"There She Goes" Part I - Writers Forum

Strummer · 06-10-2006, 11:28 PM

This is my first sucessfully completed short story. Any feedback appreciated. I'm trying to decide whether or not it's worth a second draft. Cutting and pasting it to the forum kind of screwed up the paragraph breaks so please bear with me. Thanks for reading.

Will mounted the stage with all the courage of a mouse in sight of a cat. His guitar felt heavy on his knee. Everyone looked at him so expectantly he thought he was going to throw up. His head spun and he dug his feet into the smooth wooden panels of the stage floor to steady himself before he floated off into space and disappeared like the notes he was about to play.
He forgot his setlist. He wrote out the songs he was going to play and had spent about an hour memorizing what they were, and the order they were to be played in. Now he’d forgotten. "Play something safe," said the voices in his head; "something you know."
The only thing that came to mind was "Long Black Veil." That was good though. It’s an old folk song and people like it. Or at least they don’t complain that it’s been played and recorded by just about everybody in the phone book and most of the unlisted people too. By playing "Long Black Veil", he would be following in the footsteps of so many great musicians. He would make Johnny Cash proud.
It was then he realized he had been sitting there for about three minutes and hadn’t played anything. He had his head down. He risked a quick upward glance. The customers weren’t paying much attention at all. "Good," he thought. There was nothing to worry about. This was a coffee shop. These people weren’t really here to listen to him in the first place, and they probably wouldn’t even pay much attention. The situation was under control.
He realized that as he sat on the old stool, atop the stage, and thought about all of these things, the time was steadily ticking away. His uncle Fred had just opened the shop, and although he must have realized that Fred’s Café, was not a promising name for a coffee shop, he still thought he had a promising business on his hands. Will didn’t want to screw that up.
He looked down at his guitar, silently begged it to be faithful to him and began to play.
He remembered the chord progression and he sang in key. He even managed to remember what he had planned to play next. "Spanish Harlem Incident", one of his favorite Bob Dylan songs. That one was kind of difficult to sing, and didn’t go quite as well, but no one seemed to notice. They looked down or at each other, and sipped their coffee silently, or almost silently. Some had quiet conversations, probably about some independent film shown recently at the library or something like that. Will assumed that was the sort of thing people talked about in coffee shops. He’d never actually been to one before. He didn’t drink coffee, and he never had any reason to go anywhere except to the record shop.
In fact, he’d been at the record shop on Saturday morning, when he met a very interesting girl. She had long black hair, sharp green eyes that spoke of a good spirited intelligence and she wore ripped jeans with a bunch of patches all over them. She had on a Sonic Youth t-shirt and he had really hoped she wouldn’t try to talk to him about Sonic Youth. He liked "Teenage Riot" quite a bit, but he didn’t know much of their music beyond that. Luckily, she was into The Velvet Underground lately. She had seen him looking at the Nico album: Chelsea Girl. She came up to him and said "Isn’t it a shame that she was only with VU for one album?"
He agreed and told her the story of how Nico had broken up with Lou Reed. She laughed and was obviously impressed. He had to think of something else to say. He told her about his gig at the coffee shop and immediately wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t a big deal and he didn’t think he would do very well. He had been hoping no one he knew would be there. He hoped she would make an excuse as to why she couldn’t go.
"Sounds great," she said. "Im Zooey."
"I’m Will,"
This was a very strange situation for him. He had never really been in such close contact with a girl before. It was remarkable that the feeling between them seemed so casual. But as the gravity of the situation began to sink in, he got nervous. He didn’t know what to do next. He thought for a moment, which did him no good. He thought for a second moment which produced similarly useless results. Before he begin his third moment of thinking she made the move.
"I’ve gotta go," she said. "Maybe I’ll see you on Monday." Because Monday was the night of the concert. Tonight was Monday night. Tonight was Monday night, and she was not here.
He began to think he might never see her again. Ryesdale was a pretty big town, and they went to different schools. If he had any talent for math, he would, no doubt, be crunching the numbers to determine the likelihood of their running into each other again.
Just as Will finished wishing he had paid more attention in math class, she walked into the coffee shop, and right over to him. He had finished his set and was standing by the side of the stage, leaning against it like his guitar was, in its case.
Zooey greeted him and he did the same. "Are you all done?" she asked. "You told me you were playing at 9." He had actually been playing at eight. He must have told her the wrong time because he was nervous. He did not say the word "shit"out loud, but he certainly thought it in his head. On the bright side, he’d been saved from playing in front of her.
