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WK32
Apr 18, 2022 20:46:25 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Apr 18, 2022 20:46:25 GMT
I read Joseph's After the Wreck about a week ago. I could be, and probably am, wrong, but I think it's about a guy who comes upon the scene of a car crash, feels guilty for not having stopped, can't find mention of it online or through personal investigation, returns to it only to be hassled by some cop, goes about his mundane life never knowing what happened.
I definitely remember thinking that it was actually his own accident, that he was revisiting his own demise, which was why it was so important to him, and so hard to learn anything about. In my own personal million or two miles of driving I've come across my share of accidents. I remember once seeing an old VW Beetle on the 401 flattened by a crossover head-on. Nothing left but the rear engine compartment. Or passing through Virginia once on our way to Myrtle Beach. It'd snowed a little, nothing like in Ontario, barely enough to cover the center line on whatever interstate we were on. But probably because many drivers hadn't seen the white stuff before, a lot of cars were off in the ditch or spun out on the shoulder. One dumbass had crashed into a billboard standing so far out in a field, I doubt I could've driven to it if I'd tried. And I've never had any inclination to stop, or wondered as to the backstory, which is why I was pretty sure the POV character in this cap was a ghost. But then wasn't. The mystery, such as it was, was never resolved. Not for me anyway. The hook, such as it was, stayed set.
Technically, the prose is competent. I did make a few notes. Like there are a few "he thought" tags I found superfluous. Since it's written in the tight limited 3rd, the reader can assume all thoughts are this character's. But the (other) biggest problem, and the reason I'm going to crumple these 7,271 words into tight little balls and fire them, a thousand or so at a time, out the Porthole, is that there's far too much meandering from point A to point B. Here's the one example I noted:
He brought the bag of food and his drink back into the room, took a seat at the small utility table by the window, laid out his meal, and began to eat.
Thanks for wasting 2.69 seconds of my life.
PS Dear VC, I appreciate your being a sport and inviting us to "mock" your submission on the "Big Board" (Floor, actually), though it pains me a little to think of these thoughtful (and time consuming) reviews as mocking. Like Siri once said to me after I told it to "Fuck off!"
I was just trying to help.
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WK32
Apr 20, 2022 21:33:52 GMT
Post by deplancher on Apr 20, 2022 21:33:52 GMT
[DeP's watching old X-Files episodes on the cracked screen of her iPhone while consuming dried mango slices. The hammock's empty. She's built a kind of nest of sleeping bag, pillows, and her cloak on the floor of The Floor. Ted's tossing that cap into her corner a few seconds ago shook her out of her binge induced trance. She looks around, wide-eyed, remembering she's working.]
Tabernac! I am slacking. I know you walls don't mind. Slide a comb through your hair, DePlancher. Le respect de soi est le fondement de l'honneur! [She declares this aloud, something her father used to announce as a motivator. She's still not sure if the intent was to remind himself of the foundation of honour or as some kind of warning for her, but it's familiar. And seems to work. She wipes her mango sugar hands on her skirt, smooths her tangled locks, then stands for a long, slow stretch.]
What's the angle, Ms JaneVC? We shall see what we shall see, mais oui.
I'd wish you all a rebellious Happy 4/20! mais, I am Canadian. Weed's not a symbol of rebellion here anymore, dig it? Drink it. Eat it. Grow it. Rub it. Vape it. Toke it. Just try to remember where you are and how you got here. Or there, as the case may be. Plant a tree. Oh...and I won't honk at you if you don't honk at me.
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WK32
Apr 27, 2022 13:24:32 GMT
Post by rockefeller on Apr 27, 2022 13:24:32 GMT
I've read Will Ferguson's 419, and am now into A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry. Among many other recognitions, both were Giller winners, and "Best Sellers" (whatever that means). Though each is very well written and researched, to me, the former is more a collection of novelettes loosely and contrivedly conjoined in an unsatisfactory ending, and the latter is, so far, kind of pointless, believable but boring. So when I say that I read More Than Animal (in which "Than" is too insignificant a word to be capped in the title) a few days ago and was not blown away, I hope Nic, the VC, will understand that this is not necessarily a condemnation of his craft.
