Reading Excuses - 25042022 - Jamesbondsmith - An Acceptable Lie - V (implied)

[jamesbondsmith]

This is a short story that I did a while ago and was considering entering into a competition. The comp has no theme stated.

One of the requirements is that it is ‘original’. Obviously I’m not going to plagiarise stuff, but it was inspired by a song. If anyone notices which one it is, please let me know in case it is in fact too close for the rules. Maybe if you notice it put it in spoiler tags so I can see if a lot of people pick up on it?

Otherwise, I'm not really looking for any particular feedback, just wanting to see what people think.

[Mandamon]

Thanks for submitting!

It's an interesting character sketch of L, and shows his compassion, but I'm not sure there's actually a story in here. We do see change from the boy in that he stands up straight, but there's not any change in L from the beginning to the end. You might think through Mary Robinette's MICE quotient and pick one of the four that you want to show off in this story--likely either "character" or "event"--and that might give it a little more direction.

Assuming I'm correct on the song title, this is short enough you could actually lean into it more, going through some of the descriptions in the song, which would also being some humor into the situation, as L is trying to do.

 

Notes while reading:

so I'm guessing the song is,

Spoiler

"Always look on the bright side of life?"

pg 1: "but they wanted to be part of it even less."
--is this implying they would be hanged for not showing up? It's a little unclear

pg 2: L and J's names are a bit on the nose with the above song title...

pg 5: If I'm right on the song title, L could also end with a bow to the audience...

[Warmacky]

Thanks for sharing this one!

I assume the song referenced is in the first words spoken by L.  It stood out to me because it is not a commonly used phrase but is a very well known song title.  I wouldn't have guessed the full story was inspired by that song specifically though.

I really liked L as a character.  His diction and weaving of tales was a convincing minstrel and I think he would be a great character to build more stories around.  I was picturing Jaskier from the Witcher series while reading it.  I was very curious why he was comforting this boy and where he was going with the story.  All of that was really engaging.

I was wishing for more hints about how he got himself into this predicament.  It was clear he made a "crude jape" but I feel like it would have been a great opportunity to characterize L further if we got more hints about what kind of joke he played and on whom.  I think that would make the story feel "deeper".

I feel a little bit like I read a small excerpt of a story rather than a full short story.  It was an excerpt that was very interesting, but I'm not sure there were enough plot points/rising/falling/learning/changing to be submitted as a full short story.

I wondered how the prisoner was getting away with talking so long to the boy since he had already been punched twice by the guard for giving lip.  I was expecting a "Shut it!" from the guard and another punch at any moment.  I lost a bit of the surrounding milieu and situation during the story since it all seemed to fade away in favor of the story.

It wasn't until the boy reveals why he is in trouble that I realized this was someone else on the block to be hung.  I thought he was talking to a boy at the front of the crowd up until that point.

I love L's optimism, but I feel like it would have more meaning if we understood why he is such an optimist.  Has he always been this way?  Did he get one over on the King and save his family and so it was worth getting caught?  This is such a key part of what makes the story interesting/unusual that I would love to have it built out further.

At first I thought the document I downloaded was incomplete since it ends with "...and".  Without an ellipsis or something to indicate the ending I thought it was cut off mid line.  I assume this is really the intended ending but I did wonder about it.

I hope to read more about L's life and travels in a future expansion on this!

 

 

[Sarah B]

This was really charming.

For me, the story within the story stole the show. It reminded me in a way of the Princess Bride. As a reader, I was left wanting more of the frame story to give the nested story some more weight. 

I definetly got some fantasy vibes from L's story, but this could be real world/alternate history pretty easily. I like that you left that part of the context up to the reader.

Song: I'm pretty sure the other's are right about the song. However, from trying to guess I now will have "Renegade" by Styx stuck in my head for the foreseeable future :-) 

Thanks for sharing!

[Silk]

I suspect what the contest rules mean when they say “original” is “unpublished” and “you own the copyright” – no fanfiction or anything that uses someone else’s IP. I’m pretty sure I know what the song title is, and I see everyone else has come to a similar conclusion, but unless I’m missing something I think you’re fine here.

Why are they leaving him on the gallows with a noose around his neck if the execution isn’t to happen for a while yet?

“The rope’s a bit scratchy…” lol

I have some trouble swallowing the idea that this kid is close enough to whisper to, and also some trouble swallowing that the authorities would just let him do this—especially considering that this goes on for quite a while, and that this sort of thing was apparently what got him in hot water in the first place.

So is L talking about himself here…?

Oh, whoa. I kind of missed that the kid was actually on the gallows with L, and scanning back, J isn’t described as anywhere other than on L’s left, which could mean almost anything. It’d be an easy piece of description to make this clear, but also, I would expect L to react to the fact that a child was on the gallows with him.

“...they were just suspicious enough…” How so? Nothing about this seems particularly suspicious.

Ending the story partway through a sentence is an interesting choice. I got the sense that maybe it was supposed to contribute to the ambiguity of the ending, but it doesn’t really work, because L explicitly states to the reader that he is lying. Making it clear without making it explicit that L is lying (or making it actually ambiguous, though I didn’t get the sense that this was what you were going for) might help clinch the ending.

Overall: This could potentially be a punchy short piece, but there are a couple of things that didn’t work for me as-is. The first I mentioned above, which was my inability to suspend my disbelief that L has time to have this entire conversation when he’s literally standing on the gallows—with a punch-drunk hangman standing right there, no less. But this can easily be fixed with some blocking, i.e. having them marched up to the gallows from their cells or something similar.

