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Old September 30th, 2008, 05:53 PM
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Boot Crosses the Line

Latest installment of the Boot and Chris saga. It's a bit longer than the others. Here are some notes:

•Writing serial installments seems a bit cumbersome, especially with the alternate points of view. With this in mind, I've pasted both points of view into this installment. Suggestions? Should I be numbering them or something? Should I repost in different format?
•This episode is heavy on character development and light on muscular display, although there is some for those who stick with it. I think that if it's to continue, perhaps this emphasis should shift back. Again, suggestions welcome.

Anyway, hope some of you readers will continue to find some enjoyment from this. -
tortolis


Boot Crosses the Line - parts 3a and 3b

Chris

It’s been a big day. First I caught Boot hurrying out of my bedroom when I came back from class. Not that I was worried about what he might find, but what was he doing in there? Maybe I shouldn’t be taking my privacy for granted in a dorm suite, but I would never think of invading his space.

“What were you doing in there?” I asked him.

He was looking anything but guilty. “I knew it!” he said. “You’re an only child.”

“Say what?”

“I went into your room to see if there were any pictures lying around, and there’s you and your parents at some kind of thing, a state fair or a campfire, what was it?”

“Camping, we were just camping. We went just a couple of times. My father had a camper truck. It basically sucked.”

“They look kind of hippy-dippy. And there’s you, a Greek god in training. I think maybe you were adopted. You looked like that guy Brian from Lambda house with the head of a little boy stuck on his body, how old were you, twelve or fourteen? Just the three of you, right? Only child?”

“Dude, slow down, it doesn’t mean I didn’t have siblings, you know? Who do you suppose took the picture?” Boot has this way of smirking that makes you feel like you’re wrong even when you’re right. “What makes you think I’m an only child?”

“I just do. I’ve always thought so. It’s an instinct.” He’d always thought so? Listen to him. At this point we had known each other like maybe a week.

“Well, you’re right,” I admitted.

“Ha! I knew it. Solitude, my trusted companion. That’s you.”

“To tell you the truth, I thought you were an only child too.”

“Think again, dude. Two, count ‘em, two sisters. No waiting.”

“Older, right? That doesn’t count.”

“What do you mean?”

“Parents who spoiled you and older sisters who spoiled you, and everyone else treating you like the second coming. You were an only child on points.”

This stopped Boot in his tracks. He actually took a step back. “Why Chris, how uncharacteristically perceptive of you.”

His backhanded remarks don’t bother me, but I don’t want him to think they pass me by entirely. “Watch it,” I said. “You may be fast, but I caught you on my radar gun. And who are you calling hippy-dippy? Just what does that mean, anyway, hippy-dippy?”

“Not you, Golden Boy,” said Boot. “Take a look at the picture. You look like a fucking marble statue from fucking Greece, but your parents look like they make cheese in the backyard.” It was true, I was wearing swim trunks and looking outdoorsy, but my mother was wearing a baggy dress she had made herself and my father was wearing overalls. Cheese — now, there’s one idea they missed out on. We would’ve needed a cow or some goats.

“My father kept bees once, but it didn’t work out.”

“And your mother cut your hair, right?”

It was infuriating. He was always right, especially about the wrong things. Until the second I could pay for it myself, my mother had always cut my hair. Christ. “How the fuck did you know that?” I like Boot, I really do, but one of these days he could get himself into such trouble…like ‘to the moon, Alice.’ “Actually,” I said, “most people are surprised to learn I’m an only child. I was never spoiled, never self-important, never went to the head of the line. Never had that whole syndrome.”

In those first days of what might be a budding friendship with Boot — days that had flown by like years — this was the most serious moment between us so far. He looked me straight in the eyes, something he never does, and said, “I know. I know. But you’re so quiet so much of the time. You don’t say what’s on your mind. I think it’s because you’re accustomed to there being no one there to say it to. So that now it’s like you’re alone even when someone else is with you.”