They (whoever they are) say that the guitar is the easiest musical instrument to learn to play badly, and the hardest to learn to play well. I think this is even truer of writing, because even a weak guitarist can be enjoyable to listen to. Unlike with reading where one's undivided attention is required often for considerable lengths of time, one can wash dishes, have sex, eat dinner or jog while listening to music. Music embellishes, but does not infringe on one's lifespan and consciousness the way writing does. So there's that.
The problem with the cap in question here is that it's mostly expository. It describes a not particularly credible dystopian future where humanity's main pastime is burning shit down, one big "mostly peaceful" BLM protest if you will. Yes it's cool that, in the end, some bioengineer creates some sort of a dragon creature to eat these roving arsonists. But not a forty-minutes-of-my-life cool. None of the characters had any... well... characteristics, idiosyncrasies, backstory, any relationship to others or themselves. Just weird names. For me it was a 7000 word yarn with maybe 300 words of plot, of actual I-wonder-what-will-happen-now type story.
Rocks glances over at Dep sprawled in her nest. She appears to be wearing noise-cancelling headphones. Her eyes are closed and she is twitching, perhaps reclined dancing, perhaps something more, to sounds only she can hear. It is probably music, maybe something Doomey recommended and, as such, rekindles his presence. It is probably not a podcast or audio story. No one dances to the spoken word.
I know I expect, even demand, too much of fiction. But I cannot lower this bar. (Also no one is more critical of a thing than he who has failed at it.)
Rocks tries not to disturb Dep's bedding on his trek to the Porthole.
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WK32
Apr 29, 2022 20:48:03 GMT
Post by guevara on Apr 29, 2022 20:48:03 GMT
“Funkystiltskin (and some H-Bombs)” comes in at a bizarre angle. The band of misfits who run a kind of detective agency—“Alliance Investigators”—are weird in their own ways. In fact they are very weird, too weird, I’d have to say, to be believable. In certain kinds of comedy, the thing that makes the characters funny and engaging is not just their eccentricities but the fact that the writer who creates them (or the actors who play them) make them believable. There is enough sanity to justify their acting stupid, enough expertise to make the way they mess things up engaging, enough wisdom to make their stupidity endearing. For example: The Three Stooges (of course, it sounds much better in Spanish—Los Tres Chiflados—but I’m not going to get chauvinistic; not so soon anyway)—are funny largely because they play their roles so well you can actually believe they would act the way they do. These three don’t come across as believable. Walla, Jerry, and Barret are too caught up in conspiracy theories, paranoia, and other weirdness to catch on as characters. Really, the only things that stick out to me is Megan, the little girl who has lost her doggie, and their concern for her. It is this lucidity that makes the characters attractive and not just a gang of weirdos. The absurdity of their beliefs isn’t funny enough to sustain me as a reader. It gets very old after a while. The deus ex machia ending where God comes through with a lightning bolt and everything turns out well is a nice ending; but the characters somehow don’t earn or deserve such divine intervention. If I didn’t like them I don’t think God would like them enough to send fire from heaven—he’d think they were not worth the risk. I was glad the little girl got her dog back and was amused here and there, but the characters and story line just didn’t carry me through.
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WK32
May 5, 2022 20:47:30 GMT
Post by rockefeller on May 5, 2022 20:47:30 GMT
Lore has it that Vlad Tepes' (a.k.a. Vlad Dracolya, a.k.a. Vlad the Impaler) Kingdom of Wallachia was a heaven on Earth. Everyone was healthy and successful. You could leave your valuables anywhere, and no one would touch them. Vlad is said to have hosted a great feast for all the town's mentally and/or physically ill, and/or non-gainfully employed in a huge hall, after which he burnt the place down. He'd impale a thousand to ferret out one bad apple. So, naturally, there were no bad apples. If a man's clothes were poorly mended or fitted, he'd burn the man's wife and find him a better one. So of course everyone was well presented. It was a utopia.
