Confessions of a literary voyeur

I love reading other people's blogs - mostly informational blogs: GalleyCat, ERECsite, Miss Snark, The Evil Editor

Sometimes, it'll be things like Forgotten New York, or the tidbits of obscure history from Cracked.com - interesting pieces of history and the human condition that may spark stories of my own, or introduce me to places that I can actually go visit and find out more about on my own.

Lately, most of my online reading has been personal blogs and anecdotes from complete strangers.  It's as though a million characters have opened their windows in this immense apartment building, graciously allowing the peeping tom outside a peek into some pastiche of their life.  More than allowing, I suppose.  They set out the fine silver and china, for many, painting ideological portraits of memories.  Others bring out the heavy metal posters and toss the mattress onto the floor (which you suspect was perfectly well made only moments ago) and sensationalize some event until it has all the believability of a morning talk show guest.

The ones that get my attention the best are a balance.  They don't so much sugar coat events as find that soft spot that makes us still love crazy Uncle Jemmy (not a real person) even though he pours Bud Light over his corn flakes every morning.  The trials and frightening parts of life are matter of fact, often responded to and written about with the wry humor of a survivor.

When writing fiction, it seems part of the difficulty is making the story compelling and human.  Creating fully dimensional characters with strengths, weaknesses, talents and foibles.  The more information you have to draw from, the easier this becomes.  Writing convincing fiction is difficult from a vacuum.

Don't plagiarize,  but do open your eyes and ears to all different kinds of stories, from all sorts of people.  The only way to make your imaginary characters feel real, is to make them 'real'.

Bo's Cafe Life

The art of the simple web comic.  I think this particular creator has drawn six panels or so - ever.

And it's a great comic!

Click on the blog title for the link

What's your writing goal?

I'm not talking about word count per day of letters here.  I want to know what your ultimate fantasy goal is with your writing career.

We spend so much time fretting about sentence structure and daily word count (or at least I do) that sometimes the 'big picture' gets lost under all those details. Lose track of it completely, and you risk losing some of the motivation that got you started in the first place!

For me, I want to make a living doing what I love.  Yeah, that's a little vague.  Ok, I want to write fun, engaging horror and fantasy stories that take people on a little ride away from their daily lives for a while.  I want to create worlds for people to get lost in.  I want to write so well that some person I've never met forgets their problems for a little while.

And I want to write scenes and dialogue for video games.  I'll be dating myself a little bit here - I remember when Nintendo came out.  It was cool for a while, then I could take it or leave it.  Sorry Mario.

One day, I bought this game called Myst.  I'm pretty sure that I lost at least a week of my life to that game.  The world was immersive.  It was the first 'sand box' style game I'd ever seen, where you could go where you wanted, and do what you wanted, in pretty much any order.  And the puzzles!  Oh, the puzzles.

There weren't all that many characters to talk to at the time, but technology has evolved since then.  There are more open style games with engaging characters, layers of mystery.  And I love the way the storytelling became built up, through unreliable characters, books, tapes, or diaries left on computers.  The player is left to build the story of what happened based upon the information received from various sources and the objects in front of them.

To me, that's the perfect form of gaming - and I want so badly to contribute to it, to help create these incredible alternate worlds populated with realistic people, and littered with their own complete and distinct histories.

So I guess, that what I really want to do is to be able to play pretend with the whole world.


What is it that you want to do with your art?

dan

dan
Originally uploaded by digitalis_vitae

Hey guys! It's been a kind of crazy season, which means not a lot of time for meaningful blogging.

What it does mean though, is new toys!! Such as the 50mm prime lens that came in the mail this week.

I hadn't had a chance to bust it out until this afternoon, and my darling SO was playing with some prop flavored items that we have kicking around the place. As a bonus, he happened to be in front of my new black backdrop!

The lighting is overhead bounce from our ceiling light, and the glow of the computer monitor he's sitting in front of :).

For some reason, all of my photos of humans tend to look much more posed than they really are - he didn't even know I had the camera out until I said 'HEY!'

I'm not sure why, as most (like this one) are completely unplanned.

guitar guy

guitar guy
Originally uploaded by digitalis_vitae

Sick :/

Sorry I haven't been up and about in far too long.

Post summer madness, I jumped onto another feature.  Yay, more work, right?

I promptly jumped right back off after the most severe case of the flu I've had since I was a child.  Two weeks later, and the view of a real meal is still making my stomach leap around like a gymnast with Tourettes. Ugh.

