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Cherry Who?
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#1
Old 09-08-2009, 03:43 AM

Just a little something I wrote a few months ago. It's vague, but I meant for it to be that way. The punctuation is a little dodgy though (I swear at one point I knew how to use a semi-colon... I may or may not have forgotten), and I'd like some help with that. There are a lot of fragment sentences, but I mostly intended for it to be that way. I wanted it to have a choppy sound, sort of. An apathetic frankness, I guess. But some of it is downright incorrect, so feel free to pick that apart.
Also, I know the middle part with Maddie is a bit off topic, but I like it there. I don't find it filler. Since this doesn't really have much of a plot, there isn't really anything for it to stick to. It's just... I write vaguely. xD



There was a tiny thing on my bus seat. I don't know when it got there; I simply looked down and it was next to me.
It was a tiny origami unicorn; impossibly small, impossibly detailed. The brilliant white paper it was made of seemed as if it were somehow not of this world. The gray bus carrying gray people through the gray city in a gray February, and somehow this tiny piece of paper existed within it.
Something drew my eyes to the seat across from mine; more perfect specks of white. A small infantry of tiny pieces of paper, folded into more tiny little animals, and next to them, a man. He was dressed as dully as the weather was, and was hunched into himself with such introversion that it looked painful. He ripped a shred off of the piece of paper laying in his lap and manipulated it within his hands briefly and gently, and then added what looked like a frog to his army.
The bus ride was a long one, and I couldn't help but watch him. He didn't seem to notice me.
The man tore off piece after piece from his sheet of paper. The collection of paper animals grew until he was out of paper, and then he began fidget and squirm urgently. For the first time I had seen, his face finally turned away from his lap. I diverted my eyes quickly, embarrassed that he would catch me staring.
I became distracted with my own business until a few minutes later when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the man had settled down. Before I could stop myself, I glanced over. He was absent-mindedly pulling at a loose screw on the frame of the bus window. After calmly picking on it for a while, he began to pull on it, tugging and twisting in a fixated sort of way until it finally gave up and allowed him to take it. The man began turning the dark gray, rusted screw over in his hands, examining it carefully. He then began to rub it between his fingers in a fashion that seemed incredibly precise, like a sculptor adding the finishing touches to his masterpiece.
The bus stopped. I looked up. It was my stop.
Before getting up, I carefully tucked the tiny white paper unicorn next to me into my purse. The man seemed mildly frightening, but I couldn't stand to leave the unicorn behind.

That evening the sun was setting as I climbed the stairs to the bus. They seemed steeper than usual, or maybe my body felt heavier. Maybe it had just been a long day. I flashed my bus pass to the driver; he didn't see it and he didn't care.
I walked down the aisle. A different bus than this morning; newer, cleaner, the blacks were blacker and the grays were grayer, the seats had no tears. But it was still a gray bus.
I sat in an empty seat in the middle of the bus. I carefully avoided sitting anywhere near the old woman in the back. She wore three dirty jackets over a men's shirt, and wild, curly hair mashed under an ill-fitting toque. She was homeless, but more importantly, she was insane. And extremely talkative.
The evening route was longer than the day route. Substantially longer. And I planned on riding it farther than usual, I couldn't bear the thought of walking home from my usual stop. To hell with my exercise plan, I'll sit on the bus for an extra ten minutes to avoid five of walking.
I leaned my head back against the back of the seat. It was getting dark. I was tired. I closed my eyes.

