Hey Jessamyn, I read the outer story of the piece to be about a young woman named Sylvia who gets her abusive husband to take her to a carnival, where, after he notices her looking at a boy working at the carnival, he has a big drunken outburst where he slams her into the bars of a tiger cage. The inner story is about a young writer (Sylvia) whose romantic ideals have been battered and wittled down by her restricted relationship (restricted like a caged tiger!), although there's a hint of hope at the end when an older woman writer basically tells Sylvia she'll be leaving her husband.
First off, I think the best part of this piece is the creepy atmosphere. The carnival is a perfect setting for that sort of it-kinda-looks-okay-but-something's-not-right feeling, and I think you both capitalize on that and nail it through your descriptions. As the story goes on, it sort of descends into this fantastic world, and things like the carnies smoking cigarettes and "a Tunnel of Love that had seen better days" are like steps towards that weird-vibey endpoint. I could really share Sylvia's feelings about her terrible but occasionally deceptively comforting relationship with her husband.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the way you gave a recount of the pair's history before jumping forward to the day of the carnival, but I kinda warmed to it and think it works. I do think that right now they're a bit too separate (the pats and the carnival day), so maybe if you could somehow have the history mixed into descriptions of the carnival day (maybe Sylvia remembering it, or something?) it could flow better. I do like that the characters had histories, and I really liked that it felt like the histories were important to the story (it made motivations much clearer), but I think that past could be even a bit more prominent in the carnival story itself.
I think my main issues with the story were just around the later pages of the story. I was never really sure what the story was building towards, and while that did help to build a feeling of suspense when the climax came I wasn't really sure if it was supposed to be the climax and the images of the writer and the boy and the tiger and the slamming against the bars became a bit jumbled for me. The boy sorta confused me most with the "don't feed the writer" thing- was he joking, or was Sylvia imagining the words and the writer, projecting an idealized version of herself in the future? I liked it all, but those questions made me unsure what to think after reading the story. I did love the uncertainty of the story, but if you can somehow maintain that carnival-creepy atmosphere but be a bit clearer with the closing events I think the scene could be more effective.
Last, I really, really wanted something to happen with the tiger. It was okay that the attention was brought away from the animal to Ricky's outburst, but there was just so much build that I wanted at least one hiss-and-swipe outta that magnificent beast. I liked the elderly writer's hint at a resolution, but maybe the tiger (which I saw as a parallel to Sylvia in lots of ways) could do something as well. Maybe not a celebratory roar, but something.
I really like what you have going on here- it got my emotions on edge a bit, and I think your story leaves the reader vulnerable in the way a writer wants them to be. I think with a bit more cohesion and focus toward the end and a little more flow at the beginning, this could be a really great story. Good job!
I read the outer story of “The Carnival” as being about what the marriage between Sylvia and Ricky, her husband, became after a number of years. The story starts with a beautiful description of the first time that she laid eyes upon him and in this scene the passion that existed between them initially is clear. We then pick them up a number of years later. Ricky is an alcoholic, abusive, no longer writes and acts as an impediment to Sylvia’s writing. They go to a carnival, where Ricky continues to be his charming self, teasing a tiger and acting abusively towards his wife. Then there is a scene with a writer that I am not sure I totally understand. The inner story is about how Sylvia lives within this marriage and how people can change and grow stagnant in terrible situations. I think that Sylvia no longer wants to be married to Ricky, but doesn’t see an easy way out, which is why she takes solace in the moment with the writer.
I really think that this is a beautifully written story. Much like your first story, the writing is very engaging and pulls the reader along nicely. There are a lot of short, pithy, but very meaningful little lines sprinkled throughout this story that I appreciated. Some favorites were “They married young, but did not stay that way”, “he was her preacher, holy an dprofane and altogether beautiful” and “she heard him put the bottle down again and then felt his calloused fingertips along the sides of her face”. I was able to really get a sense of what this relationship was like, confining, abusive, suffocating, just from the way that things are described here.
You do a really good job of holding enough information back from the reader. In any story about alcohol or domestic abuse there is such a risk of bringing the theme on too strong and turning the reader off, but you strike a very nice balance. The sentence above, with the bottle, the way that she flinches at his actions every so often, just the fact of putting a beer in a character’s hand on more than one occasion does enough to signal ‘alcohol is a potential conflict in this story’. I thought that the way the story insinuated just enough was one of the strong points of the story. I think that there are a few instances in which the story does bring the theme too strong, such as when it says she was “always shocked by how fast he could down one”. I think that the more the story keeps these themes alluded to, but unexpressed directly, the stronger the final scene becomes.
A couple little quibbles: he seems to get drunk awfully fast at the carnival, was he drinking before? This isn’t a big issue, he just seemed to go from normal to hammered surprisingly quickly.
Finally, I was confused by the last bit with ‘the writer’. Here is how I read it: ‘The Writer’ is an actual writer, she gets material at the state fair. She watches the scene at the tiger cage and gives some consoling words to Sylvia. However, what confused me was how cryptic the zoo worker was, it almost seemed to turn into a surrealist story at that moment, with her head between the bars and the creepy zoo worker just nodding obliquely and muttering something she couldn’t understand. I did kind of like this, but I think that the last scene should be more clear, since everything throughout the story was so well drawn.
Jessamyn, The outer story is about a woman who marries the wrong man and struggles to deal with his abusive behavior. The inner story is about the reality of fiction, and the interplay between writer and reader.
I think that this story is really creative and bold—the ending is completely surprising and wonderfully metafictional. I think you are playing with a lot of interesting and complex literary ideas. We as readers are aware that the writer is creating a pretend world, but writers rarely address this obvious fact in their work. It created an interesting platform to explore the obvious but rarely stated relationship between reader and writer.
In the end however, the story is still, well, a story. We are shocked by the ending because we care about Sylvia and are rooting for her throughout the narrative. Even though ultimately your point is about the act of writing, I think that the ending would be even more poignant and forceful if Sylvia was more dynamic. She is so passive, and so utterly weak-willed, that it doesn’t seem like she would suddenly leave Ricky. After all, they have been married 15 years, he treats her like a child, emotionally abuses her, tells her what to wear, and physically controls her as if she is property. It doesn’t seem likely that Sylvia is fed up enough or strong enough to finally call it quits. Why is this day special? Because he pushes her against the tiger’s cage and humiliates her with a sloppy kiss? It seems that this sort of thing would not be a first, that Ricky often shows the world he possesses ‘his woman.’ If truly at the end of the story, Sylvia leaves him, how did she arrive upon that decision? I want to see more of her thought-process and build-up to this life-altering, seemingly out-of-character decision.
Also, I am a little confused about the writer. The writer is both a woman in the story and the writer of the story, that being you. I like how the broom boy knows about the writer, and the reader is left out of the joke until the very end. However, I am a confused that the writer has a bruise on her face—so she was beaten up? Is she Sylvia in a future life? Is the writer another woman who is sharing her experiences to help those in similar plights? Is the writer just you, Jessamyn? I think if you had a stronger idea of whom in fact the writer is, it would focus the ending to a clearer point.
