Exercise #9: Discussion and feedback

[jackrabbit]

Exercise #9 is intended as a quickie. It can be a complete short story or just a scene. It is based on the idea presented here (http://fictionwriting.about.com/od/writingexercises/qt/invisibility.htm) and is due on Wednesday, so no time for idle thought! (being a day late will not result in summary execution, however)

On Being Invisible (http://write.jckrbbt.com/docs/on_being_invisible.pdf) - jckrbbt
The Invisible Weekend (http://creolened.com/fiction/invisible_weekend.pdf) - Creole Ned
Invisible - A Diary (http://creolened.com/fiction/invisible-diary.pdf) - Arioch
Invisible Stan (http://creolened.com/fiction/invisiblestan.pdf) - russellmz
Invisible Me (http://creolened.com/fiction/invisible_me.pdf) - Charles
The Last Phase (http://write.jckrbbt.com/docs/thelastphase.pdf) - Pete

[jackrabbit]

I knocked mine out today, after telling Ned I wanted time to spend on my own stories this week.

I left the title that I'd started with before really knowing where the story would go. It's kind of a working title. I may change it at some point. Hope you like it!

[Creole Ned]

I've edited my entry into the first post. Wrote it in one fevered sitting and I will warn you in advance to not read this before a meal. Trust me.

[Creole Ned]

Feedback! (for posterity, as jackrabbit and I have chatted about our stories through the magic of instant messaging.)

jackrabbit:

I liked this. The story is mainly conveyed as a monologue by Marcus and it works well. The tone feels natural and I was interested to see where his "fantasy" would go. The switch from pranks to pushing grannies in front of buses seemed a bit abrupt but the guy's already talking to a shrink, so it's not a big leap to imagine something might be more than just a little wrong with him.

The ending was appropriately sinister.

A few turns of phrase were awkward. "curious irritation flared between Marcus' shoulder blades" doesn't sound right, as if the irritation itself is curious about something. There are also a few spots where I'd trim descriptions on how people are speaking. For example, this:

"Coming back to what, doc?" Marcus inquired innocently. He knew what Dr. Silverton was getting at, but he hated this psychoanalytical prompting he was always subjected to. He preferred a more direct line of questioning.

Could be pared down to this:

"Coming back to what, doc?" Marcus asked. He knew what Dr. Silverton was getting at, but he hated the prompting he was always subjected to. He preferred a more direct line of questioning.

This may be nitpicky but I got it drilled into my head at some point that people should just say things and the words themselves (with context) should convey tone.

On the other hand, there are some nice little details, like the image of the sunset making the office feel warm and safe (when it is not).

Again, I think Marcus's monologue worked well and you did a good job of capturing the cadence of natural speech. Bigass thumbs all around.

[Creole Ned]

Arioch's submission has been added to the first post. Enjoy!

[jackrabbit]

Ned:
This story seems to be told a little bit rushed, and I can't really pin down why. I like it. It's fun and funny, and perhaps a tad more graphic than the Ann Landers articles I'm used to, but in this case it works. Or it's borderline, at least.

This is much weirder than the stuff you usually write, but the tone keeps it from being too weird. I read it while flying over Sholozar Basin, though, so now that zone will forever remind me of gay clubs frequented by bald men.

Arioch:
Well done, as usual. I especially like the way you explored the little things, like the stairs and typing. I also think in the case of pills that going the nude route is a requirement. It makes being invisible a little less exotic and less cool.

Excellent wrap up, as well. I like how both you and Ned explored the less romantic side of invisibility. You both make it seem less glamorous than I always assumed it would be. Normally, when I think of invisibility, I think of the evil aspects of it.

jckrbbt:
Excellent story! THIS is what I'm talking about! I'd have liked to see more violence, perhaps even off-scene, and just referred to. Psychiatrists all seem like stuffy assholes. Invisible people should probably feel vindicated in killing them. Well done! Would read again!

