These are stone killers, little man. They ain't cuddly like me.

Jayne ,'The Train Job'


The Great Write Way  

A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.


John H - Nov 10, 2002 2:25:03 pm PST #192 of 10001

Am-Chau is Vietnamese and it means 'daughter of the moon'

I thought so. Vietnam kind of being my specialist subject at the moment.


erikaj - Nov 11, 2002 8:31:09 am PST #193 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

OK, here goes. I'm posting my ending to my story called "Perfect" It's the second, less symbolic ending. But I still hate it. Now I think it's anvilly.The main character is a single woman with a disability who both has affection for and resentment of her roommate's pre-teen daughter for her charmed life. But daughter's life is not so easy because her divorced parents fight over her.Autobiographical? Nah;)
"Excuse me," she tells you. "I'd like a few minutes to talk with Dave. If Katie comes out here, tell her to go in her room.This is between us. She steps out the door. You let it click closed, but you stay in the living room, transfixed by the dark side of Perfect. It can't be easy being fought over like a favorite figurine. As predicted, Katie does come to the living room, but you don't send her away.TBC


erikaj - Nov 11, 2002 8:41:36 am PST #194 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

"I hate it when they get like this," Katie says.
"They just do it cause they love you so much," you say. It is both true and the Thing to Say.
"That doesn't make it easier.When I was little, I used to wish they would die." Katie says, in a tiny little voice. "I think everyone wishes that about parents. No more nagging, no more rules..."
"No, not like that. So I wouldn't have to choose." "Choose?"
"Between my mom and my dad. See, I like being at my dad's cause all my friends still live there. I like being at my mom's because I miss her when I'm not and she has more time for me."TBC


erikaj - Nov 11, 2002 8:50:45 am PST #195 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

"There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"
"No, but they both want to be the one I love the best. I can't pick."
"No, you can't. Do you want a peanut butter sandwich?"
"Ok. And I'm still glad they didn't. Die, I mean."
You get out the peanut butter and the bread. Your movements in the kitchen are both slow and deliberate.Katie takes this as a struggle;most able-bodied people do, in your experience. Or is it that Americans expect everyone to be fast? TBC


erikaj - Nov 11, 2002 9:03:00 am PST #196 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

"I can help you with that, if you want." Katie says. "No, I've got it. I'd like to tell you it gets bettter. With your parents. And it will, kind of. Time helps, but you're never going to wake up one day and have it all make perfect sense." "Really?"Everyone else tells me I'll understand when I am older. I hate that. It's just something they say so they don't have to tell me things."
You remember that feeling. Also, the sense that one day you would wake up and understand everything. You held it until the middle of college when reality took it away. You miss it more than your last boyfriend. END And that's it, except for a truly eye-rolling moment where a character actually says "Nobody's perfect." which seemed clever as fuck once upon a time, but now makes me cringe.


DavidS - Nov 11, 2002 10:29:13 am PST #197 of 10001
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

What's the problem, erika?

If it feels anvilly to you, then get back to the objective correlative. You know - the concrete things and gestures that can carry the import of the story.

It might be a little too explicit and summarizing here:

You remember that feeling. Also, the sense that one day you would wake up and understand everything. You held it until the middle of college when reality took it away. You miss it more than your last boyfriend.

I'd say take out "when reality took it away" and then find a physical detail that she would miss about her boyfriend (which you can set up earlier in the story) that she misses. So something like...

You remember that feeling and the faith that one day the world would make sense. You miss it. You miss it more than waking up looking into [ex-boyfriend's] untroubled, sleeping face.


erikaj - Nov 11, 2002 11:12:21 am PST #198 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

Well, looking at it now, feels like I'm trying too hard to go"See, look. Irony? What looks normal isn't, get it!(Although divorce is certainly normal enough now, but you know what I mean, right?)


DavidS - Nov 11, 2002 11:25:50 am PST #199 of 10001
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

What looks normal isn't, get it!

Well, but that's the basic premise of the whole story. It's not a useless epiphany - it's all in the execution whether you can get that across. You just don't want it too pat.


erikaj - Nov 11, 2002 11:29:12 am PST #200 of 10001
Always Anti-fascist!

Well, right, exactly.


DavidS - Nov 11, 2002 12:00:32 pm PST #201 of 10001
"Look, son, if it's good enough for Shirley Bassey, it's good enough for you."

Well, right, exactly.

Okay, now that we've agreed that pat anvilly epiphanies are poor literature, what do you want to do with the story?

What can make it better?

Sometimes you can't just rework the ending, you need to go back through the story and see what you can do to lead the story to a more interesting place. If you just focus on the ending you'll get frustrated because you don't have enough options.

Things that make it less anvilly might include going back and building up the parallels between the girl and the main character so there's more payoff with the epiphany. Making either of the characters more complex/ambiguous themselves. For example, the girl could be voicing a real complaint and also be self-involved or unsympathetic.

I dunno - kind of depends on the rest of the story (which I haven't seen) and what you want to do with it.