a first short part of a story i've been messing around with in my head for a while. tell me what you think. this is still in the rough stages because I want to eventually flesh it out a bit more and make it into a longer piece, but since this is sort of new territory for me, I want to ask what you guys feel works and what does not. thanks.
She wrote in squiggles.
Squiggled little lines and arcs which criss-crossed the off-white page like a ballerina dancer trying to keep up with the rhythm of the classical composition leading. Christ, she was even wearing pink. Ivan, eyes glazed and puffed, beard uneven and greasy like a rodent-- simply narrated his thoughts, eyes lost staring at the roof or floor, not giving her the slightest bit of attention or thanks. Not that she cared, of course. It was simply a contract gig, go in, record, transcribe and punch out with an extra ten-grand in her purse.
It had been a couple weeks since she had been paired up with Ivan Rolovich by one of his big name publishers. Rolovich, a prominent writer during the 1980’s had fallen into a rut following the messy divorce with his wife, leading to the abandonment of his only son, who chose to live with his mother in Maine. Ivan’s former novel, The Glade, had been nominated for Mann Booker and he was even listed by the New Yorker as one of the most prominent writers to look forward to in the future. Unfortunately, as Sonia noticed day after day alone with him, Rolovich dug himself a hole in which he could not climb out of, let alone fly.
He talked, and her job as one of the few stenographers left in the province, was to record and transcribe every single word said using shorthand, a system of alphabet different from normal english. This system of squiggles and arcs was to avoid writing down redundant words and combining them into phrases in order to directly record what Ivan was saying, word-by-word, without any flaws, without missing anything. Ivan directly ordered a stenographer and not a typist, as the clicks and clacks of the typewriter "slowly delved him deeper and deeper into my madness," so he says.
The novel had a deadline. That is truly why she had been hired. His publishers were pressuring him into finishing his final manuscript so his contract could finally end with them and they could finally drop him. His last two novels over the past ten years had been mediocre at best. Simon Says was about addiction to social norms as a result of the loss of self-identity, but it was morally “holier than thou” and Ivan dictated the entire novel which flowed uneasily with the shallow little plot. His followers still loved it. But with Blind Eyes he had lost everyone. The novel’s protagonist died within the first four pages and the rest of the novel was a hunk of depression, and the manuscript was nearly rejected when Rolovich denied to edit it and praised it as a work of spontaneous prose which did not require editing. The piece stood alone.
Though his present condition was futile, Rolovich was undoubtedly a genius. Initially, Sonia noticed this by his use of figurative language, which, though dense, left her in awe when she began recording his words. She could not believe the creativity, the beauty of his loneliness, spat out on a whim, without any ideas or plans prior to her coming. But as of late, it had only been description. Description of everything, of sound, of taste, of loneliness, of sex. Lots and lots of sex. And he had not even had a plot, just a sole man living through depressing experiences.
He dictated:
“His room was desolate. A lonely pigmented yellow meant to be white. Dead plants... dead. Death, the undeniable irony of life, and plants. And..."
This was outside of her job description, but Sonia could not handle it anymore. She was tired of his melancholy. Every day she would finish work and go home sad because of his boring and black sensory detail.
“Um Ivan..”
He looked into her eyes without addressing her. 'Fucking pretentious writers,' she thought.
“Um, I hate to interrupt.”
“Well that is what you are doing.”
“Yes.. yes I know. But, what is this novel about, really? I mean, what you describe is beautiful, yes. But where is the plot? Where is the meaning?”
“Plot is meaningless. Description is the plot as it is in every day life. There is no plot in life.”
“What?.. I mean..”
“I am writing thought, Sonia, not a story. But a thought process. That is why you are here to record it.”
He began again.
2 comments:
Once the description got going, it got much better. For a piece that heavily emphasized the beauty of description, I thought in general there simply wasn't enough of it except for at the beginning and then the end when he's dictating. The vocabulary should be richer if it is to contain a character such as Rolovich. Maybe you wanted the stark contrast of a dull world until he breathes "life" into it with description, but I don't think it was a very effective way of going about it.
The beginning was great because it jumped right in to a beautiful little simile, simple but classy. It would help to better reflect his character earlier on if you continued like that. You don't need to make it metaphor heavy, but in general the story would come alive quicker and easier. Plus it would be working on two levels then - form and content, form mirroring content, content fleshing out form. It would help show how description paired with plot is far better than the emptiness of solitary description.
There should definitely be a lot more of his dictations. It would be interesting if you were able to skillfully craft his dictation descriptions into consistently beautiful but useless phrases going nowhere while all the while contrasting with your own descriptions that drive with purpose, therefore becoming more profound. If you're able to do that it would be really strong.
Rolovich as a character needs to be developed sooner. It was only in paragraph five that it was mentioned he was a genius and all before that I was getting a bit bored with his character, as he seemed to be simply a two dimensional stock loser that tends to show up in most of your other pieces. However as soon as he was said to be a genius I perked up with interest - or doubt, more like, to be honest. I wanted you to prove to me that he was a genius. So I think if you worked that tension/anticipation of showing he's a wordmaster by mentioning straightaway at the beginning that he's a genius and then make the readers wait to find out how, that would work better.
So far his new stenographer is still underdeveloped, but she shows promise of becoming a fully rounded character, so I would just pay attention to giving her enough light beside Rolovich's overwhelming ego's shadow.
I also chuckled at the mention of The Glade being the title of his first published novel. Nice reference to your own story :)
All that being said, this plot sounds extremely close to the movie Alex and Emma. I don't know if you've seen it, but it's all about a writer being pressured by his publishers into writing a new novel really really soon and they give him a deadline so he hires a stenographer in order to complete it on time.
I look forward to seeing an edit of this/the next part!
Very much like Marta Barnes, I like the premise of the piece and where it's going, or rather where it could go, but I think it needs a lot of work.
I like the beginning a lot, the very beginning, the first line or so, but then I found the simile was over-developed, it fell under its own length and initially I wasn't quite sure what your were talking about anymore.
The backtrack/contextualization is good, like Marta I noticed you used the title of your own seminal piece The Glade as the title for the author's first novel and loved it. The line with Rolovich's quote in it is strange, however, because of the switch from third to first person. It's just a detail but it annoyed me, I think it would work better if you cut the quote into two.
Another small annoying detail, I didn't really feel like the explanation of what shorthand is was realy necessary.
There's also a glitch in the voice of the narration. You open with a very elaborate simile, but in the same paragraph there are the words "contract gig" and "extra ten-grand", but later you speak of "figurative language, which, though dense, left her in awe". I think the language needs to be smoothed out... you tend to write more of the ten-grand-gig kind of thing, maybe you should work on more elegance and sheen in your prose for this piece, once more as Marta noted it would work well with the content.
That's pretty much it. I can't wait to see what the piece will look like when you've refined it and fleshed it out a bit... If I could give one other recommendation, I don't know if you were planning to, but don't make Rolovich and the Stenographer sleep together, it would be incredibly cliche.
Post a Comment