The APer project - Opening

[Eliza Hodgkins 1812]

First, the good:

You cannot tell a lot about this people from the fragments you've given, unless - of course - you are Sherlock Holmes. But you've introduced archetypes, so we can relate to them. Who hasn't seen the tidy woman with the lipsticked Starbucks cup on her way to work? The man with the kids? You've perfectly illustrated a common moment in the lives of Los Angeles commuters. I can hear Los Angeles humming in my eardrum while reading this. There was a movie (not a good one) called Grand Canyon starring Kevin Klein, that frequently showed helicopters in shots - you could hear their noise. One reviewer criticized this, thought it unnecessary. But that reviewer was misunderstanding that the sight and sound of helicopters flying overhead is an almost uniquely Los Angeles feature, because few other cities require that kind of aerial monitoring of traffic. Like a lot of things in your beginning, it was a really nice touch. Subtle.

Again, one of the things I love most about your writing is your ability to take a common theme, image, person, etc., and by virtue of your own unique observation and means of expression, you make an old scene new again.

Now, what I think is less good:

The way it almost reads like a screenplay didn’t bother me at first. Hey, it’s L.A., why not capitalize on that? But after that feeling passed, the pacing became rote and stale. The sentences were the same lengths. There wasn’t enough variation. It reads a bit too much like sing-song poetry at times. And when working with vignettes something similar must tie them altogether, and I think the similarity has to go beyond Disneyland itself. If you were changing points of view, a complete alteration of writing style might work. Some vignettes written in first person, others in third, etc. But that’s a slippery slope, and if it’s what your going for, I may need to read a lot more before I pass judgment. Thus far, when considering the piece that came before this one, I’m jolted by the complete difference in approach, and would prefer that the freeway piece read more - in style - like the older gent/Rod piece.

I think that some of the individual paragraphs work nicely as they are (the first two, for example), but that sentences like these are unnecessary:

“Out of a sea of nameless faces, in a collage of clothing and cars and morning radio choices, we pause to peruse a few cars in particular.”

“Fly a few miles away – more cars and people than you can even register – and here’s a late-model sedan.”

We are aware that we are on a freeway, observing the various cars, so I don’t think it’s important that you address the movement from car to car each time. It reads like exposition. Obviously as we meet the inhabitants of each car we know we are moving right along, and as we pause to observe them, we too are stuck in traffic. That’s established nicely without you needing to say anything on the subject.

Also, since we are being given details about the lives of these people, and you are asking us to observe them since you’ve chosen to address your readers, why not play a little bit at guessing. You tell us to look into their cares, now guide us as you ask us to imagine their lives. Maybe you *can* tell a book by its cover sometimes, while other times your dead wrong. Tell us to imagine that the woman with the Starbucks coffee did such and such the night before. Who was she with? That way, we wonder how this all gets tied together? Why are we meeting these people? What is this and this all about? Then, eventually, you hit upon the Disney details last, and our questions are partially answered, and you once again go back to the central topic of what glues these vignettes together.