The Aftermath

I had my forty minutes of fame today in Fiction Writing, as the class discussed "Summers in Town X," the only story I wrote this term. As the author, I was not allowed to participate until everyone was done speaking.

There were mixed reviews.

The Postmodernist had the most thorough criticism, pointing out flat characters, failed ambiguity in the third act, and a few stupid errors that undercut my authority as an author. (And, it follows, the story itself.)

The Bombastion noted the same troubling characterization (though he took issue with Sala rather than Sparkle and Bold) but praised the story's internal logic and little details.

Prof Dintenfass, always the clever and perceptive reader, insisted on the story's irony and deadpan tone, pointed out a few good sentences ("Finally, on June 28th, I totaled the Audi") to prove his point, then proceeded to criticize the piece on a conceptual level:

Were all the would-be vampire hunters just killing pale loners? Does the story leave us an option that isn't somehow dark?

That kind of thing.

Others liked it (the Tolkein contingent, for starters), others hated it, several didn't seem to get pretty obvious jokes, or the story, at all. Everyone hated the brackets, which I am desperately in love with.

Then I got to speak.

I like ambiguity, you see, and I tried to work it into that story. I tried to do a lot of things, work with a lot of themes, and I think I dropped the ball on some of them.

The satiric elements, for example, caused most of my characterization problems, but I wanted three-dimensional, dynamic characters and good satire and my cake, too.

Prof Goldgar, whose Satire class I took last fall, would say that's impossible, and I didn't prove him wrong.

But I had fun writing the story (except for the last woods scene, which was like pulling teeth) and I managed to sustain a more-or-less good tone for fifty pages, double-spaced. Someone called it a great exercise in tone.

Most heartwarming of all, someone called it original and everyone seemed to agree. Jubb and Scott Adams to the contrary, there are original thoughts in this world, and now I have had one.

I took the vampire mythology I knew, played with it, made something original, and commented on everything that had come before.

I'm sure I can find influences (that "Buffy" show I've never seen seems a likely candidate, as does Shadow of a Vampire, which I have seen), but I've combined a bunch of elements in a way no one has, to my knowledge, ever done.

How many disappearing magazines have you read about? I thought so.

So go me. I got enough criticism to drastically improve my writing style and this story, should I have world enough and time to do so.

And what praise I did get was enough to encourage me to keep banging my head against the proverbial wall. I'll end up destitute yet.