The Drive To

[Death Dark]

     This story was written for my Advanced Creative Writing class.  I am proud of this particular piece -- it does all it was intended.


    I stared at the dash, the evening sunlight blinking through the trees.  One arm curled around my legs, pulling them in, while I nibbled on the thumb of the other.
     The man driving the car placed his hand upon mine, pushing it away.  I was broken from the chasm of my mind and turned to look at him.
     “Don’t chew on your nail – you’ll just chip the polish.”
     “I thought you said I was cute when I was nervous.”
     “You’re cute when you’re anything.”
     He let go of my hand.  I wrapped it around with the other one and clasped the two together.  I rested my head on my knees, watching the setting sun glimmer between trees and poles.
     “What if they don’t like me?”
     “Of course they’ll like you.  As a person, at least.”
     “I’m concerned about if they’ll like me as your person.”
     He shrugged.
     “I don’t know.  To be honest, I don’t care either – you’re mine, not theirs.”
     “I don’t want to cause a division between you and them.”
     “So what if you do?”
     “They’re your family!”
     “You are my family.”
     I blushed as I looked down, overwhelmed by emotions and memories, lost in my thoughts yet again.
     “If they really can’t put up with you, we’ll just leave.”
     “You don’t have to leave on the account of me.”
     “I won’t put you through that.”
     “Do they even know that you’re…?”
     “Did you know?”
     “Does hoping count?”
     I laid my head down again, this time watching him, his face.  He was smiling.  He was always smiling.
     “I wish I could read your mind.”
     “There’s not much to read.”
     “Wish that I could see what you were thinking.”
     “You want to know what I’m thinking?”
     “Yes.”
     “I’m thinking about how great it will be to spend time with you and my family.”
     “Assuming things go well.”
     “They will.”
     “How do you know?”
     His eyes met mine, and for a second I could swear I could feel his love for me flowing through the air between us.
     “Trust me.”
     We pulled onto the exit ramp, taking us down into the small city.  As I watched the buildings flow by, his hand gently stroked my hair.
     “I don’t want this to be one of those kinds of things where I hate my in-laws.”
     “They live halfway across the country; you won’t even have to deal with them most of the time.”
     “That’s not the point.  I want to enjoy them.  I want them to enjoy me!”
     We pulled into a neighborhood, passing house after house, until we came to a small white home with a miniature fleet of cars parked out front.
     “We’re here.”
     He found his place amongst the vehicles and placed the car.  I buried my head in my arms, trying to prepare myself for what lied ahead.  My door opened, and he reached around me and unbuckled my seatbelt.
     “Come on.”
     I let him pull me out of my seat, though I doubt I could’ve stopped him.  He released me, allowing me to stumble back against the car as he shut my door.  He grabbed me by the shoulders and looked me in the eye.
     “Hey,” he said, hunched down to be near my level, “I love you.”
     He placed a light peck on my forehead and wrapped me in his arms.  There he held me as I worked through my mind over and over, preparing myself for what was to come.  I don’t think I ever could have been ready.  He took my hand and led me to the door.  I could hear the people inside – his siblings, cousins, and their families.
     He stepped forward as he opened the door and was immediately bombarded by greetings and cheers.  He waved hello, greeting others in return, and asked those requesting hugs to give him a moment.  He pulled me through the door, fitting me snugly in his arm.  I looked at the floor, my face burning and red.  I knew the words that would come next – they never failed to touch my heart.
     In a voice filled with confidence and pride, he said,
     “Everyone, I’d like you to meet my boyfriend.”

[Forte]

[Hobro]

[Death Dark]

Now that the trolling is done on both sides, does anyone have any constructive criticism?  Note that not liking the subject matter is not a failure on my behalf.

[MegaRock35]

I don't have anything to say on how you could've done better, but I would like to say I enjoyed it and it was a great use of a wham line at the end.

Sorry I don't have any constructive criticism for you.

[Death Dark]

Telling me what I did right is also acceptable and just as helpful.

[Omega]

Sure, I'll post.

You've got some pretty good word choice. The sentences themselves flow well, and it just overall sounds intelligent. I don't know if thats how you naturally write, or if you went through a few drafts first, but as far as actually writing goes this looks great.

