08.09.2014 - Tal Spektor - Washed Orchards (353 words)

[Dysphoric Kitten]

I mainly tried to work on being clearer and more concise than before. I also tried embedding a few unexplained layers of content, which means you should be able to figure out more about the reality and the past event I am alluding to, each with a reasonable amount of detail. I may have done it incorrectly, though, as this is my first attempt at such a thing.

 

 

Enjoy!

[CommandanteLemming]

Whenever confronted with a piece of writing like this, I have a standard catch-phrase that I always apply: "It's like modern art...I have no clue what it is, but I like it."

 

I'm used to longer pieces, and as a relentlessly linear thinker obsessed with clarity and brutal honesty, I have difficulty approaching or critiquing that which is abstract. 

 

That said, your prose is vivid, and while I have absolutely no clue what you are getting at - I was certainly able to immerse myself in the scene. And the raw emotion came through. 

 

The one thing that threw me out was the smell of cleaning fluids - not sure if that's intentional, but that's certainly something that I don't associate with orange fields. 

 

The best part was probably the tree with "her" voice and the fact that he acts out against it.

 

Anything beyond that is a bit above my pay grade, as I usually don't engage things that are quite this trippy - but it's interesting for sure.

[Mandamon]

I'm also not very good at parsing short fiction, but you have captured a state of being, and a certain emotion, very well.  There are still a few sections where the sentences could be tightened up, especially in the last paragraph.

 

While it's short, there was still a sort of arc to the story, and even a conclusion, which gives a believable end to the scene.

[Dysphoric Kitten]

I would love to get more detailed reviews, especially about loose phrasing, but about anything else as well.

 

If you want to try and delve deeper, there is where to delve. I tried to hide some things from you until you reach the end, and I wonder if it worked.

[Robinski]

Apologies for the delay in responding - I'm really focused on the Write About Dragons course, so my time is limited, but I'm determined to keep up with Reading Excuses, if a bit behind. So...

 

I found this interesting. It's clear that there are deep emotions underlying the piece. There is a clearly a woman at the heart of it, but I'm not sure that there is enough time for us to learn what is going on. The emotions are very strong, there's no doubting that but, for me, it was too oblique and too short for me to divine what the issues were.

We don't learn what it is that the people don't believe, or what it is that they have double standards over. What is it that is being violated? I felt that, when reached the end, I had more questions that answers.

 

Like Lemming, I tend to need to be spoonfed abstract concepts, but I thought that the imagery was effective, it did engage me without a doubt. I'm just not sure I clever enough to see beyond the pretty colours. I will say that I had no trouble with the supermarket analogy, or the cleaning fluids reference, because I don't believe that he is actually in an orchard at all. I believe he is "insane" and that there are people around him, but his perception of reality is gone, temporarily or otherwise - am I close? I think I'm reaching now.

 

I developed the habbit of uploading to my Google Docs then downloading again - it makes tracking comments really easy, so I'll email that back to you. Hope you don't mind. In short pieces (is this what they call flash fiction?) I think the language would need to be really tight, so I've got some suggestions there, hope you don't mind.

[Dysphoric Kitten]

What I received was just a .docx containing just my piece, with one line added at the bottom saying "Robinski's comments". I would not mind you sharing the doc you have made, with all the comments as they are on the doc - I am very used to that way of commenting.

 

As for your theory, you are very close, and I bet that if you pay attention to all the odd details, you could get the exact nature of that event, as well as where he is at the moment. Yes, he is insane. And yes, I wrote a scene from my own life, distorted, with a madman as the hero. I do that.

 

I might need to make changes to both tighten (extremely likely) and improve hints (likely as well), both of which I will need someone directing me to achieve.

 

This is the hidden information, in case you do not want to have more time consumed just for the sake of the puzzle:

A. He is actually at a supermarket. The ground feels like a floor, it smells the same, it is all in rows and aisle-like paths. The air is cold, and so on.

B. He was raped by the woman. I allude to lack of acceptance, disbelief, double standards, false justice (bad laws), feeling violated, et cetera.

 

For that reason, I would not call this piece abstract - it contains the exact reality he is in, which means the world percieved by a madman. It is our world, it just has a lens in front of it that you need to remove.

 

Yes, there are deep emotions. I feel very strongly about this matter, and I feel that I know enough about it. I wanted to write a piece that shocks you the way it shocks a victim of this plague that will just not stop.

 

Hope you enjoyed it!

[Robinski]

Hmm, I don't get why you didn't see the comments. I can still see then when I open the file from the message that I sent. Are you using Word?

 

Thank for providing explanation. I got that it was the real world and his impression, although only once thinking about it in critiquing, not on first pass. As for the 'secret', I'm not sure I would have seen that without you telling me. It's quite a thing to consider.

[Dysphoric Kitten]

Yeah... the problem is, I don't have Word. Not ever since I discovered Office is on a rental plan, which I think is not worth it. I never needed any feature over WordPad, except the occasional group editing/commenting, which I do with Google Drive. When I try to open it either through Drive or WordPad, it displays the  text I have written of, and through Pad, it also proclaims that some features (presumably comments/annotations?) are unavailable to me.

 

Sorry for the problems I am making.... Is there any chance you can share me into the original Google Doc?

 

 

 

Yeah, that sort of thing is considered unheard of or impossible for men to go through. Let me assure you, about ten percent of men are survivors of that, and one of six (or three, depends), has gone through something on the spectrum leading to this extreme form of abuse. It just is ignored. I do not want to explicitly write this or what it is about, as I think it will subtract from the piece and it's charm, plus saying it out blatantly in the story makes it less flexible in how people think of it. Do you agree? Do you guys think it holds well even without being completely understood in all levels?

[Robinski]

I think it still holds a lot of interest and it made me ask questions to try and undercover what it is about. I agree that you don't want to come out and just say it, that is not the style of the piece. The one clue that stands out, for me, is probably the most blatant one when the protagonist strikes the female 'figure' - why would he do that? That may lead to the right conclusion.

 

On the document, I think I can print out the comments to PDF, let me try that and email it to you again.