Filling time when you're that sick becomes it's own challenge - the lack of focus makes writing or drawing darned near impossible. I tried anyway - the results were promptly deleted.  I orally expelled more interesting things than what came out of the fried brain pan.

So I surfed the web.  Read some Hugo winning short stories - oh my. Science Fiction has come far.  The past years winners were lyrical, engaging, heart - wrenching character based works that leave you with that fuzzy headed 'WOW' at the conclusion.

Lest you think I'm over focused on work:

http://accidentalpenis.com/

Because life is no fun without a childish giggle here and there.

Happy October!

Finally have the time to get back to writing.  Oy.

In order to keep this from being boringly short, I'm going to share an older anecdote:

I had been spending the night at a friend's house; up late, chatting, the usual.  She wants to show me something.
Sure.

A few moments later, she puts this small, whitish, egg shaped item in my hand.  Looks a lot like a candied almond.  I'm holding it, trying to figure out if I should eat it, try to guess what it is, etc.

After a few more moments she told me what it was.

'It's my gall stone."

GAH. I almost ate someone else's gall stone.

She keeps it in a small cardboard jewelry box as a memento.  In the cotton batting.

I almost ate it.

I'm not quite sure what that says about either of us, but there you go.

Freedom! And other things.

Gorgeous, isn't it?

That's a project from my friend Eric Thomas - sometimes the simple things are the most inspiring.


In my universe (because I'm a self centered creature, and this is my blog, so there):


Finished working on a season finale of a reality t.v. show.

Beta reading this AMAZING steampunk flavored mystery from a friend across the pond.

Planning and plotting some directions for a super secret project that I can't talk about just yet.

Rearranging some scenery in the novella.

Debating the purchase of some new toys for my shooting kit.

I have to finish up and send off some one sheets this week.  For those who don't know, a one-sheet is a 250 word (approximately) outline of a feature length film.  I tend toward being long winded (if it weren't obvious) and struggle at making one-sheets read like anything more interesting than stereo instructions.

Granted, they don't have to be.  This isn't a logline, pitch, etc.  After a pitch, a producer will often ask to see a one sheet, just to make sure the storyline elements are in place.  That way, they don't read 100 pages of screenplay only to find out you've fumbled toward the end, or don't have an ending at all.

But it doesn't hurt to make the damn thing less painful to read.  Ugh.

Celtic Thunder and crazy naked man

Finished that Celtic Thunder tech through and DVD shoot, and developed a dead-on Dublin brogue while doing it.  For whatever reason, if I'm working 12+ hours a day with people who have an accent different than mine, I end up talking like someone (someplace?) else.

I am now slowly working the word 'mine' back into my vocabulary, and filing away useful bits of slang in case I ever have need of them again.

The hours were bollocks (bad), but the crew to a man was the dog's bollocks (completely fantastic).  I guess this equates to the US difference between 'shit' and 'the shit'.  Interesting, how the entire connotation of a word can go from such a negative to a positive with just a little modifier!

I have some scene rearranging and thinking to do about the novella, and glad to have a little time to get back to it. I would like to publish again before I'm 80...


So the other interesting part of my week...the crazy naked man.

Originally, this fellow contacted me to do a charcoal drawing for a poster - a poster for some avant guarde theater performance where he's naked and tied up.  That bit doesn't really bother me - I have performer friends who stick fish hooks in their eye sockets, or get branded and suspended from piercings on stage.  (Not everyone's cup of tea, but I've seen some interesting things.)

This dude, however, managed to creep the hell out of me.  How?

He FaceBook requested me, supposedly to talk about poses.  The conversation quickly degenerated into things like 'will you enjoy tying me up' (no, it will be part of the job and you wouldn't actually be tied up - this is a drawing) to 'bring your friends and they can eat sushi off of my naked body' (ewwww - can we say sanitary issues, much?).   Around the time that he offered to 'let me make more money' by 'having my friends take him to clean their homes naked while his clothes stay at my place'  I told him that I'm an artist, not a dominatrix, and he really needs to find a professional to fulfill his needs.

Yeah.  Creeped.  I can't even make this stuff up.  There's a huge difference between commissioning a drawing and getting your jollies off, and I draw.  Gack.  Hack. Spew.

I hope you are as befuddled as I am, and at least twice as amused.  I need some mental floss.

