Rubber Immortal, Part Four

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Hey Hannah

At last, the final part. I am entering this remembering the blackness at the end of part three – if not blackness, then a certain melancholic feel, a tragic undertone to the comedy. Kind of like watching a clown, in a way. I like that there is something so tangible to connect to, here, and that the story doesn’t float – too high – in the realm of weirdness and fantasy.

And – oh God – this particular section of the story. It is such a turnaround from the first part, where you are careful to keep it light and humorous. Here, it’s all dark drama – not wholly unexpected, thanks to your Shakespearean art of preparing the reader, dropping hints to begin to gradual shift into seriousness, but nevertheless jarring. While a major driver for the first part of the story is the fluttery uncertainty, here it’s a panicky uncertainty, a far more urgent uncertainty. Gone are the little jokes to delight; you’ve caught the reader’s attention, and now it’s all business, the story itself. I don’t think I liked the ending, but I also don’t think that was your intention – in a way, the fact that it left me reeling is to your advantage. Greater audience impact. Doesn’t mean I have to adore it.

What was an improvement in this section compared to parts two and three was the lack of redundant scenes. The other two parts started off with a bang, went strong till halfway and fizzled out from there. This is driven powerfully till the end – in fact, I would argue that it escalates in action, punctuated with very, very brief periods of calm.

You take care of your readers, right? Make sure they don’t have a heart attack? Or if they do, at least they had a blast laughing away before?

Ruth walks into the office and watches Chief as he rolls back and forth across the keys on the floor. She counts the times that he rolls over a key before it pops up on the screen. Fifteen times, back and forth, before one letter shows up, and Chief's got three paragraphs going in an e-mail to James.
“I think that the stew's just about ready,” she tells Chief. He pauses and creaks to one side, listening.
“We'll take it over and then I'll drive you to Steve's. James told me to set a ramp up for you, so I'm going to get a two-by-four from his house, but I'll be right back,” she says. The tire continues to rock back and forth over a letter, and Ruth leaves.

This is the place for nervous laughter, for a mad sensation bubbling up behind the lines. You never explicitly mention it, but danger is always pressing on the sidelines here.

“Are you sure you won't take him?” she asks James after she arrives at his house.
“I can't, Spoons.”
“It's uncomfortable for me to take him by myself. I still don't really know him. It's difficult.”
“I know it is. I know it is for just about everyone on this goddamned planet. But you know what's difficult for me? Watching a friend probably kill himself. I'm not going.”
“Will you wait by the phone in case we need you?”
“Yeah, I'll be here.”
“Okay. We're just dropping off the stew at the center and then we'll go to Steve's. Did you want to talk to Chief or anything?”
“I've talked to him plenty of times.”
“Okay,” says Ruth.

I was about to congratulate you on how fast you managed to move this part without loss of much characterisation etc, until the last five lines of dialogue. I vote getting rid of them. We’ve got the sense of urgency already; this last part is like an echo in the darkness.

She drives down the highway and the asphalt is the color of the tire in her backseat. It's quiet, and it's lonely. It's uncomfortable, driving down a marginally unfamiliar highway with an unfamiliar tire in the backseat.

Didn’t appreciate the repetition of ‘uncomfortable’ so soon after the last time you said it, nor the mention of ‘unfamiliar’ twice in a row so soon after saying ‘I don’t really know him.’

She doesn't even dare to turn on the radio, out of respect or a kind of fear. She wouldn't be able to tell if the tire were annoyed with her choice or not.

Nix everything after ‘radio’. It’s a heartbeat-of-fear line, and what follows after is something we jump to almost immediately anyway. No point in spelling out the reader’s conscious thoughts.

She pulls into the neighborhood. She glides in a shiny black SUV down the street, approaching her block, approaching the driveway. She pulls up and looks at the way the headlights paint the garage door. She wonders suddenly about the tires on her car. Do they work for her? Do they work for the manufacturer? Are they chained by hub caps to her service? She shudders and pops open her door.

Nice. Question upon question and doubt upon doubt. The sense of alarm is getting fleshed out here. But also, this part acts as a nice distraction from the main action – dramatic, in the way that it rather purposefully stalls it and has the reader screaming at you to hurry up. That makes what follows all the more frightful.

“Are you coming?” she asks the tire, timidly. Of course, he doesn't like to talk. He doesn't respond.

The ‘he doesn’t like to talk…doesn’t respond’ is getting annoyingly repetitious, more so since the reader is expecting fireworks at this point and you are dragging it here rather than artfully keeping it back.

over to Jame's house

Ahem. You want to say: James’.

She turns the handle of the door and hears the house moan. Her shoes make small thuds as she slips them off and kicks them to the side. The house screams in anguish. But it's not the house. Someone is in the basement, screaming. Ruth's heart starts to race and she stand in the open door, trying to figure out what to do. It's not her house. It's not her basement. If there's a burglar, who does she tell? The tire is sleeping. She slips her hand into the purse and dials James's number. It rings and goes to voice mail. She dials it again. Is everyone sleeping? The man in the basement screams again and Ruth can make out words, a weird rushing sound and a fwoosh-pop. She tiptoes through the kitchen and opens the basement door as quietly as she can. The light is on and she can see a pair of work boots on the bottom step. James.

