underwhere's 4th assignment

[Dragon's muse]

Craft a scene/chapter/story revolving around a main character (gender your choice) reading something they are not supposed to read.

[underwhere]

Jessica opened the door to her son's room. Her eyes scanned from floor to ceiling, of which she couldn't actually see the floor since it was covered from end to end with papers, dirty clothes, and various knickknacks. She was seething. She wasn't sure how much more teenage angst she could take from Mark. It was bad enough that he didn't seem to listen to anything she said. Just that morning, for the umpteenth time, she had reminded him of the necessity of keeping his room clean. He promised her that he would take care of it before going out with his friends that night, and like all of the previous occasions when he made such promises, this one had also been broken.

Well, if Mark can't do it himself, I'm going to have to do it for him. She began by picking up the dirty clothes from the floor and putting them in the hamper. Why did I bother to get him a hamper if he never uses it?

When she finished that task, which she noticed took her less than one minute, she took her second look around the room, this one with a more critical eye now that it didn't seem quite so cluttered. Sure, it was still a mess, but it didn't look quite so bad now.

Her eyes spotted a pad of paper on Mark's bed. It was open to a page about half way through the pad. Even though she knew she shouldn't read it, curiosity got the better of her. Sitting down on his bed, she began reading what was clearly her son's handwriting in blue ink pen. She flipped back a few pages to the beginning of the most recent entry.

Dear Diary,
I've been writing to you for a few months now, and I still feel silly every time I do. After all, boys don't write in diaries. Thats what girls do.

It's not like anybody is ever going to read this anyway. My therapist told me it would be a good way for me to get my thoughts and emotions out in a more constructive way, but I really don't think it's helping me. Dad hasn't come back, after all. I know he treated Mom like shit and all, and sometimes he hit me pretty bad too, but I still miss him.

Jessica closed her eyes for a minute deep in thought. She had been so focussed on merely surviving that horrific situation with her ex-husband David that she had completely failed to notice that Mark needed help too. When did he start going to therapy? What was he really up to these days? Did he really still miss David?

Dad probably wouldn't be the best person for me to get advice from on dating and girls, but I still feel like I need some help there. Frankly, I'm afraid to even bring this up with my therapist.

Yesterday, while I was sitting on a bench at the park, this girl named Susan came up to me. I think she is about fourteen years old. She was wearing a pink dress which made her look really beautiful. I'd seen her around school before, but, well, I'm one of those "nice" guys, and nobody ever seems to like "nice" guys these days, especially not girls, but she started talking to me about her mother anyway. I guess we have a lot in common, maybe more than either one of us would like to admit.

What on earth was Mark writing about? What did they have in common? Jessica had far more questions than answers so far.

Diary, it didn't take long for us to share our situations with each other. I've told you many times about how Dad hit me. Sometimes, I probably deserved it, but sometimes, he was just so angry and drunk that I didn't think I could do anything to stop him, so I let him hit me because I wasn't able to think quick enough to get out of the way. Every time he hit me, whether it was a slap on my face or a spanking on my bare ass, I hated him for it, but at least when I knew I had deserved it, I could forgive him for it. It was the times when he would just beat me for no good reason, and for which I received the most severe bruises, that I hated him, and that seemed to be more often than not.

Jessica couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. Why couldn't I see that happening? Why didn't I do more to try to protect Mark?

Jessica was scared of David too, and for much the same reasons. That's what caused her to eventually call the cops on him and got him carted off to prison on domestic assault charges. She suddenly wished she had done so a lot sooner.

Well, I told Susan about this and she started telling me about her mother. Diary, all I can say is that I wish my father had half the heart Susan's mother had. Susan told me that she had received a blistering spanking earlier in the week that she thought was really unfair, but when she told me she received the spanking for cheating on a test, I had little sympathy for her. I still wanted to be friends with her, but I wanted her to know that honesty always came before friendship. She was upset, but I think she understood.

Jessica was proud of Mark for being such a good teacher, but what she read next really startled her.

I told her that for lying, I thought she deserved a second punishment from me, a bare bottom spanking. Diary, when I told her this, I will admit that I suddenly got quite a hard-on myself. I don't know if she noticed.

Jessica blushed. She never thought of Mark as a sexual being. Come to think of it, she never really thought of Mark as anything other than wanting to cause a lot of trouble, but here he was trying to help somebody else out.

I took Susan to a more private part of the park. There was a bench there too, but nobody ever seemed to go over there. It was just the two of us.

She lied down across my lap. I lifted up her dress, which I'm fairly sure embarrassed her. I then pulled down her panties, exposing her bottom to my view which probably embarrassed her even more. I raised my hand and began spanking her--very very lightly. She giggled.

