₦airaland Forum

Hey Trisurface.

You misunderstand me. Personally, I was ready to totally stay away from all other characters and concentrate on Itse. I did have a problem with the Mary Jane character because it just sort of jumped in - even now, while you have told us how she fit's in, I'm yet to see the link between spiderman and Dotun. I know it's all in the name of fun, but I'm also reading this novel, so I guess I was just asking the questions that I found unanswered.
By all means feel free to criticise my stuff - Jummy did as well. I just felt the story sort of dropped off in the middle of nowhere, and I tried to bring it to a logical end. Same as you would have done if you were in my shoes. Honestly though, I would rather have left it for you to complete - I was totally enjoying reading it.

By all means people, let's just get on with it and have fun. There are no egos at play here, at least not from me. At the same time, if there is something that I'm unclear about I hope you won't take it amiss if I asked? And henceforth, I will no longer attempt to complete other people's directions, I'll simply try to play along where possible, otherwise I'll simply wait until the original author comes back and complete's his flow. Is that cool with everyone?


Hey Lami, thanks for the complement - both regarding my profile and my writing. I will endeavour to break up my passages more in future.

Guys, let's make this rock! I'll update sometime tomorrow.

Trisurface - a few questions about your last post: His mind was wandering - wandering how/where? (perhaps try he couldn't concentrate?) Also why is Jessica here again? Is this the same Jessica as before? Why is MJ called Maryjane - what's the connection between the name Maryjane and Dotun using two names to toast her? Can you please answer these things? Also - you stopped while apparently heading into an "action period". It's normally better to complete your action periods before you stop writing, seeing as nobody else knows what the whole Jessica-Jane-MaryJane thing is about.

I'm going to try to bring some sanity back into the tale, but it may not be exactly what you were planning.


Moving on:

Outside his office, he waited for less than a minute before finally losing patience with the lifts and running down the stairs. He hit the lobby in less than three minutes, a testimony to his rather strict fitness regime. As he headed out of the lobby, he shouted a quick "hello" to the security detail in the lobby, who were quite used to seeing him exhibit such eccentricities. A brisk trot, and he was in his car, and driving off. As usual, he headed towards the highway leading to Aja and beyond when he needed to think. Very quickly he wove his way through the busy traffic, uneventful apart from an incident when an okada man seemed determined to end his existence by throwing himself in front of Tom's car, and an overzealous policeman determined to increase his weekend money by all means. Finally, edging his way past the Aja junction and it's characteristic traffic bottleneck, he eased unto the unbroken highway and let his car have it's head. The BMW roared immediately to the increased power, accelerating quickly to 150kmh before purring along, and Tom switched his active thought process away from driving to the things he really wanted to think about.
First of course was work. There was the Alhaji who had employed them to find his missing wife, his new wife as he called her. Alhaji Bello, a barely literate, but relatively successful business man had apparently married the daughter of one of his friends. The said daughter was a fresh graduate from university in the UK. King's College, Alhaji had informed him rather proudly. Tom remembered a Halima he'd met at the Afro caribbean night his cousins had taken him to last time he was in the UK, a rather passionate party girl who totally rocked his world on the dance floor at the nightclub they'd gone to after the event, and later on rocked rocked his world in the soft feathery comforts of her bedroom. The next day her flat mate had teasingy called him Alhaji Bello. "First case solved" he thought to himself. One phone call to his cousin would surely reveal here whereabouts. He was sorry for Alhaji, who was never going to consumate this new wife, but it was a quick £50,000. Next was the request Brian had asked him for. He was under no pressure to deliver on that, though Brian had asked him in a rather commanding tone over the phone. His business was with the operation Brian worked for, and not Brian directly. He would need to have a discussion with the boy when they met for drinks. A retainership that pay a good sum of money was one thing, but barking orders at him wasn't going to work. Besides, he was willing to bet that Tom wanted the girls ID for personal reasons, and not for wotk related needs. Tom sighed as he realised he'd just solved his two most pressing work problems, leaving him to think about what he really wasn't sure he wanted to. The non-work stuff.
First was this strange coincidence - why did he suddenly have two Jessica's on his plate? There was the Jessica Brian spoke about who in all fairness he was getting paid for, and then the Jessica that Bunmi had introduced him to who was the main issue at hand. Why ever did everyone think he was going to get married to her? (or say "I do" as Bunmi and her friends loved to say). He had met the girl at a party Bunmi and Dotun had dragged him along to, claiming he didn't mix enough with the right sort of people. She was quite pretty, and had dressed to flatter her charms. He'd tried in vain to chat her up for most of the hour or so he had been there, but she'd seemed uninterested, until a guy who was an estate agent had spoken of some VI property he'd been trying to sell, and he'd shown interest. That was one of the sweetest deals he'd done recently - the property was excellent, right in the centre of VI, and he hadn't needed to pay for it in the end - the actual owner was desperately looking for property in the UK, so they'd discussed the possibility of swapping property. Shortly after that discussion, the girl had become amazingly friendly, laughing at everything he said, even when he wasn't trying to be funny. Tom chuckled softly. Despite his concerns, he had actually begun to like the girl, but Bunmi and her friends had now picked it up and were questioning him about it every other day, an instant turn off. Tom wondered how much of these calls were as a result of Jessica pressuring her friends, and how much was simply curiousity on Bunmi's part. Either way, the relationship would have to end asap. Interesting how differently men and women's minds worked so differently he thought as he turned his car around near the intersection for Akodo, and headed back to Lagos.