Russel:
I read yours more of a sitcom, so the fighting doctors doesn't bother me, especially in the sense that it's not 'shown'. I also appreciate that 30% of the invisible stories feature a Stan. Only yours considers peeping on naked people perverse, though. Seriously, that would be the first stop on my tour of invisibility: the girl's showers.

Present tense always feels odd to me when reading it. It's not something you see a lot.

I like the evidence that invisible stuff stays that way, and sets up the ending.

Overall good tone, good pace.

Charles:
I really enjoyed this story, in no small part because it syncs with my own ideas about what moral path invisibility would lead down. I tried to make the same point in mine, but I think you did it much more darkly and succinctly.

I also really like the method by which your character is invisible. i remember as a kid with G.I. Joe toys, Zartan's brother Zandar was so forgettable, that people just didn't see him. I always loved the idea of that anonymity, and the challenges it would lead to.

I'm a sucker for a dark story, and like the idea that people see what they assume they will see, but the uncle seeing the character took me out of it for a bit. Ned and I talked about it, and he offers it up to the supernatural, and I guess I was looking for more of a logical connection, like the family always seeing him cause they expected to. I guess that doesn't work so much at a murder scene.

Anyway, masterfully done. I really liked it.

Pete:
I like how you twist the invisibility into more, and make it a kind of a disease. I'm surprised by how many people treat invisibility as if it would be bad. Oddly, when Ned picked it as the subject, I was the one that said I'd rather have pissed off energy like the Hulk. It was pretty clear where any of my stories would go from there.

I especially like the sections where the character is learning to deal with and control is phasing. There's a mournful tone of regret that weaves through the whole story, and pieces together as it builds. Nicely done.

The ending is clever and well timed, leaving the reader to wonder what the wisdom was.

[Creole Ned]

Arioch:
I enjoyed the journal format and had considered using it myself. This is another short, punchy story with a funny ending and an opening that dives right into things. A lot of people gum up the beginning of a story with a lot of unnecessary exposition and it would seem you ain't one of them. :)

However, you used "noone" instead of "no one" and that makes the Grammar Nazi in me get all itchy. Other than that, I liked your take on invisibility and the parade of self-abuse it entailed for the poor protagonist. The temporary blindness was a clever touch.

Ned:
I sat down at the PC after eating dinner last night and wrote my story in one sitting. If it feels "rushed" that may be why. I read it over twice before submitting it but made only a few minor changes. A lot of the details are accurate -- Davie St. is Vancouver's equivalent to Castro and the unnamed club I mention exists, as does Vera's. The Pink Room is not something I have personally witnessed. I knew the sex and bathroom scenes were walking the line, especially with the tone being light but I decided to go with it. I'm not usually that gross. :P I like this story mainly because I caught the tone I was going for.

[Creole Ned]

Russell's entry has been added to the original post.

[Paladin]

Wow. Four finished stories, and I'm stumped for mine.

[Creole Ned]

Charles from Qt3 has contributed a story and it's been linked in the original post. I'll offer up some feedback for his and Russell's stories soonish.

EDIT:

More feedback!

russellmz:
Who knew Stan was such a popular name? ;)

There are lots of little details in the story I like, such as Stan waiting and watching and waiting some more to see if a dollar bill he's handled will remain invisible or not. The whole Physics lab/fistfight over potential Nobel prizes section felt a bit weird. It's over the top and that's fine but it felt like the story had been a bit more grounded to that point, so the transition to battlin' scientists was a bit abrupt. Could just be me, though. I liked the scientist's glib dismissal by telling the guy it was a fairy when it becomes clear he can't understand the actual explanation.

The ending didn't seem so much like an ending as just a point where the story stops. Still, as an exercise, it's not a big deal.

So far I think your guy wins in the "invisibility not screwing you over" department. :)

Charles:
A brutal, nasty tale. I liked it! The weirdly invisible/visible nature of the protagonist and the way it eventually unhinges him as he grows more isolated is conveyed efficiently and vividly. The convenience of having the uncle being the lead investigator didn't seem forced to me, just ironic. There is enough here to warrant a longer examination of the subject.

jackrabbit and I chatted a bit about the story and I explained how I liked the invisibility being both literal and social. Weaving the two together worked for me.

