Lines of fiction and truth do blur (Zach)

[Lani Hunter]

It was earlier than Lani would have liked to get up, but there was an event going on at the University that he’d seen on the bulletin board that he couldn’t resist. There was a writing workshop, they were going to go through some books, some of which when he went to the website were his favorite books. Lani wasn’t much of a writer, sure he wrote but he also soon took those pages and tossed them away. He sometimes just wrote to get out something he couldn’t work out in his head, like something he needed to see on the page, but well, he was about as good at finishing something as he was with flying. He was curious and he’d always wanted to take a class or something in writing but usually those involved sharing work and so he ended up shying away. Someone looking at his writing was personal. Very personal, and for the thief he didn’t like anyone to know anything about him he didn’t chose to give them, so he tended to shy away from sharing his stories, as fictional as they might be.

He lounged on the bus his headphones blocking out the world and the oppressive silence of the bus riders. He was very aware of the world around him thanks to his power but his primary focus was in the book he was reading. It was getting very good and he found it very hard to put it down. Maybe people wouldn’t mind at this workshop if he just read the whole time. He smiled to himself at the thought. The bus stopped and Lani’s eyes flickered up and he reluctantly placed his book back into his bag and paid actual attention to where they were going, it would not do to miss his stop. It was strange being at the university. So many students all around, he almost felt inadequate being a community college student. It took a bit of hunting and but he found the building he was looking for and was greeted at the door by one of the workshop volunteers who handed him a schedule and a name tag.

He resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Weren’t they a little old for name tags? Lani supposed this meant they were supposed to talk to each other. The telekinetic winced but decided it was better than leaving, maybe someone would have an interesting story or something, he had to at laest give these strangers a chance. The initial introduction was relatively pleasant, too many people for individual introductions and soon they were split into the actual workshops. An hour long each, there were so many he wanted to go to, but alas being everywhere at once was not his power. He ended up at one labeled: Science Fiction: Relating Imaginary Worlds to the Real World. He sat down in a back corner and offered nothing but a polite smile at the person who sat down at the desk next to him. It didn’t take long and the instructor challenged them to write a short quip about a real world issue without actually addressing it. Lani wrote and found he could have written far more but the time had gone over and then his worst fear. They were instructed to trade and discuss… Oh no…. Lani was calm and collected when he smiled at the man next to him but inside he felt like a cornered animal caught in a spotlight.

[Deleted]

Zach was…slowly getting better. Actually, that wasn’t quite true at all, but he was hoping that attending a workshop like this might inspire or jumpstart some muse for him to get back to writing like he used to. He was behind in his assignments, honestly. After explaining the situation to them, he’d gotten an extension on most of them, but those were only good until the end of the year, three weeks after the semester ended.

Who’d’ve thunk that something as small as being robbed at gunpoint in an alleyway at night would’ve had such an impact on the writer. He was ashamed of himself for letting it affect him so much. If it had been Dev, or Gordon, or even Claudia, then they wouldn’t have….they probably wouldn’t have let it happen in the first place. Not like he and Lany, probably the two most passive members of the Bishop family…if he were more like Dev…

And there he went again, getting lost in his own thoughts. Think about regrets that he couldn’t do anything about anymore. Zach shook his head and sighed as he walked into the building where the seminar was taking place. He snickered at the name tag, scrawling his name almost illegibly on it with a Sharpie marker and placing it on his shirt, offset the center of his chest. He couldn’t afford to be absent-minded here. Zach needed to pay attention, focus, that was the point of him attending in the first place, right?

He drifted through the workshops, skimming the subject of each one he passed, until he found one that caught his appeal more than others for the moment. He slinked through the rows of seats and desks of the classroom until he found an empty one, offering a nervous smile to the man who was already in the other seat at that desk.

When they were advised to start writing, Zach struggled. Not as much as he had been before, but his writing was definitely coming slower than he would have liked. Though, it was refreshing having to write his prose in his composition book instead of on his laptop. That was a change that probably helped as well. There were cross-outs and scribbles, and arrows moving one paragraph here and another one there between the pages; it was a horrendously organized mess, Zach felt sorry for whoever ended up having to read and figure it out. When time stopped, he breathed, feeling like he hadn’t gotten anything done at all. Zach held his finger in his notebook, saving the place where his prose had been written, and looked to the person beside him. “H-hi…” he said hesitantly. “Um…you wouldn’t mind…working together, would you?” The question was uncertain, and his heart was thumping with unease. “I mean, we don’t have to, I can find someone else, but…yeah…what do you, um…say?” Hopefully, he hadn’t made a bad impression on this guy already.

[Lani Hunter]

Lani really made very little effort to make his writing legible, his chicken scratch was far from pretty but it was at least readable, at least for the most part. The telekinetic had a strange mix of cursive-like print that ended in half of the letters being looping with sharp edges that muddled where one word ended and another began. It was very easy for Lani to pick up a topic, what wasn’t easy was how to portray it without actually addressing it as a problem. He’d never been a huge fan of satire though, it was certainly amusing when done right. No, he didn’t want to do satire. He also had a quite different look at the topic he imagined. Soon there was a character and a personality and Lani found himself scrawling very quickly across the page. It hadn’t been too long since Lani had written anything by hand but nevertheless after the allotted time his hand was starting to ache.

His thoughts were orderly and woven, not a single word graced the page without going through without careful consideration. If Lani miss-stepped the offending word got the ax of the eraser. The plan outlined in his head was rigid but also blurry and it was then that he realized he could go on and on but that would never get him to the conclusion that he wanted. Was it appropriate to take this stance? He wondered. Probably not, but no one else is going to. It was strange that it was turning into something he hadn’t intended initially but it flowed from his as easily as his power did when he let it. The time called pulled Lani, blinking like an owl, out of his day dream. It didn’t take him long to recover from the initial shock and then smoothly look over at the boy sitting next to him. He raised a brow looking at the vast expanse of scratches and notes. The page looked like a battlefield!

