“I wish you would stop that.”
“Stop what?”
Hallie glared at him and motioned towards Emily. “That.”
Emily squirmed in Jeffery’s lap. He laid a soothing hand on her back and smiled at Hallie. “Jealous, are we?”
“I have every right to be,” Hallie snapped as Jeffery planted a kiss below Emily’s ear. “Stop it! She’s not your girlfriend, is she? I don’t see why–”
“Just because she’s mute doesn’t mean she can’t hear you, Hallie,” Jeffery replied mildly. He shook his head and continued running his fingers along Emily’s back. “What would you have me do with her? Leave her on the streets again?”
“Do you think I care?” Hallie scowled and crossed her arms. “Look at her, Jeffery—sitting all smug and regal in my spot. What do you see?”
“I see a little girl in need of a home,” Jeffery replied calmly. He smiled and tickled Emily under the chin. She gazed up at him adoringly. “Is she so hard to stomach?”
“Pervert!” Hallie growled. “How was your ‘little girl’ in bed last night, then? Again, she took my spot—”
“Is it so bad for me to have a little company?” Jeffery protested, exasperation creeping into his voice. “Do you honestly think—”
“Company!” Hallie threw her hands in the air, the cliché of melodrama. “Company, you call her!”
“Don’t be silly, dear—”
“Silly!” Hallie’s lower lip trembled. “So now I’m just your silly little side dish! Is it silly of me to want your—your fidelity, your loyalty, your undivided attention—”
“But—”
“And I refuse to share you with this cat!”
Hallie stood hastily and flew out the apartment door. Jeffery stood, knocking Emily from his lap, and looked out the door after his (apparently ex-) girlfriend. She was gone, in a flurry of tears and illogical anger directed at—of all godforsaken things—his new cat.
“Well, Puss,” he said, glancing down at the meowing kitten, “Time for breakfast, wouldn’t you say?”
Thoughts? Comments? Critique? Cake?
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Comments
I only have a few suggestions towards material development--your wording/punctuation/grammar was excellent.
-I've found that prose is much more enjoyable when it doesn't contain long bits of only dialogue. I know this is meant to be a comedic short, so it works for the piece, but you could add a lot more imagery when it comes to facial expressions/body language/setting.
-If you want to leave the revelation that Emily is a cat until it's stated, try adding more interaction on her part. "Her eyes seemed to say..." "A haughty toss of her head..." etc.
Again, I love the piece the way it is. I have a nasty habit of over-writing, so the above are only things that I would do. -laughs-
And my final compliment is:
+I love the way your dialogue flows. A lot of it in other pieces I've seen by other people tends to get annoyingly choppy and awkward--but certainly not here. I felt like I was in the corner of the room watching a real (albeit odd) couple argue.
Keep it up! I'm looking forward to more of your work.
--True on the description, and I may add some more later, but once they start interrupting each other, everything else sort of needs to disappear.
--Oh! Good idea...thanks!
*laughs* Over-writing is one of my habits as well, alas...in part this was an exercise in stripping the fluff away from my writing and focusing on the dialogue.
But--many thanks, many thanks! I shall have to return to your gallery and flip through some of your own pieces.
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"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a necessary ingredient in living, it's a way of looking at life through the wrong end of a telescope and that enables you to laugh at life's realities."
-Dr. Seuss
I've only few things to say-little suggestions, I'm not an expert or a great writer but I think they might be useful...
Maybe in this sentence:
your—your fidelity, your loyalty, your undivided attention—”
you can delete the first "your" and the "-"; I think it would be easier to read, and with a better effect
And that's all. I like very much this piece !
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› ¤ ‡ Camilla ‡ ¤ ‹
06/02 => DD
07/02 => DailyDeviant's feature
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Bravery is merely applauded stupidity...
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Yes, adequately disturbing.
i really like that we are plopped straight into the argument, it gives this a good pace from the get go and has us interested from the very first line.
i think you could enhance the impact of the humor in the twist if the "discovery" is delayed until the last few lines. that would give more room also to play around with the descriptions of Emily, as ~charlatanxangel mentioned. I think it would also be interesting to give more room to look at Hallie's feelings, the more seriously pissed off she seems, the funnier it would be that all the hulabaloo (or however you spell that heh!) is over a kitty
very fun piece keep it up!
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Brain tingles ftw
I always enjoy trying to find the twists in stories before they come, and this was no different. As has been said, I believe you could have expanded on some of the desciptions, adding a few more hints but also possibly misleading the reader (in a good way). Comedic timing is difficult to write, but you did a good job. (I didn't exactly laugh, but it did make me smile.) I think you would do well to practice and see where it takes you.
As for the dialogue itself, it was very good. The speakers sound like real people saying real things. It sounded realisitic in my head and when I read it aloud. Good work!
I thought you did a great job with this. I didn't see it coming, so the pedophile thing was a little weird, but that's okay. The action between the dialogues was quite good, though somewhat uniform. Try new sentence structures: throw in some colons, semi-colons, things like that.
Again, well done. I don't have much to say, because there isn't much to correct. I think that more writing in this vein (you said this was different for you, right?) will only help.
I do like the flow of the conversation and how it reads as if this as not the first time that he has lost a girlfriend to a stray kitty.
Great idea.
You could add things like "Aww don't say that you'll her her feelings," he said as he covered her ears to block out the mean.
Something like that. Playful him as if he's the cat--give him the kitty personality in a mocking way...ha.
I think you could really hide the fact it's a cat until you want to state it is.
Good job with the dialog...it read just like a fast paced argument.
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