Anonymous Writing Group II: criticism thread

Argh Ismael you are rolling these out too quickly!

I don't have much to say about Harold except a) I really enjoyed it and b) that is one hell of a hardy mouse, possibly unrealistically so.

Shades of DFW about the Zak Evans story - loads of long sentences here but the writer is absolutely in control of their material. Lizards taking over the government is a cliche, but maybe that's the point and the note-writer can be blamed for that. I'm not convinced that the dialogue feels particularly natural, though.

I think I know who Zak Evans is as well.

b) that is one hell of a hardy mouse, possibly unrealistically so.

shaking my head @ u here matt

Flippin' 'eck, I'm MILES behind on these!

Haha oh dear, I just read it again. I am clearly not in the right frame of mind for close reading today.

Right, the poems. I liked them both, stylistically, rhythmically, but I thought 'Blackfriars' was by far the stronger of the two. 'Sea Nettle' is a fab title, but the poem lacked specificity. Everything was relateable in a general way, but there wasn't a single image or sense to bring you deep into the teller's experience - you couldn't see, smell or taste it, and with a title like 'Sea Nettle', I was expecting something tangy. What was the music that was playing? What did the nostalgia centre on, what did it feel like?

'Blackfriars' I loved, especially 'look into my eyes to see my eyes'.

Shades of DFW about the Zak Evans story

pynchon surely

Blackfriars is my favourite of the two poems. I love the first two stanzas, get the HRO connection, whoever raised that, but I think the author makes the bathos of it work in an amusing way. I think the last twist in the sonnet is somehow in the wrong direction though – it's obviously supposed to take the reader somewhere else but it's a little general. Maybe it's just "Alone and afraid... Naked" I don't like... It feels much less wise than what precedes it.

I'd like to see where the Zak Evans story goes... the prose is so inventive that the narrative (reasonably straightforward) buckles under it a little bit. But I think that's probably an unfair criticism given such a short excerpt.

Dolly, I found a little difficult to bite into but after the second read it's difficult not to appreciate the intensity of some of these images & descriptions. I think it would be helped by more of a focus on rhythm and the music of it... Made me think of Burroughs. I imagine not everyone would agree on this but I feel that when you get those kind of body horror semantic orgies in Naked Lunch there's a real swing to it... The sounds and pace of images overlapping each other grips you and makes it easier to suspend the need for a straightforward narrative. Could this be improved by slowing down the action in some places, including pauses, contrasting complex with simple, etc. etc. Could be I just need to read this at 10am with some more caffeine in the blood

Wow, still processing most of these. The standard has been crazy high esp for WIPs as I guess many of these are.

Dolly was otm I think in its depiction of a partic emotional state, that fatalistic abandon that's kinda despairing and jubilant at once? Liked how she's constantly besieged by capering, malevolent boy-children, that rang true as well; and of course the imagery is wonderfully pungent.

Feel like there used to be more stories in this vein, when you read anthologies from the 70s eg vs today you see a lot more of this kinda balls out surrealism. If its being produced now I don't know it, anyway. Would like to read more.

Blackfriars - I don't understand this at all I'm afraid. I liked the middle, the idea of being revived straight into an argument about the thing that revived you is pleasing to me. But it's just floating there in a puddle of custard, I can't work out the connection between the bits.

Mr Black - this is fabulous, I love it. The numbers thing not overdone at all imo, because you've managed to introduce them all in different and interesting ways. It isn't quite the 'appeal to all the senses' rule, but it's something close to it by drawing on all different contexts to serve the story - the three grey hairs, the sensual shapes, the 700 windows.

The other guy also being Mr Black was something I liked at first, but now I'm not sure I do. The story is jammed full of dry humour as it is, I don't know that a funny name gag is necessary.

The first line - clutching, nervously adjusting - looks like a mistake once you reach the end of the piece. Surely he starts off at ease, then becomes clutching as the market drops? The nose pushing air around is a great line - it captures quickening breath as well as the nervous energy of a cornered rat.

Hitchcock-style doesn't seem to me to fit either - it is the looking-down-the-stairwell thing in Vertigo though, wins is surely right. I think it's the right image, it just seems like wrong way to capture it.

In a similar vein, is he a pubs man? If I'm right and he's not, you could recast this detail to add a little extra colour to the character.

"his perspective shifted, like in that bit on the beach in Jaws"

His perspective shifted, like that meatloaf song about objects in the rearview mirror

"The other guy also being Mr Black was something I liked at first, but now I'm not sure I do. The story is jammed full of dry humour as it is, I don't know that a funny name gag is necessary."