“Hi,” Lani replied smoothly and hoped this kid wasn’t going to make this awkward… well, too late. He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile, but his hand rested protectively over his own notepad. He really didn’t want to give it up. It was too personal, too real! Lani swallowed and shook his head. “N-not at all, I mean that’s what we’re supposed to do right?” He said with a stiff laugh and a shrug of his shoulders. He blinked at the other man as he continued and it seemed very much to Lani that if there was a shovel around this guy would quickly be digging himself into a hole and busying himself for apologize for the dirt he was kicking up. He shook his head again and nodded at the man.

“No, no, it’s fine, we can work together,” he said and offered his hand to the other man. “I’m Lani, do…” he was cut off as the instructor started talking again. She was just commenting on the future tasks of this work shop but for now she was letting them talk. She declared a time limit and Lani resisted rolling his eyes. Did the instructor really feel the need to repeat the assignment? As if it was a hard concept to grasp. He turned back to the man as the room buzzed with whispered words. “I guess… uh… what did you write about?” He asked lamely, not really wanting to immediately hand over his notebook. He was a tight guardian of his inner thoughts and just handing them over to someone, suddenly he was very nervy and the only thing keeping him from walking out was that he hated drawing attention to himself even more.

[Deleted]

Zach rarely used pencil. He found it cumbersome, having to go back and erase thoughts that he rejected, sully up the page, and then realize that what he erased was something that he actually did want to say, but now it was gone forever. And he didn’t quite have the best memory to recreate those sentences word-for-word. That’s why he penned it in, and crossed thing out with a single line if he decided to nix it from the page. That way he could still go back and reference the prose if he needed. Sometimes those rejected phrases segued his writing into a direction he never expected, especially when he was approaching a roadblock.

His roadblocks had become far more frequent than what was comfortable, or normal, for the young writer. Zach hadn’t had this much trouble in writing since spring last year, when he broke up with Kai, and had ended in the summer when they finally decided to at least try and be friends. His pen flowed freely after that, until the incident in September with Lany, and which had stranded him at yet another wall he wasn’t sure he could climb yet.

For this assignment, Zach had little idea of what to write. Had he been starting from scratch, he likely would have had nothing more than a few sentences written by the time the session had ended. Zach had a million and one stories locked away in his head, not all of them having been jotted down on paper in storytelling form(just summaries, mostly), so it was from those archives that he derived a topic, characters, and a scene in which to depict his stance. He was almost certain that it would be confusing to figure out, with all the notations and scribbles on the page.

“Yeah,” he said softly. Seemed this guy was just as awkward as Zach. That…kind of made it easier, honestly. He smiled as the man agreed to work with him and then introduced himself as…Lany? Did he hear that right? Small world, same name as his little sister…Zach wasn’t going to say that out loud, however. He doubted that Lani wanted to be compared to someone else’s sister. Zach offered his own hand to shake and was about to give his own name when the teacher started talking again. “I’m Zach,” he said as soon as there was an appropriate break in the teacher’s spoken instructions. Conversely to Lani, Zach preferred to just hand over his notebook and let his writing speak for itself. Because…talking…he could do it, but what was the point of having someone else read it if you were going to tell them what it was about to begin with? “Um….nothing too…big…or interesting. Just kind of went for the obvious and did a relationship…kind of…thing…” Because that was descriptive. “W-what about you?” he returned the question, hoping his own didn’t seem too lame compared to Lani’s.

[Lani Hunter]

Lani was by nature disorderly, but when it came to writing something he was more precise, it had to do with his plan. He laid it all out in his mind before he put anything down and going back was sometimes a burden and unless it was a large flaw he erased. Today had been good, it had flowed well, but when he glanced at the page his partner had in front of him it looked very much like something he had done and then decided to trash because he couldn’t get his mind to work in a straight line. Maybe it would have been better for him to keep those things that hadn’t gone as planned but he had enough disorder in his life already. Besides, he didn’t write for people to read, he wrote to get in on a page and then destroy it. Sure, there were a few things he kept now and again, but he kept them locked away with his other hidden life.

The boy across from him, Lani had already decided was a better writer than he was, after all he probably went to school here and wasn’t just scooting along for the ride. When this day was over he would be here and Lani would go back to the community college and continue pondering his life and where he wanted it to go. He changed his mind about once every month. The one thing he kept returning to was teaching or training of some sort. Lani would have loved to do science but he didn’t think he was smart enough to make it all the way through, nor did he have the money if he had to go through school and then graduate school. No way. Not like they’d let him in anyways, not with his history.

It was probably for the best that this guy didn’t mention that. Lani’d been teased for having a ‘girlie’ name for as long as he could remember. Well, he’d broken just as many noses as people who’d mentioned it. A quick shake of the hands and Lani watched Zach carefully, how peculiar. If he didn’t think his own work was interesting why write it down at all? The obvious, Lani’s expression didn’t change so much as a hair but inwardly he groaned, maybe he’d misjudged this guy, maybe he was just boring and usual. “A relationship kind of thing?” He echoed raising a brow and offered a smile, “I’m sure it’s good.” The telekinetic turned his eyes down to his own page at the question as if he couldn’t quite remember it. In some ways it was almost the truth. Sometimes writing pulled him in like a good book and when someone knocked him out of it, it was like he was waking from a dream.

“It’s about people,” he said simply his eyes going distant at the thought. He looked down at it and swallowed passing the short page over to his partner. “I didn’t get as far as I wanted,” he warned apologetically.

‘David leaned back on bleachers pondering the blue of the sky. Luke plopped down next to him without a word of warning, but David didn’t start, he just kept staring. “Earth to David,” Luke said waving his hand in front of David’s eyes. David blinked and finally glanced at Luke.

