Pancakes II: The Fiction and Poetry Thread

[SniperRifle]

If water was vodka and I was a duck,

I'd swim to the bottom and never come up.

But water ain't vodka and I ain't a duck

so pass the damn bottle and shut the fuck up.

[Gohron]

I've started a novel based in the zombie fiction genre. I explained to DiffX and g0zen a movie that I wanted to film but due to the fact I don't have a lot of money right now I am unable to afford the budget of such a film at the time so I decided to go on with writing it in novel format for the time being. I will probably post a sample in the coming days.

[Gohron]

I've started a novel based in the zombie fiction genre. I explained to DiffX and g0zen a movie that I wanted to film but due to the fact I don't have a lot of money right now I am unable to afford the budget of such a film at the time so I decided to go on with writing it in novel format for the time being. I will probably post a sample in the coming days.

Ah what the hell, I'll post up the first two chapters now. Keep in mind I intend to go back and "thicken" the intro a bit but any criticisms are welcome.

Working title is "Death Legions"

[Scourge]

Although I have occasionally critiqued people's stories in these threads I have never posted one. That is probably because until my creative writing class I am now taking I haven't written fiction since grade school. However, I think I have managed to write at least two decent stories.

This one is called Desert Epic which is kind of cheesy, but it makes more since than it sounds. Anyway, I've been trying to edit it so that the frame narrative and the interior have two seperate and distince voices. Let me know what you think if you check it out.

I read this last night. I think it's really well written. And I liked it a lot, so don't let the rest of what I have to say make you think differently. The format drew me in from the outset because growing up I read a lot of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan/John Carter of Mars creator) and he used the same format for a lot of his stuff, where a narrator introduces the subject person and relates his relationship to him and how he came by his works and such... Now, Burroughs wasn't a good writer, he just happend to create some iconic characters and alien worlds in romantic escapist adventure and sci-fi, so that's kind of where the comparison ends.

I have a problem with the story. I've tried to sort it out but the conclusions I've drawn I doubt were the intent, so I think there's a rather disastrous narrative mistake in the work, which I'll try my best to identify.

Firstly, the characters as far as I can tell are archetypal. The lawman is a hero of a thousand faces and the old Indian is the mystic/shaman type. The lawman I've concluded is a hero because he, if I remember correctly went to fight off the bandits single-handedly and at the very least drove them away from town. The old Indian confuses me. His character stops the sun, endangering the entire world, and for what? All the beer he can drink.

My problem is that I believe that you set the story up to be allegorical obviously, but the scenario obfuscated the natural roles these characters would play out. I believe this was purposeful, but I'm unclear what the purpose was. In the narration intro, the narrator states that while the old writer was not a hippie, hippies would come to find his works to be deeply meaningful to them philosophically. I have a hard time believing that the story that was presented would appeal much to any critical thinking hippie, but maybe that's a point in itself worth looking into.

I would think the shaman would be a righteous character and that his drives would be somehow spiritually motivated. Now, his past shows that he's had a fall in faith, leaving his tribe behind (for reasons I can't specifically recall at this time) so maybe he's no longer some Jesus type. I mean he can't be Messianic and threaten the existence of the entire world population at the same time.

When he rides through the gunfire of the battle between the bandits and the lawman, remaining unhit and unperturbed it sets him up in that Messianic type role. Or maybe he's just really lucky. But I think your intent was that he had some bit of holy protection. So as the reader, we're supposed to expect that this is a man operating on a higher plane. But when he reaches his destination, he shows his true nature, that he has a forked tongue and so this holy man shows his traiterous deceit, and the once Jesus figure becomes the Devil.

The lawman on the other hand, the guy out fighting for the protection of the populace seems to be set up to become the bad guy. He kills the shaman and the reader is forced to question whether his motives are righteous or is this a matter of some white guy not giving a shit about the life or plight of some red guy in the old west and so he flippantly ends the Indian's life without much thought or remorse. That's how it felt it was meant to be read. That this once hero was really a horrible man whose power emanated from his love of violence through gunslinging. That there was commentary here against unbridled power being too quick on the draw.

My problem with the narrative is that the lawman was 100% right to kill the Indian. The Indian put everyone's life in peril and showed no remorse of his own nor any inkling that he would remit. So regardless how flippant the lawman's action seemed, it was the right course to take. And so the commentary actually becomes in favor of quick, overpowering action.

The obfuscation of the roles between what would in these days be the wicked white man (the majority and powerholder) and the downtrod Indian (the poor and disenfranchised) confuses me because I'm fairly certain that's not what you meant to do, to set the majority and powerholder up as the clear hero whereas the the downtrodden that initially seemed innocent and enlightened in the end was actually evil and required decisive action against them/him. I don't think to many hippie philosophists would go along with that scenario. Unless you can somehow prove that the Indian shouldn't have been killed. If you can, it's nowhere to be found in the text, at least I certainly couldn't find it.

I think you meant to juxtapose the expected archetypal roles to force the reader consider critically just what was good and what was bad. The problem here is that the old Indian, whom I assume you meant to be good, really wasn't at all. Now, if I'm wrong and you did mean for him to be evil, then I'm still confused about what that says about the morale of the story, that whitey isn't always being a racist when he quickly opens fire on some minority. That seems like a weird stance to take, regardless whether or not it's a valid stance to take.