If you imagine the story being narrated by Alec Baldwin, this is not a gag but dry statement of fact.

Me
q

I've been meaning to say that your posts in particular have been exactly the type of criticism I'd been hoping for from this thread; but tbh I'm not so sure about that last one.

It's a short poem. Written by my phone, in my pocket, all by itself.

(Apologies)

re. Mr. Black, I agree with whoever said that he shouldn't seem tense at the beginning - it's a much more satisfying character arc if he starts out ultra-confident and then gets this massive shock. I liked the repetitions, esp. of 'Mr. Black', liked the brother also being Mr. Black - just the kind of obviousness of it. I'd have liked a bit more context for the falling numbers, though not necc. an explanation as such. I think the tension could be amped a bit - spend a bit more time, perhaps only a few words, on his reaction to the change.

Season six, uh, I'm clearly in the minority here, but I bounced off it. The poem thing is interesting, but too many characters, too much randomness, not enough forward motion. And I think the second to last episode is a better ending than the last one - the poem is the body, and the bathtub and the acid - this is much more interesting and evocative (to me) than it dreaming the whole thing.

I agree with these but at the same time, making mr black ultra confident or introducing forward motion really alter the pieces beyond the point where I suspect the respective authors were intending to go. Maybe there's a way to show a certain cockiness the numbers have afforded mr black while still emphasizing fundamental nervous anxiety of the character. Maybe not numbering the episodes would remove the expectation of a season-arc. The bathtub ending seemed more ending shot to me as well but it also struck me as deliberately placed not at the end, maybe as commentary that real endings of series are always before the last episode?

One thing I'm not clear about is whether every line is a reference to a specific show. I only spotted three.

there are more than three but they are less than half of the lines

i like the idea of replacing the 'episode _____' with bullet points but i feel like that won't work much at readings; i sort of agree that it needs some kind of 'movement towards' but at the same time i don't want to give it, like, actual narrative progress; i'm not sure if the joke is about 'television' or 'quality television'; the bathtub thing was like three-fifths of the way through, originally

i have read that barthelme story, it turns out, but i had to check

I don't think the forward motion has to make sense, if that helps. An impression of narrative, doesn't actually have to have a pat plot progression. I would enjoy being asked to work a little to try and make it make sense, I don't think failing would bother me as much as the feeling that there is no sense to be made (perhaps there is more than I can grok, being a bear of little brain?)

Harold is mine. Thanks for the comments. It's actually part 1 of a 3-part story which has been driving me up the wall because I can't make the ending work, and although I love part 2, your reactions are making me wonder if I shouldn't just hone this bit some more and call it a short-short.

post 2 to the next round! :P

I agree re: forward motion on season six though I do like it without it, and it would be a shame to change the piece too much.

I think what is really interesting here is the subtle differences between the different genres you're pastiching. On the one hand you have the language of TV plotting. On the other there's this idea of Allegory and meta-commentary. The missing link here is that both of these are essentially abstracted ways of explaining reality to people, one (allegory) is medieval, the other (TV) contemporary. If either slipped for a moment into a more direct, realistic style it would be supremely startling.

I like the idea, which is at the core of this, that allegory allows you not only to understand but to empathise with something that is abstract, that doesn't have any feelings. That could be pushed more here and provide a climax at some point along the line without necessarily adding plot...

And now my brain hurts. Sorry if that's a ramble.

Mr. Black was mine – thanks to all who commented, it's been incredibly helpful. Agree that "Hitchcock-style" is something of a clanger, the parodies illustrate that hilariously. I think my original intention in it was to invoke that perspective shift as a kind of visual cliché that over-dramatised the action (essentially, he's just looking at a spreadsheet, in silence). But it does come across as a bit of a lazy shorthand.

Other criticisms otm too – will definitely be working on consistency of the character and being more careful about the lists, which are a troublesome tic for me in general.

Have had a lot of fun reading + engaging with all these great pieces, roll on round III !

poll

Do we dare? I kind of think we should. What would the question be though?

I haven't finished critiquing anyway. For anyone else still working through them, I'll leave the pieces up for the rest of the week and then one or two will be getting deleted (only where specifically requested).

