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From: Shon Richards
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:42:32 GMT
"Desdmona" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected] ...
This week in the FishTank we have two stories. This first submission is an excerpt - the first chapter from a longer work. It is 1,705 words in length. I would caution readers to notice the codes. A note from the author:
"this is a dark story. it has nc and violence in it. it's also just a chapter of a longer work ...we'd like to focus on how the two pov's come across. mostly on improvements or how the pov could be made better."
Fishtank guidelines apply:
1) 2 positive comments
2) 2 suggestions for improvement
3) Try not to repeat!
FishTank stories and their comments are being stored at: http://www.asstr.org/~Desdmona/FishTank/base
(I realize I'm behind in getting last week's stories up to the website. I plead traveling as my excuse. I'll be updating as soon as possible. My apologies to those authors - Uther and cmsix.)
Questions? Concerns? Suggestions? Complaints? Submissions? Direct them to: [email protected] or [email protected]
*********************************************** Diary of a Dead Girl (nc bd violence) By celia batau [email protected]
This is one dark, dark, dark story, yet oddly upbeat for a Celia story. I mean, no one's dead yet.
Things I liked-
The currents were slowing and becoming colder. Her skin, thick and numb, was losing itself by layers. The light appeared again at the bottom of her vision. Something wasn't right
Even though its just someone waking up, Celia turns it into a beautiful piece of imagery. its bits like this that really submerges me into the story.
Inside him, the flames were
pressing closer, licking at the glass, starving for the oxygen that would give them true life. He thrust again. He was in control. Again. The girl's eyes widened. She was waking fully from the drug. The glass was hot. It was beginning to crack.
I don't want to be inside this asshole's head, but there I am. Celia does such a good job of creating an image that I can understand, that all of a sudden I can almost sympathize with this beast.
things I don't like-
Her name. Guadalupe is rather exotic considering her attacker is just William. The name to me is too odd, too exotic and just not feminine. Maybe I'm missing some refrence that would make everything more beautiful, but to me her name was just distracting. Especially when it gets shortened to Lupe. I kept thinking of dogs. :)
The other thing I didn't like was that we only get inside William's head during sex. Lupe keeps asking why through out the story and the one person who can tell the reader ain't talking. I'm curious what drove him to kidnap her. I'm curious as to what drove him to rape her. After getting a close up of what he was thinking during sex, I wanted that same excellent protrayal of his motives before the act. It felt lopsided. Either tell me the begining, or drop the views we do get.
Just my two cents. As usual Celia, your imagery makes any story, no matter the subject material, worth reading.
Shon Richards
A good portion of my stories can be found at my never-finished website at
http://www.asstr.org/~ShonRichards/
All of them can be found through ftp at
http://www.asstr.org/files/Authors/ShonRichards/
From: Malinov
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: 20 Aug 2002 12:18:48 -0700
There are some lovely poetics in this piece. (I consider this a must for any piece)
The bass of the dance music thumped through her bones.
I love the use of a rhythmic mirror to evoke music.
Guadalupe dreamed of darkness
Ah, this is the stuff. Reach inside the soul and make it work.
I can't counsel improvements, for I could only tell you how I would make it more mine. First, I need more character development for the victim, create some measure of symphathies. I am an emotional slut and can quickly bring myself to care about anyone, in the right light. However, if I don't get enough of the internal make-up of the character, nothing that happens to her will get a rise out of me. It's like a porno - a few minutes wasted building character make all the difference in the world when the fucking starts.
Secondly, less narrative and more emotional evocation. This is not a pastoral story about places and things - everything important in this story is emotional. Fear, terror, domination, madness. Make every word and moment sweat with feeling. This is where poetics rise in importance. Narrative is dull. I want heartbeats.
I think that there are moments in the writing that are brilliant. Keep pounding those keys.
