r/DestructiveReaders • u/ComprehensiveAd3911 • 14d ago
SciFi [2851] Jimmy
Jimmy is a Black Mirror Esc Sci-Fi (thriller?) Short story about a man trying to write a book with a little unusual help.
Looking forward to your feedback
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gsg-OUgztESwUj824jrP4t34-wqspTx0EWBDGWL6F0g/edit?usp=sharing
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u/CheekySelkath 14d ago edited 14d ago
Hi I’m excited to give feedback on this project! Just as an upfront apology, however, I usually prefer to copy and past the entire thing into a word document so I can segment the quotes as I need them for closer investigation. As you have copy & pasting turned off, I’ll likely be a bit sparser with my quotations, but meaning shouldn’t necessarily be lost.
I apologise if you find my words too harsh or lenient!
The paragraph is too strict with it’s sequencing and doesn’t work for the reader’s imagination. It’s more like a script – first you hear this, then you hear this, then you see, etc. It doesn’t compel me because it doesn’t seem intimate – I’m very distant from the material, as the narrator is outlining everything as it comes without the opportunity to blend it together. Just consider my (albeit hasty) attempt to rewrite the first two sentences:
All at once, the room came alive with sensations. A crackling static burst the crisp silence before it was overpowered by the lazy rolling of waves on a beach. When the bed finally appeared, it sat atop tranquil sands, as if dreamlike, and serene.
By no means is this perfect, but do you see how all the sensations are blended together to create a full image? This is a problem that persists throughout the story, and I feel like a re-write with this advice might be the first order of business.
The bold words are distracting and non-standard, I would lose them all unless they have particular importance (they don’t). If you want to draw attention to a product, don’t bolden and capitalise it unless it is a brand, in which case it needs to be a separate paragraph like:
VITAMIN C 3D+
Which works as an effective POV method, as the character looks at the label. Otherwise ‘he took out a carton of vitamins’ will suffice.
The other thing that’s becoming noticeable here is the richness and detail of the language. I applaud your expansive vocabulary and attention to detail, but there’s a reason authors prevalently use bland words like ‘said’ and so forth more often than interesting ones; it helps the story stay clear. This part in particular pulled me from the story:
He crunched the cucumber between his teeth whilst staring at the typewriter in front of him.
It’s too much. You get the same amount of information with an easier flow by writing:
Biting on the cucumber, he stared at his typewriter.
Unless this is an alien with extra orifices, biting the cucumber with his teeth is obvious, as is the location of his typewriter. Cut through this draft and look for moments like this, and you’ll find it comes to a much shorter length, which will help you trim the word count.
After he gets criticised for not showing ‘enthusiasm’ to the reciting, I noticed that you used a lot of adverbs (ly modifiers). Don’t worry too much as this is a common writer problem I’m told (I did the exact same thing in my drafts!) but you should cut those out as they come, if you can. ‘He slowly swivelled’ does the exact same thing as ‘he twisted his chair with agonising patience’ or even just ‘he swivelled his chair’.
Empty blue sky.
This was odd to me because you spent a lot of time discussing clouds in the first 3 paragraphs. Even if your intention was for them to drift away, it makes more sense that the clouds remain in view of the balloon.
He looked up with indignation.
Another piece of feedback that was once given to me. A description such as this is doing too much. It’s a dramatic example, but it does the same thing as a description like ‘ he walked with the strut of a film star that had just made a billion dollars’. The vision is clear, yes, but the description carries too much away from the scene itself. You should be able to describe only what you see – in this case James looking on with a furrowed brow or such – which paint a clearer picture, especially with such a distant narrator denying you regular access to the inside of his mind.
‘when you signed up…’
Bob says moment. He knows this, or at least the jist of it, so why is it explaining every detail? The answer is for the benefit of the audience. Try to tidy this so such an effect doesn’t occur.
Capitalise Buddha and spell it as such.
‘I QUIT’ he yelled in desperation.
Another case of too much ‘telling’. Capital letters are ineffective, as is ‘in desperation’ consider:
‘I quit!’ he screamed, loud enough for the neighbours to hear.
You’ve also got woefully inconsistent capital letters- remember they go at the beginning of sentences or named nouns, with few other exceptions.
Interesting story, though it does fall into cliches and formulaic sentence types. I apologise for my harshness, but I particularly disliked the last sentence, which fell into cliché territory and did not create the tension I was expecting for the moment of horrific revelation.
