[1187] Just a regular guy

Thanks for posting this!

I think your writing is strong overall. You do a good job of showing, not telling, and while the chapter is short, I'm starting to develop a feel for the characters.

The prose is strong, but could be tightened in some parts. A lot of the dialogue is good, but it feels a bit formal to me, and that makes it a bit stiff. I think a bit of editing and tightening with the dialogue could make it pop.

I don't want to mark up your document, so below are some inline edits.

Page 1

“No new friends. How many times do we have to remind you?” Angie was sunk into the chair in the corner of the room, her knees hung over the armrest.

Generally speaking, it's a good idea to avoid "tell" words like "was". I think sometimes editors and readers get a bit too strict with that, but I'd try to avoid them in opening lines.

Angie will agree with me. Won’t you Ange?”

I'd see if you could shorten this. Something like: Angie, you agree with me, right?

The two both

Since you have "both" I don't think you need "two." Both raised...

“That was different,” Angie said. “Girlfriend card. We had no choice, you know? It’s the same with Denise. Carl knows that we can’t stand her.”

You mention Carly and Carl. I assume they're the same person. I'd make sure you use the same name throughout the writing. Or if you want a nickname, introduce it then stick with it. edit: I see Carly and Carl are two different characters, I recommend not using similar names as it may confuse readers.

At the bodega, and I tell say to the guy behind the counter,

he’s going to have little robot children. All roboting-around. Scaring the other kids at recess.”

Ha! that made me chuckle.

A six-pack of Stella Artois hung atwas by his side.

I think this "was" can be swapped out pretty easily and make the writing better. My rewrite can definitely be improved upon, just tossing out ideas.

Carl sat down in the wicker chair, his belly pushing pressing open the lapels on both sides

Like this line quite a bit but pressing throws me off.

There’s a reason I didn't don’t invite Denise to this thing.”

Grant sighed and slipped intowent toward the kitchen for another round of drinks.

I'd change up a few of the "basic" words like "went" up for something that's more descriptive, like slipped or whatever else. You don't have to do that everywhere, over description might be worse than under description, but I'd like a few more words that give me a sense of their mannerisms, the scene, and all the rest.

I know Denise would love for you to get in shape.”

Three quick knocks rang out behind the door.

This sentence seems slightly clunky. Maybe drop behind the door.

“I’m Corey, Grant’s boyfriend. I’ve heard so much about all of you.”

It doesn't seem natural to me that you'd introduce yourself to your SO's friends as "the boyfriend." I believe your trying to offer it as a surprise, but it doesn't land as natural to me. Maybe Corey pecks Grant on the lips or something?

All in all, this is a strong piece and I start to develop a good feel for the dynamics and characters in a short amount of time.

Hey there. Not a real critique, just some quick impressions as a reader (though I do agree with a lot of what u/bdbooker said).

I was engaged by the clarity and straightforwardness of this piece, and thought overall you did a pretty good job of capturing the group's friendship. The bit about the robot kids is quite strong. As for the story, it seems like a bit of a cheap twist that Grant wouldn't tell his friends that it's his boyfriend coming along. The fact that Corey introduces himself as the boyfriend suggests that he is in on the ruse, but no other part of the story gives the sense that Grant feels the need to rickroll these people.

Your writing style is extremely enjoyable and well formatted. The plot moves along at a nice clip. I get where you want to go with the character and scene descriptions, but there are a few areas you could work on. You asked to be ripped to shreds, so I’m going to be ultra critical. Okay, Ned, buckle up.

I understand how you are trying to portray Angie. She’s comfy and casual lounging in her buddy Grant’s (leather club?) chair but I’d strongly encourage you to massage this sentence some more and try out verbs other than sunk since she’s also hanging her legs off the arm of the chair. Maybe nestled? Splayed?

Is the description of the cocktail meant to signify how déclassé Harry is or to be a clue that Grant is gay? I googled the cocktail recipe Grant is making. Adding additional ingredients to a gin and tonic no longer makes it a just a gin and tonic. It’s called a gimlet and served in a specific (rather feminine looking glass). Try having Harry tease Grant about owning gimlet glasses instead of sticking his dirty finger into his drink.

