The Party

[mgv1208]

Hey just finished the 1st draft of my second short story. Let me know what you think and any suggestions on how to improve it are more than welcome

The Party
By Matt Veksler

It was 1030 at night, and the first house party of the year had just begun. This was your typical small college house party, a pretty good mix of people, a decent ratio of guys to girls, and lots of booze. The guys not yet drunk enough, were on one side of the room trying to drink up their courage to go flirt with girls. The girls were on the other side of the room complementing eachother's outfits and gossiping about who they would and wouldn't 'do'. The girls at this party weren't ordinary girls, by any means. They were either spectacularly attractive with big tits, big asses, and long legs, while somehow maintaining midsections that would make some Olympians cringe with envy, or they were remarkably unattractive with stomachs that stretched below their ****s, tits that flopped around their ribs, and legs, which were somehow lacking in any visible muscle, despite all the weight they carried. The good looking girls: Katie, Tori, Michelle, and Courtney were in one circle, while the grotesque girls: Tammy, Sammy, Brooke, and Emily were in a circle next to them commenting on all the statements the attractive girls made. Courtney was discussing how she was going to **** Mark, the former high school quarterback, who was still able to pull girls for that reason alone. “I have so much game, I never get turned down. Guys think that they're the ones who are the playas, but they just don't realize I'm the one playing with them.” Sammy couldn't help comment on this claim, “Oh my god, did you hear what Courtney just said. She thinks she has game, what does she need to have game for? Doesn't she know that guys will **** her no matter what? She can just go up to any guy she wants and say '**** me' and they would.” Her friends laughed and nodded in agreement. Now it was Tori's turn to discuss her hotness and who she would and wouldn't ****, “Yea you can have Mark, I ****ed him last year, he has a tiny dick. I wanna try something a bit different tonight I wanna **** Max.” “He probably has an STD” Michelle whispered as if she would catch one by saying the word out loud. “And anyways aren't you on your period.” “So what if I am, it's not my fault, plus it's not like guys don't **** you if the have small dicks, or if they have problems getting hard, or if they cum too early. If they can still **** us with all those deficiencies, I don't see why I can't **** because of a little blood.” The girls all laughed and nodded in agreement, even the fat chicks couldn't argue with that. They were the ones who had to deal with the real problems, like ****ing fat guys.

On the other side of the room the guys were drinking and playing a 'Would you ****____' with a slight twist. The original game consists of one guy naming a girl and then all the guys debating whether or not they'd **** her, but at this party the answers were obvious, so stipulations were added to keep the game interesting. Tony asked, “Would you **** Katie if there was a ten percent chance of getting AIDS?” There were mixed reactions, some of the guys said yes, others didn't want AIDS and said no, but then Billy said, “Of course I would, I'd **** her if there was a hundred percent chance of getting AIDS. Have you seen that ***, and those tits? I'd wanna get AIDS so that people would believe me that I ****ed her.” Billy always said things like this, when asked if he'd **** Courtney while she was taking a **** he said, “I'd eat her *** out while she was taking a ****.” He was short and fat and desperate to **** someone attractive. He still had nightmares about the time he slept with Tammy.

It was last year and they were both drunk and horny. They went to his dorm room and undressed. The bed creaked as he mounted her, he could've sworn that it shrieked in pain, as the two blobs of obesity jiggled in unison trying to achieve some semblance of orgasm. There was a loud slapping noise with every thrust as their stomachs collided and Billy tits smacked her face. Then she started sucking on his flappy utters, which was so humiliating Billy started sweating profusely, even more profusely than he normally sweat. Tammy was soaked, but it was a sea of sweat dripping down from Billy, and not pleasure, which caused the wettness. The real problem with the whole thing was that it took so long. If it ended quickly, they could at least say well we came and that was fun. But it took an unbearable amount of time because their stomachs made it difficult for any real penetration to occur and every embarrassing jiggle made achieving orgasm nearly impossible.

Billy shuddered just remembering that night and took a huge swig from his fifth of Johnny Walker Black Label. He was already, half finished with the bottle, and quite drunk. He desperately wanted to hook up with either Courtney or Katie, but he knew that he didn't have a chance. Bobby, a tall fat guy, came up to Billy and asked who he was going to hook up with tonight. As if it were up to Billy who he'd hook up with. “Whoever's left, or my hand, whichever is the more attractive option at the time.” “Oh come on, it's easy to get girls you just have to be smooth and funny and they have to be drunk.” Bobby didn't understand because he was tall and fat, and tall fat people have it easier because girls assume they have big fat cocks. That alone is enough to get you laid, but Billy was short and fat, girls just assumed he had a chode. It's not easy getting laid, when the first thing a girl thinks when she sees you is that you have a small fat dick.