Bad Blogger, no biscuit!

Hello, patient friends and readers!

I've been a bad, bad blogger this summer - two posts in three months? For shame!

I do have reasons, the gossip of which I'll share with you now.

I was working on movies and Rock n Roll.

Two movies, in fact.

One of them was called Peace, Love, and Misunderstanding, shot in upstate New York, and starring Katherine Kaneer and Jane Fonda.  Mz. Kaneer is marvelous, I look forward to both working with her again, and seeing her performances.

Another is called Summer Child, starring no one in particular, and also shot in upstate NY.

I also worked the Bethel Woods summer concert season - always a great time with fabulous crew and some great acts.  (Special kudos to the country group who came in with a longhorn - skull shaped mirror ball bigger than my car!)

Of my remaining few hours, I greedily slept them away rather than keeping you folks updated - I apologize for the brevity, and can't guarantee it won't happen again at some point.

By the end of the coming week, I will have worked ever Celtic tour currently sweeping the countryside.  Somewhere in there, I will post my project for filmmakeriq.com's NOIR contest.

It'll be awesome, and you should totally enter:

http://filmmakeriq.com/2010/07/filmmakeriq-com-film-noir-video-contest/

I can almost guarantee your project will be better than mine!

My Emily - The Screener!

One of the shorts that I shot over the past few months is now making it's festival rounds!

My Emily:

http://vimeo.com/13214211


Still working on a different feature, writing while I can, and picking up some EPK/junkets work for a few bands here and there.  I've been trying to write in the little holes of time, only to end up with QWERTY stamped across my face.

At least there will be lots more video flavored goodness from the Digital DP!

Life update

Working on another movie, so posts will be few and far between for a while.  Happy 4th, American friends!

Paragraph Review Eight - And so on, by Spiralese

A man sat alone on the steps of a building in the middle of a city. It was a busy afternoon, a constant crowd of motion eddied around him. He watched the ground.
            After a time another man came and sat beside him and, having looked about, asked, “He’s not here yet?”
            The first man gestured a reply of, can you see him?
            The newcomer gave a shrug of, fair enough. He sat back. It was warmer than expected and he was regretting his choice of clothes. Something on the other side of the square caught his eye. He squinted against the sun. “Isn’t that …” he trailed, pointing with the stubble on his chin.
            The other looked up and nodded his head.
            “But who’s she with?” continued the second man, the man on the right. “I think it’s that senator.”
            The other raised a hand against the sun, nodded, then returned his eyes to the ground.
            “Dirty old git,” said the man on the right.
            They waited again. A third man joined them, immediately asking, “Isn’t he here yet?”
            “Can you see him here?” asked the man on the right, now the one in the middle.
            “Okay, okay,” the newcomer answered, nettled by the tone. “I’m only asking.” He sat back and regarded the afternoon shoppers busily pumping the heart of the city’s commercial district.
            “There’s what’s-her-name,” he said with surprise. “Look, there. She’s with that senator.”
            “We know,” sighed the man in the middle, now thoroughly bored with waiting. He was thinking about the cool shops behind him, the shade they afforded. But he stayed where he was.
            Soon enough another man joined them. He sat down. “He isn’t here yet?”
            The first man rolled his eyes. The second tutted.
            “This could go on all day,” joked the third man.

A man sat alone on the steps of a building in the middle of a city. It was a busy afternoon, a constant crowd of motion eddied around him. He watched the ground.

(This isn't a bad opener.  Simple - but simple can work.  I'd like to see some description soon though.)

            After a time another man came and sat beside him and, having looked about, asked, “He’s not here yet?”

(I'd suggest making this more than one sentence and putting the dialogue on its own line, but those are copy edit things.  So far, we're at 'okay'.)

            The first man gestured a reply of, can you see him?

(And were I reading a submission, we'd be done right here.  If the writer can't show me a shrug and a gesture, rather than telling me about it, this is going to be a long, dull ride.)

            The newcomer gave a shrug of, fair enough.

(Again, give visual cues to lead the reader to the 'fair enough' conclusion, don't just tell him/her about it.)

 He sat back. It was warmer than expected and he was regretting his choice of clothes.

(Give a little something more to go on - is this guy wearing an overcoat in spring?  A snowsuit on an unexpectedly warm winter day? A suit in the middle of a July heatwave?

You don't have to get bogged down in minutiae, but I have zero idea what's going on here.)