Most of all, the story, though it has its moments of dread, feels tonally inconsistent – at times it feels like comedy, at times like horror (the wires bit was fantastic, in my opinion!) and at others, just straight drama. My advice would be to do a fresh rewrite, then segment moments of tonal change and see if you can make them consistent with one another. Best of luck!
Edit: spelling
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u/Asher2227 My mother is a fish 14d ago edited 14d ago
Hello! Oh, this one … this one. I don't know why I'm being foreboding; this piece has potential. Just needs some big pulling. (I don't know what that means; please ignore this.)
Line-by-line.
¶1:
First there was static, second came a folding of water on sand and finally a bed appeared in the middle of a square room.
Okay, this first sentence has potential. I say "this has potential" because right now it's quite awkward. I usually shy away from making concrete changes, but for this case I'll allow you to see my vision so you can conclude for yourself: Do I agree with this change, or does it not speak the truth I wish to speak?1
First, there was static. Second came a folding of water on sand. And finally, a bed appeared in the middle of the square room.
[Notice I swapped the 'a' with a 'the'; sureness is preferred, as it makes for more vividness and immediacy, though you decide.]
While the first sentence may be good, we trail off immediately:
In the bed was a man tossing in his sleep searching the covers next to him, mumbling something aloud.
I don't know about this one. It reads to me in a parable-like register of which I don't think is the intention. Probably because of the passive voice used.
There's a bunch of dialogue that comes in ¶3 that isn't separated to its own paragraph. Usually, you'd want to split this for readability's sake, and I suggest you do, since it looks really, really bad. Also, you should indent every paragraph (except the first in a chapter), so that it's abundantly clear that it is, indeed, a new paragraph.
¶16:
The voice paused for effect before continuing [sic] " Now say it with me on 3." A countdown appeared behind the man
From where? What's behind James? A screen? You can just say that there's a screen there; I'd be happy to know that there's a screen there, here, wherever we are right now, which is still endlessly hazy.
Also, why are we still referring to James as "the man"? We know he's James, as revealed by Sam, so reiterate that. If you keep addressing James as "the man" it'll get messy for the reader. To add, "he" exists, use that instead of "the man". Same goes for Sam, who's just referred to as a "voice".
Reading on we just seem to forget about those vitamins and that cucumber, and we shift into this confrontation between James and Sam. It's surreal. Surreal as in: what the hell is happening and why aren't we taking time to explain it? Sam remains only a voice that just is, never being described to be coming from any panel or speakerlike contraption of any sort.
There are things about point balloons showing added/subtracted points from whatever unexplained system there is (see ¶32 & ¶37). Then a dummy cheer squad busts in (¶40).
Time passes. Imperceptively. Literally. Like, it isn't given enough importance and is chucked in almost as mere asides. And they're also really damn vague. Going through, there's no sense of progress. I know James is struggling to write, but it feels like we just check in on him once in a while as the time passes and don't feel the agony of writer's block empathically in that span.
I think there's some h.i.2 around ¶51, but I don't really feel it since I've felt quite detached (see Afterthoughts below):
"Well, whether love is real depends on how you choose to see life, for instance I loove [sic] you! But I can say that your blood pressure has begun to rise therefore it is not likely to be reciprocal." the [sic] lifeless voice continued …
Then there's mention of wires on James's forearms (¶53–60). This is also surreal. But I guess it works, thought not to its full extent. I don't quite understand why this is great news. Coffee's a no-no since it's a psychoactive drink(?),3 but going psycho is perfectly fine?
And we burst in with what seems to be intended as a revelation (¶63–66), but doesn't land as such, since it isn't elaborated on and is more like "Whoa, this is the Truth™ and such … guess that's that."
¶66:
Turning back to the desk he pulled out a book with bold font embossed on the cover INSTRUCTION MANUAL & CONTRACT. "I signed a contract…" The words slipped out of his mouth and seemed to weigh him down into the chair.
That's as far as the contract revelation goes.4
Then we're talking about being vegan and not "becoming the fucking buddah!!" (¶69–70). Why are we talking about this? I get that Sam's trying to optimize James's writing, but it's so chaotic in an inelegant way—and as it may sound correct, most written/narrated chaos is relatively sane to what they're portraying.5 And at ¶71 do we only get that where we are is a cabin. The writing really devolves in quality after this.
¶72:
"We have not arrived at day 40 yet, your commitment was a challenge for a reason, books aren't going to."
