Every time I attempt to cut and paste from my original word document I have to go into the HTML coding because the normal composition page doesn't let me cut and paste normally. So please excuse the lack of indentation, I don't know why I am having so much trouble, I am not particularly savvy with technology.
So what I was trying to do in the last excerpt was set up for you all the basic idea behind my story, so in review there is a main character who works uptown theoretically, or in some somewhat nice restaurant as a line cook essentially. He has begun to delve into the worlds of the fellow line chefs who work with him.
in this next excerpt the main character explains a bit about himself and the way he sees his world:
In order to fully understand me a year ago though, I really have backtrack and talk about two years ago, or the year I started college and entered my first true bout with depression. I understand that people overuse the word depression but I think that even if I can’t call what I went through depression, it was by far the lowest point I’ve ever felt in my life. I believe only an individual can assess his or her own mental state because only the individual can assess what it was like inside their mind at any given time. See my parents were mad at me because I had driven home drunk and been caught, not to make light of the situation (and believe me it is not something I’d ever want to repeat) but as most research indicates, I am not alone in admitting that the time I was arrested for Driving Under the Influence was only one of may times I’d been out driving on the road while drunk.
It wasn’t that I didn’t figure I’d get caught, it was that my under developed frontal lobe (the part of the brain responsible for controlling decision making abilities) was not fully developed, and it is probably severely traumatized after all of the chemicals I’ve bombarded it with this past year any way. There is no real excuse that is what, I guess, I’m trying to say. And I do realize now to some degree that I am the soul person responsible for my decisions and therefore my shortcomings. It took me a great deal of time to realize that though, and sometimes even now I don’t like to think that I play as big a role in my own life as I really do. At least some times I try to pretend like I don’t have as much stake in my own life as I really do.
See most of my family has gotten to where they are by having kids early in life. My mom had my sister when she was 19 years-old, and my sister had her daughter when she was 24 and unmarried. My step-brother had his kid when he was 20 and ever since then he’s been working his same dead-end jobs around the town we both grew up in and he’ll likely never leave. So by me moving four hours away I was the one destined for success out of anyone in my family. My mom told me that it’s always the kids that are doing the best that the parents worry about the least. I guess that explains why my mom doesn’t do much for me anymore and why she’s constantly offering my sister aide and housing and food.
HAHA-- now it is letting me paste normally, excuse my prior frustration and enjoy the somewhat traditional indentation.
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I really like how this is written, it's really honest and gritty. I'm interested in this character but I want to see where this is going I suppose. I like getting all the background but is he just like, sitting there talking to us? What's physically going on? Is it a big soliloquy in the kitchen? If he is talking to people, I would try making it more conversational.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, what you have here is a good start to something, maybe I've just missed too many posts to see whats going on and how this really involves power or politics, but that will probably come through on another post. Good luck!
Paralleling what Olivia mentioned - what is the narrative voice doing here? The main character is explaining himself, and the use of "see," seems to be indicating an informal, conversationalist tone. Right now I'm assuming that we're the intended audience for this exposition... however, given your last post that included the storytelling aspect about the Miami townsfolk, it would be interesting if he was sharing his tale to them.
ReplyDeleteOr better yet, maybe while this is meant to be a sort of conversationalist, explanatory monologue to us, the readers, it's occuring outside of the action. A narrative voice that can step outside of the story and speak to us in these asides, and then slide back into the story and be 'in the scene'. I'd like the layering of us recieving a story through him, as he's recieving the stories of his co-workers (and thus relating them to us).