Is Wellesley intentionally spelled differently in each sentence?

Yall should be y’all. Do people like Grant from New Hampshire say the word y’all?

The names Carl and Carly are confusing, typo? If it isn’t, the names are too similar. Who brought Carly to the party? Harry?

Your description of Denise is, ummm, it’s not exactly misogynistic, maybe irritated is a better description of how I felt reading the paragraph about her. Lip injections and Botox cause lips not to move, not stage makeup. Weather-woman? Really, Ned? What exactly is she doing to ‘trick’ people? TV news anchors are usually more robotic on camera. Watch the nightly local news from 3-5 different cities. Meteorologists are almost always fun/light/bubbly, or at least not robotic.

There are all sorts of problems with the Carl character physical description from the jump.

• For starters, using the word bodega implies this story takes place in an extremely urban environment like NYC where apartment tenants usually don’t have welcome mats at their front door. Describe the hallway or something else instead of a welcome mat.

• Carl is unapologetically chubby, but try to work with clothing items you are familiar with to describe Carl’s appearance. There’s an unbelievable amount of detail written about a clothing item that makes absolutely zero sense.

• The typical trench coat is knee length or shorter and cotton, wool, or some other breathable fabrics.

• Why is a chubby guy wearing a belted leather floor length coat indoors, in a wicker chair nonetheless? Isn’t he HOT AF?

• Why doesn’t Grant offer Carl a drink?

And finally . . . Corey, or Grant and Corey. Why does Grant automatically assume it’s Carl at the door and not Corey? Corey arrives like a minute after Carl. Is Corey hiding in the bushes waiting for everyone to arrive before he makes his entrance or something?

Overall, it was well written and flowed smoothly. The conversation was light-hearted banter among friends and could take place in any group. There were some things that I will highlight below.

MECHANICS

Just a regular guy

The title works for this piece. The reveal at the end was a nice payoff.

Angie was sunk into the chair in the corner of the room

This is passive voice and you almost always want to avoid writing in passive voice. You can remove the 'was' and the meaning practically stays the same. Of course, it changes the meaning a little but overall, the meaning will be clear. Or you can do something like: Angie said, from the corner of the room, sunk in a comfy couch, her knees hanging over the armrest. Whatever works best for you.

Angie will agree with me. Won’t you Ange?

This line of dialogue seems odd. If you say it out loud, you'll notice, most people won't say it like this. Another user has given an accurate suggestion.

Everybody does that. Except Carl, of course.

This doesn't need to be two sentences, one long sentence would've worked fine.

The two both raised their hands

Two both - doesn't work. You can just say - both of them or his two friends.

Grant hooked a lime over all three of the glasses.

Very minor but the 'of the' can be removed and the meaning will stay the same. It just makes the prose more free-flowing and less cluttered.
"Why use lot words, when few words do trick?" - Kevin, The Office

He brought them over to the coffee table and took the other corner of the couch.

Another small thing, but you could have said, he took a seat beside Harry on the couch. This will help the reader gauge where everyone is in the scene.

A six-pack of Stella Artois was by his side.

This breaks immersion for the reader. Carl is carrying the six-pack, so paint that picture in the reader's head. You could say he clutched a six-pack of beer by his side. Unless there is a meaning behind the brand of beer. If you really think it is important than you could that later when Grant asks him for a beer.

Angie and I were just talking to Grant now.

This seems kind of pointless to define. They are friends hanging out, so of course, they are going to be talking. Just say that Grant's invited a friend over tonight.

“Quiet, you,” Carl said.

Is Carl an older gentleman? He comes off across as one, because of his formal speech. Even people, who like to use fancy words can swear with their friends.

All eyes went towards Grant

This is off. The language used here doesn't flow, it pulls the reader out of the scene, i.e breaks immersion.

He got up and went toward Corey

Very minor but maybe just say, 'went to'.