Willems' The Unexamined Life is set in a similar, though less utopian utopia. I understand Canada's new MAID (Medical Assistance in Dying) laws are being updated to include mental (as well as physical) illness as qualification. So, basically, all you have to do is want a doctor to whack you, and you're good to go. Happily, whacking is what medicine does best now. There are even take-home kits. Soon, I imagine one will be able to refer a friend as well. So this cap, where examiners identify society's deadbeats and underachievers for euthanasia, is probably not that far ahead of its time. And even though I thought the beginning took a little long to set the scene, and the ending detracted from the theme, I enjoyed it, and am sending it up.
Saw a few tiny nits, just on the very off chance it touches the Monkey. (Though I think our sharper-eyed Terminali will find more.)
The chairman's face peaked out of the shadows.
peeked
...no remaining family left.
The "left" is redundant
Well, Rob, you've come to that game over screen.
Game-Over (The absence of this hyphen wasted several seconds of my life.)
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WK32
May 9, 2022 22:58:16 GMT
Post by guevara on May 9, 2022 22:58:16 GMT
When I first started reading “Lycaon’s Last Conquest” I was ready for something hokey. I did admire the idea a little. Having taught Greek mythology in la Universidad for a lot of years, I had read the tale of Lycaon in Ovid’s El Metamorfosis. He offended Zeus and got turned into un lobo as a punishment. (The way Ovid describes his translation is very cool.) But putting him in a north Canadian town struck me as bit much. Soon, however, the venture began to work its magic and I ended up finding it absorbing and delightful.
Revised mythology is all the rage today and, like any other thing, it can be done well or it can be done badly. When it’s done badly, it tends toward being cliché, silly, and pointless. I guess I’d have to say this effort did seem a little bit all three of these things, but there was something that kept me liking it. One, the humor of a “north of Forty” Canadian town played through the whole thing. Lycaon is not a solitary lupe but has fifty sons. A lot, I thought, but when you’ve been roaming the woods for a few thousand years it makes sense. He is el patriaca of a huge clan. The humorous absurdity of a father living with his fifty sons somehow manages to work in the story. One of his sons who plays the character of hijo descarriado, a wayward son, is causing trouble.
The anarchic ridiculousness of the story saves it from being corny.
Another good point is the use of mythology in the story. The re-interpretation of the myths makes it funny. There is, of course, Lycaon. But there is also Athena, a virgen viega who will not give it up to him. In Greek mythology Athena was one of tres diasas virgenes (along with Artemis and Hestia). She curtly tells him she has kept her virginity for seventy years and isn’t going to give it up to him. If you know mythology, you know she has kept it a lot longer than that!
So I vote yes on this effort. It’s conclusion is funny, its use of myth is brilliant, and the quirkiness does not reach the point of erasing or interfering with its humor.
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WK32
May 12, 2022 12:53:27 GMT
Post by rockefeller on May 12, 2022 12:53:27 GMT
I'm in the protracted process of reading Rohinton Mistry's A Fine Balance, described in a cover blurb as "The Giller of all Gillers." Yes, it won a Giller award. But I'm not sure I'm going to finish it. It's super well-written and edited, of course. And I suppose I'm learning a lot about India's Hindu caste system. But there are so many oddball names and terms and titles that I'm not sure the overarching story warrants suffering them.
It's kind of the same with Sweem's The Last Sludge Caravan, also nicely written, well edited, and chock full of fine world-building replete with weird, long names, species, concepts, etc. But while learning a little about India's political and cultural history and milieu might embiggen me in some regard and lend credibility to the tale, not so much with a made-up fantasy world. In fairness to the VC, fantasy is my least favorite genre, even in the rare instance where its themes and metaphors appear meaningful, like, in this cap, the point and purpose of the MC's storytelling being called into question.