 Something on the other side of the square caught his eye. He squinted against the sun. “Isn’t that …” he trailed, pointing with the stubble on his chin.

('Pointing with the stubble' made me giggle, but not in a good way. Is this dude's beard sentient?  I do like getting the unshaven detail of the character - but I bet you have a better presentation in you.)

            The other looked up and nodded his head.

(What else could he be nodding?)

            “But who’s she with?” continued the second man, the man on the right. “I think it’s that senator.”

(While we don't need to know who 'she' is just yet, I'd like to see some sense of place.  Did they watch her get into a limo?  Having lunch in a park?  Are they looking into a hotel room?  Something.)

            The other raised a hand against the sun, nodded, then returned his eyes to the ground.

(Is anyone else having trouble figuring out which man is doing what yet?  I am.)

            “Dirty old git,” said the man on the right.

(Is this about the senator, or about the other man watching?)

            They waited again. A third man joined them, immediately asking, “Isn’t he here yet?”

(Shoot me.  Now there are three unknowns.  Aside from one having stubble, they make the same gestures, speak in the same voice, and have no distinguishing characteristics.  Unless they're waiting for Godot, there better be a point soon.)

            “Can you see him here?” asked the man on the right, now the one in the middle.

(Gah.)

            “Okay, okay,” the newcomer answered, nettled by the tone. “I’m only asking.” He sat back and regarded the afternoon shoppers busily pumping the heart of the city’s commercial district.

(Ok, we now have a clue as to where they are.  Nobody's stopped to comment on three guys sitting on a stoop in a busy shopping area?  We also now have a time: afternoon.  But it's far too little, far too late.)

            “There’s what’s-her-name,” he said with surprise. “Look, there. She’s with that senator.”

            “We know,” sighed the man in the middle, now thoroughly bored with waiting.

 He was thinking about the cool shops behind him, the shade they afforded. But he stayed where he was.

(So far, there's absolutely no logical reason for these three people to still be sitting here.  Do none of them have cel phones?)

            Soon enough another man joined them. He sat down. “He isn’t here yet?”

            The first man rolled his eyes. The second tutted.

            “This could go on all day,” joked the third man.

(This reads like a really boring telling of a joke without a punchline.)

I have no idea what this piece is about, and there's not enough here to make me care.

One Hour Game Review 2 - Mystic Gallery

In this game, I guess you're supposed to be an apprentice at an art gallery?  I'm not really sure.

The 'history' of the gallery is presented in huge chunks of backstory text (I largely ignored it) given to the player by a mediocre still figure of the gallery owner.

The hidden object bit itself is full of 'mystery meat' - rather than creating original art, there are famous paintings deluged with random objects in incredibly random places.  Sometimes one must click on the correct object several times before it's acknowledged.  This gets irritating, as it effects your score.

The mini - game wheel on the side gets annoying fast; just send me to the game.  The mini-games themselves feel pretty tedious.  What original art there is, is uninspiring.

Another annoying factor is the score calculator.  The same still figure pops up wearing a different dress, an acid green curtain rises (aren't these supposed to be galleries? with taste?) and then the 'other branches' of the gallery flip cards and give Olympic style scores.  There's no way to skip this, and it's just annoying.

I didn't even finish my free demo.  This one is a pass.

One Hour Game Review 1 - Midnight Mysteries 2 Salem Witch Trials

I'm downloading demos from Big Fish games, so I don't play an of these for more than an hour (sometimes less, depending upon the demo).

In this game, you meet the ghost of Nathaniel Hawthorne, who in this reality was brutally murdered, and you have to catch the killer.

The art is solid, true to itself, and the opener is nicely done, transitioning well into the first scene - which takes place in your study.  The dialogue is simple, but not flat, and there is no voice acting.  The puzzles are well laid out, if simple, and the story compelling.

The hidden object portions have objects in relatively logical places (no sky camels), and I have few nitpicks about the item names (a recorder is NOT a flute, flour SIFTER - there's no such thing as a 'flour filter').  A few things are mislabeled, but not deal breakers (clicking on a rifle, rather than a musket, for instance).


The transitions are interesting and short, with no huge loading lag.


I admit, I do have a soft spot for the paranormal and 'creepy' games, and this one has a nice gothic feel to it without being too scary for a general audience.  The historical bits are put in as interesting asides, rather than feeling like you're being force fed history.


