₦airaland Forum

Seun,

Thanks. Yeah, you're right that social commentary is woven into the dialogue, although I try and make it as interesting as I can. Regarding the characters, I think we can already sense that Max is something of the joker and Zack is more of the indignant type, but this isn't brought to the fore because I'm more interested in developing the dialogue.


Damsal,

Thanks for your comments. This episode is self contained, even though there are weak references to other events in it. It's interesting that you had a problem with the shifting topics - truly, I didn't conceive this as a continuous drama, but more of a typical conversation that any three friends might have (which shifts all over the place, depending on the mood of the participants). In retrospect, it's probably not the best example of a drama that I could have put forward. Maybe I'll try again with something else some other time.

Hi,

Since everyone is dipping their toe in the fiction waters, I thought I might as well submit an entry from the blog that I maintain on a peripatetic basis.

Oh, a bit of background that won't be evident if you haven't read the blog - it's about three guys - Max, Nat and Zack - who meet up in a bar to discuss stuff. So expectedly, it's more about dialogue than action.

Enjoy, and feel free to criticise.

Ka.



(Zack walks into the bar smiling and heads for the table where Max and Nat are already seated.)

Max: Well, you're looking pleased today, Zachariah! What happened?

Zack: At last, I've finally got my car back from the mechanic's!

Nat: Well that is definitely good news. No more having to battle it out for a space on a rickety bus. But how come your car was at the mechanic's for so long?

Zack: Okolo said that there were multiple problems with it, as soon as he'd fixed one problem, that would reveal another problem which up till then had remained hidden.

Max: How could that have happened? Don't you take your car in for regular servicing? I thought you believed in planning ahead.

Zack: Yes I know – but servicing cars is very expensive. Okolo is a thorough mechanic – but he's charges a lot.

Nat: So pay him, then! This is the problem with Nigeria – we don't encourage people who do good work by paying them what they deserve.

Max: I disagree! Who said business was about encouraging people? Why should I pay someone N500 for something when I can get him to sell it to me for N400?

Nat: Well, you'll get yourself a good deal – but the man will go out of business, and the only people left will be charlatans and quacks selling cheap poor quality goods. Are those the kind of people you want to deal with?

Max: No – you're wrong. You make it look like there are only traders who sell expensive good quality stuff and cheap poor quality stuff. What about those who sell cheap good quality stuff? They'll still be in business!

But you know what's worse about pushing this 'Good Stuff Needs To Be Expensive' idea? It gives those traders who sell expensive poor quality stuff the chance to rip people off! You go to this person's shop to buy a pair of shoes, and he tells you "Well, this is the latest fashion from Italy, so I can't sell it to you for less than N20,000." And you say, "hmm, if it's that expensive, it's got to be good", so you buy the shoe from him like the sucker you are!

Zack: Come on, Max. You're talking like people can't recognise what good quality stuff is. If people see that your shoe isn't solid and durable, they won't buy it, no matter how much you try and sell it as a must-have item.

Max: If it's a utility item, perhaps. But if it's a fashion item, then that kind of logic just flies out of the window! For example, there was this venture that I went into with Jean-Baptiste [Max's business partner] a while back, where we found ourselves with a massive quantity of shirts of rather inferior quality that we'd got cheaply and needed to get rid of quickly.

We decided that we were going to start a mini-craze for these shirts. We did all that advertising and modelling campaign stuff, as you'd expect. But crucially – we set the price ridiculously high and hinted in our advertising that 'these shirts were only persons of distinction, and the riff-raff need not bother'. You can imagine the effect amongst Nigerians – like putting a juicy piece of meat in front of a starving dog! People were killing themselves to get the shirts – everyone wanted to regarded a 'person of distinction'.

It didn't even matter that they didn't last long and tore to pieces quickly. In fact, people seemed quite proud to advertise the fact that they tore – "a sign of the genuine article", I heard a satisfied customer say. The higher we set the price, the more people rushed for the shirts. That was one of the fastest clear-out operations I've ever carried out.

Zack: I think you're telling another of your tall tales again. You might be able to pull such a stunt in richer countries where people have more money than sense, but in Nigeria people have their feet too firmly on the ground to fall for that nonsense.

Max (protesting): It's not nonsense! The problem is that you're assuming that I was just selling them a shirt. It was more than that – I was selling them a sense of well being, a feeling of superiority and distinction, an aura of excellence,

Zack (snorting with contempt): Please don’t make me laugh! Aura of excellence? In a shirt? Are you sure that's just kunu you're drinking?

Nat: Actually, I see Max's point. When it comes to the basics like food and water, we are careful about choosing things based on hard questions like "Will it fill us up or not? Is it tasty or not? Is it nutritious or not? But when it comes to things like fashion, I don't think we ask the same kind of questions.

