Response to Chase Bridges

I feel like this paper could be good with just a bit of revision. First of all, any short story needs a title, and this one certainly does. It's okay to get thrown into a story, but the title can help set a tone or mindset for what's coming. Also, the introduction seems to be a slight alteration of a beginning technique that was expressedly forbidden: the "alarm clock" opening, although I like the philosophical rant... I feel like I tend to start my papers in this way too. It helps set the tone for the rest of the story.
I also liked the slow introduction of elements. We only come to know things as it becomes necessary. I can't tell whether this is intentional, or if it is a happy accident of the writing process. There were a couple of issues with this though. The characters of Alex and Darmondy should have been introduced more subtly. It's a little jarring to read someones name like we should already know who they are, and especially jarring to not read who they are until a paragraph later. (EDIT: The character of Alex is introduced fine, I may have been skimming my first read and didn't notice the mention of him until breakfast. Darmondy is still an issue.)

I think you may struggle with something I struggle with, and that is overly cynical characters with a lack of redeeming qualities and a penchant for bitching about stuff. Without a little bit of humor, or legitimate reasons for bitching, it can become dull to read.
Another thing that I similarly struggle with is a lack of plot. The first seven pages could have been condensed to two or three. He doesn't get to work and into the world until then, and I feel like that should come earlier. The plot only begins to build as he is called into the office, and then fizzles out as the story ends.

Very good dialogue, I thought. I could feel the captain pacing behind his desk and feel his stinky breath squeezing out from between his clenched teeth. The dialogue and surrounding imagery was probably the strongest point.

EDIT: I really liked Prof Spell's suggestion of making Ethyl the boss. It would buck the stereotypes that are in the story and make his relationship with work much more interesting. Can't wait to read more, especially since you'll have a little more space to stretch your legs.

Response to 1-900

This was great, and very unique. I imagine it's incredibly hard to write a short story driven entirely by dialogue, especially one with such unconventional punctuation. It seems like an odd way to tell a story, but in actuality dialogue is how we hear most of the stories we absorb in day to day life. It's completely normal, it's just that it doesn't normally translate to the page very well. The unconventional punctuation I feel helped the flow of the dialogue, and made it feel like a more natural conversation, and the fact that the writer could keep the conversation as back and forth as possible helped. The usage of "..." to denote a pause or fill in a dialogue gap of either speaker really helped keep things clear.

Another aspect of this story I liked very much was the way the flat character developed and the way the character who you thought was complex ended up being flat himself. John begins the story in a pretty interesting, although not wholly unique way, calling a sex line to have a sexual experience, but he wants to "know" the operator first. The operator comes off as someone simply doing a job, and is continually trying to get back to it. Eventually, you care more for the operator than for John, as you learn more about her and her aspirations and her problems. She comes to realize that she doesn't like playing John's game, and she ends up not feeling comfortable enough to do her job. I believe the writer is really making Shannon the sypathetic character here, even though John is the one with the serious problems, he's kind of a creep, and the more you learn, the more he seems that way. Shannon is just the opposite, she seems like a nasty tele-whore until you get to know who she really is, and you really come to like her.

Response to readings for 2/4/2014

I write story's very rarely, but when I do, my characters are not likable, and my plot never ends happily ever after. However, after reading these, especially We Are Not Your Mother, I have kind of realized that my characters tend to suffer from some of these symptoms. Namely, my characters always reflect who I am, voicing my thoughts, but also the character never undergoes any real change. This is my main problem. I don't feel like the problem is that I can't write change in a character, but that I have trouble dedicating to a plot line. When I was younger (middle school) I wrote stories all the time, and they never were lacking in plot, now I've run into this wall where I write highly descriptive stories where the speaker gets his views and mindset across in the scenes he is describing instead of through his actions. Maybe if I forced myself to write a nice character, or forced myself to write a character who isn't so critical and douchey. With the story I'm writing now, I'm trying to write my character as still retaining his critical qualities but I'm trying not to let it form into a rant or just a long monologue of bitching about everything. I can't let him sound whiney like Samantha from We Are Not Your Mother or my main character from my story Civilization, which is posted below. No one wants to hear that, but it takes articles like these to open my eyes to the issue. So now I just need to focus on keeping my characters caustic, a little funny, and disillusioned without seeming like a bunch of babies.
I liked the story Off, honestly I know a girl that is very similar to the main character (hard to believe, I know). The character became interesting because she was so batty. And eventually, she even became sympathetic. She loved her dog, and she loves Adam, although she's too scared to admit it. I really just felt sorry for her the whole time, even though she was being a total bitch, which is a difficult thing to write in, I think.