You have some great passages in your story. I love how Ricky holds his journal as if it is a Bible (1), and I especially loved how “just for a moment, an image of a tigress moving gracefully among the carnival-goers, parting crows of people like royalty, popped into her head” (4). The sentence says worlds about Sylvia’s character, her imaginative personality, her yearning for freedom and power-- it was beautifully written. There are other parts that are less rich however, and I think upon revision you could make the entire work just as precise as the mental tiger scene. For example, when Ricky’s beer splashed into the tiger’s cage (5), was it an accident, or did he do it on purpose? I can’t get a clear image in my head of what is occurring. Similarly why did Ricky make her stop writing poetry and scowl at her when she occasionally still wrote? Perhaps a concrete scene with some very specific details will fill out these gaps.
Also, I think you could push the meta-fictional element of your story even further. At the end you write, “and now for the transformation, ladies and gentlemen,” (6), as if we are at a carnival. Perhaps address the readers sooner? More often? Perhaps have an ambiguous, second person narration that ends up being the writer? Include even more meta elements. Play with it as much as you can.
Jessamyn, the outer story is about a woman, Sylvia, and her husband, Ricky, who is a “suffering” writer. After Ricky complains that they never go out, Sylvia suggests that they go to a carnival. At the carnival, Ricky gets drunk and starts taunting a tiger. Sylvia is scared for him; then Ricky drunkenly kisses her. A writer is sitting on a bench observing this, and comments to Sylvia that “At the end of the story, she leaves him.” The inner story is about failed love, and also dealing with failure in general—the aftereffects of something not panning out as planned or hoped for (i.e. Ricky’s writing career). What could have been an idyllic marriage has devolved into something that is almost repulsive and disgusting in a sense—and I’ll go more into that later.
I think your descriptions are incredible, and two scenes stand out in my mind: the carnival itself and the caged animals. What could be perceived as happy, idyllic places are depicted in a way that is grotesque and disgusting—perhaps reflecting Ricky’s current state, and the state of their marriage. To start things off, it’s important that it is extremely hot outside, and so immediately the reader can feel the discomfort that Sylvia must feel when Ricky’s arm is draped around her. Then you establish the scene of the carnival as thoroughly repulsive—the air is “sickeningly sweet,” there are fat people with thick thighs, teens with greasy hair, etc. I also then liked your depiction of the caged animals as less than serene—the gorilla is sedated, the place reeks of feces and the tiger’s fur is not as shiny as Sylvia had imagined.
One of the things I think you do great is that you don’t overstate; you let your characters’ actions dictate the emotion and power of your story. The fact that Sylvia needs to “extricate herself from his sweaty embrace” or that “Ricky’s meaty arm” was “slung around her aching neck” is incredibly suggestive of the smothering oppressiveness of her husband. Not only does he limit her autonomy, but he also limits her ability to write (symbolized through her burning her poems).
Two things: throughout the story, especially from the second to third pages, I felt as though Ricky was too much of an asshole. I like the fact that Ricky’s frustrated with his career, and that he is taking some of this frustration out on his wife—but he can do things that are more subtle and passive aggressive instead of blatantly disparaging Sylvia. Her inability to react—or at least snipe back at him—seems almost inhuman, especially after lines like “put on something nice for once” and “Jesus, of all the days to go out, you pick the hottest one” [or at least inhuman, given how little we know about her]. Another minor thing: Ricky seems to get drunk way too fast, especially after only one beer. I was confused as to how he could act so sloppy and impulsive having only drunk one beer, and so his drunkenness struck me as forced. One thing you might want to try is to have him drink continuously over the course of the day at the carnival. This creates tension and expectations for the reader, as some sort of drunken act will be looming throughout the piece.
This story is about two poets who fall in love and get married. Ricky struggles, though and never really becomes great. Sylvia is stuck in a relationship that is emotionally draining. The two of them go to a carnival to escape monotony, but then the fourth wall of the story comes crashing down and the writer appears in the story. I thought that the coolest part of the story is this really strange scene where everyone seems to know what is going on except Sylvia. The tiger scene. This made me really confused and excited to keep reading, but at this point in the story there was only a little over a page and a half left. I think that the first five pages of the story do a really good job in setting up the background and conveying a lot about their relationship without actually saying it. I really like the way you can see that the two of them still love each other even through this strained relationship. I wondered if you couldn’t add just a little bit of the weirdness that shows through in the scene with the tiger here. I had a couple of specific suggestions for this. In the first page, talking about their past together, could there be some inconsistencies. Some areas where you say one thing and then say something completely different about their past. As if there might be evidence that this story is still in progress and that the writer has not completely made up her mind. Some things that aren’t entirely obvious, yet stick in our minds as readers as we go through. I really enjoyed the detail about her secret writing and burning her poems when she’s finished this has got to tie in somehow. Also, once the tiger is introduced there is this really creepy feeling that Ricky and the other characters are no longer acting of their own free wills. I took this to be Sylvia’s realization of a Deus ex Machina that is going on in a story in which she is a player. It is a really cool concept and I thought that it could be employed to a lesser degree in the lead up to going to the carnival. Maybe something about the way he chooses her dress. The carnival itself was really well written. I grew up in Indiana and this is such a perfect representation of the local 4H fairs I used to go to every July. Fat people in jean shorts everywhere. In its description it has a somewhat creepy feel about it. There is this idea that people are just ambling around “the sunburned flesh of the masses” made it feel like it was this carnival of white trash zombies. I got the idea that the two of them walk through all this without really interacting much. I think this could play into the author idea by thinking about this as a setting where the characters don’t fit. I wondered in the description here if you couldn’t play up the idea that the two of them really don’t belong here more. In the immediate leadup to the tiger scene I wanted to know more about how Ricky looked. What made this scene scary to me was that this is the man she married and she knows him intimately, but he is acting so strange. He’s only had one or two beers, so I don’t think that it is just drunkenness. Does he look manic, possessed (by the diabolical author lady) what makes this so terrifying for Sylvia? I didn’t really get why he pushed her head into the tiger cage. At this point the author seems to really just be pulling his strings and if this is what is really going on I wanted it to be exploited more. Who says at the end “Now for the final act, ladies and gentleman, the transformation.”? Is it Sylvia’s voice or the author? Also I don’t know what to make of the bruise. It got me thinking that on some level the writer is Sylvia, or used to be her or someone like her. Is that true? If it is this is a cool concept and you can get a lot more out of it.
Jessamyn: The outer story is about an (ex?) writer who is in an abusive relationship with an (ex?) poet. They go to the carnival and up against the tiger cage, the narrator is once again abused. The only person who takes notice is another writer, who is also abused. The inner story seems to be about the potential for transformation and change. The narrator sees the superficial transformation of her husband, perhaps secretly hoping for the sincere transformation, while the reader hopes for the narrator’s own metamorphosis.
The carnival is a great setting for this piece. I feel like you could use it even more. I’m not sure, in fact, the story ever needs to take place outside of the carnival. It’s difficult in the short story form, to pull off accelerated time, and it’s even harder on the first page (“they married young, but did not stay that way.”) I would start the story at the carnival, and I think most of the information you provide at the beginning can become evident either in scene or reference to back-story.