Zack: Speak for yourself, Nat! When I buy a shirt, I do ask myself the same hard questions: Will this shirt tear easily? Will it be comfortable to wear?

Max: Is that so, Zack?

Zack: Of course!

Max: OK. One moment, please. (He goes outside for a while.)

Nat: I don't believe you ask all those questions. I thought you let Lizzy [Zack's wife] pick your shirts for you.

Zack: Eh, she does, but when I buy my shirts, those are the things that I would consider.

Nat: So you're not worried that she might pick a shirt that will fall to pieces the moment you look at it?

Zack: Not at aAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGHH! (While Zack is speaking, Max returns with a bedsheet which he throws over Zack.)

Nat (shocked): What was that for?

Zack (struggling from within the folds of the sheet): Max, I'm going to strangle you when I get out of this!

Max (in an injured tone): What? When I was trying to do my duty as a friend and get you the perfect shirt? I'm offended.

Nat (puzzled): Shirt? That's a bedsheet.

Max: Ah, but it does everything that Zachariah wants! It's made of pretty tough material, so it won't tear – in fact, there are no seams for it to tear from! And it's very very comfortable indeed. All Zack needs to do is to use his bull-head to punch a hole through the middle so he can wear it like a poncho as they do in South America.

Zack (finally freeing himself from the bedsheet and flinging it to one side in disgust): Are you insane, Max? How can I wear this to work? Or to church?

Max: Aha! It's all coming out now! I thought that you only cared about durability and comfort? It seems that the approval of your co-workers and fellow worshippers matter more to you! O vain, vain person that you are, Zachariah!

Nat (admiringly, looking at the bedsheet on the floor): It is a rather beautiful looking bedsheet though. Where did you get it from, Max?

Max: Oh, it's mine - I was going to drop it off at the laundryman's.

Zack (kicking the sheet on the floor): No wonder! The stench was unbearable!

Nat: Actually, I think it would suit you very well, Zack.

Zack: Oh you do, do you? Well, If you like it so much, you can wear it yourself! (Picks up the bedsheet and flings it at Nat, who ducks.)

Max (retrieving his sheet): So you see, Zachariah. Whether we want to admit it or not, we are all looking for much more than body coverings when we go looking for things to wear. As long as we care about how people see us, we will always be slaves to fashion. Hooray!

Zack (grumbling): Well, you can call yourself a slave if you want, but count me out. I'm not one of those fashion-crazed types who must compulsively follow and adopt every single change in fashion.

Nat: But you're still a slave because you don't have the freedom to dress as you want – you have to conform to certain modes of dress at work. (Sighs) And before you answer back, yes I agree – I'm a slave as well. (With determination) But I'm fighting back! For example, two days ago, I went into work with my tie slightly loosened, and nobody dared challenge me.

Max: That's the spirit! If you keep it up, by the end of the year you will have extended your rebellion to wearing slightly unironed shirts. But your bank must really be crazy! Why do they think that wearing a tie will make customers deposit more money?

Nat (sighing again): They feel it presents a professional image, and that customers will take them seriously.

Zack: That makes sense – I would wonder whether my money was in safe hands if I walked into my bank and I saw the staff wearing blankets over their heads.

Max (exasperatedly): But you don't even face the customers in your line of work!

Nat: I know – that's why you're really lucky. You don't have anyone telling you what to wear, since you're your own boss. You can do whatever you like!

Max: If only! In fact, I have even less freedom to dress as I want than both of you.

Nat: How?

Max: I have to dress to look good for my customers, I have to dress to look good for my suppliers, I have to dress to look good at parties where I might meet potential business contacts, I even have to dress to look good for the government parasites who come to disturb my life every now and then! (Smiling) The only thing that makes this bearable is that I actually enjoy dressing to look good, so I don't know, can you call a slave a slave if he wants to be enslaved?

Nat: I think the only person I know who is truly free from these restrictions is,

Max: My main man, Charlie!

Zack (in annoyance): I knew you were going to bring that charlatan's name up.

Max: But seriously Zack, the guy is a genius. When he told me he was abandoning a promising career as a petroleum engineer to take up a career in prophesying and miracle healing, I thought he was crazy, like you do. But for just once in my life, I've been proved wrong – the guy is rolling in currency!

Nat: More to the point, he can dress as outrageously as he likes because his clients come to see him for his powers and don't care whether he's wearing a cooking pot on his head and a discarded rice sack as a shirt.

Zack (in disgust): Which he does from time to time, the lunatic.

Nat: Well, you can disapprove of him as much as you like, but it's Charlie that is laughing all the way to the bank.