Bull’s eye. “Well,” I said, “you seem to have it all worked out, what with the solitude and the hippy-dippy parents.” Boot had hedged his bets, like he always does. He had arranged the scene so either it was a harmless diversion from his break-in, or else it was this emotional moment where I’d start crying and throw my arms around him. Every angle has to work for him. And truthfully, I thought — I mean, I wasn’t sure — “What’s on my mind is, what the hell were you doing in my room?”

He ignored this, or talked past it, more like. “Dude, I’ve been wanting to get to know you. To know more about you. Maybe I have no right, but there it is. My life is an open book, everybody knows me. Who are you?”

We’re standing in the living room all this time. I turned and walked into my bedroom. It seemed tense, but I couldn’t have told you why; I wasn’t particularly angry, not really. I was wondering if he’d follow me, which he did. I took off my shirt, let it drop on the floor, and flopped down on my bed with my legs hanging down. I looked up at the ceiling, but I could see him sit down in my desk chair.

Silence. “I’m not angry,” I said.

“Dude, look at you. I would never make you angry. That would be the mother of all bad decisions.”

I actually liked him calling me ‘dude.’ No one had ever done that as I could recall. “So you’re free to go,” I said.

“Chris, my man, it’s me. Boot. What are you hiding? You should be living out loud. You should be on a fucking pedestal everywhere you go.”

“Against my rules, Boot,” I said. “Never have anything to hide, never put anything on display. It’s like that sign at the airport when you’re going through customs, nothing to declare.” I was lying back but sat up a bit to look at him, leaning on my elbows. At this he started laughing and then snorted, trying to suppress it. I knew what had happened: The movement made my abs come out more, and leaning on my upper arms caused them to tense up and become more defined, and there I was talking about not displaying myself. But I meant what I was saying, and I knew what I was doing. By taking my shirt off and letting him see me, I was making my body a barrier between Boot and me. Boot is insatiable, he’ll suck up everything around him like a vacuum cleaner and charm you while he’s doing it. But my body is mine and nobody else’s. And with it out in the open, he wouldn’t dare come near it.

If eyes could lick, that’s what his were doing. He wasn’t talking. For the first time since we had met, I was the one in control. “I’ve got a question for you, and I think you’ll get it wrong,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Am I happy?”

“You? Are you happy? No fair, dude. Trick question. Whatever I say, you’ll say it’s wrong.”

“You know I won’t cheat. Besides, I already gave away the answer by the way I asked the question.”

“Still. You’re going to say I’m being evasive, but I have to say that you don’t seem happy, and that’s true whether you’re happy or not.” He was right. “So I win the prize?”

“The prize is knowledge, dude,” I said. I was trying out that word ‘dude’ on him. “And the answer is this: Whereas you are always happy and never satisfied, I am always happy and always satisfied. And of our many differences, that is the biggest one.”

“Whoa,” he said. “Talk about your still waters. And to think, all that money paid out to therapists. Where were you when we needed you?”

“You were in therapy?” I said.

“Oh, yeah, millions of times. My sisters, too. My parents were into outsourcing the whole child-raising thing, big-time.”

“Boarding school, huh.”

“Oh, no, local private schools. They kept us around. But they didn’t want me coming here to Wisconsin. They wanted the ivies for us, the ivies and the seven sisters. This was, well, the last place they wanted. State school. Big disappointment. God, I love this place.”

“I was in therapy, too,” I said.

“You? How ridiculous. Last thing you wanted. What you wanted was a trainer,” he said.

“No,” I said, “that’s another difference between us. Therapy could actually have done me some good. But the guy I got sent to was pretty crappy and pretty much after-the-fact.”

“Really,” said Boot, leaning forward in my chair. “Tell me about that. How did it make you feel?” Boot really is funny sometimes. Almost all the time.

