Oh, certainly! Warning, though, I can get pretty wordy, yet remain only marginally articulate? Let's do it, then.
"you keep putting words to this"
"This" is merely a convenient signifier for "Tom Barrasso," in that particular sentence, because at some point, I had to give up and retreat to pronouns. Of course, that's not the only thing that's special about the story, and I think there's more useful evaluation to be done :)
To start with, I think that this story is really effective, especially in portraying an indecisive and somewhat unsure mood, about which more later, but I want to be really clear on that, yay story!
The dynamic between those two central features, Tom's voice and the movement of the plot, is interestingly explored in the style you've chosen here; obviously, they're closely related, but there's space between them, in that, well, "unreliable" is perhaps not exactly the right word, but that's the best I can come up with. It is Tom Barrasso after all, if he wasn't troublesome, even in fiction, we wouldn't know what was going on.
This division of narrative voice and what is actually happening more evident in this chapter than the last one, because the way that the plot traces some of the same concerns, mainly Tom's inexperience, both sexually and interpersonally, but also the way that Ronnie is so careful, and somehow avoids disaster. (At least, for now.) (additionally, and not-that-relevantly, I should probably not be emphasizing that difference of freakish and competent, because it's sort of dumb, and doesn't express the depth of feeling or of total disaster, when the drama hits but it works for me, right now.)
You've really *got* the peculiar set of traits that make up a suitable narrative voice for Tom: cockiness, an undercurrent of uncertainty, almost mercurial shifts between the two, and a number of other, perfectly in-character things. That's really engaging, but I think that the story's appeal, for me, rests partly in what's not captured by that, what Tom doesn't quite notice. Like this line of Ronnie's, "Everything goes hard with you, huh, Barrasso? Not everything's hard." Yes, of course, it's funny and the kind of thing that young guys say, but it signals that there might be something else he's trying to say. That "something else" is, I think, what draws Ronnie in, and because there is some difference in what's explained, and explored in Tom's narrative, and what's actually going on, it's such a total cliffhanger, and makes them both much more appealing, and richer characters. (This mostly seems to be an overview of why I adore Ronnie Francis, oh well.)
Hmm, that's what I have for now that's specifically (almost? nearly?) related to your comment. I'd like to volunteer that there are lots of other awesome things in this story, and I hope that those get to shine through as well, in the next chapter.
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Re: So I'm just curious
Date: 2010-02-15 05:12 pm (UTC)"you keep putting words to this"
"This" is merely a convenient signifier for "Tom Barrasso," in that particular sentence, because at some point, I had to give up and retreat to pronouns. Of course, that's not the only thing that's special about the story, and I think there's more useful evaluation to be done :)
To start with, I think that this story is really effective, especially in portraying an indecisive and somewhat unsure mood, about which more later, but I want to be really clear on that, yay story!
The dynamic between those two central features, Tom's voice and the movement of the plot, is interestingly explored in the style you've chosen here; obviously, they're closely related, but there's space between them, in that, well, "unreliable" is perhaps not exactly the right word, but that's the best I can come up with. It is Tom Barrasso after all, if he wasn't troublesome, even in fiction, we wouldn't know what was going on.
This division of narrative voice and what is actually happening more evident in this chapter than the last one, because the way that the plot traces some of the same concerns, mainly Tom's inexperience, both sexually and interpersonally, but also the way that Ronnie is so careful, and somehow avoids disaster. (At least, for now.) (additionally, and not-that-relevantly, I should probably not be emphasizing that difference of freakish and competent, because it's sort of dumb, and doesn't express the depth of feeling
or of total disaster, when the drama hitsbut it works for me, right now.)You've really *got* the peculiar set of traits that make up a suitable narrative voice for Tom: cockiness, an undercurrent of uncertainty, almost mercurial shifts between the two, and a number of other, perfectly in-character things. That's really engaging, but I think that the story's appeal, for me, rests partly in what's not captured by that, what Tom doesn't quite notice. Like this line of Ronnie's, "Everything goes hard with you, huh, Barrasso? Not everything's hard." Yes, of course, it's funny and the kind of thing that young guys say, but it signals that there might be something else he's trying to say. That "something else" is, I think, what draws Ronnie in, and because there is some difference in what's explained, and explored in Tom's narrative, and what's actually going on, it's such a total cliffhanger, and makes them both much more appealing, and richer characters. (This mostly seems to be an overview of why I adore Ronnie Francis, oh well.)
Hmm, that's what I have for now that's specifically (almost? nearly?) related to your comment. I'd like to volunteer that there are lots of other awesome things in this story, and I hope that those get to shine through as well, in the next chapter.