June 1st, 2020 - Two Nurses, Smoking
Dear TNY,
A summary (foreshadowing) of “Two Nurses, Smoking”.
Almost entirely summary, with wisps of world-building that show us the author/editor combo could have been good, but wasn’t.
SENTIMENTAL. Amidst all these other ingredients that could have, and at times did (but not enough), interjected enough juxtaposition and discord, we find a story that’s sentimentality was so dialed up that the aforementioned ingredients could not rein it in. This is a problem, because if the heart of one’s story is something overly sentimental, I feel manipulated. Additionally, if a story is built on sentimentality, it tends to highlight other poorer aspects of the story, like…
Cliché and stereotype. A war vet turned nurse, tough but tender. With a Native American motif (not that culture or heritage are motifs, but the way it’s used here, with the wolf bit inside a story about nurses…motif). A battered woman afraid to love, living a rootless life to avoid “hits v kisses”. Honestly, this is the stuff of romance novels. Do these types of people exist in real life? Yes. Does that make this literature? Nope. So we end up with these cartoonishly tender people falling for each other in an over-emotional way that seems so Lifetime movie that, hopefully, most readers reject it as “truth”. But I’m already aware you have soiled the readership of literature in a way that will take decades to repair.
Bad POV shift. We’ve been in the woman’s head nearly the entire story, but there were a handful of instances when we shifted. Which, sure, fine. Do that. But not four pages in and then stop. And not once at the end of a paragraph which is entirely hers until that last sentence. This is dumbass, 101 level, hack writing. And you, TNY, should be ashamed of yourself. But you aren’t. Because, gosh darn it, people like you. Get the fuck over yourself, bro. Art isn’t about you.
War. So I did something I don’t do, which was a quick Wiki-read on the author. Why did I do that? I wanted to see if he ever served time. And by time I mean war. And it doesn’t look like he did. Looks like an academic from NY, like most of your bullshit writers. Super narrow views of the world. Soft hands kind of writers. Now, what you might not know about me, TNY, is that I did serve. And I deployed. And my job, believe it or not, was Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD). So, while the vast majority of your readership might not understand that “phosphorous white” and the information about it was an abortion of fact, I do understand it. Now, could this be a creative flipping of the words “white phosphorous”, certainly; but this “creativity” speaks to something which disrespects the material, its use, its existence (and war, in general), and creates an stylistic inaccuracy in a place that might be the only access point to conflict that I’m guessing your flaccid readers will have; further establishing a world in which the experienceless believe they are experienced enough to relate. But, I’ve fucking seen it, white phosphorous. Disposed of it. Used it. Etc. And I’ve seen shredded arms. I’ve seen IED’s come up through the floor of vehicles, when all that’s left after you respond to a post-blast scene for forensics is a curled hulk of steel with bright-red blood smears out of each door where the occupants left of their own power or were dragged out (but you didn’t get a chance to even process that because another fucking IED was found right fucking now and you had to blow that shit 40ft from your rig because you were pinched in and it was so close the dustrise surrounded you; so you kept your mouth open in hopes that your eardrums wouldn’t rupture). You guys, you saw the fucking news. Go team! Dickwads. But my stories, they aren’t for you and they aren’t here to garner sympathy. I’m standing here with thick fucking hands AND an understanding literature. Because that is possible. Remember Hemingway? And I’m here to tell you that your fucking ivory tower is part of the problem, dividing a nation, instead of joining it. My kids live in a part of this country where I consistently have to intervene and say things like, “No, the Democrats aren’t going to take your beef away,” or “No, Bill Gates isn’t going to put chips in your covid vaccine to track your movements,” and on an on. And at times I question how a group of people can start to think like that. And then I read your fucking tone-deaf, misinformed, myopic views from your tiny island of soft-ass writers and remember that you pieces of shit make the world you hate to live in by not taking the time to respect or understand others. You just make up their lives for your own pleasure as you tell their folklore to each other, as if, once, you left the apartment and got some of your very own dirt on your knee. There is a world outside your bullshit. It isn’t quaint. And it isn’t yours to bend such that you can make your stories “more authentic”. It’s filled with real motherfuckers living lives just as visceral as yours, except maybe no one paid for the luxury of having the time for a life of words.
And on that note, pubbing a story about nurses during a pandemic is fucking freshmen. The only reason you think you guys are doing a good job is because you are surrounded by people who don’t know any better and you don’t listen to anyone else. But cash in on the real work others are doing on the front lines. War. Disease. It’s all fodder to those sterile few, those itching for real meaning outside their beige existence.
Some advice, which you don’t care about: The best paragraph in this story is the one in which the air condition is introduced, and is by itself. If this whole story had been one scene, a woman and man talking, in which we, the reader, are able to ascertain through said conversation (with the air conditioner as a moderator, as it were) that they are not meeting for the first time and we are given subtle clues as to their attraction through that conversation, realtime in fact (as this could have been a 15-30 min read reflecting the actual break), and we watch as they try to determine if now is the time to reveal that they are attracted to each other and whether or not it’s time to do something about it, and we are given just a hint of hope that they might, maybe, just execute on this, but we aren’t quite sure, but the story is cut off by the EMT’s arriving…then this could have been fucking good. Fucking great. No back story. No sentimentality. No cliché. No stereotypes. Just one tight fucking scene, beginning to end, encapsulating that heady feeling of will we/won’t we that is just as delicious in real life as it is in literature (if done well). But instead, we just got disappointment.
For all you other hard motherfuckers out there that aren’t soft and falsely-confident, for a story like this that’s done right, I recommend “We Didn’t” by Dybek. Summary at its fucking finest. And yearning. And devoid of everything that makes this story…I mean nurse-romance-novel…bad.
(Just to be clear, I didn’t think this story was the worst sort of banal drivel that you typically publish, it was just clear this could have been something better, more pointed, more human, more Art, less “I don’t give a shit about the readership, literature, or Art” sort of story. Hence my frustration.)
Nick
P.S. I’m not as available to write for the next couple of months because adventure is afoot, but I’d be happy to look into rewriting this story for you a little later to prove that this form that it took was weaker than it could have been. As always, I’m open to discussing employment as well, if you are interested in course correcting and using your platform for good. As Uncle Ben said, with great power comes great responsibility.