“Sorry I was just thinking,” David said, “how’s it goin’?”

“Eh, you know,” the other boy said leaning back and shrugging his shoulders in the way that David knew meant was ‘bad’.

“What’s up?”

“It’s nothing man,” Luke said, failing to convince David. David stared blandly and just waited, Luke would tell him, and after a few seconds he did. “It’s just all of these pricks. They think they’re so much better than us!”

David frowned, this again. Luke was a tall and scrawny thing, a favorite for the jocks to beat up on. David stepped in whenever he could, but he couldn’t be everywhere. David wasn’t picked on, he was by social standards ‘normal’, not popular but not disliked just for existing. Some people muttered to him that hanging around with Luke was bound to get him into trouble.

David didn’t mind, Luke was a nice guy and it was too bad for those who let his studious glasses and acne get in the way of getting to know him. A group of people walked up the bleacher and waved hello to David, who returned it as they passed. One of them sneered at Luke, who looked like he could very much like to be a turtle and hide within his shell.

“Don’t worry about them,” David said, “What they think doesn’t matter.”

Luke scoffed, “Sure you can say that. You don’t get the snot beat out of you in the locker rooms.”

Turning his brown eyes on Luke, David asked him very seriously, “Do they?” David frowned when Luke confirmed it and David closed his eyes, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose. Why people did this was far beyond him.

A car pulled up and David rose to his feet, “I gotta run, don’t let it get to you. But if they come after you again tell the teacher.” David turned his back knowing that Luke would rather die than tell the teachers. David had mentioned it a few times but while the teachers showed signs of sympathy nothing was ever done.

“Hey, David!” A bright voice cooed as he opened the passenger door.

“Hey, Lexie,” he replied leaning over to give her a kiss.

“Ew, why do you hang out with him? He’s so weird.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“Whatever,” she said and turned up the radio as they waited for two more of their friends to get in. Brian and Andrew stuffed in the back with Stephanie in the back. Stephanie was a very quiet person, easy for forget if you weren’t careful.

It was Friday night and on Friday they went over to Brian’s to play video games and complain about their teacher and the amount of work they had to do. It was several hours before David’s parents showed up at the door to pick him up.

He got in the car and his parents went on discussing their finances as if he wasn’t even there. David never let anyone drive him home, not when his friends passed his neighborhood and stuck up their nose. The house was about two feet away from another house on either side, with a backyard that was about as deep as he was tall. The pitbull, Lucy barked from the backyard, but David ignored it and made his way upstairs and fell into bed.

When David woke, startled out of a dream, his forehead was damp and the room seemed too cold. Always the same dream, someone or something was calling to him. Unable to quell or understand the urgent feeling in his gut, he got up and dressed. Sliding the window open he slipped down onto the back porch.

He did it often enough and Lucy rushed up and licked his hand as he scratch her ears. He pressed a finger to his lips as if she could understand and slipped out through the houses and started walking. The urgent feeling grew and the voice he thought was only in his dreams called out. He couldn’t make it out, he could only tell that it needed him.

He found himself at the gateway to a cemetery. Of course, he thought, and a large part of his mind decided it would be best to turn away now and forget all about this. He swallowed and the urgent muttering struck. ‘David!’ David was struck where he was and his eyes looked off into the darkness with fear.

The urgent feeling called to him and he stumbled his way through the graves. The large crypt rose up ahead of him and the door was covered with marks he couldn’t have even read if it wasn’t dark. He touched it and yelped jumping back. It burned! The voice was inside! He had to get in!

He felt the door until he found something that felt like a knob and then turned it. The metal screeched in protest but the door opened. Huh, David thought, well I’m going to die. He decided and stepped inside.

The door swung shut behind him and the darkness was oppressive. “Hello?” He called into the darkness his voice shaking through the room. He found his eyes adjusting and suddenly found the light of the moon reflecting brilliantly off many mirrors laid into the ground and the walls. He could make out a black shape on the wall, a carving of a dragon. What the hell was this place?

“Hello?” He called again in desperation, the urgent call had only gotten louder and suddenly David felt as if the world were taken from beneath his feet. A dragon’s head emerged from the wall, stopping just behind a semicircle that was carved into the floor. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t even scream as large brilliant violet eyes opened.

‘David.’ The voice rang in his head louder than ever. It took him a long moment to realize it was coming from it… from her! He opened his mouth to scream but no sound came out. ‘Dear child, take a breath, even if I wanted to eat you I couldn’t.’

“Wh—”

She opened her jaws and a light came from within. David did scream now closing his eyes and covering his face with his arms but he soon found the sound of his voice was very loud but he wasn’t in pain. He peaked his eyes opened and the black fire struck an invisible wall and dispersed. ‘See now, little one’ I cannot harm you, but I assure you I will not harm you.’

“Who… what…?”

‘Allow me to explain,’ she said and after politely suggesting he sit she told him her story. She was the last of her kind, imprisoned for a crime she didn’t commit, she was darkness and they were afraid of her, though she had done nothing wrong. ‘Now, child, I do not expect your understanding, but I leave you with these memories.’ David felt like his skull was on fire, there was so much pain, not physical but mental. Heartache that struck at his core as he watch his son… no her son… die in battle. The image flared and he was standing terrified and looking desperately for an escape. “I’ree you stand condemned, you have darkness in you, evil and you shall no longer infect the world!” The man speaking raised a staff and suddenly there was pain then nothing at all but aching loneliness and despair.

David’s heart struck and he looked at her in disbelief. “But… you… they locked you away.”

The giant head nodded. ‘Not all evil hides in darkness, nor does darkness always hide evil. But many millennia ago, a cruel man lived and he was of darkness and people came to fear the dark. Your people know him as ‘the Boogie Man’, my people know him as ‘Baboulas’. He warped darkness and because of that I am trapped here.’

“Why did you bring me here?” David asked.