“You know,” I said, “it’s funny that we wound up in the same suite. I think that in life basically we all negotiate a contract with the world, we decide on the terms by which we want to live and the world gives us back the kind of life that we’re allowed to live on those terms, and that’s our contract. And of all the thousands of people on this campus, I bet you and I are the two people who have negotiated the best contracts for ourselves. Now, you take my parents. They both grew up in cities, both hated city life, but they both loved things that you can only find in cities. Like theatre, they’re real theatre hounds. So they found a place that they loved, a beautiful place that had real country living, but close to New York, an hour on the train. And they put together all the things they wanted, and none of the things they didn’t want. Sounds good. And yet what they got back was a pretty lousy contract. I think they’ve always been pretty unhappy.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“Well, Montgomery is a beautiful place, but I think they are kind of judgmental and scornful of everything there, and everybody.” Wisconsin is beautiful, too, but now I found myself missing home. “In Montgomery you either live in the village or in the country, and out in the country where we live, our closest neighbor is about a half mile away, and my parents keep to themselves. They might’ve been happier if they hadn’t had me.”

“You were an accident? Me, too.”

“Oh, yeah. I don’t know why they weren’t on contraception. My mother had been pregnant before and came to term, but the baby was born dead. Fool me once, shame on me; fool me twice…they didn’t want the girl, either. Weird.”

“And abortion was out of the question?”

“Not really. It was like she couldn’t decide, or never got around to it. Hormones, maybe, I don’t know.”

“Maybe if your father could have whittled a diaphragm…”

“Asshole. Anyway, as children go, I worked out pretty well for them. At least, once I as out of diapers. That was part of the problem. I never saw another kid, no play dates. My parents gave me a CD player for music, DVDs, no cable, and I kept myself occupied all day. By the time I arrived at kindergarten I was reading, doing arithmetic, printing neatly, learning script. They were kind of smug about it, and I was their little man. And then I got to school and I had never seen a baseball, never played with other children, never really played a game of any kind. Didn’t know how.”

“Well, all right, but you must’ve been fucking great at it.”

“Just the opposite. I was more pathetic than all the jokes about the kid who never gets picked for the team. So I didn’t join in. I kept to myself and didn’t talk to anyone, got teased a lot, you know. I basically spent my early years crying a lot.” I was so unhappy in those days that, looking back on it, I think it’s impressive in a way, just for having survived. “So by the time winter of my kindergarten year is ending, the school principal calls my mother into his office and says he’s very sorry, that they’ve tried their best with me but I’m not making the basic social adjustment to school and that there seems to be a problem, perhaps autism or Asperger’s, that I should get professionally diagnosed, that I wouldn’t make it through the first grade in his school but they were doing wonderful things in special ed, etcetera, etcetera. I actually know the whole speech because my mother repeated it over and over again as a joke. She said it was the funniest thing she ever heard. And it was proof that everyone in Montgomery was an idiot. But she wasn’t concerned that something might actually be wrong, that I might have a problem or be unhappy or there was something to worry about, not a bit.”

“So what happened? How’d you get so — in the picture, were you lifting weights already?”

“No, calisthenics. Exercises. It’s odd, what happened. You can imagine what gym class was like for me. Mainly I’d just leave the group and sit it out, not caring if it got me in trouble. But the classes started with us in rows for calisthenics, jumping jacks and squat thrusts, sit-ups and push-ups, like that, and those I would do. And the gym teacher would walk up and down checking our movements, and sometimes he’d tell a kid ‘watch Chris’ or ‘do it like Chris.’ At first I didn’t think he meant it, but he did. Starting in about fourth grade, more and more. Or he’d say to me, ‘nice form, Chris,’ or ‘looking good, Chris.’ Which started me exercising at home, free exercises, something I was good at. I started looking them up and developing at-home workouts. And then got some weights, then some more…”

“And then you became an athlete and got popular.”

“Not really, not at all, I got bigger and in better shape, but I wasn’t any less ostracized, not much.”

