| Chap 2.7 - Brick 4 | frangles 13/: Writer's Bricks |
A
story has to begin somewhere, wrote Skip, which may or may not have
been a good first line for a story all existence depended on.
Fortunately, he didn't have time to suffer the writer's block of
considering another, as a giant plethora of purposely vague and
ineffably indescribable existent phenomena whaooshed out of nothingness
to pluck and plop him into the latest place he wanted to be.
"Okay, so, I have about 90 issues with your opening paragraph
alone. I don't even need to read any more to know that this whole
thing is a useless incompetent heap of !@#$."
"Let's have them, then. If I can't knock some literacy into you,
at least I can have a decent fantasy that I might have recieved some
good feedback today had I been conversing with someone more insightful."
"Alright. Where to begin. Firstly, you don't introduce your
character properly. We know nothing about him other than that
he's the only character mentioned in the first paragraph and is likely
be our protagonist, but you've given us no reason to care whether he
gets sucked out into oblivion or not. Why did you--"
"But that's the point! The suspense of what's going to happen
next is doubled by us not knowing who the hell this Skip is or if we're
ever going to care about him enough to mourn anything tragic that ever
happens to him." "Alright, well what's this first line all about? I don't get it."
"Well, well, Skip's line foreshadows what happens next! He notes
something obvious for a romantic rhetorical effect--" "Or he's an idiot and doesn't realize the obviousness of his comment.."
"--and then something immediately happens *to him* that demonstrates
*his* axiom in full force, awkwardly leap-frogging our *character's*
situation to intrude up into the reader's reading a story *about* Skip,
creating a 4th- wall- breaking medium- barrier demoloshing force that
jump starts a momentum toward a whole plethora of similar things to
come, involving the very reader in the ominous tragedies looming ahead!"
"Well, I agree with the ominous part, certainly, but-- well, even if
all your generals make sense -- which they don't -- but even if they
did, your particular language use is just outright ridiculous.
Why do we need a 'plethora of phenomena' when one would do just fine,
especially given your character is so scantly fleshed out that it
shouldn't take much to whisk him right out of the story?" "Well--" "And your modifications of 'phenomena' are outright run-on. A 'plethora' of something is--"
"That's reflecting the character's skill as a writer, see? Where
'bunch' would do, I've purposely exessively used 'plethora' because
that's something a writer might say, hence this helps flesh the
character out more directly, which is one of your issues with the
paragraph." "--is large enough a noun that we
don't need a *giant* plethora of something, however many there may seem
to be. Then your next 5 modifiers themselves drive home the point
that they add absolutely no imagery to tell us what these phenomenon
things look or feel like..." " 'Purposely'! 'Purposely!' How can you not get the point of 'purposely'!"
"You can carve 'purposely' in a plop of shit with a stick and it's
still not going to taste very good when you mush me in the face with
it, especially if I'm a publisher who gets quite enough useless shit
smushed in their face as it is!" "Touche." " 'Toushit'!"
"I think the opening paragraph and your entire inter-bickering dialogue
about it is just about worth the waste of time for the comedic idiocy
of the last three lines." "Skip! What in the-- what in the flying-- !@#$-- flying.. @%??"
"See! See! The paragraph worked perfectly!
*Perfectly*! Skip was plucked and plopped right out of fiction
and into real life! Insert witty comment here about the magnitude
of vindication I'm feeling that I'm too distracted in elation about to
bother wording properly! Maybe next time I'll pluck and plop a
creative writing professor into life to teach you a few things about--"
"That's another thing!! What the hell is 'pluck and plop'?
You pluck or you plop, you don't do both!" "It's
more irony you'll never understand, and frankly, I'm purposely sick to
plethorably phenomenon of explaining it. So! Skips!
How are you doing?" "My name is 'Skip'." "No, it's 'Skips'. You look like a 'Skips'. I changed my mind. Now how do you feel?" "He looks dizzy."
"Of course he's dizzy, he's been awkwardly plucked and plopped from a
plain Pulitzer-winner into a strange vifa oblivion that doesn't make
any corporeal sense, and there hasn't been a single line of narrative
description explaining where the hell any of us are or what the hell
this place is all about since he's been here! Is that what you
were thinking, Skip?" "Verbatim."
