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Post by Charlie Allison on Aug 18, 2016 20:58:59 GMT
So, I definitely went the more folkloric, tall-tale type story. I sort of imagined the story being read in a Louisiana/Arkansas accent--so it's a bit silly and weird. I'm hoping that I kept the tone consistent and the readers guessing at the endgame till the last page. Hope to hear from you all soon! Charlie The Cat-Eyed Man and the Brass Woman.pdf (46.8 KB) |
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Post by justin1023 on Aug 19, 2016 15:34:42 GMT
So, I definitely went the more folkloric, tall-tale type story. I sort of imagined the story being read in a Louisiana/Arkansas accent--so it's a bit silly and weird. I'm hoping that I kept the tone consistent and the readers guessing at the endgame till the last page. Hope to hear from you all soon! Charlie Charlie, I am so impressed by your venture outside the norm. This is certainly not your normal type of story both in content and style. I love it. Good job, man. I think you did a great job capturing a southern dialect in this story, and the narrator was fantastic. I like the tall-tale, second-hand narration effect of this story. It really lends itself to a deal with the devil kind of story. You created a vivid town, vivid characters, and did in fact, keep me guessing as to how Miss Adler would pull this off all the way to the end. I do have some questions, though: Was Miss Adler really just trying to protect the town from errant lightning bolts sent to the ground as part of the Cat-Eyed Man's many deals? Or did she expect to have to make a deal with him one day and was preparing? I think you might be able to add a line or two of explanation into this passage: See, while Miss Alder might have come from a family that looked up to paramecium, one thing she didn’t lack was a sense of civic pride in her old hometown. She told the mayor and anyone else who would listen to her something about these lightning sticks or whatever, having the power to save our buildings from the occasional spiteful soul who wanted to go out with a bang and hit a building on their way to hell. Something about grounding and copper—I don’t pretend to understand it.My next question is about the plausibility of Miss Adler making a deal. The circumstances just don't seem dire enough because of her background. She's a tinkerer, an inventor, a scientist of sorts. So, if she lost the use of her legs, wouldn't she be the best person to find a workaround for that without enlisting the services of the Cat-Eyed Man? She could build a contraption to help her walk again or build a device that made it so that she could move herself about with ease even if she couldn't walk. At least, that's the impression I got of her. I think this is an easy fix. You already have her in hospice (a place where people go to die, not recover), so why not up the ante. She can lose the use of her legs, but what if she also developed a blood clot or something and it was working its way to her brain. She just needs to be in some position where her mind can't help her fix the situation. It needs to feel a little more desperate. Finally, the ending. I like where you took it, but I think I was a bit confused about what she had changed. Did she simply divert all the energy from the lightning sticks into the Bronze Woman? I think a little deeper explanation of what she had built in the town will be necessary to set up this ending. Once we understand what she built, the destruction and reconfiguration at the end will likely make more sense. This was really good work, Charlie! I think you did a phenomenal job stepping out of your normal style, and I was hooked the whole way through the story. And I did read it with a southern accent in my mind  |
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Post by eldercheese on Aug 22, 2016 19:31:18 GMT
Oh man I'm so behind in all my reading I just downloaded this and I'll read it tonight... I will likely tell you what I think in person because your my neighbor and if I have to look at your face I might as well have something to say to it. Now I h8ave to get back to mixing wet mud with less wet mud... yep that's my life right now.
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