Hi everyone. Thanks to today’s anonymous author for this excerpt from a work of literary fiction.
Please take a few moments to read the excerpt and leave some feedback in the comment section. Potential prompts are listed below if you get stuck.
Vermont House of Pancakes
Literary
Russell set the black soft-sided suitcase down on the living room floor. He remembered when he’d gotten to the airport this morning that he still had the “Vermont House of Pancakes” sticker plastered to the side of the suitcase. Try explaining that to Libby, his snide traveling companion.
“Vermont House of Pancakes?” she’d said in her smoky voice. She moved her hand to adjust her oversized sunglasses. Onassis much? he’d wondered, an echo of his 16 year old niece looping through his head. The lump of bracelets Libby wore jangled together and he winced a little. He’d gotten up too early and his head was pounding from too much gaming and too little sleep.
“Uh…yeah.” Brilliant comeback, Russ. Brilliant. Soon you’ll be elocuting at every Vermont House of Pancakes—
“Well. Figures.” Even through those fly-eyed glasses he saw her gaze, sharp and disparaging, as it fell to his stomach and then back up to his face. “You look like a pancake kinda guy.”
He laughed, partly because he didn’t know what else to say and partly because he thought it was funny. A pancake kinda guy. Round, sort of pasty, a “short stack”. Yep, he supposed he was a pancake kinda guy.
When he thought about it, Vermont would have been a great place for a second honeymoon. Carly had even suggested it, leaning on his arm and saying “oh, it’s like a second honeymoon.”
Potential Feedback Prompts
When you respond, you might consider:
- your immediate reactions
- likes and dislikes
- anything that seems unclear
- language issues
- point of view
- voice
- inconsistencies
- general encouragement
Thanks!
Hey, thanks so much for letting us use your excerpt for a critique. This story sounds like something that I would like to read more of, although it’s difficult to put it into the larger context of your story without reading more.
P1: [Russell set the black soft-sided suitcase down on the living room floor. He remembered when he’d gotten to the airport this morning that he still had the “Vermont House of Pancakes” sticker plastered to the side of the suitcase. Try explaining that to Libby, his snide traveling companion.]
I’m wondering if this is the beginning of your story because of the way you say Russell remembered what had happened that morning, and I don’t imagine you would have him remembering something that’s already taken place in the story. At the same time, if this IS the beginning, might it be better to actually show the scene between Russell and Libby rather than have Russell simply remembering it? When Russell sets his suitcase down in the living room, is it the living room of his home or a hotel room?
P2: [“Vermont House of Pancakes?” she’d said in her smoky voice. She moved her hand to adjust her oversized sunglasses. Onassis much? he’d wondered, an echo of his 16 year old niece looping through his head. The lump of bracelets Libby wore jangled together and he winced a little. He’d gotten up too early and his head was pounding from too much gaming and too little sleep.]
I like the description in this passage, but there are a few minor points that bother me. You mention Russell’s niece, but does she factor in later in the story? If not, consider removing the reference. I don’t think it really adds much. In terms of the bracelets jingling and causing Russ to wince–can bracelets really jingle that loudly (even if he does already have a headache)? Consider changing ‘winced a little’ to simply ‘winced.’ Can one ‘wince a little’ or ‘wince a lot’?
P3 + P4: [“Uh…yeah.” Brilliant comeback, Russ. Brilliant. Soon you’ll be elocuting at every Vermont House of Pancakes—
“Well. Figures.” Even through those fly-eyed glasses he saw her gaze, sharp and disparaging, as it fell to his stomach and then back up to his face. “You look like a pancake kinda guy.”]
In these two paragraphs, you’ve used both ‘Um…yeah” and “well”–which should be used sparingly in dialogue. Try to avoid the urge to make your dialogue sound too realistic. Written dialogue should be slightly more coherent than spoken dialogue.