Two things. First – that for such an action-driven para of short, pointed lines, it’s too much of a chunk so doesn’t move as fast as it should. Easy solution – break it somewhere appropriately. Second – that it’s just a wee bit drama-soap-opera-horror-movie cliché here with the way you describe Ruth’s reactions to the house, the screaming. Her ‘heart races…trying to figure out what to do…who does she tell…dials again. Is everyone screaming?...tiptoes through the kitchen…opens etc etc etc’

It’s predictable, therefore it loses its impact. You know that. So. Waste less words on this part, even if it’s what ‘really happens.’ I don’t start to get interested again till the repeat of the ‘fwoosh-pop’ – such a unique sound in this piece.

She runs down the rest of the stairs and covers her mouth and eyes.

Er – what? She runs down the stairs with her eyes closed? She covers her mouth and eyes at the same time? I think you mean, ‘She runs down the rest of the stairs, and when she reaches the bottom she [gets surprised / shocked / opens her mouth in shock / her eyes widen in horror / something-along-these-lines-but-more-inventive].

The fwoosh-pop is the sound of a welding torch that James is holding to the bottoms of shoes. He has cut all the seams and removed the soles. Ruth can't help but peek and watch as he melts a sole and sticks it to his bare arm, the melting rubber fusing with his skin, burning off his hairs. He screams as his skin dies and as his muscle is attacked. She screams as well, a long and releasing scream, but as long as she screams, she cannot release the fear that is welling up continuously inside her. It is like bailing water out of a sinking boat, and she will never succeed.

Well. You’ve got me screaming my head off too, here.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” she screams, covering her mouth, her eyes,

Nix ‘she screams’ since the dialogue is great as is. Also, you’re repeating how she covers her mouth, her eyes.

bending over and dry heaving, wanting to puke, wanting to run. Wanting to do anything.

I know this feeling. You want to dance around like you’re mental. Nicely said in the last line ^^.

And then she realizes that she hadn't heard the tire creak-pop the whole way home, that Steve had to lift it into the backseat, that he waved goodbye with a solemn frown and a phone pressed to his ear. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING, JAMES?”
He presses a piece of melting rubber to his forehead and laughs. “Steve called.”

You start it light and end it dark and hard and sharp. The piece saves itself from being entirely idiosyncratic and rabbit-out-of-the-bag, ending-wise, by the fact you’ve done this gradual energy-building thing throughout the story, so it’s not entirely unexpected. But it’s shocking all the same.

Well done. Edit this to all its glory. Also – I could never write on a prompt like that.

PM me if you want to discuss something.

Navi

Hey there!

Goodness, that was a weird ending.

I'm a bit surprised that you didn't say anything about her running away, or about Harry. I expected you to kind of struggle with fitting it all in, but you didn't even mention it. I suppose that's nice, since now I can imagine what might have happened to him, and what might have happened to make her live in a tire's basement.

I think it's cool that this story wasn't about Ruth's past or future, but more about Cheif's. I like how the story was told through her eyes, but ended up being about Chief and James's relationship. It's a very interesting read, and though I don't know Chief at all as a character, I really do feel for him. I think you did this by building up Chief and James's relationship (I'm saying that a lot). So awesome job.

Wow, the last part was a really sad image. I don't really have much to say about it. You did an awesome job explaining the scene.

The only complaint I have is the transition between before Steve's and after Steve's isn't very clear. I had to go back and read over the lines a couple of times to make sure I was reading it right. Maybe make it a bit more distinguishable?

This was a great story. I think you finished it off well, though I would like to see some sort of conclusion with Ruth. I would like to see her change because of this adventure, or at least see her reaction of Cheif's death. I want to know if Ruth developed any feelings towards Cheif, and if she cares about him. And I would like to see if she has begun to like James as well. A little reaction from her would be nice.

Keep on keeping on,

Classy

Hey Hannah!
Here to review the overall story

Overall, I really liked it. It seemed light and weird at first but it all accumulated to this ending, which I thought was even better. Awesome, awesome story!

Navi covered a lot there but I'll do an overview.

Characters
The characters, I felt were not that much developed but, I'm used to the characterization of a novel and to feel the bond with the MC. For a 'long' short story, they were actually developed pretty well. I had an idea of how their personalities were, and could predict, only vaguely, their next moves. This is somewhat hard to do with a short short; I find it's where people have most difficulties with this because it's so short and they know their MC and forgetting that we don't. But, you made us know them pretty well with the dialogue and actions, especially with James to hint at the ending.

Chief, I felt was a bit like a shadow. All we know from him is what we heard from James. This, takes our attention more to James himself, which is good for the plot but I can't shake off the feeling there's more to this old, ambitious character.

Ruth is well developed trough the story. She's the main character but she's just enough mysterious that she doesn't take over the whole thing.

