A Work in Progress
I've been toying around with this, trying to get it to feel right, and I believe that I've come close. I'm not sure how I feel about it, entirely, but it's all about exploration at this point. I'm trying on some new ways of doing things.
There isn't really a whole lot to this, yet, but I figured I would post something, as it has been quite a while ( Read more... )
I quite like this. Keep going!
My only comment for now would be that I dislike the value judgement made with the 'she was and artist, the doorman was but a doorman comment' (on one level, because I disagree that artists are inherently more worthwhile than doormen, on another because it seems to be a comment by you as an author unfiltered by the point of view of any character- not that there's something wrong with an author making their opinions felt through their writing, or that there always has to be a p.o.v, but I'd suggest that it's too early in your story to make such an assertion, or to make it at that stage without one of the themes of the piece being the worth of art and a philosophical critique of how people earn their living)...
I'd point out a couple of other things (I think the dialogue should be tightened for one), but I looking at what you've posted, it would be better for the story if you kept writing it and then went over it and decide what you want to do with it.
For what it's worth, I'm intrigued by the relationship between Olivia and Henry (is it romance, familial, a cross-generational friendship- why is she visiting him before her parents etc.) and would like to know more about that. I think this story could also be an interesting vehicle for you to explore what you think about different occupations (you spend as much time describing the doorman as you do Olivia, and both suffer from some kind of depression, though they obviously went through very different decision making processes to get where they are at the point you start. I didn't get the impression that the doorman was a central character, but perhaps you mention him so significantly because you want to make a point about your idea of the 'artist'?
Anyway, this could go somewhere interesting, and let it go there before you start editing for grammar or even style.
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