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shanonco's picture

It's (Not) What You Think

By shanonco in Scare Us

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Jeff's picture
Jeff from Florida is reading Another Side of Bob Dylan by Victor Maymudes July 31, 2012 - 8:51am

I liked your forcefield creature and the way you did a 1st person reveal, at the very end. I also enjoyed the Fargo-like Betty and her tenacity matched to the narrator's contempt.

Regarding the paragraphs on pg. 8 starting with -- "This isn't funny..." -- where Betty starts to make him nervous by reading the book, I think it would be stronger to turn it into dialogue.

This was a tight and suspenceful read.

shanonco's picture
shanonco from SE WIsconsin, USA is reading Taiko August 2, 2012 - 6:15pm

Thanks, first of all for the compliments... this is, of course, my first time submitting anything to the site for peer review... and actually, my first time submitting anything of the sort for any event.

I'll be playing with your suggestion in the next week or two... part of my decision to play along was to get advice or suggestion on how to play with my writing in different dimensions. It wouldn't be an exercise if you didn't work it out, and do some stretching.

More than anything. I'll be excited to sit down with some of the other submissions, this weekend. As would be appropriate and gentlemanly, I'll be starting with yours.

Jeff's picture
Jeff from Florida is reading Another Side of Bob Dylan by Victor Maymudes August 3, 2012 - 5:54am

I'm glad that helped. I'll be reviewing more stories too. There's a vast unexplored territory here.

I look forward to your comments.

Jane Wiseman's picture
Jane Wiseman from living outside of Albuquerque/in Minneapolis is reading Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks August 4, 2012 - 12:42am

This is a pretty powerful and evocative piece of writing, although in the end I was confused about exactly what did happen, what the book was all about, etc.

shanonco's picture
shanonco from SE WIsconsin, USA is reading Taiko August 4, 2012 - 12:38pm

What I wanted was to describe something that wasn't from this world, that came into ours by being noticed. Of course, it doesn't WANT to be noticed, so it devours the only thing that keeps it here: anything that retains a memory. It eats nervous systems.

I think it's comparable to Jung's theory of shadows; sometimes, what wants to stay hidden should stay hidden, lest the one who discovers it pays a terrible cost for the reward of understanding. This is not to say that these things should be unexplored, in my opinion. Maybe, sometimes, a person needs some arbiter to guide them through the tangle. Sometimes, help comes from a confidante or even a dream. Sometimes, it's a book, that was found by fate...