If Will had been the average sixteen year old boy, this may have been the time where his ego kicked in and he would have described the brilliance of his performance, how he had kept the audience so captivated a girl had cried when he left the stage, and people became so uproarious with their demands for an encore that the police were called in to quiet them down. Nothing like that happened though. He had played and then he had stopped playing and gotten off the stage. No one had clapped. No one even really cared. Besides, Will had never described anything he had ever done as brilliant and probably never would. Even when he got an A on a chemistry test, an amazing feat by any standard, he assumed it was a fluke and rested assured that he would fail the next test. He had failed the next test, and the one after that. In other words, he could never be described as "cocky". He never did anything to merit much pride, so he didn’t have any.
Anyhow, here he was standing two feet away from a pretty girl, who obviously had great taste in music, and he had absolutely no idea what to say to her. It didn’t even occur to him that he should have told her he’d made a mistake in telling her what time he was playing. He just stood there. After about a minute, which seemed like a decade, he got an idea.
"You wanna get some coffee?" He asked. Which was a logical question, seeing as how they were in a coffee shop. He had done well.
"Actually I can’t stand coffee." she told him. He agreed even though he had never had coffee in his life. He decided that if Zooey didn’t like coffee, it just wasn’t for him.
His first attempt to speak had failed and he took a moment to prepare for round two. Not exactly basking in the glow of the uncomfortable silence, Zooey took it upon herself to make a move and asked if he wanted to go for a walk. He did, and he told her so. They left the shop, and walked briskly down the main street in the dark. It was cold, so a leisurely pace was out of the question.
They really hit it off, talking about movies, books and of course music. Will began to forget that he was a loner without any real friends. This
girl seemed to like him and he really liked her. That was all he needed to know at the moment. He forgot all about walking the halls full of people with blank faces and no names. Sitting in classes full of people he didn’t know, although he been in school with them since kindergarten. He forgot about staring at the wall alone in his room , doing nothing but listening to music and being painfully aware that it was Friday night and everyone else was at a dance just five minutes away. He didn’t know how to reach out to people, but he was doing it now, and he felt like he’d been doing it his whole life. For once, he was a normal teenager, out at night with a girl, talking and laughing and having a great time. He wanted to hold her hand, but he knew that would be a big step. It was pathetic that someone as old as he would consider holding hands a big step, and he knew that, but still he couldn’t lie to himself. For him it was a big step. He would bide his time.
They passed all the way through the main stretch of town and made their way into the various neighborhoods, wandering around, just for something to do. Ryesdale wasn’t an exciting place. It was the kind of place where wandering around counted as something to do. They walked up Alden Street with her talking about her favorite guitar solos and him nodding, whether he agreed or not, stealing glances at her hand and wondering when the time would be right to make his move. They walked down Quagmire Road while she talked about the way emotions were expressed by the characters in Wes Anderson’s movies and he laughed at her Owen Wilson impression, still watching the hand all the time. They walked in circles, simply passing the time and operating on the unspoken agreement that they both wanted to be together and being "out for a walk" gave them an excuse. They walked under elm trees on Oak Street and oak trees on Elm street. They walked around corners and crossed in crosswalks. He watched where he was going, but just as much, he watched her hand. A very innocent form of desire had filled his head and overwhelmed him. She stopped walking and smiled at him. He smiled back. He started to say something, but she shushed him. She smiled again (very sweetly) and he smiled back. She moved closer to him. He look down at her hand again and felt suddenly embarrassed. He didn’t know quite how to go about this. He had been waiting this whole night to make this move and he knew that if he didn’t do it now, he wouldn’t do it ever. He might never meet another girl like Zooey. This was so important and still he was paralyzed by the self doubt that had been ingrained in him by years of feeling like he was meant to be alone, like no one was suppose to like him. He wasn’t suppose to have any friends, and he definitely was not suppose to hold any girl’s hand. But this was his chance to change all of that. If he could just...
Next time, he thought as headed down the street toward his house. He regretted not making a move. But logic and his rather naive brand of strategy seemed to require a waiting period. Some kind of pure intimate moment had to be established. Aside from that, she had rushed off after looking at her watch. He didn’t even have a chance to ask her what her hurry was. Not that he would have even thought of that. It seemed so unnatural for a girl to be associating with him that he would have been surprised by nothing. It seemed that maybe he was in an alternate universe, where anything could happen. If she was suddenly trampled by an elephant, he probably would have shrugged and kept walking.
What bothered him much more than her quick departure, was the fact that had been too stupid to get her phone number, or even her last name. Only if God deemed Will worthy of a miracle, would he see her again. He was not counting on it.

to be continued....

aliceedelweiss · 06-12-2006, 02:38 PM

I know this is an annoying way to critique, sorry...I just figured it be easier.