‘Because in your heart is darkness,’ she said, ‘I can see it and it is beautiful.’

“I’m not evil!” David cried covering his heart with his hands.

The giant head shook again. ‘I didn’t say evil, I said darkness. Darkness is being able to see that which others cannot see and coming out clean. Darkness is courting evil and destroying it time after time.’

David gazed into her violet eyes. “What do you want with me? Even if I could let you out, why should I?”

‘I have already left. My soul is all that remains and it is sad. I have to redeem my darkness in the eyes of the light, only then can I truly be free. That is why when I sensed your heart I called to you, because you and I together can restore balance. Right now the evil hides in the light and people fear the good in the dark, we can change that. Only then will I be free. So, little David, will you help me?’

David hesitated and the dragon closed her eyes sadly. “What do I need to do?” He asked, surprising himself, why should he trust her? He’d seen her in his dreams and now it all made sense, she’d given him her story bit by bit in his dreams, calling out as she had, he knew the truth as she saw it.

Her violet eyes pierced his. He didn’t have to question it. He reached his hand toward her, shaking and hesitant. Never did she move to touch him, even when he crossed the seal, she waited patiently. He gently laid his hand on her nose and there was a rush of love and warmth through him, how could he have ever doubted her? The good that lives in evil?’

[Deleted]

“Yeah…relationship…thing. Between family….and people…” Could he get any more vague? Zach could probably take that challenge and succeed, for this was pretty specific considering Zach’s chronic inability to articulate ever. Zach smiled at Lani’s own description. Clearly, they were both descriptive people, it was a wonder they could write at all. Zach handed his writing piece to Lani, and took his in turn. “It looks like….you got farther than I did, at least…” He managed another smile at the fellow before settling his eyes on the script in front of him.

To be honest, the lot that Lani gave Zach was…intimidating. Compared to what Zach had, it was several times longer. Reading through it, the passage was rough, unrefined, but interesting. He’d never have guessed that it was a fantasy story, reading from the beginning, and the ending left him wondering where Lani intended to take it. The pacing suggested a long, epic adventure, for certain. It made Zach self conscious about his own work, and wondered how the other boy would critique it.

Adam had only about $24 in his bank account to buy a package of ramen noodles, water, a pound of meat, and some bread in addition to paints, pencils, canvas, and a sketch pad. It was a hard summer; going though the paperwork to get Cheyanne into the Senior Center, moving out of the house, and trying to decide what was worth keeping and what wasn't. Also, it was more than a pain finding an apartment that was close to the college, but still affordable on the limited income he got from his job at the movie store.

It seems that his efforts to save money as a child were wiser than he could have imagined back then. By the beginning of the summer, he had saved a considerable amount, just enough to commit his ever worsening mother into a home where the 56 year old woman could have round-the-clock care for the Alzheimer's that she must have been dealing with for the past 10 years or so. Yet she never let on to her difficulties. The commitment left him with less than a thousand dollars, which he used for the deposit on a 350 square foot studio flat complete with a small kitchenette, and a shared bathroom with the tenant next door, an overweight puerto rican man who was the owner of a failing novelty store. The rest went towards his bicycle and the little gas money needed to transport his personal items to the flat with the Volkswagon he just now sold with the house.

Things had gotten to a point that Adam never truly considered, but now that he was there, he still had the confidence to chant his usual mantra, “Things could be worse.”

Adam rode his bicycle through the winding and hilly streets of northern Virginia, away from his childhood neighborhood, past his elementary school, and towards old-town Leeseburg, a place bustling with small shops, historical landmarks, and unbeknownst to most tourists, a collection of living spaces set above the commercialism in those four and five story buildings. This was also no farther than 5 miles from from the art school he attended.

As he passed by the facility, he followed it from across the large parking lot with his light green eyes. The air had become more humid, with the cool August monsoons coming in preparation for the fall season. The new semester would be starting in less than a week, and he still had so much to do. But his anxiety could not be hidden. He wondered again whether he would have to quit school or not, which was not a viable option because quitting the scholarship program would mean even more debt, for he would have to pay back the educational costs from the past 3 years. He even came to wonder if he even had the inspiration to work on his final project, another requirement for graduation.

Adam skidded to the base of his apartment building and tracked his bike in and towards the elevator. This would be his first actual night spent in his new apartment after having sold the house, though he'd been renting it for the past 2 weeks. The key turned into the lock and he entered inside the small studio. Compared to his former life, it was quite pathetic, containing only a bed in the corner with a sheet and his favorite salvaged comforter, and an easel with “Marie” sitting atop it. The kitchenette had nothing but an unwashed pot and a single dining set. His clothing was hung in the small closet with his undergarments piled in a box on the floor. Adam leaned his bicycle against the side of the heater and scanned the depressing sight with a heavy sigh.

“It sounds like you've had a hard day. It looks pretty bad too. This isn't your normal room, is it?”

Adam entered the kitchenette and began putting away the few groceries he'd bought on the way to his new home. “I had to sell my house today. My mother's been too sick to keep at home and I don't have the money too pay for her care. It seems like life has dealt me a hard hand this year.”

“I see. That sounds horrible.” The voice of the young girl was truly concerned. “I know! You should just come live with me! You’re more than welcome here, and if you brought your mother, I'm sure father would make sure she had the best doctors available.”

Adam smiled at the offer. “That sounds really nice. I think I'd like that. So, you've made up with your father, I presume?”

“That is correct. After meeting with him a few times, I've decided that Sir Edimus really isn't that horrible of a man. In fact, he's quite handsome for a man of thirty. For my father’s sake, and that of my country, I think I can come to love him.” Her voice hid a certain excitement.

Adam chuckled slightly. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you already love him quite a bit. Did something happen?”

The young girl blushed slightly. “Well...we kinda...and then....” Her voice trailed off.

