IGOR 4
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Round 4 Challenge: Weave an element of Fyor’s story into your passage. It should be no more than 450 words.
You want to see me out in the world, don’t you? A character in motion, out and about, having a laugh with my mates, taking the piss out of pikeys, that sort of thing.
I’ll try. Yesterday I was waiting on the first floor for the lift at an NHS hospital. The door opened and some tall, skinny bloke was standing there, all by himself. He was a right streak of piss. You could have fit thirty of him into that lift. So he looks at me and with a perfectly straight face says, “It’s just one bleeding floor. Can’t you take the stairs?” Maybe others in my place would have lost their rag over that but I thought it was the dog’s bullocks. Funniest thing I’d heard all month.
That’s about all the character in motion you’re getting out of me, at least the kind of motion you want. I know you’ve been through the writing programmes and memorised the rules of fiction and filled your noggin with carefully thought out ideas about what makes good writing. Action, character, backstory, development… as Auggie would say, blah blah blah. If Dostoevsky were writing Notes from the Underground you’d all have probably voted the poor bugger off before Isis.
I may have dropped my knickers too early. But you asked for a character in motion so I’m moving for you. When you only have a few hundred words, there’s no time for seduction.
Onwards to our challenge. Weave an element of Fyor’s story into your passage. That’s an easy one. That night on the roof, on my last stand, as I’ve come to call it, I was feeling hard like I usually do when I’m pissed. So when that chav called me Frodo, which sometimes happens because of my curly brown hair, I took a swing at him. That’s how the brawl began. That’s how Frodo plunged to his death birth.
Now that I’m done with my weaving, let me tell you why a misanthrope like me, a bloke who detests the Internet, who despises reality shows and writing contests, who resents the cosy buggery of herd writing, who knows that the only writing worth doing is the kind that spills out of your guts alone, in silence, unheard and uncommented upon, like the final thoughts of a man abandoned to bleed to death in a bare room… let me tell you why someone like that has decided to do something like this. Let me tell you.
Yes. Now my wheels are moving. Let me tell you. I want to be heard.
September 11th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
Igor, come on man. Stop the crap and get to the story, don’t get to be like Omar and ruin it by taking outside comments into it. Critic are assholes that’s their job, it’s good to listen to them, but don’t take everything that they have to say to heart, there not always right, you know. You want to be heard, well I want to hear you, so tell your story and stop the bitching. Love, Eros
September 11th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
what a whiny bitch
September 11th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
nah, this is fun. It’s a writing contest and this is writing. don’t listen to her frodo, keep swinging
September 11th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Cheers Craig. Chuffed at these comments. Not sure if Tony thinks I’m the whiny bitch or Eros. Looks like he’s too busy getting stoned to know himself. Don’t know what to make of Eros. Mate, you for real?
Dan, good on you with the crits. I got some of those rooftop details in there that you were looking for. Probably not what you had in mind, but it’s something.
September 11th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
Yes I am for real friend and I think tony was talking about herself. Love, Eros
September 11th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
About herself? You’re right about that much, Eros.
September 11th, 2009 at 7:24 pm
Igor, what would give you the idea that I am not real? Do you often talk to unreal people? Love, Eros
September 11th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
WARL = Wheeling Around the Room Laughing
September 11th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
thats rich, the selfproclaimed misanthrope is telling me i don’t know myself. not only are you a whiny lil bitch, but an uber douchebag. congratulations, you’re the first to receive the Uber Douchebag Award.
see, the great thing here is that i don’t have to limit myself to attacking the writing but instead can attack YOU since the talentless twat that you are cannot seem to separate yourself from your work.
September 11th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Tuck will be cheesed off to hear I got the award before him. Attack on. That is if you can distinguish me from all the hallucinations you’re seeing. Just go for the one in the middle.
Smoke if you got em.
September 11th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
ROFL
September 11th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
from whence arrives the smoking reference? what does ROFL mean? These comments seem to have a history deeper than the forum. is guessing Tony a female some kind of sexist dis that I’m missing?
Anyway.
After reading all the entries, I stand by my original comment, but would encourage our boy (sorry if I’m wrong)Igor to step up his game. you’ll get run off this court if you don’t put some heart in it
September 11th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
ROFL = Rolling On the Floor Laughing.
September 11th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Tony’s Avatar. As for the she-male thing, I can’t vouch for that. You’ll have to ask Eros about that.