Quote:

Will mounted the stage with all the courage of a mouse in sight of a cat. His guitar felt heavy on his knee. Everyone looked at him so expectantly[semicolon] he thought he was going to throw up. His head spun and he dug his feet into the smooth wooden panels of the stage floor to steady himself before he floated off into space and disappeared like the notes he was about to play.

This sentence is way too long, and it has no puntuation in it at all. It just goes on and on. Either rewrite it as more than one sentence, find out how to punctuate it, or take it out completely.

Quote:

He forgot his setlist. He wrote out the songs he was going to play and had spent about an hour memorizing what they were, and the order they were to be played in. Now he’d forgotten. "Play something safe," said the voices in his head; "something you know."
The only thing that came to mind was "Long Black Veil." That was good though. It’s an old folk song and people like it. Or at least they don’t complain that it’s been played and recorded by just about everybody in the phone book and most of the unlisted people too. By playing "Long Black Veil", he would be following in the footsteps of so many great musicians. He would make Johnny Cash proud.
It was then he realized he had been sitting there for about three minutes and hadn’t played anything. He had his head down. He risked a quick upward glance. The customers weren’t paying much attention at all. "Good," he thought. There was nothing to worry about. This was a coffee shop. These people weren’t really here to listen to him in the first place, and they probably wouldn’t even pay much attention. The situation was under control.
He realized that as he sat on the old stool, atop the stage, and thought about all of these things, the time was steadily ticking away. His uncle Fred had just opened the shop, and although he must have realized that Fred’s Café, was not a promising name for a coffee shop, he still thought he had a promising business on his hands. Will didn’t want to screw that up.
He looked down at his guitar, silently begged it to be faithful to him and began to play.
He remembered the chord progression and he sang in key. He even managed to remember what he had planned to play next. "Spanish Harlem Incident", one of his favorite Bob Dylan songs. That one was kind of difficult to sing, and didn’t go quite as well, but no one seemed to notice. They looked down or at each other, and sipped their coffee silently, or almost silently.

This sentence just comes out really weird, find some way to rewrite it...

Quote:

Some had quiet conversations, probably about some independent film shown recently at the library or something like that. Will assumed that was the sort of thing people talked about in coffee shops. He’d never actually been to one before. He didn’t drink coffee, and he never had any reason to go anywhere except to the record shop.
In fact, he’d been at the record shop on Saturday morning, when he met a very interesting girl. She had long black hair, sharp green eyes that spoke of a good spirited intelligence[comma] and she wore ripped jeans with a bunch of patches all over them. She had on a Sonic Youth t-shirt and he had really hoped she wouldn’t try to talk to him about Sonic Youth. He liked "Teenage Riot" quite a bit, but he didn’t know much of their music beyond that. Luckily, she was into The Velvet Underground lately. She had seen him looking at the Nico album: Chelsea Girl. She came up to him and said "Isn’t it a shame that she was only with VU for one album?"
He agreed and told her the story of how Nico had broken up with Lou Reed. She laughed and was obviously impressed. He had to think of something else to say. He told her about his gig at the coffee shop and immediately wished he hadn’t. It wasn’t a big deal and he didn’t think he would do very well. He had been hoping no one he knew would be there. He hoped she would make an excuse as to why she couldn’t go.
"Sounds great," she said. "Im Zooey."
"I’m Will,"
This was a very strange situation for him. He had never really been in such close contact with a girl before. It was remarkable that the feeling between them seemed so casual. But as the gravity of the situation began to sink in, he got nervous. He didn’t know what to do next. He thought for a moment, which did him no good. He thought for a second moment which produced similarly useless results. Before he begin his third moment of thinking she made the move.

I understand the affect your trying to make, and what you are trying to say. It just doesn't come out right. The first sentence is good, the secound sentence is repetitive, and the third one is OK. Come up with some other way to explain his hesitance.

Quote:

