Thanks for your review.
Coffee issue = hinting at upcoming main theme (protagonist
is pregnant, which isn’t allowed). Once i know where it ends up going, i can come back to this and make changes, but for now i’ll keep it vague.
I agree that this:`only rich people who’d be sorted out.’ is a very weak sentence.
“They tried protesting, they really did…We all watched a few round mine…’ – “few” = protests.
“they”=new government – i didn’t want this to be a total conspiracist cliche by using ‘They’.
Thanks for liking the ants analogy.
I think i’ll be able to clear up some of the vagueness once i’ve written more of this, because i’ll know where it’s going; thanks for giving me guidance on the parts in particular need of re-working.
Cheers again for the review.
Novel Treatments / NO TITLE YET. STORY INTRO.
The News made me laugh today…I never thought that would happen. Not now, times like these and all that. There was a Lady in the Fashion bit, talking to the Lady Presenter, both turning their big smiles on each other like intense lasers. Nervous smiles, though, you could tell. No one wants to fuck up on telly any more – it’s a lot more dangerous than just ending up on one of those Outtake programs a month afterwards – a smile at the wrong moment can be interpreted as a smirk, and smirking when you’re informing the nation about politics is not a wise move…so they plaster these smiles on themselves before they even walk onto the set. Probably don’t plaster them on themselves, come to think of it, there’s probably make-up artists who do that backstage – it must all be done with subtle eye language or something: I know you know I can’t tell you, but you know what needs doing – gimme one of those hangers and let’s prop my jaws into position. Imagine that, being desperate for a permanent beamer on your mug, life-or-death desperate, and not being able to say it or explain it to the person assisting you, in case someone’s listening. Anyway, as I was saying, they all fake these smiles the whole time they’re on camera – remaining neutral and reassuring simultaneously. The Fashion Lady was holding up a pair of khaki trousers and the Presenter Lady was admiring them. Combats are back in, said Fashion. That’s when I laughed – a big whoopee-cushion burst of it, with coffee spraying out of my mouth at the TV. Gosh, yes, look at all those pockets, Presenter Lady said, fingering the cuff of a trouser leg. When she said that, I went all shaky and was teehee-ing helplessly. All those pockets! I put my coffee down before I dropped it, and clapped. Three solidly cynical claps. “Yeah, all those pockets,” I echoed. The amount of shit that people got to have on them before they can step out of their front doors nowadays, it’s no wonder those army trousers are back in – there’s a pocket for every ID card. Plus your phone, purse and keys: the more redundant precautions. After you’ve loaded yourself up, you can march out your front door to wherever it is you’ve been told to go.
The hysteria passed a little when the full implication of it all hit me properly. Hysteria is all it was. So, in truth, the News didn’t really make me laugh, it made me cry…and that’s nothing unusual.
I don’t even know if I should be drinking coffee. I’ve cut down since yesterday, but I have no idea if cutting down is enough. I either can’t remember or didn’t know it in the first place. Last year, if I’d needed to know something like that, I could have asked a friend, or a doctor, or bought one of those books that guide you through the stages. I can’t now. It’s all too dangerous. A doctor would want to see my RC, I wouldn’t get through the door of a bookshop without them checking my IQ card, and I’m not sure exactly at what risk I’d be putting my friends by telling them. Until I know, I can’t. It doesn’t matter that I’m scared, which I am. So scared.
It won’t be like this forever, they say. We can’t afford to be lenient in these primary operations, they say. That’s how they talk. It’ll be better once everything’s settled. It’ll be better once the steering wheel of the nation is firmly in hand. It’ll be better. Trust us. No further questions. Thank you.
It would be less scary if they’d blasted their way into our lives unexpectedly; tanks in the street, armed guards breaking into houses, grannies being dragged off to concentration camps – stuff like you used to see on the News, like you used to read in history textbooks. But it’s all been gradual. I want it fast-paced, like in the action films, so I can snatch a gun from a corpse and run. Fight. How do you fight this, the way it’s all going on? How do you fight orderly queues, uncertainty, daily law amendments, night raids that no one sees or hears about until the next day, when your mate’s not on his usual stool by the dart board and no one knows where he is?
