A Gesture Among Five Strangers

[Removed for editing. Thanks for reading.]

A Trojan Baby, perhaps.

That made me smile.

“Oh my God, are you okay, Sarah?” her sister asked. “Can you move? Are you hurt bad anywhere?”

From a purely linguistic point of view, it's very interesting to pursue the capitalization of "God" but for now back to the review.

It was a clear night, frozen in place by the Ohio winter. The only sound in the city was the hum of her engine and the tires on the asphalt.

Excellent description.

Callan stripped naked and stood in front of the mirror. She wondered if she could modify her body to become these women.

Body image is becoming prevalent issue in modern society and I suppose it was only time before it became more common in writing. Interesting way to introduce the issue in your writing.

No. Even her reflection was prettier than she.

I believe this is taking it too far. There has to be some degree of rationality reserved for Callan.

Overall I liked the use of various locations but felt that without explanation, this could easily become confusing. Your characters are lifelike in the sense that you have equipped them with a story and attitude readers could relate to. I found this intriguing to say the least. With that said, I would like to see some direction from you or at least a helping hand explaining some of the transitions. Sometimes the reader can be easily distracted moving from location to location and as such it is crucial to maintain your control over what they read and how it should be interpreted versus whether it is open to interpretation.

Sincerely,
-Elitehusky

Hey sargsauce. I liked this. I'm not sure if I could dislike anything you write, honestly. I feel like I need to go out and buy a foam finger with your name on it or get your autograph and frame it. Something.

Anyway, you're obviously well past the point of meaningless nit-picks, and so I only have one: the last scene, where you say "a full hour passed", seems pretty unrealistic. A full hour passing in silence, with only a sentence devoted to it? Perhaps I'd feel differently if you explained the silence through Ruth, have her wonder why the man won't go away, have her hear things and relive flashes in the song of a bird out her window, have her evaluate the wallpaper and breath in the silence. But it's too long a time for one sentence.

Now, the real critique. The reason I said "like this" and not "love this" is that I didn't feel enough connection here. That gesture and its repetition is powerful, but only to a certain extent. One repeated line can't carry a whole story-- five whole stories, really. While I appreciate that the style was probably somewhat experimental, and while I can acknowledge that this is written superbly well, I don't come away with this feeling like I got anything out of it. Bringing it to a smaller scale, it's like reading a good five-stanza poem composed of five different haiku that barely relate. It's pretty, and it's enjoyable-- but there's not enough focus, substance, or direction for readers to feel like they know the characters or have been affected by the plot. We're scene-hopping, just skimming the surface of five fully develop-able stories without getting a satisfactory conclusion to any of them.

So, by all means, keep this and learn from it and show it off! It's a wonderful example of how smooth your prose is and a testament to the fact that you've got mad skills. But, as a story, it's not my favorite, and in the future I'd suggest you give your plots more oomph so that the story has an overarching backbone.

~Evi

Hey,

I suspect I don't need to tell you how much I like your writing, but I do. I think this is a very powerful idea, and I love this narrative structure in stories so that certainly helps. The gesture of reaching out is in particular a really poignant image.

But this isn't working for me, and I've been mulling it over and trying to figure out why not. I think the problem is two-fold.

1. The pieces on their own: I feel like you have some really strong segments coupled with some less-than-strong segments. Ruth and Callan are the strongest to me, particularly Callan. I absolutely adore that she smells and feels the other women on her, and that she feels as if she is kissing other women. I thought that was such a beautiful detail and one that seemed very plausible. I don't generally love people-in-mirrors-seeking-identity scenes but this one worked for me because it wasn't so much about gazing distantly and meaningfully into a mirror and more of an actual examination of herself.

Then there are the less-than-strong pieces. For me, the Sarah sequence was fairly forgettable. There was nothing that gave her story distinction over the dearth of similar stories in the world. The shame, the squabbling, the sibling reconciliation; it's all been done before, which is totally fine, but it's all been done before in the exact same way, which is less than fine.