“It's OK. You don't have to tell me.” Adam reassured her. “I can kind of guess what must have happened. Sir Edimus must be quite the charmer. From how you described him, I’d say his interest in you is sincere.”

“Yep. I tried telling him that I like you, but he didn't believe me. I brought him up to the tower, but you weren't there, so he thought I was making it up.” The girl looked pleadingly at Adam. “If you did come to my land, then I'm sure he would believe me. For sure! I want to meet you, Sir Adam.”

Adam sat down on his bed and glanced forward at the picture held on his easel. “My Lady Marie, it would do me great pleasure to be where you are now, and should I ever find a way to your land, you can be certain that I would forever be in your debt and service.”

[Lani Hunter]

Lani bit his lip and choked down the retort he almost let slip. After all, relationships generally were between people, that was kind of given. Instead, Lani schooled his features into neutrality and looked at Zach with an interested gaze. He offered a smile but didn’t trust his voice not to give him away. He didn’t think Zach would appreciate his sarcasm right now, he seemed nervy as it was. The telekinetic took the pages and wondered how he was going to follow the story with all of the arrows and lines and side notes. Lani flushed crimson, realizing that he’d handed someone his pages made it feel like he was handing over a piece of his soul. He almost balked and took it back, his fingers twitched and his power reached for it, grasping it for a moment before he calmed himself down.

“Just because it’s long doesn’t mean it’s good,” Lani replied shortly, that was all it was really, a great long load of nonsense. His hand still felt cramped from the fury of his writing, and he knew it was about as well put together as a poorly woven sock. He was terribly embarrassed by it now that he thought about it. It wasn’t good, it wasn’t done, it wasn’t polished and ready for human eyes. He glanced sidelong at Zach as he began to read. Would Zach laugh at him? Lani’s power stretched out for the page again, his unconscious desire to grab it and hide coming out in his power. The boy’s pen ended up rolling as his power swept over the desk and that was when Lani realized his power was poised to steal the page. He shut it down and distracted himself by looking down at Zach’s work.

Lani couldn’t help but smile, the mere fact that the main character’s name was Adam immediately put his goofy roommate’s image in his head and well, it seemed like his roommate was the antithesis of this Adam. It felt rushed, and minor details caused Lani to get stuck. Was it possible to get Alzheimer’s so young, Lani had no idea, probably. Could he really afford all of that for so little money? The thief in him wondered why he didn’t just steal it. He shook his head, realized he was getting bogged down in the details. He found he liked this Adam, he had a good head on his shoulders. Even falling on hard times, there was optimism. Lani’s mind screeched to a halt and he reread then reread again the last bit. He didn’t get it. Was this guy crazy and just talking to his painting? Schizophrenia?

Then Lani got it. He reread the section again and realized he was being thick again. Lani took his pen and just drew several exclamation points at the end of the story. He wasn’t sure that Zach would appreciate him writing on his stuff, but Lani was excited. This was brilliant! Another world! But did the painter paint it? Did he find it? Was he a meta human? A magician who enchanted it? Or was he indeed crazy? Lani’s tongue itched to ask, he wanted to know more. The details had distracted him at first but now he wanted to know how they tied into the whole picture. This had the makings of a fascinating story. And a fascinating relationship. Zach didn’t give his own work credit enough. He smiled and tentatively looked over at Zach to see if he’d finished and then wondered if he really wanted to know what Zach though. He coughed nervously and looked around, other partners were giggling discussing and pointing to things on a page. Was Lani supposed to be writing on this? He sat back, maybe he should let Zach take it back and write himself, to decide whether or not he wanted to take Lani’s comments to heart.

[Deleted]

Zach really wasn’t doing much to make himself seem…what? Intelligent? In the eyes of this person. In the eyes of anybody. He could hear the mocking now, as they would come from Kai, from Jade, if they were to have heard anything he’d said thus far in this conversation. Even Zach thought he was an idiot. So Lani really didn’t have to say anything…though had he, it wouldn’t have been anything the writer hadn’t been subjected to before.

“You won’t know until others read it,” Zach offered. “And rarely is any first draft good. Besides, there will always be someone who likes your work and someone who doesn’t.” He smiled to Lani. “Um..I mean…isn’t the point of this exercise to…find out how…you can do better? Where your weaknesses are? And so on?” At least that was the theory. It was supposed to be that way. But Zach had to admit that even he hoped that his writing wasn’t just shot down completely and mercilessly. Some critics had a tendency to nit-pick. To find everything wrong that they could possibly find. And grammar nazis. Those were the worst and will get you for using one too many commas or one too few or argue with you about the proper usage of the Oxford comma. Zach wasn’t like that. Or at least, he tried not to be. There was always something good about a particular piece he could find. If he couldn’t find it…then it had to be really bad. And Zach hardly thought that Lani would be here if his writing level was that poor.

Regarding his own work, Zach had reasons for writing some of the things he did. This was just a very short scene from a much larger world that he’d been working on for years. It was just a scene that he’d never really written outside of a few vague notes. He was the sort of writer to bounce around from one scene to the next, rarely ever writing them in order, with the intention of putting them all together like a giant puzzle and then editing them into something that made sense, checking continuity, making sure the reader could tell exactly where they were in the timeline if the scenes bounced around in time as well.

It might explain Zach primary worry for his own piece. It was a small look at a bigger world, a bigger story, and he didn’t have the luxury of explaining what that world was. So he had to find tricks to show it off in the regular prose and trust that the reader was smart enough to infer what was going on, to an extent. It was a complicated tactic. Hit or miss. It was something Pratchett used, only giving information as it was relevant to the story, as opposed to the massive information dumps of Martin, or even worse, the never ending world descriptions of Tolkein, who was more interested in showing off his world and landscapes like an excited kid raving about his new minecraft map, rather than about the story itself.