Also, I know the Monkey and our Terminali are all busy with their own lives and literary projects, and so am hesitant to send up anything that I didn't totally grock to. So, in summary and conclusion, nice work, but no.
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WK32
May 12, 2022 18:21:43 GMT
Post by guevara on May 12, 2022 18:21:43 GMT
“Nocturnal” by Andrew Leonard fell short in many ways. I cringed a bit at the language in it: verboso, ostentoso! I won’t bother to translate because I think you can see what those words mean. The diction of the venture, its use of language, the word choices were far too elaborate and artificial to work for me. Its ostentatious nature got in the way of the telling.
Ejemplos:
Facial features invaded my redoubt
When the udder of Promethean deceit runs dry, where will you suckle?
The canyon’s dark, pendulous crag and jagged clefts
I roared in thermite-fueled anger
ÂżEs suficiente?
The language is elaborate to the point that it distracts from the venture itself! And the venture itself is not that compelling. The main character has had his (or hers—never quite clear about this) mind enhanced by some sort of medical intervention. In the end, the protagonist kills a rival—though the motivation for doing so is not entirely clear. All in all, it falls flat, both in the overly-elaborate language and the rather motivation-less plot line.
Not a good bet, it seems to me.
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WK32
May 13, 2022 20:00:45 GMT
Post by rorschalk on May 13, 2022 20:00:45 GMT
Thanks for the quick turnaround! Very good and backed up critique. One thing, over the years it's become apparent authors often blanch at their real names being used in the Terminal or on the Floor. My easy solution to this some years ago was to refer to all prospective venture capitalists as john or janeVC. Until their cap rises to the top and becomes a published capital gain here, there is no distinction, johnVC janeVC. It just avoids the headaches of butthurt VC complaining about how the critique has ruined their reputation forever as if the whole world tunes into our forums, right? Anyhow. Youda man!
A FEW MINUTES LATER
Oh hey, I gave you contradictory guidance, not realizing rockefeller has been naming names in perpetuity without much trouble for many a long year. If you are old and still remember Rosanne Roseannadanna, then you're old, but at least this two word semi-exclamation will resonate in a different key...Never Mind!
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WK32
May 20, 2022 0:29:36 GMT
Post by guevara on May 20, 2022 0:29:36 GMT
“Dark and Damp” by LaurelO fell short from the beginning, basically for lack of coherence and connection of plot. A venture has a main plot and subplot; there is a certain conflict; there are complications; also, there are character settings. These, taken together make a venture; these things are its elementos básicos—its basic elements. In “Dark and Deep” the elements do not cohere. They do not work together to form a dramatic trajectory. In themselves, the different elements one finds in the venture are well-drawn and interesting; yet they never form a forward-moving plot that leads to a conclusion and a denouement.
The main characters—Elle, Sabrina, and Harper—are solid and interesting. Yet they seem to live in world of their own, not really connecting with Brent, the ambitious boss they seem to dislike. He has his flaws, of course, but somehow he never manages to become a true villano—an antagonist. One vaguely gets the idea that the three women might be minor-league witches (this is hinted at when Ella can’t get pregnant and the other two women enable her by giving her a crystal, herbs, and chanting about fertility; but if they are witches or have poderes mágicos (sounds so much cooler than “magical powers”), it is not really clear and the reader is puzzled and uncertain about this.
Brent has political ambitions, yet they are not fully brought in as a major plot element. He begins to meet with an adviser named Seyton, which the women note is pronounced “Satan”; the plot twist, however, is not used dramatically. We never know if Seyton is Satan, El Diablo, and is behind Brent’s drive to be President when the sitting Vice President dies of a disease that begins to spread, eventually infecting Ellie’s small son. As before, we are never sure if Seyton conjured the disease so the Vice president would die and Brent would take his place.
