The Great Write Way
A place for Buffistas to discuss, beta and otherwise deal and dish on their non-fan fiction projects.
Erika, I'm sorry I've been so preoccupied with my own project. Cindy is quite right to address yours first, and I've been meaning to do so as well.
I absolutely love the way you create that character, especially in the first paragraph. Your description and integration of the hair salon is extremely evocative: I can smell it.
I am particularly in love with these two lines:
Something doesn’t fit or is uneven, she can train it back or trim it, squirt it with water or product, something. You can’t exactly pull life back with a banana clip.
It's such a unique way to convey her feeling of helplessness and avoid what could so easily have been a cliche. I adore the idea of attempting to pull back life with a banana clip. (You did, however, force me to flash on myself with eighties hair, which is unfortunate.)
I agree with Deb that the L&O reference seems unecessary, unless you plan to integrate her love for the show throughout the piece. It draws attention to itself, and if it isn't going to be a theme, I would leave it out rather than let the reader be distracted by it. Again, though, that's obviously your call. I don't know the entire context of the piece.
I also agree that here:
Sigh.She can see it over her head in a balloon like in her kids’ comic books.
you might want to rework the "sigh"--maybe something more along the lines of "She sighed, picturing it in her head like a balloon in one of her kids' comic books"?
I'm so intrigued. I totally buy this character and want to know her better. This is an awesome beginning!
Also, Deb, your second drabble in particular is making me smile, even though I know it isn't supposed to. I think it's just that if I were going to give someone one snippet of your writing that captured who you are to me, this would be it: that grim determination combined with a fierce loyalty that burns hotter than most people want to ever feel.
She looks recently cleaned up, and determined to rectify the situation. Her gaze doesn't lie on the lens, but rather on the photographer, and with an impatient curiosity. She's a girl with plans, and she's being delayed.
"Hannah, you say?"
"Yes." The woman treats the sofa like a desk, a place of work.
I look at the picture again.
"Hannah." I test the name.
"If you read the rest of the file, you will see that Hannah needs a patient hand."
I have time. I have patience. I look at the folder again.
And I think I have a daughter.
Cindy nailed the line break thing, but I think it's part of erika's software that makes it tricky, yes? And it can always be reformatted afterward. Because it isn't done - closure! Also, a word about that "Sigh" - that particular way of writing shifts us from her head into your head. She sighed, or she let out a sigh, or she bit back an impatient sigh, and we're back with her; sigh, and it's you doing it. A POV shift, there.
Her gaze doesn't lie on the lens
ita, the "lie" usage here? My brain took it and immediately redefined it as "the camera caught her gaze and it didn't lie, because the camera lens never lies". Maybe "rests"?
Susan, I just realised, I am scum; I have two chapters of yours, which I will do my very best to sit down with. It's going to be an insane week, though; writers group tomorrow, neuro Thursday, and an all-day lit festival with Ayelet Waldman and a couple of other people on Sunday.
Deb, no rush. I'm still working on the next chapter--of course, it'll probably be the longest one in all the book, but still. I've reached a point in this edit where it's going to be mostly new writing from here on out, with occasional chances to recycle a scene or a bit of dialogue. I hope I can really pull it off in the next month.
erika, I just read your piece--I should've before, but I can be a terrible wuss about lack of line breaks. I pretty much agree with the rest of the feedback, especially WRT to the flicking of mashed potatoes. Also, this may be just me, but I was pulled out of the narrative a bit by the Law & Order reference--I might make it something a little less specific. But again, that could be just me.
Also, this may be just me, but I was pulled out of the narrative a bit by the Law & Order reference--I might make it something a little less specific. But again, that could be just me.
Nope, I mentioned it too; the problem with too many pop culture references in a fictional piece is that they tend to draw the inner eye away from the story itself.
I approve of pop culture references!
But then again, I'm me.
I approve of pop culture references!
I don't mind them judiciously used, or when they have a specific reference to the story. Too many can seem shallow and self-indulgent. Not in erika's case, mind you - she generally does synch them up to the story she's telling quite nicely - but it's rather like taking a department store mannequin and putting three pairs of earrings and nine sweaters on it, and then sticking it in the window. What are you trying to convince the buyer to buy?
I want the story. Just tell me the story.
I changed to something like "Even cast changes on her favorite shows left her a little off-balance." Because that was the point I was going for, even though I, personally,as a L&O fan from way back, find it amusing that no homely women practice law in Fictional New York. But, yet on occasion they get to be judges.(And the whole McCoy/ rat husband analogy...but I only have 2500 words to work in and a deadline. Don't have time for Stupid Pop Culture Tricks, can't waste the words. Everything has to work.) Interesting point about the potato verb. Will rethink. I think the potatoes stay, but what happens to them might change. Kristin, good catch. Grandma cut hair till she was around 75. We spent a lot of time watching her give my mom perms and stuff...if I win I might be the only one to make that pay.(She was disappointed that Mom bagged beauty school and didn't follow her in it, so my story is like an AU that way, with my character having another Archetypal Boomer Name...Linda(my mom's name), Karen, and Cheryl being some I can think of off the top...oh, Donna.)
I changed to something like "Even cast changes on her favorite shows left her a little off-balance."
Yes! Perfect. It becomes about her, not about the show.
Post toasties: I liked that line, but one of the judges is from The Wire, yo. Have to represent. No weak-ass shit, as they say on the corners. Don't wanna be a punk. My fake hometown pride is at stake.:) I write pop-culture cause I think like that. Makes some of my writer friends nuts...one called it scary, how much Buffy I quote. And the Homicide...oy. I asked him "sexy-scary" or Rain Man scary...never found out which.
And the irony of saying that while paraphrasing Stan Bolander has not escaped me.