Bobby didn't have a big dick, it was only four and a half inches long, but he got a lot of pussy, at least a lot for a fat guy. He decided that tonight he was going to pop Michelle's cherry. He didn't care that his dick probably wasn't big enough to even reach her hymen, he was going to try. Michelle was dancing in the middle of the room and Bobby went up behind her and started grinding on her. She was already hammered, which was just the way Bobby liked his girls. They started making out and he led her into the 'hook up room', which fortunately for him was not already in use. He went to work taking off her clothes and kissing her neck, and then she whispered, “**** me, I want you to be my first, but put on a condom first.” Bobby wasn't one to waste time, he put on the only condom he had, which was the magnum he brought with him to impress girls. The condom was much too large was his less than average sized dick, and he was forced to wrap it around his balls to get it to fit. Bobby positioned his dick at her entrance and pushed in, she started crying in pain, and screamed, “Stop Stop hit hurts to much, I'm too tight.”
“I'm not even that big.”
“I know, but it hurts too much, can you find something you could use to loosen me up?”
“I could use my fingers”
“No, that won't work, I want something kinky. Do you think there's a screwdriver or a remote down here you could use.”
Bobby searched the room and found a chisel. He couldn't believe that he was about to chisel this girl open. “Which end do you want me to use?” “Surprise me.” He wouldn't have been able to prevent himself from laughing if he shoved the metal end in, and he still wanted to **** her, so he chose the conventional option, the handle,. After he was done with, the chisel, she was done with him. “Well I came, it's not my fault your dick didn't get me wet. I'm going back to the party, you can finish yourself off.” Which is exactly what he did.

Meanwhile, at the party Billy was drunkenly hitting on Katie. She was messing with him, trying to get him really drunk. She said, “If you finish the rest of that bottle, I'll have sex with you.” He chugged the other half of the bottle and instantly blacked out. He was carried outside, to puke and then as he walked back into the house, he fell face first onto the floor. He was completely unresponsive and the party goers had no choice, but to call an ambulance. The four paramedics tried to lift Billy, and they were completely unsuccessful, which would've pissed Billy off had he been awake. Then one of the paramedics said, “I think this kid **** himself, and he definitely pissed himself.” They carried him out and the Billy's friends saved the video they had been recording. Four hours later Billy woke up completely confused, lying in a hospital bed with IV's inserted into him. Billy's parents were sitting by the bed, incredibly annoyed at having been woken up at 330 in the morning, to see their son drunk, with **** and piss filled pants. The nurse gave Billy some hospital clothes to change into, so that he wouldn't sit drag his filth into his parents car, but he was still drunk and the clothes she gave him, weren't the highest quality. So when he tried to put the pants on he stepped through them, and ripped a giant hole in the crotchal area. He had absolutely no clue that he had done so, and walked through the hospital, through the children's ward with his rather unimpressive dick hanging out. He made it to his parents car without officially becoming a sex offender, which surely would've insured that he never again get laid in college.

[mgv1208]

ignore the grammatical errors, i didn't do any editing before posting

[E.A Rumfield]

I like stories about whoring and drinking and dick jokes and all that jazz as much as anyone but... this is really really dumb. You should be ashamed of yourself. I'm not even joking. Us kids used to talk like this in third grade. Would you rather have sex with Rosie O Donald with a yeast infection or an industrial power juice processor. Then we would all laugh and throw french fries at each other and stick pens in pencil sharpeners. Then I grew up.

[hillwalker]

First off, why should we ignore the grammatical errors? If you couldn't be bothered to proof read before posting, what does that tell us about the respect you have for your readership? I'm guessing 'none'.

As for the 'story' - you're obviously a misogynist who reveres dumb movies like 'American Pie'.

So many shallow characters doing very little except behaving like a**holes. Who could be bothered to read this stuff (let alone write it)?
'50 Shades of Cr*p' springs to mind.
A sad waste of our time and your 'talent'.

H

[miyako73]

^blatant but constructively frank.

[Steven Hunley]

I decided to finally weigh in on this one. I totally agree with the rest. Scanning the number of astrixs told me there were too many red flags present. The warning to ignore the grammatical mistakes was another. This piece was juvenile to the extreme, and that's an insult to many young authors. It's one thing to show contempt for your readers by not doing needed revisions and proof reading and asking them to do it for you. The other factor is simply bad taste. This one fails into both catagories. You may, however, pull your fat from the fire yet. Go back and erase it. Now would be a good time, and you can always put "deleted by author." That way many readers here will miss it. Then later, when you've re-grouped and re-considered you'll be free to post another, after the dust has settled and the readers have forgotten your name.