I really like this: “Even through those fly-eyed glasses he saw her gaze, sharp and disparaging, as it fell to his stomach and then back up to his face. “You look like a pancake kinda guy.” Nicely done.
P5: [He laughed, partly because he didn’t know what else to say and partly because he thought it was funny. A pancake kinda guy. Round, sort of pasty, a “short stack”. Yep, he supposed he was a pancake kinda guy.]
You’ve used ‘Yep,’ here, which to me is another ‘um…yeah’ and ‘well.’ Instead of “Yep, he supposed he was a pancake kinda guy,” you could remove it and say “He supposed he WAS (italicized) a pancake kinda guy.” I like the ‘short stack’ reference.
P6: [When he thought about it, Vermont would have been a great place for a second honeymoon. Carly had even suggested it, leaning on his arm and saying “oh, it’s like a second honeymoon.”]
I’m wondering again if this is the beginning of your story. If so, I’m wondering when this event took place–that is, when Russell’s wife mentioned the second honeymoon thing. Was it before Russell was at the airport with Libby? I’m a bit confused by the temporal aspects of this excerpt, although perhaps they make more sense when put into context.
You’ve definitely got the beginnings of a good story here. Now you just need to take some time to look at the finer details.
All the best with this piece!
Not going into it too deeply and letting it skim over the surface of my Monday morning brain it is an intriguing little piece. Who are these people? What kind of a relationship do they have? I am a bit puzzled as to whether they were both at Vermont and especially interested in Russ’s self esteem issues in relation to this Onassis? type travelling companion.
I love some of the imagery like…………the lumps of bracelets pounding his poor over – gamed head and the whole idea of him being a ‘pancake sort of guy’.
I wonder if the second honeymoon bit holds an inconsistency in it but I expect I should have to read more of the story to catch it’s plot.
Characterisation brilliant and I feel like reaching for that ‘disparaging’ Libby in a slightly less than positive fashion . I’d also love to drop a sensitive hint Russ’ way as to the wisdom of him joining Slimming World. Perhaps he could also review the suitability of his choice in partner (wife or travelling). Maybe I’ve missed something!
Any roads it reads well and would definitely make me want to read on so I guess for me it works.
Ps.is ‘elocuting ‘ a word?
Michelle, I too wondered if ‘elocuting’ was a word, and looked it up. Even as I type this, the spell-checker has the word underlined in red. According to a Google search, it seems to genuinely be a word, but perhaps one that’s not used very often. Maybe a different term would be better used in this excerpt.
Not being qualified for “technical” comments (although I read with extreme interest what has been written until now), I can only say that this small snippet catches the attention of the reader with its ebullience and fun-loving attitude.
The characters are sketched in a very “cinematic” way, jumping at you from the page with three-dimensional depth, and the tone is light yet hints at more, much more.
I’d love to read the rest…
I love the use of creative descriptions that come after the dialogue and how you’ve avoided the “he said/she said” issue.
I was confused, however, at where Russell was going, how does Libby factor in, and where is Carly?
I loved the descrition he goes through of himself as pancakes. Haha!
Hello. I’m outing myself as the writer.
Thank you to all for your comments. This was a piece I started as a NaNoWriMo exercise a few years back but I didn’t get far at all. The submission is taken from the first few pages but wasn’t the very first paragraph. My thought about the story was a guy striving to find himself; when he returns from a work trip with his “snide traveling companion” (co-worker), he finds that his wife has left him, taking her share of their possessions, including their cat.
So that was the beginning of the story and…that was all I wrote.
Thank you again for the generosity with which you all shared your thoughts. Thank you, Suzannah, for opportunity to present this.
PS–elocuting is NOT a word! Perhaps I can blame that on the character??
No problem, Eva. A pleasure to have you.
I do think you should finish writing this story, though. I love the premise!
Thank you! Now that I have some feedback, it might fire up the neurons.
I think the best compliment is if the reader would like to read further…This snippet left me wondering what was happening next…