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32 Comments so far

1. Jenny July 4th, 2007 11:43 am

   Krissie’s asked us to critique her here on the blog on this scene revision, and I’m good with that. Usually we use track changes and the notes on Word, but we’ve done one big revision take on this already (and so have some of you) so the notes here works for me, too.

   1. The graph with Abby’s reaction to the Kool-aid goes on a little long. I think you’re hammering it too hard. Might be better if she hears Beastie and is startled for a moment and then laughs, thinks of the Kool-Aid as the cause of that (drunk? high?) and how much she wants the recipe for her bar (get the bar in there, that it could be the signature drink) and then move on. And because it’s me, I’d have her think about the drink a couple more times in passing in here, like what a shame she couldn’t pour some of it down Christopher’s throat because that helps sets up what she’ll do later to get it (go into the dark temple with Daisy and Shar).

   “She’d always had a pretty good idea of what Beastie was thinking –-his huge black eyes were easy to read–but this was the first time she’d actually his deep, rumbling voice.”

   Can she say that to Beastie? Instead of thinking it? Lotta thought here.

   “The Math building was three streets over, and she was tempted to walk, but that would take longer, and right now food was her top priority.”

   I’d switch those clauses around. That is, her first thought would be “I’m tempted to walk, it’s only three blocks, and then the hunger would get her. Start with the building being three blocks over makes it sound like infodump; being tempted to walk because it’s only three blocks is a logical thought process.

   [This is weird, critiquing in public. I keep hearing people saying, "Nit pick much, Crusie?" Yes, I nit pick a lot. Argh.]

   Three streets or four blocks. Is four blocks the same as three streets over? Doesn’t matter, trying to figure it out threw me out of the story. Pick one.

   “She’d always been miserable at parallel parking, and the shiny new Lexus she’d just side-swiped bore painful evidence: deep scratches along the entire left side of the car. She tried again and finally managed to squeeze the entire length of her two-tone Ford LTD and park, only to realize the Lexus had temporary plates on its elegant backside. Brand-new, and she’d raped it.”

   I just did this yesterday. Pulled SLOWLY out of my parking space, watching the back and the side to the right and scraped the car of the guy to my left, who was sitting in it. He was a sweetheart, but it was really easy to do, even slowly. All of which is to say, there’s a way to set this up–especially with that nice line about her being dizzy from hunger and I’d even set that one up in your bit about the salad, that’s she’s dizzy, because that goes with the floating feeling, too, it interlocks so nicely–so that when she hits the car, the reader is sympathetic.

   I think your fighting word here is “raped.” I get that it’s a strong word, but I don’t think you can pull that off with Abby’s “oh well” reaction. In other words, if she’s really gouged the car, she has to feel remorse. If she’s done what I did, which was just scrape it, and she gets out and does what the guy in the car did, which was rub his hand over the scrape, and most of it disappears, then I’ll go with more of the “Oh, well” reaction. But Christopher won’t because it’s a brand new car. My take on new cars (and yes, I got one in Nov. so I am qualified here) is that they’re going to get bruised anyway and life is short. Don’t sweat the small stuff. I can see Abby rubbing at the scrape and most of it coming off–new cars are tough these days–but there’s still a shadow of a scrape on there, and she thinks “That’s not bad,” and goes inside (which is what the guy said yesterday). Then Christopher comes out and sees the shadow of a scrape on his immaculate car and goes nuts. At that point, they’ve both got a point–it wasn’t that bad but it was a perfect car until she hit it–and they’re both wrong in their reactions–Abby should have told him and he should get some perspective.
   But if she really does “rape” the car, she’s going to have to show remorse and tell him, IMHO.

   Would she blame hunger? Or the dizziness? What about the Kool-aid?

   ““Oh, crap,” she said. “Come along, Beastie. I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly, but you’re so big you terrify people who aren’t smart enough to know better. You’re better off sticking with me.”

   <

   p>Can you do this in conversation with him?

   “Oh, crap,” she said. “Come along, Beastie.”
   “I’ll just stay here, watch the car,” Beasties said. “Maybe that guy you hit will come out here. I should be on guard.”
   “Sweetie, I know you wouldn’t hurt a fly, but you’re so big you terrify people who aren’t smart enough to know better. You’re better off sticking with me.”
   Beastie sighed. “All right.”