Max: And in case your car breaks down again, I hear that he even now has a line in miracle car repairs. He has this anointed engine oil that you sprinkle on your bonnet, and whatever ailment was afflicting your car will disappear.

Zack (rolling his eyes): Anointed engine oil! Oh spare me – please don't tell me that people are falling for that!

Nat: You better believe it, I think I even saw Okolo at his place a few days ago!

MrMayor,

I was going to comment on this, but I was laughing too loud to come up with anything sensible!

Hi Damsal,

Your two halves are so different I have difficulty treating them as the same story! Don't get me wrong - they're both very well written (except for a minor gripe I'll come to later), but we move from a horror story situation where the protagonist is about to die swiftly to a girl-next-door-going-to-school scenario. I guess it just show how well you've painted the horror scene that I have difficulty in 'readjusting' my mind to the protagonist waking up in bed.



OK, that minor gripe. The sentences do run on a bit without any punctuation and it makes it harder for me to read. For example, you have this -

"She had lost him she prayed silently hoping he had fallen into a trap, she couldn’t really tell if what she had seen was a it or he but there was one thing she was sure of it was out to get her. Damsal slumped heavily on the ground her dark brown hair spilling out of it’s pony tail, she made to place it back in tighter when she heard a soft noise."

Two very long sentences which make hard reading. I think that for the kind of dramatic scene you're trying to portray, breaking them up like this would be better:

"She had lost him - she prayed silently hoping he had fallen into a trap. She couldn’t really tell if what she had seen was a it or he but there was one thing she was sure of - it was out to get her. Damsal slumped heavily on the ground, her dark brown hair spilling out of its pony tail. She made to place it back in tighter when she heard a soft noise."

Of course, it's possible that you actually used ellipses (. . .) and Seun's board software turned them in to commas.

I like the way you used the short sharp sentences here:

"At that moment Damsal’s eighteen and a half years on earth flashed before her.

This is it.

This is the end.

This is how I’m going to die."

You can just how each point is forcefully driven home to the reader.



I have to say that the use of Nairaland characters takes away the fiction element a bit for me. Like I said, you've done a great job of transporting me to this otherworld, and now I'm coming down with a bump as I meet all these familiar personalities again, plus it creates some confusion in my mind as to whether the story is supposed to be comedy or horror/fantasy. But that's just another minor gripe - it probably wouldn't matter if I didn't know anything about Nairaland.

But familiarity aside, the second half of the story is well written. I like the way you drop teasers as to what might have gone on with the main character and Rhodalyn, for example.

So please keep on writing - and remember, the only rule in story writing is that you enjoy yourself while doing it! (Unless you're writing to make money - but then again, why not enjoy yourself while doing that too?)

Nnenna,

Good story!

You've done a great job of painting the scene with the father confronting the stranger and the children peering out from behind him.

I also like the sense of mystery you build round the stranger. He takes charge of the situation and speaks directly - not what you'd expect from someone who was looking for help. Who is he, I wonder? Where did he come from?

And you drop some intriguing hints of previous events that may be revealed in more detail later on. What were those explosions about that killed the narrator's brother, I wonder? Why were her family no longer living in Ikeja?

But some of the metaphors don't quite go down well with me. Like the sky 'vomiting' red clouds. That makes me think that there are these red clouds that are issuing from a particular point in the sky, just like someone bringing up vomit from a particular point (i.e. their mouth) - but I can't quite picture the sky behaving like that. Or red dust forming 'doodles' - it's hard to think of red dust being formed in the random patterning that you'd associate with doodles. But some of the metaphors are quite descriptive - like the the narrator's arms 'barricading' her breasts.


So as I said, good stuff. Carry on, please!

Neoteny,

You say:

". . . i certainly did not claim originality."

I guess you must have been reacting to this statement of mine:

". . . It's not particularly original - but it's done well."

Just to clarify - when I said 'it', I wasn't referring to the entire story (which is original, as far as I know) but the contrast between Stella's feeling of isolation and the hostile setting that you portrayed earlier. This is a device I've seen used in many stories to reinforce the feeling of isolation of the subject.

So please don't take that as a harsh criticism.

Neoteny,

I think the observation has already been made about the paragraphs, so no need to repeat it. Don't underestimate the usefulness of white space in telling the story itself.

I like the way you've attempted to portray the cold, hostile atmosphere as a backdrop to introducing Stella into the story. But I think that some of the words used in the sentence construction and the length of some of the sentences themselves blunt the edge of your description. I'll try to give you an example - you say:

"Some were on their way home when the rain started, others were yet still chasing the elusive daily bread down the tortuous road while yet others had no home to go to, and for such it didnt make much difference whether the rains let up or carried on well into next week: home was where exhaustion overcomes the weary feet. the air was cleansed of its filth and the purity of it was borne in the intimacy of the slightly cold wind that stirred, but however much the rains fall they coulndt wash away the underlying filth in the human heart, the persistence of which now was showcased by the aggressive Danfo driver who gunned down the street spraying muddy water onto the unfortunate among the already drenched souls walking the side of the roads."

