Comments | theun4givables: LJ Idol Season 9, Week 17: "Scare Quotes"

theun4givables

LJ Idol Season 9, Week 17: "Scare Quotes"

Aug 09, 2014 12:15

Ryan hitched up his backpack on a single shoulder and glanced around the busy street. He shoved his hands in his pockets, head hanging as the voices of his fellow students continued to follow him on his long walk home.

“Going to your rat’s nest, Carrier?” someone said to his left.

( Ryan didnt so much as blink, instead lifting his head and throwing his shoulders back. )

original fiction, trigger: violence, lji: season 9, character: ryan, novel: seize the day, rating: pg-13

Comments 51

roina_arwen August 12 2014, 16:50:51 UTC

Ooh, very cool premise!

(And hey, if he can't color his hair, could he buzz cut it to make it less obvious?)

theun4givables August 12 2014, 16:57:38 UTC

Thank you. :)

I think that's his next step, yeah. He would want to hide his hair as much as possible -- in past versions, he had a baseball cap that he wore everywhere to help hide it.

He goes for coloring it when he can afford it, though. ;)

fodschwazzle August 12 2014, 18:08:49 UTC

This is quite intense. If you get an opportunity to write to this story again, I will definitely want to know. As a ginger, I think maybe I'm getting empathy pains.

I particularly like how you took your time coming back around to "carrier."

theun4givables August 12 2014, 18:27:39 UTC

Thank you! <3 And yeah, I'm sure the gingers reading this post are probably all going D:!!!!

Yay! I was afraid that things like "Carrier" and "NBET" without further context until later might turn people off -- but I'm glad that worked for you (and hopefully others). :)

rayaso August 13 2014, 01:30:57 UTC

I enjoyed this, and I look forward to other entries in the series. The premise is fascinating.

theun4givables August 13 2014, 11:38:12 UTC

Thank you. :) We'll see if Ryan wants to play more in the upcoming weeks.

tonithegreat August 13 2014, 01:58:02 UTC

Aw, poor guy! The pacing was really nice on this. Pulled me right in and left me wanting more, too.

theun4givables August 13 2014, 11:38:55 UTC

Sweet, thank you! I don't know how many times I've played with this particular sequence, but the pacing was always an issue. I'm so, so glad I got it to work right, this time. :)

tatdatcm August 13 2014, 02:29:40 UTC

Is this part of your Tomorrow Trilogy? I like the way you've reworked this. It's tighter, more concise and still gets the emotion across, pulling us in as readers.

This dystopia, with natural borns vs. engineered people fascinates me. It's a great concept. I hope you continue to develop it.

theun4givables August 13 2014, 11:53:43 UTC

The Tomorrow Trilogy technically no longer exists. ;) The three huge storylines and their main characters (the NB storyline, J&S's part, Hooba) are actually getting split into three different books, with three different universes, etc.

Yay! I'd hoped it'd be tighter. Previous versions stretched into over 1000 words and this one is much shorter by comparison. Yay idol! lol

<3 I intend to, but Ryan's gotta cooperate a little with me, too. (He's the only one who knows the world, really.)