September 11th, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Craig, don’t worry about them: their dialogue with me is as hollow as Igor’s writing itself. Inevitably, Igor’s road ends here.
…but what do I know, I’m just a stoned smoking hot girl.
September 13th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Spoken like a true ’stone smoking hot girl’ (although we’ll all have to just take your word for the ’smoking hot’ bit). of all the writing on here Tony, you chose to pick on the guy in the wheelchair and the one who can’t write proper English? really? Hmm, either you’re just a typical north-american bully, or you didn’t bother to read Tess’s writing. Or, you did read Tess’s but didn’t indulge us in your illuminating insights because you just loved it so much you couldn’t stop touching yourself afterwards.
Whichever the answer, I’m sure you found a way to get yourself off.
Either way, your remarks are boring and uninteresting. You clearly don’t know the first thing about writing.
September 11th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
too good to be true
September 12th, 2009 at 2:20 am
Wow. The loonies are out in force this round… (c:
Apparently, one of the Big Rules on Survivor and similar shows is to never look at the camera.
Igor, I love the way you’ve immediately drawn attention to the fact that this is a competition and people are out there voting for you.
(Or, in my case, not voting for you.)
September 13th, 2009 at 7:15 am
This is the best you can do Igor at injecting a plot a motion into your narrative? The best writing (in my opinion because after all – it is only ever opinion) is where the writer become invisible. It seems you and your character are battling over who is going to be centre stage. I don’t think the battle is going to last much longer though.
September 13th, 2009 at 4:17 pm
Sounds like you need to get a new reading list. Try “If on a winter’s night a traveller” by Italo Calvino to start.
You’re spot on. The battle probably won’t last much longer. Calvino wouldn’t have lasted with you duffers either.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
jodi, you’re just a hater. anger clouds your analysis. igor is setting it up. allow him to be cynical and to take center stage all he wants. i wonder if i’m the only one bothering to read your substandard comments.
September 13th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
Perhaps I might have to readjust my reading list – but one thing following Fourth Fiction has taught me – those who can adjust to the competition are the ones who will survive in the long run. This may work on the page with a target audience – but in the competition it is mired by too much backstory, too much introspection and no forward momentum.
And Auggie – you’re happy to tell others they’re crap when that’s what you believe (and believe you have the higher moral ground to do so!) – so give the rest of the same opportunity you afford yourself to say we don’t like something. I’m not a hater … I must bored with a narrative which apparently is going no where and a writer whose last episode is drowning in self consciousness.
You got lost in the wilderness before you even made it into the tunnel Igor. And for the benefit of the doubt I will add Calvino to my reading list.
September 14th, 2009 at 8:02 am
Igor – you read my mind! I’m so glad you mentioned “If on a winter’s night…” – it’s one of my all-time favourites and it’s been at the back of my thoughts constantly since this whole Fourth Fiction thing began!
September 14th, 2009 at 9:30 am
But Jodi, the wilderness is the tunnel. In our age of constant unconscious online yakking, a little consciousness of the self may be just what we bloody need. You won’t regret the Calvino. Don’t take my word for it. Take littlestar’s.
September 14th, 2009 at 3:20 pm
I’m not sure this constitutes “fiction,” Igor, but you certainly write well. I’m a traditionalist, what can I say. I like my fiction old-fashioned and straight up. Not sure I’d publish NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND myself. Not D’s best work.
September 19th, 2009 at 10:00 am
I did vote for you Igor but not for the reasons that you might think. Your writing has a real passion to it and a deep bitterness but it carries a strong message – your message. If this had been ‘write an autobiography’ you would still be there but it isn’t and I did not feel that it was a novella. May be I am totally wrong, in which case I did you a disservice because in that case you were doing a great job. If that is the case then you are not truly bitter and your final post is also just a continuance of your expressed style, if it is not then forget the hate; you have some real potential and keep laughing at the skinny arse holes. Start to interact, your influence could be strength of others.
September 19th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
After contestants submit their farewell statement their contributor status is revoked and they no longer participate on the website. This was agreed upon and been the case since the beginning. So the interactions will have to wait until December. But I’m sure Igor is reading and appreciates your comments, except perhaps the part about voting him off!
September 21st, 2009 at 2:10 pm
finally igor can stop whining. rules is rules. what a relief. then again, I miss the old tosser