The Real LJ Idol - Mini-Season - Week 1 - Trust everyone; but cut the cards

Dec 05, 2015 23:01

This is my entry for Week 1 of LJ Idol (therealljidol).

Riffle Shuffle )

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Comments 35

murielle December 10 2015, 22:21:49 UTC
I have always wanted to shuffle like that!

I love this story. A beautiful evolution of young love. It's just about perfect!

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cheapxdate December 12 2015, 20:35:00 UTC
Thank you so much! I'm glad you enjoyed it!
... )

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prog_schlock December 11 2015, 00:01:20 UTC
This is an interesting (and I mean that in the most positive way) story structure here. The first person narrator is just a sort of passive interlocutor - this is obviously your unnamed third person character's story (and how fascinating that only the boy has a name). Furthermore, we are hearing the details of the relationship after they happened and those details are the pre-amble to the card playing (the games of which reflect the emotional state of the third person character).

I really like that you chose an unusual point of attack to this relationship story arc. I love story structures, so you've appealed to the lit-geek in me. :D

Your "four points in time" structure as the characters age made me think of this Michelle Shocked song (written in 1988, more than 20 years before she became troublesome). Not a direct match, but a fun song.

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cheapxdate December 12 2015, 20:43:13 UTC
Thank you so much for such thoughtful feedback and for the song rec. The story just kind of unfolded on it's own and structured itself and so I'm glad that you enjoyed that aspect. I was inspired by a summer that my best friend and I actually spent playing card games every single day, and so while I was writing, the friends were so vivid in my own mind that I didn't give them too much characterization in text. I thought about going back and making them a bit more three dimensional, but ultimately, I actually liked they could be anyone and the reader could easily put themselves in the place of the narrator and see their own best friend in the other character. :)

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misfitmanor February 10 2016, 21:46:51 UTC
Ah, yes, that first crush... it never really works out quite the way we hope, does it? Love the perspective on this... the friend, so preoccupied, so dreamer, the card dealer, so stable, so stoic, so supportive. You did a great job intermixing action with dialogue in this, and making the story feel natural, and flow easily.

~karmasoup

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