gig...)

This kind of thing is why there needs to be a forum or question and answer type section to this website...

Now that's a mash!

First of all, as an insurance salesman myself, I was a bit offended by that line...
:-)

And, I have to say, THAT ending has my curiosity piqued!

Who on earth would do THAT for Annabelle?!?

Congrats to Nash.

Good mash Nash! Very interesting take. I think one great thing is when the original author really identifies with the mash of someone else, which you seem to have nailed.

yeah. those of us afflicted with wearing the mask...i mean, the Darth Vader fantasy only works once or twice really...

:-)

ah, missed it by "that much"

congrats to Persephonie!

got your note, and replied on my page, but I'll reply here too...I'll get to reading this sometime soon. Had a few things come up this week. In the future, though, feel free to email me directly at ericswyatt at gmail dot com anytime...
-esw

Hey Silver. Hope you read this reply...

I'll do my best to take a look at that for you sometime soon. My wife had surgery on Monday and has been in the hospital, so I've not had a lot of spare time.

I agree with you about the "contacting each other" point you make. My address is ericswyatt at gmail dot com, for future reference. You are much more likely to get a quick response that way.

-esw

In retrospect, the line should (will) read, "It didn't absolve them of their architectural sins..."

But, yeah...editing and such.

I'm more cunning and less so at the same time.

What parts of Annabelle's discussion or actions were "young woman"-like to you? I'd be interested to know.

Thanks for reading!

Thanks, Vinnie. I appreciate the comments.

The title does not refer exclusively to this chapter. The snow and such is a bit of (mostly) unintentional metaphor, sure...but there is a deeper meaning, which drifts (pun intended) throughout the piece.

I hope you find your socks.

I wouldn't have guessed that you aren't a writer, just that you aren't yet an experienced writer. Nothing here that couldn't be overcome and improved with time and practice, as you said.

Keep writing!

I started the story with an end in mind. x did y because of z. The cookie bit came to me as I was writing. One of those beautiful moments of "OH! That's pretty good!" This story was never meant to be about Annabelle, and yet, it turns out that it is, in many ways...

Thanks so much for the kind comments. They are uplifting to read.

The title...there is some background to the title, which isn't yet fully realized, but not really in the way you might think.

I think there IS an element of kind-of knowing what the outcome is going to be, but it is actually a bit more complex than that.

The next section/chapter for me is still forming in my mind. I may steal an element or two of wanna-be's mash, actually for Act II...but the real WHO and WHY is much different. And, ultimately, I don't write "who dunits" often, so there is less chance that that is ALL there is here. I'm really more interested in the inter-personal complexities of the story. ACT III and IV will actually provide the WHO and WHY with Act IV coming back full circle to Annabelle.

Lonely, she is indeed.

Hi Chloe,
You have the bones of a good story here. Some intriguing aspects of this make me wonder what happens next, for sure.

There are some obvious things that I'll address, briefly. I'd be happy to be a bit more in depth, if you want, but I don't want to discourage you. I think you have some good potential!

1) I've run out of gas, doing about 70mph on the loop around Lubbock Texas to be precise. The car didn't make a "low gutteral gasp". It pretty much just stopped running, the steering seized up (no power) and it braked like an SOB. "Drifting off" wasn't the sensation I had at the time. Maybe some other folks would have a different experience?

2) Tell us Dave's name in the first paragraph. I was thinking "He who?" because I didn't read the prior chapter first...

3) There are some typing and readability issues. No biggie, just noticeable.

4) I was confused by the part where he is outside the car and then she "appear" out of the darkness...had he wandered a significant distance away? Was there a dense fog complicating the darkness?

Again, I am indeed intrigued. And that's a great place to start.

Ok, to start ultra-critical...the first five paragraphs made me think "Uh oh, I'm not sure how I'm going to critique this without being a major jerk."

After we hit the elementary school though, I was ready to read on.

At that point, the story took on an interesting and engaging life much different than I was expecting.

I'm going to suggest something radical (and as with all such suggestions, take it with a grain of salt and only do what YOU, the author, really want to do): cut the first three paragraphs and start with "{Hugo} secured rubber bands around the ankles of his pants..."

The first three paras? Include them in the director's cut DVD? Better yet, use them to start off another chapter, later in the story. It isn't that they aren't important...they DO give us some important information. I just question the placement of them. It makes the story start too slow. They would be a nice "slow down" point later on...Or, I'm full of crap. :-)

I LOVE the title now that I've read the story. Very nice.

I thought the dialog with the principal was very well done. Two very distinct voices there, and we learn a lot about the principal in one response: "DOCTOR Joe."

