Beautiful People with Beautiful Smiles

[CapitalSigma]

Hello all,

I wrote a rather long short story and posted it on scribd: http://www.scribd.com/doc/34715386/Tales-From-the-Ashtray-1-1

It's called "Tales from the Ashtray" on scribd as it is the first piece in a series exploring a few stylistic choices that I want to write over the next few weeks. As a single piece however, I think the title above is more suiting. I hope you all enjoy it!

EDIT: Not really sure what the norm is in terms of posting things like this but I would love to hear feedback about the story and the effectiveness of its style. Thank you!

[hillwalker]

I have taken a look, but generally readers will not bother to follow a link – it’s much better if you paste any new stories directly into your new thread.

Anyway, a few observations….. and these are purely my own so feel free to ignore.

Firstly, I guess that sound must be the great Franz Kafka turning over in his grave. You are trying too hard to mimic a particular style that was used to portray paranoia and the totalitarianism of a repressive state. In this story it does not make a great deal of sense because the ‘conflict’ is unrealistic (a tramp harassing a supposedly professional man – as if he is some kind of undercover police officer – then just letting him go and wishing him a nice day – even if you are using the tramp as a metaphor for the State it is bizarre). And the repetitive motifs of the glass wall/brick wall (presumably to suggest repression) and the ‘beautiful’ restaurant customers (the bourgeoisie?) are overblown and over-used and in the end becoming annoying to the reader.

I think your reliance on style has taken away your ability to tell this story with any conviction. To begin with the opening paragraph is far too long-winded. You spend far too long telling us how the sun was reflecting onto L’s jacket – and do it in quite an awkward way. Most readers would be put off by this right away and probably not bother reading any further.

Indeed, overall the way you express yourself is complicated to say the least, and often extremely confusing. I’ve picked a few examples but there are many more.

What does softly and yet directly, with the pace of a man who professionally deals with his acquaintances in only the most intimate manner mean? I don’t see how his behaviour with work colleagues effects the way he walks.

The sun shone down from above – unnecessarily stating the obvious twice in just 6 words. And later you describe the smouldering sun (it’s a hard image to picture as smouldering implies there was smoke coming out of it).

scarcely able to fit two men standing side by side (there has to be a better way of expressing this – perhaps ‘not wide enough for two men to pass each other’)?).

women in many different dresses and with many different bodies (are you saying each woman has many different bodies? or are stating the obvious again?).

the interaction below the fine gold-flaked edges of their thick white plates, effervescent glasses and bright, clear-eyed smiles (is this meant to be the interaction out in the alley? which would hardly be taking place below the plates….. or some kind of interaction between the crockery and the diners?).

This is a warm day – there's no reason for them to be so angry (doesn't make a great deal of sense either)

Finally, the entire dialogue between L and the old man is totally out of place and nothing like Kafka's style, unless he also wrote pulp fiction since this is exactly how detectives and hoodlums spoke in cheap comic books in the 50’s. It sounds so false.

My advice – get the story and characters sorted out first. Is it a story any reader would care to read? Make sure it is. And keep it simple and direct. Sort your dialogue out as well so that it reads naturally. Then you can start feeding in touches of ‘style’ to make it Kafkaesque if you really need to.

You probably wish you hadn’t asked for anyone to crit this now, but I have tried to be as fair and honest as possible. And of course, this is just my opinion. You can choose to dismiss it.

You do have the ability to create tension and unease – but there is still more work needed before this will appeal to the general reader.

Good luck, H