Soft recommend.

Adventure game reviews...

My other love in this universe, besides writing (and making movies of course) is video games.  In particular, puzzle/adventure style games.  The MYST series remains my favorite (except URU - kind of a mess imo), and I've been considering adding reviews of these as well - if not for one big reason:

Aside from graphics and gameplay, the story makes or breaks one of these games for me.  And the more engaging the story, the more likely I am to buy the game.

Writing some of these can be as simple as dialogue and character development (as if that were ever really simple).  Others, the story forms from visual clues, recordings - it's the ultimate 'show', where the player learns about the world and the situation from artifacts, and the story unfolds in a truly organic manner (MYST, Riven, Fallout, BioShock, for example).

I'd like to look at some of these from a story telling standpoint.

Thoughts?

Paragraph Review Seven - Untitled by Theresa

   Theodore Kerns was sitting on the rack in the basement of his home at three a.m. and was puzzled how he'd gotten there.  He remembered going to bed around midnight and had drifted off to sleep soon after turning off the light.  He had no history of sleep walking, nor did he remember dreaming; which was a nice break, since the nightmares of his youth had returned.  He didn't understand it, but he would take walking in his sleep over nightmares any day of the week.  He glanced around the room at all of the other devices of torture and smiled.  Perhaps his mind knew where he truly felt more comfortable.






Ready?  Here we go:




   Theodore Kerns was sitting on the rack in the basement of his home at three a.m. and was puzzled how he'd gotten there.


(Run on sentence - c'mon kids.  One subject, one predicate.  This could easily be broken into two, and with a fairly decent first hook.


Additionally, I want a little bit more about the 'rack'.  It could be a bookshelf, tool table, or medieval torture device.  Perhaps a more succinct word is in order.)


  He remembered going to bed around midnight and had drifted off to sleep soon after turning off the light.


(This again heads into the realm of 'too much information in one sentence'.  It makes the sentence feel rushed and stumble.  Plus, there's a dearth of 'telling' here with no show.)


  He had no history of sleep walking, nor did he remember dreaming; which was a nice break, since the nightmares of his youth had returned. 


(I think this was meant to feel ominous or provide some foreshadowing - it does neither.  The first half is fine.  The second comes off as forced and silly.  What does 'nightmares of his youth' mean?  Yeah, bad dreams - but we have no sense of scale.  Plus, what tends to frighten a child would not concern an adult.  Without a visual aid (i.e. some 'show') the reader has nothing to relate to.)




 He didn't understand it, but he would take walking in his sleep over nightmares any day of the week.


(I don't understand the allure of yellow tights and red shoes either. The 'it' in a sentence tends to refer to the last noun in the preceding one, so whether the writer intends it or not, this sentence is talking about nightmares, not sleepwalking.


Also, unless these nightmares are humdingers (which haven't been shared, so we don't know) sleepwalking is NOT preferable, so it doesn't make sense.  Sleepwalking is attributed to doing things like falling down the stairs, urinating in closets rather than restrooms, wandering all sorts of unpleasant places in pj's.  When wakened, the sleepwalker is at the least disoriented, and sometimes in a state of panic.  So no, this doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense.)


  He glanced around the room at all of the other devices of torture and smiled. 


(Ok, it IS a torture device.  That really would have helped show a bit of the character in the first few sentences if we knew that.  Telling the reader now is too late.)


 Perhaps his mind knew where he truly felt more comfortable.


(He's more comfortable wandering around unconscious than dreaming, for some reason.  Maybe he likes being tortured?  Or collects historical objects?)




This is really vague and not very compelling.  


What I'm seeing a lot of, is writers afraid to 'give too much away' in the beginning, hoping to draw a reader in with questions.  The problem arises when the reader isn't presented enough information to be interested in the first place.

Paragraph Review Six - Untitled by Emily

Fighting the urge to yell and draw attention to himself, Jacob instinctively whipped the dish towel from it's customary place on his shoulder and wound it tightly round his finger. He tried to remember if he'd actually washed his hands after prepping that last batch of chicken or just wiped the worst off on the towel, meaning to throw it in the laundry next time he passed. He wasn't sure if you could get salmonella that way or not, but it had to be better than bleeding out in the middle of the kitchen on his first day at work.

"Shit" he muttered under his breath, realizing with dismay that even through the thickness of five layers of material, unmistakable blooms of poppy-red were appearing; the razor-sharp edge he'd honed to perfection that very morning had come back to bite him on the ass, or the finger at least. 

