Great feedback, Chuck. And a solid story from Teri! I'm with Chuck when he says to slow down. You can really milk things, like them making out. It's time we start giving back to Chuck and that means giving him the full experience of licking sweet sticky cotton candy off of a sexy Russian's abs. It's the least we can do.
And oh my gosh, "We were saving balding children with sad smiles by slinging sugar," is such a glorious sentence. That is a line you might find in an Amy Hempel story. It's just too good.
I didn't know about the phrase "soft focus." I took that to mean a description that is too broad?
Edit: I just realized i have become so lax and world weary, I post on Stack Exchange under this same handle..Not sure these are worlds i want colliding if some internet crackpot was sleuthing.
I hate the internet..
I am just being silly here ffs..
Now I am open to potentially being judged by prudes *glumly*. Oh well, Chuck posts enough that this will sink to the bottom.
It's easy to be excited about a story with so much potential. Ever since the support groups in 'Fight Club' I've been obsessed with sex and death. This story hints at that on so many levels.
Sex = hair. It's always getting in your mouth. And a hair in your mouth is great "on the body." As they say in the writing biz, "If you don't know what comes next, describe the inside of the character's mouth."
A visiting writer in Tom's workshop told us that in 1993 (?) and it's always stuck.
Thank you for the feedback, both startling and inspiring! I loved your observations around the story. What I would have wanted to hear also is why the acrobat so easily decides to have an intimate relationship with the girl. She says that “Using hand gestures and raging pheromones, I lured him into an afternoon of flirting”. That seems like a lazy unrealistic solution to me.
Must have been compelling hand gestures to instantly convince an acrobat to fool around with a school girl between risking his life swinging on ropes and flying through the air.
It struck me as being a remarkably perfunctory seduction, especially for a young girl.
Another area that warrants slowing down and building up tension.
Let’s say that the acrobat is interested mostly in young underage vulnerable girls (but she doesn’t know this). And then your creepy clown comes into play. Let’s say that she nibbles the cotton candy when a fat, short clown stops by and mimes something vulgar in front of her. She asks him to leave getting a bit scared. After a few frightening moments he is about to leave but suddenly changes his mind and turns towards her pretending to take her cotton candy. She raises the sugar floss above his head when he takes her by her hips pushing his thing against her. She screams and starts to cry (she’s only 16). In that moment a sexy male laughing tells the clown something in a foreign language and the clown leaves. The man wipe her tears. Only then she realises it was HIM. Bedazzled and not knowing how to react she offers the cotton candy to him along with a sweet grateful smile. He tastes the sugar, smiles back and then picks up her lipstick from her other hand and writes an address to her, on the table…
Despite that, you can never be as brutal as my incredibly low self-esteem and insurmountable self-doubt. They tag-team and kick the shit out of my creativity. It makes me laugh.
"Emile and his tight ass got taken back behind the Berlin Wall, some Siberian labor camp where he would drink shoe-polish until those sapphire blue eyes went blind, but these hip-high little shiny heads, they kept coming back."
"More and more, his letters smelled of shoe-polish and cow shit. It used to be he used paper smooth as his leotard, as his shaved knee. I try to get a paper cut from it so I can bleed on him once more, and the taste of Russian pickles between his teeth comes back and tingles my spine and I want to pee. It used to be his handwriting had his abs like slabs of stone and his hamstrings like sycamore roots! But more and more, the paper turned yellow and the alphabets collapsed onto themselves, like those hip-high little baldies.
At least the little fuckers don't have forever to reminisce about Disneyland."
"Now, I go to the Circus with my husband every month and I make sure I'm on my period. I squint in my seats to the flying men look Russian and not Chinese. Drunk on pickle juice, I whisper "meet me under the stands." After the show, we go home and I fuck my husband. I fuck like I don't know how to fuck. I fuck like I'm fifteen. I squirm on the fuzzy pudge he calls a leg. I grab on his belly rolls and I cry sour pickle tears. I say call me a "Сладкая девчонка" or shut up. It's the only night that I fuck him.
My husband wants a divorce. He says I'm cheating on him. I say I've been cheating on Emile."
Do you have any tips on how to build tension during foreplay before a sex scene? Because all I really know is to have one character say no and brush off advances, while the other pursues.
Anything evasive would build tension. Consider the old "your mouth said 'no' but your eyes said 'yes'. It's trickier nowadays, but it would be interesting to depict the female character being aggressive and the male being conflicted or evasive.
Thanks for sharing your story. I love the circus as a setting. The smells, the noises the crowd makes, the tension of the tightrope walker and aerial performers when they are up high without a net, and you do a good job of putting in the smells and other details that bring the setting to life.