   I know. Get out of your scene. Exiting scene now.

   <

   p>Abby ignored her. If Beastie was talking to her, fine, but he wasn’t going to make her feel guilty.

   How much do I love this line? It’s so great.

   You know, I think you’ve got Beastie as both male and female here. Maybe because Matilda was female? Miranda? Whatsherchops? Which also means you’re going to have to watch your “he”s here as in “He was standing there” (Christopher or Beastie?).

   Nice try on the “she could still hear Beastie’s voice from a distance,” but unless he’s howling, I don’t buy it. Okay, I know you’re going to say no, but I’d keep Beastie with her. That way Beastie can shoo her toward Christopher and you can keep all this great dialogue. And that way when he says, “On the plates, of course,” she can say, “I really can’t, I have my dog with me. Unless you’d like to hold his leash while I wash my hands?” And then Christopher and huge Beastie can have a stare-down.

   I’d cut ” Though she’d done her absolute best, and when it came to baking she was a genius.” because it undercuts her annoyance at having had to bake the no-sugar stuff.

   “I don’t drink coffee. I believe in eating only healthy food.”

   You know, if he just says “I don’t drink coffee,” he’s that surly Alpha male, blowing her off. The “I believe in eating only healthy food” is a real turn-off for the reader. You want to annoy Abby, not make the reader think, “Dweeb.”

   I’m not sure why she suddenly asks about the Lexus. It’s not healthy food. The transition there is abrupt.

   You know, she’s really got to do something about the hit and the run if it’s as bad as it’s described. It’s just a really lousy thing to do to hit somebody’s car and then leave the scene without leaving a note. I can see her deciding to leave a note instead of telling him because he’s being such a pill, but that has to be in here, in her thoughts: Okay, so I’ll leave a note. She’s going to, the reader just has to know that. And I would really, really cut back on the damage to the car so that her cavalier attitude is understandable. If it really is just a shadow of a scrape, I can see Abby saying, “Hey, I left the insurance info, get it buffed out.” And Christopher’s over-reaction can then be a sign of his fussiness or control freakishness or whatever.

   Okay structure. I know you’re not obsessed with the one scene/one antagonist thing like me, so I’ll just point out that the scene begins with Beastie as the antag, then goes to Christopher, then back to Beastie, so that the Beastie dialogue is a frame. Usually a frame gives meaning to the action story it encloses, and you’ve got the real action with Christopher in the middle. So what’s Beastie’s goal here? To get Abby to eat, to get Abby to appreciate a good man (which still isn’t on the page, we need some more clues about Christopher’s essential good nature), to get Abby . . .? Clearly, Beastie thinks Abby is in trouble, and he’s a guard dog/herder so he’ll try to herd her in the right direction. This is another reason I’d keep Beastie in the scene but at the very least I’d look at what happens with Beastie before the Christopher interlude and what happens with him afterward so that that conflict escalates, too.

   Then with Christopher, I think you need to sharpen the conflict a little. First he won’t let her in the door until he’s good and ready, then he asks her to put the food on the plates, then he yells at her about her dog. He’s being a prick, but we’re not getting any sense of yearning or an attraction to Abby or any humanity at all. It’s okay if Abby thinks that, but the reader has to love him, has to think, “Oh, boy, is Abby going to loosen him up,” but also think, “Boy does Abby need him.” If he saves her a couple of times here, if she’s about to drop the box and he gets it, if she trips over Beastie’s leash and he catches her, if somebody else comes into the room and makes a comment about her hippie skirt and he freezes them with a glance, he can be a putz but he’s a rescuing putz and Beastie’s just made it clear that she needs rescued. In fact, the fact that he catches her when she trips over Beastie’s leash could be why Beastie says, “This is a good one.” I think you need a three-beat (well, I always think in three-beats, you take as many as you want) of escalating conflict here that also the has the sizzle in it. She’s thinks he’s a pain in the ass but he’s a hot pain in the ass, and she really likes being rescued and she really hates it that she likes it so she doesn’t like him . . .