"And I bet you're craving a good pun involving a novel cover model and
a blackberry Sam Adams. Am I right?" "You know me so well."
"See? I'm so familiar with my character I can predict his very
thoughts and feelings. Take that for 'incompetent'!"
"No, it was sarcasm, you idiot. You Mary Sued yourself an entity
with skills so surpassing your own that you yourself have become the
token idiot in the room thrown in for comic relief. Am I right,
Skip?" "I'd confirm with something clever, but
I'm suspecting any joke insulting your intelect would go straight over
both your heads and not be worth the effort."
"See? I'm so familiar with your idiocy I'm already more familiar
with your own real life characters than you are." "Touche." " 'Toushit'!" "It wasn't even funny the first time."
"Pfah! It was the only successful humor in our entire ordeal
since I read your moronic opening paragraph. And since Skip seems
to be the only competent writer out of the two of you, why doesn't he
give it a shot! Alright, Skip, let's see where your skills are
at." "Give *what* a shot? Where exactly the hell am I, anyway?" "You tell us, and we'll tell you if you're on target." "Why me?"
"We're not the ones who's writing skills all existence depends
upon! Now once and for all, give it a shot!" "Yes, give it a shot, Skips, let's see what you've got."
"I refuse to do a damn thing until one of you tells me your name or
gives even a hint of implication of where the hell am I, because you've
clearly been here a lot longer than I have, and if you haven't been
able to figure out a single *thing* about where we are, I won't lend
you my creative skills because I'd just be narrating into a literary
black hole, a use of time that would if nothing else sport suicidal
redundancy, as we already seem to be in one." " 'Black hole'! Our first setting metaphor. Keep going." "..." "Skip?" "..." "Skips?" "..."
"Oh, alright! Call me... Mr. Flick! I'm Mr. Flick and we're
in a suicidally rhetorical black hole oblivion, and this here is your
mysterious unintroduced writer who brought you into existence, and
you're so confused about being *brought* into existence that your
bafflement is causing all this so-called black hole-esque literary
vertigo at least someone in the room seems to be experiencing. Is
that enough momentum for you to go on?"
" 'Skip raised an eyebrow then sunk into a sigh. He took a moment
to fully take in his setting. It was different, very
different. Just minutes ago he was--' "
"Nuh! Stop. No details. Cripples modularity, you
know! Think of all the ways you might have gotten here and all
the things you might be up to, but don't tell me. Then, narrate
in a general way that will progress all of them without giving details
as to which particular situation you're in. Fuse all the
infinitely dimensioned possibilities your measly novelist brain can
fathom, squeeze them all into one isomorphic whole, and--" "Wait." "--ask yourself--oh, hnm? Yes, Skips?" "The parts would be isomorphic, not the whole." "What?"
"You said squeeze the parts into an isomorphic whole. Isomorphism
is a type of common ground or structure that multiple things of some
sort share or adhere to. If there's only one thing, then there's
nothing for it to be isomorphic *with*. Unless the whole actually
is made up of a bunch of self-similar things, which your whole clearly
doesn't since you fused all your parts into one. Unless you were
about to inform me that you've set me up on a blind date with a really
hot novelist cover model who thinks along the same lines I do, in which
case I vehemently apologize for interupting you and urge you to get to
the part where you introduce us. " 'Mr. Flick had
a look of not being sure where to devote his mental focus: calculation
whether Skip was technically correct, annoyance at being interrupted,
or defense strategies against self-esteem loss as someone literary and
logically competent both professionally and coloquially. Mr.
Flick decided to table the waste of time by correcting himself in a
tone of voice that would imply slips of the sort were coloquially
acceptable if not preferable when pressed for time (and hence
perfefctly correct usage, as 'coloquially' is a defined English term),
while putting down Skip's nitpick as just plain rude and unnecessary
(literally, functionally, *and* coloquially). But before he
could, he halted his train of thought to look offended that Skip's
attempt to subliminally implant suggestions in his mind via narration
(or not so subliminally since Skip was of course exposing them out loud
as he spoke). Then Mr. Flick tabled the offense as well and
resolved to appease Skip by doing exactly what he'd foreshadowed he
would do, if for no other reason than to humor (and hence vindicate)
Skip's narcisistic nitpicking and move on with the day.' " "..."