Right now, your story seems to be written as a memory from the past. But I think it will have more impact if you write as though the narrator is experiencing the action in the moment. When I’m trying to create a sense of urgency, I have been trying to write everything in present tense. So “I wormed my way into the tunnel” (wormed is a great verb, by the way), becomes, “I worm my way into the tunnel.”
I love where the narrator goes for it with Emile. I would really love to see what this afternoon of flirting entailed. This could be a good place for tension because I will be wondering if the narrator is going to win Emile. Don’t give the answer to me right away — stretch it out more and make me wonder if he is going to ignore her. The scorn on Emile’s sister’s face— you could stretch that out more to make the reader wonder if the sister is Emile’s girlfriend, and then a few lines later we can find out, no, it’s just his sister. But don’t give that relief right away, let us readers worry for a bit whether or not it’s going to work out between Emile and the narrator.
Here’s some lines that caught my eye:
-more intoxicating than stealing my mom’s Blue Nun wine. - I like the specificity of the type of wine.
-I cried myself to sleep, soaking my Cookie Monster pillowcases. - I like the specificity of the pillowcases. It shows also that the narrator is on that fence of childhood/adulthood.
-and tiled my walls along with Michael Jackson and David Cassidy posters. - Again, I like the specificity of the type of posters. It says something about the character and adds to the time the story takes place.
-animal dander mixed with sawdust with a touch of greasepaint —these smells are really good. I was at the fair recently trying to capture what exactly the smell is that I love so much. It’s hard to think over the roasted almonds, lol.
You’ve got a great thing going here! My biggest suggestion is for you to back in and imagine that you are really there and write as though it’s happening right now, play by play! Nice work!
Chuck this is excellent insight, I could see how tension started to build in the story but faltered (something I always struggle with). I’ve got more perspective now on what to look for, and ideas to start testing solutions.
Spandex + erection = tension
My favorite physics formula.
Great feedback, Chuck. And a solid story from Teri! I'm with Chuck when he says to slow down. You can really milk things, like them making out. It's time we start giving back to Chuck and that means giving him the full experience of licking sweet sticky cotton candy off of a sexy Russian's abs. It's the least we can do.
And oh my gosh, "We were saving balding children with sad smiles by slinging sugar," is such a glorious sentence. That is a line you might find in an Amy Hempel story. It's just too good.
I didn't know about the phrase "soft focus." I took that to mean a description that is too broad?
By "soft focus" I mean what Gordon Lish called "Received text." Cliches.
This story makes the man the object of desire, and that's pretty damn unique.
That picture is hideous..that man's butt is right near her face..
That's called going cheek to cheek lol
That did occur to me ;-/..
Edit: I just realized i have become so lax and world weary, I post on Stack Exchange under this same handle..Not sure these are worlds i want colliding if some internet crackpot was sleuthing.
I hate the internet..
I am just being silly here ffs..
Now I am open to potentially being judged by prudes *glumly*. Oh well, Chuck posts enough that this will sink to the bottom.
What passionate feedback. Wow. Thanks so much, Chuck.
It's easy to be excited about a story with so much potential. Ever since the support groups in 'Fight Club' I've been obsessed with sex and death. This story hints at that on so many levels.
Chuck, you wrote: "The sugar floss comingles with sweat and hair."
Comingles? I'm sorry to hear that. I bet after a revision, you'll be comingmor.
*rimshot*
I'm sorry I'm like this.
Sex = hair. It's always getting in your mouth. And a hair in your mouth is great "on the body." As they say in the writing biz, "If you don't know what comes next, describe the inside of the character's mouth."
A visiting writer in Tom's workshop told us that in 1993 (?) and it's always stuck.
Thank you for the feedback, both startling and inspiring! I loved your observations around the story. What I would have wanted to hear also is why the acrobat so easily decides to have an intimate relationship with the girl. She says that “Using hand gestures and raging pheromones, I lured him into an afternoon of flirting”. That seems like a lazy unrealistic solution to me.
Agree with this. 😁
Must have been compelling hand gestures to instantly convince an acrobat to fool around with a school girl between risking his life swinging on ropes and flying through the air.
It struck me as being a remarkably perfunctory seduction, especially for a young girl.
Another area that warrants slowing down and building up tension.
Let’s say that the acrobat is interested mostly in young underage vulnerable girls (but she doesn’t know this). And then your creepy clown comes into play. Let’s say that she nibbles the cotton candy when a fat, short clown stops by and mimes something vulgar in front of her. She asks him to leave getting a bit scared. After a few frightening moments he is about to leave but suddenly changes his mind and turns towards her pretending to take her cotton candy. She raises the sugar floss above his head when he takes her by her hips pushing his thing against her. She screams and starts to cry (she’s only 16). In that moment a sexy male laughing tells the clown something in a foreign language and the clown leaves. The man wipe her tears. Only then she realises it was HIM. Bedazzled and not knowing how to react she offers the cotton candy to him along with a sweet grateful smile. He tastes the sugar, smiles back and then picks up her lipstick from her other hand and writes an address to her, on the table…
Don't forget the scratchiness of sequins. So many sensory objects to use.