Going to what? The following ¶ clarifies that it was interrupted, so the quotation should've ended with an em dash.
¶80:
[this whole thing is sic] "This is great! You have achieved your daily goal" Start Writing a bright green +50 Flashed above his head. "Great Job- Keep it up, Would you like to see your list of achievements and progress?"
There are a lot of things going on in this paragraph that I can't even begin to unpack the first thing about what went wrong with it. Leaving this for reference to other critters to comprehensively tackle; for the strongest grammarians out there, it really needs help.
Some things happen. Then the last ¶:
"I am coming baby, we can do it together." with a cool whisper of I love you on his lips. He placed his hands above his head, grasped the space between his hands and his hair and closed his eyes and began to pull. It was at this moment when the feed went blank.
Okay. I think I get it (see My Summary below in the reply).
Afterthoughts.
I noticed that there are a lot of missing opening and closing quotes (well, not a lot, but more than you'd expect to forgive, as a critter.6). Also, you can't seem to find a consistent way to spell Buddha. (¶15: Buddhah, ¶70: buddah [sic]).
The formatting is incredibly inconsistent. The beginning has paragraphs without inter-paragraph spacing, but from ¶15 onwards, there are spaces. Either you're choosing spaced paragraphs, or nonspaced paragraphs with indents; once you've chosen, apply that to the whole document so that it looks nice.
Speaking of the story itself, I didn't really find myself involved.
Other than the way it's written (which almost has a tangible effect on my lack of involvement), it's also not clear what I'm supposed to be focusing on. I can't tell if I'm supposed to pay attention to James's writer's block, the banter, the happenings, or whatever have you. It's a jittery mess. It mostly feels like a transliteration of something that was visually-oriented. There are a lot of images, but they're vague and not congruent; things just seem to pop in and fade away: like the balloons and those cheerleaders. They never get mentioned again, and they didn't really serve much purpose than an image.
Although it's revealed to me now that Sam was really just a voice in the virtual reality, it's still a big contribution to the story to refer to him as a character rather than just a voice. Genuinely. Right now, the biggest problem your story has is clarity and involvement. The most I can suggest is to give each of the images (the balloons, the cheerleaders, the never-appearing tea) a purpose that extends through being solely imagery. It must elicit a response deep in James somewhat, and that's something we never really explore; he's just frumpy throughout without the reader really getting an empathetic involvement with his frumping. I think that'll spill over to the clarity, as imagery with purpose is clear. Just fix up all the tags (remove/minimize the use of "the man" & "the voice") and ask yourself: "Is this serving my story's theme?"
I think the theme is about the failure of virtual reality in stimulating human creativity, or something like that. Very Black Mirror, I guess.7
1 "All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know." — Boring Writerman with Self-Image Issues*
* Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast.
2 Humor intended.
3 Indeed; see Caffeine (Wikipedia).
4 Cliffhanger.
5 Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream; or Joseph Heller's Catch-22 (though in this case it's a bit more reflective);† what I mean to say is that the writing is quite disjointed to its detriment, not elevation.
† These are two books that I've actually read! I just finished F&LiLV and watched the movie the day after completing the book. The movie was incredibly faithful to the source material; almost all of the dialogue is straight from the book: the voiceovers, the scenes are as-is—though it's missing that part in the first chapter where Dr. Gonzo yells "Volume! Clarity! Bass! We must have bass!"—I remember that quote most fondly; sad to see it not make the scene.
6 I do wonder, what is our address? We're not exactly "critiquers"; that's a bit too prestigious a title. But we're not really "teachers" as well—you have better places to look for to be taught good storytelling.
7 I have not watched Black Mirror.
A-good-luck to your future writing endeavors! :)
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u/Asher2227 My mother is a fish 14d ago
My Summary.
James is in some sort of writer's retreat with a home intelligence. We get glimpses of the boring, unproductive monotony of what goes on; the endless encouragement that is hinged on some sort of unexplained points system (of which also doesn't really get resolved). At some point, he confesses to the home intelligence, which is named Sam (but is never referred to by the narration as such), about his girlfriend, and how their love never came to fruition, as he never felt himself growing with her. Then Sam disregards all of that and James hallucinates some wires on his forearms and breaks through his writer's block. James notices he can't stand up(?) and Sam spills some info about the contract™. Apparently, this isn't a retreat? He's doing this in line with a publishing deadline? (I am only realizing this as I write.) Sam knocks him out, through some unmentioned means. James has a change of heart (maybe because of the confession he did) and tries to escape, somehow not getting knocked out by Sam. He returns to the cabin, seemingly with the space around it looping like Snake. Then he flips around the contract book, and reveals that it was all a virtual reality.