"I’ve gotta go," she said. "Maybe I’ll see you on Monday." Because [Remove] Monday was the night of the concert. Tonight was Monday night. Tonight was Monday night, and she was not here.
He began to think he might never see her again. Ryesdale was a pretty big town, [remove comma] and they went to different schools. If he had any talent for math, he would, [remove] no doubt, [remove] be crunching the numbers to determine the likelihood of their running into each other again.
Just as Will finished wishing he had paid more attention in math class, she walked into the coffee shop, [remove] and right over to him. He had finished his set and was standing by the side of the stage, leaning against it like his guitar was, in its case.
Zooey greeted him and he did the same. "Are you all done?" she asked. "You told me you were playing at 9." He had actually been playing at eight. He must have told her the wrong time because he was nervous. He did not say the word "shit"out loud, but he certainly thought it in his head. On the bright side, he’d been saved from playing in front of her.
If Will had been the average sixteen year old boy, this may have been the time where his ego kicked in and he would have described the brilliance of his performance, how he had kept the audience so captivated a girl had cried when he left the stage, and people became so uproarious with their demands for an encore that the police were called in to quiet them down. Nothing like that happened though. He had played and then he had stopped playing and gotten off the stage. No one had clapped. No one even really cared. Besides, Will had never described anything he had ever done as brilliant and probably never would. Even when he got an A on a chemistry test, an amazing feat by any standard, he assumed it was a fluke and rested assured that he would fail the next test. He had failed the next test, [remove] and the one after that. In other words, he could never be described as "cocky". He never did anything to merit much pride, so he didn’t have any.
Anyhow, here he was standing two feet away from a pretty girl, who obviously had great taste in music, and he had absolutely no idea what to say to her. It didn’t even occur to him that he should have told her he’d made a mistake in telling her what time he was playing. He just stood there. After about a minute, which seemed like a decade, he got an idea.
"You wanna get some coffee?" He asked. Which was a logical question, seeing as how they were in a coffee shop. He had done well.
"Actually I can’t stand coffee." she told him. He agreed even though he had never had coffee in his life. He decided that if Zooey didn’t like coffee, it just wasn’t for him.
His first attempt to speak had failed and he took a moment to prepare for round two. Not exactly basking in the glow of the uncomfortable silence, Zooey took it upon herself to make a move and asked if he wanted to go for a walk. He did, and he told her so. They left the shop, and walked briskly down the main street in the dark. It was cold, so a leisurely pace was out of the question.
They really hit it off, talking about movies, books and of course music. Will began to forget that he was a loner without any real friends. This
girl seemed to like him and he really liked her. That was all he needed to know at the moment. He forgot all about walking the halls full of people with blank faces and no names. Sitting in classes full of people he didn’t know, although he had been in school with them since kindergarten. He forgot about staring at the wall alone in his room , doing nothing but listening to music and being painfully aware that it was Friday night and everyone else was at a dance just five minutes away. He didn’t know how to reach out to people,[remove] but he was doing it now, and [remove, start new sentence with "It made him feel like he'd been....] he felt like he’d been doing it his whole life. For once, he was a normal teenager, out at night with a girl, talking and laughing and having a great time. He wanted to hold her hand, but he knew that would be a big step. It was pathetic that someone as old as he would consider holding hands a big step, and he knew that, but still he couldn’t lie to himself. For him it was a big step. He would bide his time.
They passed all the way through the main stretch of town and made their way into the various neighborhoods, wandering around, just for something to do. Ryesdale wasn’t an exciting place. It was the kind of place where wandering around counted as something to do. They walked up Alden Street with her talking about her favorite guitar solos and him nodding, whether he agreed or not, stealing glances at her hand and wondering when the time would be right to make his move. They walked down Quagmire Road while she talked about the way emotions were expressed by the characters in Wes Anderson’s movies and he laughed at her Owen Wilson impression, still watching the hand all the time. They walked in circles, simply passing the time and operating on the unspoken agreement that they both wanted to be together and being "out for a walk" gave them an excuse. They walked under elm trees on Oak Street and oak trees on Elm street.

Kind of cute...but more childish than cute. I'd have to say cut it, but thats just me.

Quote:

They walked around corners and crossed in crosswalks

That doesn't make much sense to me...Crossed in crosswalks? Crossed on crosswalks? Either way that makes no sense.

Quote:

He watched where he was going,[remove] but just as much, [remove] he watched her hand. A very innocent form of desire had filled his head and overwhelmed him. She stopped walking and smiled at him. He smiled back. He started to say something, but she shushed him. She smiled again (very sweetly) [turn those into commas] and he smiled back. She moved closer to him. He look down at her hand again and felt suddenly embarrassed. He didn’t know quite how to go about this. He had been waiting this whole night to make this move and he knew that if he didn’t do it now, he wouldn’t do it ever. [you could say, "He would never do it" which comes out better] He might never meet another girl like Zooey. This was so important and still he was paralyzed by the self doubt that had been ingrained in him by years of feeling like he was meant to be alone, like no one was suppose to like him. He wasn’t suppose to have any friends, and he definitely was not suppose to hold any girl’s hand. But this was his chance to change all of that. If he could just...
Next time, he thought as he headed down the street toward his house. He regretted not making a move. But logic and his rather naive brand of strategy seemed to require a waiting period. Some kind of pure intimate moment had to be established. Aside from that, she had rushed off after looking at her watch. He didn’t even have a chance to ask her what her hurry was. Not that he would have even thought of that. It seemed so unnatural for a girl to be associating with him that he would have been surprised by nothing. It seemed that maybe he was in an alternate universe, where anything could happen. If she was suddenly trampled by an elephant, he probably would have shrugged and kept walking.
What bothered him much more than her quick departure, was the fact that he had been too stupid to get her phone number, [remove] or even her last name. Only if God deemed Will worthy of a miracle, would he see her again. He was not counting on it.