I’m interested in the clash of the writing world and the carnival world (or Midwest, farming, etc. world.) I would not necessarily place those two together, and I think you have the potential to explore some interesting contrasts. I want to know, however, what Ricky and the narrator do, since it’s obvious they do not make a living off of their writing. I think farm work, for example, could provide some beautiful parallels or comparisons to writing. What is this world like through the eyes of a writer as opposed to the eyes of a carney? I think by elaborating on the surface level of what they do, how they are perceived by the community, etc., we will understand the abusive relationship in a more specific, poignant way. Right now, the violence seems a little situational. I’m not really sure of motivations, beyond the vague sense that Ricky is a strong and intense man. Right now, in fact, it almost feels as if his frustration with writing fuels his violence for the narrator. I’m not sure I’m so ready to buy this, however. I almost feel like Ricky’s desperation for say, a passionate experience (whether sensory for the poet, or sexually for the husband, etc.) drives his behavior. (ie: writer’s block/impotence.) This may not be in the piece at all, but I think I wanted more of a connection between Ricky as writer and Ricky as abusive husband. Nothing is accidental in a story, and I wanted to feel the purposefulness of the writing aspect of the story to come out more. What about writing poetry would drive someone to become violent?
Lastly, I’m not sure you need the third writer at the carnival. On a practical level, I’m surprised there are so many writers in what seems like an unfriendly environment for writers. In addition, I felt like she wrapped up the story too neatly. The pieces fit too well. I would believe that not a single person at the tiger cage notices the abuse, and I’m most curious in how this isolation (among other forms of isolation in the story?) affect the narrator. Where would she find strength if no one offers it to her?
The external story of “The Carnival” is about a woman who takes her abusive husband to a carnival, he is obnoxious, and a future version of the narrator in the form of “the writer” reassures her that everything will be okay. To me, the internal story is about a woman grappling with a husband that mean and abusive to her, but she “loves” him and tries to put up with him.
The ending to this story is very intriguing, and unexpected. All throughout if feels like a normal-seeming story, and then all of a sudden we have this crazy twist. While I do think it needs a little clarification (I’ll get to that later), I think it’s a really interesting concept to throw in to the story. I think “meta” stories have a special way of making the reader think – think about the external story as well as how the story is being told, who is telling it, what we’re supposed to get from it, etc. It gives more weight to the story being told.
I also love the details in this story. From the “whiff of his aftershave, something woodsy and spicy, still lingering in the cotton” (2) to the “fat people in cutoff jean shorts, their thick thighs like tree trunks, moved slowly from deep-fried corndog stand to deep=fried Twinkie stand” (3) to “the hot metal bars seared into her skin” (6). These details help set the scene, and really bring out the disgusting nature of both the atmosphere and the characters. There is such a sense of discomfort and repulsiveness to everything around this woman, and your descriptions really bring that out.
Something that need to be developed in this story is the relationship between Sylvia and Ricky. Firstly, I want to see more of how she fell in love with him – what he said at open mike night, how he acted towards her. Then, I wanted to see how she could possibly still be in love with him when he treats her so terribly. It is very hard to believe that she could still have any affection for someone so mean, short-tempered, insulting, and abusive; there is nothing redeeming about him at all! It is also hard to believe that this is the same person as the first paragraph describes. How could he have become such a mean, bitter, stupid guy from that dashing, mysterious “preacher.”
Also, while the concept for the ending is interesting, it needs to be clarified a bit. I think I understand it to mean that Sylvia herself comes from the future to write the story, and tells Sylvia not to worry. If this is not what the story is trying to do, then that needs to be clarified. But if it is what the story is trying to convey, it needs to be clarified too: does the writer look like Sylvia? Does she have a “fading yellow bruise” because it was the last time Ricky hit her and caused her to leave him? And if she still has the bruise, how long ago did she leave him? It couldn’t have been that long ago, and yet she already has heels and pearls... the timing is confusing. I think you can use the interaction with “the writier” in a stronger way. I’m not sure how, but I think I’d want to hear more of Sylvia’s reaction to her – her disbelief/ confusion/ acceptance/ relief, whatever it is.
Overall, I think you have an interesting concept here, and I look forward to seeing how it develops!
The outer story is about a woman, Sylvia, who falls in love with a “cowboy poet”, Ricky, who turns out to be abusive and cruel. The reader sees the moment when she first falls in love with him and is then taken to the present, in which Ricky has become a foreboding stifling figure in her life and her written work. The story takes us to the carnival with the couple, where there is a dramatic violent scene beside a tiger cage. In the midst of this, there is a surreal moment where a zoo worker advises “don’t feed the writer” (an old woman who has been watching them and writing from a nearby bench). In the end, Sylvia is confronted by “the writer”, who approaches her and tells her “in the end she leaves him”. The inner story is about how small and suffocating the narrator’s life has become after her marriage and about her hope of eventually escaping. The writer serves as a ghost of her future self as a woman and a writer and lets the reader know that there will be a happy ending.
I thought the description in this piece was beautiful, and I loved how you show us how Sylvia falls in love with Ricky in the beginning. It explains why she was ever attracted to this creep of a guy. One thing I wanted to see, though, was how she gets stuck. Once this dream of this sexy poetic prodigy is shattered, what keeps her with him? Throughout the story he is so awful that I can’t understand why she “still loves him”. It reminds me of A Streetcar Named Desire in which Marlon Brando is this horrible abusive man, but we understand how his wife is trapped in her love for him. The scene where he takes off his shirt is a great place for this – I want to see him through her eyes as this seductively strong and masculine figure that she just can’t let go of. I also want to see poetry come out of him from time to time because the entire time he seems so crass and shallow. Does the poet in him just disappear leaving behind this monster? In short, I want to see the past and the present blend more in order to explain these things that I can’t quite believe.
I thought the setting of the carnival was a wonderful place to take this couple, and I thought the scene with the tiger had enormous amounts of potential. The image of his “meaty” arm wrapped tightly around her neck was just an amazing one – I could feel the weight on her shoulders and feel the sweaty skin choking her neck. Again, I think you do an amazing job of choosing your description. I agree with Matty that I really want the tiger to do something in the same way that I really want to see some ounce of strength in Sylvia. She is so meek and utterly hopeless that when “the writer” tells her she’ll leave him in the end I have a hard time believing her. This is a woman who burns up the tiny scraps of work she allows herself to write out of fear – is this a woman who can really ever escape? I’m also not sure how I feel about the “don’t feed the writer” moment – it feels so surreal in contrast with the rest of it that I’m not sure what’s going on. This doesn’t seem like a surrealist story to me; it seems very grounded in reality, in what it means to be a woman confined in an abusive relationship. I think you might be trying a little too hard with the idea of “the writer” – while we learn the both she and Ricky are poets in the beginning of the story, this theme pretty much disappears until the end. Thus, if you’re going to make “the writer” so consequential at the end, I want to see Sylvia as a writer throughout the story, not just as this meek suffocated woman. Have her store away her poems in a drawer or have her write about what she is going through. That way, the woman at the end will have much more significance, and I’ll be able to understand the parallel between the two characters more. Honestly, I’d take out the “don’t feed the writer” part unless you’re going to have her drink or do something to put herself into a state so delirious that she imagines this strange interaction. Otherwise it just seems weird and out of the blue. I’d rather have her notice the woman and wonder what she’s doing. I also think that the bruise on her cheekbone is strange because this shows that she didn’t leave him after all and is still being abused. Is this meant to show the reader that she won’t leave him for a long long time? That she will be an old woman when she finally gets the courage? I don’t want this to be the ending because it doesn’t show us any change in Sylvia’s character. Give us hope! Use the tiger!
