Comments | obsessical: I'm a loser...

obsessical

I'm a loser...

Jan 29, 2007 23:50

I hate to keep asking for help, but I'm feeling pretty losery right now. After stressing forever about writing a short story for my class, I decided to ditch my teacher-affair idea and go with what I'm familiar: dialogue-based comedy revolving around gay characters. I already (stupidly) announced that everything I write has gay undertones in ( Read more... )

self-loathing, writing

Comments 5

(The comment has been removed)

obsessical January 30 2007, 06:18:59 UTC

Thank you for reading!

The point I was trying to make with the dialogue is that they're smart boys, but that they're just guys. It sucks, because things like that are sorta lost when I cut it down as much as I did. Originally, Mike went off on a little rant, using all sorts of pretentious words to make fun of how emo Kevin was being. So it made sense in context. But you're right; without the rest of it, it looks like he's actually being pretentious.

Yeah, the ending isn't so hot. Ending things interestingly is one of my weaknesses. I'll see what I can do with that. Or perhaps ask my workshop peeps if they think it'd be better if I changed the ending. 'Cause we get to ask questions at the end, we're just not allowed to explain ourselves at all, which is going to be frustrating.

But thank you for the compliment. :)

Interesting story bec_87rb January 30 2007, 07:17:43 UTC

Hm. This is gonna sound a little harsh, so take a deep breath: I don't know how to tell you this, but you just wrote a gay male Mary Sue story.

If you wanna make this more realistic, don't have them discuss it so thoroughly beforehand that you spell out completely what he doesn't wanna tell momma. Cut that part way down, and make the reader read between the lines.

Also, the idea that his jewish momma is all like, "Sure, son, that guy completes you, so whatever you wanna do is okay with your father and me," is unbelievable, given the set-up you created by the explicit heavy discussion between the two men up front ( ... )

bec_87rb January 31 2007, 18:03:22 UTC

Good god, don't keep us in suspense! How was the workshop? Did they rip you a new one?

obsessical January 31 2007, 21:03:16 UTC

It happens NEXT Friday. My story has to be ready to turn in on this Friday. So I get to live in suspended terror for YET ANOTHER week ( ... )

bec_87rb February 1 2007, 14:57:42 UTC

No worries there - you come off quite sane on LJ, from where I sit.

Sorry if it stung. I didn't mean to be harsh, but I figured honest was more helpful. Better to hear criticism from people who actually care about you, than from strangers, I hope.

It doesn't suck, and has potential to very good, but since short stories only have a certain numbers of words, each sentence must really count, implying things unsaid is super important, and you need conflict. Probably because the slow build you get in a novel has to be compressed into a few pages.

Of course, there is always this comforting thought, "Eh, what does bec know?" ;) I was in school before the earth's crust cooled, so instructors might be looking for totally different qualities in creative writing now. :)

All the more reason I would be interested to hear how it was received. Again, good luck with this.