   This is the kind of stuff you can do in your sleep, babe. You’re the Queen of Sexual Tension. I know you want them to be at odds here, but the reader has to like him, at least a little, and have the expectation that it’s going to be great when they’re together. And you can escalate the tension that way, too. The first time when he catches her, he’s touching her, and that first touch is always huge. That could kick it off. Then something happens, something about him makes her dizzy (plus the Kool-aid) dizziness and she’s closer to him because he steadies the box, they’re touching again. And then he defends her by staring down the moron who sneers at her skirt, or whatever . . . that’s emotional closeness, the first time he’s on her side. I just think you can write the hell out of this and leave us yearning for Christopher

   And you are one gutsy lady for telling me to put all of this on the blog. But then, we knew that.

2. inkgrrl July 4th, 2007 1:23 pm

   Oh this is more fab! And thank you for allowing it to be critiqued here where we can see the feedback - very helpful and instructive

3. Office Wench Cherry July 4th, 2007 2:08 pm

   I think seeing some of the critique process is very informative.

   I have a question about this part:

   “Did you send it to the Jeff?” Maybe Gracie would give her an advance. Beastie needed to eat, even if she could survive without food. Though right now it didn’t feel as if she’d last another hour. She’d never been so famished in her entire life

   “I wouldn’t know. Where is the Jeff?”

   She stared at him in disbelief. “You must be new here. It’s the best coffee shop in town. You ought to try it sometime.”

   “I don’t drink coffee. I believe in eating only healthy food.”

   Would Christopher be more inclined to ask what the Jeff is rather than where? He clearly has No Clue at this point and if his assistant didn’t tell him “I sent the cheque to Kentucky” he’s not going to care where it is.

   I don’t mean to nit-pick - unlike Jenny who is your friend and can nit-pick - but it always trips me up when I read that exchange.

4. Jenny July 4th, 2007 4:33 pm

   Actually, since she said, “Did you sent it to . . .”, I think “Where is . . .?” is the logical response, as in “Where do you think I sent it?”

5. Laura Vivanco July 4th, 2007 5:40 pm

   I thought I should just post these before seeing what others had said, so here goes:

   ‘but this was the first time she’d actually his deep, rumbling voice’

   There’s a missing word in there: ’she’d actually HEARD his deep’.

   ‘The Math building was three streets over, [...] It was four blocks over, the streets were one way’

   I’m confused, probably because I don’t drive, so feel free to ignore this, but I’m reading ‘three’ and then ‘four’ and because I don’t have a clear image of this, I’m just thinking ‘oh, different numbers’.

   ‘deep scratches along the entire left side of the car. She tried again and finally managed to squeeze the entire length’

   There’s repetition of ‘entire’.

   ‘“You’re the one who needs looking after,” Beastie said.

   Abby ignored her. If Beastie was talking to her, fine, but he wasn’t going to make her feel guilty.’

   Beastie’s switches gender here. At the beginning of the scene Beastie is male, now Abby ignores ‘her’ and then Beastie reverts to being male.

   ‘She could see a man standing in the hallway deep in conversation with what must have been a student.’

   That construction sounds odd, as though the person must once have been a student but is now something else (an academic? a skeleton?).

6. Jenifer July 4th, 2007 6:31 pm

   I’m also thinking that he might be more likely to say “What’s the Jeff” as opposed to where. But I think it might be funny if he asked, “Who’s the Jeff?” I guess I just don’t see from this why he would care where the place is that she’s asking about, but he might ask what she’s talking about.

   “Did you send the check to The Jeff?”
   “I don’t know. What’s The Jeff?”
   “It’s the coffee shop where I work.” (Is it? I’m not sure.)

   But asking who would eliminate that and be funny. He could be making a joke, which might surprise Abby a little.

7. Jenifer July 4th, 2007 6:34 pm

   OK, I don’t think I explained that very well, so let me add this.

   I could see the conversation with “what” finishing with him saying, “Yes, I think she mentioned sending it to you at work.”

   Whereas if he had asked, “I don’t know. Where’s The Jeff?” and she had replied with, “On the corner of 4th and Main.” (or whatever), he wouldn’t have any idea if that’s where the check had been sent. And if someone asked me where something like The Jeff is I’d be inclined to respond with a location like that, I think.

