January 15th, 2018 - Texas
Dear TNY,
I don’t really know what to tell you about “Texas”. At first I was miffed by all the summary, but thankfully that ended and the piece leaned heavier on scene. That’s a good tactic when done well; I think it was not done so well here. These scenes have good physical movement of the characters (the one that’s brought to mind is the placing of the paintings/drawings face down upon Ben’s last visit which is then brought full circle with Noah taking all his drawings down in his room near the end), but the dialog was a shit-show.
The dialog had two major issues that derailed it. The first was believability. You’ll note in my last letter, (as I know you are diligently reading these to decide if, with proper grooming, I could be the fiction editor) dialog is less believable if it sounds like the author is talking to himself or herself (see: any dialog written by Quentin Tarantino, especially his scene in Four Rooms). In this case, from the first major interaction at the clothesline, it sounds like the author is making the characters talk to each other like two hand puppets on the same person. The discourse for both parties seems to be scripted to what the other person needs to, should, or would be expected to say. As in, “Here’s a section where we’ll have small talk,” and, “Here’s where the characters need to discuss the weed problem.” This renders the scenes false, which demands (forcibly) that my empathetic response back down.
The second issue with the dialog is the use of italics for emphasis. Jesus H. Grandmotherfucking Christ. Are you kidding with this? TNY, BASIC FUCKING EDITING. I’ll save you the trouble, I counted. There are 31 instances of italicized emphasis in this piece (note, there are so fucking many I absolutely could have short-counted that). WTF? I think (read: hope) TNY readers are fit readers. We all understand the limitations the written word, in that it’s not motion picture, audio, or real life. Therefore, we’ve accepted that, for the most part, we should be adding our own emphasis. If the author has built the scene appropriately, then it should be fairly straightforward where to put it. Alas, this over-usage denies us that right, alienates us, and leads me to believe that a intern approved this story. I mean, really? Note, there are instances where the emphasis worked. Maybe three. Not ten times the amount.
These 31 motherfuckers, coupled with the dialog that reads false, and the fact that the main character is not a monster but the author uses the female characters to paint him that way, and there’s that issue with it being unfair to ask another person to be responsible for someone else's actions and penalize him for it, and the little quibble with the main character/tenant relationship forming wholly off the page and containing information that’s pertinent to the story because what’s on the page is not enough to establish an actual story, and that whole “off the page” development with the main character’s family which could have helped sell the missing arc of the story, but didn't, causing it to fall flat when the author attempted to bookend said narrative arc with the main character's family but because so much was missing the story feels like lazy aloofness and not intentional ambiguity...besides those tiny things this story was, for lack of a better term, mas o menos. More menos than mas.
Yours in the slog to ensure that the feeling of being human is preserved,
Nick