Malinov
From: Bradley Stoke
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: 20 Aug 2002 13:12:33 -0700
celia
Phewee! You promised something dark, but this was really really dark. Quite horrible actually. The more effective I think from being done from a limited drugged perspective. Horrible things often only make sense (if they ever make sense at all) when seen in retrospect. At the time, it all seems fragmentary and dissonant.
There was a lot to like about this story. Too many for the strict "two good things" approach. As always the language is vivid. It benefited from having a strict narrative. It gave a sense of progression and movement. However, many other people will praise you for your prose, lyricism, imagery, etc. So, I'll focus on just two good things.
The night club setting was very real. I loved the notion of hips swinging to the rhythm. Don't you often just stand on the edge of a dance floor, like it was the edge of a swimming pool, waiting for the right moment to dive back in? It was a shame in a way that we spent so little time there before Guadalupe (nice name!) lost consciousness. I liked the voices "staccato through the music". Why is it that voices sound so different in a night club? Is it just that they lose their lower register in the pounding bass.
The structure was nicely restrained. It moved forward by a series of short scenes, shifting back and forth from one perspective to the other. I liked the echo of earlier themes that a lesser author would have attempted to explain instead of letting things explain themselves. Who is Olivia? We don't know, but we'll find out. How and why did William apprehend her? Again, we'll know when we need to. The challenge and the beauty of a story told from a fragmentary consciousness is that hints are made of what will come and why things are the way they are. Explanatory paragraphs get in the way of the story flow. As well as being incredibly naff.
Instead of hunting the text for obscure typos or odd syntactical constructions (which is about the only place you could hope to find "something to improve" in a celia batau opus), I'll directly address celia's question about point of view (pov). In actual fact, there is really only one point of view. That of Guadalupe. We don't actually see anything from William's point of view at all. Instead, he is described as from a distance. Here we can see the rewards of time spent reading comic books and watching films. The focus shifts back and forth in a filmic manner, using scene references.
There are two essential points of reference. One is what Guadalupe sees and feels. The sexual abuse is described not in mechanical terms, but in terms of sensations. The loss of consciousness and the abduction is described as Guadalupe might feel it. The other reference point is actually more like a long or medium shot of a camera. William exists as he would be seen from a camera. We don't see things as he would see things. Perhaps thankfully. He is quite a horrible person. I suppose such people do exist, but I've only come across them in movies.
One of the difficulties of moving the point of view firmly into William's head would be that it is difficult not to start sympathising with him. Rather like the way we start sympathising with Hannibal Lecter (although really our thoughts should be with security guards and their livers, congressmen and their brains or Italian police and their entrails). If in later chapters, we are to genuinely see inside William's head, this will be a challenge of the first order. All we really know about him now, besides the unhealthiness below his surface attractiveness, is that he sees all this abuse of strange women as being an exercise in control. Is this how it works? Do men (and women) really go to such extremes just to bolster their need to be in control? Perhaps it really is as tawdry and sordid as that.
I've always thought that celia's strength as a writer is her ability to face the dark and unpleasant head on, coupled with beautiful prose and intricate structure, bolstered by an acute awareness of the structure of film and comic strip narrative. So far in this story, she is bringing in the goods. I worry, however, that the story might enter more conventional territory as it focuses on the confinement, humiliation and power games. Although there is a lot to be gained by exploring the psychology of this perverse interaction, there is a danger that it panders instead to the rather more unpleasant fantasies that some men (and perhaps some women) have. So far it hasn't done this at all.
Another excellent contribution to the Fish Tank,
Bradley Stoke
http://www.asstr.org/~Bradley_Stoke
From: Souvie
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 01:05:11 GMT
On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 12:19:46 -0400, "Desdmona" <[email protected]> wrote:
*********************************************** Diary of a Dead Girl (nc bd violence) By celia batau
[email protected]
Fishtank guidelines apply:
1) 2 positive comments
Positive: I read this part-
The man struck her. Hard. Lupe's vision flashed orange and red as he convulsed above her.
and instantly thought of the passage above, where William is thinking about the "fire." The imagery just seemed to tie in so well, that I was going "wow!".