8. GatorPerson July 4th, 2007 7:23 pm

   I agree with Jenifer about Jeff. That is, I’d not even hear the “the” in “the Jeff” if someone said that to me. So my reaction would be “Jeff Who?”

   I found the critique enlightening - Krissie’s words then Jenny’s opinions. Really helpful.

   I still think he needs to be allergic so that he has a reason to be a prick - learned it at his mommy’s knee. “Christopher, dear, you mustn’t eat that, darling. You know you’ll wheeze.”

9. Micki July 4th, 2007 9:41 pm

   (-: I’m with the others on “Who’s Jeff?” Everytime I read that, it gives me a slight pause — but an OK kind of pause.

   I know an 11-year-old boy who is deathly allergic to nuts, and mildly allergic to other things. And his mom is a Brit. So, it was a little startling to hear this young man come right out and say, “So, what’s in this?” with that British accent. If you didn’t know his history, it would sound like an obnoxious picky eater kid, but he’s got a right to know, and good for him for asking!

   I could see someone like Christopher hiding his “weakness” until he’s actually keeled over gasping, “Please, my epi-pen!”

   Also, I add my thanks. This is such an educational website!

   (BTW, I googled images of “Cave Canem” the other day, and was amazed at the number of dog mosaics that came up. I WANT ONE for my foyer!!!)

10. Krissie July 4th, 2007 11:03 pm

    Good stuff, guys (and I aren’t I noble to be crucified in public by my darling Jenny?). I agree with almost everything she and the rest of you said. As for “what’s the Jeff” “Where’s the Jeff” you can blame Jenny for that. I originally but “what” but you suggested “where” and I said “tant pis” and put “where” but I will now switch it back to what because that makes more sense to me as well.

    I think I need to cut back on the car scrape, have more conversation with Beastie instead of thinking, and maybe even rewrite it so Beastie goes inside with her.

    I’m not exactly sure what Christopher’s problem is. Either he just thinks he’s allergic to dogs or he’s allergic and a taste of Kami’s Kool-Aid cures him.

    I’m probably not going to get back to this until after RWA (both Lani and Jenny are staying home) so keep the comments coming and then I’ll have something impressively brilliant for you all.

11. Jenny July 4th, 2007 11:58 pm

    The thing about all of this, too, is that by the time we get to the end of the book, this will all be rewritten again.

    I haven’t decided if it takes longer to collaborate because there are so many people involved, or less time because you have people solving all your problems early. I just gave a later scene to Lani and Krissie and they both said to cut something I would have hung onto for months. But when I looked, they were right. So maybe it’s faster.

    It’s definitely a rush collaborating, though.

12. Diane July 5th, 2007 2:35 pm

    I’d go with “what’s the Jeff?” also. If he doesn’t have a clue about the Jeff, he’s going to ask what it is before caring where it is. He also certainly doesn’t seem to be the type to know or care what address his assistant sent it to. So either he knows what “the Jeff” is and his answer is just “yes” or he has no clue and his reponse is “What’s the Jeff?”

13. Alice July 5th, 2007 2:39 pm

    Wow. I don’t have any critiques to add but can I just say I really enjoyed reading Jenny’s critique? It’s well-done. I took a creative writing class where words like “childish” and ” adolescent male fantasy” were thrown around by the teacher in his critiques. It’s nice to see an example of a GOOD critique that manages to critique without being awful. And it’s making me think more about craft stuff like conflict in scenes and things.

14. Pam W. July 5th, 2007 4:47 pm

    I agree with the “What’s the Jeff” school instead of where. It seems more natural to say what is something if you don’t know what it is, even if it was referred to as a place.

    Also, to get Christopher a little warm and fuzzy to balance his a$$hole-like nature, why don’t you have him invite Beastie in. Butchering of scene here:

    He looked up, annoyance on his face, then turned back to the student, ignoring her while he finished his conversation, only then moving to the door to hold it open for her. “Deliveries are made around the back,” he said. (“And there are no dogs allowed in here.”–take this line out.)

    Abby looked up at him. If only she’d been wearing her Doc Martens she could have kicked him, but flip flops wouldn’t do much damage, so she plastered a smile on her face, biting back her irritation.