[mgv1208]

I wrote to ignore grammatical mistakes because it was a first draft and i already knew they were there. I hardly see the point in asking you guys to inform me of mistakes of which I'm already aware. I don't think that anybody should be in the business of saying if something is done in bad taste. It may just not be something that interests you, others may like it. My purpose wasn't to write some highbrow comedy about drinking. Those are incredibly boring. Bukowski's Woman(or women, not sure which) is the most boring and repetitive novel I've ever read. If I wanted to write something like that I would've i chose not to. I already know why some of you dislike it, you came into it thinking it was poor writing, due to the asterix, which is clearly an absurd prejudice. You're right that some of my characters do nothing, but act like *******s, but i don't try to create likeable characters. I like to create absurd characters that serve my purpose, maybe background characters are a weakness of mine, and ill try to write them better. Some of the comments on here are incredibly rude, and unjustified. They're made out of spite, rather than being constructive, and i now understand why writers like Martin Amis are condemned here. Some people on here think they know how a story should be constructed and anything that differs from their concept of a story gets criticized. I have spoken to a lot of people that have read this and they've all said that it was well written, and that it reminded them of their college days. I'm not saying that this is or isn't a good short story, I'm just pointing out that some of the hatred of the story are based on people preconceptions about what literature is. I wrote another story (The splash zone) on here that was fairly well received , so i still have hope that not everyone on here is a stiff. I know that you don't care if i continue posting here, but I think that you should learn how to criticize the work constructively, and objectively, rather the way in which this was criticized. Especially if you want others to keep posting. {edit}

O and how exactly am i a misogynist? The girls in my story act exactly like guys, and are strong and do exactly what they want. That hardly signifies a dislike for women

[Jack of Hearts]

This reader is going to give you a gift. It's called the truth.

Whoever said this story was 'well-written' lied to you. This story sucks. Is it possible that you could write a good story? Definitely! But this isn't it. Your defense of this story is ridiculous and is indicative of an overabundance of ego. Drop the ego and you'll learn to write better probably.

Also, Women is not highbrow literature and Martin Amis is a douche.






J

[mgv1208]

i dont really have much of an ego, and i dont think anyone that knows me would say that i think that im better than anyone. The fact that you discount a great stylist like Martin Amis as a douche, is evidence of the dislike that you have for writing that doesn't offer pleasant characters that you can relate too. I would believe you that my writing is poor if you listed specific examples, or really any evidence that wasn't based on your dislike of the content (By writing i meant my prose btw, sorry if that was confusing). Please refer to the updated version, if you decide to provide evidence. I'm very welcome to criticism that will help my prose, or my ideas improve. However, what I've seen here are claims that attack me personally (i.e misogynist) or attack the fact that there are curse words in my writing, without attacking any specifics in the work itself. This was meant to be a comedic story about what college partys are like, instead of the common super ego writing about how everyone gets laid all the time, when really things are more complex and sometimes absurd situations arise.

and youre right that Women isn't highbrow, i just meant that Bukowski was a respected novelist, and that book is about boozing and sex and partying, but it's incredibly dull, unfunny, and repetitive

I decided to finally weigh in on this one. I totally agree with the rest. Scanning the number of astrixs told me there were too many red flags present. The warning to ignore the grammatical mistakes was another. This piece was juvenile to the extreme, and that's an insult to many young authors. It's one thing to show contempt for your readers by not doing needed revisions and proof reading and asking them to do it for you. The other factor is simply bad taste. This one fails into both catagories. You may, however, pull your fat from the fire yet. Go back and erase it. Now would be a good time, and you can always put "deleted by author." That way many readers here will miss it. Then later, when you've re-grouped and re-considered you'll be free to post another, after the dust has settled and the readers have forgotten your name.

{edit} You provide no evidence for any of your critiques, and your opinion should be ignored on the basis that you dismissed my story before even reading it (the asterix were a red flag).

[billl]

I didn't realize Martin Amis was condemned here, at least not any more than he is praised. I think he's great, but if anyone doesn't like him here, it doesn't have anything to do with membership requirements.

Anyhow, I started reading this somewhere in the middle and had a couple laughs. I don't know how much worse the grammar was in the earlier version(s), but that really is somehting you need to get straight if you want people to think you aren't being lazy about writing, especially with something like this. Not everyone can do it well, but throwing up a bunch of asterisks is I think rightly associated with an easier path, often taken by the lazy or unskilled. You might very well have potential as a writer, but this isn't a great introduction in the context of LitNet (which includes writers in high school as well as retirees), unless you're primarily interested in just weight issues and sexual problems.