My only quibble is where the protagonist describes interfering with the police and the resulting deaths. I wasn't clear on what exactly he was doing, so perhaps a brief example would have helped there. Overall, a strong first entry.

[jackrabbit]

The Last Phase, Pete's exercise has been added. I have edited my comments to include all.

[russellmz]

russellmz
regarding fight: i needed a quick way to wrap my story up. ie: sees profs --> finds out he's ok --> gets back to dorm.

and true, every guy wants to take a peek in the girl's shower room, but it's illegal for a reason.

i spitted it out quickly so i was writing stuff down as it came to me, which is why it's partly in present tense. i forgot to finish up editing it to past tense. also, i closed my eyes and tried to put a dollar in my wallet. it was really quite easy.

jckrbbt
wish it was longer. seems a bit quick for the doc to go from bruised forehead to fearing for his life. i liked how you showed how marcus could tell what the doctor was thinking and see why he wanted to annoy or off the doc.

Creole Ned
i liked how the fairy godmother figure schtick was made fun of and knew it was being made fun of. i am wondering why he was surprised funky stuff was going in the back room of a gay club. the naked friend was really gross and the main character's reaction was definitely realistic there.


Arioch
another one i wish was longer. funny stuff. my favorite part was when the laws of physics were followed.


Charles
the classic 'invisible to society = invisible physically' theme. i liked how the rules were consistent or at least built on consistent rules. the main character's crimes growing larger and larger was creepy and realistic.

{need to add pete's here}

[Creole Ned]

Pete:
This offers the biggest "twist" on the invisibility theme and expands on the ideas of Charles's story, taking the ephemeral transparent state to an extreme. Curiously, the protagonist reminded me of the last human adult in Childhood's End, carrying about his business while waiting for his existence to literally come to an end.

The physical descriptions of the floating and phasing are nicely realized but the humor seems out of place in what is a rather somber tale, especially since most of the funny bits come early and build the expectation that the story is going to be lighter. They weren't enough to cause a significant issue for me but it was something that stood out.

A specific quibble: You wrote "You see, I never took her to the ocean. I never took her to Paris. We never got a dog. All the little things, the things she wanted, the life she wanted, I didn't want them." I don't think many people consider going to Paris a "little thing". :)

After reading the story I tried to piece together the protagonist's phasing out of existence with his previous life with Maureen, to see how one might connect to the other because there is an implied link between the two but in the end I couldn't come up with one and I think it's mainly because the story is too short to adequately draw such a link -- if the link was even intended. To put it another way, I was searching for a deeper meaning or context but couldn't see it. I'm not sure if it was your intention to have one but it is to your credit that I thought there might be one there.

I suppose the failure of the marriage could be seen as a symbol of the protagonist's inability to keep himself grounded and the eventual phasing represents his failure to stay committed to others. Something like that. Anyway, a good effort and a nice "thinker".

I found the ending just okay, perhaps a tad too clever to have it end mid-word but given that the vast majority of my short stories don't even have endings, who am I to judge? :P

[Cyrian7]

jackrabbit:
I'm fascinated by the core concept of this story, as it seems to be a dissection of villainy rather than invisibility, and dissecting villainy versus heroism is one of my favorite literary and cinematic topics. A tough thing to do in a short story, obviously and I have to admit it took me two and a half read-throughs to make all the connections to Silverton's closing dailogue. It's another story that could be turned into something a bit bigger. Not too big, but a few careful steps into a darkening to see what Marcus is truly capable of, and whether he would really choose hero or villain. Great story. It's unsettling in a fascinating way to think of the Marcuses out there in the world.

