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Jarvy Jared

Jarvy Jared #1 · Aug 3rd, 2020 · 2 · 1 ·

TA Diamond In The Rough

An unfortunate mishap brings two friends together one night at the park, having them confront their inner demons and find solace in each other.

SunTwi06 · 6.6k words · 30 3 · 594 views

Author: SunTwi06

Description

One night, Silver Spoon receives a text from her old friend, Diamond Tiara, who requests to meet with her. She gets there only to find her best friend severely hurt, physically and emotionally. With no one to turn to, they spend the evening sharing each other's pain and trying to find some ray of hope in a dreary, cruel world.

Initial Thoughts

I’ll be honest, I’ve always been a bit iffy about Silver Spoon and Diamond Tiara as characters. I don’t mind the latter’s reformation - I expected it to happen at some point - but SS doesn’t quite have much characterization in the show, meaning she has a lot more room for an author’s interpretations.

Based on the description alone, I can guess that this is a story that will focus on the relationship between the two girls. So let’s see if that ends up being the case. Onto the story; and beware, for there will be spoilers.

Summary

After receiving a text from Diamond Tiara to come meet her in the park, Silver Spoon learns that she’s been kicked out of her house by her mother. Not only that, but she’s suffered physical abuse at her hands, and as such has to come to terms with the strained relationship with her maternal figure, and perhaps what it even means to be family.

Plot

My guess about the conflict turned out to be more or less right, which may say something about the simplicity and predictability of this story. That is to say, there was nothing at all surprising about it; and in a way that is admirable, for it sets out to do what it said it would.

Still, this story’s plot suffers from a lot of issues. The pacing of the story, perhaps, was its greatest detractor.

I want to pose to the author this question: Where does the story actually begin? Does it begin with Silver being in her manor, relaxing, lounging, blogging, reading, and then receiving a text from Diamond Tiara, with no explanation, asking her to come to the park? Or does it actually begin with Silver seeing Diamond’s stricken face, seeing the wound there?

We throw around the term “in media res” a lot in fiction workshops, but we do so for a reason. For as much as we may love the idea of setting the atmosphere of a setting, the truth is readers want to start as close to the action as possible. This isn’t a quantifiable factor; every story has a certain length from the conflict that it should start from, and that is different for every story.

For this story, it seems to me that it begins at the park. There’s no need whatsoever to have Silver Spoon be in her manor doing anything. It’s a nice setting, sure, but it isn’t relevant. It contributes little, if anything at all, to the plot of the story.

I made a note that looked at the part where Silver Spoon takes her time escaping through a window. I’m not sure what that moment is supposed to do, but I used it as a lens with which to view the rest of the preamble of the story. Everything in the beginning is hyper-focused on having the reader spend a lot of time with Silver Spoon. It’s a slow crawl through her evening, and only actually starts to pick up—though still slowly—when Diamond Tiara texts her. And even then, it takes a good seven or so paragraphs, and then the end of the first section, for the story to begin.

I’m not saying having a slow start is bad. I do enjoy them, and there are great books that are, relatively speaking, slow burns to get through (romance novels, for example, are definitely known for this, but so is speculative fiction, and some of John Steinbeck’s novels are near abusive of this technique). But I am saying that the conflict and plot of “A Diamond In The Rough” begs a faster pace, at least in the beginning. In fact, I bet that if the author simply cut out everything leading up to Silver Spoon being at the park, and simply having SS mention that she got DT’s text, the story would actually have a better beginning than it does now. That way, you’d improve the pacing and cut back on the exposition that the original beginning threw at us.

That’s a lot about the pacing, but what about the development of the plot itself? It’s hard to say. On one hand, this story seems to be an attempt at exploring Diamond Tiara’s abuse at the hands of her mother. All right, that’s interesting enough. But as abuse is a terribly complicated issue, does this story hold it in equally complicated light?

Not quite.

It almost gets there, I’ll grant that. Especially when Diamond’s frustration about her conflicted feelings regarding her mother come into play. That’s a very true phenomenon of abuse, especially among families; one is torn apart wanting to hate their abuser, and unable to do so, because their abuser is flesh and blood. The potential for exploring that level of cognitive dissonance is astounding… yet, the story doesn’t quite pull its weight there.

I’m not pulling this point out of nowhere or speculating that this is what I would have preferred to see. The story does say this:

“I hate my mom for what she did,” Diamond Tiara spoke. “But despite everything… I can’t find it in me to leave her. There’s a part of me that still loves her… She’s family, and family is something I know I can’t throw away. I don’t understand why I still love her, Silver.”