Noise.
"Eric!" The shout was loud and obnoxious and interrupted the dream I was having. I forgot the dream instantly. "Oh, Eric, you've come back for me! I knew you would come back for me!"
I opened my eyes. The lights inside the bus seemed blindingly bright. How had I slept with those there? I turned my head to the source of the noise. The crazy woman in the back of the bus had her arms outstretched to a man walking down the aisle. He seemed to be dressed even shabbier than she was.
"Oh, Eric!" The woman leapt up from her seat and began bouncing up and down. Her stomach -or maybe that was her breasts- seemed to jump twice as much as she did. The man recoiled from her, but never broke his pace or his gaze at the floor as he continued past her.
"Eric?" The woman yelled, her voice breaking into sorrow. "Eric?!"
She continued shouting, and the man continued ignoring her.
The bus pulled over. The bus driver came to the back.
"Come on, Maddie," he said, motioning for her to come. He knew her first name. I felt pity for him.
"Eric!" Maddie said to him in an explaining tone.
"That ain't Eric, Maddie," the bus driver said, gently pulling her by the elbow. Her face turned to confusion. She turned back to look at the man sitting in the back of the bus. He was hunched forward, rubbing his hands together, still ignoring the woman with impeccable skill.
"Oh..." She mumbled. "Oh, I suppose it isn't..."
The bus driver escorted her to the front of the bus, allowing her to stay on since she seemed to have calmed down. I closed my eyes again.

The bus pulled to a stop. I opened my eyes, instinctively knowing it was my stop. And it was.
I clumsily pulled myself to my feet. Something fell to the floor. I looked down and picked it up.
It was a small piece of metal. Dark gray, with flecks of rust. But its shape was unmistakable - it was a unicorn.
__________________
Uh... can I roll for insight on the spiders?

Last edited by Cherry Who?; 09-17-2009 at 04:23 PM..

Cherry Who?
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#2
Old 09-13-2009, 06:12 AM

Oh, wow, no wonder no one replied. I accidentally left off the last sentence. >< Okay, it's fixed now...

Nolori
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#3
Old 09-17-2009, 01:41 AM

Actually I hadn’t replied before because I didn’t have time. This has been on my to-read list since you first posted it. Heh.

--
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cherry Flavored Antacid
-or maybe it was her breasts-
While I don’t think it’s technically wrong, I think ‘or maybe they were her breasts’ would make more grammatical sense.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Cherry Flavored Antacid
Something fell to the floor.
I know it was your intention to be relatively vague, and I think you pulled it off quite nicely. But I feel like this was a little too vague. Are we supposed to come away with the feeling the man had dropped it, or silently given it to her? I think you might be able to clear that up, while keeping your vague style, by giving us some idea (or a guess from the main character) about where it fell from. Did it happen to be near her, or was it on her lap or bag?
--

This is really one of the best first-person things I’ve read here on Mene. I love the way you write. You’ve been able to keep the fragmented sentences and random thoughts of life while still keeping everything coherent enough to be read as a narrative. That’s a hard thing to do.

If you write anymore about the possibly-homeless artist and the bus-riding main character, I would absolutely love to read it. I think this has a lot of potential to be something more.
I’m just not sure if you like to write longer pieces. Heh.

Cherry Who?
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#4
Old 09-17-2009, 02:09 AM

Thanks! I was hoping you'd reply to this, since I've seen you give some very nice feedback to stories.

"They" would make more sense since breasts are plural, but it seems confusing when it's also put into the context of a stomach, which is singular. I think "they" would imply she had more than one stomach. I get where you're coming from, and it may be more correct, but it seems awkward to me.

Oh, that was supposed to have fallen from her lap/bag, yeah. I'm not sure how to reword it so that that's clear...
"I clumsily pulled myself to my feet, knocking something to the floor"?
"Knocking" seems too powerful a verb for something so small... Hmm. Any suggestions?

Lately I've been keeping to super-short stories. Every time I attempt a longer story (see: Virtral... although I advise you don't because it started to suck and I dropped it) it starts to go to shit. This and the last thing I wrote (which did not go to shit, so feel free to read it) were short, vague, and pessimistic, and that seems to be working for me.
This did originally start as an idea for something longer (the homeless man was first going to be a gifted artist with some kind of tragic story who may end up in love with the main character or the other way around, then he was going to be a savant with some sad story, then I finally decided to leave him as mysterious and vaguely crazy), but I'm just not sure what else I could do with it. I kind of like leaving it open-ended and mysterious, since it fits in with the vague theme of it. Although I do like the characters and wish I could see more of them, I have to put quality over quantity.

Nolori
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#5
Old 09-17-2009, 02:50 AM

Aw, thank you! I wish I had more to say about the story itself, but I enjoyed reading it too much.

