Regicide [Short Story, 3186 Words]

Wank

Finished editing this one up yesterday, if anyone wants to read and critique. Particularly looking for bits I can cut out--shifting back to a first-person perspective was a little rough for me and I think I ended up with too many tangents. Thanks!

*retracted for submissions*

iammattpleevee

I thought it was really good. I don't write or anything so I don't really have anything to offer critique wise.

The narrative was sort of hard to follow in the beginning though.

ElJeffe

I also thought it was very good. There's an odd contrast in the prose, though, where you often swap between a conversational, casual tone and a more literary and refined tone. Like this:

He howls winds through the town and takes cloudy bites out of the sun.

...and this:

Bryan scoops up my rebound and takes it out for a little turn-around jumper, but his heart, you know, it’s not in it, and it goes short.

...don't seem to come from the same narrator.

If you want to sort of ride the line between the styles, I think this, for example:

I never commented on that photo. Now it’s probably full of people posting hearts and rambling stories about some time they had together that they thought was really fucking special, even if it was years and years ago. Death brings the drama queens out of the woodwork.

...is a good compromise. It sounds conversational without sounding like it came off someone's Facebook page. If you do want to stick with the really-informal crassness of that second example above, I think it's a perfectly viable artistic choice and you can make it work. I just think it clashes with some of the more poetic prose you have.

I don't know if I would really cut anything, scene-wise. I think what you have works, and the back-and-forth nature of the narrative nicely captures the mindset of the narrator. If you're looking to cut word count, there are a lot of places to trim, mostly things like this:

There was this big gaping hole, where his coffin was, and people kept throwing in roses like that might fill it up. Not a chance.

...and this:

I don’t tell him. I look him in his left eye and then walk back into the kitchen to grab a beer. He doesn’t follow me, but he will. Eventually, I think.

In both cases, I think the last sentences add nothing and could be lost.

Other than that, I can't think of anything specific I'd change. It's solid writing and I think it does a good job of describing a teenager dealing with a peer's death.

Wank

Thanks for the looks. Awesome feedback on the word cuts, Jeff, those actually make both closers way better. Getting rid of "Not a chance" leaves it at showing and ditches the telling. Much stronger.

As for the prose contrast,

Spoiler:

what I was going for was this smart kid, maybe a little more literate than he lets on, who devolves his language when he's with his peers or when he's talking about them. I tried to have the poetic flares drop off as soon as he starts talking to / about Jason, then creep back in when he's monologuing or drunk.

I might try to trim some fat out of the first section, where he talks about the Facebook page.

ElJeffe

I like that idea, but I totally didn't get it from my reading. You might need some more explicit cues to highlight that, unless I'm unique in not picking it up.

Oh, and I liked the M. Bison reference.

Wank

Wish that had come across better. =/

And the M. Bison reference, wherever it is, was unintentional. =P

I cleaned this story up and sent it out to a few young adult lit mags. Hopefully they don't reject it outright on counts of sex, language, and drug usage. A lot of them seem to have forgotten what they got up to in high school.

ElJeffe

Spoiler:

It was the first time I heard that particular turn of phrase, so I always associate it with SF2.

That probably says something unkind about me.

Dread Pirate Arbuthnot

I really enjoyed reading this.

Aeneas

Wank wrote:

Thanks for the looks. Awesome feedback on the word cuts, Jeff, those actually make both closers way better. Getting rid of "Not a chance" leaves it at showing and ditches the telling. Much stronger.

As for the prose contrast,

Spoiler:

what I was going for was this smart kid, maybe a little more literate than he lets on, who devolves his language when he's with his peers or when he's talking about them. I tried to have the poetic flares drop off as soon as he starts talking to / about Jason, then creep back in when he's monologuing or drunk.

I might try to trim some fat out of the first section, where he talks about the Facebook page.

I got that sense from you, with the prose contrast. If you made the poetic bits a little more poetic, like really draw out those descriptions, draw out that... unique way of looking at the world, then it'll really bring out that contrast and make it feel that much stronger. Overall I liked it though, really brought me back to high school even if I never played basketball.

Wank

Thanks for all the reads, guys. I feel like this is one of my stronger short stories. Hopefully someone out there wants to publish it.