4 replies to this topic

[Hurricane iBrow]

Fat and Greasy

The fat, greasy man shifted his weight on the couch, which trembled ominously underneath him. The man licked his hand and used it to slick his hair back as he grabbed a shaker, unscrewed the tap, and tossed the whole thing of salt back. His shrimp of a son with his tidy blonde hair and nervous gray eyes darting all over the room stood in front of him, holding a piece of paper in his hand.

“What is this, Dad?” the son asked.

“That is a serious short story, son.” the man said, letting out a belch and shutting his eyes tight, fumbling for the can of pop sitting on the food tray in front of him.

“I mean what you’re eating.”

“Oh... it is salt, my lad. Do not ever try it.”

“Why shouldn’t I?”

"Don’t be so insolent - it tastes bad, it feels bad, it makes you fat like me, and then it kills you, son. Never even think about those serious short stories."

“But Dad, I thought we were talking about salt.”

“Salt, serious stories, what’s the difference?” the man said, shrugging his shoulders. His son cringed as his father’s fatty chin wobbled and flopped along with the movement.

“How does a serious story do that, father?” the son asked timidly.

“It is like how I first tossed back the salt, lad. It hooks you and never encourages you to get up and walk away to do something with your life.” the father told him, letting out another belch before patting his protruding belly with extreme difficulty. “Look at me now. What good did those serious stories ever do me?”

“I thought it was the salt.”

“No son, it was the stories. I sat there hunched over the computer once upon a time before I was too fat to type, reading and writing those serious stories. I never got up – not even to sleep.” the man tried to rub his eye, but his arm was too fat and he stopped trying after three attempts. “Son, if you ever read or write anything, I want you to take the pepper.”

“What do you mean, take the pepper?”

“Eat the pepper, son. The pepper is spicy and it makes you dance around praying that you will recover and be able to taste again. It forces you to exercise! Now, the pepper of stories is a good comic.”

“A comic? Like a comic book?”

“Or a text based comedy, it doesn’t matter. Both force you to get up, run around, and stay in shape. With a comedy, the running around is your nonstop laughter.”

“I’ve heard laughter is very healthy, father.”

“That’s what I’m saying, son. Now be a good boy and get me another serious story and some more salt. I need to continue being a slob.”

“Maybe I could read you a comedy tomorrow, father.”

The father grunted and his chin wobbled some more.

“You can feel free to do so, son. It’ll take a miracle for a totally fat slob like me to get off the couch again.”

The son nodded swiftly and turned, exiting the room as fast as possible. He relished the smell of the fresh air, without the toxic fumes of sweat, salt, and books rotting in the aforementioned sweat that pervaded throughout the room his father lived in. With any luck this next story would finally get rid of his father, and he could move on at last to his own dreams and desires.

“Hmm... this one should do the trick.” the son muttered as he reached the bookshelf. “Hm… The Casual Vacancy. This book is bloody serious... I’m sure it’ll do father right in this time! And then once that’s done... I’ve heard the movies are pretty easy to get into.”

The End

 

I wrote this back in... November, I believe, as a part of the Ambage 15 minute write-off theme "salt shaker". The short length is both due to the time limit and due to the fact that it always takes me a few minutes to get an idea going in my head when I participate in these. But I don't think I really need to excuse the length anyway.

 

This is a story where I really don't care whether you like it or not. It's also not ment to insinuate that short stories are bad, or that comedies are necessarily better than serious works of literature in any sort of way. Sometimes, perhaps, but certainly not always.

 

I did clean this up a bit; I fixed some spelling and grammatical errors, and I altered a few lines within the story so that it would make more sense and flow more smoothly. I did not add any new scenes to it, however, in order to retain the integrity of the piece for what it is.

 

Critique is appreciated, although I did receive it already through the Ambage back in November.

 

-ibrow

[Jean Valjean]

It flows just fine, actually.  Perhaps that's because it's funny, and a funny narrative runs quite well for me.  I didn't take it seriously at all, by the way.  I mean, with the opening line essentially being the already funny title in expanded form, I figured out right away that this was supposed to be simple, guilty fun.  For some reason, the continuing hyperbole of the father's weight helped the story along and keep up the fun atmosphere, as well as the bizarre, surreal logic.

 

It also speaks to me, as writing a lot of serious stories happens to have caused me to lose a lot of weight, but not in a goot way.  Half a year ago, I was buff.  Now I'm a toothpick with a low body temperature.  Grrr.  That's it: I'm doing thirty push-ups the moment I click "post".

 

24601

[SkyLandOceAnna]

I think you've written a unique story...one that I could definitely picture. I could see the father sitting there with greasy hair and being very overweight, with folds peering out of each opening of his clothes. I see him toss back the salt shaker as if he was taking a shot of some sort of alcoholic beverage. I found your analogy of comparing salt to serious stories and pepper to comical stories very interesting. In real life when someone gets pepper up their nose and they sneeze crazily, it is pretty funny, though it shouldn't be. Then when people consume large amounts of salt, then some serious health issues arise. Overall though, it was written well, and definitely makes me want to watch how much salt I consume. I really only put a little salt on my potatoes or corn, but I tend to use more pepper than salt anyways. Thank you!