On his way to the couch Harry turned his head and mouthed the question to Grant.

What question did he mouth to Grant? The reader can guess at it, but in this situation, it would be better if you mention it. As Grant's response, it didn't work with what I was thinking of.

SETTING

The setting works, for the scene you were trying to write. But the environment, the characters are in, is not explained at all. It helps if you paint the scene for the reader. Doesn't have to be from the get go and you can drop hints during the scene, like Carl slunk into the comfortable brown-leather couch. Also, work with the senses - see, smell, hear and touch. These friends are hanging out, so maybe Grant has prepared or ordered in food, if so, you could state the smell made the characters hungry. I couldn't picture the surroundings at all, like a white screen with furniture and a kitchen. It came across as bland from that standpoint.

CHARACTERS

Everyone was well defined. Carl had his formal way of talking, Harry liked to nag and Grant was set up as liking fancy things. In the small scene, I feel like you did a good job, in distinguishing your characters well.

POV

Now this is the biggest thing, I had a gripe with, as I couldn't figure out, who was the POV character. I don't think you had one. I like to know which character, we are experiencing the world through. Unless your motive was to for a third person ominiscient perspective but that is honestly boring (just my opinion).

You always want to pick a POV character, most preferably your MC and have the reader experience the world through their eyes. Its an excellent way to set up your characters, through monologues and what they think of their friends.

For ex. If Grant was your POV, in this scene then you could have easily given us the hook through his inner monologue like - they have no idea, what's coming. It would have been a better payoff at the end, when the surprise is revealed.

CONCLUSION

Overall, I liked the conversation between friends but the POV and the scene could have been set up better. Your characterization was great for this small piece and you showed the dynamics of the group well. Continue to practice and I'm sure you will get better. Best of Luck!

Overall Impression:

This struck me as a very culturally white American piece, all the Coreys, Harry(s), Grants, Angie(s); definitely a look inside a very particular cultural milieu that I (as a POC) have really only seen tangentially and in passing. The structure of the story has very little action; arguably this piece elongates a single action beat (people arrive at a party and talk) for three to four pages. Hence it feels more like a character & culture study which finds its apex by the second page and then steadily declines from there.

The good:

"She's the worst..." to "her mouth isn't moving" is arguably the most evocative and effective passage in this piece. In a wonderful little scene you "get in" Carl's girlfriend-- establish her quickly and in such a vivid way. You made the right choice in having the non-dialogue content flow along with the dialogue in this paragraph, e.g., having "He pinched...with his thumb and forefinger" precede "It barely moves..." keeps together the flow of the action and allows the paragraph to present a coherent and cohesive impression. If you think about it, you also do a subtle change of narrator here, from the faceless fly-on-the-wall to Harry and back again through the mini-scene at the bodega. Very Chekhov of you.

The bad:

It's hard to get a sense for why something isn't working; quite like poking a dead man and trying to figure out whether it was the heart failure or the obesity or the high blood pressure that killed him. I guess what I'm trying to say is that failure is often the result of complex systems with complex interactions that irreversibly cascade. I read this a second time trying to tease out what some of those interactions might be. I do think you need to be more aware that this is a character study, and that it means you've got to study character. I want more characters to be "gotten in", not necessarily in the same way you've "gotten in" Carl's girlfriend. I want dialogue to be more telling of who your characters are. I also want you to study the white American culture, to really think about what it is, and how to heighten its distilled attributes; you can't read, say, Gogol's "The Cloak", and not come away with an idea of Imperial Russia. You (or your characters) are a people of a time and a place. Show me that time and that place.

Alternatively add action. Let your characters go and do things and betray themselves through the things they do. Then you don't need a character or culture study in "frozen time". It'll arise organically as the property or attribute of a stage in motion.

General Remarks:

For a story that's entirely dialogue, I think you did a really good job. I'm used to stories that have a lot of descriptions, but your story flowed well and none of the dialogue felt unbelievable or cliche. I have some ideas that I think might make the story better that I'll go into later.