"Where the fuck are table nineteen's app's? They should've been sent five minutes ago, but the docket's still up! What the fuck? Did I look like I was joking when I called 'em?" Chef lumbered towards Jacob, all set to make an example of how little tolerance he had for time-wasters, but his anger turned to exasperation as he took in the scene. 

"Oh for fuck's sake, what'd you do?" Without waiting for a reply, he yanked Jacob's hand towards him and peered under the blood-sodden towel. 

"Taz! Take this clumsy fuck out for some air, see if you can find a glove or something for him to wear. Callie! You're on app's now, move it, I need that table sent NOW!"

Cold rough brick pressed into Jacob's back and the wet concrete step he'd slumped down on was rapidly adding to his discomfort. Taz had handed him an antiseptic wipe and a clean dish cloth then disappeared back inside, and as the adrenaline wore off, the pain was becoming more apparent. Gingerly unwinding his make-shift bandage, Jacob could feel the blood welling to the surface, and sure enough, once the pressure was off, thick drops started to splatter at his steel-toed safety shoes. He tore open the wipe with his teeth, weighing up the benefits of having a slightly cleaner wound against the cons of that stinging agony once the alcohol touched exposed nerves, but eyeing the state of the cloth he'd just peeled off, he didn't really have a choice. 

This was all Jade's fault, he decided. If she hadn't given him that age-old ultimatum of 'get a place together or get out of my life', he would still be happily slaving away in the same little cafe he'd worked in since he quit school. That was ten years ago now, getting paid just enough to get by on but feeling like part of the family and getting satisfaction from knowing that the regulars were regulars because of his food. This time last week he'd been cheerfully singing along to the radio, elbow-deep in coleslaw, (gloved hands replacing the mixing blades that had broken months ago and couldn't afford to be replaced,) deciding what specials to go on the board that day. 

"Now look at me" he thought, "bottom of the brigade, in way over my head, and watching rats dine on leftovers that are worth more than my rent back home."








All set?  Ok, here we go:

Fighting the urge to yell and draw attention to himself, Jacob instinctively whipped the dish towel from it's customary place on his shoulder and wound it tightly round his finger.


(Surplusage: excessive or nonessential matter.  There's a bit of over-writing in this piece which makes the sentences feel clunky and breathless.  There are a billion ways to rewrite this to repair the problem, and the challenge lies with the writer to figure out which bits of information are essential to the story at this stage, and which are merely superfluous.


I'll give a couple of examples, just to show how they can change the flavor of the sentence:


Fighting the urge to yell, Jacob whipped the towel from its customary place on his shoulder and wound it tightly around his finger.


Fighting the urge to draw attention from himself, Jacob instinctively whipped this dish towel from his shoulder and wound it around his finger.


Fighting the urge to yell and draw attention to himself, Jacob whipped the dishtowel from his shoulder, and wound it round his finger.


Etc.


And that's without changing any of the wording - merely removing some words.)






 He tried to remember if he'd actually washed his hands after prepping that last batch of chicken or just wiped the worst off on the towel, meaning to throw it in the laundry next time he passed.


(Same issue.  Figure out what's essential.)




 He wasn't sure if you could get salmonella that way or not, but it had to be better than bleeding out in the middle of the kitchen on his first day at work.


(This is solid - we have Jacob's internal conflict, and the information that it's his first day at this job - though clearly not his first day in a kitchen.)


"Shit" he muttered under his breath, realizing with dismay that even through the thickness of five layers of material, unmistakable blooms of poppy-red were appearing; the razor-sharp edge he'd honed to perfection that very morning had come back to bite him on the ass, or the finger at least. 





I have mixed feelings about 'or the finger at least'.  Besides needing a comma of its own, it feels a little bit like the writer is trying a bit too hard to be cute or clever.  It could work as part of Jacob's voice, perhaps, as a sentence fragment, or if the sentences weren't quite so ponderous.)

"Where the fuck are table nineteen's app's? They should've been sent five minutes ago, but the docket's still up! What the fuck? Did I look like I was joking when I called 'em?" Chef lumbered towards Jacob, all set to make an example of how little tolerance he had for time-wasters, but his anger turned to exasperation as he took in the scene. 


(Two things here.