Positive: I like the shifting pov's. Maybe in later chapters we'll flashback and find out what makes William tick. Or maybe it'll always be a mystery. Either way, I like getting more than just Lupe's pov.
2) 2 suggestions for improvement
Improvement: I keep wondering what Olivia's relationship to Lupe is. Casual friend? Close friend? Sister? Lover?
Improvement: mmm I can't think of another one right now.
- Souvie
Under the covers ... with Souvie
http://www.asstr.org/~Souvie
From: Jeff Zephyr
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Thu, 22 Aug 2002 23:04:38 -0600
On Mon, 19 Aug 2002 12:19:46 -0400, "Desdmona" <[email protected]> wrote:
Guadalupe's imagery and sensations seem very well defined. William is a bit less so, but then in this part we only see him sharply in the one part. The part where he enters the room doesn't show his thoughts, just actions. And earlier, he is invisible; we don't see him really until the end.
He is very interestingly scary then. We see his emotions as images, a kind of unreal detachment filling his thoughts. He isn't rationalizing what he is doing, he is only feeling it.
Her fear is a strong contrast to that. The disorientation she feels is so nicely shown, it helps make the dark story even darker.
Should we see more of William before this point? I don't know. I'm expecting more of his POV to show up later, and he might even go over what he did, and why, in a later conversation. To this point, they aren't really conversing, and the interaction at the end really isn't much of a conversation. He shows no sign of caring about the girl, nor why he picked her.
As part of a longer story, it makes it hard to guess what is really missing in that area. Maybe those things just haven't come up yet?
Jeff
Web site at http://www.asstr.org/~jeffzephyr/ For FTP, ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/jeffzephyr/
There is nothing more important than petting the cat.
From: Mat Twassel
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: 23 Aug 2002 21:31:55 GMT
it's also just a chapter of a longer work ...we'd like to focus on how the two pov's come across. mostly on improvements or how the pov could be made better.
I didn't have any trouble with the pov at all. Or maybe I missed something. The rapist and the guy at the end didn't quite seem like the same person, but that's probably understandable. And even in the last scene (when he's "gentle") he seems to have a dual personality. Gentle, tender, but at the same time cold and evil.
I'd definitely read more to find out where this goes.
- Mat Twassel
Mat's Erotic Calendar at http://calendar.atEros.com
From: Desdmona
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 10:41:32 -0400
Diary of a Dead Girl (nc bd violence) By celia batau [email protected]
Celia~
More evidence of your talent for depicting great imagery. You not only make we readers see the picture, but you make us feel it - under our skin. You've handled Guadalupe waking from the drug perfectly. The drug keeps her from feeling as much fear as when she awakes the last time. Good, it should.
One little nit about imagery: "The rusted hinges turned silently ..."
Are rusty hinges really silent? What if they creaked or cracked, but then the hinges of the newer door were silent. The creaking a little scary, but the silence of the newer door even creepier. Just a thought.
I don't have a problem with the shifts in POV. But I do feel they're a little lopsided. Maybe later in further chapters you intend on more from William, but I think it needs at least one more from him in this chapter. What if we start with William at the dance hall. William spots Guadalupe dancing. Maybe he's attracted to her for obvious reasons, but also for some odd reason. Maybe he chooses her because she shows so much power and strength and confidence on the dance floor. I'm not suggesting giving away his entire motive, that would be a mistake, but maybe let us see him, seeing her for the first time. And I think the key point is to have us see through his eyes, not necessarily get in his mind.
"The girl's tawny skin, sleek with sweat, glowed under neon lights like glass reflecting fire. William watched as her naughty hips swayed with seductive strength."
