A short story...if you please:
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My horoscope today said it was time to update my wardrobe...so I decided to try (on) something different here, hoping such a diverse and intelligent group might give me some good and interesting feedback. Old clothes for me, I guess...I discovered SketchUp during a break from the mystery writing and haven't turned back till now (or soon from now, anyway). New to you, though, and relevent, I guess...since there's an architect in it, and a computer, and it wants to be creative :`)
TWO BIRDS
The smell of urine slapped him first thing. Just hours old, but not near foul enough to leave a noticeable grimace on that face so unaccustomed to expression. Orwell said by age fifty everyone has the face they deserve. Ed Thomas had earned his early and paid extra for it.
“Same everywhere,” Edward thought. “At least this isn’t fetid…not like Portland…not some soon-dead street sot. This was left by a healthy twenty-something, caught-short and give-a-shi......please read on (the PDF) if you will.
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This will make fine weekend reading.
I'll report back as soon as I've finnished it. -
Can't wait, Gidon.
Okay, just one more and I'll leave you all be: a farce of a one act play, quite short (though the mystery behind it will no doubt go on interminably :`) so just play it over and over for as many acts as you can stand...
RICE'N'BEANS
The players include Connie, of course, and George, along with Bill, Jay, and another guy I never found a line for...
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Hey to the 16 downloaders: I can take it! The whole reason for posting was to hear the points of interest for reading on...and especially the lack thereof for not. Without interest to readers they're just diary pages: ideas unshared. Please PM me if you don't want to play here, thanks.
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Cheffey,
thanks: food for thought already! (I was consciously steering clear of Columbo, and hoping no one hit on the Monk similarities since this was written pre-Monk, but Joe Friday may well be in there subconsciously...'tis my age group's experience, afterall :`)
And yeah, the architectural details may be a bit harped(?)on, it's a petpeeve of mine in movies and on tv: thinking for all the money they spend, a consultant might be worth a little (though I found for another stories, the research in areas unknown to me was very time consuming). But on the otherhand, in the stories I read it's the interesting little scrapes of detail that inform about something new to me that can more easily either lead me astray or clue me in. (Maybe my niche is mysteries for the building trades.) Anyway...
Can't wait for more, thanks! Best, Tom.
Chapbook?
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Tom,
Not all the way through Two Birds but so far like the way the story is written. You can tell it is written by someone who has the vocabulary of an architect. The descriptions of the scenes are spot on. My only remark regarding what i've read so far, (pgs.1-8) is that sometimes the scene descriptions seems heavy or elongated. It's not that they are too wordy, I think it's the rhythm with which they are delivered. As it's written now i can see Joe Friday delivering the narration which may not be what you were after but that's what comes to mind.
I'll let you know more thoughts once i'm through the rest of it.Incidentally I've been working on works for a chapbook, so i was very interested when i read your post.
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I don't think the details are harped on in fact i enjoy them laid out there for me to dechiper from. I suppose I'm really just trying to find any little thing. I think i'm just thinking of a small change in pace during the description to hopefully create more drama. I quite like the Joe Friday subtones... I guess i should've been born in another time. I've never watched Columbo, and Monk is so unique that i never even thought of it until you said something.
My wife loves these kinds of stories. Now the play "Rice & Beans" could go even farther risquee...
Yes, a Chapbook... (i know old terminology)
I'll post a small pdf version. -
Cheffey, please do on the "little" things...like with any creation, I'm looking for the stuff I'll never notice on my own (some little thing might be a big deal to me once highlighted).
I think I get, and agree with, what you mean about pace...my first pass at this one was to have the new kid following Ed around instead of the Capt, but I think of his character better as an enigmatic loner with a few hard fast and life long friends. Instead, as I've fleshed him out in a couple of other uncompleted starts, his OCD about daily life as we know it today has become his recurring companion...trying to add that change up with humor.
Rice'n'beans wasn't originally so short (therefore not so tame): back then, though, I just couldn't dwell on the base subject matter any longer than this :`)
This is great for me BTW!