    “Behave yourself,” Beastie admonished her. “He was busy with a student. Besides, he smells good.”

    I’m not really interested in smelling him, Beastie, Abby thought. Though her dog’s sensitive nose was right, he did smell good. Sort of like clean linen and margaritas.

    ”Stay here, Beastie. I’ll be right back.”

    “If you want to bring your dog in, that’s okay. Just make sure he’s gone before the guests arrive.”

    I know, classic make the jerk friendly by having him secretly love dogs, but it gets Beastie in the whole scene, sets up a human side of Christopher, and allows for some fun possibilities of Beastie talking to Abby during the scene.

15. K.L. July 5th, 2007 6:15 pm

    Adding to what Pam said, he could make a snarky comment about if she leaves the dog in the door, it might scare people. She could then respond with “Then he comes with me.” And he would reply “As long as he behaves.” or something like that.

    This would get Beastie in the door and keep Christopher antagonistic if that is your intent.

16. Downundergal July 5th, 2007 7:17 pm

    I agree that Beastie should go in too.
    I think he’d just wait two seconds and follow her in anyway. Strikes me as that kind of dog.

17. Mariah July 5th, 2007 7:38 pm

    What if Beastie decided that she really liked Christopher enough to try to play matchmaker, and intentionally wrapped the leash around Abby’s legs to trip her, just so that Christopher could catch Abby?

    I don’t know if that fits Beastie’s upright character, but in the same situation, my cat would have done it in a heartbeat. She always made it VERY clear which guys she liked in her cat sort of way. Usually she was disdainful of the guys I brought home. But there was one where she just climbed into his lap the first time he came over, and went to sleep purring the whole way. She had never, ever done that with someone she didn’t know.

    I married him.

    Is it any wonder why talking dogs make sense to me? lol

18. CrankyOtter July 6th, 2007 4:00 am

    I like this better than the previously posted version. Still not crazy about the new car damage, but I’ve said my piece on that. As to Abby’s role in it, maybe she could be concentrating on not running into the curb or the car behind her and do the scraping thing? So she’s focusing on trying to do a *piece* of the whole correctly and misses the other part - like carrying a ladder and whacking something with the end you’re not watching. Combined with the hunger hurry. That’s more sympathetic to me.

    Oooh! I just had an idea for the no-indulgence-pastries. Maybe she’s worried because normally she wouldn’t sell something she hasn’t made 40 times before, but as there isn’t much call for her to make pastries with no cream or white sugar or cake flour, and since she needed an assortment, she pulled some recipes off the web, made a couple professional edits to spiff them up, and is selling the prototypes. That’s bound to be freaky for her and make her understandably nervous without necessarily being resentful.

    This would work if Chris or his admin (did I see a stephanie?) had tried to get another baker to do the work but no one else was a lovingly flexible as our Abby and willing to try, but they only found her at the last minute, so they were willing to take what they could get. That would also buy a “thanks for making this to a special request on short notice” bit of humanity into Christopher and a “no trouble at all (but there will be if I can’t eat soon)” reply from Abby.

    I like Beastie going inside. Although it would be too gross if Abby slipped on his drool… I want more reason for the dog to like Christopher or I want C’s smell to be the GHH of smells. Smells promising needs to be backed up with more meat. But, you know, without white sugar or flour…

    Not my main point:
    It occurred to me that if there’s an academic setting that will have free food, unless there’s a closed invite list, someone will be cruising around waiting for the buffet to open, even if there are pastries with no pastry-goodness in them. I knew a guy in college who lived for three MONTHS on food he scammed from various shindigs, talks, seminars, whathaveyou at my college and he didn’t even attend my college (did date a dorm mate). So it read as weird to me that there was no one there either walking by, popping their head in, setting up stuff, etc. Maybe the building is mostly closed down for the day and there is a closed invite list and the admin set up the room before leaving for the day, but still, only 3 people in the scene at 4pm at a college? Or did I get the timing wrong? Or is the math department just that small?

19. Jenny July 6th, 2007 10:00 am

    I think we had the class set up to be about six so this math reception is probably at 7:30 since the class is over and it’s not starting yet. In the beginning we moved the times around a lot because it doesn’t matter to the first scenes when the class is, but then Our Girls left and went different places and time became important to some of them, like for Christopher’s reception.

