Featured, Once upon a time entries
When you wish upon Kristine Starr…
…makes no difference, who you are. Your dreams come true.
Literati!
Writers are a very solitary lot. Tis the blessing and the curse. Here we have a short prologue to a story by Kristine Starr, and, as is often the case with other entries that flirt with the dark side, we are hoping it is not autobiographical. And yet, who among us has not felt what she has so bravely laid down in words here? Read, listen to Joni Mitchell, and send a little love to our authoress, who, incidentally is one of the most brilliant editors I know.
Here is her prologue.
Untitled
by Kristine Starr
Fuck.
How do I always end up in these situations?
You would think that I’d learn one of these times. Don’t get into a car with strangers. And since you never ever really know someone, everyone ends up being a stranger.
Still, here you are. In the middle of the desert, still getting triggered by flashbacks
that cut you in half – unable to focus on the present because of what the past meant to
you…and losing control with every passing mile.
Its almost too much to know at once…to hear sentences and words form from the lips of your lover, to feel how much they hurt you and to know that you are powerless to change the circumstances, the situation, the feelings that brought you here and the events that led up to this.
“I would fix it if I could,” you want to whisper in their head, “I would take it all back and never come here, never put you in this situation and the world would be irrevocably different.”
But you can’t say that.
You can’t change a motherfucking thing.
It’s the same lesson every time.
You are too much.
You are too much for people to handle, you are too much for people to keep up with and you are too much for people to love.
That little voice (the one that is always annoyingly, incessantly correct) is
whispering to you again, “Everyone will leave you and you will be left alone.”
Which, if you were really being honest with yourself is how you like it, because it means never ever making another person happy except yourself, it means never having to compromise and shut up. It means never getting ignored or slapped or having to fake it when you just have nothing fucking left.
It means never hiding in the shower or kitchen…doing anything as slowly as you possibly can because it will delay the torture, it will postpone the agony, the feeling, the isolation and the pain.
And the killer thought you are left with – the one that really keeps you up at night- is, “If you know all this, why are you in this situation again?”
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Fuck.
Kristine Starr’s prologue might be best titled, “Deja Vu Fuck”, but regardless here is a raw, but well trimmed, meaty piece of writing which left me asking the question, “Soulmate?”.
I’m sure I’m the only person reading her prologue to have one or many of the thoughts, Kristine so bluntly slams on the page with distain, regret, but honesty. If you are anyone similar to me, you put a check mark beside point after point thinking, I have so done that one or been there.
Because of the concise editing, richness of depth and sharp-edged personal candidness, I am awed and exhausted before Chapter One begins. Yet, this memoir opener has me hooked, lined and sinkered making this prologue irresistible.
Paragraph two should start with: “I’m sure I’m not the only”… how do we edit under this format Mr. Editor-in-Chief or staff worker?
A very good set up that makes any reader want to know, OK, what’s the situation, NOW? as though she’s predictable. But the reader, of course, can’t know anymore than what we are reading. Meaning we have to continue reading. What more can one ask of a prologue?
If I may be so bold to suggest the following tweaks, I will. Because I’m bold. And annoying. But that I/you thing, while most of the time is natural, jars in places.
i.e. Still, here you are. *If you changed it to ‘still, here I am’ would anything be lost? I think it’s more clear.
And in other spots: In the middle of the desert, still getting triggered by flashbacks
that cut [ you ] {me} in half – unable to focus on the present because of what the past meant [to you OMIT] …and losing control with every passing mile.
and here: That little voice (the one that is always annoyingly, incessantly correct) is
whispering to [ you ] {me} again,
So, I’m not saying get rid of all those flipping ‘yous’ since that’s the way we talk quite often. Make sure the use of ‘you’ has a purpose each time there’s a choice. Or ignore me, saying, ‘poor thing, she just can’t keep her hands off, can she?’
Kristine, don’t change a single thing. It reads like poetry, and the style flows beautifully. That is the static understanding of living, while trying to learn from what you’ve lived, and you’ve set it up brilliantly like a spinning quarter. The protagonist is strong and smart (except with the heart parts), and it reads thus. I immediately fell in with this character’s hope and hope deferred. I felt a kinship with her as a lover, a survivor of at least two massive heartbreaks, and a romantic hopefulness that keeps her trying, despite her fatalistic attitude about it. I wanna slap her and tell her to own her crap, and I want to learn what made her feel/think/act the way she does. I say well done!
Note to Beverly: I know we will disagree on this issue, but I believe the editing comments don’t serve. I personally reserve those helpfully meant suggestions for writing meet ups where writers ask for assistance before going to publication. This is a site for published work, written and done.
With my own work I appreciate and pay attention to editing suggestions in the writing groups I attend, but do not appreciate or welcome them in a setting like this. In the published world such as A Word With You Press, I am looking for content critique not on my style, spelling, syntax, tagging, grammar or punctuation. This format is not a college course or I’m sure about what I will offer to a publisher. This is a serious site which happens to have serious writers which don’t publish unless they are satisfied and own their work. I accept a writer’s published work as is.
My standard for the critiques I do here are to give my impressions primarily on content and my appreciation or lack of appreciation for the overall story line. There a wide variety of styles offered in published stories including my own. I would hate to limit myself or others to a set of rules of what constitutes a prologue, flash fiction, poetry, short story or novel.
What I refuse to do and encourage others to do the same is being an English or Literature teacher grading these entries as if we writers are their students.
Look out folks, it’s still glowing from the forge. i feel the heat, the burn in my heart, and the black passion of the soul in this work. Raw, passionate and real. It’s like steak after too many verbose cream fattened pastries.
My hungry brain approves of the protein:)
Of all the writing styles I like the raw meals best. Keep it going, okay?
Fond regards,
Shawna
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