My son is such a tease! Jessica couldn't help but laugh.

I must have spanked her like that for five minutes, both of us enjoying every second of it. As I was spanking her, she was wiggling her body, which did nothing at all to get rid of my hard-on. If anything, it probably got harder. At some point, she must have noticed this because she asked if she could do something about it for me. I had no idea what she had in mind, but I was willing to let her. We'd shared so much already, so why not just a little more.

She got up off of my lap, pulling her panties up while giving me a great view of her. When she sat down on the bench next to me, she told me to sit in her lap and close my eyes. I felt my pants button come undone and heard my zipper being unzipped. Then I felt her very soft hands reach into my underpants and begin to rub my penis.

While reading this, Jessica couldn't help but reach her hands into the front of her panties. As she began to vigorously pleasure herself, she continued reading.

Diary, I've jerked off before, but this was nothing like that. Her hands, her touch, her smell....this was completely different. In just a minute or two, she had rubbed my penis silly and caused me to pee white liquid all over her hands. I was out of breath. When I could finally see straight again, she said to me that that was something she had always wanted to do. I asked her if she would do that to me again sometime, and she said yes, but only if I would spank her like I just had. She said she really liked it when I spanked her. She said it was nothing like receiving a spanking from her mother.

It looks like my son has a budding relationship. Jessica couldn't have been more pleased to discover that. It was about time her son took on an interest in girls.

Diary, I was still curious though. I mean, I'd never ever touched a girl like that before, and I wanted to know what it felt like, both to touch a girl and to watch her respond to being touched knowing that I was the one touching her. When I asked Susan if I could touch her, at first, she got really shy, but when I reminded her that she had just touched me and made me feel so fantastic and that I wanted to return the favor to her, she let me.

My son is so adventurous! She wasn't sure if that was pleasing or scary, but Jessica didn't really care at that moment. She had herself to take care of, and she wanted to read how her son took care of Susan.

I told Susan to sit down on my lap, and when she did, I reached around her grabbing hold of her dress and lifting it up with one hand. My other hand found its way into her panties in the front, and began feeling around her soft skin. At first, I just rubbed her between her legs. I wasn't really sure what else I should do, but then I got an idea, and tried to stick my fingers in between her legs. I continued to rub as I stuck my fingers inside her, and at some point, I felt something get in my way. I wasn't sure what it was, but as I continued to rub it, Susan closed her eyes and started breathing harder. All of a sudden, my hand was drenched with liquid. I could only presume that she must have felt that same high that I had felt when she had rubbed my penis.

I know exactly what Susan felt, because I am feeling the same thing right now! That was the last Jessica could read before orgasm overtook her. It took her several minutes to recover. When she did, she opened her eyes, and saw Mark staring wide-eyed at her in the door frame of his room. It looks like I have a little bit of explaining to do now, don't I?

"Mark, we need to talk."

[underwhere]

This was an interesting assignment. I actually edited it several times before posting it. Unlike most writing assignments where one typically goes for good word choice and clarity, I actually found myself "dumbing down" some of this particular piece because I thought a teenager might not be able to or want to write with the vocabulary and clarity of an adult. I'm not sure if that comes across the way I want it to, though.

By the way, this question of clarity and writing style is not just for Rose. Anybody else in the Writers Block is free and encouraged to comment about this or any other aspect of this story.

[Venom]

I just skimmed the story for the first time, and I can already name a few things I like: the basic idea with the diary, the "teenaged" style of the respective passages...and the two shades of blue!

[underwhere]

Is anybody interested in shredding this assignment to pulp, or possibly framing it? At this point, I'd be happy with either.

I realize that all of the instructors are probably very busy, but I would appreciate some feedback on this one. I don't know if stories are like bread, but if they are, this one is starting to get stale waiting on the shelf for somebody to look over it.

Are there any kind souls willing to look this one over for me please?

[H Dean]

i just saw this and began reading. A few nits so far, but nothing terribly major. If I don't get to giving you a good beating up by Wednesday send me a PM.

I can tell you that there doesn't, so far, seem to be the right sound to the child's writing. It needs a bit more simplicity. I am about a third of the way through, mind you.

The second sentence of this piece was a bit awkward and needs to be fixed, though - at least for my tastes.

"Her eyes scanned from floor to ceiling, of which she couldn't actually see the floor since it was covered from end to end with papers, dirty clothes, and various knickknacks."

I would have used the term "the latter of which" instead of what you used.

Hopefully, later tonight or Monday, I will get to really giving this a good go-over.