Obviously, it would take Zach longer to get through Lani’s story than it would take for Lani to get through Zach’s, based on the length alone. So when Lani had finished, and was scribbling notes on Zach’s papers, Zach was still going through Lani’s, paragraph by paragraph, and trying to wrap the whole thing around his head at once.

Bullying. That much was apparent for the guy Luke. David was likely his only friend, but he was the social butterfly. The guy who was nice to everyone. Or probably floated from one group to the next, uncaring of labels and clique wars. Great dialogue he wrote. Sounds natural. There were friends. A group of kids who did normal kid things. A family. David was the focus of the story. He found that interesting because traditionally it was the underdog, the ‘bullied’, who ended up being the protagonist. That’s how it was in his own story, with Adam, but that wasn’t included in his excerpt. Zach drew a bracket around the next section. Maybe condense? Explaining his every move from one scene to the next can make a reader lose interest. Though he understood it’s purpose. To expand on David’s character. Show what kind of kid he was.

There were a few other notations he wrote. Some were praise, others were suggestions. He hoped he wasn’t being too excessive in his opinions. Zach glanced over to his partner and shied into a blush. “Sorry….I’m taking a long time, aren’t I?” He didn’t want to keep Lani waiting. “Um…I mean, I read it. I like it. I’m just…I can give you a quick run-down of everything right now, if you want. I just like…taking notes so I don’t forget where I…what I….yeah…” Coherency at it’s best, ladies and gentleman! Zach offered Lani a nervous smile.

[Lani Hunter]

Lani merely shrugged in response, he could sympathized, after all, wasn’t he considering his own work terrible, as if to work himself up and prepare himself for the harsh criticism to come. Again Zach was rambling, did this kid do anything but? Lani was starting to think he just took a breath and let flow whatever thought was on his mind in a manner just as disorganized and jumpy. “Yeah,” was Lani’s quick reply to the speech, a soft affirmative was all he could think to follow all of that. Honestly, Lani wanted to take this kid by the shoulders and tell him to relax. At least Lani could turn his focus back onto something else now. He hoped this guy wasn’t one of those grammar Nazis, the ones that picked out every little error. Well, bad luck for him because Lani didn’t believe in grammar. A ghost of a smile snuck across his lips. Odion was constantly correcting his grammar.

It was quite a puzzle. Lani felt like he spent half of his time reading following arrows and then back tracking. He was sure he accidentally read the same paragraph twice. It was a phenomenal story, Lani wondered if that was a sign, Zach probably had more practice and well, it was only a rough, it wasn’t like it was going to be perfect. The process was kind of fascinating, honestly. It gave Lani’s organized mind a challenge. It may look short against Lani’s piece and much more of a flickering scene but Lani liked it. It had a good tempo and it was moving quickly along, nowhere did Lani feel like there was something that was unnecessary, but that might be because he was a fan of details.

The telekinetic would have like a little back story though, it would have made the transition from normal world to fantasy a little easier to swallow. Lani felt like he was thrown into a world where he wasn’t sure what was real anymore, which he wasn’t sure if that was what Zach had in mind. He glanced at Zach itching to ask him. It was one of those things that Lani got stuck on and he couldn’t move past once he got stuck on it. Then he noticed Zach making notes of his own. That made the telekinetic nervous. He shifted a little bit as if he could get a better look over Zach’s shoulder that way. It didn’t work. The pencil spun in his hand for a moment before he caught it back against with the point toward Zach’s page. He made a note here and there. A question mostly for curiosity’s sake on a few of the details.

Another note on the transition that was confusing, he looked back toward the beginning, perhaps there was a hint up there… no. Overall Lani loved it, he wanted to read more. He was very much a reading writer. No formal training or classes but here he was because he’d decided to pick up his pen and dabble. The telekinetic rose a brow as he caught Zach glance toward him out of the corner of his eye. He smiled warmly at Zach, his rambling and interesting partner. “Don’t worry about it, you’re not the one who made it so long,” Lani replied, laughter accenting his voice. Sheepishly, Lani scratched the back of his head. Lani watched Zach, bemused as he started explaining himself, it was as if he had a million things to say in once sentence and when he felt they didn’t come out right he decided to say them all anyways. Not a bad thing, Lani reasoned, he’d gotten himself into a fair amount of trouble when he assumed someone could read his mind and find the meaning there.

“I like yours too, it’s…” he paused and let Zach continue speaking, “Take your time, I’ll take another pass to do notes, then maybe we can chat?” He suggested. He raised a brow and let his eyes look quickly over the page to see if he could make out anything that would give him a clue to what Zach thought. Lani spent his entire life lying to people, lying to himself. He could sniff out a lie better than a bloodhound on a fox. He did not appreciate being lied too, and since it was a special occasion Lani wouldn’t lie either. Not that Zach would know, the thief thought, not to humbly. Lani hadn’t quite gotten over the habit and it was still his first go to thing. He had been trying this ‘honesty’ thing again. He’d slipped well back into his old ways but Odion just had to show up and make it all hard again and Lani figured, if he were going to try this thing again he might as well go all the way. He wasn’t going to sit here and lie to Zach, that wouldn’t be beneficial to Lani, there was the real point. Also, it wouldn’t do Zach any good if he lied.

[Deleted]

Lani wasn’t wrong. Savvy had often argued that the reason why Zach was always tongue tied was because his mind was thinking about 10 different things at once and couldn’t figure out which one to say first. And even if he did figure that out, his thoughts were moving too fast for his mouth to decipher them into any sort of coherence. That might also be the reason for his haphazard writing style as well, and why it didn’t occur to him until long after the fact that this way was better than that way, or that it should have been said like this or that that should go over here instead. In that respect, Zach could be considered a little bit of a grammar Nazi himself, in that he could pick out those mistakes easily in prose. But he tried to refrain from pointing them out in critiques, because content, at that point, was much more important. Grammar could be fixed in the final editing.

