[343] The Bottle

I think it's extremely honest and direct, and I assume and hope that it was therapeutic for you personally to get all that down on paper.

I'm not sure it's going to work as great literature though -- mostly because of its straightforwardness and directness.

I think one of the paradoxes of great writing is that it can't afford to come right out and say what it means. F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, did not simply write "Rich people are really selfish and careless, and also beware of hanging onto the past." Instead he wrote the 50,000-odd words of The Great Gatsby in order to get something like that message across much more effectively.

There's a wonderful essay by Michael Byers that you might enjoy, on the ratio of "potatoes" to "vodka" in fiction. Of course he's not really talking about potatoes and vodka, but about concrete description versus direct metaphysical statements. (Apologies that it's an unfortunate metaphor given where you're coming from.) It seems to me that your piece doesn't have much at all in the way of potatoes: dialogue and action and concrete description, etc. It's almost all vodka: a directly stated message and metaphysical summary. I think that lack of balance is always a problem.

You're probably richly equipped with experiences and thoughts that would serve you well in writing a novel or story about addiction. As I said, it's a paradox, but I think your message would be much more effective if it was wrapped up in a dramatic tale about a person who perhaps came to the same sort of realizations as you have after going through a harrowing journey. But that's the thing: you have to take the reader on that journey. Just stating the end result of the journey is surprisingly ineffective, however formative it was for you personally.

Great, personally loved this. It's strange but after reading and writing so much "formal" or "real" writing, it feels "authentic" to read something put forward like this.

Now, if you want to publish you'll have to really get into the formals of writing, and for this type of direct and brusque style I heavily recommend poetry over story writing. As another commenter said, story writing is about euphemisms and tall tales to please the eager audience who will no doubt insert themselves into the work for pleasure, while poetry is for the Chad reader who takes profound meaning from well crafted words.

Jokes aside (though there might be some truth to that), poetry should be your medium of choice. Get started on learning the formal verse - haikus, blank verse and villanelles. I can introduce each form to you and explain how to go about attempting them if you need.

Once you have those solid basic forms down, you'll realize all you wrote was really shit but it helped you improve so now go about either writing new poems in those forms and try to make them good or redo all your old poems.

As a writer who uses the theme of addiction in my own writing I just want to say thanks for having the courage to put that out there. I think it's possible to transfer at least some of the old thrill of self destruction into the thrill of creation and introspection that comes with writing. Hell sometimes I think writing is part self destructive too. In the end it's all about the stories we tell ourselves. Writing can help get control over where the narrative leads, so powerful therapy.

Thanks for sharing, we appreciate the effort. I’ll say overall this is a good first outing. It needs some work on a technical level, but who doesn’t just starting out. Here’s my feedback. It’s pretty short, but this is a short piece.

Writing Style

• This is a rhythmic poem, so it needs some work on word choice and flow. Getting a good of this can be difficult, but reading stories out loud can at least help you identify where the wording gets knotty
• The inconsistent syllable counts in each line makes it difficult to establish a consistent rhythm, especially since the lines are longer.
• There are also certain points where the wording is a bit rough and there are alternatives that would roll off the tongue easier. For example: “I'm no longer engulfed in a fog” could be “I’m no longer engulfed in fog.” That “a,” while a small thing, makes a surprisingly big hurdle for the tongue to navigate around.
• You seem to make yourself write in complete, grammatically correct sentences in a couple of places. Don’t be afraid to write in sentence fragments. In poetry it makes it a lot easier to mold the phrases fit your needs

Plot

• While obviously not as important as a story, poems often do have a plot they follow, so to speak. Stanza will usually be dedicated to specific ideas, and as you go from one stanza to the next there’s usually a progression of ideas, moods, etc. Generally speaking you do have a progression of ideas. You start talking about the need to quit, in the middle section you talk about the feeling of being lost as the crutch of alcohol is removed, and the last section you talk about moving on. If you return to this poem to rework it I’d suggest defining that structure more clearly.

Themes

• Writing is certainly good therapy, and I can tell you put quite a bit of your experience with addiction into this piece. I would encourage you to keep it up, whether you want to keep sharing it or just do it for yourself.