Harry
Harry? Harry who? Oh yeah...him. If I don't remember and was supposed too... then maybe he wasn't explained enough though, in all honesty, I'm not sure if he is really relevant in the story, but I don't think you need a huge description of this character. However, you've made it clear she ran away from him but why? Maybe this could help us understand more about Ruth and her fleeing personality?

Ending
I thought the ending actually fit in well with the rest of the story. You were building up to it all the way to the last moment and whoa was it an ending. A bit unexpected, for me (I didn't figure it out until the last moment) but it all makes sense when you look back at it. Like Navi said, you start very light and funny and, as the story goes it becomes more and more disturbing, dark, and we get the feeling that there's something fishy with all this. Now, when I read it I had a little twinge. I was a bit confused at first. Like, did they killed Chief? Why? What WAS doing James? It finished a bit fast for me. But, thinking back, it does make more sense now that I put it all together. I've come up with different possible themes that I see clearly in this. It's obvious that people are always searching for power, or immortality, never ending bliss or anything in those lines and never stop, no matter what the consequences are. It's one of the major human flaws. Then, I was thinking, how did James seem so sweet at the beginning? of course with his moments where we glimpsed at his weird madness, and I thought, people are not what they seemed. It could be a lot of things, everyone sees it differently. But, one's things for sure, this story left me with a sense of unease.

This was done beautifully
Keep writing!

-Truth-

Here for a final review!

For the nitpicks, Navita pretty much did them all, so I'm going to stay clear of them this time.

The end of the story was... confusing? It's the ending that got me screwed up. What happened to the tire? I'm thinking hee's dead. But then if he's dead, what's James doing? Another one of my options was that it had worked, and James was trying to be immortal too, but that can't be... Right? Now, I'm done with my confusing monologue. It was a good end, even if it's a little bit hard to understand. At the beggining it's thrown together and you don't know why, and it all makes sense at the end. Good job!
The only thing was that I felt like we didn't know enough about Ruth. She's the MC after all. I already mentioned that though, so I'll stop here.

Keep wrtiting!

-Other One

Hi Hannah! Sorry I'm so late with this review. I had planned on doing this yesterday but I was called in to replace someone at work so...you know how that goes, ugh. I hate part-time jobs.
Anyways, back to the review.
So, I found this last part nice but I still have a few last words I'd like to share.

Firstly, let's see James here. I love his dialogue. I mean, you've built his personality through it, I could tell what kind of person he is through his words. At first, I was bit uncomfortable since you didn't give much background information concerning his character. Just that he was the chief's friend and a neighbor. But given what you've told us, or what words have come out of his mouth, I can now understand the deep attachment he has with the chief. Also, his strong sense of umm, what should I call it? Righteousness? I don't know, but he gives off a stronger feel than Ruth does. Even if you don't explain much of him, I can infer what kind of being he is.
Now, concerning Ruth. She was like a camera the whole time. The story, like stated above, was about the relationship between James and the tire and the story was just told through a third person's eyes. Not bad, in fact, I think it was quite clever.

She glides in a shiny black SUV down the street, approaching her block, approaching the driveway.

I think 'a shiny' should be replaced with 'the shiny' because I'm pretty sure you're referring to the SUV she's driving. Saying 'a' black SUV it just makes me confused, whether it's hers or someone else's. Do you understand what I'm trying to say? I don't know...maybe it's just me, again D: lol

She realizes that she forgot to switch her overhead lights to turn on when the door opens, but doesn't worry about it.

I find this bit to be like 'extra baggage'. You don't really need it.

She screams as well, a long and releasing scream, but as long as she screams, she cannot release the fear that is welling up continuously inside her

The repetition of 'long' here isn't working for me. :/
In fact, I think it ruins the action.

captain.classy wrote:The only complaint I have is the transition between before Steve's and after Steve's isn't very clear. I had to go back and read over the lines a couple of times to make sure I was reading it right. Maybe make it a bit more distinguishable?

I agree, with Classy here. I also found myself having to do a double take during that part. I suggest you work on that transaction.

The ending, wow.
Alright, so I still have a few questions that I'd like to ask about it. So, the tire is dead, correct? James, find out about it, has gone hysterical? Mad? I'm not so sure about that part, would care to explain it in detail to me, please? I find the ending to be quite mysterious and confusing. But overall, the ending was in fact, quite awesome. The piece was going on nice and smoothly that I didn't expect that. You also did a nice job building the atmosphere during the last section. I was on my toes.
Overall, I still think you should have worked on a stronger point of view with Ruth. I mean, you had four parts to this, I would have liked to see a stronger side of her, also, Harry didn't go explained much, and the dream you had in the beginning also didn't quite connect with anything, at least not anything that I could spot. I would have liked it if it meant something. Hmm. Anyways, I still think this story was nice, quite dark and eerie. Cool, nonetheless.
So, that all, if you wish to discuss this any further or have any questions, just drop me a PM.
See you, Hannah,

~Pink