“I can’t believe that. Look at you.”

I shrugged. “Things bothered me less, sure. But think of your own school. The popular kids are the ones who started out popular. The athletes are the ones on teams. In my class, the girl who was voted prom queen wasn’t even pretty, yet everyone decided she was the most beautiful girl town. Yet there was this one girl, you had to see her to believe her, she was so beautiful. Puerto Rican, with almond eyes and olive skin and the most perfectly beautiful face and body. Not even popular. Not in with the cool kids. Not ostracized. But you know how it is. I used to just stare at her.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“No. I had my share, I guess, but not her. I got chased by some smart girls who weren’t in with the cool kids. It all worked out fine, I guess. To tell you the truth…I don’t know. The girls I’ve had, if we were dancing, there’s no question they’d be leading.”

“So. You don’t know what? You like submission? That’s okay.”

“No, it’s just that I still feel like the jury’s out on sex, contract-wise. My therapist said I didn’t feel myself worthy of love, and until I did…anyway, he wanted me to work on it. He was full of shit. Incompetent.”

“So maybe your mother was right about your town?”

“The shrink wasn’t her idea. Actually, there was a sort of intervention, I’m not sure of the deal. It was with the same gym teacher, coach Barkman. He moved up to the high school the same year I did, and when I was in tenth grade there was an incident. I’m not sure if there’s more to it than I know. But I was in the locker room, dressed and leaving, the last one there, and he came in and was totally in the buff, not unusual for a locker room, right? And he comes strutting over to me and says, ‘so, Chris, what do you think, not bad for a thirty-nine-year-old, right?’ And he pops a boner, but he keeps talking. ‘You’ve got to stay in shape, Chris. Nothing is more important. It’s a lifelong pursuit. You’ve got what it takes.’ And then he turns and walks away with it bobbing in front of him.”

“So gross!”

“Actually, he was in great shape, and I still hated gym, and I didn’t think anything of it. But the next day I get called into the guidance counselor’s office and he tells me that there’s a rumor that I want to get coach Barkman fired and did I know how it got started. And of course, I hadn’t said anything to anybody and had no idea what he was talking about, and I said I didn’t really want Barkman fired, he was my gym teacher since first grade. But then Barkman was fired and they asked me to enter counseling. So I guess someone saw us.”

“Did your parents sue the school? You could’ve netted a million or so with the right lawyer. What was wrong with your therapist? I’m thinking maybe he was right.”

“About what?”

“About your feeling worthy of love. Look at you. You should have people lining up.”

“Nah. After the incident with Barkman, I started training more intensively, feeling great, shutting out everyone who had shut me out. I loved it, but he thought it was like I was training to crowd out some pain, that if the conflict was gone I wouldn’t feel the need to lift…”

“And?”

“And? And? He didn’t get it. My body is the best thing in my life. That doesn’t begin to describe it. Have you ever seen the play ‘Equus’?”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“It played on Broadway with the kid from ‘Harry Potter’ in the lead part. My parents took me. We read it in Honors English.”

"So?" asked Boot.

“So it’s basically the story of the kid’s therapy, and I began to feel my shrink and I were living it out. Except, of course, that the kid is completely psychotic, driven by the conflict between his adolescent sexual urges and his lifelong obsession with horses.”

“What happens?”

“He commits an atrocity on the horses.”

“Oh, gross. Bestiality.”

“No, actually, he mutilates them. In the eyes. Also gross, but that’s not it. The thing is, there’s something magnificent about the intensity of his thing for horses. The shrink doesn’t get it, but he knows he doesn’t. The kid asks him, ‘have you ever galloped?’ And the shrink knows he never has, not like the kid has, and he never will. The point is that if the kid’s psychosis is cured, he’ll never gallop again. Except, of course, I’m not psychotic. And my shrink didn’t know that he didn’t get it.” I sat up, then stood up. “This” — I pointed to my big, beautiful, cold bicep — “and these,” sweeping my hand across my abs — “and these” — I flexed my quads. “They’re mine. My secret. So much more than any of them could imagine. All those years. I don’t need any of you. I’ve got me.”