Waaait,  too much happening so suddenly! How did he know her surname? How did he know where she worked??
moving on:

Itse put down his book and stared into space. He'D been fantasizing about that rather nice looking girl who appeared to be struggling against the windswept rain with a rather tiny umbrella, fighting a losing battle. Especially since a perfectly suitable umbrella appeared to have been offered to her first by that rather tall bloke. Of course he couldn't be too sure, he was sitted in one of the less reputable pubs that sprawled opposite the bar beach, interspersed between the more elegant hotels and classy bars when he noticed the exchange, but from the expression of disdain the lady had shown, and the accompanying look of surprise and amusement, he was pretty sure that while the guy had probably only offered umbrella space, his intentions were somewhat less honourable. Itse chuckled to himself, as he lifted his glass to his lips for another sip. Star, tropical nectar, he thought to himself as he savoured the rest of the golden, bubbly liquid left in his glass. He was tempted to have another bottle, but he had work to do, besides being friday, there probably was more serious drinking to be done later in the day. He got up, stopping at the counter to pay the bill and left.

Outside, while the rain had reduced somewhat, it was still heavy enough that he jogged briskly to his car in order to avoid getting totally drenched. He barely started the engine when his phone rang.
"Hello" he said loudly, somewhat irritated at the timing.
"Hey Itse, how's it going man" an american voice drawled down the line.
"Heeey, hello Tom, how are you doing?" Itse replied. Thomas Bobade was an old friend from back in his pre secondary school days.
"I'm great man, great. Hey, do you remember Brian Runsewe?"
"Brian Runsewe? Tall Brian Runsewe? Brian Runsewe off the flats?" Itse replied laughing. The flats were a set of apartment buildings in VI, otherwise known as 1004 where Brian had lived when they were younger. They called him brian of the flats mainly due to the rather lengthy flights of stairs that they had to ascend whenever they went to visit him. Also because of the fact that back then he lived in a flat with his family, while the rest of them resided in proper houses.
"Of course I remember Brian" Itse wheezed through bouts of heavy laughter. Brian had been one of those smart, witty kids back in the day, always playing a trick, or cracking a joke
"Well Brian is in town" was the reply from the other end of the line
"I'm meeting him up later tonight, so I was wondering if you wanted to tag along"
"Sure thing man, I'll be glad to come." Itse responded. He definitely would like to see Brian again, they had lost touch when Brian moved abroad with his family back when they were kids.
"Cool mate, we'll be at the palms. I'm not sure exactly where, give me a call when you get there and we'll hook up" said Tom, as he hung up.
Itse winced slightly. He didn't like the palms - much too commercial and crowded for his liking. Just this once he thought, besides, they probably would leave the place after a while. It was just interesting how Tom had this amazing knack of digging out long forgotten people. Itse's engine was still running. He engaged the gears and drove off, narrowly avoiding a rather dangerous looking pothole as he did. Back to business now, and then pleasure later he thought to himself as he began to negotiate the traffic of Victoria Island.

Hey man, excellent stuff. I haven't had time to read the entire tale, I'll do so later. For starters, you speak about bar beach. Do realise that majority of your audience haven't been to bar beach. So you need to include a more detailed description of bar beach, not a summary. How about the bar beach, a popular tourist destination in the victoria Island area of lagos.

Also, your dialogue about the different flags didn't quite, work. The information got across, but it took a while to realise that was an explanation and not an experience. Perhaps "A white flag was used to indicate that the sea was calm, " would have been better, since it would have changed the tense of the sentence, indicating to the reader that this was a quick detour from the story itself

mami water who lived in the sea. That's a bit of a tautology there - a repetition. Like saying a car which had four tyres, or a man who walked on his legs. Mermaids always live in the sea. Perhaps you need to indicate that this mermaid lived in the nearby waters of the beach, or something along those lines.

Vortex - Try something simpler - perhaps current? Whirlpool?? Vortex is a bit too complex in my opinion

There are a few more - but most are minor corrections that your agent will always point out anyway if you do get published. I'll make sure I read sometime soon.