I never wanted to write money-spinners. I am lucky that it has happened. The aim has always been to write a good story.
- Blockbuster Writers World Wide Since 2000 B.C. ™
“You know what’s worse than failure? It’s when you realize your success doesn’t matter. It’s when the expensive game you bought for your kid becomes a joyless toy for him.” Jay spoke to his friend with pain in his eyes. He spoke words of disappointment when he was actually on top of his game. His books had set the cash registers ringing. Topping the best sellers list was like changing a T-shirt for him. He had nearly half a million followers around the globe. The world was at his feet, but he wanted a fresh pair of legs!
“It began that day, when I met my gracious publisher for the very first time.” Jay remembered.
********
“Religious satire, are you kidding me?” Jolly rolled his eyes while gazing at my draft. His hairy hands were dying to toss my book into the bin.
“Sir, at least read my first chapter. There’s nothing remotely offensive in my story. I have been revising my draft for two years.” I pleaded.
“Really? Then why the heck do you need to write, the ‘no offense’ disclaimer in your preface? There’s obviously some seriously offensive content in your story.” He retorted.
“I don’t want to hurt my readers!” I replied with isn’t it obvious expression.
“That means there’s something that’s going to offend the readers.” Jolly insisted. I continued the mundane argument for over an hour. He used the offense word after every three lines. I used the no offense word after every two lines. I wondered how this man had become such a success story. He had gained the reputation of being such a hit machine that most books he published hit the top sellers list within a week. I realized it was becoming practically impossible for me to convince him. I tried my last shot.
“For you sir, this doesn’t matter. Thousands of authors line up to publish with you. For me, it does! I have strived for days trying to scribble down my thoughts. I have spent nights editing my draft. This draft is godly to me. You have been lambasting it for over an hour. I know what it feels to defend one’s faith. Anyways, thank you for your time sir, I am sorry to disappoint you.” I ended my mini monologue with a gentle smile on my face. I left my draft with him and decided to walk off.
“Hang on, young man! You think a religious satire would offend an atheist?” he laughed. I stood still for a second. A subtle thunder of emotions ejected within me in that quick second.
“When I started the company, I wanted to promote great literature. I gave a chance to five budding authors in five different genres. I handpicked there books after reading their drafts multiple times. You’re talking about toiling for one story. I worked with them on five different stories. You know what happened? All of them were washouts! Critics sprinkled rave reviews but nobody visited the bookstore. My investors demanded sales. All I had was a four star review posted on a corner of the internet by some unknown blogger. I don’t repeat past mistakes, Mr. Jay. Vampire love stories might be a butt of a joke for you, but they mean real business to me. Your artful satire can’t realistically compete them. I hope you have a nice day ahead.” Jolly replied with sternly and showed me the way.
I walked out of Jolly Publications with a blend of mixed emotions. There was a disappointment of rejection, a sorrow of reality yet the desire to create a book of passion hadn’t faded away. After all, I was writing a religious satire. It was ultimately a matter of faith.
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138,079 Literary Works • 672,071 Reviews
Namaste! _/\_
Look who took all the time in the world to review this chapter. :p
You already have such wonderful reviews on this work, so I’ll try not to repeat them at the least.
I read the poem; you should have asked me to read the poem first because I was so clueless to what was happening until I read a review that mentioned the poem. Imagine what would have happened if I hadn’t! Confusion! And we have already been there, so disclaimer the poem in the chapter as the author’s note, man.
This story, to me, seemed like one of the most cynical one, though it’s still in the starting stage with just one scene and one conversation between two under developed characters.
I think I already see the connection between the two characters, for their first letter of their name begins with same letter, also Jolly says that he began his carrier in the hopes of creating a literary revolution by picking up the five best stories in five different genres, but he ended up doing what he didn’t believe in because he wants to survive, Which, I think, will be the repetition of Jay’s life too but with a hint of heroism. That’s cool, I guess. I like the irony in his name: Jolly, who hates satire. That was clever.
The beginning of the story does get very cinematic, where I could literally imagine circles whirring in the back with a little bit of smoke here and there.
Too flash-backy, don’t you think?
It’s in human nature, though everybody wakes and brushes their teeth when we have to make our point we make a big deal out of it. But, I still think that the counter argument is a little bit weak here. If this Jolly guy is really a big deal as Jay claims him to be, then I think he would have shut this guy up right in that sentence by saying something like, “you think the others who come here don’t? Close the door behind you.” I know it’s early, but don’t waste the chance where you could make the readers hate your characters and then don’t make a premise separately so we could hate them then.
That is all I have for this chapter. If you want anything else; you know where to find me.