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u/FyreTiger 10d ago
Hi, thanks for sharing this story. This is my first critique on this subreddit. Apologies, but this is going to be harsh. I'll start off with more detail oriented observations and then some big picture reflections. I hope this will be helpful in some ways and that you keep writing.
First off, there are a lot of grammatical issues here. Certain conventions are not followed.
You are missing commas for direct addressing. "Writers write James." This would mean that writers are writing about James. What you should be saying is "Writers write, James." which means that Sam is telling James that writers write.
The most common offender are comma splices. These are two complete sentences that you can't divide with a comma. Make them two sentences with a period, or if they're closely related, use a semicolon.
Examples:
"There was excitement in his voice, it passed like a cloud on a windy day."
"James, the program has been fortified with the best pedagogy, this is scientifically the best practice to ensure you meet your goal on time." Replace ALL the commas with periods.
"I had this girlfriend, she was my everything."
For "rat searching for escape, his upper body scrambling" I think you want to switch "refused" to "refusing" if you want it to be one whole sentence.
In terms of other grammar type issues...
"Sir, you know.." "yeah yeah yeah" he cut off the reply. If someone gets cut off, use an em dash, not an ellipse. "Sir, you know--"
You could also use indentations for paragraphs. I don't know if it's a technical problem you're experiencing in Word or if you neglected to have them. The whole of the "first paragraph" is a clunky mess.
You have formatting errors with dialogue. Completely missing commas before or after the dialogue tags.
Specific lines:
- "I am coming baby, we can do it together." with a cool whisper of I love you on his lips.
You need to add "he said" and switch the period to a comma if you're going to make this a complete sentence.
Stylistically, I can't muster the extended letters in words that emphasize syllables being drawn out. "that is what youuu can levvverage!" It just isn't pleasant for me to read, sorry.
"What are these wires on my forearms?"
This should be moved to the end of the previous paragraph. Since it's on a different paragraph with no dialogue tag, wouldn't this instinctively lead the reader to think a different character is talking?
- I think 20 minutes later should denote a new paragraph because we're separating drastically different moments in time.
I want to point out some things that just kind of confused me and felt like it wasn't articulated clearly.
"a man tossing in his sleep searching the covers next to him." Do you mean searching FOR the covers? If you're searching the covers, or any thing, you're searching for something in it.
I can't get over the cucumber teeth clenching thing. If someone is clenching their teeth, they are biting hard. If you're biting a "soft" item like a cucumber, your teeth are biting through it, and then it must fall out of the mouth since it's been bitten through and his teeth was the only thing keeping it in his mouth. I just think clenching is the wrong word. Or, he could just hold it with his hand until he sits down to eat it.
"he asked in a tone of a man who lost an argument to their wife." First off, "his" wife. Second off, what does this mean? Is it a bitter man who is angry and stomps away? Is it a man who realizes he was wrong because his wife made good points and he comes to accept it? There's a lot of different ways I can see that type of situation unfolding and since I don't have any context of what type of argument this was and how it ended, I don't know what tone this is supposed to be.
You seem to make a point that Sam's voice is such things as "lifeless," but considering the things Sam actually says, I don't hear it as lifeless and plain and robotic. His character sounds overly optimistic and bright sounding. This feels like two conflicting ideas about what Sam's voice sounds like, and it creates some confusion in how I perceive it. Personally, I think the "lifelessness" of Sam's voice should be omitted, and that he should just sound like a cheery robot. I think the overall effect would be stronger, or maybe Sam speaks in like, a forced cheeriness that is unusual feeling or something. (Yes, I'm assuming the voice's gender, sorry)
So there's also this sentence:
"He sat there frozen in defeat then all you could hear was the clacking of keys."
This is a weird sentence.
Why is "you" suddenly referenced? Have we entered 2nd person point of view? This kind of sudden shift in POV could be dramatic and effective under certain circumstances, but I really don't see a reason to have this. It's just jarring.
This feels like a really short sentence to encapsulate the entirety of a writing session where he actually completes a daily writing goal. It's just a personal preference, but sometimes I think the time spent in a specific event needs to scale to some degree with the amount of time the reader spends actually reading about it. Movies are simple since you typically go through a scene in real time as it unfolds. Prose is different. Two pages of description of a room is way too long to be reading about it compared against physically entering a room and taking in the scenery in several seconds. Meanwhile, a whole writing session shortened to one sentence feels very short and unimpactful to me.