I was talking from momentum, without knowing what I meant. But it seemed to affect Chris. First he stared at me as if spellbound. Then he got up and walked slowly toward me, put his hands on my delts and said “Come here, you,” and kissed me. Kissed me like I’ve never been kissed by a girl, kissed the way a passionate, experienced, knowing lover kisses. Then he ran his mouth along my jawline, my neck, my shoulders. He nestled his chin on my chest. He squeezed my delts.

“Jeeze, Boot,” I said. “You’re gay?” He had me breathless and kind of dazed.

“I used to say I was straight as an arrow and twice as fast,” said Boot. “Up until the first moment I saw you.”

“And now?”

“And now I have no fucking idea.”

************************************************** *******************************


Boot

I am fucked. So…totally…fucked.

Well, look at it this way: The best test of a good manager is an unexpected change in conditions. An ill-timed problem you don’t see coming. A challenge. And if that’s true, then this week could be an incredibly valuable lesson for me. On the other hand…what the fuck do I do about it?

Here’s the deal: this afternoon Chris arrives back at the suite as I’m looking through the stuff in his room. I’d already gone in earlier in the day looking for something that would provide the Key To Chris, but there was nothing, and I couldn’t stop myself from going back. And sure enough, I hear his key in the door while I’m into his bottom dresser drawer. And of course, there’s still nothing there. Nothing.

I knew I was in some kind of trouble before he even came back, because the decision to sneak around represented a lapse in discipline of a kind I haven’t had in years. What was I doing, or rather, why couldn’t I fight off this impulse?

Yes, he caught me. Yes, I deflected his questions. But within five seconds, my mind was on his body and our confrontation became something else. I was totally out of control. Here’s my new business vocabulary: pectorals, abdominals, trapezius muscles, latissimus dorsi, seerratus muscles, and not just any, but his. You might call them hidden assets: Chris has started spending money on the kind of clothing I wear, Oxford shirts and belted slacks, covering himself up. If you’ve got any kind of an eye, you can see what’s going on under there. I don’t know who else he’s fooling, but not me. And why would he want to?

And then, after all my sneaking around, I simply ask him to open up…and he does. Poignantly, if a little confusingly — this kid is smart and strong and has a certain amount of self-knowledge, but not nearly as much as he thinks he does.

But then, he doesn’t lie. His physique has taken him to a place where he sees no need to lie about anything to anyone. And here I am being dishonest with him left and right, and I feel like shit about it. And am I being dishonest with myself? Where is the truth here?

Fuck it, I’m avoiding. The deal is this: Chris bares his feelings, not to mention his body, and it leads to us kissing. Hell, I kiss him. Full out. But you had to see him there, showing me what it was like to have those muscles and to feel invincible in the face of his pain. Am I falling in love with the guy? Or do I want him as an incredible object?

As far as the management challenge goes, here’s what I’ve decided: I’ve got to proceed with business as usual while trying to figure this out. I’ve got to try never to be dishonest with this kid or hurt him. Or worst of all, make him mad. And I’ve got to decide what my deal is.


Last edited by tortolis; October 2nd, 2008 at 07:57 PM.
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Old September 30th, 2008, 06:38 PM
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really different...

way waaaaaay different. But I gotta admit, I'm hooked on this one. Not sure what I think about these characters. I'm as confused as boot. But I like, like, LIKE the tension. Very invigorating!