Keep writing!
Cheers!
ha ha ha. Thanks for the review!
I was actually trying to build Jolly as a character more than a villain. I wanted to build a solid argument for his point of view to create a situation that compels readers to validate Jolly rather than calling him a villain straight up. I guess I needed more description than dialogues to establish that part.
Looking back I also feel this chapter was way too small to create well-rounded characters.
Thanks for your wonderful review!
Greetings, DrFeelGood. I'm sorry it's taken so long to get back to you. I don't think I got the notification. Please, accept my apologies. Anyway, to the review. This wasn't a bad way to start your story. It caught my attention enough to make me want to read the next part. But I think it would be better if you had more dialog and more description since it's a short part of your story. I also have some more tips:
Comma after "him" instead of a period.
Comma after "time" instead of a period.
Comma after "years" instead of a period.
Comma after "story" instead of a period. Lowercase "He".
Comma after "readers" instead of a period.
Comma after "ahead" instead of a period.
And that's it for corrections. I'd just describe what Mr. Jay sees in the room and such. You can never have too much description. Keepwriting and never get discouraged!
~Keepwriting
Hi DrFeelGood! Niteowl here to review as requested.
First, a few nitpicks.
The dialogue tag her is kind of awkwardly worded. I can't really visualize what an "isn't it obvious" expression is.
Ha! Great ending line.
Overall, I don't have much to say that previous reviewers haven't already covered. It is kind of unrealistic that an unknown author would be able to just meet with a prominent publisher like that. There might be a way to work around this, though.
Keep writing!
Hey there DrFeelGood, here to review per request!
I read your poem because hey, I like poetry, and I think it gave me a broader idea of hat's going on in this story, too. This is quite a small extract so I'm not too sure of how much use I'll be, but of course I'll try my best to help this reach its full potential! You've got some really interesting concepts here, and I love stories that give the finger to the man. I'm rather fond of your dialogue too, as it portrays your characters' personalities wonderfully, and it's different and interesting. I like how this part ended too. Despite being crushed by this publishing giant, Jay doesn't let it ruin him and force him to give up. I like his passion and determination. Having read the poem, I obviously have a vague idea of where this plot is heading, and so I look forward to finding out how you write it.
The one major thing that's bothering me here is how realistic this is. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you give the impression that this publishing house guy is extremely high up and successful in his business (he's the owner, right?) As such, for a completely newbie author (again, assuming this is what Jay is, it's certainly portrayed anywho) to be able to waltz into the building of this big-shot publisher and be like hey, read my book just seems very unlikely. Even if he had a literary agent with him, it would still seem bizarre. You could argue that they'd set up this meeting beforehand, but if that was the case, Jolly would've read some of Jay's manuscript and liked it to invite him to said meeting. I'm not expert on the ins and outs of the publishing industry, but what I do know is that an unpublished author can't just wander on into a publishing house to meet with the owner of it. As such, I'd suggest expanding on the circumstances that brought Jay there.
Onto something a lot smaller, who is Jay speaking to at the beginning of this? I don't need a detailed life story of whoever this is, but he's currently speaking to air in my mind. I'd just briefly mention who it is, if I were you. It doesn't have to be anyone especially exciting or important, just a friend, family member, acquaintance e.t.c. Whatever floats your boat! (or whoever you've written it as in your head, of course). It's obviously not a big deal, but something I think would benefit things.
The only other critique I have for you is your characterisation, though please do take this one with a pinch of salt because a) this is a very short extract, so of course we've not seen all sides to every character and b) your dialogue is great, which is a very positive thing. The issue I'm having is that they are quite typical characters. The cruel big boss vs. the hardworking nobody is quite a well played out duo. Nonetheless I do think you've written it rather well. I suppose the only reason it's bugging me is that there doesn't really appear to be any side to Jolly other than this stereotype of the big publishing giant. I'm not saying he should have sympathy for Jay and be all nice or anything, but particularly if we don't see him again, I'd suggest showing a bit of something else. The mention of him handpicking authors, only for it all to fail was good, so perhaps focus a bit more on that. For example, show disappointment in his eyes at the realisation that this world doesn't appreciate good art, but there's nothing he can do about it, blah blah blah. Hardly the best example by a long shot, but do you see the kind of thing I mean?
Negatives aside, I really do think you have something with uber loads of potential here. It's not a completely super unique idea, not that anything can be nowadays, but you write it well. As I've mentioned a few times, your dialogue is realistic and engaging, and I'm curious to find out how you write out the rest of this plot. With some tweaking here and there, you really could be onto something great. If you've got any questions or comments regarding this review, please don't hesitate to let me know!