One line didn't make sense to me: “I don’t. And yet, there’s a go-cart in the spot where I park every day. Why do you think that is?”

If he doesn't drive, what exactly is he parking there??

Overall? I am glad I stuck it out and got into the meat, because I'm left wanting more.

I do have to agree with n-becker here. That is part of what I was getting at when I said if you write a little tighter the parts you have, you could let the characters develop a bit more. N-beck is right on the money with the comment about Angela's lack of emotion...it may be valid, you just have to do a better job of convincing us of that.

"After that, Angela got on the phone, and pretty soon we were sitting side by side on my old living room sofa, being questioned by a police detective with a bad attitude. Angela was keeping the detective in check every time she started to talk to me like I was already proven guilty of this horrible crime."

This was confusing. It caused me to hiccup in my reading. Find a way to reconstruct this to make the "she" who thinks he's already guilty more clearly the detective, not Angela.

Overall, I was able to read through this and enjoy it. There's a great book that you might pick up sometime, called Write Tight. (I just looked and my copy isn't on the shelves, so I'm not sure who the author was.) If you come across it, get it. I think it would really help you with the major criticism I'd have of your piece: cumbersome sentence structure that leads to uneven pacing.

No biggie. That's fixable. What isn't fixable is bad plot, weak characters, and stilted dialog. You don't have those three problems. The story was fun and leaves the reader wondering what is next. That's good. There is some character development going on (and if you begin to employ some of the Write Tight techniques, you'll have more room for the characters to breath and develop even MORE in the same amount of space) and for the most part the dialog is believable.

Oh, one last hint (and one that I don't usually do until the third re-write, which doesn't happen form my StoryMash chapters, frankly) is to read the story aloud, to yourself. That helps you "hear" the pacing, identify parts that might make the reader hiccup mentally, and MOST IMPORTANTLY helps you hear if the dialog is forced or natural. Yes, written dialog is often slightly more formal than what we actually speak, but the rhythm and cadence of the spoken word should still be present.

Overall, I enjoyed this, and hope I'm paying attention when you continue it!

thanks chloe! welcome to the MASH unit. :-)

Glad to have you as a reader! I'll check out your work soon!

Also, I wanted to say that it was good to see you try to stretch yourself a bit. This is quite different in tone and scope, compared to several of your other stories here. Like going to the gym and working a new part of the body..."Ow, I didn't even know I HAD that muscle..." :-)

Ok. This is ONE way to take it! :-)

Some similarities between where you went with it and where I'm going. You picked up a number of the tendencies in Annabelle. I like the way she sort of manipulated the police officer. "No, you can’t help me, young man but you can give me some information, she thought." THAT was good. Very much an Annabelle response to the situation.

I wasn't as comfortable with: “Oh, I’m sorry. It’s Raines, Annabelle Raines. Please call me Annabelle.” She'd NEVER want that whipersnapper calling her by her first name. UNLESS she told him to do that, then resented him for following her instructions.

I was a little put off by HIS dialog and reaction. Subtle things...“Sure. Okay, thanks. Uh, Annabelle it seems that a large majority of your neighbors have suffered an – an illness of some kind and many of them died before help could get here."

He'd have a number. Just the facts mam. "Eight of your neighbors...six of them have died." Even if the numbers are wrong, the authorities are often quick to tout them. The question is, would he share it? Here's a big deal going down, and he's spilling his guts, and not questioning someone from one of two houses where no one was hurt...automatic suspect!

Also, if there were that many in one place, there would be a "lock down" mentality in the neighborhood. I would envision this cop aggressively walking to meet her half way, not allow himself to be "snuck up on"...but that's just me.

I would love to see a reference similar to the young couple's line about the walk not being shoveled and no tracks, etc, from the cop: We didn't even bother knocking at your door...

Overall I like where you took it. The end...well, I actually could work around that, I think... :-)

Awesome!

My pleasure. I really enjoy the process of sharing suggestions and critiques. I really do believe that it is very hard to "catch" some of these things yourself, even with multiple re-readings. I also believe that it becomes easier to avoid certain things and generally improve the more of these you can identify and think through. And often, when I'm identifying some point of tightening or refining in someone else's work, what I'm really doing is wondering if I don't need to go back to this story or that one and look for the same thing myself! :-)

yes, there is a sparse-ness to this which was intentional. I take the notes above to heart though, and can already see some areas for tweaking in that section to make it "fit" a little better.

as someone without children myself, I've had to lean a bit on the depth of emotion of others to try to communicate this story. although the emotion of not being able to have children can be powerful as well, so drawing on that was part of this process.