[mgv1208]

I'm really just interested in anything comedic. I write these things based off of stand up bits that ive written. I wasnt saying liking Martin Amis is required, I'm saying that people constantly call him a douche, or something of that nature, without ever providing reasons for it. Its very annoying to hear criticisms without evidence, nor is it helpful. That is all im trying to say (the last part wasnt directed at you bill)

[hillwalker]

Ok Matt - you posted your story on a public forum and asked us to let you know what we thought. I did so (as did several other posters) but you didn't like what we said. That's fine. We're all allowed an opinion.
You also asked us to suggest ways to improve it. The best suggestion was to delete it but you chose to ignore that advice. Instead you launched a personal attack on the person who was offering a way for you to save face. Not the best way to get us to appreciate what you're trying to do here.

So let's look at what you actually wrote (and I'll ignore any grammatical flaws since you don't believe in proof reading before posting).

You begin by setting the scene - time and place.
This was your typical small college house party, a pretty good mix of people, a decent ratio of guys to girls, and lots of booze.
So far you're not grabbing my attention. You're busy drawing a picture but we need to know why we should bother watching. To be honest it reminded me of the kind of 'celebrity fluff' one reads in gossip columns. Who's dating who and were they were seen last night. In a nutshell you're not telling us a story are you?

The party isn't being described through the eyes of any particular character so we have to assume all the observations are yours as the omniscient author. In which case your choice of vocabulary is presumably meant to make some kind of point. Perhaps inject humour (or what you call a 'comedic' element). Which brings me to your portrayal of the women in the 'story' and the reason for my 'misogynist' comment:
The girls at this party weren't ordinary girls, by any means. They were either spectacularly attractive with big tits, big asses, and long legs, while somehow maintaining midsections that would make Olympians cringe with envy, or they were remarkably unattractive with stomachs that stretched below their ****s, tits that flopped around their ribs, and legs, which were somehow lacking in any visible muscle, despite all the weight they carried.
You can hardly claim that this was written by someone who has a high opinion of women. You're using physical appearances as the sole arbiter of whether or not a woman is to be admired or denigrated - making fun of those who don't measure up to 'the ideal woman'. It might get a cheap laugh from the jocks - but not from most of us, believe me. And I'm no 'stiff'. I was brought up on Frank Zappa's music so I've heard my share of 'A**es', 'c***s' and 't**s' - yes girls love to be objectified by guys. In context there's nothing wrong with coarse language, but I still maintain that the way you wrote this is disrespectful and a sign of a misogynistic attitude.

We're then subjected to a great deal of small talk. The kind of stuff girls talk about in their dorms or the rest rooms. Nothing shocking. But nothing remotely interesting either. Your characters came across as shallow and one-dimensional. Admittedly this kind of behaviour goes on - but what was your reason for displaying it in such detail?
You claim -
The girls in my story act exactly like guys, and are strong and do exactly what they want.
I thought most contemporary women had more ambition than that. Are you implying you're writing this to show your support for 'girl power'? or are you again looking for a cheap laugh?

The story then suddenly jumps to Billy's pov as he reflects on his date with Courtney. No plot structure as such - we've merely moved from one room to another and are suddenly inside one particular character's head. Obviously he's a loser and he provides a wealth of material for you to expose his limitations as a human being and as a lover. Perhaps this was supposed to be funny? Well, the word that springs to mind is 'embarrassing'.
None of us expect great literature on here but the entire scene was repetitive and stomach-churning. Reading it was like having someone place road-kill on our dinner plate then expect us to laugh at it. Puerile rather than audacious.

All you managed to do was make sex demeaning and boring. Throwing in as many sexual references as possible isn't considered particularly ground breaking or clever.

It doesn't get any better. Bobby's next. Still no plot arc. Just random snapshots of people you want us to laugh at. Billy finds a chisel in the room (like you do) and uses it to stimulate his girlfriend. Is that the part of the story that's supposed to be funny perhaps? No. You still didn't raise a titter here.

Then we go back to Billy and his drunken finale. And you want to know how you can improve your writing. Perhaps I'm missing something but I would say you need to find something worth writing about first. Why would anyone who wasn't at the party want to read this dross?

I don't think that anybody should be in the business of saying if something is done in bad taste.

But your readers have the right to decide whether they find something offensive or not when a piece is put up for feedback. No one is advocating censorship on here but if you genuinely want your writing to be admired you have to exercise some restraint and some self-imposed quality control. This piece was self-indulgent.