Dean

[underwhere]

Thanks, H Dean. I'm looking forward to the rest of your nit-picking. I agree that "the latter of which" would definitely read better. One of these days, I'll figure out when it's better to be more wordy and when it's better to be less wordy. I have quite a propensity for wordiness which Rose was rightly fond of pointing out to me.

I think a child might tend to be more wordy with their writing. In circles I hung out in as a child, writing with run on sentences (i.e., extra long and drawn out sentences which is not what a grammarian would refer to as a "run on sentence") was a pet peeve of my teachers to point out to me and my classmates. However, a good case can be made for more simplistic wording and phrasing too. I'm not sure what would work better here. Perhaps a combination of both?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to any and all suggestions you might offer. Thanks again for taking a look at this.

[Mad Lews]

Hi underwhere,
I'd say the most important thing to remember in a piece like this is to give your two characters distinct voices. You've done a pretty good job at that, but you should feel free to ham it up a bit. After all, It's only a writing class.
Your narrator, Mom, can use time worn clinches, it's not often you get to do that so savor the opportunity. If one uses contractions, the other shouldn't. pick out a favored turn of phrase for each like starting a few sentences with "Of course," or "After all" don't overdo it but get a real feel for how each character talks, then be consistent and don't let the two characters overlap.
I thought the story was cute, kind of thought the mum was overly vulnerable and sensitive, but I like what you did and the ending was perfect IMHO

Yours
Mad Lews

[underwhere]

Hi underwhere,
I'd say the most important thing to remember in a piece like this is to give your two characters distinct voices. You've done a pretty good job at that, but you should feel free to ham it up a bit. After all, It's only a writing class.

Interesting point. Giving characters distinct voices is actually something I think a lot about, not just in writing but in real life. When people ask me, I often tell them that I got my Ph.D. in Psychology from the School of Hard Knocks. Part of the way I've done that is to be very attuned to the different personalities and quirks of the people I interact with on a day-to-day basis. I'm glad that shows in my writing.

I'll have to consider how to ham it up even a bit more than that if I can. That gives me something to think about anyway.

Your narrator, Mom, can use time worn clinches, it's not often you get to do that so savor the opportunity. If one uses contractions, the other shouldn't. pick out a favored turn of phrase for each like starting a few sentences with "Of course," or "After all" don't overdo it but get a real feel for how each character talks, then be consistent and don't let the two characters overlap.

I definitely had not thought about those details. Something else for me to consider.

One thing I was thinking about as I wrote this was the difference between how a person might write and how a person might talk. I'm not at all sure that Mark would actually talk the same way that he writes. Most people speak rather differently than how they write. I, personally, seem to be a rather rare exception to that observation as I often speak with long sentences and thoughts which flow together very well much the same as my writing does, but most people are a little more trite in either speaking or writing. I tend to be quite verbose in both formats. Sometimes, that is not the most effective way to be, though.

I thought the story was cute, kind of thought the mum was overly vulnerable and sensitive, but I like what you did and the ending was perfect IMHO

Part of what I tried to get across was that BOTH mum and son felt very vulnerable, and that they both had valid reasons for being that way.

Mum wants to think of herself as not being vulnerable anymore because, after all, she is finally rid of her abusive husband, but she hasn't yet put her own baggage truly behind her. Part of that process is in coming to terms with her son for who he really is, not who she wants him to be or who she thinks he is.

Son hates feeling vulnerable, but at this point really has no idea what to do about it all. His therapist thinks writing will empower him, but as he wrote, he is not convinced that will help him.

Now that Mum knows, I think there is a much better chance for both to become less vulnerable, not just with each other but with other people in their lives.....Maybe I need to play up the "Mum is overly preoccupied with housework, work, and personal care resulting in her being unable to deal with 'real life' sitting directly in front of her" aspect of this story. If I go that route, Mum needs a bit more backstory to make her a more defined character. That would be something else I'll want to consider. An interesting question for me to answer now would be how to go about that process. More for me to think about on my rewrite, but all good stuff.

Yours
Mad Lews

Thanks for the feedback. Indeed, it has been helpful to me.

[H Dean]

Well, I have gone through this all the way, finally. First, I will say that it was a rather cute piece of work. You know some of my early nits but I will give you a few more without going over the previous ones in too much detail.

Jessica opened the door to her son's room. Her eyes scanned from floor to ceiling, of which she couldn't actually see the floor since it was covered from end to end with papers, dirty clothes, and various knickknacks. She was seething. She wasn't sure how much more teenage angst she could take from Mark. It was bad enough that he didn't seem to listen to anything she said. Just that morning, for the umpteenth time, she had reminded him of the necessity of keeping his room clean. He promised her that he would take care of it before going out with his friends that night, and like all of the previous occasions when he made such promises, this one had also been broken.