Actually, because you have the bit about her breasts set apart from the rest of the sentence, I don't think it would have that effect. At least, that's not how I read it.

I don't really think you need to reword it. Just add on.
"I looked down and picked it up. Where had it come from? My bag? My lap?"
Or, you know, something less cheesy than that, but it gets my point across.
But that way, you keep the vague-ness of your story, by not exactly telling us what happens, but give the reader a better view of the point you're trying to get across.
You know, assuming he did mean to give it to her right? That's not just cutesy hopeful thinking on my part?

Well, my idea actually played off of the vagueness.
Basically, I had thought that this man would never actually be a named or be an active character. He'd just be on the bus, making things. Instead, we follow the main character's life, which is mostly apart from the bus. And for the most part artist-man is a side character seen only on the bus. The art, however, becomes an ever increasing part of her life. Symbolically and emotionally. The artist-man seems to just... know, or at very least understand, what she needs from his art and makes an animal or some such to suit her.
Eventually, he'd become more bold, never speaking, but risking a glance now and then and purposefully leaving the art next to her while she can clearly see he’s doing it.
I figured that the end of the story would end more or less as you have it here. We would be left with the suspicion that they would know each other as friends, maybe she invites him off the bus, I don't know, but that's where the story ends.

Of course, I think of everything as long term stories because I tend to write longer stories myself. I feel naked without lots of chapters. xD

(Also, I peeked at Virtual, but didn't read all of it because it's long and your mention of reading Twilight and writing at the same time made me laugh too much to read it right now. Bad People actually seemed like a really interesting concept. Did anything come of it?)

Cherry Who?
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#6
Old 09-17-2009, 03:35 AM

It's alright! I rarely get any replies to anything I write, much less a constructive reply. So this is great!

Maybe I could avoid the it/they conundrum all together and change it to "that"? "-or maybe that was her breasts-" would fit fine with the narration style, I think.

How about...
"I clumsily pulled myself to my feet. Dragging my bag [purse?] off the seat, it knocked something to the floor"?

Hmm... I like that. I'd just need to flesh it out some more, give it a bit more of a plot... and I'm awful with plots. xD

The Bad People story was the whole thing. Reading it now, it needs some editing, but it was supposed to be vague. I wanted it to look like random pages pulled from this girl's notebook.

Yeah, Virtral was... Yeah. I was actually thinking about it the other day, though, and may have come up with a new way to take it... I just have to decide if I'm still interested or not.

Nolori
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#7
Old 09-17-2009, 03:52 AM

I think 'that' works great!

Maybe 'it knocked something near me to the floor'? Or is that too long, you think? It's hard for me to give suggestions since I don't tend to write vaguely.

If you would like help with a plot, I'd love to help out. I love working out plots and whatnot. It's the actual 'putting it all together' part that gets me. Haha.

Well, I definitely got the 'pulled from the notebook' feel. That came across really well. I was just so lost as to who/what actually talks like that, that I thought maybe it was incomplete. Like I said, I think of everything in long-term effect.
Though to be honest, I think you did this one much better in terms of vague. You kept really well to the vague-ness of the concept, but were still able to keep it as a cohesive story.

Well, it'll probably be worth writing down the new idea. Just in case you do end up wanting to re-write it.

Cherry Who?
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#8
Old 09-17-2009, 04:26 PM

Mm, might be too long. Since I'm generally keeping with short sentences. To spare a long sentence to describe something kind of mundane wouldn't really fit.

Yeah, I had some issues getting the concept across with Bad People. I was (and well, still am) a little out of practice with writing. Reading it again yesterday made me see that.

Eh, I'll probably remember it. If I forget, it obviously wasn't interesting enough. :lol:

Nolori
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#9
Old 09-17-2009, 04:55 PM

Well, if you do end up making this longer, than I think you can keep it the way it is. If you don't want to go on with this, I still think it should be made a bit more obvious. As to how, I have no idea. Heh. (Golly I am so helpful!)

I hope you start writing more, then. I really like your concepts and I like to read your work. =]

Man, if I don't write things down I forget everything. I actually keep a check list for myselt about life in general. It's, uhm, really long. xD

 


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