I have to agree that the pov of the elderly woman needs some tweaking. There are a few places where I was really happy with it, several others that were only so-so...but that's what editing is for, eh?

Hey, I'll have to check it out later today when I have some more time to read!

Visual hints on setting...valid point. Especially in this piece. I wanted the tension between them to drive this, at least at this point. I'm not fully envisioning the apartment myself, yet, I don't think.

The ending (of this chapter) kind of works on two levels...yes there is a bit of "changed behavior" but it isn't out of consideration for the roommate, rather done out of irritation. So while it is good on the one level (she won't have to pick soiled cotton balls out of the toaster) it just further reinforces the growing division.

Thanks so much for reading and taking time to post.

ah, but DID I confirm what you think I did????

maybe.

we'll see.

:-)

Thanks for reading!

A good critique takes a while to craft, and it would be impossible to have every story get that kind of attention...I understand that. I think the idea of having a breakdown of major fiction/story elements for rating is a great middle-ground for those stories that don't get the higher level attention. While not as in depth as a true critique, would provide better feedback.

writerwannabe, I was more than happy to help. Anytime you want.

Which brings me to my next point (somewhat off topic) is it possible that in the future we'll have some ability to communicate better as a group? A couple suggestions: 1) private messages between members; 2) notification of when comments are posted or replied to; 3) customization of our profiles to provide info on who we are, what we do, where else our writing might be available. Just some thoughts...

Overall I think you've done a great job of telling the story here. You have a great sense of pacing and movement. I'd maybe like a little bit more description at times, but on the other hand, that could drag the pace down, so you can just ignore that comment...

Character development and dialog work nicely. I felt like I was getting to know them not only through their words and actions, but in their reactions and assessments. You did a lot of showing, as opposed to just telling.

One place you could tweak a few words and do that even better would be this line:
“Finally, I had to stop. Malena was wiggling around a little bit and I was exhausted.”

The “wiggling around” part is great showing, but it is bookended by two tellings. A quick edit can help that even more:
“Malena was wiggling around a bit, and I was finding it hard to catch my breath. My legs were cramping. I had to stop.”

That's relatively minor, and the kind of thing that gets worked out in editing.

I point out a couple other MINOR suggestions below, more as ideas for you to consider as you revise (this, or any other writing you do). There are other things like those below throughout the piece, but these are representative samples:

“I took only a few steps before realizing that I’d forgotten the hat. I turned back, scooped it up and ran toward what looked to be a kitchen.”

This seems unlikely, with a woman draped over his shoulder. Adding something like “I almost lost my balance as I struggled to scoop it up...” or any other nod to the woman over his shoulder would make it a bit more real.

“I was sweating like a pig.”

Ok, this is one of those times when I'm going to say don't use a cliché, not because it is a cliché (because, on one level that would be ok for this character) but because it made me ask the question: Do Pigs Sweat? And why is this a common phrase? I actually stopped reading your story (something we don't want readers to do) and looked it up. (FYI, pigs don't sweat much, really, which is why they have to wallow around in the mud to cool off...)

There are a few “write tight” things like this:
(Original) “It took awhile, but I finally got through the whole story from start to now.”
(Better) “It took a while, but I finally got through the whole story.” (from start to now doesn't add anything, unless he already knows the future, and you are making it clear that he didn't share what will happen later.)

Trust me when I tell you this, there are a million of those kinds of things in every 10 pages I write, and it is usually edit number 3 or 4 before I catch most of them. So that's no biggie...but I wanted to give you a couple little things to consider.

Overall, I enjoyed this chapter a lot. I think you did a very nice job with it.
-esw

I'm a man. I have power.
(At least the power my wife lets me have...)

:-)

I'd be interested/available to help in some way that helps draw interest to really well crafted stories. If I can ever be of service, please feel free to ask.

Thanks, again, writerwannabe.

This one came to me all in one take, as I was sitting in a Waffle House in Georgia (or MAYBE Florida). I saw the waitress there and just imagined this scene happening for her.

Like the other story starts I've posted here at StoryMash, this is a fragment and an orphan of sorts. I'm not sure yet what I want to actually DO with it, but I thought it might be interesting to see if someone else has a way to continue the story on...

Thanks again for reading.

Thank you. That's very kind.

This story start is a snippet that goes with a five or six part series of connected short stories. I'd like to draw this one out more, but I'm really rather stuck with it. It is kind of like a "deleted scene" on a DVD at this point...I thought it would be interesting to see if someone with no concept of the "rest of the story" were to mash this snippet...we'll see. At the very least, it comes out to play here and remains in my memory banks...