Response to T.C. Boyle

I thought this was a pretty great short story, however there were a couple things I didn't particularly like. The first is China's name. It is just a little too overtly political and chiding, but I appreciate that the message itself wasn't too obvious. There were a few things flying around; overpopulation, pregnancy as a negative thing, infanticide is ruinous (duh), and maybe abortion has a place in the scheme of things. Also, the perfect "nicest nice guy" Jeremy was right off the bat very callous about China's pregnancy. No nice guy is going to insist to his girlfriend "You have to get rid of it."
I'm very anxious (read: excited) to hear people respond to this in class. For some people I'm sure this was a very difficult read, what with the presumption by the characters that abortion is morally sound, the very hard to read imagery of the baby in a dumpster, the reference throughout the story to the baby as "it", but I rather enjoyed it. I'm curious if the writer intended this as a kind of warning to sexually active teens, or a reflection on the validity of capital murder charges for infanticide or what, but it was definitely interesting.

In the political atmosphere now there is very strong message that women are trying to get across, (one which I agree with) the idea of "my body, my choice, nobody else's business." This story, however brings to light problems with this mentality, in that China's decisions with how she manages her pregnancy end up effectively destroying Jeremy's life.

Response to Lost in the Woods

This exploration of the structure of stories focuses on on structure in particular. One that everyone can relate to and one that is tried and true; the lonely character who finds a friend. Antonya opens with the description of an NPR show This American Life, which is a great show, although I wish she hadn't mentioned it. It always seems when people mention that they listen to NPR it's always for the sake of telling people about it, and can sometimes come off as pretentious. Anyways, the show was about children and their capacity for narrative. It seems that all children love this structure or lonely individuals finding each other and coming to a happy, friendly resolution. The further exploration of this dynamic is the real meat of the article. The idea that endings have to be neat and happy and wrapped up is rightly challenged, and examples of endings that work well to leave the reader hanging are given. I think this is a great technique. I'm not personally a fan of stories that end up being resolved neatly. Things rarely are, so why would they in literature?
Typically however, character do "leave the woods" and this can mean many things. Either everything is honky-dory and friends are made and kept, or there's been some sort of personal sea change, or maybe more problems have cropped up. Either way, short stories are a good place for endings that are not neatly resolved. An ending that is wrapped up neatly and perfectly in just a few pages would just seem so trite.

In-class exercise: Beginning

Her way of staring was like a slap to the face that turned into a passionate kiss. It was wildly inappropriate, her way of staring at me. I liked it. I had seen other guys who had liked it too, and they would always perform the most miraculous emotional trust-fall. She would, of course, step back at the last moment, suddenly uninterested, and let them crush their trusting faces on the floor. But she had been staring at me a while. Maybe it had something to do with how I could show trust without falling face first onto the floor...

On Beginnings: Response to Hood

Never before have I seen such a thoroughly broken down example of beginnings except perhaps in Italo Calvino's If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, which wasn't quite so methodical in it's breakdown. The categorization of the types of beginnings (at least the ones that work) could potentially be an immensely useful tool for brain storming. I appreciate that Ann not only shows the reader examples of beginnings that work, many of them very prominent works, but she also guides the reader through why they work, and that is important. Especially when it comes to truisms and philosophical ideas, she shows that while opening a story with this can be very interesting, it is challenging to insure that the following work reflects and expounds and proves the philosophical statement put forth.

For someone interested in further exploration of beginnings, I reccomend the book I previously mentioned by Italo Calvino. The first chapter is an exploration of how people read and how they choose what they read; every other chapter is the beginning of a new story with new characters and a fresh set of circumstances. It all ties together brilliantly, but not incredibly neatly, more a well thought out reflection left for the reader to resolve than like a puzzle with the last piece waiting for you to push it in. With the beginning of each chapter the reader is drawn into a new world and consumed by the desire to know what happens next. This is something all writers aspire to do, and something that Calvino does again and again in his novel. Definitely worth looking into.