It may just not be something that interests you, others may like it.

Define the word 'interests' - what was there in this that could possibly interest anyone outside the small group of people who attended the party?

I already know why some of you dislike it, you came into it thinking it was poor writing, due to the asterix, which is clearly an absurd prejudice.

Wrong assumption - poor writing is generally exposed in limited vocabulary rather than the overuse of particular words. There's lots of great literature that uses the occasional **** word.

I like to create absurd characters that serve my purpose, maybe background characters are a weakness of mine, and ill try to write them better.

I'm sorry, but your 'purpose' presumably was to poke fun at stereotypes. Hardly something to be admired and not something most would choose to read.

Some people on here think they know how a story should be constructed and anything that differs from their concept of a story gets criticized. I have spoken to a lot of people that have read this and they've all said that it was well written, and that it reminded them of their college days.

I assume you canvassed the jocks rather than the English professors. It might indeed be a true reflection of college life in the USA but it's still bad writing. It's not a 'story' because nothing happens. It's a muddled record of people behaving at their worst. There are so many ways you could have brought this to life and made the characters memorable. But instead you took the lazy way out.

Oh, and I also read 'The Splash Zone' and that's basically a feeble one-line joke stretched to more than 900 words. If you want the specifics you can read my post on there.

H

[E.A Rumfield]

Bukowski's Woman(or women, not sure which) is the most boring and repetitive novel I've ever read. If I wanted to write something like that I would've i chose not to.]

What you wrote was a turd. Bukowski wrote about drinking and whoring but he also got deep.

I got up left her, had another drink. A young guy-at least 6 foot 6 inches tall-walked up to me. "Look Chinaski, I don't believe all that **** about you living on skidrow and knowing all the dope dealers pimps whores junkies horse players fighters and drunks."

"It's partly true."
"Bull****." he said and walked off. A literary critic.

Then this blonde about 19 with rimless glasses and a smile walked up. The smile never left. "I want to **** you." she said. "It's your face."
"What about my face."
"It's magnificent. I want to destroy your face with my ****."
"It might be the other way around."
"Don't bet on it."
"You're right ****s are indestructible."


That's gold.

[hillwalker]

enjoyed the party

Such an astute reading. Just the kind of inspired feedback this site needs.

Are you a bot or a real person? You seem to appear everywhere promoting your turgid links to God knows what.

H

[CreatetheOutlet]

I joined this site just so I could comment on your story, which I enjoyed quite thoroughly. It was certainly way different from nearly all of the short stories one comes across these days. I didn't find it boring at all. And I like the way it had, like, no plot. And you name characters who then never actually resurface in the story. Like when you list the names of the hot girls and the ugly girls, then never mention most of them again.

I also read the edited version of the story on that link you posted. However, I think the unedited version--including the blanked-out words--actually works better for this particular story. I really enjoyed the errors and the fact that I had to guess what some of the "bad" words were (not that they were that hard to guess).

I know a lot of people are hating on your story, but they are thinking from the perspective of normal writers. It is highly unlikely they are capable of bringing anything unique to the table. However, I do believe that some of the most engaging aspects of your story are the unintentional result of your amateurishness/lack of awareness. Don't get me wrong about that. Having been around a lot of creative people, though, I have come to realize that creativity is frequently the result of a certain type of obliviousness. Like, for example, if I wrote this story, I'd be like, "What the hell did I just write? This is total crap that no one will like. I'm never showing it to anyone." However, your obliviousness to what the readers on this website will actually like is what allowed you to go through with posting this in the first place. That lack of awareness, in my opinion, is a source of true creativity. And again, the people here who are systematically deconstructing/putting down your story do not posses, or even understand, that type of creativity. Real creativity. That is what you have. Like, you can't help but be creative and do things differently. It's almost out of your control. That's the type of creativity I look for in a writer, or any artist for that matter.

So, I encourage you to continue writing and writing and writing and writing. You'll only get better. And when I talk about your "obliviousness" and whatnot, please don't take that as an insult. I am simply trying to describe to you what I have come to define as the real source of creativity.

Also, I publish a literary magazine at the University of Florida. It's just a student-run magazine, nothing huge, and the next issue won't be coming out for a few more months. However, given your permission, I would possibly like to publish this story (the original, unedited version) in the magazine. Also, before the story, I would write a short piece explaining why this story struck me as interesting and why I believe it has literary merit.

I'm not 100% certain I will be able to put it in magazine, but If I can, do I have your permission to publish it? Thanks.

-Mike