Julia's 2nd submission: Love and Taxidermy

[Julia]

Hey guys!  Some of you may have read this previously on the sexily adverbing boards.  I feel like the story is missing some spark or energy, but I don't know exactly what.  General impressions would be great!


Couple_20170710.pdf (97.13 KB)

[justin1023]

Jul 10, 2017 12:16:42 GMT Julia said:

Hey guys!  Some of you may have read this previously on the sexily adverbing boards.  I feel like the story is missing some spark or energy, but I don't know exactly what.  General impressions would be great!

Yes, I remember this interesting and surprisingly quirky story from workshop or sexily adverbing, I can't remember. But it's still good! There's a domestic quality that you capture so well. The mundane fights of a couple that may or may not be all that happy with each out. I know you did a good job with this because as I read it, I feel bad for them and happy that I have the wife that I have and the relationship that I have. It's always a good thing when you can make the reader appreciate what they have in comparison to your characters. 

I do wonder what you're going for in the story, though. I know you said you feel like it's missing a spark or energy, but I feel like it's missing a complete arc. The armadillo seems to be the catalyst for something that never comes. Is it the thing that breaks Dorien and Erik's relationship? Is it the thing that somehow makes it stronger? Who grows in this story? Who recedes? What we have now feels like the setup without a payoff. So, I'd say think about what you want this story to achieve. 

Here are some ideas: 

-The slide into this love of taxidermy is it actually a way for Erik to cope with the loss of his father (not sure how long ago his old man had died or how long ago his uncle died). 
-Does Dorien think she's losing her mind as everyone around her falls in loved with stuffed, dead animals? Does she crack in the end? 
-Does Erik leave her to live in an apartment full of creatures that could never talk back to him, never question him? Maybe that's the real reason he likes taxidermy?
-Maybe Dorien embraces it and finds that dog at the end hit by a car a few days later. Maybe she takes the dog to be stuffed and gives it to Erik to his and the family's horror. 

These are all templates or sparks. But I think you get the point. This isn't missing energy, it's just missing any sort of resolution. I think you have everything else in place here, so think about how you might want to close the loop a bit more, and I think you'll be all set. 

Good work!

Attachments:

Couple_20170710.pdf (124.72 KB)

[Charlie Allison]

Jul 10, 2017 12:16:42 GMT Julia said:

Hey guys!  Some of you may have read this previously on the sexily adverbing boards.  I feel like the story is missing some spark or energy, but I don't know exactly what.  General impressions would be great!


View Attachment

Julia:

This thing is a marvel of minimalism and under-reaction on the part of Dorien. So much happens that she simply has no choice but to shrug at her shoulders at and 'non-respond' to. She is a passenger in her own vehicle, a bit of flotsam upon a wave. You do a fantastic job in conveying this throughout the story she never truly makes a decision and follows through in her own life and this is infuriating to her though she never puts it into words. Her husband tears her a new one for tipping the babysitter, but feels fine spending 800 dollars on a taxidermied armadillo. There is a lack of parity here, something Dorien is unable or unwilling to address.
Also, props to you for showing everything about the relationship through the lens of coitus (Which, now that I type that, would be a great name for a band):

Erik gave her a peck on the lips and then another one. Dorien rolled onto her back, her arm slipping around his neck as he positioned himself on top of her. She wore only a t-shirt to sleep in. He pushed her underwear down below her knees and got himself out. He brought her first with slow thrusts, and then increased the pace once she came. She had gotten an IUD after Sophia was born, so he finished inside her. Five minutes and their underwear was back in place.

Their partnership is functional, but less satisfying and fundamentally unequal. She's frequently bowled over and her will disregarded. Those two paragraphs sum up all the power-dynamics we need to understand.

For some reason I can't articulate, your story reminded me of this story I heard a long time ago on NPR's SELECTED SHORTS. www.e-reading.club/chapter.php/79758/14/Davies_-_High_Spirits__A_Collection_of_Ghost_Stories.html
While this story involves a giant Frankensteined cat and eldritch things, the setups between stories are introduced early and the payoff (more on that in a bit) is inevitable and surprising at once. I think you have everything loaded up to deliver a killer ending that completes Doriens arc and delivers a sense of vindication to the reader. I think you were hinting at it but I could of course be wrong:

When he reached his destination, Dorien watched Mocha circle around three times around the armadillo. He raised his leg. It hovered in the air as though someone had pressed pause.
Dorien stood perfectly still as urine cascaded onto the armadillo. When Mocha left, she took her trash bag and went inside. The armadillo remained in the wet grass.

I feel like there is an opportunity here--instead of letting Dorien just let things happen, why not have her throw out the armadillo. She's already got the trash-bag ready to go, and as a reader, I was keyed up for her to use it on the armadillo. But she hold forth, hesitates--that's fine, makes sense. There isn't any reason to change the ending save for a line like:
"When Erik returned home, the trash was cleaned up, all of it. The armadillo was nowhere to be seen." or something along those lines. The addition of that one line can make the whole story an arc--finally Dorien acts out her (deeply suppressed) feelings. This can be justified in-universe as a less risky activity than one might expect:
a) Dorien has a scapegoat already--Mocha the dog. She can claim that the dog pissed on it and she tried to drive it off but she's only a woman and it was too late
b) therefore the only humane thing to do was to throw the thing out, if pressed by Erik (although of course, not until after the trash-collectors have come and collected their load) the day after.

