LJ Idol Presents:

I bring y'all this humble offering, because I was looking through my incomplete stuff/short stories and found it: http://theun4givables.livejournal.com/166010.html

I actually kind of forgot that this piece existed, so I'm really curious as to what a wider audience than my flist thinks. Any and all criticism is welcome -- especially crit on the "voice." Though I'm already painfully aware that there is no voice. xD

From:

reckless-blues.livejournal.com

It's a little wordy - especially, all the body language and these descriptions of them moving around in their seats. (Maybe I'm just allergic to this in particular because I used to do a lot of screenwriting where you don't do that unless it's completely unavoidable, but I feel that in the written form when you describe body language it becomes amplified and before long I was sort of picturing them rolling their eyes back in their heads and tossing their bodies around the car. It just seemed very artificial. Especially, you waste a lot of time with these stage directions - why is it significant that this guy is making sure not to light a cigarette too near the pumps? Everybody does that, it's not so interesting or important that you need a whole sentence for it. "I walked away from the pumps, lighting a cigarette" ... you know, that sort of thing, it would be better here.) The opening is also a little weird - your narrator either knows exactly what he's doing with his hands, enough to attach an adverb to it, or he's just guessing that he's biting his nails.

"Had gotten her" is a little weird. "How one of those bastards got her" is more natural.

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You might just be allergic to it. ;) But I can see where it could also be a bit heavy-handed. I'm very big on that sort of thing in general -- you can't "see" body language in a written medium, and I like using it as a way to help instill mood. And the pump thing -- god, yeah, I really don't need that extra direction, do I? And I agree with the opening line.

Ooh, god, yeah, you're right. xD

Thanks. :)

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beeker121.livejournal.com

I like the tension you set up: both choices, stopping or not, are dangerous and both have risks. You convey the characters exhaustion well too, but somehow the exhaustion and the tension work against each other for me and came out a little bland.
They mention nothing being in the news, and that is a great way to end this, but I really wanted something about the radio (maybe just because I listen to the local news station in the car a lot).
I think this needs more words to really work, the brothers are sketched in nicely but it's only a sketch and so it didn't get under my skin the way your stuff so frequently does. I was left thinking their biggest danger is each other, which I don't think you were going for (and may reflect the post-apocalyptic stuff I'm currently reading).
Also, yay for someone coming back and using the killing floor part of this space!

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Hm, I didn't think about the exhaustion and tension working against one another. Thanks for the. :)

The kind of space I thought they were in, I didn't think that they'd even get the radio. I think I also was living at a point in time where I didn't have any radio in my car at all. I'll make a note of that, too. :)

I definitely hear you on the sketch. I wrote this on the fly, based on a prompt (and a challenge) from a friend, and I kind of failed at the challenge part (it being an entirely stand alone piece). I happened to re-read it this morning and could see that it had potential. "Needs more words" sounds about right. XD ALSO, it was nice to hear that my usual gets under your skin, because that's frequently what I'm going for. ;)

Thanks. :)

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Actually, I got that impression about the brothers as well. So I agree that something needs to be done about it if it is not a desired effect.

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Oh, it was so sad to go back and read the prompt after finishing the story! I hope it is the last gas station for reasons other than our POV brothers never needing any gas again because they've gone to the great big gas station in the sky.

It definitely reeled me in once I really had a chance to sit down and start reading. I feel like you picked up steam after the beginning and it got tighter. The bits of characterization towards the end like the younger brother not really smoking were nicely done.

The murmuring and muttering descriptions of the first few bits of dialog threw me off ever so slightly. Why are they hushed? Are they just muted because of tiredness and desperation? They can't be hiding from someone else in the car going down the road, can they?

Also Jake's supposition that Jason is thinking about Sheila again is a nice touch, but he does veer into cliche territory when he laments that those bastard got her.

You do a really nice job walking the line of giving enough detail of the others to be scary in a non-cliche' way, but enough to leave the reader wanting to know more. It is very eerie that they get gas next to someone and pay with a card, but don't talk to her.

The pacing is nice with the paragraph breaks, too, I think. I'd say that part of your voice is pretty neatly developed.

This was cool. Glad you shared it.

Now back to banging my head against the wall of what to write for "gauntlet." Blech.

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Thanks for this!

I think part of why the beginning feels so off is that I was still getting a feel for the characters/the situation they were in. When I'm writing on the fly (as this piece was done), there's always a lull as my brain tries to rapidly piece things together. :) I'm guessing that's why it feels tighter the further in you get -- my brain figured that stuff out. xD

And yeah, the cliche territory thing. I would probably edit that stuff a bit, if I felt the gumption. :)

Yayyyy! This is a thing I've always struggled with because horror and I are typically not friends. xD So playing the eerie, horrifying monsters card was difficult. Especially since, at the time, I had watched a LOT of "Attack on Titan/Shingeki no Kyojin" at the time and the Others may or may not be strongly based on the Titans. ;)

Thanks! I'm glad I shared it, too. :)

(And same. I have had plenty of ideas, none of which wanted to be thrown together. Sigh.)