I'd have written something like this:

"Some were on their way home when the rain started. Others were yet still chasing their daily bread, while yet others had no home to go to. For this lot, it made no difference whether the rains let up or carried on well into next week: home was where exhaustion overcame the weary feet, where the air was cleansed of its filth and where its purity was borne in the intimacy of the cold wind that stirred. But however much the rains fall they could not wash away the underlying filth in the human heart, the magnitude of which now was displayed by the aggressive Danfo driver who gunned down the street spraying muddy water onto the already drenched souls walking the side of the road."

This also shows up in other parts of the story as well.



I think you've done well to give a succinct background to Stella, and how she came to be where she is now. I think you've also provided an interesting contrast between Stella's feeling of isolation and the hostile setting that you portrayed earlier. It's not particularly original - but it's done well.

But never mind me. Please carry on, irrespective!

K2DaC,

First of all, no story is supposed to appeal to everyone. Sometimes, when someone says a story is 'rubbish', what they may really be saying is that they don't relate to the characters, the plot, the style of narrative. That's OK - the extent to which you relate to something will depend on your experience. I have to say that if I didn't relate to the story, I'd say so - I wouldn't call it rubbish. But that's me.

OK, now with that out of the way, here are my observations (again, they're just personal):

- DavidDylan took you up on not having introduced your characters to the audience before launching into the story (while you actually did do this). It's interesting, because I don't really go with the idea of a formal introduction of characters. I'd rather discover the nature of the characters as I read the story. It's no different from a drama or soap on TV. You don't have a segment where you have a formal introduction of characters either - you just discover them as the play progresses.

But if you're going to follow this route, you need to slip in enough clues as the the character's personality so that they don't wonder too much about them. I think you've done this to some extent - for example, even if you hadn't put the intro about Brandy, I'd have guessed already that she was a no-nonsense girl from her response to Shawn when he tried to fob her off. I find it interesting that you've paid attention to making the style of dialogue from Toya quite different from Brandy's style (I guess this is to reflect their differing backgrounds and personalities?).



- You've gone straight for the jugular and introduced elements of conflict in the story. I think this is OK - conflict keeps people interested. However, I think you're trying to cram too many dramatic events into a first episode - Brandy having a quarrel with Shawn, Toya wanting to force the issue of marriage with Shawn and a face-to-face confrontation between all three. If you start like that, you won't have the energy to keep up! Or maybe I'm too old, and I prefer to see my drama developing much more slowly.

The other issue with trying to cram too much at once is that it makes the whole story less believable. Like the issue of Toya bringing up marriage with Shawn. Is it reasonable that she would do that while she's still in college? I doubt it.



- I notice that you're going for the love triangle angle here as well (one man, two women). There's nothing exceptional about this - it's been used in so many stories - but I'd be interested in seeing whether you'll give it an interesting spin as the story develops.



And those are my thoughts for now. Please keep on writing - don't let anything I (or anyone else) have said put you off, if you're finding you're enjoying yourself!

And Ka, its your duty to criticize because if a waiter offers mush, don't hesitate to say its mush.

Neoteny,

It's not my duty to do anything.

And don't assume that because I use the word 'criticism' it implies that I want to say something bad.

In the meantime, I await K2DaC's response. . .

K2Dac,

Good stuff so far.

Am I allowed to offer criticism, or should I just sit back and enjoy?

Ka

Hi Zahy,

I just chanced upon this thread, and well. . . what can I say? Great stuff (as usual).

I think it's good that you want to portray a realistic setting. . . but I think that the information already out there in the public domain is enough for you to use as a framework, and then within that framework, you can spin the story any which way you want.

For example, to answer your questions:

- Where do they live?

Do you mean "what sort of physical structures do they live in"? Well, nobody knows for sure, but this is where your imagination as a novelist comes into play. I think it's realistic to suppose that given the scenario, they might be living in the forest in some huts or makeshift camp. Or they might be living in neighbouring villages only to congregate whenever they need to carry out their operations.



- What kind of settlements would they favor for good defence?

Well, they may not be a cohesive body - as I mentioned above, they may operate on an ad-hoc "hit and run" basis. Or perhaps they are a close knit unit, in which case their settlement could be a series of camps deep in the creeks and inaccessible to anyone who doesn't know the area.



How are they recruited?

- From youths in surrounding villages by word of mouth?



Note that these aren't facts - they are just plausible scenarios which might or might not be true. The important thing is that your story should sound realistic.

Good luck!