Hell Edit
It's not entirely clear how the wife and kid died. It
could be that since main character and narrator are the same person, he doesn't
want to go into detail about it. If that's the case, that needs to be
brought to the reader's attention. Otherwise, more clarity is needed
about what happened.
When he visits Tony, he postulates what Tony is seeing when he looks at him. Have Tony actually say it. Aside from the Show vs. Tell aspect, unless Chunks is a mind reader, he doesn't really know what Tony is seeing.
There's room for expansion in the paragraph about how family makes you think of someone other than yourself. Maybe show him starting to do something or make a decision and, while he's doing this, he's thinking of how it will affect his wife and kid. Then, suddenly, he realizes there is no wife and kid and go from there.
Wherever a sentence starts with "However", give it a good hard look and see if you can come up with a better start. It's just a fancy way of starting a sentence with "But" and tends to rub readers the wrong way when used too much.
"I saw my first corpse on the west-bound on-ramp that lead to the heart of the city." What about his wife and daughter? He might not want to think of them as corpses, but this is confusing for the reader.
I'm not sure of the legality/issue with mentioning things like books and such. People (and their lawyers) can get weird with their things being in things they don't want touching their preciouses. Even if it is basically free advertising.
Does the man smell like acid the drug or acid the...acid? What does that smell like? Or are you trying to say he has an acrid smell?
Caldera. :o)
This is a great story of a man who is more or less a goofball that can play responsible when he had to for his family (while still being a little immature and such) becoming a hardened solitary person resigned to his fate in a really crappy world. It gets a person, but not as powerfully as it could.
Play up the depravity of the pimp. Maybe even have the pimp be Dustin--someone we have been introduced to as a fine upstanding person that Chunks cares about and is now selling his own family and neighbors for a good time. Shows what people will reduce down to to "make it" when everything goes down the drain. And having to kill a friend before a friend kills you will definitely harden someone up and make them have a crisis of faith. Would be super traumatic to see your friend be felled on by his own family and neighbors for being a monster. People *might* wonder why he's not at his own house, but it's not a huge deal. If you've become a monster, you wouldn't want to live in a place that reminds you of the decent person you used to be. And, it's a crazy time with people doing crazy things. So, ultimately, doesn't matter.
What happened to Mutt? If Mutt is that easily forgotten, does Mutt need to exist? And if you have Mutt for a reason, what's the reason and can you keep that reason going so that you don't forget about Mutt?
When he visits Tony, he postulates what Tony is seeing when he looks at him. Have Tony actually say it. Aside from the Show vs. Tell aspect, unless Chunks is a mind reader, he doesn't really know what Tony is seeing.
There's room for expansion in the paragraph about how family makes you think of someone other than yourself. Maybe show him starting to do something or make a decision and, while he's doing this, he's thinking of how it will affect his wife and kid. Then, suddenly, he realizes there is no wife and kid and go from there.
Wherever a sentence starts with "However", give it a good hard look and see if you can come up with a better start. It's just a fancy way of starting a sentence with "But" and tends to rub readers the wrong way when used too much.
"I saw my first corpse on the west-bound on-ramp that lead to the heart of the city." What about his wife and daughter? He might not want to think of them as corpses, but this is confusing for the reader.
I'm not sure of the legality/issue with mentioning things like books and such. People (and their lawyers) can get weird with their things being in things they don't want touching their preciouses. Even if it is basically free advertising.
Does the man smell like acid the drug or acid the...acid? What does that smell like? Or are you trying to say he has an acrid smell?
Caldera. :o)
This is a great story of a man who is more or less a goofball that can play responsible when he had to for his family (while still being a little immature and such) becoming a hardened solitary person resigned to his fate in a really crappy world. It gets a person, but not as powerfully as it could.
Play up the depravity of the pimp. Maybe even have the pimp be Dustin--someone we have been introduced to as a fine upstanding person that Chunks cares about and is now selling his own family and neighbors for a good time. Shows what people will reduce down to to "make it" when everything goes down the drain. And having to kill a friend before a friend kills you will definitely harden someone up and make them have a crisis of faith. Would be super traumatic to see your friend be felled on by his own family and neighbors for being a monster. People *might* wonder why he's not at his own house, but it's not a huge deal. If you've become a monster, you wouldn't want to live in a place that reminds you of the decent person you used to be. And, it's a crazy time with people doing crazy things. So, ultimately, doesn't matter.
What happened to Mutt? If Mutt is that easily forgotten, does Mutt need to exist? And if you have Mutt for a reason, what's the reason and can you keep that reason going so that you don't forget about Mutt?
This is great.
ReplyDeleteI have a few changes I've decided to make, hopefully the story will make more sense when they are done.
I'm so glad you don't hate us. I'd hate to be banned from being able to know your work. lol
ReplyDelete