OK, maybe a little too obvious. But hopefully you see my points: a hint at the glass that's mentioned later, and a mention of strength that possibly attracts him, but also makes him want to conquer. I guess my general opinion is for William's POV, all we need is to see the action he sees, and with his actions, we as readers can surmise his state of mind. I hope that's clear.
Shon suggests the name, Guadalupe, is too exotic. I don't think I agree. It conjures up an image. A Latin American image. You've given us a little description of her just by her name. And I also think anytime you have one very common name, such as William, it's nice to contrast that with an uncommon name, especially a name like Guadalupe that gives a mental picture.
You've definitely set up a nice first chapter that would be hard to set down and not want to read further. That's a key in chapter books, I believe. Grab attention, don't reveal too much, leave them guessing, and begging for more.
And one last note, The story is dark, it's meant to be, but still you've managed to write it in such a way that there's beauty to it. You've such talent to make a dark tale sing like this. I look forward to the rest of the story!
Thanks bunches, celia, for considering the FT.
Des
From: Jeff Zephyr
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 14:07:17 -0600
On Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:42:32 GMT, "Shon" <[email protected]> wrote:
"Desdmona" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected] ...
things I don't like-
Her name. Guadalupe is rather exotic considering her attacker is just William. The name to me is too odd, too exotic and just not feminine. Maybe I'm missing some refrence that would make everything more beautiful, but to me her name was just distracting. Especially when it gets shortened to Lupe. I kept thinking of dogs. :)
Is the name too unfamiliar? In our USA, at least in some places, such names aren't uncommon at all. Lots of sorts of names get used, making it hard to decide what is exotic.
Jeff
Web site at http://www.asstr.org/~jeffzephyr/ For FTP, ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/jeffzephyr/
There is nothing more important than petting the cat.
From: dennyw
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 14:26:26 -0700
On Sat, 24 Aug 2002 14:07:17 -0600, Jeff Zephyr <[email protected]> wrote:
On Tue, 20 Aug 2002 12:42:32 GMT, "Shon" <[email protected]> wrote:
"Desdmona" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected] ...
things I don't like-
Her name. Guadalupe is rather exotic considering her attacker is just William. The name to me is too odd, too exotic and just not feminine. Maybe I'm missing some refrence that would make everything more beautiful, but to me her name was just distracting. Especially when it gets shortened to Lupe. I kept thinking of dogs. :)
Is the name too unfamiliar? In our USA, at least in some places, such names aren't uncommon at all. Lots of sorts of names get used, making it hard to decide what is exotic.
Shon needs to visit SoCal. Guadalupe isn't that rare a name there, I'd guess. Or he could come here: my co-workers include Boris, Igor, Vitaliy (3 brothers from Ukraine), Liem, Te, Bee (Cambodians & Vietnamese), Randall, two Tonys (one of whom is Thai, the other Hispanic), Faisal (from Iraq), Steve (Native American) etc. Apartments near mine are occupied by Koreans, Ukrainians, etc. And of course the area includes large numbers of Chinese, Japanese, scandanavians, etc. Oh, and I'm forgetting the folk from Africa, many of whom have Arab-sounding names.
From: celia batau
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 19:48:40 -0700
hi Denny and Shon!
<[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected] ...
Shon needs to visit SoCal. Guadalupe isn't that rare a name there, I'd guess.
yeah. :) Shon and mrs. Shon could come over and we could go to some really good taco places and hang out with Carla, Evelyn, Javier, Guillermo, Arturo, Alma, Maria, Carlos and all the homies. :)
Or he could come here: my co-workers include Boris, Igor,
Vitaliy (3 brothers from Ukraine), Liem, Te, Bee (Cambodians & Vietnamese), Randall, two Tonys (one of whom is Thai, the other Hispanic), Faisal (from Iraq), Steve (Native American) etc. Apartments near mine are occupied by Koreans, Ukrainians, etc. And of course the area includes large numbers of Chinese, Japanese, scandanavians, etc. Oh, and I'm forgetting the folk from Africa, many of whom have Arab-sounding names.
wow. maybe we should all go to Seattle. lots of good inspiration for names and we could eat coffee and seafood. have you ever eaten the soft-shelled crabs? we were at a sushi restaurant with our friends one time and one ordered it. it was so weird watching him eat it. :)
-cb
celia batau's story site: http://www.myplanet.net/pinataheart/stories.htm.