That, to me, could be the theme that this story was going for. It’s strong, it’s poignant, it could very well demonstrate how conflicted Diamond is, and how complex her home situation is. But this is a quote thrown in at the very end, and the majority of the story is spent simply explaining to Silver Spoon - and thus, the reader- what happened to Diamond.

On that note, this is a story heavy in exposition. That’s because it’s essentially a conversation. Nothing wrong with that, but that exposition gets away from the most important facet of this story: the drama.

All the information I’ve presented about Diamond’s home situation - that’s what she tells Silver. Easily, in fact, and perhaps too easily, and as such, the drama is lessened.

Any writing teacher will tell you that drama operates on tension, and this story actually does have tension - but only at first. The mystery of why Diamond wants Silver to come to the park, and speak in person, not over text - that’s where the tension begins. And arguably it reaches its peak when Silver sees the mark on Diamond’s face. But then Diamond begins immediately to explain her home life. And Silver coaxes her along, prompts her even. Everything is told, laid out flat, and the little nuance that moments of profundity could have had, is lost.

Score - 5 / 10

Characterization

As I mentioned before, Silver Spoon is a uniquely blank slate for authors. What SunTwi did here is… well, I’m not sure.

On one hand, I’m inclined to believe that this is Silver Spoon. She sure seems like it. But as a character in the story… I’m not sure what she’s supposed to be doing.

Silver Spoon, for the majority, takes the role of the passive observer. She doesn’t do much but listen while Diamond tells. She doesn’t quite act, either, until the very end. I suppose I can justify this by saying that it’s because she’s in total shock, but her impassivity becomes confounding the more that Diamond speaks. She doesn’t really have a character per se.

Short stories do present a dilemma of figuring out how much development has to happen, and I would be remiss to not admit that I struggle to do that myself. However, from what I’ve understood, a short story will have some sort of transformation occur at the end. Some transformations are large, and some are small. It seems to me that there is a lot of potential for Silver Spoon to experience a transformation, but the author misses the mark, and as such, relegates here to the back, as it were.

Let me bring up an example. At the beginning of the story, SunTwi06 writes this:

“Diamond Tiara has never seen me with my hair down,” Silver pondered. “Would she be surprised?”
Silver Spoon was just about to go up on that offer, as she made for the window…. Only to turn back and grab the scrunchy a few seconds later. She quickly fixes her hair until it resumed that signature twisted braided look.
“Next time…”

Then, at the end of the story, there’s this:

...But to her surprise, when Diamond reached her arm out, she clutched onto the scrunchy, holding her braided ponytail together… And gently pulled it off, allowing her silver hair to run free. Silver’s cheeks blushed, as she silently looked at Diamond Tiara.
“I always wanted to see how your hair looks without the ponytail,” Diamond Tiara smiled.
“Well… What do you think?” Silver Spoon asked, shyly.
“… You should keep it that way.”

In my comments, I noted that these two details are completely irrelevant to the story at hand. But, they could be very relevant with some adjustment.

If, for example, Silver Spoon was experiencing her own fair share of family issues, and that these issues were represented in some way by her hairstyle - perhaps constraint of some sort, of feeling trapped in appearance or disposition - then not only would she have a clear connection to Diamond’s plight that goes beyond her being her friend, but she’d also have a chance to be Diamond’s foil.

I don’t have quite the time to go on an extensive explanation of what a foil character is, but Encyclopedia Britannica has a great definition, which you should definitely check out.

The point is, there’s potential for Silver Spoon to do something in the story. And these two quotes, while at present, are innocuous and innocent, they could serve a greater purpose of tying the two girls together in more ways than just friendship.

Heck, by removing Silver’s parents altogether, the story has removed another avenue for foil-writing. If, instead, Silver had conflict with them, somehow, and if that related to her hair, and her wish to show Diamond… well, there’s an idea.

But what about Diamond’s characterization?

I don’t have a lot to say there. Diamond’s gotten a free pass in character since her beginning, teetering between cliche bully to reluctant problem-solver. As it stands, though, her reaction to her plight in this story is understandable. And her frustration was arguably the story’s emotional peak. One could hear how upset she was, and how confused, and how broken she felt.

As opposed to my observations with the plot, this is case where the characterization is a bit flat. Some more time spent developing Silver Spoon would definitely help improve things.