I feel like each of these sections of the story must be incredibly strong on their own, which is fairly demanding, but you've shown you can achieve that with #4 and #5. #2 in particular needs work (I think), but a lot of them can be tightened. You should be able to post each vignette separately to YWS and they should each be meaningful on their own. These are fairly vague demands, but here's a way to put it: for a story that is more or less about these gestures (and what they mean), I feel like there is not enough build up or significance to them. In Callan's case, the reaching out to herself feels truly haunting because she's so desperately alone, but that same gesture to Sally is nowhere near as powerful because it's not set-up to be as crucial to her. The black humour of Katie's demise is that there is no build-up, and the entire thing is so unintentional -- yet the humour of that is lost because the preceding segment's gesture also seems trivial. Not as trivial as grabbing the hat, but nowhere near as significant as Callan's gesture.

So that's the first thing: each individual segment needs tightening, and needs its own potency before the story as a whole can come together.

2. The pieces together: I feel like there isn't a lot of cohesion overall, and I think that's somewhat jarring: they may as well be completely unrelated sections of various stories being thrown together. The gesture is there to link them, but I don't think that's enough: there's so much disparity piece-to-piece in tone and pacing and even style (#4 bears almost no resemblance to #3). I think it may help to separate each section into a separate window of a word-processing program (or even just to print them off and then lay them side-by-side) and compare. Look at #2 versus #4, take a look at their similarities and their differences. #3 is much more wry than the rest of the piece, #4 is a lot more moody, #5 is sad and quiet. And again, that mood shift is fine -- and maybe even necessary -- if the styles and pacing didn't also vary so much.

Again, I think laying various parts next to each other and reading them will give you a better impression of how they differ. I think there's a fundamental cohesiveness needed to make this story sing, and it's not there yet. I suspect this is a fairly vague critique, and if you need more clarity and specificity, I can come back and try to elaborate further. For now, good luck.

Smaur: Thanks a mucho for the review. Again, you've hit the nail on the head.

And again, I find myself wrestling with 1) What's appropriate in a literary context and 2) what inside "jokes" I want to inject.

This time, the joke was that it's autobiographical, except for being enfeebled and elderly though that's how I feel sometimes (I'm still trying to learn to ride a bike to this day!). That is, it's the story of a singular life.

And the changes in style reflect the change in attitude toward life: from childish straightforwardness; to dark humored; to being crippled by your own, intense, adult, wannabe-philosopher logic; and back to a certain simplicity. They would all denounce the previous one's frivolities from atop a higher vantage point of being older and wiser.

But, of course, I cannot expect the joke to mean anything to anyone but me, which makes me pretty selfish and I miss the point of writing to the public completely!

I have to remember to remove myself from the equation and allow the story to be more approachable and compelling. I'll see if I can tighten the pacing and style.

Warning: Mildly relevant story ahead
It's like when I verbally play with words out loud and laugh at them. I repeatedly asked my friend once:
"Where's the bull's jaw?"
"Huh?"
"Where's the mole's claw?"
"What?"
"The hole's maw. Y'know, the pole's yaw? The goal's law?"
"Oh! The coleslaw! Yeah, it's in the fridge."

I can't expect this inside joke to mean anything to anyone. I'm totally selfish and annoying.

Heh. I get the impulse to write a story completely for yourself, a notion which I 100% support, but once you've made the decision to show it to the public (in whatever way, if that means handing it to a friend or posting it on an internets forum), it's no longer a story wholly for yourself and now somewhat a story for an audience. Once you pass it to someone else, it sort of suggests that on some level, you want it to connect with them, y'know?

Coleslaw notwithstanding.

Hey sarg -

It has indeed taken me some time to get here, but I am here. (You know, I read everything you write ). And I must say that I enjoyed this better than your other piece(s) - I apologise that I cannot remember how many of your short fic I've read (all, yes, but) - since there is something so wonderfully effortless about the way you write. The flow is brilliant - for the most part - and by this, I really do mean flow flow: the attention paid to the sounding out of the sentences after each other, the long-short-short-long sort of lilting balance that drives it through to the end. This kind of aural quality is what makes this so easily read and digested; coupled with a clear conversational tone, and we have a story that is easily grasped and unravelled.