Everybody jumping jumping
Everybody dancing now
Ay Mama
Que sabrosa tu est�s
-Rabanes
From: dennyw
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 00:22:17 -0700
On Sat, 24 Aug 2002 19:48:40 -0700, "celia batau" <[email protected]> wrote:
wow. maybe we should all go to Seattle. lots of good inspiration for names and we could eat coffee and seafood. have you ever eaten the soft-shelled crabs?
Nope. Usually the softshells are an East coast thing afaik. (at least the Blue Crabs that are served as softshell live on the E. Coast) I eat Dungeness crab as often as I can though. (it's better than Alaska King Crab, or Snow Crab, or Stone Crabs; haven't had any other kinds)
We got lotsa other seafood of course. (Yes, Alexis, some of it comes from Alaska)
From: celia batau
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sat, 24 Aug 2002 12:03:56 -0700
hi everyone!
we weren't sure if it was ok to submit this story bc of its darkness, but we really needed help. the whole of the work is about twenty two chapters, but we've been having a lot of trouble with William's point of view. and his point of view was important to us bc of the dynamic it created between the two characters and bc of the direction their relationship evolves.
[Tesseract said:]
I see a cement sidewalk, or maybe a paved driveway. At any rate, a horizontal surface. Dirt and especially leaves litter flat surfaces, not walls.
the image we were trying to make was the entrace to an underground shelter, the top of which appeared above ground and was horizontal. we're not too sure about how one enters shelters and we still need more research for it, but we lived in a victorian house that had an external entrance to the basement. it was stone with a wooden door, and it always had leaves and stuff on it.
She screamed and finally felt herself rise free of the darkness and fall into the harsh white light.
-
The girl writhed in William's grasp, threatening to spread the internal fire he was struggling to contain.
For some reason this transition does not work as well. Maybe because there is not much time between the two scenes. It could almost be a repeat of the previous scene from a different POV.
Reading it again, I see her collapsing at the end of her scene but struggling at the beginning of his scene. Maybe that is the problem.
the second part is a continuation of the first. her falling into the light was her waking up. we could prolly make it more clear though. :)
I'm glad I don't live in your world.
lol. :) we think there's maybe room, if you don't mind having one of the little metal boxes. ;)
[Shon said:]
Her name. Guadalupe is rather exotic considering her attacker is just William. The name to me is too odd, too exotic and just not feminine. Maybe I'm missing some refrence that would make everything more beautiful, but to me her name was just distracting. Especially when it gets shortened to Lupe. I kept thinking of dogs. :)
the two characters are representations. but it's kind of difficult to see what from just the chapter and not knowing our history. the difference between the brown (latina) and the white (anglo) was important to us. also the longer latina name reflects other aspects of the character. William could be changed.
After getting a close up of what he was thinking during sex, I wanted that same excellent protrayal of his motives before the act. It felt lopsided. Either tell me the begining, or drop the views we do get.
ok. right now there's only that little bit of him carrying her in. that's kind of the problem we're having, getting into his head. we'll definitely think more on getting more of him in there.
[Malinov said:]
First, I need more character development for the victim, create some measure of symphathies.
the first chapter was more a setting up of the situation. but we think you're right, there isn't much development of either character at this point.
Secondly, less narrative and more emotional evocation. This is not a pastoral story about places and things - everything important in this story is emotional. Fear, terror, domination, madness. Make every word and moment sweat with feeling. This is where poetics rise in importance. Narrative is dull. I want heartbeats.
yeah. and we're thinking about your exercise too. we mostly think showing is very important. we're not very good at plot, so maybe the description was just trying to show plot?