" 'Skip twiddled his fingers and refused to narrate the matter further
until someone in the room gave some kind of hint that Skip's
grammatical nitpick had some weight.' " "..." " '...' " "*Self*-isomorphic. Squeeze them into a *self*-isomorphic whole. That better?" "Absolutely."
"...fuse all the infinitely dimensioned possibilities your measly,
*horny* novelist brain can fathom, squeeze them all into one
*self*-isomorphic whole, and then--" "Wait." ""--twhuwuwhat!"
"I couldn't help but notice that you didn't bother denying that you
have a model novelist lined up for me tonight." "I didn't deny I have a flying elephant in the next room, either." "But I didn't inquire about a flying elephant."
"You didn't inquire about a date, either. You simply stated that
if I had one for you, then my use of 'isomorphic' would have been
correct, and your correction incorrect--" "More
like hastily inserted, as the correction took its own limited
clairvoyance into account as a premise, whether or not I threw it in
after the fact to save face..." "--leaving the
matter undecided, since I've neither confirmed nor denied I have a
Pulitzer lapdancer for you in the back room." "Although it's quite unlikely, for sure."
"Not really, actually. Not at all! For it's probably one of
the few inscentives that would motivate you to finish a damn
manuscript, and what better way to present the news I have one for you
than to catch you rudely and incorrectly--" " 'Hastily'."
"--hastily correcting a kind and caring agent who quite possibly even
got you a philanthropic present in addition to being correct, polite,
and unhasty." "Touche." " 'Toushit'!" "That's quite enough of that."
"So! ...fuse all the possibilities your measly, *hasty*, horny brain
can fathom into one *self*-isomorphic whole, and then--" "So when can I see her?"
"Whwwu!?...I'm ignoring that one, Skip, because I know how much of a
gamble the third- time- just- might- be- a- charm- and- vindicate- two-
failed- attempts- at- humor- but- will- probably- just- piss- everyone-
listening- off humor tactic is, and I applaud your daredevil risk
taking: a skill we're more in need of around here, however prone to
failure." "Touche." "...But one more interruption and I'm outright calling the police." "Got it." "So! Fuse all the.. fuse the... self-iso-mwuhuh...Gof it! I think you get the point." "I already told you I had it." "But you said that before I spoke." "Self-fulfilling prophetic foreshadowing established after the fact." "Touche." "Now, for the last and final time, once and for all, why don't you go ahead and--"
" 'Skip was suddenly struck with an empathetic vertigo, an awareness of
the disorientation of any hovering freers who'd been following his and
Mr. Flick's conversation since they'd met up without any external
narration. Of course, it almost *always* sucks to follow a
conversation without any sense of environment or physical description,
but this conversation seemed *particularly* saturated with vagueries
for anyone who had the unpleasant task of deducing a sense of
environment from his and Mr. Flick's conversation to date. In
fact, Skip himself had barely taken in his environment. For his
sake and that of those freers, he offered some retroactive narration by
thoroughly doing so now. Since he'd not *significantly* done so
already, then deeply absorbing his setting would have the dual function
of informing the vertigo-stricken freers of the environment, while
supplementing the vertigo of the ones fortunate enough to already be
freeing bad descriptions and narrations of what was happening.
" 'Around Skip and Mr. Flick was a fragmented oblivion; a corporeal
void; a rush of a something- or- other so ineffably wonderous and
terrifying as to completely eschew any tangible description that would
have been so valuable in easing the vertigo of hovering audio- track-
only freers. Skip gazed and marveled and pondered at the pure
immersive depth of the place, and was ever so sad that it could not be
conveyed in any way given his literary agent previously forbade any of
those types of particulars and condemned all involved in the matter
with a starvation for corporeal real-life awareness for weeks to come,
however many real life, corporeal, linear and non-nonlinear frwoas they
injected into their systems afterward to compensate.
