Josh: dashing adventurer/fun at parties/published writer...?!

[josh]

it got posted on this website/blog/magazine/guy/thing. I would like to know what you monsters think about it.

you can read it at here

leave comments on the website if you feel inclined to, but don't be jerks, because this could turn into something really good for me!

also, I wrote another one they published a few weeks ago. that one can be read here

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Josh: dashing adventurer/fun at parties/published writer...?!

I'll give 'em a gander this evening.

[Alex]

Re: Josh: dashing adventurer/fun at parties/published writer...?!

I love it. A great, mysterious start to a story. Keep it up!

[Perversion]

Re: Josh: dashing adventurer/fun at parties/published writer...?!

Aside from a few awkwardly-phrased passages, I thought it was good. It held my interest, although right as I began, I kinda questioned how unbelievably long the first sentence was. I know that certain grammatical forms and functions can speed up or slow down the reader if used effectively, but I was kinda unsure of what reason you had for the first sentence to be more or less the equivalent of three seperate sentences.

[Big Rick Cook]

Re: Josh: dashing adventurer/fun at parties/published writer...?!

I enjoyed both of them. Eugene's ending realization was foreseen but still effective, and Summerheat worked fairly well as a short story. Though I believe you're banging the readers over the head with a lot of exposition, trying to shoehorn the essence of who Evan was as a person through explanation rather than letting his actions speak for themselves. To a lesser extent the same is true for Eugene's story. Instead of an info-dump where you flat out say "this is the way my character is" you should try to write a scene that emphasizes all these things about him without saying them outright.

Some of the hyperbole is strange, and as Perv noted, the phrasing can be awkward. You also need to put both through another revision because I noticed several lines that were missing a word or two.

Congratulations on getting some local notoriety, and I'd definitely like to hear more about the novel, or at least offer some further pointers as you go along in your quest as a novelist, if you'd like.