[Hurricane iBrow]

It flows just fine, actually.  Perhaps that's because it's funny, and a funny narrative runs quite well for me.  I didn't take it seriously at all, by the way.  I mean, with the opening line essentially being the already funny title in expanded form, I figured out right away that this was supposed to be simple, guilty fun.  For some reason, the continuing hyperbole of the father's weight helped the story along and keep up the fun atmosphere, as well as the bizarre, surreal logic.

 

It also speaks to me, as writing a lot of serious stories happens to have caused me to lose a lot of weight, but not in a goot way.  Half a year ago, I was buff.  Now I'm a toothpick with a low body temperature.  Grrr.  That's it: I'm doing thirty push-ups the moment I click "post".

 

24601

 

The story was actually partially inspired by similar experiences by me (albeit more just never actually being as active as I might've been) and what I've seen happening to many of the people I know that just stay inside reading/writing/watching television/etc. all day - it's not the greatest scenario.

 

The story was also to poke at the differences between works of fiction that are serious and works of fiction that are humorous just within BZPower (Short Stories/Epics vs. Comedies) - it was those major differences between the two groups that I have really begun to notice ever since I became more involved in the library aspect of BZPower (around January 2011), and this was just one way I decided to put it in writing. Perhaps I'll do another one sometime, though I'm doubtful that it would be like this piece.

 

Anyway, I digress, and I ramble, and I'm not quite certain why I'm still talking about this, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I think you've written a unique story...one that I could definitely picture. I could see the father sitting there with greasy hair and being very overweight, with folds peering out of each opening of his clothes. I see him toss back the salt shaker as if he was taking a shot of some sort of alcoholic beverage. I found your analogy of comparing salt to serious stories and pepper to comical stories very interesting. In real life when someone gets pepper up their nose and they sneeze crazily, it is pretty funny, though it shouldn't be. Then when people consume large amounts of salt, then some serious health issues arise. Overall though, it was written well, and definitely makes me want to watch how much salt I consume. I really only put a little salt on my potatoes or corn, but I tend to use more pepper than salt anyways. Thank you!

 

No problem. =P

As stated, the theme was "salt shaker", which I decided to take literally... with a small twist. I'd wanted to write something about the difference between humorous stories and serious stories for a long time as well, and the differences between salt and pepper was my version of that. To be honest, I'm kind of surprised that I came up with this in just fifteen minutes - so many of my stories I've spent hours on, only to have them turn out nothing, worth less than a blink of the eye. Still, I am satisfied to hear that you enjoyed it, and I'm glad it spoke to both of you.

 

-ibrow

[The Novelist Called Nuile]

Be afraid--I have a review for you, courtesy of the SSCC.


It's an amusing piece of pseudo-philosophy. Basically it's just a lot of nonsense, but in a write-off, it's hard to pull off a good idea. I don't have much to say about plot. So there's this big, fat slob who spends all his time reading and writing and consuming pure salt. Apparently he talks too much, and his son bores of his loquacity and thus hopes for him to read himself to death. (Should have given him Twilight, kid. That would've done him in.) But in a comical world, it all works well, and you give the illusion of saying something significant, while really only babbling absurd nonsense. It was all skilfully crafted, so I'll commend you for that. But in a write-off, when one has little time for ideas, the important thing--and always one of the most important things for me--is style.

 

Your descriptions are strong and vivid and very smooth. They were a bit excessive but you worked them in so well with the dialogue it all flowed very well. They could be a bit runny, but that was to the benefit of the flow.

 

The nice thing about a duologue is that you don't need a lot of dialogue tags to discriminate between the speakers, and you took advantage of that. Because of this reduced need for prose around the dialogue the descriptions might have stuck out more, but they didn't, as I said. Well done.

 

It was a very well-written piece. Sometimes a time limit helps that, sometimes it stifles the writer. I've experienced both. In this case you managed to run with the time limit and write a very effectively nauseating piece. I assume that was the end you had in mind, so you succeeded.

 

 

The man licked his hand and used it to slick his hair back as he grabbed a shaker, unscrewed the tap, and tossed the whole thing of salt back.

 

I was criticized in that same write-off because someone thought it ended with a man taking a spoonfull of salt. This is worse. If I had been eating while reading this--

 

Made me laugh, though. Luckily laughter was all I disgorged.

 

“That is a serious short story, son.” the man said, letting out a belch and shutting his eyes tight, fumbling for the can of pop sitting on the food tray in front of him.

 

As for that the, it is probably left uncapitalized as you did; however, the period that precedes it should be a comma.

 

 

. . . I never got up – not even to sleep.” the man tried to rub his eye, but his arm was too fat and he stopped trying after three attempts.

 

The following sentence is not part of a structure that includes the quotation, thus it should be capitalized. 

 

 

I remember reading this when I participated in the same Write-off. I enjoyed it then, and I enjoyed it now. Good job.

 

Keep writing,

 

Sincerely, Nuile: Lunatic Wordsmith