Otherwise, this is a fantastic piece with very few line errors and a great start to it. This one should be ready to go out relatively soon, I think. Superlative work, Julia!


Charlie











Love and Taxidermy.pdf (95.32 KB)

[justin1023]

Jul 12, 2017 15:48:22 GMT Charlie Allison said:

I feel like there is an opportunity here--instead of letting Dorien just let things happen, why not have her throw out the armadillo. She's already got the trash-bag ready to go, and as a reader, I was keyed up for her to use it on the armadillo. But she hold forth, hesitates--that's fine, makes sense. There isn't any reason to change the ending save for a line like:
"When Erik returned home, the trash was cleaned up, all of it. The armadillo was nowhere to be seen." or something along those lines. The addition of that one line can make the whole story an arc--finally Dorien acts out her (deeply suppressed) feelings. This can be justified in-universe as a less risky activity than one might expect:
a) Dorien has a scapegoat already--Mocha the dog. She can claim that the dog pissed on it and she tried to drive it off but she's only a woman and it was too late
b) therefore the only humane thing to do was to throw the thing out, if pressed by Erik (although of course, not until after the trash-collectors have come and collected their load) the day after.

Otherwise, this is a fantastic piece with very few line errors and a great start to it. This one should be ready to go out relatively soon, I think. Superlative work, Julia!


Charlie

This is a much better suggestion than mine!

[abi]

Jul 10, 2017 12:16:42 GMT Julia said:

Hey guys!  Some of you may have read this previously on the sexily adverbing boards.  I feel like the story is missing some spark or energy, but I don't know exactly what.  General impressions would be great!

I really enjoyed this story, Julia. Well, I enjoyed disliking Erik, and his brothers, and his mom, and that damn armadillo. It’s an interesting story because Erik seems to be a rather controlling person, not overly so, but in small/annoying ways. He get’s mad if she pays the babysitter extra, and he has golfing on the weekends when Dorien is kind of stressing about how to make the kids happy. But then, the armadillo shows up and suddenly Erik is making them breakfast, and helping with the kids, and their love life seems to be going well(ish?). At the same time, there’s this power struggle, because Dorien is not thrilled with the armadillo, who would be? And she tries to suggest ways of dealing with the armadillo that are immediately denied. Not only that, but it seems like there are more dead, stuffed animals on the way. Overall, Dorien seems kind of trapped.

Not only that, but she’s a pushover. She tries to make everyone in her family happy. She hurries home to pay the babysitter because she knows Erik get’s mad if she has to pay the babysitter extra (though she ends up paying extra anyway.) She let’s Erik get the armadillo stuffed because he gives her several reasons about why he deserves it. Finally, it seems like she’s going to give up her trip to Florida so that Erik can get some of his uncle’s dead animals. So, where does she draw the line? Or does she never draw the line and simply go crazy eventually? Essentially, this is war, and her home is being invaded, taken away from her. So, I agree with what Justin and Charlie are saying about the end. Something is missing here. Either she has to get worse, maybe she feels trapped and lashes out there at the end, or maybe her relationship with her family suffers because of this. I don’t know, that’s up for Julia to decide.

I want to mention that I really enjoyed the descriptions in this story. I think the first two pages, where Julia subtly brings up what both Dorien and Erik look like worked really well. And there’s a line about the lady on the syrup bottle who has it all together in comparison to Dorien who does not have it together. I think, since Julia mentioned wanting more spark, there could stand to be more descriptions in this story. Having an dead armadillo in your house is ripe with possibility for weird description. There’s also the armadillo cake, and I think Julia missed an opportunity to describe what cutting into that cake and eating it was like, since they’re essentially “eating” road kill which is gross when you think about it.

Anyway, if Julia really wants to ramp up the energy, there’s always the option of cutting back on the domestic scenes where nothing is happening; for instance, the scene where they’re eating pancakes and then Eric says he’ll take their daughter to soccer. It’s not all that interesting in comparison with a dead armadillo, though the scenes do offer some insight into these characters. I don’t know, that’s up to you, Julia.

Great story, I think it's pretty clean overall. 

Abis Line Notes for Couple_20170710.pdf (127.92 KB)

[Julia]

Thanks everyone! I think the problem is I don't know what I want to say. I meant it to be a story about how everyday life wears you down, especially in a relationship. I didn't mean for Erik to come off so badly. I wanted the reader to feel more mixed when Dorien lets the dog pee on the armadillo, because it is kind of a shitty thing to do to the representation of Erik's childhood

I think I need to come down on a side. Are relationships worth it? Or will all that stuff suck the life out of you?