Original Spec-Fic Critique?

By Lowkey. 02/03/11, 09:12 am

Hi; I'm Ithurial and I haven't written anything for two days. Applause, please.

I write ... quite a lot (usually upwards of 2k words a day between play-by-post-roleplay and my creative writing degree fhkjhfkhsf 1000 words a day on my novel dhdhdkfjhd) but I very rarely finish anything concrete; I have nothing that I can print off and hand to someone in response to "oh, you write? Can i read some?" which while it doesn't happen very often, to be fair, you have to be prepared. I wrote this (and maybe another 1000 words I deleted because I didn't like them) a month or two ago and while I enjoy it in that if nothing else it's a departure from what & how I normally write, I don't know how much I like it.

Is it worth continuing? Is the style readable? There's some swearwords that'll get censored and I don't know how borderline some of the content is, but ping me and I can censor it out. Would love to hear, if nothing else, whereabouts in the text you had a "aha" moment re: the characters.

Spoiler:

The whole town of sugar honey iced tea-sville, FU state, closes up as soon as they see our dust cloud, which is pretty quick: we come in off the flat and the desert. Before even the top half of the leery church is full visible, we can make out the kicked-anthill panic of kids being dragged into houses and shops being closed up. We slow down, but not too much. Some places refuse to serve us, sure, but we never know which towns are going to have a violent reaction to us showing up. 'Stead of hives, there are shotguns, physics eczema of bristly gun barrels. Forty kilometers an hour is plenty slow enough, maybe fifteen meters plus following distance of Priuses, Golfs, Accords, Fiestas, Insights; our Arbiter's vehicle (if you don't recognize the sound of an Impreza WRZ SCI hitting town, you don't know our Arbiter very well) leads in.

No shots pop off the Impreza as the Arbiter brings it to a sliding stop at the far end of the church courtyard. He has a dodgy sense of humor. We close ranks and tailgate in. I'm driving Six while Cammy is asleep, and I'm all doubled over the wheel to make out jack through the dusty windscreen, meaning the town looks like some sepia photo out of nineteen nothing. Still a couple of moments after the Impreza came to a standstill the gunshot sound of it firing comes back to us off the white-trash looking buildings, leaning on each other like drunks and the windows all busted from a fight.

One after another, scattering in a herringbone pattern down the main street – this is like the military, Humvees in the Iraq war – we park up. Windows up, doors locked. We're just as scared of them as they are of us, staring out between closed curtains at us staring at them through scratched dusty windscreens. The Arbiter gets out of his car, too-long hair in a ponytail and looking like a Kitsune out of Japanese folklore, nine-tailed foxes turning into people. You don't know this about him seeing him step out of his car confident but cautious, dressed like a gypsy, but there are two bullet wounds, a pair of badly healed ribs, pair of stab wounds (may have relations with the bad ribs) and a couple of serious arm dislocations making up a bulk of him. One time in Butt-physics, BS state, the only reason he got back to us is he can drive with his eye split open.

Two big guys come to meet him, and a priest. Just in case, I guess. Arbiter has a habit of smiling with his teeth showing, but they know what to expect. It's nice of them to meet him at all.

Cammy wakes up; fact is we can only sleep with the rumble of the engine rocking us; stopping means something's wrong, most times. Moment we slowed to park she would have felt the motor going away and come back from sleep without dreams.
She asks if the Arbiter's out yet when she sees the town looking down on us.

I tell her yeah, so far so good.

She yawns and eyes the locked up goods store we're parked outside and the little girl staring out the window ducks out of sight.
Only half of us ate last time we stopped; we drew lots. I lucked out but I'm still flirting with the red empty line as much as Six's petrol gauge is; she must be starved. It's showing and she keeps thumbing her teeth, which is her tick. Our Arbiter starts to see sugar honey iced tea when he's hungry and jonesing.

One of the big representatives is shouting. I rub the inside of the windscreen with a tatty sleeve like that'd help, most of the dust on the outside. He doesn't seem to be shouting at the Arbiter, who didn't eat last town, either, and is probably wondering if what he's looking at behind the big guy is real or not (I'm exaggerating, of course. He used to be a chemist. He sees compounds. He builds hexalite, hemoglobin, plasma. He knows when he's seeing things).

So a pretty girl walks over, shouting. I say pretty, and this is not just because when you travel so much looking for a fix like we do, it's filthy clothes and forgetting to wash, sleeping curled up in the back seat of a Fiesta and not combing your hair. Cammy used to be good looking but she'd be a second thought next to this girl. The girl the bass player or drummer gets while the lead guitar gets this girl.

