8FOLD/HCC: Mighty Medley # 12, December 2014, by Messrs. Alambre, Brenton, Perron & Russell

[Andrew Perron]

On 12/4/2014 5:27 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
> On Wednesday, December 3, 2014 11:02:05 PM UTC-5, Andrew Perron wrote:
>> On 12/2/2014 9:58 PM, Tom Russell wrote:
>> <snip>
>>> This installment of monthly goodness has a sort of accidental theme
>>> for four of our five stories. See if you can suss it out.
>>
>> Interesting.
>
>Admittedly, it's only unintentional for three of the stories. But once I
 > saw that Wil, Saxon, and yourself all ended your stories with the same
 > basic phrase, I couldn't resist using it in one of mine. ;-D

Ahhh! Okay. I actually saw my ghost-bringing-judgment and Wil's and thought 
I'd missed some connection to the others'.

>>>      Hank laughed; laughing hurt. "I don't want you to watch me die.
>>> Wasting time. Celine's out there, and she needs saving. Do me that
>>> kindness, will you? And tell her... hell, you know what to tell her, I
>>> guess."
>>
>> ;.; ;.; ;.;
>
>The wife had the same reaction, despite the fact that, really, we've only
 > known Hank for three or four pages.

Pacing is a complex thing~

>> Seriously, the one-page format was *perfect* for this. <3
>
>Wil is perfect for the one-page format. And I mean that in a good way--
 > he's also perfect for longer formats. I'm just saying that he's really good
 > at these short, clever, punchy pieces-- as are you, sir.

Why thank you! <3 And yeah - like I said in the Roundup, Wil is aces at a 
story built around an idea.

 > But it's always difficult to know when I'm writing
 > something that will elicit "AWWWW" and when it will go all wobbly and
 > overly-sentimental. I tried to leaven it with some humor but, as you've
 > mentioned before, sometimes I have difficulty marrying the humor to "raw
 > human emotion" (though even the happiest marriages are always difficult,
 > and a lot of work). I'm glad that, at least for one of my more
 > discriminating readers, I got the "AWWWWW" and not a bunch of eye-rolling.

Yeah, it absolutely worked for me. <3 And I can't think of anything you've 
written since I hopped back on RACC that fell into "overly-sentimental".

>You mentioned once before that one thing you liked about the Max-Julie
 > dynamic is that he's not just some goofball and she's not just some
 > killjoy-- I think a big part of what avoids that trap, if I do avoid it, is
 > that Julie is almost always right, as wives often are.

Actually, I think the biggest part is that it *isn't* played as her being 
right *because* she's the wife - it's just who she is, and who he is, and 
their personalities as individuals, rather than as representatives of gender 
or social roles.

Andrew "NO .SIG MAN" "Juan" Perron, a very important aspect, that.