Category Archives: Fourth Fiction

Fourth Fiction – Round 4 LitCrit (Part 2)

Three eliminations in, Fourth Fiction, the first ever blog based literary reality show, has seen the ‘new-age nonsense’ of Isis, the ‘beat-meets-street’ stylings of Fido, and the ‘virtual unreality ramblings’ of enigmatic Fyor voted off in favour of the remaining nine contestants. This second part of my litcrit of the contestants novellas-in-progress continues where my previous post left off.

Omar

As the only contestant writing a narrative in verse form, Omar has pitched his literary tent further out than most of the Fourth Fiction writers. This idiosyncracy gives his story a whimsical quality that suits his subject, the aftermath of the Pied Piper story. Omar gives further character to his work by filling this antiquated narrative form with references to contemporary issues, ideas and technology, such as the new Apple OS Snow Leopard, scientific knowledge regarding the development of the human foetus, relating how this tale is told on computer screen and even providing links to web pages in the rhyme.

All of this helps to turn the (so far) slight narrative into something that is a pleasure to read. The problem with this is when you compare it to some of the really successful novellas that are emerging as the weeks progress, Omar’s effort just can’t stand up. It would be nice to see the story really start to fly in the next challenge, with some lyrical language added for spice. I would imagine though, that if Omar continues as he is, when the field thins to six or so writers we will see him voted off, however pleasant his tale has been up until that point. That said, the talking rat at the end of his Round Four challenge response has me eager to read on.

Igor

Igor’s novella has an interesting premise and the back-story provided so far fleshes it out nicely. The problem action in the opening has been shoved to one side so the narrator can give us the set-up. A better start might have been to give us the details of just how ‘an arseholed chav pushed (the narrator) off a three-storey building.’ That scene, told as it happened would have given the story some much needed action right at the start. At the time of writing, Igor has posted three challenge responses and despite writing ‘let’s get on with the story,’ he has failed to do that.

The narrative voice is convincing though and indicates that once Igor gets the ball rolling this could well be a contender. The main character asserts that he has ‘more to offer than pain, suffering, and bitterness. There is light. Bright, piercing and cathartic. But first I must wheel myself through the tunnel.’ If Igor can get round to telling the story of that journey through the tunnel, spreading out the backstory rather than feeding us it in big lumps, he might still save himself from mid-competition rejection.

Rhae

Another writer focused on backstory is Rhae. At the time of writing, she has posted three challenge responses, all of which have been heavy with world building. The reader is still yet to be introduced to a main character of her sci-fi novella, which immediately gives the reader a reason to switch off. The back-story is well developed and at times interesting, but the opening of a novel needs to introduce a clearly defined main character the reader wants to discover more about and Rhae simply avoids doing this.

Before re-reading Rhae’s post I could not have told you much about them from memory beyond the plot having something to do with dna. Even after re-reading, if you wanted to explain what this story is about to someone unfamiliar with it, it would be a struggle to explain in a quick and clear way, primarily because we have no idea who this story is about. People want to read about people. Other contestants have managed to create believeable and relatable characters in the thousand words or so of the first few challenge responses. Rhae needs to give the readers someone to grab hold of before their attention wanders to one of the other competitors.

Nora

Nora seems to confound expectation. On the surface her story started out presenting itself as a typical romance, then subsequent episodes taking her into erotica territory. In the comment threads of her posts she has admitted that writing in the genre necessitates a certain amount of ‘cheesy’ action and dialogue and in that are she hasn’t disappointed. Her novella-in-progress is filled with ‘inflamed mounds,’ ‘ripe fruits,’ a fair amount of thrusting, and characters say things like, “Why you deceitful scoundrel!”

The pacing of the story manages to elevate Nora’s story though. Thus far she has managed to provide solid cliffhangers at the end of her posts, thus ensuring that readers want to see what happens next, and her Round Four post is particuarly ‘gripping.’ Nora, ‘happily-married Christian mother of four,’ seems to be revelling in telling this explicit look at a modern marriage.

While her chosen genre is not one that would normally interest me, Nora seems to be succeeding where many of the others have failed. She is giving us action from the word go, with back-story filtered only where necessary. I suspect I am not alone in hoping Nora gets the chance to write in Round 5 so we can find out just what Arthur is about to tell Catherine. It needs to be good, both for Catherine and the readers.

Looking to Round 5

That concludes my criticism of the nine remaining novellas-in-progress. It’s probably clear who my favourites are. The vote will open at midnight, make sure you vote out the writer you want rejected. It’s probably clear from the above criticism who my favourites are. While we wait for the result, why don’t you use the comments to big up your favourite.

Fourth Fiction – Round 4 LitCrit (Part 1)

Three eliminations in, Fourth Fiction, the first ever blog based literary reality show, has seen the ‘new-age nonsense’ of Isis, the ‘beat-meets-street’ stylings of Fido, and the ‘virtual unreality ramblings’ of enigmatic Fyor voted off in favour of the remaining nine contestants. While it could be argued that Fido was put down way before that particular dog had his day, as all three of the rejection letter recipients have found, there is no arguing with the public vote.

As we head towards the vote for Round 4, the remaining nine contestants are busy posting their responses to the most recent challenge: Weave an element of Fyor’s story into your passage. It should be no more than 450 words. The criticism that follows is for the remaining contestants responses available to me at time of writing, re-read and revisited as a whole. Let’s see, in order of their position on the drop down menu over on Fourth Night, what they have that has kept them in the competition so far.

Olaf

The first three sections of Olaf’s novella in progress benefit from his background as a Gulf of Maine fisherman. He is writing about what he knows, staying in familiar waters as far as the background of his main character is concerned. Ron is a fisherman too, a man who seems to relish the solitary nature of his work. Olaf has done a good job of rounding out his character in his first four challenge responses. Ron’s use of social media rings true as the dichotomy of socialising virtually with people helps to keep Ron as a solitary figure in the real world.

