Response: Jeremy Hare's "Dreams"

Dreams is a story about Sora, a young man with a dream of being strong enough to fight his own battles. The narration begins with Hikairi, the vice-captain of the karate club - she has an air of seriousness about her that is challenged by Sora and his dream. She has what she wants and is in a position of power. However, the way she carries herself throughout the piece suggests she is discontent; it is especially evident when she is speaking with Sora that his dream of becoming stronger brings him much more happiness than Hikairi's club and studies bring her.

For a plot like this one, where there are two characters and a lot of dialogue, it's important to have enough difference between the characters that their being together and their conversations highlight the differences between them. This piece does this rather well. Sora laughs often, while Hikairi does so only once, and is surprised to find herself laughing along with the boy. Once the two of them fall into their respective places within their conversation, Sora is more relaxed and carefree, while Hikairi  is constantly trying to goad a negative response out of him. It would be interesting to see exactly why this is - we hear Sora's story and know his motivation for doing what he does, but we don't hear anything about Hikairi's dreams, or what she thinks her dreams are. Does she have any goals? If she does, do they thrill her or is she trudging along trying to meet them?

Something that would very much enhance the story, in my opinion, would be to spend a bit of time working on the syntax of the dialogue. Both characters are meant to be in high school (the setting is, supposedly a Japanese secondary school) but their words are a bit too formal. In Japan, formality is important, especially when speaking to people older than you, but it doesn't really work well that way with dialogue in English. Following that, both Hikairi and Sora are young people - Sora is a "freshman" and it is implied that Hikairi is maybe a year or so older - yet the neither of them use much syntax that is consistent with their age. For Hikairi, this could work because her character is supposedly more rigid and rule driven. Sora, however, is more carefree and disregards rules to a point (he was sleeping in the Karate club's training hall, after all). His words would more than likely be more youthful and less formal and respectful.

Au Bon Pain - Master procrastinator.

I accidentally skipped my 9am, made it to my 10am, and I've got a lab at 3.
Thank God. I thought it was just me. I slept through my alarm.
Yeah. It's been rough week.
Have you heard from [.....]

(Here, a friend notices me, sits down, and talks loudly.)

I didn't know! If I had, I definitely would have sold you my book, cheap.
Well it's too late, now.
You brought it up.
Whatever.
...
...
I really don't want to have lab today. Wednesdays suck.
What lab?
Biology.
That's not so bad.
Yeah, but I have a lot of homework to do before Spectrum tonight.
So don't go to dinner after.
If I skip dinner, might as well skip the whole thing. What's the topic tonight?
I don't know. It wasn't in the email.
Is voting this week?
Next week.
Oh. You gonna run?
No. Maybe next time, but this semester's already kicking my ass.
How many hours are you taking?
Seventeen.
Ouch. Welcome to hell.
Thanks...
Sorry. But it's not so bad. I mean, I've taken 18 hours a couple of times.
I have two sciences, though. It's rough.
Well, at least you don't have any 8ams. That's good.
I guess. 9ams aren't that much better.
You'd be surprised how much of a difference an hour makes.
Sure, but it's not like I go to sleep until, like, 2.
Why would you stay up that late if you have class early?
I am the master procrastinator.

Response to "1-900" by Richard Bausch

This is a short story I would recommend to pretty much anyone. I certainly handed the book off to my room mate right after reading it. I watched her reading it as I mentally chewed it over, and I could imagine what parts she got to when she laughed ("I murdered my grandmother and put her in the freezer, this morning." "Serves her right." "What?" "I said it serves her right." "You are listening." "I'm trying to.") or scoffed. I could most definitely feel the sentiment when she sat back from her hunched position over the book in her lap and sighed from deep in her belly when she was done.

The characters of John the Caller and Marilyn/Sharon the Phone Sex Worker are very easy to distinguish from one another, and from characters from any other story you might read. They are very much themselves; John is in his early thirties and Sharon is putting herself through college, without telling her mother how. These little details that the two of them talk about, John's questions about Sharon's life, Sharon's reluctance to go into any detail about herself - these carry this story and give it depth. This is crucial, seeing as there is no setting within the story - two people are on a telephone, having a rather unorthodox conversation.

The structure of 1-900 is actually very interesting. While typing the dialogue above, I had to change the very structure of the story. Not because I didn't start a new paragraph with each speaker, but because I used quotation marks. Though the entire story is dialogue, there is no dialogue punctuation except for the [...] used to signify silence. How is this significant? Dialogue without quotation marks is perceived to be more direct - there is no middle person (narrator) telling the reader what's being said. The reader is, in a sense the telephone.

Response to "Emergency" by Denis Johnson

I read this one twice, because once was not enough to grasp... everything.

I have to give credit to Denis Johnson for not glorifying thepeople who work in Emergency rooms. That was actually something that stuck withme through the entire story. These people are supposed to savelives, I kept thinking.

When I think of an emergency room, I admittedly don't really thinkabout the people who staff it. For me, it's a big white area full ofsterile equipment and cleanliness. In my mind, this space is prettymuch sacred - nothing that touches an ER contaminates it. It's like a.... I'mabout to show my biology nerd. It's like a Lysosome within a cell - waste comesin and is destroyed. People leave ER's clean, recovering.

So, of course, these two men working a late shift at theEmergency Room and having an LSD trip was disturbing.

The imagery used throughout the piece was very strong. I couldfeel the pressing darkness, feel the "baby rabbits" against my skin.This was very obviously a bad trip, and I felt every nuance of it.

I would love to write this way, showing, not telling. Generally,in my writing, I can focus on character and flesh out personalities andfeelings. I’ve grown accustomed to showing abstract concepts with concreteimages. I’d even go far enough to say that I’m rather good at it. But I’venever been great at describing the physical scene – for the most part, mycharacters float in a vacuum, reacting to stimuli that the reader is not awareof. I suppose it comes from knowing what is in my own head; I have a tendencyto assume the reader will know exactly what I mean.

TL;DR: Emergency was an acid trip, full to the brim with vivid,concrete images.

Writing Exercise - "Television" Flash Fiction

"Can you say corre?"

The children are silent.

Response to "Television" by Lydia Davis

In her short story, "Television," Lydia Davis, a fellow of the New York State Writers Institute, describes the "everyday" tradition of sitting in front of the television and losing real life time to the television. I found the subject to be interesting. Television is relatable, as is the loss of time to shows that are above reality; on the other hand, looking at the situation from the outside, the whole idea was foreign and more than a little uncomfortable. The generic They and We used throughout the piece actually seem to separate the reader – during the readings, I didn’t feel I fit into the group of watchers or the group of advertisers punishing viewers with “lists.”

The separation of the story into three sections was also interesting to me. During the first reading, I didn’t really pay attention to the separation, but after going back I noticed that each section becomes more specific, more personalized. Each section has a clear idea that contributes to the overall story, but would not manage to convey the overall meaning of the piece on its own out of context. This type of story organization – using almost unrelated anecdotes with different tones and dictions – is intriguing. However, I’m not sure I could write in this style myself.

Maybe it’s the subject matter, or the diction, or the style Davis uses to write, but “Television” did not touch me as a writer. The attention to details, such as the “show about Hawaiian policemen” and the repetition of the channels “13, 13, 13, 2, 2…” in the “different routes” taken by the television watcher, however, definitely helped to convey Davis’ tone and meaning, so I will be similarly looking at these little details that bring a story to life. I’ve learned from the past that over detailing can hurt a piece just as badly as using no detail at all, though, so I will also have to be careful of that.