Anonymous Writing Group II: criticism thread

ok, i really only have comments on two of the pieces. deems' piece is incredible and i agree with whoever said that there is a strong sense of place (ireland) even though it is a saundersian whimsical piece. it seemed at one level a good natured satire of ireland's sense of itself as being behind-the-times, or provincial culturally (with the way this silly turtles song led the narrator to national fame and later a government post) and i was reminded of an interview with kevin shields where he said that when he moved to ireland from queens, ny he felt for a while that he had left the real world and was hiding out in some alternate, purgatorial type space where nothing every really happened, due to the fact that pop culture and television at that time were so america-centric. in general, it was delightful and i want to read more. in terms of tone, pacing, etc. it was A+

"grendel" i also liked as an exercise in tone. i also liked how the title reinforces your sense of the main character as a grotesque figure who occupies seedy environs. it reminded me of william s. burroughs.

aha, called it!

Har-De-Har-Har - I don't fully get the disdain for this one. A bust is a brilliant subject to write about. Yes it's been done to death, but there's so much potential conflict that it will always make for good fiction. I don't read enough crime for it to be anything other than promising ground.

The trouble imo is that this piece doesn't stretch the conflict out enough. There are maybe four separate relationships that you could have a bit of fun with - between Charlie and Eddie; between them and the big-time dealer; between them and the guests; and between the two cops - but they're all too sketchy. Have them really hate each other, see how the bust develops differently.

its boiled-down but without, imo obv, obv, the snappiness or style that makes for good boiled-down

This is otm. An obvious improvement would be by paring it down to the minimum - The two men sat among the dustsheets. A party in full swing boomed up from the lobby. It contrasted sharply with the ladders and crusted paint. Charlie was a small time dealer, Eddie his cohort. They picked a living selling cocaine to City types. But now powder wasn't selling. Competition uptown had become fiercer; so had the violence. - still not great, but much punchier.

The trouble is pulp is itself a cliche, so it's got to be done right. You can't really have 'City' and 'uptown' in the same intro (not that I could think of anything better); you don't have the time to explain what dust sheets do. You have to reflect how people talk, but without cliches - it's really hard to pull off.

Would suggest reading more (better) crime fiction, seeing what the best authors manage to do with economy, memorable characters &c.

By complete chance, immediately before turning to yours I read the prologue to Robert Crais' L.A. Requiem, which is also a hotel bust with tension between old and young cops. I'd take a look at that - it's only eight pages, but it's extraordinary how much tension and backstory can be wrung out of economy, slow revelation, and switching points-of-view (the latter being a big strength of your piece btw).

Good comments imo so far.

When are we getting next batch?

Turtles - I'm not sure the rhythm of this piece fits. It seems to be a longwinded gasbag - that first sentence could be four separate sentences - but towards the end he gets quite snappy. Maybe he's getting tetchier by that point, but it didn't quite sit with me. Agree that the Richard Ashcroft thing, while lolsome, is an unnecessary whimsy.

Otherwise there's lots of threads packed in there; ripe for development should you so choose.

Sorry for not pitching in with my crits yet, I'm at a convention, will be home tomorrow night so hopefully catch up then.

Not sure I agree on the Turtles opening line, I think the writer is just in enough control of his material to pull it off, and if you're going to do the multiple sub-clause thing then crowbarring three separate scenes into your opening line is a good way of doing it. It could be tightened up rhythmically (those first 20 words especially) but I don't otherwise have a problem with its length.

Andrew - this is very good. I was going to offer the same comment on sentence structure, but in fact you (both) do it very well; and in Andrew's case the 'exhausting' makes very plain that it's deliberate.

You could trim out a few words here & there - 'of Facebook' and 'they would repeat' are unnecessary. You also use double-adjectives - 'abandoned, barnlike' and 'twisting, wooded'. Those break the spell for me, making me aware that this is a piece of writing rather than a monologue - choosing only the right one would let the story carry on.

Fragment - I agree that this reads like a piece of sub-Hitchhiker's whimsy. Now I loved Hitchhiker's when I read it; the trouble is it completely scratched that itch, so that every time I've encountered similar later, it's set my teeth on edge. So I don't know that I can be very constructive tbh. The piece seems fine (silly name apart) - and the opening line is a good one - it's the genre I can't hack.