Zach chuckled, looking back down at the paper in his hand. “That’s not a bad thing….really. I think it’s impressive that you could…well, get so much down so quickly. You have a….um..a very linear flow, in your writing. That kind of…writing style…it’s easy to write a lot, I think…” He hoped he didn’t sound too critical just then. Because it was that same writing style that caused him to include a lot of unnecessarily long transitions from one scene to the next, turing the whole story into one very long scene that kept a very close focus on the main protagonist.

Zach’s eyes brightened to hear the small compliment about his own story. Butterflies were fluttering and doing acrobatics in his stomach now, from the pure anticipation of it all. What…what did Lani have to say about Zach’s story? It was both exciting, and terrifying at once. Zach nodded. “Okay, that sounds…good.” It took a few minutes more, but Zach did finally finish. It may have been done more quickly, however, because he was self-conscious about taking so long. That, and he didn’t know how much time they’d been allotted to discuss each other’s writings, or how much they had left. Zach had always been poor about time management when he got lost in his reading or writing.

When he looked up, his eyebrows rose with him; a nervous gesture. He was silent for a few second before finally speaking. “So….should I go first?” Yes, he should. Zach took a deep breath and leaned in slightly, though he was unsure of where to begin. At the beginning, you dope, he told himself. “So….” he said again, letting the word linger in the air a bit. “I, uh…first want to say that… really like the story concept. It’s really interesting, and I’m wondering where you’re going with the rest of it. Like, the big picture. I can’t really tell just from this, but….I guess that’s the point. You want to make your reading want to know more, like…like want to keep reading to find out what that big picture is.” Zach cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “Your theme….like what the dragon said, seems to be that…I guess not all darkness is evil. Conversely, it would also mean that not all light is good. I think you could really expand on that in, uh…in future scenes…plots….though I’m sure you have an idea of where you were going to begin with.”

Zach swallowed. Talking, ugh, it was hard. But at least he’d had the time to sort out his thoughts on the paper enough so that he wasn’t stuttering and stumbling through his critique. “I uh…” This was the hard part, actually giving criticism. He felt his heart-rate quicken. “One thing you might want to, uh…watch out for is…well, over writing. I mean…detail is great, but it’s…tricky to know just how much to put in. What I’m noticing is how closely you follow the main character, from one scene to the next, and during your transitions, you’re taking up time describing what he’s doing in between the uh…the important parts.” Zach felt himself blush. It was never a fun thing to hear such things, but it was all for the sake of improvement. “When you do that, following your character step-by-step…it turns the entire story into one long, drawn out scene, and that can get tedious for readers. Not that we don’t want to know that he likes to play video games with his friends, but you don’t need a whole paragraph to explain that. What you describe in three paragraphs you could condense into one short one, or, just ignore it altogether and call for a break in the scene, going straight from school, to where he wakes up in his bed. At that point, it’s assumed that he went home after finishing off his day normally.”

Whew…that was a mouthful. Zach examined Lani’s face to gauge his reaction. He hoped he wasn’t coming off as too critical.

“You introduce these other characters, like Luke, Brian, Andrew and Lexie. I especially want to know more about what’s going on with Luke. You…you introduce him with such a strong background and then he drops out of the story.” It was a short writing, after all, so that could be expected. “I really want to know how his story progresses while all of these, uh…fantastical things, I assume, are happening to David, the, uh, supposedly ‘perfect’ kid.” Another swallow. Did he have a bottle of water in his bag? Zach eyed his bag on the floor, wondering if it would be too rude to grab it now, or if he should wait until Lani started talking or…something. “Anyway….that’s what I got from it…” Zach half-smiled up at Lani, nervous and wondering what he was going to hear next from the other man.

[Lani Hunter]

Nervous as Zach was he had good and solid ideas. It probably would come across better if he didn’t look like he was afraid Lani would hit him for giving him critiques. Wasn’t that what this whole thing was for? “Thanks?” Lani said uncertainly, not sure if he was getting complimented or if Zach was trying to suggest that he switch writing styles. It made sense it came off linear, for all of his faults Lani’s plans were very linear. There might be a million different plans, but they all branched linearly from the origin. It depended on the intent of the author. A character driven story with close focus on the protagonist wasn’t always a bad thing. Lani, for instance, loved the transitions, he got annoyed when characters disappeared from one setting and appeared in another, Lani also liked journeys and his intent was to make a journey of it all so perhaps that was his problem.

“Sure,” Lani replied, having been waiting for Zach to finish it seemed better to just let it happen that way. Lani nodded again when Zach hesitated for a little longer. The telekinetic bit his lip nervously, he didn’t like the sound of that ‘so’. Lani liked to think he could take criticism, after all that was what made someone good at something. He braced himself, the type of criticism he was used to didn’t come with a ‘so’ it came with a backhand and a ferocious tongue lashing. But he supposed failing to steal something was a hell of a lot different than writing a bad story. Some things didn’t vanish with the past, Lani didn’t work for anyone anymore, but there were still those ingrained lessons that were so hard learned. Instead of letting it show on his face Lani held his pencil ready to take notes. He might as well write all of them down and then decided whether or not he thought Zach was wrong later.

Lani smiled slightly, glad to hear that Zach had at least liked it. Lani nodded along a time or two, making note here and there in short hand. It seemed that Zach was starting with the good news, presumable to cushion the bad news. He was glad it was received well. Lani nodded and tapped his nose to indicate the accuracy of Zach’s statement. Life wasn’t black and white, as much as people liked to believe. It was just a scene and so Lani wrote down to expand it, even if it was just a hobby, it wasn’t like it was a bad idea of where to know where this all was going. Lani wrote down ‘overwriting’ and then turned to Zach with a confused expression, then he got it. It was the linear writing. He wrote a note to himself about it and considered it even as Zach kept talking. For Lani it seemed like everything was important, every detail, but he supposed Zach was right, no one really cared if the main character did something mundane.