I think the outer story here is about a woman’s marriage to a man she still loves, but who is abusive towards her. I think the inner story is about a woman’s initial steps in a transition away from being a passive, inactive character. The narrator ultimately wants to be free, but she cannot escape from the cage in which she has found herself.
I really liked the premise of this story, and I thought you did a good job with the voice. It felt intimate and believable despite being in the third person, and I really empathized a lot with The narrator. In general, I liked the writing motif of the story, which I think helped make both main characters distinct and memorable. I would have liked to have seen it explored more through the course of the story. Ricky’s interest in poetry seems to vanish after the opening, but I never was quite sure I bought it. What kinds of considerations prevented him from ever making it big? Was he simply not that good? Was it not possible to support a family on a poet’s living? I also wonder about kids. Why aren’t there any?
I really liked the description and atmosphere of the carnival. You had some really good passages in this section that created a feeling of unease and otherworldliness that I thought worked really well. I got a really vivid picture of this place through your description. I also liked the scene with the tiger—it felt slightly surreal, but there was a constant understated feeling of menace and danger as well. It might be interested if the tiger were the only “exotic” animal on display. Having a gorilla and an elephant as well took a little bit away from its uniqueness. Maybe there other animals are really mundane, which would help the tiger stand out.
I need to know more about the narrator to really sympathize with her plight. Again, I thought the theme of writing was intriguing, but I wasn’t quite sure what she was writing about. She seemed to be keeping a journal, but what is she recording? I was also somewhat confused by the ending of the story. Who was this mysterious writer woman? Why was she at the carnival? How is she connected to the narrator? What, exactly, is the import of her words? They seem almost too on the nose to me; it seems like a pretty fantastic coincidence for these two people who have such similarities to have a chance meeting, and for the older woman to give advice that is so pertinent, to the narrator’s dilemma. I don’t think this all needs to be laid out for us explicitly, and I think some of it is in good keeping with the mysterious atmosphere you’ve created in this story, but I needed a bit more. In general, I think this story would really benefit from being expanded, in order to get a deeper insight into the characters and the situation.
I understood the outer story to be about Sylvia, who goes to the carnival with her husband Ricky. Ricky has a violent outburst, and a mysterious female writer suggests to Sylvia that she will eventually leave him. I understood the inner story to be about Sylvia beginning to understand the abusive nature of her marriage, and moving in the direction of leaving her husband.
Sylvia and Ricky are both very strong characters, and you describe them vividly and specifically. I really felt for Sylvia, whose own creativity has been stifled by her dominant poet-husband. Ricky came across to me as a very tragic figure, a man with talent and tenderness that he somehow loses sight of. Their relationship is complex and painful, and you use the close third person narration well to align your readers’ sympathies with Sylvia without making the story too self-pitying. For me, the story really kicks into gear once Ricky and Sylvia get to the carnival. Your descriptions and details are excellent, and I could feel the way the heat exacerbated the problems between them. I also really like the way this realistic story gradually becomes more and more surreal. I think it’s a bold choice for this story, and I liked the way it caught me off guard.
One problem with the surrealist interactions that occur as the story proceeds, however, is that they felt a little bit too cryptic. Also, while there was a lot about the ending that I loved, I also felt as though the writer’s presence limits Sylvia’s inner story. Instead of deciding to leave Ricky, she is merely informed that she will leave him eventually. In some ways, I feel like this stunts her emotional journey, because the big decision that the story points towards is indicated by an external presence, rather than by her own internal process. Also, from an overly-pragmatic standpoint, the writer’s bruise on her cheekbone suggests that she has been hit recently. Does this mean that Sylvia won’t leave Ricky for many more years? It’s hard to imagine her becoming “the writer” while she’s still with him, so I think she leaves him soon after the story concludes, but then why does this futuristic version of her still have bruises? Am I being too literal? Finally, I wanted to see more of the love that Sylvia feels towards Ricky, and I think this will help clarify and strengthen her inner story. Right now, we’re told that she loves him, but I can’t really understand why or see how that love manifests itself. He seems like a brute, and she seems to know it. I’d like to see more of her inner turmoil.
Great work with this, Jessamyn. This is creative, well-written, and poignant, and I look forward to seeing what you do with it.
I read your outer story to be about a couple that goes to the carnival, during which the husband is loud and abusive while trying to provoke a caged tiger. I read your inner story to bea bout a wife trying to leave an abusive husband, albeit one she still loves.
I really like the details you use in this draft. The imagery used to describe the sweaty, oppressive carnival took me there—I could see the smiling carneys clearly. The description of the caged tiger that won’t be provoked seemed to mirror Sylvia’s position in the marriage. Other details, like Ricky’s ratty tee shirt and Sylvia looking like she is fifteen except for the wrinkles on her forehead and the bags under her eyes also transported me into this world.
Because your story seems to be about a relationship changing (either turning from normal to abusive or from abusive to aborted), I wanted to know more about the relationship. Beginning with the college romance requires, I think, a description for the reader about how that developed into marriage. I asked myself why did they love each other? Was the relationship always abusive? Why does Sylvia submit to this? How does she view it? Understanding this chemistry will make it easier for the reader to know what Sylvia is leaving behind if she leaves Ricky.
I felt like the climax of your story occurs when Ricky is taunting the tiger. With more back story, I think we’ll know whether this kind of behavior is normal or not. If it’s not normal, then I think you can build tension around the idea that Ricky is being more abusive than ever. But if this kind of thing is normal (and it seems to be), then I think the tension has to come either from Sylvia or from outside the scene. Either she has to make some sort of a decision, or someone has to intervene, calling Ricky out.
I didn’t quite understand what “just don’t feed the writer” meant. I wondered if the old lady was Syliva in the future, or a real woman. Either way, I wanted to know more about her advice. Why does she leave him? Where does the strength and motivation come from, what is the breaking point? Right now it doesn’t seem like Sylvia has it in her to leave. She never seems to consider it seriously.
You had great characterizations—Ricky is a monster. The image of him pushing her up against the tiger cage was especially powerful. Better understanding why she puts up with this, and how it’s going to change would be really interesting.