Thanks for the effort on this one!
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Old September 30th, 2008, 06:52 PM
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Damn, this is like a relationship. With really big muscles. and a heart. You get the superficial first then a little more depth as time goes on and then something helps pop the bubble. Like taking the shine off of it. Then you can really play with it. But in this case Boot is smart enough that he knows not to play. Good kid. They are both good kids. Boot did one of those beautiful little things that anyone with a heart would do. Never had a surprise birthday party? Never had a best friend? Never had a real friend?
That "come here you" is one I have heard in my head or in really great stories.
That is powerful writing. As simple and as powerful as that. Boot had no fear that his actions would be misconstrued. He was showing someone without love what an act of love was like.
Beautiful, dude.
Keep Writing.

redroger11
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Old September 30th, 2008, 09:07 PM
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Wow

Chris understands himself pretty well, better than most people will ever understand themselves. I suppose when you spend a lot of your life alone there's time for plenty of introspection.

I wonder if Boot will be able to show him something about himself that he doesn't know, that he doesn't even suspect.

When you define a character as well as you have defined Chris, I always wonder about testing his limits. In other words, what would it take to ruffle that icey calm Chris has wrapped himself in. There's got to be something. I wonder what it is.
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Old October 1st, 2008, 12:07 AM
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This is a great series so far, really engaging! Looking forward to (hopefully) lots more to come!

Some comments on purely technical matters (especially since you asked):


Quote:
Originally Posted by tortolis View Post
?Writing serial installments seems a bit cumbersome, especially with the alternate points of view. With this in mind, I've pasted both points of view into this installment.
I think putting both POVs into the same thread is probably a worthwhile efficiency, especially since each individual entry is relatively short. (That's NOT a criticism, by any means! Hell, I envy anyone who's mastered brevity, it's a talent that completely eludes me -- and endless source of personal frustration.)

You might consider posting the second "half" of each scene as a response to your own thread, so that it shows up as a completely separate post directly below the first part. I think that sort of division would be useful in reading the story, while still holding the topic count down. (I assume you're injecting these entries fully-formed after editing them offline, in which case posting is a quick process that takes on the order of seconds -- shouldn't be much danger of someone sneaking a comment in between the two entries. You could always end the first section with "PLEASE DON'T COMMENT YET, STORY WILL CONTINUE BELOW" and then edit it out when you're done. Which already is serious overkill in response to a non-problem, I suspect.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by tortolis View Post
Suggestions? Should I be numbering them or something? Should I repost in different format?
Pleeezepleezepleeze start numbering them in some fashion! I'll give you a simple, real-world scenario that'll demonstrate why you should -- a scenario that also happens to be true, as it just occurred.

The first story-part of your second scene ("Chris and Boot Visit a Frat") doesn't pick up directly from the end of the previous scene (second POV), in terms of linear time -- you employ a fairly standard (and useful) "time-shift" literary device, and drop the reader into the start of Chris's second day of work.

That's a perfectly good way to start, and like I said in terms of storytelling it's a great device... but picking up the story right at that point, and reading, "When I arrived for my second night of work at Boston Charlie's..." without anything to anchor this installment to any of the ones around it, certain readers' first reaction (...OK, MY first reaction) might be to say, "...Did I miss a chapter?", and have to go searching through the list of postings under your user profile in order to confirm that, no, the timeline is supposed to jump to that point. Which can distract from the enjoyment of the actual story. (Case in point: I still haven't gotten back to actually reading it, yet.)

The simple comfort of picking up "Part 2A", having already enjoyed "Part 1A" and "Part 1B" (or whatever), can completely eliminate that sort of ambiguity. Which can only serve to help you more comfortably tell your story in whatever form, and with whatever timeline, you feel is best.

-Pup
P.S> See what I mean about brevity?
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Old October 1st, 2008, 07:30 AM
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Really good suggestions

Quote:
Originally Posted by nypup2train View Post
This is a great series so far, really engaging! Looking forward to (hopefully) lots more to come!

Some comments on purely technical matters (especially since you asked):



I think putting both POVs into the same thread is probably a worthwhile efficiency, especially since each individual entry is relatively short. (That's NOT a criticism, by any means! Hell, I envy anyone who's mastered brevity, it's a talent that completely eludes me -- and endless source of personal frustration.)