    Krissis fighting computer woes, or she’d be here, too. She needs to buy a Mac. (HINT, Krissie.)

20. toni mcgee causey July 6th, 2007 4:30 pm

    I finally figured out what was nudging me negatively in this scene… and it’s a little more than the fact that she doesn’t put her address / information on the car as soon as the event happens (however small the scratches end up being). She has a thought about how no one will know it was her because of all of her dings and dents, and even though she also has the thought that she’s going to take care of it when she comes back out, technically, she can’t know that the person driving that car wouldn’t come out of the building while she was in there (or show up, having walked somewhere else on campus) and discover their car scraped with no note. To have her walk off telegraphs isn’t just a real negative on her part, but it telegraphs to the reader the assumption that the car is still going to be there when she comes back, and so it’s not a surprise that it’s Christopher’s car, (and so it sort of steps on that joke).

    Also, she doesn’t seem horrified or embarrassed over what she’s done, but that, as Jenny pointed out, has a lot to do with how bad the scrapes are portrayed. It’s more of an ‘eh, here I go again, one more scrape to add to my car’ and the rest of her didn’t read quite that nonchalant / uncaring.

21. toni mcgee causey July 6th, 2007 4:32 pm

    yikes, omit the first ‘telegraphs’ in that sentence above for it to make sense.

22. patmcaudel July 7th, 2007 2:04 am

    maybe the expression “who or what is the jeff?”

    love beastie, i can see him doing the leash assist around legs to get them closer, anything for the cause, he is there to protect and serve her.

    yeah, car damage without leaving even a quick note on it for owner tacky. old joke has person finding damage to their car, and a note, which reads, “i hit your car, lots of witnesses who think i’m giving you insurance info, boy are they wrong”

    kept thinking of that joke.

23. Kate July 7th, 2007 11:07 pm

    WOW. What a great crit Jenny. Very informative. Can I ask what does “three-beats” mean in relation escalating conflict?

    Kate

24. Jenny July 7th, 2007 11:20 pm

    When you get to a finished draft, which this isn’t, none of the scenes here are finished drafts, you take the scene apart to see how it escalates.

    A beat is a unit of conflict. You can see them really clearly in the Shar vs. Sam scene because the first beat is Shar vs. Sam in the dining room, the second beat is Shar vs Sam with Ray in the living room, and the last beat is Shar vs. Sam in the kitchen. Except I haven’t done a beat rewrite on that, so the tension doesn’t escalate. Basically, you break down your scene into chunks of conflct and then make sure that the stakes rise with each beat.

    But not in a first draft. Your first draft, you’re just trying to get words on the page, and in poor Krissie’s case, she’s trying to discover who Abby and Christopher are–because you do that by writing–while trying to realize a fictional world she’s sharing with two other people. One of whom is hooked on bad jokes. But I digress.

    I have Shar’s first act scenes done–there are five of them since Abby and Daisy get a POV in there and then there’s Kami–but they’re not focused yet because I haven’t done the beat analysis, I just wrote them down. Like Krissie.

    And in fact that’s what I’m doing now, working out a beat analysis for all five scenes. I’ll post it in Divine Thoughts,and then over the next week I’ll get up all five revised scenes. Then I’ll do the three Kami scenes the same way.

    Then we’ll all go to NYC and put the first act together and eat cinnamon rolls and do dramatic readings and we’ll have the first 30K of the book done.

    Well, that’s the plan.

25. Kate July 9th, 2007 10:21 pm

    Thank you for the explanation, Jenny! How fascinating. As an aspiring writer (well, I do write, but I’m aspiring to be published) I am learning a lot from this blog and all the comments. What an interesting way to involve your readers. Thanks for letting us in on all the gritty details. I already feel intimately involved with this book.

    Kate

26. Lou July 11th, 2007 3:09 pm

    Does Christopher have to speak in full sentences? Could it be:

    “Did you send it to the Jeff?”

    “*The* Jeff?”

    “The best coffeeshop in town.”