Nah i dont think so, really, not since one or two came along that were better than mine, like

voted

(for garda, mordy/zora close behind)

i vote for treeship

Agree that "Hitchcock-style" is something of a clanger

I've been trying to pinpoint why, and have come to the conclusion that using cinema as a descriptive shortcut is something one just can't do. I'm reminded of Dan Brown's description of Langdon as 'looking like Harrison Ford' in The Da Vinci Code (which had the added cringe of clearly pitching the movie at the same time) and I think it's a breaking-the-fourth-wall thing. Characters can be into films and it's fine, and it's great when dialogue crackles like its on-screen; but going that step further is more telling the reader what you're trying to do than actually doing it, and for me it always breaks the spell.

i think it depends what you are describing as well as the tone/concept for the piece, and what cinematic references and language you are using

Season Six is one of those things that I suspect is very clever and very good, and that I even get a certain enjoyment from; but ultimately it leaves me cold because I'm on the outside. I don't properly get it, in short. It's an american indie rock of a poem.

I feel like my criticism is probably useless here because it's doing all the meta things that I don't care for - I rarely read for playfulness with language, I don't despair at trite tv plotting, I can't deal with characters as ciphers. I can see there's all that and more going on, and I think it's done well, but it cannot reach me. Certainly don't change on my account, I'm unqualified to judge is what I suppose I'm saying. And for once that's not sugaring a pill, I honestly can't see how it could be better.

"I'm reminded of Dan Brown's description of Langdon as 'looking like Harrison Ford' in The Da Vinci Code (which had the added cringe of clearly pitching the movie at the same time)"

I must have skipped over this! I'm now picturing Dan Brown as a kid asking for a han solo action figure for xmas and his dopey parents get him forest gump instead.

haha idk if 'dan brown does it and it doesn't work there, ergo it's a bad thing to do' is a great argument!! 'dan brown does it, ergo it must be bad' is a little better but i don't know. but like, comparisons to (among others) clark gable and fay wray in gravity's rainbow work fine.

i think the first reason "hitchcock-style" doesn't work is because the human eye doesn't do depth of field like a camera lens does; it seems like it'd only be an acceptable description of something in the human visual field if the subject were undergoing migraine type hallucinations. in a story about someone who was having that happen, sure, but maybe more so if the character's a film buff, and there are probably better phrasings.

--

thanks to everyone with words on season six, sorry i've been to busy to engage with other people's work this week

I could've given other citations even less eminent than Dan Brown! I do remember cinematic descriptions coming up a number of times in my old writing group, including efforts by me, and it never worked, but we never bottomed out why.

now we dolly back, now we fade to black

I don't think it's true that they NEVER work. If the narrative voice is close to the character, and the character likes films, it should be ok.

I can even imagine it could be used as a device, if emphasised enough... a disconnected character who sees everything in terms of what he's seen on TV and in cinemas would probably be pretty fun to write.

In that case it would definitely work, but I see a lot of writing where it's obvious the author has a TV series or movie in their head and is trying to write that down, and that almost never works. Action scenes and physical comedy are really, really difficult to get down in prose, which is what makes the writers who CAN do that so good.

I find action scenes and physical comedy difficult to read as well fwiw, it's one of the reasons I don't like the Major Marvy sections of Gravity's Rainbow.

read a bad attempted demolition of pynchon once that used them sort of metonymically as a demonstration that p was Not Funny and A Bad Prose Stylist and like, hm, not sure about that

limerick spattered deathrace thru SS tunnels = beyond mfing classic. mistaken id castration = ditto. terrifying racist banter = terrifying

(for garda, mordy/zora close behind)

― imago, 11 November 2013 14:50 (Yesterday)

wait what was mordy's

also y u h8 rural cozy reminiscences u savage

Mordy's shd b obv given a close reading

eh didn't spot any of them particularly down on palestinians and/or minority rights tbh? maybe i missed some bible code shit tho, will re-check

thought i'd have a bite before now, tbh, disappointing.

" I see a lot of writing where it's obvious the author has a TV series or movie in their head and is trying to write that down, and that almost never works."
Even in the dan brown example it's actually kind of charming, though, and I think much more engaging than a writer who deploys it as a purposeless affect, or even one that puts a lid on such tendencies for fear of revealing crass and embarrassing ambitions at a franchise.

read this and was reminded of 'season six': http://theamericanreader.com/especially-heinous-272-views-of-law-order-svu/

still working through these, very slowly...

Harold Lovell is absolutely great. I actually think I agree with all of the criticisms of it, but only in retrospect - at no point was I thinking 'it needs to lose x' or 'how the author should've done it was y'.

I love how unsettling it remains. By which I mean it's making me pose the fundamental questions right up to the end. 'When did this stop being real?' 'What happened before?' 'Is he dead already?' I don't know the answers to these - if the piece were less skilfully poised either I wouldn't care, or my questions would be less riveting. This way it could be either a realist piece of science fiction or a straight-up piece of horror, and either way I'm gripped.