Score - 6 / 10

Syntax

I try really hard not to be a stickler for grammar, but when there are issues with sentences, punctuation, and word choice - issues that are glaringly obvious - it’s concerning.

Just to use an example, let’s take a look at the first paragraph:

It was late by the time she had finally finished her homework; her parents still weren’t home… Still, that’s how Silver Spoon liked it. Not so much that she detests her own family, quite the obvious. But usually her parents would go off attending a social gathering with their esteemed colleagues leaving her to man the fort, or in this case, her manor, with enough piece and quiet to get her work done. Somedays, her parents wouldn’t be home at all so Silver Spoon wasn’t too concerned.

Here, alone, I find a lot of issues.

The ellipses (...) after “home” are… an odd choice. Typically, ellipses are used to show when a thought or speech has trailed or faltered. Its inclusion here doesn’t really make much sense to me. I suppose it’s trying to demonstrate how Silver doesn’t mind her parents? But a period would suffice, and do a better job, than whatever the ellipses are attempting.
“Detests” - the tense changed, immediately. The story begins in past, but here it jumps to present, with no justifiable reason. The author and editor have to try and keep a better eye out for these tense changes - they can ruin sentence flow, and therefore the comprehension.
“Quite the obvious” - I believe the author meant to say “opposite”.
“With enough piece” - and here I think what is meant is “peace”
A comma should exist after “at all”.

These may be grammatical points, but there’s an importance to writing clearly that must come from proper grammar. You may argue that it’s not your style, but the truth is, style can only be justified if one understands the grammatical rules - and knows why they are the rules. Cormac McCarthy can write monsters of a sentence with only direct clauses and no punctuation whatsoever, but he can get away with it because he’s trying to convey the immensity of an environment - and immensity that grammar rules won’t allow for.

One other syntactical point stood out to me. There’s a part of the story where Diamond tells Silver what her father once told her:

’The negativity you feel in your heart is like a train going fast without breaks; if you stay too focused, it can eat away at you’

I think I understand what Rich - and therefore, the author - was trying to say. I know this is trying to be profound, but we run into an issue of an imbalanced simile. There's no correlation between the image of a train and the idea of being eaten away by something. This is an empty image - an empty simile.

Plus, a train going fast without breaks is cliche, so that's already a bit of an issue.

Moreover, it doesn't really seem to relate to... well, the context of the moment. If it's DT's father's attempt at trying to explain what it means to live with someone, be married to someone, and not love them... well, the meaning fails to register.

The point of simile and figurative language isn’t to sound clever or profound. The point is to illuminate meaning to something that you'd never think had an additional meaning to its name. Here, there is no meaning - it's a shallow attempt at being profound while not understanding what profundity is. If your simile isn’t clear, than the meaning behind that simile won’t be, either.

As a sidenote: really good poetry is AMAZING at this. So, if you want to improve your ability to convey new, profound thoughts, and still convey it in figurative language, read some poems by the Imagists or even the Romantics, if you dare. Or if you want strict profundity, stick to some Modernist poets. I myself love some Nazim Hikmet.

At the end of the day, the issues of grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure can’t be ignored. And they really do hurt the piece.

Score - 6 / 10

Final Score - ( 5 + 6 + 6 ) / 3 = 17 / 3 = 5.6 / 10

Final Thoughts

This story has the potential to be an examination into a difficult home life, but a lot that it attempts to do falls flat. There’s a sense of just brushing upon the issue, but never really attacking or confronting it. The above issues are among the most notable, and I would caution the author to try and look at their story from a larger perspective next time. Think critically about what you want to say - I don’t mean necessarily thematically as I do topically.

There are three questions that are at the crux of my critique:

What is this story about?
Where does this story start?
What role do the characters have by the end?

I think, though I would caution from obeying it to the letter, that perhaps the author may want to think about their writing in a similarly critical way, at least after the first draft. It has helped consolidate many of my more obtuse thoughts into a focused narrative.

There’s much potential to this story, I must reiterate that. But that potential isn’t quite reached.

I have a document with some extended comments and notes, too, so if the author would like to see them, I’d be happy to share.

SunTwi06

SunTwi06 #2 · Aug 3rd, 2020 · · ·

Not exactly the score I expected but then again, it could be far worse(that and the story was in far worse condition before being edited). I'll be keeping it up for the time being since I have other stories with priority but once I get back to this, I'll fix said issues. Honestly, I'm just glad it got featured for a short time so I'll take it. Thank you.

Cyonix

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