I only have 2 issues with this story. The first is that it goes entirely too fast. You write well, but you need way more descriptions. You only have about 2 real paragraphs in the entire story, and thats not until the end. I understand that you're trying to keep it more of a mystery as to whats going on until the very end, but you should try to pain a better picture for both characters outside of dialog without giving away the twist at the end.

The second thing is the dialog style. I've seen something like this done way too much in an RP setting, where its just line after line of just straight dialog. The only difference I see here is that you don't have a name beside each line of speech. Even if you only have 2 people, it helps the reader out alot if you throw in more hints of whose talking, or just add more descriptions between dialog. Otherwise it just drags on and on. I don't have any real fix to offer for this, especially since either isn't given a name. Perhaps thats something to think about to add to this story. You could get away with one of those 2-gender names like Taylor or something, which would help give more character to the, er, character.

I still think this is a good piece of work. I like what you do have written, and it sure is better than alot of stuff I've read. My problem is just with stuff thats not there, which will instantly be fixed once you add more. Good job with this so far.

EDIT: I should also add that it would probably be a good idea to express more of the narrator's thoughts and feelings outside of dialog and action. Its a nice indirect way of giving more personality to both of your characters, which will be more fulfilling in the end I think. I do this all the time with my RP posts, so I'm rather fond of this writing style. The tricky part for you would be to mask the secrecy until the very end.

[Death Dark]

You've got some pretty good word choice. The sentences themselves flow well, and it just overall sounds intelligent. I don't know if thats how you naturally write, or if you went through a few drafts first, but as far as actually writing goes this looks great.

Thanks.  This is the second draft of the story.  In the first draft I had stepped away for a moment, and when I came back, I continued writing in a slightly different narrative voice, but that was over halfway through the story, and it's fixed now.

The first is that it goes entirely too fast. You write well, but you need way more descriptions.

This piece was done to be what's called a "short short," which is extremely short fiction (somewhere between flash fiction and a short story).  It's intentionally built to read fast.  To add more to it would add to the story, but at the same time take away from other effects.

Pretty much, it's like watching a single skit from Robot Chicken.  Just without the comedy.

The second thing is the dialog style. I've seen something like this done way too much in an RP setting, where its just line after line of just straight dialog. The only difference I see here is that you don't have a name beside each line of speech. Even if you only have 2 people, it helps the reader out alot if you throw in more hints of whose talking, or just add more descriptions between dialog. Otherwise it just drags on and on. I don't have any real fix to offer for this, especially since either isn't given a name. Perhaps thats something to think about to add to this story. You could get away with one of those 2-gender names like Taylor or something, which would help give more character to the, er, character.

At first when you said "dialogue style," I thought you were talking about how the people talked, and I was confused a bit.  You're likely right on missing speaker tags, I tend to do that more often than not, but it was easier to follow in print.  Maybe I'll increase the font size and take out the double spacing so it'll be closer to the printed format.  Might help.

As for naming the characters, that would be a bad idea for the brevity of the story.  Besides the fact that naming a character is a very difficult task.

EDIT: I should also add that it would probably be a good idea to express more of the narrator's thoughts and feelings outside of dialog and action. Its a nice indirect way of giving more personality to both of your characters, which will be more fulfilling in the end I think. I do this all the time with my RP posts, so I'm rather fond of this writing style. The tricky part for you would be to mask the secrecy until the very end.

I'm not exactly sure if you mean I should put the narrator's thoughts into the story or if they should be more of "I was nervous."  In either case, I prefer not to put in thought monologue, and I prefer the "show" approach over "tell" in terms of portraying personality, thoughts, and mood.


Thanks for your input.  I know it probably seems like I'm ignoring everything you said, but I'm not.  It's just my Professor, who's published 4 novels himself, didn't find any of these to be problematic, and I didn't really find these things to be a problem either.  However, I won't simply brush off what you said.  I remember criticism well.  For example, Forte doesn't like how many of my stories drop the reader into a situation in a very sudden manner, catching the reader off-balance.  Even though it's a properly established way to open a story and thus the criticism is kind of irrelevant, I still remember it and take note of it.

I'll see if I can't fish up an excerpt from a longer story where most of your criticism can be properly applied, since brevity means nothing there.