I'm guessing this would be better if it were to develop in an unHitchhiker's way. The ultramundane setting could work I think - but it'd be a hard job to suspend reality enough to make an alien working there seem perfectly natural.

Love the "Andrew" story best out of the whole lot. It intrigues me, its well-written and I'd love to read more.

Hi, I wanted to answer as Mrs. McCloskey but could not make an account in time. To me, though, the first line is the most cringe-inducing and contrived (everything else is pretty much straight-up reportage of the story as it was revealed to me) so I'm wondering what is it that people would rather see extended from it?

I've fabricated more on the used-car angle/alien takeover viability if that helps:

Mrs. McCloskey had taken a human lover, who also happened to be her worst salesman, in whom she confided the details concerning her species' plan for world domination: "ON THIS PLANET, FIRST YOU GET THE TRANSPORTATION, THEN YOU GET THE POWER!" The salesman was covered with drool, and failed to make his quota for that week. He wondered if there wasn't something odd, dare he say, alien, about the way Mrs. McCloskey's cilia-infested tendrils snaked into his orifices and drained his life force. Then he remembered the advice given on page 54 of Mrs. McCloskey's book: "MY #1 MOTIVATIONAL TIP: TAKE YOUR PSYCHIC TENDRILS AND DRAIN LIFE FORCE, DO IT!" He remembered it because of the motivational poster hanging on the wall with that very same slogan in large block letters captioning a smiling, but mostly drooling Mrs. McCloskey giving a tendrils-up sign.

re: "half-sarcastic sense of panic," I think it's fine, and is a better choice than "ironic sense of panic" in efficiently describing someone faking an emotion to ward off its full-fledged emergence.

re: RDRR, I agree the drug dealers are more compelling than the bumbling cops, but I disagree that that's necessarily a mistake.

i think your fragment just needs to be longer. we don't really have time to lock into the groove of your story, the universe you are creating, which is the key thing for any kind of sci-fi, even playful sci-fi.

Agree with most (gratifyingly small) criticisms of turtles, the beginning needs reworking, the ending is merely a punchline but not fitting. Signs of it being a post vs a piece i shaped (an ability im not sure i have tbph).

as for accusations of gasbaggery- i hesitate to be sure, but it's probably fair to assume that it did start out in a rather grand tone of indulgent reminiscence before i found myself getting my teeth into it- useful observation, that, and worth pondering if i revisit it.

it's kind of interesting to think about whether just letting gasbaggery take on a life of its own is a good way to start something, or whether to plan before putting pen to paper. i started something this weekend that i thought of in the shower, just pure gasbaggery, a gasbag character, whereas before i've really thought about the character before i got going. feel like either way has its advantages, the whole process for me is a bit like inspiration followed by writing followed by doubts about quality and where it's going, then repeat, then you get to an end and edit. what i'm realising now is that maybe after cutting things down they could then be grown again from the trimmed root, if that makes sense. as i often am ending up with v short pieces by the time my chopping is done.

Running with yr gasbag while the juices are flowing- good for tone imo

Pruning afterwards good for structure etc perhaps.

Certainly (evidently) i wouldnt advocate trying to edit while writing.

Re yr specific q, i guess a longer piece of work needs some thought or direction early on, whether it grows from a kernel or starts with a plan. Nice to have a promising passage or five in place to which you can look back for a quick reset tho (tone consistency again here, sorry if i fixate). Looking back on a dry chart of concept or scene plan might bend you to finish in the shape aimed for, my own gut feeling would be as you wonder about above i think? Write organically, cut into the shapes revealed by that, fit as works for what you have.

Gonna depend on where the focus on the work is obv, if concept and design are an important part of how its going to work etc

that piece definitely warms up as it hits its stride, i like the reminiscence and the way it develops. for once i'd say the language, especially at the beginning, is a bit too pared down. i needed more description, more of a feel for the location being described. i don't know if that line by line layout is as intended, i don't know if it works for me - adds to the over-sparseness maybe. basically i want more of the good bits of this piece tho, i want it richer and lol fishier.

The church was some bricks and mortar and wood that some men stuck together in a field.

