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Wednesday, May 1, 2013

MOM DROPS THE ULTIMATUM...(part three)

Today we have part three...your comments are both welcome and appreciated! And please forgive me for the formatting of the first line - blogger is being a C...dink.

“What the fuck?” was the first thing I said. I stood there, frozen for a second, then held that stupid blouse in front of my eyes to show that no way in hell was I interested in seeing a naked, fat girl. But of course, the blouse had to be see-through.
     “Get out!” she shrieked.
     “Okay, okay!” I backed out. “Geez, lock the door next time.”
     “It was locked!”
     Now, I have a Thing against people who argue for the sake of arguing. So, hearing that, and knowing that it hadn’t been at all my fault, that she was lying, I kind of let my mouth loose.
     “Locked?” I made my eyes wider. “You’ve got to be kidding me. How else do you think I could have just barged in? Not to see your fabulous body, obviously.”
     In retrospect, I kind of enjoyed that argument. Now I can add hypocrite to the list of wonderful things I am. Long story short, I said a lot of horrible things. It got pretty loud and the security got involved, and then the girl’s mom got involved, and of course, my mom, the peacemaker, had to get involved. Okay, now I know suspect why you didn't include this scene here. You probably thought it was too long and you're trying to keep the story moving and maybe, you weren't sure how to write it, but as someone who has done the same thing I will tell you what my critique partner told me. Write this scene out. The reader will want it. Every awful detail of the argument, mom, security, everything. Otherwise the reader is going to feel cheated. I did.
     In the parking garage, my mom was visibly fuming as she slammed the car door and jerked the engine to life. No joke—it was one of the colder days and I could see the air coming out of  her nose. She was as ticked as I had seen her in a while.
     “Bernadette Lisel,” she began. Oh dear. You know when your mom uses your full name you are in TROUBLE!
    
I really liked this third part. But you absolutely have to include the big argument. It goes to character and it's necessary. Anyone else agree - or disagree?

8 comments:

Alicia Willette-Cook said...

Absolutely write the scene out. You've given us this narrator that you've set up as someone that doesn't shy away from stuff...and yet here she is..shying away from a whole SCENE in a store. Give us the DEETS man! Plus, honestly, I have a feeling it will give us a bit more understanding of how the mom and daughter work together. You can play up how Bernadette gets snarky. Which obviously gets her in trouble. Good stuff! Everyone loves the gossip column! :)

Patchi said...

I agree! I felt cheated too. Telling us about the argument is not the same thing as showing it. I did a lot of that in the first 10 drafts of my novel, by the way :)

But I still want to keep reading!

Liza said...

I agree.

Also, remember about extraneous words. Don't need "visibly" fuming. Fuming alone is visible enough.

Charity Bradford said...

I agree that you should write the scene out. That's something that might pull reluctant me into the story. :)

I'm a little confused at this point. The first sentence mentions her binge eating but never a word about purging. So I've assumed the MC is a bit overweight. If so I don't think she'd make the "your fabulous body" comment. I've dealt with weight problems and had friends with this issue since our teen years and it makes you self conscious enough that you don't rib anyone else about weight.

That whole sentence actually didn't make sense. She's angry because the girl lied about the door being locked, but she's talking about "why" she would force her way in. It just needs a bit of clarifying/focus.

Huntress said...

Uh, oh.

Hmmm. Strangely, I was really turned off by this section. The first two were great. I loved them. But the MC's character trait rather horrified me. I wasn't expecting her comments to the other girl to be so vicious.

Marcy is correct. Something is missing here, a redeeming quality I guess, for my benefit.

No edits that I could see. Good writing. But I was so turned off by the tone that I'd probably stop reading at this point.

Maybe the next page will turn me around. More insight into her mind. But it really, really, *really* needs to be good now.

Joan He said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Joan He said...

Ladies, I just wanted to let you know how much I appreciate your comments. Thank you so, so much for sticking to part 3 here! Knowing the length of ch 1, I suspect that there's only going to be one more part (4) to wrap it all up. So to those just hanging in there, it's almost done :)

To mshatch, Liza, Patchi, and Alicia--your consensus is definitely making me consider fleshing out the argument. My original intention was to not give too much weight to the argument to hint that it's all trite to Bernie. I wanted her to treat it insignificantly and flippantly to make it worse.

To Charity--Thank you for pointing out your confusion. I suspect that everyone's been in that boat of insecurity in the teen years, even if it's delusional. ch 2 reveals that Bernie is a binge/restrict+run kind of purger. She claims that she doesn't have bulimia, but I guess you could say that she's in denial to the biological definition. The reason why she's so mean here is because she knows how easy it is to give up "control". One of her deepest fears is becoming "fat" again (she was chubby throughout elementary-middleschool) so that's why her reaction to the girl is so vicious--she's reacting more to the phenomenon that the girl embodies than the girl herself.

To the lovely Huntress, I think the second half of my reply to Charity might explain some of the viciousness (it was hard even for me to write). I've very sorry that you'd have to stop. Keeping my fingers crossed that the last section might redeem itself.

Thank you again!! You guys are the best :D

Stephen Tremp said...

Write the scene out. When you have an action or dramatic scene the writer needs to slow down and place an emphasis on these events that have that WOW! factor.