There is much more in the venture like this. Elle’s son recovers, Sabrina and Harper cast some sort of spell on Brent and, at his inauguration as VP, he collapses. In the end, his political career crashes. The narrator notes, “He didn’t consider the power of three women.” Well, neither did we. The elements of the venture do not work together to make a sensible plot. The tale has no trajectory, no dramatic force to move it forward, and, really, no conflicto central that gives the venture shape and forward motion. The “rising action” needed to propel a venture to a suitable end is not there. Lots of good elements are there, but they never manage to create the energy and the dramatic logic of a properly done venture.
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WK32
May 20, 2022 16:35:12 GMT
Post by rockefeller on May 20, 2022 16:35:12 GMT
I feel bad. I did not read Jones' Jeannie and the Detective ,the cap assigned to me, in its entirety. Even if I had, I doubt I'm an astute enough reader to offer meaningful critical comment on its plot arc, character depth, metaphors, motifs and whatnot. I can say that, for screen reading, I hate that Shunn guy's standard manuscript format that so many venues insist on. As an erstwhile writer, I remember it as a pain in the ass to format my submissions to, and as a screen reader, its white space and needless headings are giving me carpal tunnel syndrome with all the down scrolling. Someone should punch William Shunn in the face someday.
But I digress. The primary reason I bailed on this cap was a combination of its length (over 10000 words) and that within 4 of its 35 sparsely worded pages I am introduced to the following characters: Gervaske, Phil Harte, Bigelow, Hazel, Skunky, Stevie, Jeannie, Lonnie and Denise. I may have even missed a few. Nicknames are employed, so I might have also repeated some. Gervaske has a thick Bronx-sih ganstery accent. But otherwise I had trouble keeping them straight. So I stopped reading less than 4 percent in. This is probably more than what the average slush pile (or student paper) is read. But still I feel a little negligent or guilty or something. But if I can't be brought to give shit or have my interest piqued within a hundred or so words, I'm out of there. Same with about half the prestigiously published novels I begin, or about 95 percent of the glowingly reviewed shorts Electric Lit emails me.
So, dear VC, it's probably not you or your craft. But even if it is, it's also me. In squash, at the higher levels there are two refs, and if a player wants to dispute a call, she can cry out, "Adjudicate!" Which they almost always do, squash being such a litigious game. Not so here, though. No fair, I know. No.
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WK32
May 25, 2022 21:36:56 GMT
Post by deplancher on May 25, 2022 21:36:56 GMT
[DeP awakens from a long stroll in Poetry. Last month she got stuck in the long grass of verse and verbiage. She had to leave her boots behind lest she never return or rather return but more bewildered than useful. Poets are demanding. The world's demanding. She is a sleep walker not much of a talker since she witnessed the lip enhancement demonstration at the public market one Thursday evening. This, she decided half way through, must be what happens when you talk to excess. Thin lips will once more become vogue. You'll see. Look at this Floor, par example: everything is circular. Now and then one escapes. We succumb to one thing or another. Death or Disappeared. Lost to wandering. Return. Is reincarnation real or another diversion? Your assignment for this month is to find out.]
Ted, you have hired some of the best in new shapes, it seems. Look at the depth of analysis and handles! VCs will be clambering to touch the Monkey's doorknocker soon maybe.
So now moi. I have stumbled into the world conjured by JaneVC who decided she could wield something not yet wielded in our direction. Or maybe it's been here and I've just not noticed. Subjects such as this intrigue me. Relationships---not the mundane kind, but the ethereal, the cerebral, the cosmic. The unexplained connections of which we sometimes become aware or think we become aware and then choose either to ignore the possibility or step into the unknown to further investigate.
Double Feature, she calls it. Not what I expected, which is good. I am elder and long ago endured enough Drive-In theatre he-man-gotta-gun shoot shoot cowboy films and/or Elvis hip shake boogies for this life no matter how good the popcorn or how yellow. I could still fit into the trunk of a Mustang though. We makes our choices, ne somme-nous pas?
Bref, JaneVC led me to read from start to finish which is in itself Something. Suis-je simple? Maybe. I deem Double Feature worthy of a fresh-eyed read. Is that what happens now in The Terminal? I imagine clouds and wonder and, though I've no particular interest, roast meat.