You might consider posting the second "half" of each scene as a response to your own thread, so that it shows up as a completely separate post directly below the first part. I think that sort of division would be useful in reading the story, while still holding the topic count down. (I assume you're injecting these entries fully-formed after editing them offline, in which case posting is a quick process that takes on the order of seconds -- shouldn't be much danger of someone sneaking a comment in between the two entries. You could always end the first section with "PLEASE DON'T COMMENT YET, STORY WILL CONTINUE BELOW" and then edit it out when you're done. Which already is serious overkill in response to a non-problem, I suspect.)



Pleeezepleezepleeze start numbering them in some fashion! I'll give you a simple, real-world scenario that'll demonstrate why you should -- a scenario that also happens to be true, as it just occurred.

The first story-part of your second scene ("Chris and Boot Visit a Frat") doesn't pick up directly from the end of the previous scene (second POV), in terms of linear time -- you employ a fairly standard (and useful) "time-shift" literary device, and drop the reader into the start of Chris's second day of work.

That's a perfectly good way to start, and like I said in terms of storytelling it's a great device... but picking up the story right at that point, and reading, "When I arrived for my second night of work at Boston Charlie's..." without anything to anchor this installment to any of the ones around it, certain readers' first reaction (...OK, MY first reaction) might be to say, "...Did I miss a chapter?", and have to go searching through the list of postings under your user profile in order to confirm that, no, the timeline is supposed to jump to that point. Which can distract from the enjoyment of the actual story. (Case in point: I still haven't gotten back to actually reading it, yet.)

The simple comfort of picking up "Part 2A", having already enjoyed "Part 1A" and "Part 1B" (or whatever), can completely eliminate that sort of ambiguity. Which can only serve to help you more comfortably tell your story in whatever form, and with whatever timeline, you feel is best.

-Pup
P.S> See what I mean about brevity?
Thanks, this helps. A lot.

I'm sure you know that great quotation from Mark Twain, "If I'd had more time I would have written you a shorter letter."

I've taught creative writing a few times to college undergraduates, and one of my tricks early in the semester was to point out that deleting the first paragraph of an assignment almost always improved it. - t
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Old October 1st, 2008, 10:24 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tortolis View Post
I've taught creative writing a few times to college undergraduates, and one of my tricks early in the semester was to point out that deleting the first paragraph of an assignment almost always improved it. - t

OMG! I TOOK THAT CLASS!

Just kidding...I SHOULD have taken that class!

First...numbering...if chronology matters to the story, absolutely number them, just keep it simple. The "1A/1B" & "2A/2B" will work great. If the episodes are capable of standing alone and don't rely on information from prior episodes, flip a coin...just be consistent.

Second...I love this line: "If eyes could lick, that’s what his were doing."

Third..."For the first time since we had met, I was the one in control.": I call "BULLSHIT"!!! Chris is still the big bulldog, strutting down the street and Boot is the yappy little terrier doing his absolute best to somehow peg Chris into terms he understands. Boot can't handle NOT being in control and he just doesn't know how to handle the big stud...or his own startling attraction to the muscleman. Chris is just consciously controlling the situation where it would normally be the case without any effort on his part...he's not a control freak, like Boot...it just happens. I love how aware Chris is of his body's effect on others and how casual he is about it.

I need to brush up on my psych lessons to keep up with this story...


Great job!
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Old October 1st, 2008, 12:58 PM
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Sometimes the points of view style can be unweildy and tiresome, but you've accomplished it well here.
I also agree that numbering would be helpful for your "chapters."
Keep up the great storyline. The psych reflections are not only useful but amusing as well.
Mike
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Old October 1st, 2008, 09:31 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaypat View Post
Chris understands himself pretty well, better than most people will ever understand themselves. I suppose when you spend a lot of your life alone there's time for plenty of introspection.
Chris thinks he understands himself. "Only children" have no siblings to help them along, so they have to figure stuff out for themselves. I was almost 30 before I came out... man was I stupid.
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Old October 2nd, 2008, 02:15 AM
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The thing I'm finding fascinating here is that Boot continually thinks of Chris as
"kid" or as some kind of protege, someone he feels (or tries to feel) superior to.