It makes you weary, grinds you down…but it doesn’t jumpstart your violent impulses. Everything’s done in little bits, like an army of ants sneakily helping themselves to your picnic: by the time you notice the sandwiches are missing, they’re onto the scotch eggs, then you’re on the scotch eggs and they’ve got your quiche, then they’re at the cakes…you’re always at least two moves behind them. So you sit there and think ‘well, we don’t HAVE to have sandwiches, we’ve got scotch eggs and that’… then ‘at least there’s the quiche’…‘cakes aren’t really essential for a picnic’…then you look around you, and you’re sitting on a rug covered in cake crumbs and other debris of the picnic you’d been obliviously indifferent to, and the clouds are darkening, and you think ‘Oh shit, what did I let those sneaky ants do?’ And that’s when one of them comes back boldly and says ‘We’re taking the blanket, seeing as you don’t need it any more.’ And you nod dumbly because he’s right; you’re a humbled, pathetic excuse for a picnicker, with no food for your picnic – an idiot sitting on a dirty blanket in the middle of the park. Mr Ant says, ‘Why don’t you go for a walk instead, since you’re not having a picnic?’ and you thank him for the reminder of the brilliant privileges still open to you.
I don’t know how to fight ants as cunning as that; stamping your feet just earns you a slap for stropping, like a kid who’s been told they can’t have an ice lolly.
They tried protesting, they really did. I remember. It wasn’t just hippies holding placards; it was all kinds of people. We all watched a few round mine, laughing at them. Well, we weren’t bothered – they’d already said it was only rich people who’d be sorted out. Like Robin Hood. What a fucking joke that seems now.
Anyway, there’d been loads of little protests, and no one in charge was taking any notice, the same as they always hadn’t, until this massive rally that took place in London. From the belly of the News helicopter, it looked like half of Britain had gone down (and up, seeing as London’s sort of in the middle); the streets were clogged with them like drainpipes full of peelings. I wasn’t watching properly, I’d been cooking or reading or something, but the noise coming from the speakers changed from a calm commentary to screams and chaos, so my eyes automatically swivelled to the TV.
The front rows of the crowd were on fire! Some were staggering about, ablaze, beating themselves with the posters they’d made for the demonstration, some just with their hands, like an enraged King Kong emerging from a bonfire; a few had activated their common sense and were rolling around on the floor, but common sense might have injured them more than the flames, since the only thing on everyone’s minds was evacuating the immediate area, instead of taking care not to tread on smouldering faces beneath their feet. There were a load of men in uniforms, who I’d assumed to be firemen, trying to douse the blaze, standing before the mass of chanting Brits, aiming nozzles at them, which required a double-take before I realised they were a kind of flamethrower – not funny-looking hosepipes.
I saw OAPs and kids and students and…oh, who gives a fuck how old they were or what they did? They were fucking people – human beings – who’d been set alight by men under orders and now they were screaming in my front room.
Planet Earth watched as the crowd turned like a huge wave breaking, flowing in the opposite direction, side streets becoming overflowing brooks. Of course, the people at the back of the crowd were the last to know what was going on; their reaction was too delayed to cope with the onslaught of embodied fear rushing at them, and loads were knocked down and trampled to death.
Then came gunshots, from armed soldiers surrounding the crowds.
Two of the News’ team had been on the ground, preparing for the halt of the march, to collect close ups of the government reaction to the protester’s demands. They’d swung into action…bringing us melting flesh dripping from human pork…splatters of blood…dying screams…all the shit we used to pay to go and see at cinemas, only more graphic and a lot more nauseating.
Now, I know what you’re thinking: what was I on about before, saying it was nothing like what we learned about the Nazis, nothing horrific was happening? Is that what you’re thinking?
Well, to start with, it was all taking place on a screen, just like every other fictional and real disaster, war and death I’d witnessed in my twenty-four years of living – my brain kept blinking on and off, declaring to my senses that it wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, weren’t these, like, the BEST special FX I’d ever seen? It was all so fast and very blurred, like a poor quality home video, because the cameraman kept jerking around, like he was trying to back away from the gory figures plunging towards him, begging for help, an ambulance, to be extinguished.
Plus, about twenty seconds later, an army uniform blocked the camera’s vision, followed by the footage spluttering out.
We didn’t go back to studio either, and, when I flicked through, all the channels were dead. Zap.
Those few minutes were all that the world saw of the carnage from that day.
It was enough. There were no protests about the dead channels.
Or anything else.
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I think cleavage is plural and singular
Television as the new big brother?