[Bradley said:]
Horrible things often only make
sense (if they ever make sense at all) when seen in retrospect. At the time, it all seems fragmentary and dissonant.
that's part of what we were trying to get across with the first part. the uncertain situation and environment with this unknown guy.
In actual fact, there is
really only one point of view. That of Guadalupe. We don't actually see anything from William's point of view at all. Instead, he is described as from a distance.
that's what we're hoping to move away from with the whole of the story. the first chapter is mostly Guadalupe. we didn't want to break the views between chapters, but we were also having a difficult time mixing the two together in the same chapter. we think it needs more work.
One of the difficulties of moving the point of view firmly into William's head would be that it is difficult not to start sympathising with him. [ ...] I worry, however, that the story might enter more conventional territory as it focuses on the confinement, humiliation and power games.
maybe not sympathising, but understanding. a bit part of what we're trying to write. This story mentally, is the second part to Milagritos. Milagritos was about accepting a horrible and impossible situation only to find yourself alive at the end. this story is taking that situation to a more logical end. we almost didn't live. what would have happened if we weren't taken out when we were? how would the dynamic have evolved past that point? a broken accepting Guadalupe scratching for life under a controlling sadistic William. a William trying to satisfy some unquenchable need through his acts. that makes the pov even harder. not quite understanding it. The story is still in draft stages. hopefull he'll share more as it goes.
[Souvie said:]
Improvement: I keep wondering what Olivia's relationship to Lupe is. Casual friend? Close friend? Sister? Lover?
we really didn't make that clear huh? :) but Lupe thinking it was Olivia removing her clothes is one clue. The rest of the story will explain more. :)
[Jeff said:]
William is a bit less so, but then in this part we only see him sharply in the one part. The part where he enters the room doesn't show his thoughts, just actions. And earlier, he is invisible; we don't see him really until the end.
so he's slowly becoming more defined? wow. that's something we need to think about.
To this point, they
aren't really conversing, and the interaction at the end really isn't much of a conversation. He shows no sign of caring about the girl, nor why he picked her.
yeah. we're not sure if we like the little "talk," but we're not sure how to correct it. :(
As part of a longer story, it makes it hard to guess what is really missing in that area. Maybe those things just haven't come up yet?
there's a lot still to evolve with the characters. the first chapter is short. :(
[Mat said:]
The rapist and the guy at the end didn't quite seem like the same person, but that's probably understandable. And even in the last scene (when he's "gentle") he seems to have a dual personality. Gentle, tender, but at the same time cold and evil.
trying to blend those two sides is difficult. we just hope we can make him consistent within himself.
[Desdmona said:]
Are rusty hinges really silent? What if they creaked or cracked, but then the hinges of the newer door were silent. The creaking a little scary, but the silence of the newer door even creepier. Just a thought.
old but well cared for? :) we're clueless. :)
But I do feel they're a
little lopsided. Maybe later in further chapters you intend on more from William, but I think it needs at least one more from him in this chapter.
you and Shon are making me think more about his placement in this chapter. we like your suggestion about how to introduce him. but we're trying to ground the story in Lupe's perspective, even though we get into William's head. is there maybe a way we could do both here?
"The girl's tawny skin, sleek with sweat, glowed under neon lights like glass reflecting fire. William watched as her naughty hips swayed with seductive strength."
we like that. :)
thanks so so much everyone for helping us with the story. :) we really appreciate it. :) sorry if it was an unpleasant thing to read. we're a little burnt out with the fantasy right now, but we promise we'll threaten you with more happier stuff later. ;)
thanks! :)
-celia
celia batau's story site: http://www.myplanet.net/pinataheart/stories.htm.