So far, Chris seems not to have twigged to this, and I suspect when he does, he may choose to disabuse Boot of that notion of superiority. And Chris seems to be pretty peaceful, so when he DOES get around to it, there probably won't be violence, but rather, calm but inexorable removal of all the illusions.
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Old October 2nd, 2008, 04:18 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by tortolis View Post
Thanks, this helps. A lot.

I'm sure you know that great quotation from Mark Twain, "If I'd had more time I would have written you a shorter letter."
Actually, I hadn't previously seen that particular quote, thank you! It's certainly.... Twainian, in a pleasing way.

The concept jibes with discussions I've been a part of during my software development years, regarding the commonly-used "[number of] lines of code" metric for determining the complexity of someone's software. We observed that while it might be a useful rough external metric for assessing a piece of software's scale, it's a piss-poor indicator of productivity or development speed -- any well-written unit of code usually balloons up to its maximum line-count somewhere in the middle of the development process, then settles down to a leaner, more streamlined final length afterwards, once it's subjected to a few retrospective optimization passes.

Prose is a different matter, since brevity isn't necessarily a direct goal and indeed good authors have a talent for embellishment that transcends efficiency. But I suspect the same principle applies: the best writing comes from re-writing, returning later on with a knowledge of what comes afterwards and tuning what's been written to best serve what follows. (That sentence hurts my brain.)

Quote:
Originally Posted by tortolis View Post
I've taught creative writing a few times to college undergraduates, and one of my tricks early in the semester was to point out that deleting the first paragraph of an assignment almost always improved it. - t
Whereas I'm the living embodiment of that first paragraph.... ... ... and I see your point!

My comments on numbering aren't confined just to your series (which I've co-opted as a convenient soapbox, in some ways), they're simply one facet of a larger message for all of the artists who are kind enough to contribute to the site. Basically, the message boils down to: "Structure Good!"

It's a fundamental precept of digital signaling and computer internetworking that communications links aren't required, or even expected, to be reliable -- if that assumption hadn't been woven into its design from the very beginning, the early experimental research networks would never have grown into the Internet we're all familiar with today. Messages will be garbled, information will arrive out of order, datagrams will be lost in transit. So, recognizing the inevitability of these issues, the system maintains a constant low-level flow of check-and-recheck signaling, linked nodes comparing their expectations to ensure that what the destination receives is precisely what the sender intended to communicate.

By the same token, any structure a writer can provide will only make it easier for the reader to more comfortably navigate their writing, which in turn greatly enhances the reader's ability to immerse themselves in the writing itself -- which is supposed to be the real point, after all! It's an irony, in some ways, that the more structure you provide, the easier it is for the reader to ignore -- hopefully to the point that it just vanishes into the background, allowing them to focus on the actual story contained within.

Whether it's sequentially (and consistently/predictably) numbering installments in a serialized work, opening continuing parts with a recap of the events that ended the previous section, or whatever, structure helps. And since we all think differently, and some people respond better to certain types of information and worse to others, it's even useful to employ a couple of different methods. (To overstate the analogy, network communication uses a 7-layer model, and different types of error-checking and correction can occur at each layer.) The goal isn't to restrict an author's work or box him in... it's to communicate all of the little, basic, housekeeping things about a story clearly and simply enough that the readers can just ignore that stuff, and spend their time and energy reading.

-Pup
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Old October 3rd, 2008, 12:01 PM
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Excitingly engaging. Personal from a second person perspective.


(Did I just sound like a quotation on a book cover?)

I like the format; you make it work.
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