This is good. Really good, even. I’d like to say, that as somebody who has personally dealt with alcohol abuse, you really nail some of the feelings that come along with it. Lines like “What else do I have to lose?” and “Now though each day gets clearer and I’m no longer engulfed in a fog” are incredibly poignant, and speak honestly to some of the thoughts that have run through my own head before. There’s a distinct authenticity to it, and the more plain (yet still descriptive) style you use really helps to deliver your story. A more poetic or dense style might edge closer to pretentiousness when dealing with a topic like this, but yours feels just right.

My little technical critique would be to find some other ways of writing “bottle”. Obviously, it’s the title of the piece, and important to be featured. But it becomes a bit too laboured, and by the end its usage feels a bit tired. I think its prominence still works, but an extra variation or two might help out without compromising the intention.

I’d like to close by engaging with another critic’s claim that this might not work as literature because it’s too “straightforward and direct”, which I entirely disagree with. Good literature is something that speaks to the reader and conveys a story or sensation worth sharing. If it does that, who the fuck cares if it’s plain and direct or veiled in metaphors and flowery prose? I say this as somebody who leans quite heavily towards writing denser prose, but I dislike the idea that we should coat our writing in pleasantries just so people don’t turn their noses up at it for being too “direct.” Bukowski, that infamous alcoholic poet, wrote in a quite distinctly direct style, and it clearly worked for him!

I’d also like to reject another’s amendment of “in a fog” to “in fog”, because I think the rhythm of the line benefits from the more staccato reading of “in a fog.”

I just want to point out a fact that I think will help, in terms of your work being more therapeutic. You use a lot of cliche when describing your experience, and I think that finding new metaphors or more deeply resonating ones can help you more.

I've listed out a number of deeper examinations of the metaphor you provided, that I can help you springboard your creativity. A few of these may sound critical, but I'm still willing to put them forward because you've shown good faith criticizing yourself. Show caution regardless.

You start off with a great metaphor, a comparison to your alcoholism as traveling. What ARE you chasing that's in the end of a bottle? Do you want to race your life to see if you can end it sooner? Is the chase like children playing tag, like your alcoholism is a game, or the desire is enjoyment and maybe fulfillment? If you finish a bottle, is that one more bottle that you can scratch onto your "win" mark, like you've completed another leg on a journey?

Whatever it was that you swallowed... was it enough? Apparently not, because you kept going, and in your mind you're only another bottle away from doing again. What is that like? Does the bottle constantly reflect you? Does it mimic your motions, your intent, your will and desire to find ... whatever should be there (like what we just talked about above?) Is your reflection in the bottom of the glass, so you or the bottle are your own whale and swallow yourself whole?

Your body is heavy every time you wake up after drinking. Is the sun so painful during a hangover, that it's weighted and crushing? Does the hopelessness and lack of responsibility weigh heavily on you? Does the liquid weigh down your body as it still fills your veins? Just HOW hard is it to get back up again?

Your wallet being light from the chase is a callback to the first line as well as the line previous. Is it also a callback to a loss in not taking responsibility for the things you must? Is your wallet simply lighter for the lack of money or is it a glaring light on another failure? Is the wallet being lighter your reward for continuing your chase? Is it your ribbon, your medal, or your cup? What victory have you achieved? Does winning over yourself in this self-defeating way, show you hope in winning over yourself in the opposite way? Can you be as determined as you can be careless to drink? Can you seek the pleasure of self-control and onefulness, as hard as you can seek pleasure from continuing the chase?

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I'm sorry, I'm going to have to stop here. I was hoping to help you self-analyze more, but I'm causing myself to analyze my own habits with alchohol. I drink rarely, but deeply; it's only recently I've drank to get drunk, not just taking an edge off. I've started to hate the taste of alchohol but love the company I find drinking.

That's my hole, isnt it: drinking for company to not be alone? How close am I to drinking even alone, to occupy myself? How close does that make me to alchoholism?

If this is helping me self-analyze then I hope it helps you to, as well. Find your own metaphors, your own take on what the drink does to you. Good luck to you. I don't know what the rules are for resubmission but if you edit your work for content, to expand its meaning, I'd like to see it.

I'm going to approve this short submission, but in future you'll have to provide more in the way of critique. Even for short submissions. I do think there is value in what you wrote and in the comments you've already received, though.

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