Balloons in Winter: Nightlife /P

Hey Incan.

The detail and depth of the character's voice is immediately involving. Though first-person, and even sometimes vaguely conversational, the images and description never get bogged down in silly, kitschy 'conversational' devices. Not only that, but it seems very present, even as it pulls through memories.

Trident noted the beginning. I loved the beginning. My first impression was that it dragged though--only for the structure. The sentences that become long, with dashes interjecting, make it a difficult follow. The second read through, I had no problem. My first inclination is to advise sentence structure change-up in the third paragraph; but it is this tone and voice that make the piece itself; they compliment.

An easy read's no goal in itself to aim for writing. If you want more simplicity, look at those--second and third paragraphs.

There’s always that moment when you wake in the middle of the night and you don’t know where you are, what strange city or room or bed; what stranger is lying next to you, the way people stay strangers even after you’ve gotten to know them; and those are the times when what you remember is more real than you are—you’re floating on the surface of these vivid memories and they’re the only things buoying you up.

Well I just found the other chapters. They weren't listed on the Other Fiction page so I assumed this was an isolated piece. That would definitely change what details I have access to.

I wouldn't say this isn't "to my standard". I wasn't trying to express a superiority. It was just a crit. Gosh, you're reminding me of your avatar right now.

I still stand my comments about the beginning though. The whole concept that "somebody" did it is irrelevant unless of course it was a somebody in your other chapters that I don't know of.

trident--


I appreciate the effort you took to read and respond. My first thought is that if you haven't already read the rest of this story, it probably coagulates in an unfavorable manner. Your question as to a change in Leigh's character, I think that's covered in the preceding chapters. At the very least this was intended to give an idea as to why he is the way he is.

I understand that the beginning is lame or what-not, but I think it paints a fairly decent picture of what's going on here. The form is itself already the content. The purpose, again, is buried in the story preceding here.

Sorry this wasn't to your standards.


Best,
Brad

First of all, you should have some sort of rating on this story. It's pretty graphic.

In the middle of the dark building there’s an air shaft that plunges down to a narrow courtyard, and someone’s lined the floor and walls of the courtyard with brilliant blue tiles.

I’m looking out a fourth- or fifth-floor window down in this courtyard that’s more like a well than a courtyard, it’s so narrow and deep.

Someone, maybe the same person who put down the blue tiles, has strung a net of wire mesh

someone would have put them down there

our families, such as they are, live in barracks apartments whose rows look exactly alike, a jaundiced yellow color, and though they’ve been standing there fifty years or so nobody’s bothered to plant any trees—as if whoever built those apartments forgot them as soon as they were built, put them out of their minds as something shameful

We both think this story is very very when we’re stoned together

or from the nearby toxic waste dumps that are the reason she got cancer in the first place according to the doctor

Ever since that I could tell my mother preferred Billy over me, and I know my father must have recognized that it’s only because of Billy that she ever felt like a person in those last couple of months before she died.