    As for Christopher and the dog. Hmm. I’d like to see something like a couple of seconds of serious eye contact between Christopher and Beastie. That would give Beastie a better reason to like Christopher and give Abby something to wonder about (and Beastie to hint about but not fully reveal). At that time, he could allow Beastie inside, which is against the rules. Then Beastie gets an op to push the two humans together–if only to observe the interaction between them. Beastie is still at the “he has possibilities” stage, mind, not at the nudging them to the jwelry store stage.

    I don’t know why he has ordered the why-bother pastries–and a dozen of them! I’d rather wait to find out. Let him be a mystery.

    And you can’t rape a car without at least leaving a thank-you note. Perhaps the Lexus is parked too far from the curb? It’s really hard to parallel park behind a car that’s too far from the curb. The angles get too hard. That way, it’s a shared disaster.

    This is wonderful! I want partners like this!

27. Jenny July 11th, 2007 3:21 pm

    Ooooh, that gives me an idea.

    What if he’s one of the those people who takes two parking places because he’s got a new car. And she’s trying to squeeze into the last place, and he’s over the line?

    Although that makes him such a jerk. Parking is always insane on a campus.

28. Lou July 11th, 2007 6:13 pm

    Well, maybe all the spaces are marked “compact” because of the zoning requirements. You see this all the time in California. If you’re driving a regular sized car, it’s going to be tight. And if there are several normal cars in a row . . .

    There just aren’t that many compact cars. Sometimes, esp. outside the Home Depot, you gotta drive that F-150.

    Or, maybe it was someone else who parked Christopher’s car. The aide who wrote the check? Christopher’s girlfriend? His mother?

29. Lou July 11th, 2007 6:14 pm

    Or, hee hee–

    Maybe his depth perception isn’t all that good.

30. Kira July 12th, 2007 4:08 pm

    I’m really very impressed to see the process. Turns out, the work does not emerge fully formed like Aphrodite from the head of Zeus!

    There’s an expression in Russian: “you don’t show a fool a job half done”. So thank you for your confidence in your readers!

    Now for some nit-picking:

    I can’t get past her lack of reaction to being able to hear Beastie talk. If it’s the KoolAid (love the KoolAid!), then she shouldn’t be driving. If she’s lucid enough to drive, why isn’t she showing more shock, disbelief, or denial?

    ” In fifteen minutes she’d be devouring bean sprouts and Romaine …” is that sarcastic, or is she the type of person who would get excited about bean sprouts? If so, she should be just fine with butter-free health cookies.

    On that note: “There were cream puffs made with vol au vent pastry “. Vol Au Vent is a chicken dish, so eew. How about phylo pastry, or just flaky? And you need a description of the health cookies, because it’s not clear if she actually made them or not. All it says is that she doesn’t think they count. And it would be nice to hear the effort she made to get them up to her standards.

    “I just don’t mix well with academia.” Is that because she’s been around academia and rejected it (anticipating a juicy conflict later on with getting around in ‘his world’), or because she’s not a “college type” (a very different kind of conflict, having to do with perceived inferiority).

    When he yells at her for bringing a dog that has to go to an obedience class, she can answer “don’t worry, it was a graduate seminar”.

    Regarding the car … I suppose this whole thing is necessary to get them to meet again, she needs a reason to leave her phone number. But he already has her contact info for the baking. Maybe he could call to arrange payment, or to ask for a recipe, or even to complain about something in the food.

    Happy collaborating! and thanks again for letting us be a part of it

31. AndreaS July 14th, 2007 7:04 pm

    You are brave to let us read the critique.
    And it’s wonderful to read one done by somebody who cares. I’ve had too many where they simply read it and correct who mis-used words.

    I have to agree, I don’t have quite enough invested in Christopher at this point. I like him, but mostly because I know he’s going to turn out to be wonderful.

    I think I also need to see some reason for Abby to hit his car. I mean, either she’s REALLY in a hurry or watching something else… but the way it happens it just seems negligent to me. Like she doesn’t care enough about other people to watch our for their cars. Becuase if you’re bad at parallel parking, you try really hard and would try not to hit anything. At least I do.

    Just my two cents. I am excited for this book though!

32. Jenny July 14th, 2007 10:29 pm

    I think it has to be something to do with growing hunger and the Kool-aid. And I think I have to hit that harder in Shar’s scene, too.

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