Grandad’s corpse was in a box.

And one day some people who knew him and weren’t dead yet came to stand around the box and then bury the box.

And the singing was like the busker, those weak elderly voices crackling in a half-empty chilly church. This tiny building removed from everything else happening in the world at that moment. And this whole thing was meant to steel you against death or make you forget granddad was rotting in a box with white cushions in it and probably smelled like rubbish.

see this is good for me. first the sparseness, the emotional numbness, and then the expansion into the sensory. is nice. but some of the early attempts to catch that emotional blankness and its impact on the relationship - i think they need working up a bit. the blankness perhaps shd be more oblique and the girlfriend perhaps shd be more fleshed out.

It came with the explanation that it's conceived as a spoken-word piece, which to my mind explains the short paras.

that's interesting, at any rate. performance cd obviously fill out some of the stuff i'm talking about, tho i still think it needs development.

that's excellent.

i'd maybe lose or tone down the few pieces between moving to the city and the schoolkid's question, just the bits where he seems to spiral into mental fisherman outfit cliche- i think it could have gone that way but tbh it returns to the outside normality (or close to it) that inhabits the rest of the piece.

but that's a small quibble in a really good piece of writing imo.

this one was me. i think nv sort of otm - it's actually the product of quite a lot of work, and as i said upthread i trimmed it a lot. there was originally a lot more fishing stuff. ideally i'll prob have a separate monologue for the wife which precedes this one, maybe two or three more each, alternating, that's my plan anyway, so this will be the end of the play.

i think performance should add a bit given i wrote this for my own strengths (and weaknesses turned into strengths, awkwardness, weird body, etc, lolz) but i do agree it could be fleshed out a bit more, again. as i said earlier, "what i'm realising now is that maybe after cutting things down they could then be grown again from the trimmed root" - seems like that kind of tallies with nv's views and that's probably a good thing.

thanks for feedback btw.

Obv it was you tbh, and long before any geographical mentions.

Rather you than i leading the charge for 'one item for everyone's scrutiny' new rollout tactic

oh that one's really good, my word

the only bit I'd drop would be the three words 'the internet says' - it's good to give your character a little bit of worldly knowledge he doesn't have to coyly explain

other than that it's a really concentrated piece of unwinding alienation, relationships breaking down without really knowing why. entropy.

don't think the wife needs fleshing out. to flesh her out is beyond the capabilities of the narrator - he's lost her - he cannot find her - he lets her slide off the face of his comprehension

Agreed on that, on first reading. There's a sparseness that fits the distance that i'd be wary of overworking.

it coheres more for me on a second. but i wdn't be shy of exploring those stumps that cd become branches, can't hurt.

It's essentially a very, very good "the interior life of..." ILX monologue played more for emotional bafflement & entropy rather than laughs (although there are a few funny lines). The Roy Orbison tape bit is plain stunning - sad & funny all at once. It's also devoted to this mysterious & vulnerable character, not caricature - messrs Keane, Scholes & Gallagher are all established self-parodies who require little embellishment save a new imaginative escapade.

I have to remind myself that these can be extracts or fragments, I analysed too much on that basis last time round. I keep wanting them to stand alone. I think this piece does, but it's useful to know it'll have bits before & after - a lot of colour will come from there.

I have a difficulty in general with pieces that launch right into 'she says', all pronouns, in lieu of a proper introduction; but your 'I' is strong enough and the first sentence has enough momentum to make that not a problem here. You really get inside his head, the monologue works so well I feel.

the only bit I'd drop would be the three words 'the internet says'

I wasn't sure about this whole sentence. The rest of his persona is so domestic, so oldmannish, that the Maori reference didn't sit right for me. The sentence after shows that's the point, but it broke the spell a bit, is that worth it for a gag?

I look at the photo of Father Damien, taken just before he died of leprosy

This is a fine black joke, but I could see it coming and was kind of hoping for an absurd death instead. But would that work out loud? Not sure it would.

wherever the carpark he illegally parked cars was

This struck me as clumsy. It stands out more because the rest is so tight.

I don't know what the ringing phone is; it might relate to the next part, or I might well be missing something.