Creole Ned:
If only we were always assigned wishes. What a much more efficient system. I'm curious at the ratio of stories involving invisibility which all slant towards mischief and malice. What does that say about us? I like that the story maintains a measured awkward tone throughout without becoming too dark or introspective. In walking that fence it's possibly the closest I've seen or read to what a real experience of being invisible would be like. No mass murders or lengthy comic hijinks, just "Well, I gave it a shot, but sorry... this is just too f'n weird." That awkwardness also plays in well with the character, and how we get to know him not through overexpository interior dialogue but through how he deals with all these awkward moments on a very strange day. One note would be that the incident at his friend's apartment might be a bit too brief and vague to justify his immediate abandonment of his wish. But I think the overall tone is well-executed and consistent and strangely enjoyable.

Arioch:
I really liked the diary concept. It was something that I had toyed with doing myself but the concept got away from me. Glad to see you kept it reeled in. I'm also glad to see another story where this new ability is treated with humor and almost mundanity, the way I think it would go if this ever happened. I enjoy how it toys with little day to day issues we don't think about in this situation, like stairs and typing. And I love the closing line.

russelmz:
I enjoyed the casual tone of the story, both in the dialogue and the prose. I like the response from Stan that is simply two quotation marks with nothing between them. I've used this response many times in real life but never in writing. Again we have some interesting experimentation with invisibility, and again another author goes another way. It's a cool thing to see. Er, read. I'm also amused that, as far as I can tell after two read-throughs, every single character in this story is a douchebag. Including Stan. And again that is never told to us, only shown in very casual subtle manner and makes for very entertaining reading.

Charles:
I'm glad that while some of the stories touch on the darker path of invisibility, this story steps furthest down that road so far. Even more I enjoyed the way in which his invisbility is handled. I also immediately thought of Zandar, though this goes further than that. I like that even though I've been thinking about it, I can't quite think of a proper way to encapsulate the protagonist's condition. The closest I can come is "superhuman unremarkability." It isn't an experiment gone wrong or a mutant power, but a manifestation of something that is simultaneously an adolescent fear and desire. The way the story shifts from his eagerness to his vengefulness strikes directly on teen insecurities in a very dark manner. My only concern is if it goes too dark too quickly, particularly going from the museum destruction directly to mass murder. But the psychology of such an individual is nearly impossible to understand, and I think you handle it very well in a short story.

[Creole Ned]

For those unaware, Cyrian7 = Pete. Read his entry, it's good!

[russellmz]

Cyrian7/pete
it amused me all the accidental victims who saw the main character were women. the feeling of the main character slowly disappearing is described well by without feeling forced. it seems kind of a downer ending with the main character fading away only after realizing all his mistakes and fear of new things.

[Arioch]

Jackrabbit:
I really like the ambiguity of the story, that there is no definitive answer to the question if Marcus really has that power. I also liked the popcultural reflections of the main character in regard to invisibility. Although I think that the last line missed a little bit of punch, as taking a cab is nothing which would make his way home safer, or is there something I don't get?

Ned:
I enjoyed the fact that you seemingly followed the exercise to the letter and wrote about yourself. Amanda Kissing is now my favourite fairy godmother. Though it is a classic of the genre, I really don't think that invisible whispering of "He's cheating on you" could really break up a couple, or have an effect of similar magnitude. Oh, and kinky backrooms are something you like to write about, eh ;)?
I really liked the MENTAL SCARS sign, and the guy shitting in front of the mirror had enough effect on me to talk about it with a buddy, who suggested that maybe this was something which happened to the author in real life, sans invisibility of course. I think you really worked the "invisibility sucks" theme, thoroughly enjoyable.

Russelmz:
The beginning of your story reads a little bit like play-by-play, as it's Stan-Chuck-Stan-Stan-Chuck with almost no pauses. I really liked his experiments with the Dollar and the keys. Later in the story, it almost reads like a text adventure, especially Spellcasting 101 comes to mind ("Sadly, he decides he is not a perv", for example). This is meant as praise, by the way. Oh, and the ending is brutal, in a good way. Good job!

