[LJ Idol Season 9 Topic 23: The Fiction of the Fix]

[agirlnamedluna]

It was always something.

I would be looking up, finding my way out, and then something would remind me that I’d better watch my feet.

I’d trip, I’d fall, and after I was done dusting myself off, I’d remind myself that that was just how things were.

***It was raining cats and dogs - of course - and I was wearing the patent ballerinas I had

Comments

[halfshellvenus]

I liked how this evolved. I started thinking this was just about the pangs of a childless woman, but it became clear that the random criticism by the boyfriend and his perhaps not liking kids went much, much deeper.

Poor woman. :(

[jexia]

:( The structure of this piece is good. Made me sad, though :( Nice work.

[witchwife]

Excellent build up. The end was a bit shocking to me, but in a way that made sense after I looked back on all of your foreshadowing. Serves as a very sensible lesson on not just listening, but also reading between the lines.

[mallorys_camera]

Wow. This is a strong piece and well-structured.

If I may be allowed to offer you a bit of constructive criticism -- because I liked the piece very much! -- when you rewrite this, if you rewrite this, I'd foreshadow the abuse more strongly in your descriptive paragraphs. Start off slow and then slip in more and more detail. You want the reader to scratch his/her head and think, Huh! Is this what I think it is? until -- Bingo! -- at the end: It is.

[theun4givables]

Counterpoint to this -- and this might be because of my own personal situation, and how I was abused by my ex, but -- I caught on immediately to it. Abuse -- especially verbal and mental -- is so sinister and sinks in so slowly and consumes the victim, that you read the friends' for signs of it, first.

The fact that none of her girlfriends seemed to like Steve tipped me off. The fact that she withdrew from her friends more, that the one friend was worried about why she ended up in the hospital -- it clicked from the third section in, for me.

The end of this is absolutely chilling.

[watching_ships]

I agree with you completely. For me, there was just enough all the way through to clue me in on where this was heading.

[jem0000000]

Thirding this -- it's exactly enough foreshadowing. :) I like that moment of, "Is...?" and the way it draws you in, slowly.

[mamas_minion]

I like the way this flowed and escalated, you did an eerily excellent job of the abuse cycle from the narrators perspective. Very sad how it ended I was hoping she was going to break that cycle of abuse.