I wasn't sure about this whole sentence. The rest of his persona is so domestic, so oldmannish, that the Maori reference didn't sit right for me. The sentence after shows that's the point, but it broke the spell a bit, is that worth it for a gag?

this wasn't really a gag at all, more a sign of his interest/obsession. there was more about this tho originally, a few more maori references.

This is a fine black joke, but I could see it coming and was kind of hoping for an absurd death instead. But would that work out loud? Not sure it would.

This is the Father Damien: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Father_Damien - you learn about him at school in Ireland, or you did in my time.

With the phone it doesn't really relate to anything, I just imagine it as an interruption. It could be his wife. It could be someone else.

Carpark line is a bit clumsy, I agree.

Heard this afternoon this wasn't accepted for one monologue comp I sent it to, so it's good to get feedback here.

feedback is the standard would want to be high in that comp imo

re: fragment length, sci-fi universe building,
I think the complaint was about the universe itself, one where improbably wacky situations and names dominate, rather than its depth. To stay true to the contours of that universe, it would just get progressively wackier.

It is meant to stand alone (I didn't pick the title "fragment" though it was originally part of a series of equally short and improbable vignettes), so feel free to critique it as such. I appreciate the politeness of "this isn't my cup of tea, so I can't judge" but I'd prefer the engagement of a dissatisfied customer so I can learn to trick others into drinking and enjoying this tea without realizing they actually hate it.

I am a little taken aback by the idea that there was a wave of Douglas Adams-styled SF that ruined people's appetites for it. The closest SF to Adams I could think of is Ballard.

Terry Pratchett was who I had in mind fwiw

re. Har-De-Har-Har, idk how serious it's meant to be but nobody gains anything from dismissing it so - I am assuming that this is not a complete piece, as it doesn't contain any real resolution; stuff just happens; however it could be a useful set-up of a situation. As an opening set-up it doesn't engage me much tbh, as both the content and the style are a little clunky. The sentence fragments are not always effective. The break between the first two paragraphs, followed by a fragment, was particularly jarring. It didn't feel like the author had spent enough time considering the salient details of the environment or the characters. I would rewrite this using full sentences, vivid description etc., and then pare it right back down to match the required tone.

re: Pratchett, he strikes me as being earnestly invested in the characters in his worlds where the wackiness is more like window dressing or a structure for them to inhabit, whereas with Adams/Ballard, it's the wackiness that uses characters as a substrate.

re: Kennesh, I like the idea of letting the reader/listener figure out Kennesh is actually Kenneth.

mods can we get a SPOILERS up in this pls

re. Turtles, I liked this a lot. I enjoyed the varied sentence lengths, especially the long and complicated one that makes up the first para. I would have liked more hints at the emotional weight behind the narrative. There's a darkness there that's intriguing and isn't explored. Idk. It's fine how it is, rather slight, entertaining, but I think it could carry more quite easily & wld be more rewarding.

Shame Garda outed himself so early, it's good to be able to read these without knowing the author, as soon as you know who it is you instantly start reading other things into it.

Still, I really liked this piece, although more so when I thought it was a short story - the terseness has the potential to drag in monologue form, not quite sure it fits the speech patterns of even very introverted or uncommunicative people. There's a lot of very well-chosen detail that gives it a lot of its emotional heft - that Roy Orbison tape, the mud from the fishing trip all over the carpet. And the phonecall at the end is a very nice touch.

Not so sure about Kenneth, and I don't think that "probably smelled like rubbish" is powerful enough for what's going through yr speaker's mind at that point, even as devastating understatement.

Also probably just because I knew this was LG but I couldn't read Real fishing men. Real. When will you be back. Fishing. Men. without thinking of the Interior Monologue of Paul Scholes. But overall I really like it.

re. Andrew; lovely concept. I'm not sure I have much to add, so ditto to folks above re. the run-on sentence, 'non-sarcastic' not really working, prose could generally do with a nip & tuck, but it is pretty good. Best of all, I have absolutely no idea what's going to happen off the end of it, and I would like to know. Would read more.

what doesn't work about 'non-sarcastic'?

Panic is surely one of the most inherently sincere emotional reactions there is? You can *maybe* sarcastically effect panic if you're with someone, but on your own? I'm not sure I really get it.

