Reviews for Paper Cramp - FictionPress.com

Reviews For: Paper Cramp - Reviews: Page 1 of 2

The Hippie Nerd 2008-08-10 ch 1,	abuseWhat a great story you manage to tell in so few words! Christian develops as a character in a few short scenes, you very effectively pull this off. It was a great idea to go between his writings and his interactions with others, it offers intriguing insight. A fascinating look at a somewhat egotistical character. Yet revolving around something I think a lot of us can relate to. Wonderfully told and a very effective use of so few words, well done!
JaneBarrie 2007-10-13 ch 1,	abuseI honestly can't hardly find anything wrong with your writing. You're grammar is impeccable. I only question two sentences: "Not breaking his gaze from the screen to give her a sarcastic stare" How can he not break his gaze and stare at her? This doesn't make sense to me, or maybe I'm just not reading it right. She bent over the back of the chair to kiss the corner of his mouth, revealing a purplish bruise on the sides of her neck. Is this referring back to Christian's story? With their earlier banter, their relationship doesn't seem abusive. The story was written well. Great job!
jekodama 2007-10-06 ch 1,	abuseWow, a crazed writer! a great idea, but very short in my opinion. That's actually a good prompt for a long trhiller, if you ask me - the crazy guy who has writer's block and starts killing people and writing about it, and... I don't know what else - I would also add a little more of background information about René and her relationship with Christian. Ah, and I also would change the genre classification; although somewhat funny, I don't think it should be listed under Humor. René intrigues me deeply: I assume she's a lawyer, yet she takes pleasure in something I'm sure she would loathe if she was in court. That mixture between chaos and order is very interesting. And Christian, well, I guess he really isn't that "Christian". Intense, yet not overwhelming, that's what this is, a nice read that leaves the reader with a need for more. Kudos!
Frozen From Mist 2007-06-21 ch 1,	abuseOh that was intense. It's kind of like how actual writers are, spilling their thoughts in the spur of the moment. It's kind of a rough transition from when Christian agrees to go out and when he is writing. I would maybe add when and how he got the idea for the story. Other than that I really liked it. I like Christian, although again, I wound add a little more about him in the first section. Maybe a bit more dialogue on the phone. One more thing I noticed is that you have it listed under General/Humor. I kind of don't think that the story is humorous, but I guess that is just opinion. That was another great one shot and I hope to read more. ~Meghan
Queen Anabella 2007-06-20 ch 1,	abuseI thought this was a really interesting read. I had to read the end a second time to realize that he got his inspiration from Rene. I missed the subtle 'bruises on the neck' thing. But anyways. This review isn't about my stupidity, it's about your story. As a whole, I thought it was well written. There were no blatant mistakes. The concept of writers renacting their novels in real life has been done before, but yours was an interesting spin. I love the name Christian. I know it's random. I guess his name is a juxtaposition against the darkness of his art. The ending, however, was a little confusing for me. I still don't understand the 'fix his brain'. :/
Angelical12345 2007-05-31 ch 1,	abusefascinating.. in a slightly disturbing way though. i rather like the subtle way you've revealed the plot. thumbs up ^^
-insertsomethinguniquehere- 2007-03-09 ch 1,	abuseThis was very well written. The character was portayed very well. And I didn't find any grammatical mistakes either.
The Small Print 2006-11-10 ch 1,	abuseI liked this short. Nice choice for the title, by the way :) It's a nice summary and glimpse into the writer's world, especially when minute interruptions like Christian's phone ringing seem to aggravate the process of trying to/being in the zone of creativity. A few personal favourite paragraphs include: "He knew this novel was going to be a bestsellers, if he could simply get the words out. Right in the middle, and he couldn't get the goddamn words! It was infuriating him. He couldn't sleep well, and definitely couldn't get his novel off his mind." "His mind was thinking, why hadn't he thought of it before, while his fingers told him to hurry up before he forgot the idea. But he wouldn't forget it. It was ingrained too deeply to be forgotten in ease. Burning brightly in bold letters within his eyes grasp this time. Right where he needed it." Overall, just nicely done. Especially the conclusion.