Probably the hardest challenge thus far, the weaving of an element of Fyor’s story into the fourth response, is handled well here. In fact it is surprising how seemless the introduction of a major event in Fyor’s tale into Olaf’s back-story proves. Olaf even manages to create further dimension to Ron when he shows the reader that he has chosen this life, that other options, myriad options were open to him. His family background as much as the main plot’s failed relationship sent this man out to sea. It will be interesting to see what he does as he comes ashore.

Coco

Judging by the positive comments and the fact that she received no rejecton votes last round, Coco is fast becoming favourite to win. Not surprising really. Her story manages to hit all the right buttons. First there is the convincing voice of the narrator, Ivana, a prostitute in Limmasol who tells her story in English, though it is not her mother tongue. Coco’s limitations as a writer in English provide one of her stories key strengths, her idiosyncratic approach to English grammar providing an authenticity to her character’s voice.

Add to that a keen eye for imagery and you have some very powerful writing indeed. Her use of metaphor and simile are particularly strong, Ivana describes her actions and their possible consequences in two powerfully vivid passages. In round three the metaphor of the rotting board provides a powerful visual image of an internal process:

‘I say to myself Yes Ivana you can cut this part of your life out and throw away. Take it out like rotting bored in house and put in new one. But maybe you can’t. Maybe rotting bored stays there and rots everything else. Like poison.’

With immunity this week Coco could have produced a below par piece and survived to the next round. Instead she serves up a piece containing this marvelous simile:

‘I always make it cold and no passion like machine. Like carnival horse that men put in coins to ride for little while. Its why I say Maria is my name. So they don’t touch Ivana. To make my mind believe I am like actress in movie.’

A beautiful, sad and desparate image. Ivana’s need to seperate herself from what she is doing makes total sense and Coco writes about it with a tender honesty. Ivana is shaping up into a wonderful character, full of emotion and depth and with a fascinating story to tell.

Tuck

Probably the genre as much as the ideology but I am just a bit bored by Tuck’s hard nosed FBI (?) agent, Frank Braun. The plot is a riff on the first season of 24, which saw Jack tasked with stopping the assassination of the President, only replacing Bauer with Braun and the fictional U.S. President, David Palmer, with the actual U. S. President, Barack Obama. Tuck is using his fiction as a store front for his own right wing agenda, which, along with the tired plot-line, manages to make this story less than compelling. It all seems forced, with Tuck even placing the user name of one negative commenter on his work inside the story.

The fact we are given little reason to care about Frank doesn’t help. Braun seems largely a cipher for Tuck’s own ramblings about the state of the U.S. and little else, which makes the character’s bouts of racism hard to swallow. Racism, when dealt with intelligently in fiction can be incredibly powerful (see Maggie Gee’s ‘The White Family’ for example), here it just seems like the (not quite) literary equivalent of slurs made anonymously on the internet.

This could have been forgiven had Tuck given us some quality writing, but his output so far is merely pedestrian. Fact is, Tuck’s work is neither as interesting nor as controversial as he might hope. His latest post is the only one to provide a ray of light with much less tub-thumping and a little light humour that sees Tuck playing with the stereotypical-sexism of characters like James Bond. If his presence on the chopping block last week is anything to go by, this could well be Tuck’s last week posting. We’ll have to wait for the result of the upcoming vote to see if he really is a lucky s.o.b.

Tess

With four challenge responses posted, Tess is still to get to the man-hunting promised in her opening line. So far her novella has focused on a failed date and a shopping trip, both staples of her chosen genre. In light of the current economic crisis, characters splashing out $185 for a dress might be striking the wrong chord with readers, especially if all those articles out their about ‘recession-lit’ being the new thing are true.

While I can grasp that I am perhaps not the target audience for a story like this, being that I am a mid-thirties male with little interest in the glossy, girly chicklit novel, I can’t help being underwhelmed by what I have read of this thus far. Surely readers will have read all this before. Tess would have been better off cutting to the chase for her opening. Too much set-up here, and not a particularly interesting one at that.

Utah

Utah’s premise is one that has potential. A cautionary tale of the perils of the internet is sure to strike a cord with many readers of a blog based literary reality show if only because those readers are familiar wit the landscape of the internet. Her opening, like Tess’s, suffers from being too full of back story. We have the full run down of what has brought Corey to run away from home already. These are things we could have been shown more slowly in the narrative, rather than told up front.

Her response to the most recent challenge sees the story properly underway, with Corey meeting the seedy Jacob in a diner. This is where this novella should have started, with Corey’s view of events in more detail, building to her leaving with Jacob. The back story could have been shown here, slowly revealing to the reader why this is happening.

Unfortunately, Utah further compounds this problem by switching narrative view point to Jacob in a jarring transition. All of a sudden we are being told a chunk of back story from his point of view. We aren’t shown anything of Corey’s conversation with this man, despite her having dialogue with random, minor characters in the diner. Instead we are simply told she goes with him in his car to his cabin. What should be a tense, slowly unfolding dramatic scene is reduce to a throwaway sentence:

At 1:47 Jacob parked his black station wagon outside the Halfway House; at 2:38 they were laughing and talking over club sandwiches and onion rings; and at 3:07 they were driving down a dirt road towards his cabin.

All of which is a shame as the actual plot has merit, it is just a shame that Utah is providing us with a synopsis of the story rather than showing it to us.

To be continued….

The second part of this criticism of the nine remaining novellas-in-progress will be posted later today. While we wait for the vote to open at midnight, why don’t you use the comments to big up your favourite.