11 comments:
Hey Jessamyn,
I read the outer story of the piece to be about a young woman named Sylvia who gets her abusive husband to take her to a carnival, where, after he notices her looking at a boy working at the carnival, he has a big drunken outburst where he slams her into the bars of a tiger cage. The inner story is about a young writer (Sylvia) whose romantic ideals have been battered and wittled down by her restricted relationship (restricted like a caged tiger!), although there's a hint of hope at the end when an older woman writer basically tells Sylvia she'll be leaving her husband.
First off, I think the best part of this piece is the creepy atmosphere. The carnival is a perfect setting for that sort of it-kinda-looks-okay-but-something's-not-right feeling, and I think you both capitalize on that and nail it through your descriptions. As the story goes on, it sort of descends into this fantastic world, and things like the carnies smoking cigarettes and "a Tunnel of Love that had seen better days" are like steps towards that weird-vibey endpoint. I could really share Sylvia's feelings about her terrible but occasionally deceptively comforting relationship with her husband.
I wasn't sure how I felt about the way you gave a recount of the pair's history before jumping forward to the day of the carnival, but I kinda warmed to it and think it works. I do think that right now they're a bit too separate (the pats and the carnival day), so maybe if you could somehow have the history mixed into descriptions of the carnival day (maybe Sylvia remembering it, or something?) it could flow better. I do like that the characters had histories, and I really liked that it felt like the histories were important to the story (it made motivations much clearer), but I think that past could be even a bit more prominent in the carnival story itself.
I think my main issues with the story were just around the later pages of the story. I was never really sure what the story was building towards, and while that did help to build a feeling of suspense when the climax came I wasn't really sure if it was supposed to be the climax and the images of the writer and the boy and the tiger and the slamming against the bars became a bit jumbled for me. The boy sorta confused me most with the "don't feed the writer" thing- was he joking, or was Sylvia imagining the words and the writer, projecting an idealized version of herself in the future? I liked it all, but those questions made me unsure what to think after reading the story. I did love the uncertainty of the story, but if you can somehow maintain that carnival-creepy atmosphere but be a bit clearer with the closing events I think the scene could be more effective.
Last, I really, really wanted something to happen with the tiger. It was okay that the attention was brought away from the animal to Ricky's outburst, but there was just so much build that I wanted at least one hiss-and-swipe outta that magnificent beast. I liked the elderly writer's hint at a resolution, but maybe the tiger (which I saw as a parallel to Sylvia in lots of ways) could do something as well. Maybe not a celebratory roar, but something.
I really like what you have going on here- it got my emotions on edge a bit, and I think your story leaves the reader vulnerable in the way a writer wants them to be. I think with a bit more cohesion and focus toward the end and a little more flow at the beginning, this could be a really great story. Good job!
-Matty
Jessamyn,
I read the outer story of “The Carnival” as being about what the marriage between Sylvia and Ricky, her husband, became after a number of years. The story starts with a beautiful description of the first time that she laid eyes upon him and in this scene the passion that existed between them initially is clear. We then pick them up a number of years later. Ricky is an alcoholic, abusive, no longer writes and acts as an impediment to Sylvia’s writing. They go to a carnival, where Ricky continues to be his charming self, teasing a tiger and acting abusively towards his wife. Then there is a scene with a writer that I am not sure I totally understand. The inner story is about how Sylvia lives within this marriage and how people can change and grow stagnant in terrible situations. I think that Sylvia no longer wants to be married to Ricky, but doesn’t see an easy way out, which is why she takes solace in the moment with the writer.
I really think that this is a beautifully written story. Much like your first story, the writing is very engaging and pulls the reader along nicely. There are a lot of short, pithy, but very meaningful little lines sprinkled throughout this story that I appreciated. Some favorites were “They married young, but did not stay that way”, “he was her preacher, holy an dprofane and altogether beautiful” and “she heard him put the bottle down again and then felt his calloused fingertips along the sides of her face”. I was able to really get a sense of what this relationship was like, confining, abusive, suffocating, just from the way that things are described here.
You do a really good job of holding enough information back from the reader. In any story about alcohol or domestic abuse there is such a risk of bringing the theme on too strong and turning the reader off, but you strike a very nice balance. The sentence above, with the bottle, the way that she flinches at his actions every so often, just the fact of putting a beer in a character’s hand on more than one occasion does enough to signal ‘alcohol is a potential conflict in this story’. I thought that the way the story insinuated just enough was one of the strong points of the story. I think that there are a few instances in which the story does bring the theme too strong, such as when it says she was “always shocked by how fast he could down one”. I think that the more the story keeps these themes alluded to, but unexpressed directly, the stronger the final scene becomes.
A couple little quibbles: he seems to get drunk awfully fast at the carnival, was he drinking before? This isn’t a big issue, he just seemed to go from normal to hammered surprisingly quickly.
Finally, I was confused by the last bit with ‘the writer’. Here is how I read it: ‘The Writer’ is an actual writer, she gets material at the state fair. She watches the scene at the tiger cage and gives some consoling words to Sylvia. However, what confused me was how cryptic the zoo worker was, it almost seemed to turn into a surrealist story at that moment, with her head between the bars and the creepy zoo worker just nodding obliquely and muttering something she couldn’t understand. I did kind of like this, but I think that the last scene should be more clear, since everything throughout the story was so well drawn.
Jessamyn,
The outer story is about a woman who marries the wrong man and struggles to deal with his abusive behavior. The inner story is about the reality of fiction, and the interplay between writer and reader.
I think that this story is really creative and bold—the ending is completely surprising and wonderfully metafictional. I think you are playing with a lot of interesting and complex literary ideas. We as readers are aware that the writer is creating a pretend world, but writers rarely address this obvious fact in their work. It created an interesting platform to explore the obvious but rarely stated relationship between reader and writer.
In the end however, the story is still, well, a story. We are shocked by the ending because we care about Sylvia and are rooting for her throughout the narrative. Even though ultimately your point is about the act of writing, I think that the ending would be even more poignant and forceful if Sylvia was more dynamic. She is so passive, and so utterly weak-willed, that it doesn’t seem like she would suddenly leave Ricky. After all, they have been married 15 years, he treats her like a child, emotionally abuses her, tells her what to wear, and physically controls her as if she is property. It doesn’t seem likely that Sylvia is fed up enough or strong enough to finally call it quits. Why is this day special? Because he pushes her against the tiger’s cage and humiliates her with a sloppy kiss? It seems that this sort of thing would not be a first, that Ricky often shows the world he possesses ‘his woman.’ If truly at the end of the story, Sylvia leaves him, how did she arrive upon that decision? I want to see more of her thought-process and build-up to this life-altering, seemingly out-of-character decision.
Also, I am a little confused about the writer. The writer is both a woman in the story and the writer of the story, that being you. I like how the broom boy knows about the writer, and the reader is left out of the joke until the very end. However, I am a confused that the writer has a bruise on her face—so she was beaten up? Is she Sylvia in a future life? Is the writer another woman who is sharing her experiences to help those in similar plights? Is the writer just you, Jessamyn? I think if you had a stronger idea of whom in fact the writer is, it would focus the ending to a clearer point.