Exactly. It seems like a contrived way to avoid saying 'genuine panic', which may seem banal but has the advantage of clarity. If it's pitching for something more nuanced, whatever it is idgi.

re. Fragment - much improved by the expansion, mildly amusing, lacks any element of surprise or sufficient pathos to take it to the next level (I have probably read too much quirky SF).

I think 'non-sarcastic' used to contrast with the sarcastic panic referenced earlier, which I argue is a genuine thing that happens, often when you've got a deadline.

1 day before paper is due-
half-sarcastic panic: "ohh shit, my paper. get it together, self"

10 minutes before paper is due-
non-sarcastic panic: "OH SHIT, MY PAPER. GET IT TOIFDFMKSLF"

I feel like a horrible person now - I think I'm doing these too fast and I need to slow down and think about them harder, give more positive comments and not just pounce on the most obvious flaws. I'm throwing out the kind of notes I make for myself when I'm reading slush, and that's not fair.

What I like about anonymous reviews is a greater tendency towards honesty, and frankly negative stuff seems more helpful, even if to resolve whether "sarcastic panic" is a real phenomenon.

Sarcasm - to say the opposite of what you mean in order to convey contempt, y/n?

Because that is my understanding, and therefore an emotion can't be sarcastic - it can be feigned, enjoyable, self-mocking maybe, but not so much with the sarcastic. The use of half-sarcastic just about slipped through for me, but non-sarcastic drew more attention to it and jolted me out of the story.

I think the stumbling block is a philosophical difference of opinion whether emotions can be allowed their own character and volition, arriving to their host wearing many hats, among them the backwards-baseball cap of sarcasm.

Maybe a way to avoid this is to show the sarcasm via an exaggerated shake or an eyeroll, while also mentioning a chill, though this tends to emphasize sarcasm as a separate coping mechanism rather than being an integrated full-hatted sensation visited upon the narrator.

Grendel - I really liked this. I didn't think I was going to because it seemed at first like it was going to be just too nasty, but it turned silly and mocking instead. I liked him being schooled by his quarry in an inexplicable and humiliating way; we've all been there. Reminded me lots of the pub scenes in London Fields by Martin Amis; idk whether that's a direct inspiration for this?

It did make me swoon at Amis' prose though, how much work it must take. This is on not-dissimilar territory tbf, but it'd need a lot of honing to get it as sleazy and faux-spontaneous as he does. It starts off too literary is the thing - 'ways unprecedented', 'unrendered' or 'coated with ... indolence' don't suit this unpleasant fellow. Keep it for the Jodie Wishert extract imo, and let Grendel stew in his anglosaxon.

I liked Grendel too. I loved the use of the quotation, didn't think it was too long at all. I kind of agree about it being too literary, but perhaps not as strongly as Ismael Klata puts it - I think having some literary phrases can highlight the unpleasantness, but I'd use them most when the narration is at its furthest distance from Grendel's POV, to imply a sense of contempt for his... monstrosity.

Me too.

I'd also be up for some kind of email-based thing where people send bits of writing around a group, although that might be a bit forward of me.

Anyone writing SF/F want to join a short story group? I'm part of a challenge group for 2014 where we commit to writing and submitting to market one short story every month. If you get enough stories in and you have one or more decent unsold short stories at the end of the year, they'll be considered for an anthology to be published in 2015.

There are 8 of us so far. Most people in the group are offering critiques as the stories come in, and help identifying suitable markets.

Ask for an invite to astoryamo✧✧✧@yahoogro✧✧✧.c✧.u✧ if you want to join in; say you're from ILX. I'm the list admin. You get a free pass for January, obviously.

it's auto-garbled that email address - the missing letters are nth ups o k

i was looking through my google drive and found a draft document titled "Anonymous II" that was apparently intended for this thread. i barely even remember writing it, but at least if there is an Anonymous III i'll have something to build off of

similarly i was looking through my googdrive and did not ever remember writing it ever but actually didn't hate it??? and would totally submit to this if it were to happen again if a certain amount of others would also submit

er *found something i wrote that i did not ever remember writing

who knows what happened there

karl malone alias, cunningly disguised with his real first name

NaNoWriMo is just around the corner, although interest in it seems to have fallen off the past couple of years here at ilx.