Friday, February 20, 2009

Disconnect

I'll probably put the whole story into the next 'zine (due next week, right?) and I don't want to bump the Pulpys down, but I'm not getting any feedback on the new story DISCONNECT and if you're interested here are the links:

Part One

and

Part Two

Y'know,if you'd like to read them now. Part three up on Monday at the LiveJournal.

1 comment:

tsweeten said...

So I was a bit slow in getting around to reading them, but it appears that I'm the first to respond (yeah me!). Anyhoo, I thought I'd offer up some critique (since, A: that's what most writers are after and B: it's in my nature). With that said, here goes (I won't break it down by part I and II, rather as a continuous story).

The opening with the college students was a bit stunted. After getting to them finding the sphere, I wanted some more buildup. Everything just sort of ambled along and it seemed as though the point of the opening was merely to bring the sphere into the story.

The diner scene has HUGE potential. HUGE. I enjoy the mysterious stranger types and Strangialto (did I even spell that right?) has that in spades. The go between with him and Jimmy just oozed with undercurrent, hinting at a much larger canvas that was begging to be explored.

There was a good rhythm with everything leading up to the sphere pulsing and the riddle. I would have like it to be a bit more fleshed out, though.

After the riddle first appeared to the end seemed rushed and a bit contrived. I'm sure this is meant to be a short story and you can't exactly waste pages describing the floral print of the wallpaper in a short story, but I wanted to get more crowd reaction and maybe have the cops freak out a bit more. Jimmy obviously knows something (a Dr. Strange type, maybe?) and is clued in to whatever this is.

Overall, I'd say a solid B-. A bit more reaction from the crowd and bystanders to truly make this...whatever it is...more menacing (even if its nothing more than an email from outer space) and some restructuring of the opening and you've got yourself a solid beginning, Mr. Arnett. Keep it up.