This is so cool! The kind of brutal feedback every new writer desperately needs. (I can only wish to be the subject of such scrutiny.)
Sorry, I didn't mean to be brutal. In workshop, in person, I'm a hundred times this intense. Colton can vouch for that.
No no, I mean it. This is awesome.
Despite that, you can never be as brutal as my incredibly low self-esteem and insurmountable self-doubt. They tag-team and kick the shit out of my creativity. It makes me laugh.
"Emile and his tight ass got taken back behind the Berlin Wall, some Siberian labor camp where he would drink shoe-polish until those sapphire blue eyes went blind, but these hip-high little shiny heads, they kept coming back."
No! Stay in scene!
"More and more, his letters smelled of shoe-polish and cow shit. It used to be he used paper smooth as his leotard, as his shaved knee. I try to get a paper cut from it so I can bleed on him once more, and the taste of Russian pickles between his teeth comes back and tingles my spine and I want to pee. It used to be his handwriting had his abs like slabs of stone and his hamstrings like sycamore roots! But more and more, the paper turned yellow and the alphabets collapsed onto themselves, like those hip-high little baldies.
At least the little fuckers don't have forever to reminisce about Disneyland."
Randy? Are you high?
"Now, I go to the Circus with my husband every month and I make sure I'm on my period. I squint in my seats to the flying men look Russian and not Chinese. Drunk on pickle juice, I whisper "meet me under the stands." After the show, we go home and I fuck my husband. I fuck like I don't know how to fuck. I fuck like I'm fifteen. I squirm on the fuzzy pudge he calls a leg. I grab on his belly rolls and I cry sour pickle tears. I say call me a "Сладкая девчонка" or shut up. It's the only night that I fuck him.
My husband wants a divorce. He says I'm cheating on him. I say I've been cheating on Emile."
Do you have any tips on how to build tension during foreplay before a sex scene? Because all I really know is to have one character say no and brush off advances, while the other pursues.
Anything evasive would build tension. Consider the old "your mouth said 'no' but your eyes said 'yes'. It's trickier nowadays, but it would be interesting to depict the female character being aggressive and the male being conflicted or evasive.
Crazy that you mentioned a female character being the aggressive one, that's basically my WIP right now. Thanks.
Hi Teri,
Thanks for sharing your story. I love the circus as a setting. The smells, the noises the crowd makes, the tension of the tightrope walker and aerial performers when they are up high without a net, and you do a good job of putting in the smells and other details that bring the setting to life.
Right now, your story seems to be written as a memory from the past. But I think it will have more impact if you write as though the narrator is experiencing the action in the moment. When I’m trying to create a sense of urgency, I have been trying to write everything in present tense. So “I wormed my way into the tunnel” (wormed is a great verb, by the way), becomes, “I worm my way into the tunnel.”
I love where the narrator goes for it with Emile. I would really love to see what this afternoon of flirting entailed. This could be a good place for tension because I will be wondering if the narrator is going to win Emile. Don’t give the answer to me right away — stretch it out more and make me wonder if he is going to ignore her. The scorn on Emile’s sister’s face— you could stretch that out more to make the reader wonder if the sister is Emile’s girlfriend, and then a few lines later we can find out, no, it’s just his sister. But don’t give that relief right away, let us readers worry for a bit whether or not it’s going to work out between Emile and the narrator.
Here’s some lines that caught my eye:
-more intoxicating than stealing my mom’s Blue Nun wine. - I like the specificity of the type of wine.
-I cried myself to sleep, soaking my Cookie Monster pillowcases. - I like the specificity of the pillowcases. It shows also that the narrator is on that fence of childhood/adulthood.
-and tiled my walls along with Michael Jackson and David Cassidy posters. - Again, I like the specificity of the type of posters. It says something about the character and adds to the time the story takes place.
-animal dander mixed with sawdust with a touch of greasepaint —these smells are really good. I was at the fair recently trying to capture what exactly the smell is that I love so much. It’s hard to think over the roasted almonds, lol.
You’ve got a great thing going here! My biggest suggestion is for you to back in and imagine that you are really there and write as though it’s happening right now, play by play! Nice work!
Beautiful comment, Maegan <3 You made great points.
I can’t get enough of these. The different stories. The different perspectives. The invaluable feedback. Thank you, Teri. Thank you, Chuck.
Also, maybe one of the dying children could try to interpret them under the bleachers because he/she wants more cotton candy.
Thank you!
Thanks for sharing Teri.
Chuck this is excellent insight, I could see how tension started to build in the story but faltered (something I always struggle with). I’ve got more perspective now on what to look for, and ideas to start testing solutions.