The Breakdancing Ninja 2006-10-28 ch 1,	abuseSmall corrections before I get to the main criticism: [The moan that followed after encouraged him to tighten his grip, as though her neck were a vise.] His grip would be the vise, not her neck. ["Hey! Don't bite my neck off, okay!" defensively voiced the person, whose voice he recognized as his friend.] I think the adequate expression is "don't bite my head off". This is the more subtle, tame sister of Gilee7's "A Cure for Writer's Block". It had a beautiful, sharp structure to it, where, instead of reiterating the crucial scene twice, the text from his soon-to-be bestseller piece provides all the details. I will probably talk about a few concepts. Namely, what people do for inspiration, why they might feel the need to pick up a muse. Relationships where usery is involved. The ego of the writer. And, possibly, if I have enough detail, I might end up delving into the issue of strangulation in relationships--not just physical strangulation, but the quality of suffocation and stifling that occurs emotionally when a relationship cannot satisfy certain areas. Throughout history, the classic romantic writers have chosen muses to supplement works of grandeur, class, as well as social commentaries. They usually choose a feminine aspect. Femininity embodies the ideals of creativity and feritility. So, when a person reads a piece, they are reading the consummation between a writer and his muse. It takes on a sexual process--so people might use the analogy: "the creative seed has been sown", or "a spiritual union between two creative bodies" and so forth. The reason why we might tap into the more sensual and darker aspects of the self to reflect on Life, is because the warmth and darkness of this reflective space is somewhat of a comfort. A muse will generally provide a surrogate empathy and compassion--even if just for a moment. That's a more compulsive artist will write or paint on the fly, as if inspiration has "struck" him. For those valuable moments, he has tapped into this warm, dark place and found a small insurgence of ethereal experiences, mostly empathy (ethos). We seek this interconnectivity in the way we deal with life. It's more obvious for artists because most of them will absolutely die if they don't have a muse or some type of inspiration coming to them. We experience only fleeting moments of this empathy and inspiration, and must snatch it. Sometimes we provide temporal stimulus and try to simulate "inspiration". It's akin to how we distract ourselves when we're bored. It's a compulsion to set up the perfect atmosphere for our fancies; a writer will automatically know that th ebest inspirations are spontaneous or found as an epiphany is found. And an artist who tries to utilize and manipulate his surroundings to create a forum for "art" usually will come up with something that is equally as synthesized. The compulsion to create something of beauty on the fly by "conjuring" something stems more from an anxiety or an inability to wait, or an anxiety that we might not be able to perform/create. A more anxious writer will try to assume the role of magician, and will generate for himself feelings of hopelessness when he cannot perform the lights show, and he might even turn out unsatisfactory work. I would like to distinguish, though, that a model or scheme is different from a muse, though the two are often confused. A relationship where usery involved--well, let me get the obvious out of the way: is selfish, usually characterizing a sort of one-sidedness where one person's wishes are fulfilled and the other takes the brunt of that person's mood swings and such, and the relationship isn't healthy and doesn't grow. Usery is usually just a projection. On to the next topic. I think Christian is under the special case of the writer's ego. He has already figured out that the most authentic, valid and strong pieces come from deliberate reflection on experience. In that way, he is already accomplished. He will actively seek experience, or look more closely at it than most writers. Almost like how a poet might sit at the park to reflect on nature. This type of ego draws everything into itself like a black hole--that bad part of this is the misreading of texts, people's emotions, and of situations. An artist who deliberately looks for events to characterize and authenticate scenes will often overlook other nuances because they have nothing to do with what he is looking for. The would-be panoramic scope and wide breadth of the writing is dwarfed by expectation. This is why, sometimes when we are looking for lost keys or some other articles, we can't find them until we resign to the fact that we can't, and then we end up finding them later on. In the process, we might find a lot of other things we had been looking for, but these other things lack importance because we become fixated. Even a precious heirloom lacks the same satisfactory quality when being found, as opposed to finding that sock or those pencils and so forth. What happens, then, is that experience is skewed by selectiveness. Once we get what we want, the experience is done for, as opposed to taking a more natural, open-minded and subconscious form of writing. I think of it the way I think of religion. Some pof us will pick and choose what we believe to fit our current life styles to make them even more effortless, instead of looking at everything objectively to enrich ourselves. This is a common mistake in writing. Next topic. Suffocation. Self-explanatory. Relationships lose that free, crisp quality when they become fixated and only about one theme. Enough of that. I think Christian uses his muse (who happens to call randomly, so in a sense it starts off as spontaneous--but I think he always had in mind to find something to write about) in such a careless way. I reflect on it with disdain, because I was him at one point. With the first beginning sentences presented to us, it is assumed that he wasn't exactly thinking about strangulation, but [He knew this novel was going to be a bestsellers, if he could simply get the words out. Right in the middle, and he couldn't get the goddamn words! It was infuriating him. He couldn't sleep well, and definitely couldn't get his novel off his mind.] With this type of fixation, he could accidentally create the forum for stimulus and "inspiration". ["Hey! Don't bite my neck off, okay!" defensively voiced the person, whose voice he recognized as his friend.] Remember this in the beginning? Either this was an innocent mistake, or it