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jexia

What's precarious about his fingers in front of his lips?

“And how one of those -- those bastards had gotten her.”

Could be simplified to “And how one of those -- those bastards got her.”

"before making it back towards our car" might be a regional construction, but "making it" reads weirdly to me.

This is such a great piece, though. Pulled me in to it.

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Thank you. :) These echo some of the comments above, too, so I'll definitely keep these things in mind.

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I added to beeker's comment in case you are not tracking this thread.

In general, it is nice and an interesting premise, but sort of empty as a standalone? Because nothing much is happening besides them returning back to the gas station. The tension between them is there but does not go anywhere, their situation does not become clearer, they do not interact with the woman at the station.

So either something should have happened, or it should have been even more tense.

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Thanks. :) I have a feeling that this piece was really the start to something else -- but I already have so many unfinished starts, I'm trying to clear those all out first.

But I appreciate that people are informing what it is that it needs. (And I saw the beeker comment -- I am neurotic about tracking. :) )

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Since most of the things I would have said have already been addressed by other comments, I'll pick up on your question about voice. You're right: this voice feels fairly generic. In fact, I wasn't even sure about the gender of the protagonist until his name was used, and even then, since it was so similar to the other brother's name, I was briefly confused. Maybe do a little thinking about what these brothers really think about each other, what their relationship is like. Which one is older? Does he respect the other one or still treat him like a child? Do they have similar interests, etc.? That will probably help you get inside their heads better.

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Thank you -- and yeah, the name thing bothered me but that's what popped into my head (I don't like similar names in my fiction.).

These are good questions to think about. :) Since I don't know the brothers real well at all I'm sure it'll help in the long run.

From:

labelleizzy.livejournal.com

here's a passage from my NaNoWriMo in progress:
http://labelleizzy.livejournal.com/1348311.html

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Not knowing who your characters are straight away, I'll admit I was a little taken aback when I realized Athena was a grown woman, dealing with these issues with her parents and relying on her uncle for guidance. She reads as much younger and less sure of herself, like one ight expect a lawyer to be.

A lot of the dialogue reads well. There are points where it feels clunky and overdone -- like when Athena tells Uncle Cy that he's "the only one who can make her giggle like this." I think a lot of your direction (glances, giggles, etc) do a great deal of showing, but you have a lot of "telling" present, too.

Structurally, you can tell that this piece was very much written on the fly, by the seat of your pants. :) It's not necessarily a bad thing, but cleaning it up a little will help with readability, too. The occasional missed capitalization probably only bothers the grammar nazis amongst us, anyway. =p

Oh, and this in particular bothered me: The proud smile shows up in his voice, even (when she can’t see his face) with her not looking at him.

You can just totally drop the stuff in parentheses. After NaNoWriMo is over, of course. :) Because if she's not looking at him, of course she can't see his face! And little asides in parentheses in dialogue, like "blah blah blah (He grins.) blah blah," are also tricky. If there's an actual pause in his speech there, close the quotes and just write, "He grins," as a sentence by itself. :) It'll read better, that way.

All in all, though, these characters felt real and close. A little too close, almost, but I don't know what their relationship is beyond this piece here. And with the stuff I've been writing lately, I might be projecting, just a little! xD

From:

labelleizzy.livejournal.com

Thank you for the concrete concrit! hee.
This was literally the first pass. I have done zero editing, this was exactly how it flowed out of my head while I was doing a twenty-minute word sprint. And I enjoyed the hell out of it, and thought it was good.

(and of course I am going to edit everything once Nano is done. Ye gods, the amount of reorganizing I am going to need to do.)

also the bit in () that bothered you, is actually two variations on that sentence, not meant to be kept after the editing phase. One tip I saw on a NaNo advice blog suggested keeping your old and new edits together to keep your word count up before you have to validate your novel. Seemed reasonable, and also this way I can take all my pants-ness and look at it with clear eyes once this madness is done. *grin*

So much to play with later! I've actually got three different projects included in my word count but I think this Gods In Modern Life will actually work out into a novel-length thing, eventually.

*grin* good luck! seven days and counting!

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You're welcome! I can definitely see the shape of this, it just will need some work once NaNoWriMo is over. ;) I'm sure my NaNo will, too. xD

Ahhhh, okay. I have rewritten whole scenes in my NaNo (I didn't like one version, just cut the whole scene and pasted it at the end of my NaNo document, rewrote scene when it came in later) and done the same thing, so I understand. xD I mean, this month I've already written more words than I have any other month this year. ;) But I want to win NaNoWriMo, damnit, and Idol entries take time to write, too....