The second issue is that, short though it is, the story still needs an arc. There needs to be some sort of development or resolution, and his death doesn’t satisfy that without some larger emotional connection. Why am I joining this character in the last few moments of his life? Why is it significant that he spends that time telling the kid the story—does this represent him doubling down on the character trait that got him in trouble to begin with or is it some sort of growth or revelation for him? And I think we need a little more emotional grounding—he’s very blasé about his own death, we have very little information about the character or what he said (whether he’s downplaying his own actions or not) let alone how he feels about it.

On 4/26/2022 at 11:09 AM, Mandamon said:

Assuming I'm correct on the song title, this is short enough you could actually lean into it more,

I think Mandamon may be onto something here!

[jamesbondsmith]

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

The competition has a word count of 1500-5000 words, and seeing this piece is just over 1600 words I've definitely got room to expand it. It sounds like the story-within-a-story is OK, but the framing device needs work. I guess I was going for a slice of life type story, but I see what people mean about needing more of an arc.

It looks like I didn't have anything to worry about with the song

Spoiler

It's All Along the Watchtower. James represents Jimmy Hendrix, Luke represents Tom Ellis' Lucifer (I thought of this story after watching the scene when he sings this song). I had references like 'There must be some kind of way out of here/Said the joker to the thief' and 'drinking wine/digging earth/prince keeping the view from the watchtower'. I'm not sure if I want to lean too much into referencing it, as I don't want to be considered to be plagiarising. Unless anyone knows of short story comps which have a theme of being inspired by music?

I'm definitely thinking of including this character in other works, perhaps as kind of an interlude character like in Stormlight Archive. This would probably be his final appearance, seeing as

Spoiler

he is killed at the end. I intended for the mid-sentence stop to indicate the floor being dropped on the gallows, but I'm not sure how well it came across. I was also trying to convey that he's distracting the boy from the fact they're about to die, and that he's keeping it up until the drop.

 

[Ace of Hearts]

Unfortunately I don't have the time to give this the attention it deserves (especially since it has a lot of real potential!), but I'll leave what thoughts I have.

On 4/26/2022 at 2:09 PM, Mandamon said:

It's an interesting character sketch of L, and shows his compassion, but I'm not sure there's actually a story in here.

This is basically how I feel. I like L's character but I also didn't feel like this was really a story with a beginning, middle, and end.

Another thought is that while I think L's character shows us a lot, J comes off as much more standard, and acts as a plot device for L to play off of more than a real fleshed out character. The story understands that L not approaching the situation in the usual way is important for being compelling, and I think there has to be another character with that complexity for him to play off--J is right here as an option but it doesn't have to be him necessarily.

Thanks for subbing! Was a fun read.  

[C_Vallion]

General note: if you could include the wordcount in the filename and the topic title, that would be a big help.  I probably would have gotten to this last week if I’d known it was this short.

Since it’s shorter, and you’re looking at putting it in a contest, a lot of my comments are minor grammar/text flow edits.  It’s pretty smooth overall text-wise, but in a contest situation, you want to make sure you’re taking away any possible chance for the reader to trip over a word or phrase.

Overall:

I think my biggest general opinions are similar to the others’.  I hadn’t realized J was also being hung.  And it does seem like there’s a lot of time for L to be talking.  I also agree that there needs to be more plot for this to feel like a full story. I like the overall idea of the setup, and it was a lot of fun to read. However, there is probably a way to push that idea into a story with a complete plot and arc, and it would do the concept much better justice to do that.

 

Pg 1:

“It was wiped…”  Might want to reword this to avoid the passive-voice. And/or split it into two sentences.  It’s a little clunky, as-is right now.

“gut, before” shouldn’t have a comma.

If we’re in the middle of the town square, would there be a clear line of sight to the sunset?

“they wanted to be part of it even less.” Might want to make the implication a little clearer here.  I assume you’re saying that they’re afraid of ending up next on the gallows if they don’t show up to watch, but what “be part of it” means could be made a little clearer so that it can hit home without the reader having to pause and think about it.

“They would take their time” could also be made clearer who the “they” is here. It’s clear by the end of the sentence that it’s the nobility, but there’s a moment of confusion at the start there that could be avoided.

“…drink wine, tell stories and be paid…” you and me both, L.

Pg 2:

Wondering about the name choices. (Besides, it wouldn’t be a proper critique from me without poking at naming conventions and/or religion world building) We got a “For the gods’ sake” on page 1, but L and J are both common names because they’re Biblical, and are going to carry a good deal of Judeo-Christian connotation.  If you’re aiming for a more fantastical setting, it might be worth swapping out the names for something less tied to earth-as-we-know-it.

Pg 3:

Smelt should just be smelled

Pg 5:

I like the idea of the sentence break at the end indicating what it does, but it needs to be set up right for it to pay off.

[kais]

Overall

An engaging piece! It has a lot of heart and warmth. It doesn't have an arc so much, so I'm not sure it's likely what the competition would be looking for, but there's enough substance there that I think some minor tweaks at the start could fix it. If we had a bit more about why the MC is helping the boy (does the MC also fear death? Is helping the boy helping him face death, too? Is the boy his son? etc.) it would allow the story to have a front part of the arc, and then allow the ending to be more satisfying. Right now the emotional beats are there, but the point of the story is not. 

 

As I go

- how is the hangman allowing a story of this length to continue??

- oh I see, the boy is about to be hung too? Might want more blocking with that

 

[Lost Owl Needs Tea]

Hello! Haven't stopped by for a while, but this story is short and sweet enough. I really liked it. I feel like it could be tightened a bit, namely, I found it hard to suspend disbelief that the whole story could be told between two characters facing imminent death. I liked L as a character and after his intriguing introduction, wanted to get back to the what and why of his character. I also wondered if the ending was really the ending. But I felt it was a good one, even though I was left a little wanting for more about L.