was purposeful. Because, as I corrected, the more common expression is "Don't bite my head off", but either the story (and the author of the story is already turning gears), or the actual placement is deliberate. Either way, this is a manifestation of what Christian himself might have done. This is what one might call, skipping ten steps ahead of himself. Sometimes a reader will get confused and might ask a few questions. Usually, we have something in mind and we're such in a rush to get to it that the process or everything else along the way is totally abandoned. This might have happened, here. Because obviously this Rene character is sort of interested in him, but he's needing her for a totally different reason--this story could've been completely different as well. Maybe he would've scrapped his intro all together and written a chapter that is just a conversation between the love interest and the main character. But the fact that the first phrase didn't change, already set the motion for something a lot like predestination, except, not for Calvinism, but for writing. This is a very clevery defined piece, not only because it's tactful, but it taps into something real and identifiable. It addresses an issue, and the obvious reason in real life being what was written in the author's note, though I could've already told you that JUST from the piece alone. This is the requirement that I look for in writing (like I said in my other review), and I feel a sense of fulfillment just having read and looked into this piece. Usually, if a piece brings up concepts for me, it's usually an indication that the piece is provocative in some sort of way. But I don't often bring up concepts, and this isn't because certain pieces aren't provocative, I just am not currently equipped with enough experience to touch on certain issues. This was an interesting story, though. And it's weird, Rene is just coming out from winning some sort of court case, so either she is a lawyer or some unhappy citizen caught in a web. I think, though, that if she's with a thriller-writing sophisticate, I would judge in favor of her being a lawyer (she also "studied criminal law", too)--someone who barters for freedom. And she ends up being strangled and silenced, which is basically a muting of the voice of reason and law in this story. It's kind of weird, a mental sociopath (or "criminal") and a law and order woman getting it on. It's a forbidden, provocative mixture. It has a sort of insanity and chaos to it, because of the obsessive fixation that Christian has, who isn't so "Christian". This piece is wonderful! Oh, and that wonderful thriller-novel description. It was beautiful. Gutteral and scary; perfect effects. It was rightfully rated "Mature", and not because of the sex, but with the maturity and class it took to write the scene. I'm a heavy admirer of good descriptions, because I can't exactly produce them myself. Thank God this piece wasn't too intense. I don't think my brain could handle anything intense right now. This had just the right blend. It was wonderful. See, I'll have to put this in my favorites, too. I think it'll have to bump off the romance essay. I don't know. We'll see. I'll leave them both up there for a few weeks and see what my brain thinks of the most. Your writing is like, Whoa?! I can't believe this review took me close to two hours. Gawd. I'll study tonight, review more tomorrow. Thank you for the great reads and for the great reflections, too! (And also for your extreme patience and awesome reviews!) Rock on, MS!
Makayla 2006-10-27 ch 1,	abuseWow, this guy and me are so in common it's scary. The way you described his writer's block were exactly the way I feel, I'm guessing that's what it feels like for you? "It was flowing from him faster than his fingers could type it on his computer"- Yep, very familiar :D It's a nice little one shot too, you portrayed your characters really well even though you only had a limmited time period to do it within. - By the way thanks for the review- you said you didn't guess the narrator was a cat. It's to be expected I suppose because neither did I until I got to the end, it just all flowed out as though someone else was dictating it and I was just typing it out. I suppose that's why I'm so proud of it lol.
EnigmaticArsenic 2006-10-27 ch 1,	abusehe he. this was an amusing little short. for some reason, i get this funny little scene in my head- you know, the moment in which he actually begins choking the girl in real life and in the middle, stops to think "eureka!", leave her, rush to his computer, and begins furiously typing away. like the most random thing. but yes. writers' block is truly of the devil.
SirScott 2006-10-25 ch 1,	abuseThat was a neat idea to write about a character who was going through writer's block. I like how you explained what inspired him to write. SirScott
Running to Stand Still 2006-10-25 ch 1,	abuseOh wow... That was cool, weird, but cool. A definitely awesome, if a tad short, read. It really wasn't that short, seeing as everything needed to be written was, so yeah... Good job! Keep it up!
itse 2006-10-25 ch 1,	abusewow this was awesome. the thriller part in italics was so good. i lov reading mystery thrillers. in fact it reminded me of Lisa Jackson. have u read any of her books? anyways great job. so r u going to write the actual story Christian was writing? hope that didnt sound too confusing lol tk care
criti-sized 2006-10-24 ch 1,	abuseUpon first reading this, my first response was that it was surely humorous. I know it's supposed to have this semi-dark air to it, that way the reader understands how frustrated Christian is, but it doesn't. At least not to me. I liked this short, it showed the aggravating emotion that alot of writers go through when suffering writer's block, but of course, we can't choke people. I mean I couldn't at least, I just sit and zone out, that seems to work. And you had writer's block, you don't have to explain, I already know why, life is stress, and stress'll mess up an idea quicker than amnesia. Anyways, like I stated, this was a very nice short, and the humor in it had me laughing... I'm still laughing at it. I also thought the nice touch of not having it that he killed Rene was nice. I've seen so many people have it in their stories for wirtier's block that the person may kill the other person, then they get their idea. To me, that's definitely fiction, but this shows a funny- and pardon the expression, but kinky side to get an idea.

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