Thanks for reading. I hope you find other stories of mine to your liking.
-esw

intriguing start! I'll be interested to see where this goes.

well, that's a start, eh?!?

Maybe I'm thick in the head...

But. What is WRONG with offering a critical point of view in a writing forum?!? Not critical in the negative context...critical in the way of offering a critique. Lord, have mercy, people PAY to have their writing evaluated so they can get better, and my (limited) experience here has been that if you try to offer some thoughts or ideas you get called out really quickly.
Maybe there should be a way for people who want to actually discuss the craft to be open for all comments, and people who only want to be told that their writing is "good" and never be challenged to change or grow can just have some stock comments that automatically get posted...

What is wrong with critical comments, as long as they are designed/intended to help the person receiving them become better at telling their story? Is the point of the comments section only to say, "Well done!" or "I liked that." If so, I'll stop posting comments. That seems redundant and (for me) would be disingenuous.
What did I find lacking? Well, if I may be so bold as to actually say so, I found very little in the realm of "show, don't tell." Without looking back, what did the main character look like? What were some of the more descriptive words or passages?
There were no scenes, only incidents. There was no significant detail. There was conflict, sort of. But it didn't jump off of the page (monitor) and grab me, because it was told in a very Joe Friday, Just-the-facts method. There was not a single line of dialog. There was no setting, really, at least not any development of setting as such.
As I said in my first reaction: there was no feeling of being "in" the story, no attempt to describe or let us see what was really going on. A story told in this manner would see Moby Dick finished in about 4 pages.
What I also tried to say was that this piece could be very useful in developing a larger story...but that encouragement has been overlooked.

It is just an opinion that I give. And, apparently, one not welcomed or wanted. Perhaps I misunderstand the reason for having comments here. Apologies to you if you were offended.

Be careful. You'll be called critical if you aren't.
:-)

very kind.

I'll re-examine the third segment, and see what I can do with it, based on your input.

The problem with this is, I'm not sure if you are right or wrong about continuing it. I put it up here, mostly because I'm not sure what to do with it myself. I'm kind of hoping someone else might...

I agree though that to continue it (either myself or someone else) would have to lighten the tone. Perhaps, I've thought, along the lines of the grieving process...not step by step, but becoming less raw with time.

There IS a lot of justification in the narrator's voice. He's clinging to hope that "some good will come out of this" and the other things people say when they can't think of other things to say in a tragedy. But, it isn't just hope for him, it is what he believes...

Thanks for taking the time to read and respond.

I don't disagree with your points here. What I was trying to say was that while there is a good foundation for a story (the deep heartache, the "time passes quicker than you can blink your eye") it isn't in an of itself an actual story. If I were in a creative writing workshop/class, that is the feedback I would give. I think it has a lot of potential, but is lacking in several areas of development.

That's a summary. And a good one. But it is kind of a blog post explaining how you knew someone...if you want it to be a story, you have to put us into it. Broaden it out. Make us care. That can be slow to develop and a long process, but then it has the ability to speak on multiple levels, to people of different backgrounds and experiences. I'd be interested in seeing this story fleshed out so that i can feel, see, taste, touch the truth of it.

ah. a story. with a sense of character, place, plot...sometimes i wonder if these still exist! interesting start, maybe just a little cliche, but i'm interested to see what you do with it.

I think it will be interesting to see how this plays out...I'm new here, so I'm still learning the ropes, to use a cliche that I would likely edit out of any story I was writing...I'm a bit confused by the vote rankings sometimes, and how some stories don't have higher votes while some "stories" still do despite their flaws...but the method of this contest sounds like it will be fun.

Best of luck to all.

No. No job I feel that way about. Except that we all "sell out" to some degree or another...

I'm certainly not either character. (I'm not female, first of all....) I wanted to try to write something from a female point of view. I think anyone who has lived with a roommate (college, or otherwise) recognizes a tension there at times, especially as you are about to move out of that stage and into something else. These two characters are there: they are friends, and roommates, but they are starting to hit that point where they are wanting to move on, break free.

This is just a start, though I'm not sure where it's going yet. That's why I offered it up here at StoryMash.

This isn't a story. It is a high school report. "I took this topic because I felt like telling people that there is always a limit to the deeds which go against the elemental forces. I know that we meant well but something has gone wrong"???? That's not even a good conclusion for a high school report, let alone a story for a site like this one. I'm sorry, but I just don't get it.