Let it rise. I wish JaneVC endurance of the solar plexus. TQR has never been an easy mark.
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WK32
May 29, 2022 13:41:29 GMT
Post by rockefeller on May 29, 2022 13:41:29 GMT
This How I Truly Met Your Mother cap is very well written, not just technically, but the pacing and description are pretty flawless, too. It's erudite, sharp and, at least initially, interesting. It's the only piece I think I've ever sent up that I wound up skimming toward the end, after all was revealed. Too schmaltzy for my insensitive heart maybe.
I wonder what Dep would've made of it. Maybe if there's a split vote in the Terminal, she'll be the tiebreaker, and I'll get to find out. I wonder what the Doomster would've thought of it, too, for that matter. Personally, I found it a tad melodramatic, especially toward the end, albeit very well penned melodrama.
It's about a man, a lawyer, who meets over an expensive dinner with a young, pregnant, annoyingly Jesus-is-my-saviour type whose unborn child he hopes to adopt. It's loaded with reveals from both of them. In a way it follows the plot arc of the romantic comedy, right up to the cloyingly happy ending: boy meets girl; they clash; then connect; live happily ever after. Did I thoroughly enjoy it? No, but maybe I wasn't meant to. Whatever, I'm not going to let my own limitations as a reader and biases as a human hold back what I'm fairly certain is a remarkable piece of writing that many, if not most, will appreciate. I wonder what the denizens upstairs will have to say about it.
So, fine work, Pandit. I'm guessing you probably Search & Replaced closing single quotes with leading spaces somewhere along the line. I'm also guessing you wrote this a while ago, what with all your references to the Blackberry (isn't it annoying how technology dates our work now?), but neither of which are remotely show stoppers.
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WK32
Jun 7, 2022 1:41:09 GMT
Post by guevara on Jun 7, 2022 1:41:09 GMT
“The Fartian Chronicles” lost me from the first word. Something every writer should know: scatological humor is not funny! Well, I take that back: Chaucer’s “Miller’s Tale” used it pretty well; but I don’t know of anything written in the last four-hundred years since then that successfully uses that particular trope. So naming a race of beings after a fart is not a good way to start thing out.
The story follows a pattern we get a lot in science fiction: an inhabitant from another culture come to Earth and stands in stark contrast to the foolishness and shallowness of Terrans. A prime example of this sort of fiction is El Disaque la Tierra se Detuvo wherein a being named Klatu arrives in a flying saucer. He is kind, loving, considerate—exemplary in every way and stands in contrast to the violent, suspicious, and destructive people of earth, who eventually kill him (he is raised from the dead) and warns us we need to change our ways. "The Fartian Chronicles" uses that same genre of sci-fi, but its use of it is way, way out of line.
The inhabitants of earth are idiotic, shallow-mind, consumeristic and just plain stupid.
All of this presentation is introduced as a way to satirize the people of earth; to point out how we only think of music, TV and movies, eating out, celebrities—these sorts of things. Satire of this sort can be effective, but only when used properly.
Let me momentarily play el professor (which I was for many years). Satire is great, deriving from the ancient traditions of the Roman poets Juvenile and Horace, and the Greek playwright Aristophanes. But satire is not sarcasm. And what we see in this story is not satire. True satire points to the absurdities of a society in the hope that by pointing them out and making people see their ridiculousness some change might come about; people might see the absurd behavior of fellow-citizens and try to change or amend it. Satire always has a constructive aspect.
In this venture, the absurd behavior of the people of Earth is depicted as mere absurdity. There is no hope that peoples’ behavior might change. The is no salutary reason for presenting their behavior aside from getting a few cheap laughs. And, as I said, the venture isn’t even that funny. The extremity of Terran behavior places the planet outside the hope of ever changing.
As we say where I come from, Esa es mi opinión, y me quedo con ella. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking with it.
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