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here you are, a small bit of it to read... so you don't get too depressed.
feels weird putting this out there, my original idea was to create something for my kids.
i sent it to a dear friend in Boston and she liked it so i thought i'd expand on it a bit.The idea now is to have poems flanked by short stories at the beginning, middle, and end.
I know my writing style is a bit like a drunken caveman so unlike Tom go easy...
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Cheffey, Wow! Personal, universal...just beautiful! Won't comment much more until you answer (or don't answer) just how personal: other than to say I'll always look at the produce I eat a bit differently after such a great sentence about fighting the bugs for the vegetables planted so personally. That and I won't soon forget the brand new and distinct mental image you've conjured of the little girl...not an easy trick considering I have watched 4 nieces, a bunch of buddy's daughters grow up, and now have 2 great nieces on the same path.
You've given me the courage to post the one I should probably have posted to begin with, one a bunch more like my others...more visceral, a bit more adult and somewhat personally revealing, I guess, since it's harder for me to put out there.
Also, did some reading on chapbooks and glad to have that bit of knowledge. My first thought was wishing the same was still common, but I guess it is...on the net.
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It is a personal account. Maybe so much so that you'd have to know me first in order to more appreciate some of the things written. I try to vary the point of view from piece to piece, so it's not always through my eyes.
After reading your last piece I'm not sure I could give much advice. I think the pacing in this one is spot on, I especially appreciate the treatment of Ben being almost an innocent bystander during this struggle between life and death, very realistic.
So, I guess my only advice is get a publisher?
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Cheffey, I believe as much is said about a person by what they take notice of as what they feel themselves...anyway, quite a bit revealed, I think, and all of it confirms what I've guessed from the images you've chosen to represent yourself (and even your firm name). Thanks again for sharing!
Now a question I'm hoping you choose to answer: I've been told the full range, about my character's musing on life, women, etc. (more so in the last than in the first), from "they are total distraction and should be removed" to "love the added dimensions to the characters and to the reading experience as a whole"...got any thoughts on this?
Anybody else?
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I don't know why you aren't getting any more input on this, maybe everyone is just too "visual"...
If you pull the things that make a person tick out of the story, then the story breaks apart a bit. I think leaving those things in, are added value to the story gives the reader a peek into the reason why this person handles things the way they do and gives you a look at the backstory even. I wouldn't give fully into the request of taking it out, but maybe there is a way to look at it so that you can selectively remove bits so that it's easier to absorb as you read through the story.
Tom, are you in Maine?
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Maine...no, (why do you ask BTW: could be interesting I think :`) Kansas boy, born and breed...couldn't escape if I tried (and I did try, several times).
Glad to hear your comments (as far as not getting others: literature and littering are the top two unforgivable crimes, right? I'm more surprised yours haven't gotten a response), and I agree I have a long way to go making it all work together...but pulling it all out is not an option for me, in fact, it's my primary reason/passion for doing it.
I've always enjoyed reading long discriptive passages about places and things, times and temperatures, having my mind taken over by another's images...John le Carre comes to mind this morning. But discovering Gabriel García Márquez after a decade long love affair with John Irving's works (so adding the spiritual to the silly significance of the mundane) is what got me starting to compose paragraphs in my head...and eventually start writing them down.
Thanks again, and best, Tom.
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I don't know, I thought there must be something in the water up in Maine / New England that would account for writers with an eye for detail, inside references in writing and continuity of story...
Also, last time i was in Portland a few years ago, I woke up to a cold hazy day, Not sure why but that visual comes to mind when reading those stories. A bit of a leap i'm sure but the atmospheric foreboding is something i like in a story. -
I spent some time in Portland a few years ago...but the on the other coast. It was misty overcast, if not raining, 10 or 12 of the six months I was there. It never really felt ominous, though (I guess, 'cause the temperature changed so little from day to day, storm to storm), it just felt oppressive.
Kansas weather, on the otherhand, often feels electric with unknowns lurking.
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