You have some great passages in your story. I love how Ricky holds his journal as if it is a Bible (1), and I especially loved how “just for a moment, an image of a tigress moving gracefully among the carnival-goers, parting crows of people like royalty, popped into her head” (4). The sentence says worlds about Sylvia’s character, her imaginative personality, her yearning for freedom and power-- it was beautifully written. There are other parts that are less rich however, and I think upon revision you could make the entire work just as precise as the mental tiger scene. For example, when Ricky’s beer splashed into the tiger’s cage (5), was it an accident, or did he do it on purpose? I can’t get a clear image in my head of what is occurring. Similarly why did Ricky make her stop writing poetry and scowl at her when she occasionally still wrote? Perhaps a concrete scene with some very specific details will fill out these gaps.
Also, I think you could push the meta-fictional element of your story even further. At the end you write, “and now for the transformation, ladies and gentlemen,” (6), as if we are at a carnival. Perhaps address the readers sooner? More often? Perhaps have an ambiguous, second person narration that ends up being the writer? Include even more meta elements. Play with it as much as you can.
Good start!
Katie
Jessamyn, the outer story is about a woman, Sylvia, and her husband, Ricky, who is a “suffering” writer. After Ricky complains that they never go out, Sylvia suggests that they go to a carnival. At the carnival, Ricky gets drunk and starts taunting a tiger. Sylvia is scared for him; then Ricky drunkenly kisses her. A writer is sitting on a bench observing this, and comments to Sylvia that “At the end of the story, she leaves him.” The inner story is about failed love, and also dealing with failure in general—the aftereffects of something not panning out as planned or hoped for (i.e. Ricky’s writing career). What could have been an idyllic marriage has devolved into something that is almost repulsive and disgusting in a sense—and I’ll go more into that later.
I think your descriptions are incredible, and two scenes stand out in my mind: the carnival itself and the caged animals. What could be perceived as happy, idyllic places are depicted in a way that is grotesque and disgusting—perhaps reflecting Ricky’s current state, and the state of their marriage. To start things off, it’s important that it is extremely hot outside, and so immediately the reader can feel the discomfort that Sylvia must feel when Ricky’s arm is draped around her. Then you establish the scene of the carnival as thoroughly repulsive—the air is “sickeningly sweet,” there are fat people with thick thighs, teens with greasy hair, etc. I also then liked your depiction of the caged animals as less than serene—the gorilla is sedated, the place reeks of feces and the tiger’s fur is not as shiny as Sylvia had imagined.
One of the things I think you do great is that you don’t overstate; you let your characters’ actions dictate the emotion and power of your story. The fact that Sylvia needs to “extricate herself from his sweaty embrace” or that “Ricky’s meaty arm” was “slung around her aching neck” is incredibly suggestive of the smothering oppressiveness of her husband. Not only does he limit her autonomy, but he also limits her ability to write (symbolized through her burning her poems).
Two things: throughout the story, especially from the second to third pages, I felt as though Ricky was too much of an asshole. I like the fact that Ricky’s frustrated with his career, and that he is taking some of this frustration out on his wife—but he can do things that are more subtle and passive aggressive instead of blatantly disparaging Sylvia. Her inability to react—or at least snipe back at him—seems almost inhuman, especially after lines like “put on something nice for once” and “Jesus, of all the days to go out, you pick the hottest one” [or at least inhuman, given how little we know about her]. Another minor thing: Ricky seems to get drunk way too fast, especially after only one beer. I was confused as to how he could act so sloppy and impulsive having only drunk one beer, and so his drunkenness struck me as forced. One thing you might want to try is to have him drink continuously over the course of the day at the carnival. This creates tension and expectations for the reader, as some sort of drunken act will be looming throughout the piece.
This is a beautifully written draft.
-Nick
Jessamyn,
This story is about two poets who fall in love and get married. Ricky struggles, though and never really becomes great. Sylvia is stuck in a relationship that is emotionally draining. The two of them go to a carnival to escape monotony, but then the fourth wall of the story comes crashing down and the writer appears in the story.
I thought that the coolest part of the story is this really strange scene where everyone seems to know what is going on except Sylvia. The tiger scene. This made me really confused and excited to keep reading, but at this point in the story there was only a little over a page and a half left. I think that the first five pages of the story do a really good job in setting up the background and conveying a lot about their relationship without actually saying it. I really like the way you can see that the two of them still love each other even through this strained relationship. I wondered if you couldn’t add just a little bit of the weirdness that shows through in the scene with the tiger here. I had a couple of specific suggestions for this.
In the first page, talking about their past together, could there be some inconsistencies. Some areas where you say one thing and then say something completely different about their past. As if there might be evidence that this story is still in progress and that the writer has not completely made up her mind. Some things that aren’t entirely obvious, yet stick in our minds as readers as we go through.
I really enjoyed the detail about her secret writing and burning her poems when she’s finished this has got to tie in somehow.
Also, once the tiger is introduced there is this really creepy feeling that Ricky and the other characters are no longer acting of their own free wills. I took this to be Sylvia’s realization of a Deus ex Machina that is going on in a story in which she is a player. It is a really cool concept and I thought that it could be employed to a lesser degree in the lead up to going to the carnival. Maybe something about the way he chooses her dress.
The carnival itself was really well written. I grew up in Indiana and this is such a perfect representation of the local 4H fairs I used to go to every July. Fat people in jean shorts everywhere. In its description it has a somewhat creepy feel about it. There is this idea that people are just ambling around “the sunburned flesh of the masses” made it feel like it was this carnival of white trash zombies. I got the idea that the two of them walk through all this without really interacting much. I think this could play into the author idea by thinking about this as a setting where the characters don’t fit. I wondered in the description here if you couldn’t play up the idea that the two of them really don’t belong here more.
In the immediate leadup to the tiger scene I wanted to know more about how Ricky looked. What made this scene scary to me was that this is the man she married and she knows him intimately, but he is acting so strange. He’s only had one or two beers, so I don’t think that it is just drunkenness. Does he look manic, possessed (by the diabolical author lady) what makes this so terrifying for Sylvia?
I didn’t really get why he pushed her head into the tiger cage. At this point the author seems to really just be pulling his strings and if this is what is really going on I wanted it to be exploited more. Who says at the end “Now for the final act, ladies and gentleman, the transformation.”? Is it Sylvia’s voice or the author? Also I don’t know what to make of the bruise. It got me thinking that on some level the writer is Sylvia, or used to be her or someone like her. Is that true? If it is this is a cool concept and you can get a lot more out of it.
Thanks for the story.
Mike
Jessamyn:
The outer story is about an (ex?) writer who is in an abusive relationship with an (ex?) poet. They go to the carnival and up against the tiger cage, the narrator is once again abused. The only person who takes notice is another writer, who is also abused. The inner story seems to be about the potential for transformation and change. The narrator sees the superficial transformation of her husband, perhaps secretly hoping for the sincere transformation, while the reader hopes for the narrator’s own metamorphosis.
The carnival is a great setting for this piece. I feel like you could use it even more. I’m not sure, in fact, the story ever needs to take place outside of the carnival. It’s difficult in the short story form, to pull off accelerated time, and it’s even harder on the first page (“they married young, but did not stay that way.”) I would start the story at the carnival, and I think most of the information you provide at the beginning can become evident either in scene or reference to back-story.