Well, if Mark can't do it himself, I'm going to have to do it for him. She began by picking up the dirty clothes from the floor and putting them in the hamper. Why did I bother to get him a hamper if he never uses it?

I am not partial to the italics used for her thoughts. You should use quotations and offer a "she thought" or something similar. While it was clear that it was her thoughts - so there wasn't confusion - I don't think it is particularly good form to use italics.

When she finished that task, which she noticed took her less than one minute, she took her second look around the room, this one with a more critical eye now that it didn't seem quite so cluttered. Sure, it was still a mess, but it didn't look quite so bad now.

Colloquial. Try another word like "certainly" or even eliminate the word and start with "It".

[QUOTE]Her eyes spotted a pad of paper on Mark's bed. It was open to a page about half way through the pad. Even though she knew she shouldn't read it, curiosity got the better of her. Sitting down on his bed, she began reading what was clearly her son's handwriting in blue ink pen. She flipped back a few pages to the beginning of the most recent entry.

Eliminate "even". It is completely unnecessary. Remember, this is the narrative voice.

Dear Diary,
I've been writing to you for a few months now, and I still feel silly every time I do. After all, boys don't write in diaries. Thats what girls do.

It's not like anybody is ever going to read this anyway. My therapist told me it would be a good way for me to get my thoughts and emotions out in a more constructive way, but I really don't think it's helping me. Dad hasn't come back, after all. I know he treated Mom like shit and all, and sometimes he hit me pretty bad too, but I still miss him.

Jessica closed her eyes for a minute deep in thought. She had been so focussed on merely surviving that horrific situation with her ex-husband David that she had completely failed to notice that Mark needed help too. When did he start going to therapy? What was he really up to these days? Did he really still miss David?

If I am not mistaken (technical aspects not being my forte) you are missing a few commas.

Dad probably wouldn't be the best person for me to get advice from on dating and girls, but I still feel like I need some help there. Frankly, I'm afraid to even bring this up with my therapist.

This seems too mature for most children. Another aspect that has me sort of put off is that, I think, therapy would need parental permission.

Yesterday, while I was sitting on a bench at the park, this girl named Susan came up to me. I think she is about fourteen years old. She was wearing a pink dress which made her look really beautiful. I'd seen her around school before, but, well, I'm one of those "nice" guys, and nobody ever seems to like "nice" guys these days, especially not girls, but she started talking to me about her mother anyway. I guess we have a lot in common, maybe more than either one of us would like to admit.

What on earth was Mark writing about? What did they have in common? Jessica had far more questions than answers so far.

A "she wondered" and quotes would be groovy in these areas. You wouldn't happen to be like me and have difficulty finding that key would you? I avoided dialog for a long time because it took forever to find the damned quotation key.

Diary, it didn't take long for us to share our situations with each other. I've told you many times about how Dad hit me. Sometimes, I probably deserved it, but sometimes, he was just so angry and drunk that I didn't think I could do anything to stop him, so I let him hit me because I wasn't able to think quick enough to get out of the way. Every time he hit me, whether it was a slap on my face or a spanking on my bare ass, I hated him for it, but at least when I knew I had deserved it, I could forgive him for it. It was the times when he would just beat me for no good reason, and for which I received the most severe bruises, that I hated him, and that seemed to be more often than not.

Let's make that two sentences. The other one, too.

Jessica couldn't help but feel a pang of guilt. Why couldn't I see that happening? Why didn't I do more to try to protect Mark?

Jessica was scared of David too, and for much the same reasons. That's what caused her to eventually call the cops on him and got him carted off to prison on domestic assault charges. She suddenly wished she had done so a lot sooner.

"Carted" is, again, a colloquial term. You are the narrator, so cut it out. Also, you don't get carted off to prison for charges. You get taken to prison for being found guilty. Also, domestic abuse would be a better term and he would have been in a country jail for about 6 months, generally speaking, if that. Prison doesn't hold anyone who is in for less than one year.

Well, I told Susan about this and she started telling me about her mother. Diary, all I can say is that I wish my father had half the heart Susan's mother had. Susan told me that she had received a blistering spanking earlier in the week that she thought was really unfair, but when she told me she received the spanking for cheating on a test, I had little sympathy for her. I still wanted to be friends with her, but I wanted her to know that honesty always came before friendship. She was upset, but I think she understood.

That's a bit too adult for this to come off real. Remember, if you are writing for a child you need to use every child and not someone who speaks like an adult. I read what you said before, but you were the exception, not the norm.

