"Give me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy"
Sitting at a booth in the dim bar we came to a startling realization.
"So where, when, and how?" Legionnaire said.
"Where, when, and how what?" Fool replied.
ÂYou know... pantomimed a hanging, complete with the snap of inertia which breaks the neck when done properly, Bear shivered at the act, we sat silent, none of us had an answer. It had never really come up before, we knew we were going to, we knew we were doing it together, and the decision and joining together seemed like the difficult part. I had an almost religious delusion, in the back of my mind, that it would just happen, we'd pick up Legionnaire, the group would be complete, the ground would split and we'd fall in. The actual grisly details never really came into play. Now seemed as good a time as any to hammer them out.
"Shooting, hanging, any kind of jumping off, into, or in front of, and bleeding the wrists or neck are out. Don't really lend themselves to groups." My words broke the previous silence and brought on a new one. "I need a drink, it'll help me think,"over to the bar I went, nice lady was tending, gave me half a bottle of bourbon for the price of 5 drinks, she said "You're saving me the trouble of washing the shot glasses."
I took a few good tugs on the bottle on the way back to our booth. Legionnaire and Fool were talking in harsh whispers about the relative merits of various poisons, Bear was watching them and chewing her nails away. I took my seat across from Fool and took another good pull of the bourbon, I was going to kill this bottle before we left, maybe even grab another. Fool and Legionnaire were too absorbed in the practicality of cyanide Vs. the poetic significance of hemlock, to notice as I offered the bottle around, Bear took a sip, coughed, sputtered, her eyes instantly bloodshot and puffy "I think I'll get something else," more for me I thought, the bottle made a noise like a drowning man as it emptied.
Not complete, but that's what I got. 2 and a half pages of shitty exposition and an incomplete second scene. If you read it, tell me what you hate, I'll bet it's the same things that I hate.
posted by John Emerson Fitzgerald at 1:10 AM
2 Comments:
i doubt we'll hate the same things, seeing as i'm a terrible reader and reviewer. But we can but try...
i think that you could use more punctuation. For example, your last sentance could be turned into four. i think this would help make each statement stand out more, and pace the reader. As it is, i rush to finish the sentance without taking the time to digest what i read.
Also, whenever i write, i tend to leave out the senses, especially colour. i don't know if this is intentional, but you make no mention of colour. No smell either. i like the atmosphere you set up, but i think it could be fleshed out more.
i apologise if any of this is condescending, or just plain stupid on my part. Anyways, i love the little details you use, like the "snap of inertia," and the "practicality of cyanide vs. the the poetic significance of hemlock." And the characters seem interesting, though i obviously don't know much of anything about them.
Eh, enough babbling. Nice work.
Always a problem is my tendancy to emulate the writer I hate above all others, Faulkner, a long sentence is my own personal affront to my desire to emulate Hemingway's terse sharp sentences. The smell thing is due to the fact I don't think about smell, I can barely smell, a pack a day'll do that to your nose. Thanks for the comment, I'll have to watch out for the smell and color.
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