I’m interested in the clash of the writing world and the carnival world (or Midwest, farming, etc. world.) I would not necessarily place those two together, and I think you have the potential to explore some interesting contrasts. I want to know, however, what Ricky and the narrator do, since it’s obvious they do not make a living off of their writing. I think farm work, for example, could provide some beautiful parallels or comparisons to writing. What is this world like through the eyes of a writer as opposed to the eyes of a carney? I think by elaborating on the surface level of what they do, how they are perceived by the community, etc., we will understand the abusive relationship in a more specific, poignant way. Right now, the violence seems a little situational. I’m not really sure of motivations, beyond the vague sense that Ricky is a strong and intense man. Right now, in fact, it almost feels as if his frustration with writing fuels his violence for the narrator. I’m not sure I’m so ready to buy this, however. I almost feel like Ricky’s desperation for say, a passionate experience (whether sensory for the poet, or sexually for the husband, etc.) drives his behavior. (ie: writer’s block/impotence.) This may not be in the piece at all, but I think I wanted more of a connection between Ricky as writer and Ricky as abusive husband. Nothing is accidental in a story, and I wanted to feel the purposefulness of the writing aspect of the story to come out more. What about writing poetry would drive someone to become violent?
Lastly, I’m not sure you need the third writer at the carnival. On a practical level, I’m surprised there are so many writers in what seems like an unfriendly environment for writers. In addition, I felt like she wrapped up the story too neatly. The pieces fit too well. I would believe that not a single person at the tiger cage notices the abuse, and I’m most curious in how this isolation (among other forms of isolation in the story?) affect the narrator. Where would she find strength if no one offers it to her?
-michelle
Dear Jessamyn,
The external story of “The Carnival” is about a woman who takes her abusive husband to a carnival, he is obnoxious, and a future version of the narrator in the form of “the writer” reassures her that everything will be okay. To me, the internal story is about a woman grappling with a husband that mean and abusive to her, but she “loves” him and tries to put up with him.
The ending to this story is very intriguing, and unexpected. All throughout if feels like a normal-seeming story, and then all of a sudden we have this crazy twist. While I do think it needs a little clarification (I’ll get to that later), I think it’s a really interesting concept to throw in to the story. I think “meta” stories have a special way of making the reader think – think about the external story as well as how the story is being told, who is telling it, what we’re supposed to get from it, etc. It gives more weight to the story being told.
I also love the details in this story. From the “whiff of his aftershave, something woodsy and spicy, still lingering in the cotton” (2) to the “fat people in cutoff jean shorts, their thick thighs like tree trunks, moved slowly from deep-fried corndog stand to deep=fried Twinkie stand” (3) to “the hot metal bars seared into her skin” (6). These details help set the scene, and really bring out the disgusting nature of both the atmosphere and the characters. There is such a sense of discomfort and repulsiveness to everything around this woman, and your descriptions really bring that out.
Something that need to be developed in this story is the relationship between Sylvia and Ricky. Firstly, I want to see more of how she fell in love with him – what he said at open mike night, how he acted towards her. Then, I wanted to see how she could possibly still be in love with him when he treats her so terribly. It is very hard to believe that she could still have any affection for someone so mean, short-tempered, insulting, and abusive; there is nothing redeeming about him at all! It is also hard to believe that this is the same person as the first paragraph describes. How could he have become such a mean, bitter, stupid guy from that dashing, mysterious “preacher.”
Also, while the concept for the ending is interesting, it needs to be clarified a bit. I think I understand it to mean that Sylvia herself comes from the future to write the story, and tells Sylvia not to worry. If this is not what the story is trying to do, then that needs to be clarified. But if it is what the story is trying to convey, it needs to be clarified too: does the writer look like Sylvia? Does she have a “fading yellow bruise” because it was the last time Ricky hit her and caused her to leave him? And if she still has the bruise, how long ago did she leave him? It couldn’t have been that long ago, and yet she already has heels and pearls... the timing is confusing. I think you can use the interaction with “the writier” in a stronger way. I’m not sure how, but I think I’d want to hear more of Sylvia’s reaction to her – her disbelief/ confusion/ acceptance/ relief, whatever it is.
Overall, I think you have an interesting concept here, and I look forward to seeing how it develops!
-Annie Jonas
Jessamyn:
The outer story is about a woman, Sylvia, who falls in love with a “cowboy poet”, Ricky, who turns out to be abusive and cruel. The reader sees the moment when she first falls in love with him and is then taken to the present, in which Ricky has become a foreboding stifling figure in her life and her written work. The story takes us to the carnival with the couple, where there is a dramatic violent scene beside a tiger cage. In the midst of this, there is a surreal moment where a zoo worker advises “don’t feed the writer” (an old woman who has been watching them and writing from a nearby bench). In the end, Sylvia is confronted by “the writer”, who approaches her and tells her “in the end she leaves him”. The inner story is about how small and suffocating the narrator’s life has become after her marriage and about her hope of eventually escaping. The writer serves as a ghost of her future self as a woman and a writer and lets the reader know that there will be a happy ending.
I thought the description in this piece was beautiful, and I loved how you show us how Sylvia falls in love with Ricky in the beginning. It explains why she was ever attracted to this creep of a guy. One thing I wanted to see, though, was how she gets stuck. Once this dream of this sexy poetic prodigy is shattered, what keeps her with him? Throughout the story he is so awful that I can’t understand why she “still loves him”. It reminds me of A Streetcar Named Desire in which Marlon Brando is this horrible abusive man, but we understand how his wife is trapped in her love for him. The scene where he takes off his shirt is a great place for this – I want to see him through her eyes as this seductively strong and masculine figure that she just can’t let go of. I also want to see poetry come out of him from time to time because the entire time he seems so crass and shallow. Does the poet in him just disappear leaving behind this monster? In short, I want to see the past and the present blend more in order to explain these things that I can’t quite believe.
I thought the setting of the carnival was a wonderful place to take this couple, and I thought the scene with the tiger had enormous amounts of potential. The image of his “meaty” arm wrapped tightly around her neck was just an amazing one – I could feel the weight on her shoulders and feel the sweaty skin choking her neck. Again, I think you do an amazing job of choosing your description. I agree with Matty that I really want the tiger to do something in the same way that I really want to see some ounce of strength in Sylvia. She is so meek and utterly hopeless that when “the writer” tells her she’ll leave him in the end I have a hard time believing her. This is a woman who burns up the tiny scraps of work she allows herself to write out of fear – is this a woman who can really ever escape? I’m also not sure how I feel about the “don’t feed the writer” moment – it feels so surreal in contrast with the rest of it that I’m not sure what’s going on. This doesn’t seem like a surrealist story to me; it seems very grounded in reality, in what it means to be a woman confined in an abusive relationship. I think you might be trying a little too hard with the idea of “the writer” – while we learn the both she and Ricky are poets in the beginning of the story, this theme pretty much disappears until the end. Thus, if you’re going to make “the writer” so consequential at the end, I want to see Sylvia as a writer throughout the story, not just as this meek suffocated woman. Have her store away her poems in a drawer or have her write about what she is going through. That way, the woman at the end will have much more significance, and I’ll be able to understand the parallel between the two characters more. Honestly, I’d take out the “don’t feed the writer” part unless you’re going to have her drink or do something to put herself into a state so delirious that she imagines this strange interaction. Otherwise it just seems weird and out of the blue. I’d rather have her notice the woman and wonder what she’s doing. I also think that the bruise on her cheekbone is strange because this shows that she didn’t leave him after all and is still being abused. Is this meant to show the reader that she won’t leave him for a long long time? That she will be an old woman when she finally gets the courage? I don’t want this to be the ending because it doesn’t show us any change in Sylvia’s character. Give us hope! Use the tiger!