[Omega]

Let me stress that my experience with writing has been strictly done in an RP setting, so writing actual stories is a whole other field for me. Most of my suggestions are just things that I would have done, since like I said I don't like making my posts mostly dialog. I'll explain more of what I meant, but just remember that I'm not trying say how you or how your professor write are both wrong, just that I write differently (I'm sure that sounds egotistical in itself <.<;)

By dialog style, I don't mean the actual font or presentation. I mean just the constant back and forth of just straight dialog, where there's little to no actions or assumed changes in how each person is speaking. It helps speed the story along, but it left me feeling like something was missing. A smirk after a comment, a nervous look out the window when speaking...its small stuff, but I think it would add alot to this story without taking away the intention of it being short.

I don't think naming them would be a bad idea. Actually, I don't really see how it could be a bad idea at all, since its just names. I find that using them makes writing alot easier while still guiding the audience effectively without too much repetition.

I know you're trying to make it short, but I'm not necessarily telling you to turn this into a novel. This is alot like something I'd post at an RP forum: a short snippet of someone's life. I think that the story can be made to be something thats more fulfilling and entertaining to read by adding more to specific actions instead of rushing through. If I were to compare the type of story to a person, then this to me would be a tall skinny guy while what I'm suggesting is a short fat one. Just small things here and there to help guide the reader while still developing the characters in as short of a time frame as possible.

I understand that this is just part of your writing style. We all write differently, so its stupid to think that there's only 1 correct way of writing. You do a fine job with the way you write, which I encourage you to pursue and really refine (lets face it, none of us ever reach that perfection in writing). This is just different than something I would write, which is really the only way I know how to give criticism when it comes to stories and the like. Besides, I'm an admin. I always have an opinion XD.

[Death Dark]

One of the first things we went over in Engl 380 (Creative Writing - Fiction) was dialogue.  One of the most prominent signs of an amateur writer, he told us, is using dialogue tags as a way to inform your reader of the way the character is talking.  Things like "he said, sarcastically" should be evident enough in the way the dialogue is written.

Naming a character is an intimate process.  For me, at least.  You have to know the character, know who they are, what they desire, what will make them.  Then you give them a name, and you've given them birth.

Having a character with a name is an intimate process for the reader as well.  You have someone before you, and now you know their name.  That character is now something to you.  In this story, you start to get to know them, and the story ends on the next page.

[Omega]

One of the first things we went over in Engl 380 (Creative Writing - Fiction) was dialogue.  One of the most prominent signs of an amateur writer, he told us, is using dialogue tags as a way to inform your reader of the way the character is talking.  Things like "he said, sarcastically" should be evident enough in the way the dialogue is written.

Huh. Thats interesting. I hadn't really thought about it all that much, but that makes sense. I'm used to seeing and writing posts that tend to be too detailed in some regards, although I'm trying to streamline by RP style. I'll definitely remember this when I RP. Does this also apply to actions with dialog? Like a nervous tug at the collar when speaking or something like that?

You have a point about names. I'm so used to coming up with random names all the time that I mostly just try to come up with something that doesn't sound terrible. Then again, I mostly allow my characters to develop within an RP instead of having exactly who they are fleshed out. I guess it varies writer-to-writer. You could give life to both characters if you wanted, but thats up to you. It might make it feel more elaborate and complete.

[Death Dark]

Huh. Thats interesting. I hadn't really thought about it all that much, but that makes sense. I'm used to seeing and writing posts that tend to be too detailed in some regards, although I'm trying to streamline by RP style. I'll definitely remember this when I RP. Does this also apply to actions with dialog? Like a nervous tug at the collar when speaking or something like that?

This brings up the classic issue of showing versus telling.  Any writer can tell the audience "I was nervous," but does that writer know how to show the audience "I" was nervous?

I stared at the dash, the evening sunlight blinking through the trees.  One arm curled around my legs, pulling them in, while I nibbled on the thumb of the other.

Like so.  Granted, the dialogue does "tell," but by that point it's obvious anyhow.

Back to your specific question, having the speaker tug at his collar would be acceptable, but using the word "nervous" anywhere in there would be just too obvious.

Note that like most rules in writing, you can break this one and get away with it.  But like all getting away with breaking rules, you must thoroughly understand these rules before you break them.