Now, given what we know happened to the Native American historically, readers can ask themselves "Does the Indian have a right to put the whole world in peril? I mean, he's been through an awful lot..." and try to be objective about just how far revenge and retribution can go before it spills over the bounds of freedom fighting or whatever cause d'jour someone can use to validate their acts of evil, you know, because "we really should try to understand their perspective sob sob sob..."

I'm not even going to go in to how insulting it is that a Native American did this for beer, considering the extremely high rate of alcoholism among the Native American population... Now, it would be fair to say that that was caused by the white man's firewater which they somewhat forced on the Indian populace as a cheap trade, then you have some irony and a point, but I'm afraid that's not what you were going for. I mean if it was what you were going for, then it was about as clear as mud and would require some deep, deep digging by any reader.

But if the point you were trying to make was about alcholism among Native Americans, okay.

[Mman]

LOL, that is quite the rant. But no, you bring up some good points. Originally I wrote just the core of the story w/o a frame on it. I put the frame on last minute in a fit of ideas before I turned it into class for workshop.

The thing about the story is that I am playing alot with ambiguity. If you notice it is the town who sees the lawman as just and the indian as a messiah (not so much on this one, but kind of).

Now, the lawman (who I never actually say is white, but can be immplied I guess) can either be seen as the stereotypical good lawman saving the world against the gang and the dangerous Indian. Or just a dude who got lucky hiding out in a house and then needlessly ended a life. I meant for this abiguity to be in place because the truth is probably somewhere between the two. Sure, in a way he had a right to kill the man. But would he have done the same thing if it was a white man? Would he have acted in such a way if he had not just spent 36 hours in a gunfight?

Now I have a confession to make about the Indian, which might shine some light on his character.. I stole his story exactly from a Buddhist legend (though I'm simplifying it now). The story is this Indian (as in the country India) is studying to be a great monk. He works really hard but thinks he is going nowhere. He gives it up and throws his payer beads into the river. That night he sees a vision of a woman in his dreams that gives him back his beads and tells him that he is on the right path. Without knowing it this guy had actually reached this grand new state of enlightenment. His writings would be much of the foundation for modern buddhists. Anyway, the legend about him is that one day he went into village and did the thing w/ the line and stopping the sun and he drank wine until the a prince came and paid for his wages. In buddhist legend it is supposed to be a teaching thing about enlightentment or something, but obviously that is not exactly how I meant it.

However, I transfer this to my story as being the Indian is this enlightened figure who leaves his villiage and is able to use his 'abilities' for such petty things as stopping the sun. And yes, I am going off the idea about Native Americans being particularly vulnerable to alcholism.

However, and perhaps I didn't make this clear in the story, the town is mesmorized by the stories he tells them. In leaving his ways and his town he is sort of in a way spreading his word and his knowledge, so he isn't exactly a terrible guy. And alot of bad things have happened to him also, so it becomes less clear in morality.

The bottom line is that I want the story to involve this sort of critical thinking about the characters. If you come away confused slightly then I probably have suceeded. The only thing I was worried about in the story is that the frame narrative would sway the reader to reading the story entirely one sided. Like the hippies part. If all of Henry's stories had this moral abiguity I think the hippies would have always sided and seen this story as a poor Native American getting shot.

The other important part is that the letter portion is NOT ambiguous. Clearly Henry was a good person and was killed unjustly. The editor is obviously his friend and is prejudice in his favor, so perhaps that is what is going on. But I'm not sure what it means when the fictional world is ambiguous and the real world is not. It definetly sets up a contrast between the two, but I'm not sure what is going on exactly by doing it.

[Gohron]

Update on my story. I think this is a better point to leave the reader for the time being. Take a look at it, I think it is much better than the Sci-Fi story I posted awhile ago.

[station82o]

one time i had to shit behind my friends house
because i knew it was going to be so big
it may have destoryed their toliet
so i shat
next to a creek with ducks watching
and i used the kitchen towel
i stole it from their house to wipe my ass
it went in the creek
stained with my rancid sin

[Cowutopia]

Wow, I found a poem from a few years back that I can actually stand! Except the ending. The last stanza is completely unfinished (after the line). And it's untitled, but I might call it "Stew." I think it reads really well aloud if you don't stop at the line breaks, only at the periods. (I have this huuuge problem of breaking up lines too frequently.)


Numbers to words
A thought to a figure
A blink to a murmur
Mumble and mutter
Stammer and stutter.

Galaxies flying
Galaxies falling
See starry skies as they
Try to fly behind wide
Eyes.

Transformation
Permutation
Shift and sweat
Change and yet
It’s stayed the same.

Words to numbers
A figure to a thought
A murmur to
Blink closed the wide eyes,
Shut to the night sky.
______________________
An instant lost for the murmurs
Let loose, the murmurs
Stalking us all.
Eyes wide keep your eyes wide eyes
OPEN
wide.

[Calliander]

one time i had to shit behind my friends house
because i knew it was going to be so big
it may have destoryed their toliet
so i shat
next to a creek with ducks watching
and i used the kitchen towel
i stole it from their house to wipe my ass
it went in the creek
stained with my rancid sin

Greatest poem ever!

[g0zen]

Very cathartic.