What she's shouting about, I don't know, but I'm glad I'm in the car. I'm glad I got self control. I can't smell her from here, though, and bet if I could I'd be making a hell of some trouble for the convoy. Cammy laughs at me, slings her arms around my neck and my chair, teasing.

Bet that's a push up bra, though, she says. She'd know, she used to work at a lingerie store so she could look at other's girls breasts. Fact is, she can tell cup size a kilometer off. She likes them a double handful each and big dark nipples. I'm more for a handful each and almost conical. It's nice being able to talk about girls with Cammy but she has too much fun about it.
I ask, what do you think's her type?

Cammy says: around here? Human, with all his teeth.

That used to be me, and I still have all my teeth. She's deliberately misunderstanding the question.

I ask, what blood type do you think she is?

You just ate, she says.

I'd share, I say. I would. And I didn't just eat. I'm hungry. I'd get out of the car and beg for a wrist, if it'd help. You don't go up to a dealer and beg for a fix, that doesn't work. It's about offering them something in exchange. Usually we work, fix something up overnight. Sometimes we pack up contraband, payment on delivery. Some truck stops, logging camps, it's about dressing up the girls and getting them a feed. Sometimes you get a big gay lumberjack, a bear, who wants a boy bad enough to bleed over it. Doesn't matter if you're straight, you'll do it for a fix (I remember one guy demanding Arbiter, and Arbiter going over to him and kissing him and I remember knowing he drew blood, more fang than tongue). Specially if they offer enough blood to tide more than one of us over, then it's your duty, you expect the women to do it, right? Even Cammy, flaming dyke.

This is how sex relates to us. Our kind and sex, always linked.

Not usually 'cause we need to whore ourselves out for a feed, right?

Arbiter's coming back, past his car to Seven and Party. He leans on the window of Party, which is open just far enough to hear him. He talks for a bit and comes back our way. He pulls a sleeve up over his hand and cleans my window. I roll it down a little way.

“They'll fill up the cars,” the Arbiter says. When he talks his fangs show. How he does it, I don't know. He's Arbiter because even without feeding for a week he can stand there and talk civil to people without so much as breaking a sweat, or a fidget, or going for a vein. He can get out of his car, hungry, and negotiate for us because we'd be gibbering and slavering. “But they're a good Christian town.”

They say the Arbiter came from one of those, but he was humanitarian too, and he got infected for it when some convoy like ours came through and he offered his wrists to all God's creations, even the bloodsucking ones. Chance of catching the turn unless your feeder wants to turn you is so small, you're almost as likely to win the lottery. God hates him, or he's a bad judge of character. He won't say.

But what he means is we can't feed. It's not like a kick in the nuts, hearing that. There was always a huge chance; it's more like teetering on a cliff edge and then the falling feeling of knowing you were right all along. And then the hunger just comes back stronger.

“What's the kick, boss?” Cammy asks. She's thumbing her fangs almost hard enough to draw blood.

He says how we can tank up. How they'll give us water and an oil change.

I can't help it, I ask about the girl.

She wants to let us feed, Arbiter says. The way he's squinting at the space next to my head means he's connecting the molecules that make some blood-replacement together, knowing they're not really there. But her father says no.

I catch myself mid groan. Arbiter smiles.

Maybe, he says. She says there are others who are keen. He shrugs. Behind him, Party is leading the other half of the herringbone to the pumps.

Maybe I could talk to her, I suggest. Arbiter laughs, shakes his head, tells me to lead the other half of the cars to the pumps. He suggests I stay away from her. Cammy repeats about the pushup bra. Yeah, yeah. I know the rules, I'm just hungry. We all are.

Junkies move faster than you expect. Like spiders.

**Guest** Guest

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Very, VERY nice.

I like the tone, I LOVE how it's Mad Max to start and then slowly drip-feed the fact there are vampires into it. Very nice.
I love how sexy it is.

By Lowkey. 06/07/11, 10:03 pm

So this is finally finished and up at my blog, lonewolfrayetstar. So is one other story. I'm theoretically going to write one and a half every week for the next eight or ten weeks.

I would kill for honest critique. And love challenges/prompts.

By firecat70. 07/07/11, 03:06 pm

One thing I would recomened would be to watch the length of your sentances. You seem to have a short, to the point style and the long length of your sentances don't really match it.
I like story though!