Such gross insurgence-or not
Coffee preoccupied me more
Political spin-control is anything but correct I’ll agree with that
I think any honesty that slips in is purely by accident
Columbo nice, but I don’t know if the younger viewers will realize who the munchkin detective is
The stages of withdrawal
Better to be scared than unaware
Governments and corporations alike count on our indifference and they’re rarely disappointed
Your vanishing picnic reminds me of the taxman sneaketh, even though I believe you’re referring to individual rights evaporating, but I’m one who never believed they were real to begin with
The world needs a new French Revolution-bring on the guillotines
I wish the government was that straightforward in eliminating dissenters, but they never are, it would cost them votes
Title suggestions: “Who’s Watching Who” “The Day the Freedom Died”
“Time for a Change/New Day”
overexcited puppies is cool but it distracts from the horror-like a litter of kittens in a dog kennel full of Rottweilers/Pit Bulls-or not
I don’t believe there wouldn’t be more protests, at least not in other countries-but we are getting more and more desensitized to violence, our indifference is astounding, and every day we do get more and more compliant
Interesting take on where the world is likely heading, but not enough to know where the plot is going
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For someone who doesn’t think prose is their strength, you’ve done a credible job here. In regards to making it better:
The bit about cutting down on coffee I found a bit weak - why is it so much of concern – seems insignifigant in the context of other things – appreciate you are pointing at freedoms and information channels in later part of paragraph, but would look for more important issue or explain why it is important to general health of individual.
`We all watched a few round mine,...’ – wasn’t clear what meant here – if referring to tv – and `a few’ needs better connection to protesters. `only rich people who’d be sorted out.’ Is `they’ the protesters – and can’t see how violent action to any part of society would be tolerated. This needs greater explanation of what actions were being taken. Perhaps the response of police – has army rebelled etc.
Thought your ant/picnic analogy was good. The descriptions of London masses also good – but think you need to point out protagonists – who was doing this? Political party, army in mutiny, people power revolt by insurgent group? Can see you may be trying to be vague, but think reader needs some hints to take seriously and ground in reality. (Fellow citizens don’t turn flamethrowers on other citizens in western society without firm basis)
Appreciate your reality take on tv vs real life – condition of modern life to be inerred to violence about us. The ending was solid and reflective.
Overall well done – energy/emotion was evident, good luck with this.
Good sentence structure with a chance for a great story to blossom from the background info that you gave. I also liked how you always seemed to put it into the focus of it being like a movie, it’s very original. As long as you can make a story out of this, I’d say it will be good.
This has great potential. It drew me in right from the get-go and was a more than passable examination of the slow erosion of civil liberties that can (and does) happen. There were echoes of ‘Children of Men’ and even ‘1984’, which I found intriguing. The ‘army of ants’ analogy was frankly fabulous and really made the point. Excellent metaphor in ‘clogged … like drainpipes full of peelings’. The narrative voice is fresh and – wondrous thing! – the grammar and punctuation was perfect from what I could see.
The sentence starting ‘Spike says…’ was a little clunky, possibly because of the mixed tenses in the sentence: grammatically correct, but perhaps in need of a bit of polishing? I was particularly impressed that, although this is exposition and consisted of flashback (two very difficult devices to pull off), it was very well-written, with great flow and transition.
Truly, excellent work, with incredible potential.
Trust me to be drawn to the piece with no title! I was genuinely impressed by this text, although you can definitely tell that you’re forte is as a poet, as it is expressed in this piece of prose. Very political, provocative and engaging. I think you should definitely develop it further!
This is very good. There’s a really paranoid quality to the narrator’s voice that matches the subject perfectly.
One thing was a little jarring.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking: what was I on about before, saying it was nothing like what we learned about the Nazis, nothing horrific was happening? Is that what you’re thinking?”
Exactly. It would be a bit better to go back and qualify the original statement. Maybe Now it all seems sort of banal—not like the Nazis. . . Then reassert the difference between the naked violence at the beginning and the weird disjunction between TV and reality that you open with. It was all over the telly in the beginning, but that didn’t last long. . . Something like that.
I like the television being the lense through which the narrator views the incroachment of tyranny. Please keep going with this—develop the nature of the regime, its aims, and so on.
I like this. For some reason I envision a dark theatrical setting with Bruce Willis narrating. My only complaint is that I feel as if Being bombarded with information. Nothing a little polishing won’t fix anyway. Good luck with it!
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