| quote: |
Originally posted by D-Boy
Oh yeah, the only thing I didn't like about this. That whole yelling out "Baka!" part just didn't seem to fit there. Really, I understand the whole she's Japanese thing. It's it didn't fit too well with the English. |
Fair enough; I thought it would fit in since there were several mentions of Yukiko cursing in Japanese, I just never put the Japanese in. That situation was different because she degraded into a Japanese-English mix. But I do see your point: it does not really flow well with the rest of the dialogue.
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Originally posted by Nine XXVI
The only thing I had a problem with was Hugh's name. |
As I mentioned before, I usually choose names deliberately, and name choice always makes sense to me.
...at the time, at least. Actually, I picked Hugh, again, because of the name's etymology: Hugh stems from the Tuetonic hug, which means "heart", "mind", or "spirit".
That's mildly significant (that is to say, not at all) because Yukiko saw their relationship as a two-way mirror; the reason why it was so easy to tell what the other was thinking or feeling was because the other thought or felt the same way.
...that is supposed to be one of the reasons why Yukiko could not pick up on Hugh's romantic feelings; because she did not (apparently) share those feelings, she could not see (more accurately, identify) them in Hugh.
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Originally posted by Nine XXVI
I just think it was a bad name and all the way that Hugh and Yukiko met on the train. It was a good sequence but it also seemed too stereotypical, like something I'd see in an anime. But I really liked how Yukiko dealt with the whole thing. |
From the very beginning, I knew what I wanted to do with my story, and from the very beginning, I worried that I was going to make it cliché (one of my personal nightmares as a writer). And even after I finished writing that scene (which on the whole, I thought, was actually one of the best-written stretches in the story), I worried that I had made it a little too cliché. Truthfully, the inspiration for the scene came from three different sources: first, my imagination (I've always wondered how I would react if somebody fell asleep on me on the subway); second, my observations (of seeing other people leaning on others asleep on the subway); third, a near-miss experience of my own (I once sat next to a woman who I think was in her mid-twenties who kept dozing off, and would start leaning towards me before picking herself up). Hugh actually acted in that scene the way I envision myself acting if someone were to fall asleep on me; unless the person started drooling on me or something equally disturbing, I probably wouldn't mind.
Originally, I was going to write the scene so that the two were standing and that one was going to fall onto the other that way, but I changed my mind.
Speaking of cliché, something I deliberately did in the story was keep Yukiko's romantic feelings (or lack thereof) ambiguous at the end. The only certainty, in the end, is meant to be Hugh's feelings. I think that is actually pretty close to real life: I've found myself caught in that nexus with friends of the opposite sex before (one relatively recent circumstance comes to mind), and sometimes it can be incredibly difficult to interpret your own feelings.
Of course, you're free to interpret the end as you'd like; that's another reason I left it ambiguous. Allow the reader to think and decide for herself what will happen next.
...that was all a lot longer than I intended it to be. Oh well.
As for other works; since there's been more than one person to express interest, I'll just attach another piece of writing to this post. A warning: this is not a traditional piece of writing by any extent of the imagination, and it is not nearly as engaging (or good) as the other writings I have posted. To give it some context: it was a writing exercise for my short story seminar, where I needed to start the story real _ don't _, presumably describing a group of people.
I chose to start (and title) mine "Real Romantics Don't Fall in Love"; have fun with it.
For the most part, I think it's great. I don't really see anything wrong with it, and it's quite the sad romance story. I didn't think it was that long, but then again I was reading this on a computer, so yeah. Again, great job on your story; I really liked it.