It seems a lot longer than a short story, probably a novella. But I've only read this first part. I'm not sure if I'll read part 2 and 3. Its good but its not really much of a story. The plot is kind of slow, although I don't think "slow" is the right word for it... it feels "passive" Like Will is thinking everything over in his head and we're seeing his print out. Maybe if you wrote it with less huge details and thoughts and all (unless needed, which it is sometimes) and give us more story. Good though, It could have sunk under at any time but didn't. I might get around to reading the rest. I don't know.

Cheers,
Alice

Strummer · 06-12-2006, 10:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aliceedelweiss

I know this is an annoying way to critique, sorry...I just figured it be easier.

This sentence is way too long, and it has no puntuation in it at all. It just goes on and on. Either rewrite it as more than one sentence, find out how to punctuate it, or take it out completely.

This sentence just comes out really weird, find some way to rewrite it...

I understand the affect your trying to make, and what you are trying to say. It just doesn't come out right. The first sentence is good, the secound sentence is repetitive, and the third one is OK. Come up with some other way to explain his hesitance.

Kind of cute...but more childish than cute. I'd have to say cut it, but thats just me.

That doesn't make much sense to me...Crossed in crosswalks? Crossed on crosswalks? Either way that makes no sense.

It seems a lot longer than a short story, probably a novella. But I've only read this first part. I'm not sure if I'll read part 2 and 3. Its good but its not really much of a story. The plot is kind of slow, although I don't think "slow" is the right word for it... it feels "passive" Like Will is thinking everything over in his head and we're seeing his print out. Maybe if you wrote it with less huge details and thoughts and all (unless needed, which it is sometimes) and give us more story. Good though, It could have sunk under at any time but didn't. I might get around to reading the rest. I don't know.

Cheers,
Alice

Thanks for the response. People always dislike my style. It's more based on reflection then action, but I didn't think that was a bad thing (it's not genre fiction, after all). Maybe I'm indulgent, but it's my "voice". In small-scale intimate stories like this, the "action" may not be all that interesting it's the internal (or psychological) action that counts and the emotional response. Is there a specific guideline for what constitutes a novella? Because this isn't intended to be one. i guess it says something, that you couldn't be bothered to finish it though. However, I want to keep gathering opinions before I make any major changes.

aliceedelweiss · 06-12-2006, 11:00 PM

Ah well you can focus on both the action and the emotional response...If the story is the emotional response shouldn't we know the emotion well?

Generally, a novella is larger than a short story but smaller than a novel. I think a general range is 10,000 to 80,000 words...but I dunno, it just looks kind of big to be a short story. And its not that I dislike your style, its different, but it just feels so passive.

Alice

Strummer · 06-12-2006, 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aliceedelweiss

Ah well you can focus on both the action and the emotional response...If the story is the emotional response shouldn't we know the emotion well?

Generally, a novella is larger than a short story but smaller than a novel. I think a general range is 10,000 to 80,000 words...but I dunno, it just looks kind of big to be a short story. And its not that I dislike your style, its different, but it just feels so passive.

Alice

It is passive. The protagonist is passive, but his passivity decreases as the story goes on. That's where the rising action and conclusion come in. It's not fast-paced or action-packed, but it's not intended to be that way.

semtecks · 06-13-2006, 06:49 AM

It was okay. Can't really see where it's going, but the main char seems pretty fleshed out -- actually reminds me of how I used to be before when I was really introspective and passive. But try to cut out all redundant words if you can, makes things smoother.

Oh, yeah, have you thought about making it 1st person?

Strummer · 06-13-2006, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by semtecks

It was okay. Can't really see where it's going, but the main char seems pretty fleshed out -- actually reminds me of how I used to be before when I was really introspective and passive. But try to cut out all redundant words if you can, makes things smoother.

Oh, yeah, have you thought about making it 1st person?

I have thought about making it in first person. the only thing I dislike about that, is that it eliminates oppoptunities for interesting prose. You have to write it all like natural-sounding dialogue.