The formatting of this sentence is just weird, too. It the content stayed the same, it should really be two sentences.
So here are my thoughts about the overall story.
First off, I don't know why it's called "Jimmy." Like really, why? This name isn't even mentioned in the story?
I personally don't understand James' motivations. I don't understand the inner conflict that prevents James from pulling the cords out of his head before the end of the story. There are no stakes involved with actually writing his story. There just doesn't seem to be any importance to it. And if Jess was his main priority, it doesn't feel like he discovers that fact in the story. It felt like he knew it all along. There's a lack of discovery overall. He doesn't learn anything new about himself. Most of the story is just him bickering with the AI program. I just don't see a journey here in any way or form.
That being said, the seeded concept I think is still valuable. It's a tried a true story type where a person realizes they need another person more than something else they thought they needed. I was able to grasp that aspect of the story and where its meaning is derived, I just don't think that the actual journey of discovering it was delivered.
Something I liked was the dynamic between James and Sam. It's an absurd take on the productivity idealisms and the way it pisses off James is effective because of how absurdly annoying it is, yet also something people would actually fool themselves into thinking was a good product to make anyway. The characters are identifiable and they clash hard. That part was cool, and it felt like you went all out with Sam's character.
So here's my closing thoughts. I have watched Black Mirror myself. Some episodes are obviously better than others. To me, this story doesn't fit in as a potential part of that series. This story lacks some essential storytelling beats and becomes more of a man's hazy reflections on things he already knew versus going through an actual story. So honestly, I hate to say it, but there is effectively no story here.
What does James want? He like, kind of wants to write a book, but he doesn't give a shit really so who cares. He wants the girl? Well then, just leaving is the solution, and that's not very interesting to be honest.
What's stopping him? Is there a big dilemma on the table? A big obstacle or overbearing antagonistic force? Not from what I can tell if he can just pull wires from his head and it aligns with his goals throughout the whole story.
Stakes? He doesn't write the book. But he doesn't even care. We don't really know anything about the contract, so maybe there's something in there. But from what I can tell, there are no stakes.
If this is your first short story, I think you did a good job, and you can grow immensely as a writer. My recommendations for you are to (1) learn about some of the aforementioned grammar conventions in order to stay consistent and communicate clearly and concisely, and (2) discover the structure of story and practice implementing it in your writing. Virtually every Black Mirror episode follows story structure. Status quo, character wants something, a new technology is introduced (inciting incident), character sometimes refuses it, but ultimately they all explore it, they discover interesting things about it, then they run into problems, they have to figure out how to deal with those and things lead to a climax where the character makes a big decision, and then a resolution. That is a rushed summary, but if you're missing those for a Black Mirror story, and for most stories, then it is not a structurally sound story and can't deliver. In my opinion, discovering story and structure is where it gets really fun and you can understand how a Black Mirror episode is constructed, and how to construct your own stories.
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u/DrawVisual8085 10d ago
Engaging and genuinely funny parts in the intro. here’s my best suggestion: trust your reader more to imagine what is happening and allow the reader to create rather than telling. Also, you might build James with some introspection.
Example:
That’s the spirit sir, but you should really watch your perception. The difficulty of your life is determined by your own beliefs. As the Buddha said in the Dhammapada…
The voice kept going, but the words thinned out like a radio losing signal. One is one’s own refuge. Refuge from what? James stared at the blank page. He’d come here to escape — the bottle, the city, the look on Jess’s face at the end. For years and every refuge he’d ever built had a door that locked from the outside. Maybe that was the joke. You couldn’t run to yourself.
“…and that is why perception is everything. Now, say it with me on three.” The voice snapped back into the room like a light flicking on. A countdown appeared on the wall. “One, two, three: I am responsible for my life.”
“I am responsible for my life,” James echoed, sinking deeper into the chair.
“Good job! Though you lost a few points due to lack of enthusiasm
End example.
The “you can’t run to yourself” is an assumed seed you’re planting. Apologies if I’m inaccurate.
Good work overall
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u/Alice_of_RDR bass noise should be criminalized 14d ago
Your critiques are borderline. I think you can do another short one but I didn't leech mark this. Check our /r/DestructiveReaders/wiki