Jessica was proud of Mark for being such a good teacher, but what she read next really startled her.

That's not really being a teacher so much as it is being someone with good moral fiber. I suggest you use another term.

I told her that for lying, I thought she deserved a second punishment from me, a bare bottom spanking. Diary, when I told her this, I will admit that I suddenly got quite a hard-on myself. I don't know if she noticed.

Try "that". Regardless of how it may sound to you it's, well, a kid talking. Give your child a younger voice.

Jessica blushed. She never thought of Mark as a sexual being. Come to think of it, she never really thought of Mark as anything other than wanting to cause a lot of trouble, but here he was trying to help somebody else out.

Narrative voice sounding far too much like an old uncle telling a tall tale to a bunch of kids.

I took Susan to a more private part of the park. There was a bench there too, but nobody ever seemed to go over there. It was just the two of us.

She lied down across my lap. I lifted up her dress, which I'm fairly sure embarrassed her. I then pulled down her panties, exposing her bottom to my view which probably embarrassed her even more. I raised my hand and began spanking her--very very lightly. She giggled.

Try a kids voice.

My son is such a tease! Jessica couldn't help but laugh.

[INDENT][COLOR="Blue"]I must have spanked her like that for five minutes, both of us enjoying every second of it. As I was spanking her, she was wiggling her body, which did nothing at all to get rid of my hard-on. If anything, it probably got harder. At some point, she must have noticed this because she asked if she could do something about it for me. I had no idea what she had in mind, but I was willing to let her. We'd shared so much already, so why not just a little more.

Try a kids voice and not an adult voice.

Okay, the rest of my comments would get to be redundant as hell. My main complaints are laid out fairly well, by now. Other complaints would be the absence of commas where they should be. Though, I am not the expert at technical issues that others may be. I did point out a few, though.

Now, for my redundancy...
Find the child voice and work with it. The kid spoke way too much like a narrator and the narrator sounded too much like a familiar and friendly voice telling the story.

The ending, as Mad mentioned, was rather a surprise and the mother's attitude was a bit to easy going about everything - at first. Frankly, I would rather have had the mother being a bit taken back and more gradually getting into things.

We now return you to your normal programming.

[underwhere]

I've got lots to work on for my rewrite, and I'll definitely take into account all of the comments I've received. Hopefully, I can make this piece a lot better by doing so.

H Dean, I'm usually really good with my punctuation. One of the spots you pointed out that you thought I was missing a comma I probably should add one (it's debatable, really, but I can definitely see the merits of it), but one spot seemed like it really didn't need it.

I guess most importantly, I should probably focus on my "kid's voice" and try to work on that a bit.

I'm not partial to the italics, just that I felt it was easier to distinguish that from quotes, which I tend to attribute to speech rather than thoughts. I can definitely do something like 'He thought, "This is what I think."' That just seems to add two extra words and slightly breaks up the flow of the piece a bit more than I would like as a writer. I'm not sure if that is good or bad, just different. I also worry that might get real repetitive to say "She thought" or "He thought" with such frequency. I haven't done any specific research to determine how this type of thing is usually handled, though I suspect your suggested approach is more common, so I'll adjust accordingly. Any advice on how to handle the repetitiveness of making such statements without being repetitive?

Your comments about the narrative voice, something I hadn't really considered, are very helpful. I'll need to find a useful way to handle that.

I think the ending will probably wind up needing some adjustment to reflect the changes I think I want to make in my introduction to this piece. I can't imagine it would change too much, but it will change at least a little. The suggestions about Mum being a bit too easy-going with everything definitely hold some merit, but before I can really change that, I guess I need to figure out a bit more about where she is coming from herself and how to integrate that into the piece. Like I wrote before, my character study of her puts her in a pretty vulnerable spot which would lead me to believe that she might actually secretly WANT to be caught up in this kind of situation, which would make her less likely to protest. Maybe I need to find a way to play that up a bit more at the beginning.

Well, anyway, as I've written, I have lots of work still to do on this one. I'll try to get to it over the next few days. I'm not averse to the idea of requesting a second review once I post the updated version if that won't be too much trouble. With the number of changes I'm looking to make, it might need one.

Thanks again H Dean and Mad Lews for the suggestions and comments. They are much appreciated and have caused me to think a great deal more about this piece (in a good way) and I hope I'll be able to present something of much greater quality as a result.

[H Dean]

Instead of saying "she thought" you can be creative. All you need to do is indicate it is in her mind - her head - not verbalized. You can do it. If ya don't I will bust your ass!