Keep writing,
xoxo Skins
Thanks a lot for this wonderful review. About the meeting with publisher's part, it's kind of funny how I totally missed out such a big logical loop hole. I mean seriously, it didn't even cross my mind once while I was brainstorming the plot. I will definitely revise this part again.
I am glad that you liked the dialogues of this story. In fact I have spent most of my time perfecting the dialogues and making the lines more interesting & sharp. This could be one of the reasons why I totally forgot about logical loopholes.
Another interesting thing which I wanted to say is, I tried to 'show' in the dialogue rather than describe it directly. It was more of an experiment to see how the readers will respond to the story when the dialogues become primary source of character development. I understand that I gave over-emphasis on dialogues and ignored basic elements of story-telling like a realistic plot, interesting characters and many more.
I just want to say that this part was more of an experiment where I wanted to write genuine dialogues more than anything else. I had scrapped my previous novel because I wasn't being able to develop characters because of weak dialogues & description even though it had a very interesting premise. So I tried to improve myself in the dialogue department through this short. (Also planning another short to improve my descriptions.)
Thanks again for this wonderful review!
No worries, I'm glad I could be of help!
Oh, don't worry about it, I do that all the time. I'll be writing like a madman, then post on YWS to realise that something super obvious (that I missed) just doesn't make sense. There are ways to work around it, don't worry!
That's a super interesting experiment actually, and as a fond lover of good dialogue, it totally sounds like something I would do! It's such a good way of 'practicing' for larger projects, so kudos to you for that. I've never thought to write shorts focusing on the weaker parts of my writing, so I may steal that idea for future me
I'd be more rhan happy if you steal that idea :p
Thanks again for this wonderful review.
I suppose the intelligent never do catch a break, but it's hard to say whether or not the author is intelligent when they barely show it.
We've seen this trope countless of times, and I think ultimately it depends on the reader whether or not we're willing to believe it. I myself don't, really. It doesn't mean the idea's bad--I'm always down with a work meant to bring down the institution, especially one that values sales over quality. And there are plenty of worthwhile similes in here that intrigued me-- " Vampire love stories might be a butt of a joke for you, but they mean real business to me. Your artful satire can’t realistically compete them. " --but still, cool dialogue doesn't excuse my lack of belief. Ultimately, you have to show me that a) the author genuinely does have some potential, I suggest by quoting the book a little bit or having him say some clever lines, or doing something that makes him come off as intellectual, and b) the publisher genuinely does want to publish something artful. Because from the very beginning, you painted the publisher as somewhat of a villain, a slave to the market, when from the later dialogue I don't think that's what you meant at all. And, at least to me, that later dialogue doesn't save his first impression.
Though, I will say this had some good lines that I can hear myself quoting every once and a while. The ending was probably my favorite line of the whole work, and the quote I mentioned above is pretty cool too. So, to sum up:
(-) Unconvincing plot that sticks to some old cliches
(-) Somewhat underdeveloped characters
(+) Very good lines, interesting dialogue
(+) Overall still an intriguing story to read.
Wishing you luck in the future,
--EM.
Trust me with this, I personally dont think the story is cliched because this is an adaptation of my poem and my poem particularly got appreciation for being fresh.
The problem is that, the plot was too big for me to cover up in a single go and I also wanted to see what kind of reviews I get for the first lart, single this is my first short story in like two years.
About the underdeveloped characters and show vs tell, i agree with you completely. I have been trying hard to show without being too boring & I find it hard to strike the balance. I will surely work on it. Thanks for the review!
Cliche is subjective, I think. I've seen the art vs industry topic a lot, which is why its personally a little overdone for me, but I can understand if others feel different. I mean, it's not as cliche as the depressed person finding hope, or the good girl falling in love with the bad boy, yada yada. I suggest you take it with a grain of salt, if you feel differently--it's your work after all. Don't let me get in the way of your productivity.
I agree, broadly speaking it is somewhat cliched and I get what you are trying to say.
Thanks for your review!
This is really good. The fight the Mr. Jay has defending his writing that he was working on for years is realistic. Someone would defend their writing like that. And the publisher also has some good points. He doesn't want his company to go down the toilet because of one "bad" book. I would like to know how Mr. Jay convinced the publisher to publish his work because this was shown as a flashback.
And I would also like to see why Mr. Jay is talking about “You know what’s worse than failure? It’s when you realize your success doesn’t matter. It’s when the expensive game you bought for your kid becomes a joyless toy for him.”
Other than that, good work. With some editing and continuation, this would make a goos short story.