Charles:
As mentioned before, the social invisiblity theme really worked out in this story. I wondered about the ending, though, as I found it hard to believe that his parents apparently cut all contacts with their relatives. I really like the term ghost fucking, though. And those are two great last sentences.

Pete:
It never occured to me that the first thought would be of death when turning invisible, but it makes sense. Finally, someone who isn't spreading mischief, but his problems also don't stem from being invisible, mostly. I enjoyed the sadness, the longing of your protagonist. Fitting ending.

[Creole Ned]

Ned:
I enjoyed the fact that you seemingly followed the exercise to the letter and wrote about yourself. Amanda Kissing is now my favourite fairy godmother. Though it is a classic of the genre, I really don't think that invisible whispering of "He's cheating on you" could really break up a couple, or have an effect of similar magnitude. Oh, and kinky backrooms are something you like to write about, eh ;)?
I really liked the MENTAL SCARS sign, and the guy shitting in front of the mirror had enough effect on me to talk about it with a buddy, who suggested that maybe this was something which happened to the author in real life, sans invisibility of course. I think you really worked the "invisibility sucks" theme, thoroughly enjoyable.
Yeah, the couple breaking up over a whispered comment is a stretch. If I had to justify it I'd say the relationship was already on the verge of falling apart and they were drunk and drunk people love to overreact and be silly.

The pooping thing is one of those "off the top of my head" ideas where I asked myself, "What is something you'd never want to catch a friend doing?" You may submit the fact that pooping was the first thing I came up with for psychoanalysis. You'd be amazed at the ideas I rejected. :)

Thanks for the feedback.

[Charles]

Free time, nothing to do, so I figured I'd go over the entries and give comments, before responding to the comments of my own. Yes, I'm a little late. What can I say?

russelmz
While it was a reasonably entertaining story, I was distracted by the constant use of "Stan". Stan this, Stan that. Maybe "he" did something a little more often. I don't know. Still, you got a nice deep laugh out of me from the "It was a fairy" line.

Pete
I loved the idea that if you are suddenly invisible, you think you are dead. I felt it was a little strange that on his second event, for lack of a better term, he'd choose to shoot off in to the sky though. Seems to me, he'd want to get an idea of what triggered it before he flaunted death. I liked the paragraph about what he didn't do in the marriage, but the use of "it" was awkward. For instance, for the new job, I'd have expected him to say "I didn't want one".

Arioch
This was short, but pretty funny. A fun take on how stupid people can be.

Creole Ned
I enjoyed your story a lot. But why would an invisible man with invisible glasses think about cleaning them?

(Can't read jackrabbit's cause the site went down before I got to it. Oh well.)


I'm a sucker for a dark story, and like the idea that people see what they assume they will see, but the uncle seeing the character took me out of it for a bit. Ned and I talked about it, and he offers it up to the supernatural, and I guess I was looking for more of a logical connection, like the family always seeing him cause they expected to. I guess that doesn't work so much at a murder scene.


I guess when it came to that, I was thinking that it was genetic on some level. But truth be told, I wrote that story in 45 minutes at 1am when I should've been sleeping so it was kind of rushed. I just belted out what flowed.

My only quibble is where the protagonist describes interfering with the police and the resulting deaths. I wasn't clear on what exactly he was doing, so perhaps a brief example would have helped there.

Ah. The main character was actually killing people, by entering the apartment, making sure it was locked and secure from the inside, and then killing the person in a way that wasn't even remotely possible to have happened. Then he waited for the police to show up, and slipped out the door after *they* opened it. Leading to quite the set of mysteries.


My only concern is if it goes too dark too quickly, particularly going from the museum destruction directly to mass murder.

Chalk it up to being a latent sociopath, I guess.

I wondered about the ending, though, as I found it hard to believe that his parents apparently cut all contacts with their relatives.

Oh yeah? I guess that's just a side effect of my upbringing then, as both myself and a bunch of friends have more than a few bits of family they never met.