The first recalls my own admittedly limited experience in a kitchen - there flat out wouldn't have been enough time for a rant that long.  The head cook where I worked did have profanity down to an art form; the longest thing I can remember him saying during a busy hour was "Fuck you, you fuckin' fuck!'.   The reply was much to the tune of 'argh', 'gah', or a similar wordless sound of derision.


Were Chef taking a bit of a walk over to Jacob's station, I could buy the longer phrasing.  Which brings us to point two:


That all important 'show'.  Don't tell the reader he's pissed, give visual clues.  We're told a lot about what he's up to, but not allowed to come to that conclusion by ourselves through creation of the scene.  Kitchens are generally noisy.  Like battlefield chaos noisy.  And entrance to Hell hot.  Chefs have bullhorns genetically built into them to shout above the noise, and often remind me of drill sergeants. I'm not sure if this guy is more basic training or Full Metal Jacket, but I'd like to know - and this is a perfect missed opportunity to express both that, and give the reader a little more about this particular kitchen.)


"Oh for fuck's sake, what'd you do?" Without waiting for a reply, he yanked Jacob's hand towards him and peered under the blood-sodden towel. 


(No issues here.)

"Taz! Take this clumsy fuck out for some air, see if you can find a glove or something for him to wear. Callie! You're on app's now, move it, I need that table sent NOW!"


(This feels like a kitchen - the show must go on.  Apropos of nothing, this gave me an extra grin because Taz is the name of my cat.


Subjective?  Absolutely.  I wanted to mention it, because so much of this stuff is so subjective.  This piece isn't quite there yet for me, but might work for someone else.)


Cold rough brick pressed into Jacob's back and the wet concrete step he'd slumped down on was rapidly adding to his discomfort.


(Yay!  This is the first view or outside stimulus we've seen so far.  I'd add a comma between cold and rough, as it constitutes a list.)




Taz had handed him an antiseptic wipe and a clean dish cloth then disappeared back inside, and as the adrenaline wore off, the pain was becoming more apparent.


(Watch out for that 'was' version of passive sentence structure.  While the sheer length of the earlier sentences overwhelmed this issue,  it's becoming pretty glaring in these two.  'was rapidly adding', 'was becoming more' - 'was' is one of those words that can often be omitted from the sentence without changing it with any noticeable significance.)


 Gingerly unwinding his make-shift bandage, Jacob could feel the blood welling to the surface, and sure enough, once the pressure was off, thick drops started to splatter at his steel-toed safety shoes.


(This could easily be two sentences.  I like the safety shoes - again, I'm a big fan of 'seeing' what's in the scene.)




 He tore open the wipe with his teeth, weighing up the benefits of having a slightly cleaner wound against the cons of that stinging agony once the alcohol touched exposed nerves, but eyeing the state of the cloth he'd just peeled off, he didn't really have a choice. 


(Exposed nerves?  That must be one hell of a deep cut.  Is there a more active/involved way to relate this information?  Right now, it seems that Jacob is completely detached while weighing his choices.)


This was all Jade's fault, he decided. If she hadn't given him that age-old ultimatum of 'get a place together or get out of my life', he would still be happily slaving away in the same little cafe he'd worked in since he quit school.


(Cool.  This is enough backstory to be interesting, without resorting to an info-dump.)


 That was ten years ago now, getting paid just enough to get by on but feeling like part of the family and getting satisfaction from knowing that the regulars were regulars because of his food. This time last week he'd been cheerfully singing along to the radio, elbow-deep in coleslaw, (gloved hands replacing the mixing blades that had broken months ago and couldn't afford to be replaced,) deciding what specials to go on the board that day. 


(Here we walk the line of info-dump.  I do like the coleslaw line, as it gives a great picture of the family cafe - but there's a touch too much wordiness here in general.)


"Now look at me" he thought, "bottom of the brigade, in way over my head, and watching rats dine on leftovers that are worth more than my rent back home."






This would be a pass for me, as it feels like the piece would just require too much editing work before submitting.


I want to talk a little bit about what I mean by a 'breathless' sentence.  Human beings process information at different speeds, sure, but there is a maximum.  That's why run-on sentences can be so frustrating.  Give a reader a sentence with too much information, or too many extraneous words, and the brain starts tripping over those words and needs some time to catch up.  You generally don't want to have a sentence where a reader has to go over the same line twice in order to parse all the information, and it's worse when that 'information' is just made up of additional words that don't really add depth or meaning.