I'm crossing my fingers I can somehow do it -- I need an average of like 2300 words a day from here on out to win. Eep.

From:

jexia

I'd like to critique this, but really it needs at least a pass at proofreading, first. Sorry :/

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The characters come across as fully realized here, even though there are still questions about them. How has Athena done so well if her Dad is such a mess? What is his mess? It seems likely that maybe there was financial support without emotional? She's thinking about being vulnerable with her uncle, but he's calling her a successful bastion of strength. There are questions raised here and the answers could form an interesting story.

You could use another pass at editing for parenthesis and capitals, but I think this has a nice feel to it.

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I also felt she read as a much younger character. The descriptions of their interactions were somewhat forced and awkward, so that I found myself wondering why he was being so solicitous towards her and why you made a point of saying he didn't worry about "messing her up." My brain offered up the idea that she had some sort of physical impairment, though that didn't turn out to be true. In part, I supposed it's because it seems unlikely that two people could walk arm in arm down a nature trail for very long, since most of them are too narrow and winding for that. I felt the dialogue was the best part of it, because except for a few awkward points (which were pointed out above), it felt genuine. Ultimately, it's obvious that this is part of a longer piece, so I'm not terribly worried that it doesn't reveal what the problem is with her father. I agree, though, that it can use a lot of tightening. Of course, that's the beauty of NaNoWriMo: it forces you to get all the ideas down so that you can better shape them!

From:

roina-arwen.livejournal.com

I know this is sort of a rough draft at this stage, and I'm at work (shhhh) so I didn't have time to go through the whole piece, but here are a few hopefully helpful comments:

Her cousin knows all about the local and imported flowers. Anything that grows in California, Corey knows everything possible it is to know. --This can be tightened up, as it seems repetitive to me. You’ve used the word know/knows three times in those two sentences. Maybe something like: "Her cousin Corey knows everything about the local and imported flowers. If it grows in California, he can provide you with information on it."

And here: "Thanks, Cy. Thanks for dragging me out of the city and getting me out of my own head and everything.” She heaves a sigh... --You need to be careful with homonyms here – Cy and sigh. My suggestion is to have her take a deep breath instead of heaving a sigh.

Also, don't be afraid to use contractions in speech – it sounds more natural to have a character say "but I’m okay with us all being your favorite" rather than "but I am okay..." or to use "It's more fun..." rather than "It is more fun that way."

The speech sounds stilted when you write some phrases out the "correct" way.

From:

ellakite.livejournal.com

... but this seemed to be the best place to put this:

Tongue-Tied and Twisted (http://ellakite.livejournal.com/481219.html).

From:

jexia

("leap of the page" should be "off")

Totally understand where you are coming from.

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Typo:
introduce the reader the the main characters (to)

This sounds similar to what I have written, but also fundamentally different (from what I intended to write but could not quite find the words to). While we share the sentiment that we are our worst enemies, you are a writer, because you need to write, even though voices in your head stand in the way, and I am not, because the majority of the stories that fly around my head do not need to be told. They are there for personal use, and while some see the light of day, most do not need to.

Which is why I am sticking to LJI like glue (because it helps me write something at least) and you should leave (because right now it is hindering you).

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You will be missed! But this was a nice strident statement of purpose! I will miss you here. I especially love your fearless use of bold. Stay bold!

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I obviously can't critique what you posted, but it does serve as some valuable introspection. As long as Gary is still doing the Home Game/Killing Floor threads, I'd encourage you to post portions of your saga in progress. I've seen a lot of worthwhile concrit in the Killing Floor threads, and it could allow you to focus on your work without entirely disappearing. :)

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Me too!
http://kehlen-crow.livejournal.com/956382.html

From:

jexia

"were the goal is to" should be "where"

I have heard about Hell Week. I am expecting it to be hard, given that I have just started back at work, but none of my other commitments have gone away!

This post actually gave me a bunch to think about. Thank you. I am sort of flip-flopping between being "done" with Idol (see: going back to work and other commitments) and being fiercely competitive and self-loathing of anything other than perfection.

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Thank you for spotting the typo.

I am not one to talk, because like I said, I have byed-out previously even without too much work, but in the mindset I am in right now, I am going to cheer you on every week you make it to the deadline, whatever the outcome.

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I think those are all great ways to think about things.

that I myself is one of the major roadblocks

Should be "that I myself am one of the major"

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Thank you.

*winces* That one was an actual grammatical mistake, even though I should have known better. Thanks for pointing it out.

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