At the same time, though - and I am not sure if this is personal preference or fact - there is something one loses by being too aural, conversational. While flow is all very well and good, perhaps one of the reasons I didn't mesh with this as deeply as I wanted to was exactly that...lack of depth. And here, I by no means am referring to depth of thought or emotion (although there's that, too, in places), since you have something intelligent to say in just about all the mini-sections. No, instead what I am referring to is a sort of need to visualise just a bit more, to combine the visual and aural masterfully together - perhaps what I would be asking, then, is for a tad more description in places; more aesthetics alongside the sound of the tale. I mean, sure, I can see what's happening clear as day, but it's all very literal, really. Hardly any use of figurative language, which is what can help strengthen the emotion by portraying the scene through the more abstract senses of the narrator. Flesh, I think, is the right word. I'd love some more flesh to this, some reason to keep coming back and gnaw at it. The skeleton is a glorious white, supple and fluid - but it is not enough, inasmuch as the concept of a balanced body of writing is concerned. Imagery - without overwriting, of course.

I have this feeling I know why there is little imagery, though. I think it's perhaps because it feels pretentious to you to be slotting it in at intervals, sort of like you have to make an effort to hunt around for the right words, yes? I just think this because it feels like that for me at times; but with the control you already have over the narration, the voice, I hardly think you will muddle up your prose with a bit more detail. Sure, still let the voice drive it; some more outside-observation to back up the introspection would be lovely, though.

I'm not too sure how keen I am on the gesture itself, either. I appreciate this idea, definitely, of having a single gesture be meaningful in some way across many generations, many ages; just this particular gesture seemed a little bland for my tastes. Maybe it's more poignant for males, I don't know, but I guess I just don't see how brushing one's hair out of one's eyes is particularly intense. Intimate, light and secretive (smile-wise), yes, but possibly not so striking so as to devote a whole story - and one that is so intense in places at that - to this somewhat mediocre gesture.

I didn't mind the disconnectedness between scenes, myself, but I think that was because I knew from the outset that this was a more experimental piece than anything, something already outside the realms of the norm, so it was alright, in that sense. The first part I felt was too short, too stunted to achieve any kind of deeper impact - although it was, of course, interesting to muse on. I felt like I was a sideline spectator in the second, like watching a T.V. commercial and just sort of knowing how it'll end even if I have never seen it before...and I'd probably go so far as to say it was like I was wanting it to end. It didn't strike any chords, despite its length.

I rather enjoyed the sass in the third part - Katie being a very distinctive kind of a character (unlike the first two, which, in retrospect, seem all too generic, really) - and it had a very rough sort of restlessness to it, a kind of externally dirty conflict but was sort of still white at heart. If that makes sense. But that gesture fell utterly flat in this scene - didn't belong as well. Sort of dragged us back into the dusty and boring world of repetition and anonymity, just when you'd given your character such flair. And Callan was my favourite as well; something so earthly, so sensuous about this character coupled with the agonising internal conflict that you drove on and on was just superb. Here is where I really started to click with the piece. But - and I think I have discovered what the problem with the gesture is - the gesture seemed contrived here also. It seemed out of place, something for a happier woman, a happier, more carefree time. Not here, where her knee-jerk closing reaction seems melodramatic in light of the gesture. Ruth was entertaining, I guess - perhaps it is my unfamiliarity with Texas grandmotherly figures that made her seem a tad unrealistic (would they really talk so colloquially?) - but I'd already chosen my favourite by this time, so yes.

Anyway, there were minor things as well - I am not going to point them out since I daresay that you'll be more than capable of finding them yourself. I think just a teeny thing that I would think could help the flow even more is throwing in some longer, more drawn out, unspooling sort of sentences amidst all your pointed little ones. Generally, there were good medium-sized ones and many charming little ones, but overuse of each made me feel this incredible need to read something that was dwelt on for just a bit longer, and in more depth.

Enough from me. A great read, regardless.


Navita