"Very good, very good. Deceptively describing a setting that has
absolutely nothing to do with where we are is a great way to force the
freer into imaginative new dimensions of confusion. Since they'll
probably get a sense from our conversation alone that our environment
*is* in fact very describable (especially from my current direct
commentary on the matter), the--the *self*-clashing duality is likely
to get their brains watering for more and more."
"But you're the one being deceptive by claiming I was fictionalizing my
narration, when I was in fact the one being honest. This place
truly is beyond description." "Yes, I know.
Your unoriginal parotting of your environment was boring the hell out
of me, so I thought I'd skillfully confuse the freer myself while
shocking you into a jealous rage at my technique and steel your resolve
to better your own skills; perhaps even spark a gram of refusal to
conform to established precedents and show me a thing or two by doing
just what I told you you shouldn't." "Why bother, when I'm already a step ahead?"
"What? Oh! You mean you were *purposely* feigning a lack of
talent to show me a thing or two about the immorality of scheming to
deceive friters with superior logical skills to my own?" "More like futility, but yes, that's basically it." "No. No, no, I don't buy that at all. I think you were just being an untalented idiot."
"Perhaps without proof, the 2 are isomorphic," said the still- unnamed
man who hadn't spoken for quite awhile due to horrid continuity issues
regarding the scene that would probably never be resolved to any
acceptable extent. At the word "isomorphic", Mr.
Flick slapped his head toward Skip like a rabbit resurfacing post
traumatic stress from its last encounter with the same wolf, replacing
his write- or- flight mechanism to just plain fright- then- die.
Skip paused for effect than spoke as if addressing a brainless fuzzy
third- grader. "..." "..." "..." "It was perfectly correct usage." "Of course it was correct usage! I'm an editor, not an idiot!" "Actually, I think the two are isom--"
"Ha! Ha! No they aren't! You mean 'synonymous', not
'isomorphic'! 'Isormorphic' would imply some common structure or
set of attributes that each word reflects, whereas you just mean
they're basically the same! Although... I suppose if you suppose
that each word is an angle on an isolated base concept rather than on
each other, that each is its own equally weighted angle on the base
thing and that hence the template they sort of reflect reflects the
thing that... uh..." Skip had a sympathetic smile
of slight vindication, and Mr. Flick was clearly horribly unsure
whether Skip had set a trap or whether one of them if not both had been
just been a complete idiot. The worry, though, was of course
second to his lack of logical capability in precisely distinguishing
two common vocabulary words.
"If I may..."
began the unnamed third person in the room (somewhat awkwardly due to
the unsound literary technique of putting Skip in a room with his own
creator and hence the reader of the story of all those in the room in a
metaphorical chat board with the scene's writer and perhaps so on ad
infinity). "Yes, Squash?" "Perhaps it would be best to get off absurd tangent logical nitpicking and get straight to the point."
"And what would the point be, exactly?" replied Skip as if being told
to take his hand out of the cookie jar and go do his homework by no one
who had the right to demand it. "I don't want to
bother with 'exactly' so I'll tell you in *general*... No, wait, I'm
sorry, I'm doing it myself, now. Alright, to the point. The
point, the point..." Squash was strenuously concentrating
as if regretting agreeing to speak at an improvisational acting seminar
in the hopes the pressure of an auditorium of students eager to learn
would give him the skills on the spot to feign he knew something worth
teaching. "Alright, well, well..." Skip and
Mr. Flick already looked exhausted in their wait for a promised break
from their self- pseudo- cruel Seinfeld bickering. "Well... that's all, folks!"
It was the most ridiculous and incompetent strategy to date as the
scene faded to black on his command leaving any freers hovering about
with the horrid dissatisfaction of reading an 11-PLP brick that wasn't
just not explained but clearly contained nothing explainable. It
was a pretty thorough lesson in how to purposely shatter the promise
implied just by the length of the scene that the end of it would be
worth the wait. It was a tragedy so thrust and frustrating on and
to the freer that it succeeded at its only intended goal with flying
colors: Create suspense as to precisely how long it would take to
physically beat them to a bloody pulp with their favorite novel by the
time the one they were freeing was over. ||<last down v up^ next ||> |