Everybody jumping jumping
Everybody dancing now
Ay Mama
Que sabrosa tu est�s
-Rabanes
From: Altan
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 00:55:31 GMT
celia batau wrote:
thanks so so much everyone for helping us with the story. :) we really appreciate it. :) sorry if it was an unpleasant thing to read. we're a little burnt out with the fantasy right now, but we promise we'll threaten you with more happier stuff later. ;)
Personally, I don't like stories with violence, rape, forcing people to do things they don't want to do. But your Fishtank entry was so beautifully written, so powerful, that I could not stop reading. I think the subject of the story being unpleasant does not always make reading it unpleasant.
BTW, I did not comment on the story because I felt completely out of my league, did not think there was a single helpful comment to make. Oh, and about the rusty hinges opening silently: I read from this that they were oiled in advance, meaning this whole drama was meticulously planned. It added to the atmosphere for me.
A.
Web site: http://www.asstr.org/~altan/
From: cmsix
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 01:38:22 GMT
"Altan" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:[email protected] ...
celia batau wrote:
thanks so so much everyone for helping us with the story. :) we really appreciate it. :) sorry if it was an unpleasant thing to read. we're a little burnt out with the fantasy right now, but we promise we'll threaten you with more happier stuff later. ;)
Personally, I don't like stories with violence, rape, forcing people to do things they don't want to do. But your Fishtank entry was so beautifully written, so powerful, that I could not stop reading. I think the subject of the story being unpleasant does not always make reading it unpleasant.
BTW, I did not comment on the story because I felt completely out of my league, did not think there was a single helpful comment to make.
See celia, I wasn't the only one.
cmsix
Oh, and about the rusty hinges opening silently: I read from this that
they were oiled in advance, meaning this whole drama was meticulously planned. It added to the atmosphere for me.
A.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Web site: http://www.asstr.org/~altan/ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
From: Lord Malinov
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: Sun, 25 Aug 2002 14:02:11 GMT
we're not very good at plot, so maybe the description was just trying to show plot?
The reason I began writing in ASS (in, what, 1993?) was to develop my plotting. Before then, I was writing artsy-fartsy bits with no sense of direction and romance novels which have basically pre-defined plots.
In novels, there are generally two levels of plotting - the book itself has a plot and every chapter has a plot. I always remember some writing theorist suggesting that each chapter should start with a conflict and should resolve itself by putting the protagonist in a worse position than they were at the start of the chapter. The progression of bad to worse continues chapter by chapter until the novel's denouement, when the mass of ongoing badness suddenly coalesces into a satisfying resolution.
Malinov
Power belongs to those who dare ... Sapere Aude <http://home1.gte.net/res0cmkt/malinov69/index.html>
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From: Tesseract
Re: Diary of a Dead Girl, by celia batau
Date: 19 Aug 2002 22:17:01 -0700
"Desdmona" <[email protected]> wrote in message news:<[email protected]> ...
The first thing I noticed, or rather didn't notice, was the professional polish. No glaring errors - typos, spelling, grammar - to jar the senses and break the mood.
You have an economical use of language that, nonetheless, paints an exquisite picture. Not a picture that I much like, but one that I can definitely feel.
This transition works very well.
I see a cement sidewalk, or maybe a paved driveway. At any rate, a horizontal surface. Dirt and especially leaves litter flat surfaces, not walls.
But here I find a door. Is it in the cement? Maybe the cement is not a walk but a wall. Confusing.
This transistion also works well.
For some reason this transition does not work as well. Maybe because there is not much time between the two scenes. It could almost be a repeat of the previous scene from a different POV.
Reading it again, I see her collapsing at the end of her scene but struggling at the beginning of his scene. Maybe that is the problem.
This transition works better than the previous but not as good as the first couple.
This last section continues with Guadalupe's POV which is a change from the shorter sections before it. Since I don't know what is following I can't say how this fits, just that, at this point, the size difference is noticable.
Oveall this is a very intense, dark, piece of writing. It's well written and paints an intense picture. I'm glad I don't live in your world.
Tesseract