Fantastic beginning!
-Brodie
I think the outer story here is about a woman’s marriage to a man she still loves, but who is abusive towards her. I think the inner story is about a woman’s initial steps in a transition away from being a passive, inactive character. The narrator ultimately wants to be free, but she cannot escape from the cage in which she has found herself.
I really liked the premise of this story, and I thought you did a good job with the voice. It felt intimate and believable despite being in the third person, and I really empathized a lot with The narrator. In general, I liked the writing motif of the story, which I think helped make both main characters distinct and memorable. I would have liked to have seen it explored more through the course of the story. Ricky’s interest in poetry seems to vanish after the opening, but I never was quite sure I bought it. What kinds of considerations prevented him from ever making it big? Was he simply not that good? Was it not possible to support a family on a poet’s living? I also wonder about kids. Why aren’t there any?
I really liked the description and atmosphere of the carnival. You had some really good passages in this section that created a feeling of unease and otherworldliness that I thought worked really well. I got a really vivid picture of this place through your description. I also liked the scene with the tiger—it felt slightly surreal, but there was a constant understated feeling of menace and danger as well. It might be interested if the tiger were the only “exotic” animal on display. Having a gorilla and an elephant as well took a little bit away from its uniqueness. Maybe there other animals are really mundane, which would help the tiger stand out.
I need to know more about the narrator to really sympathize with her plight. Again, I thought the theme of writing was intriguing, but I wasn’t quite sure what she was writing about. She seemed to be keeping a journal, but what is she recording? I was also somewhat confused by the ending of the story. Who was this mysterious writer woman? Why was she at the carnival? How is she connected to the narrator? What, exactly, is the import of her words? They seem almost too on the nose to me; it seems like a pretty fantastic coincidence for these two people who have such similarities to have a chance meeting, and for the older woman to give advice that is so pertinent, to the narrator’s dilemma. I don’t think this all needs to be laid out for us explicitly, and I think some of it is in good keeping with the mysterious atmosphere you’ve created in this story, but I needed a bit more. In general, I think this story would really benefit from being expanded, in order to get a deeper insight into the characters and the situation.
Dear Jessamyn,
I understood the outer story to be about Sylvia, who goes to the carnival with her husband Ricky. Ricky has a violent outburst, and a mysterious female writer suggests to Sylvia that she will eventually leave him. I understood the inner story to be about Sylvia beginning to understand the abusive nature of her marriage, and moving in the direction of leaving her husband.
Sylvia and Ricky are both very strong characters, and you describe them vividly and specifically. I really felt for Sylvia, whose own creativity has been stifled by her dominant poet-husband. Ricky came across to me as a very tragic figure, a man with talent and tenderness that he somehow loses sight of. Their relationship is complex and painful, and you use the close third person narration well to align your readers’ sympathies with Sylvia without making the story too self-pitying. For me, the story really kicks into gear once Ricky and Sylvia get to the carnival. Your descriptions and details are excellent, and I could feel the way the heat exacerbated the problems between them. I also really like the way this realistic story gradually becomes more and more surreal. I think it’s a bold choice for this story, and I liked the way it caught me off guard.
One problem with the surrealist interactions that occur as the story proceeds, however, is that they felt a little bit too cryptic. Also, while there was a lot about the ending that I loved, I also felt as though the writer’s presence limits Sylvia’s inner story. Instead of deciding to leave Ricky, she is merely informed that she will leave him eventually. In some ways, I feel like this stunts her emotional journey, because the big decision that the story points towards is indicated by an external presence, rather than by her own internal process. Also, from an overly-pragmatic standpoint, the writer’s bruise on her cheekbone suggests that she has been hit recently. Does this mean that Sylvia won’t leave Ricky for many more years? It’s hard to imagine her becoming “the writer” while she’s still with him, so I think she leaves him soon after the story concludes, but then why does this futuristic version of her still have bruises? Am I being too literal? Finally, I wanted to see more of the love that Sylvia feels towards Ricky, and I think this will help clarify and strengthen her inner story. Right now, we’re told that she loves him, but I can’t really understand why or see how that love manifests itself. He seems like a brute, and she seems to know it. I’d like to see more of her inner turmoil.
Great work with this, Jessamyn. This is creative, well-written, and poignant, and I look forward to seeing what you do with it.
Zach
Dear Jessamyn,
I read your outer story to be about a couple that goes to the carnival, during which the husband is loud and abusive while trying to provoke a caged tiger. I read your inner story to bea bout a wife trying to leave an abusive husband, albeit one she still loves.
I really like the details you use in this draft. The imagery used to describe the sweaty, oppressive carnival took me there—I could see the smiling carneys clearly. The description of the caged tiger that won’t be provoked seemed to mirror Sylvia’s position in the marriage. Other details, like Ricky’s ratty tee shirt and Sylvia looking like she is fifteen except for the wrinkles on her forehead and the bags under her eyes also transported me into this world.
Because your story seems to be about a relationship changing (either turning from normal to abusive or from abusive to aborted), I wanted to know more about the relationship. Beginning with the college romance requires, I think, a description for the reader about how that developed into marriage. I asked myself why did they love each other? Was the relationship always abusive? Why does Sylvia submit to this? How does she view it? Understanding this chemistry will make it easier for the reader to know what Sylvia is leaving behind if she leaves Ricky.
I felt like the climax of your story occurs when Ricky is taunting the tiger. With more back story, I think we’ll know whether this kind of behavior is normal or not. If it’s not normal, then I think you can build tension around the idea that Ricky is being more abusive than ever. But if this kind of thing is normal (and it seems to be), then I think the tension has to come either from Sylvia or from outside the scene. Either she has to make some sort of a decision, or someone has to intervene, calling Ricky out.
I didn’t quite understand what “just don’t feed the writer” meant. I wondered if the old lady was Syliva in the future, or a real woman. Either way, I wanted to know more about her advice. Why does she leave him? Where does the strength and motivation come from, what is the breaking point? Right now it doesn’t seem like Sylvia has it in her to leave. She never seems to consider it seriously.
You had great characterizations—Ricky is a monster. The image of him pushing her up against the tiger cage was especially powerful. Better understanding why she puts up with this, and how it’s going to change would be really interesting.
Great draft,
James
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