Mechanics:

Starting off with the title, I think it’s a little boring. I know this is just something you did based off of a writing prompt, but if you ever wanted to go further with it, I would try and spice up the title. The way it is, is fine, but it doesn't really pull me in. When I first read the title I was thinking your story was going to be about an average Joe, doing his day to day. Maybe that's what you're going for, trick the reader into thinking Grant's friend is just a regular guy starting with the title of the story, I just think it might make some people look over your story.

With the hook, I think it works well. It helps set Angie's character and the dynamic of the group, showing how they are a close knit group and standoffish towards outsiders.

I liked your descriptions of Carly being a robot, I would consider changing her name, just because there's already a character named Carl. Unless you wanted to work that in somewhere in the story and make a joke about it or something. If not, you should just change her name so that it doesn't confuse the reader.

Settings:

Your story is all dialogue so there isn't anything to really critique. Your story for what it is works without a bunch of descriptions, but I think they could defiantly help. You have a good setting to describe, a cocktail party with a bunch of guests in chairs relaxing and drinking mixed drinks and beers. There's so much you can describe and go in detail with to help the reader visualize. The dim lighting of the room, the condensation on the cocktails dripping down, and soft, leather chairs that everyone are relaxing in. Again, your story, but I think it could help.

Character:

I won't talk a lot about the characters in your, just because there really isn't enough to go on to a good feel on each of their personalities. At the moment they're all pretty interchangeable, nothing they do makes them stand out from the others. They all have the same opinion on Grant bringing his friend into the party, and the all crack jokes and mess with each other. Grant's the only one who stands out because he's, "different," because he didn't go to a fancy university. Adding more diversity to the characters could have the twist ending be more dramatic because then we could get each characters unique reaction to finding out Grants new boyfriend. Right now, I feel like they would all just have the same reaction.

Plot:

The plot of your story is pretty straightforward, a group of friends meet every once in a while for a cocktails and beer to catch up and talk about deeper things. It's not the most original idea, I can think of many books that start off the same way, usually they go into everyone sharing a story and the stories make up the book. With your plot though, the party isn't really the focus, but the conflict of Grant trying to bring someone into the group. Reading through, I was getting bored of Grant just repeating the same thing over and over about how his friend is just a, "cool guy." It's pretty obvious that whoever his friend is isn't going to be just some boring gym rat, so having Grant repeat it felt redundant.

At the end of the story when Grant's friend Corey was actually his new boyfriend it was a twist, since earlier they said that Grant had brought one of his girlfriends to the party before. This means either Grant is bi, or the girlfriend was just cover and he's actually gay. This works as a good twist, but it makes me wonder why he would do this to his friends, and to Corey. Maybe Grant told Harry before he came over that his friends didn't know about him, but if he didn't, that's messed up to do. Now not only does Corey have to meet a bunch of new people, but also be the center of Grant coming out. This makes me wonder why Grant would keep this secret from his friends. They all seem to be pretty open minded, so unless Grant just recently found out he was into men, I don't see why he wouldn't have told them sooner. Maybe add something earlier in the story about one of them not being okay with gay people, or have someone say an offensive joke, the reader would look over it, but at the end it would add to the shock when they realize what was said could have been offensive to Grant. I had a friend growing up his was still in the closet and part of a bible group. He was a really devout Christian, which is what made it so hard for him to come out because the subject a lot of the time kept going back to gay rights since this was before gay marriage was legalized and everyone else was against based on what the bible said. Again, this is just a response to a writing prompt you did so I don't know how far you intend to go with it.

Conclusion:

As I said at the beginning, I enjoyed your story. I would have liked more descriptions to flesh out the story more. The plot is interesting, but not the most original. You can defiantly add something to try and raise the conflict so that it's more exciting to the reader. As is it's very straightforward with the only conflict being no one knows Grant is bi/gay, but based on the group dynamic, I don’t see why it would be much of a problem.

Hey, my first critique so here goes but I'm not an expert so take my opinions/critique however you would like:

So I read through it once and I thought this could be a really good story. There are just some tweaks that might make it more structured. Initially, I think if you want to lure readers in, you could just have "No new friends" as a dialogue by itself. Draw readers in with those three words.

I do like the characters and their dialogue as it feels like it's something that real people would be talking about randomly one night. Makes me feel like I'm watching an episode of Community. I would put in some details about what the characters look like with some actions like Angie could twirl her blonde hair around her fingers as she smirked. I don't know. Something like that. That way, a reader can tell the difference between certain people because I think I started getting confused by their names in the middle of the story.

Also, I think I would add more thoughts/actions/emotions for these characters. For example, Grant said, stirring a metal shaker from the kitchen counter. He poured the mixed drink with unsteady hands. Each character should have their own mannerisms and personality traits, that way they can be easily distinguished and pictured in the mind of the reader.

And when you mention that everyone takes care of their bodies, you could also jab about craft beer. "And who in their right mind likes craft beer?" Something like that.

At this point, Grant might be looking or hiding that he's upset, because once you read the end, it turns out to be his boyfriend so I feel like there should be more emotion coming out of him as his friends keep jabbing the "new friend"

I think you focus more on Carl and I'm not sure why he's so important. I'm not sure if in the next chapters to come, he affects the group or Grant in a significant way but it feels like they hate Carl and I would love to know more about why everyone jabs at Carl. Is it more than the fact that he's fat? Is there a history that maybe you could hint at? I think the point you're making is to separate Grant from the group, making him just a regular guy while his friends are well educated. I don't know. There could be a good background past conflict there that the reader doesn't know about.

I think you mention something more about the new guy besides he likes working out and good food and beer. Grant should describe him in a way that he kind of openly admires but secretly desires him so as not to give it away.

You spelled Appalacians wrong. Appalachians.

I like the rosemary in the gin and tonic comment. You're hinting at the fact that maybe Grant isn't really a regular guy, at least not how they define a regular guy.

I think you need to change Carly's name to something else. It makes reading Carl and Carly confusing. You could also describe Carly, the girlfriend after that dialogue and describe her a little in Grant's perspective so it's not just filled with dialogue. Is Carly someone's girlfriend. I must have missed that.

Why are we making fun of Carl so much? Poor Carl! I think you should also describe him more if he's goofy looking and maybe also explain that the group also finds any reason to insult Carl. In my opinion, it detracts from what you're really trying to write.

Also, who's the leader of the group or who tries to be the leader? I feel like it's Carl but I can't be too sure because he seems to have the final say yet he also gets constantly insulted.

Describe the man from the door! I want to know what he looks like.

I think the ending should be more drawn out, like what is everyone's reaction? Do they have differing reactions. Is someone not as accepting or are they jealous. Is someone shocked because they had no idea or was someone like hah, I knew that all along type of thing. I feel like there needs to be a conflict in here so that the story can lead somewhere.

Overall, it's a great idea for a story. I would love to read more about it, about what happens to the group because of this.

Hey! Thanks for posting. I don't think there is enough "wrong" with it to offer a full critique. I think it works as it is. I will say I agree with the other commenter who said that the dialogue is a little formal. I think that's true. I also think everyone is a little too "on-message." Like, they do not deviate from this topic, to the point where you can feel the invisible hand of the author motivating what they're saying. That's not me suggesting that you add any lengthy digressions or anything, I think just some line-level tweaks will make it seem convincing and more natural. It does feel the teensiest bit *Full House-*y: we hear regular guy and assume the guy is straight, and then there is the reveal, and the moral is like "gay people can be regular people too." I don't think that's a bad thing, mind you, there was just the teeniest bit of cheesiness to the whole situation. But overall, I enjoyed reading it and what a cute way to come out!

Also, I wouldn't take Mr. Gogol's comments to heart. Like, this piece says enough about heteronormativity in america today without using a heavy hand. The amount of description you have is fine, the amount of characterization you have is fine.

I could also see this working as a short film.