“Ah,” Lani uttered in understanding and made more notes, trying to catch all of the suggestions in his shorthand. Lani’s hand was still writing for a moment after Zach stopped talking and Lani glanced up, his expression calm and collected, showing not even a hint of annoyance or hurt, but there was a glimmer of interest in his eyes. “Yeah,” Lani said, “I think Luke is going to be a larger part of the story than you think.” He decided to leave it there, not necessarily that his mind was going in the right direction. Lani nodded and finally broke into a broad smile. “Thanks, Zach, that really helps.” He had some major issues to work out. Now he supposed it was his turn.

Lani set down his pencil and shifted Zach’s story back in front of him. “I didn’t expect this to go the way that it did. Adam seems like a very normal guy initially. I really liked it.” He said with a smile, but now to get down to the issues, “I like how you introduced him falling on hard times, but I’m given a lot of information here at once. When you introduce Cheyanne I don’t feel like she’s very important to him. I think that she is, but she’s mentioned in passing, it might be more appealing to the reader’s sympathy to drift into a flashback.” Lani had a feeling that Adam had fallen on hard times, but what Lani didn’t know was how well he’d been off before hand. It made a big difference, whether the rich man became poor or the poor man became poorer. Sometimes people who had less initially felt better equipped to handle the struggle. “I think a little more background on his living before all of this happened, too,” he added.

“I have to say when Maria came in I was very confused. I like that you tried to dramatically introduce her but I honestly thought he was having a mental break down, and well, I’m not altogether sure that he isn’t,” he said and shrugged his shoulders, not as concerned about hurting feelings as perhaps Zach was. “I don’t know what you were going for, I don’t know if she’s real or if he’s imagining it. I’m not saying explain it all at once, but give the reader a hint at the beginning about who he’s talking to. I’m really interested to see which one it ends up being though, but either way, the reader is going to want to know earlier on if he’s speaking to the painting because regardless he could still be insane or there could be a world in this painting, but it gives the reader at least a focal point.”

Granted, Lani’s story had also had a disembodied voice, but the voice’s source had to be discovered. It seemed that Adam knew the source but the author drew out the mystery. “I guess, just make it more clear for the reader. Because without knowing he was talking to the painting the story takes on a whole different tone.” For instance there is a random woman sitting in his apartment and Adam seems okay with that? “The details are good, but I would have liked to see them go along with the story. Talk about his apartment when he’s in his apartment, it will add context to the moment in the story. Your initial details could be spread throughout the story, not just all clumped into one big cluster at the beginning. I feel like it takes a while for the story to start that way and not all of those details are immediately important to the story.” Lani looked back at the page and cocked his head at it. Well, that was about it for the short story, as far as Lani was concerned it was good for a first draft. “I will say, I do like the sense of optimism that Zach keeps through all of this. It’s a very sad story.” With that Lani looked back up at Zach. “But I have to know, is he crazy or is there something living in the painting?”

[Deleted]

Lani did have a point. It was all entirely based on the intents of the writer, what they wanted their reader to know, and how they wanted the story to be told. Zach was the kind who liked to jump from one thing to the other, and keep the reader guessing, revealing only the smallest hints of informations at a time before the big reveal. He loved foreshadowing. Zach felt it added to the mystery of the story. If everything was given all at once, then there would be nothing to provoke thought within the reader.

But he supposed that was a double-edged sword as well. If you only gave hints and never explained anything, or took too long to do so, then your reader might get frustrated. And then sometimes you could try too hard with the plot-twists, making every secret as some phenomenal life changing event that completely changed the direction of the story. That could get frustrating too. Zach had seen a television drama recently that did exactly that, and he’d spent a majority of the time yelling at the screen, wondering what the hell the writers were trying to do, because none of it made any sense. It was like things were just thrown into the story as cheap staples and without any real purpose than to get an “oh my god!” effect from the audience. Zach was determined to not do that with his writing, but he also didn’t like linear, narrow focused reading either. Then again, some writers also made their stories too obtuse as well. Writing really was an art, he thought, which depended on a careful balance of all these factors.

So maybe Zach was being too critical? Well….the purpose of a critique was to get the opinion of your peers. To get insight from them you may have not seen. If Lani had had a different partner to exchange stories with, that person might have seen something completely different to speak about. Zach really needed to learn to relax. Lani didn’t seem upset, and actually seemed to be listening very closely and earnestly. That should have put the writer at ease…but that somehow just made him even more nervous. He wasn’t used to people actually listening to him. And writing everything down furiously.

Zach smiled when Lani did speak up again about the character Luke. “Really? I would love to see him more involved!” As if he’d be reading the finished product anytime soon. But he could think optimistically about it if he wished. “He seems interesting. Like he could really grow into something…someone important in the story.” Zach was glad Lani took it well. But…now it was Zach’s turn….and Zach felt his heart thump against his chest.

Zach nodded at what Lani was saying. Yes, Adam is a very normal guy. On the surface, at least. “Ahh…yeah, I probably should put more in there about her…” There was a lot of history between the mother and son that he hadn’t included in this piece of writing. It was assumed he’d include it later, but maybe it was best emphasize it early on? “Right…okay,” he said.

His smile widened when Lani explained his opinions about Maria. It actually felt good to hear him say all those things because… “Actually…that was exactly what I trying to do, keep the reader guessing. I don’t want the reader to know which one it is yet, because later…well, I think it would spoil a scene I have planned for later.” And by the end of that scene, everything should make sense. At least he hoped it would. He continued to take in the rest of what Lani was saying. Add more detail. Okay, so he’d skimped a little on that, so he could understand that. At Lani’s final comment, Zach released a soft laugh. “That is…..Well…I can tell you right now that he is not crazy.” Should he explain where the rest was going though? “There is…something living in the painting. The reason for that won’t be revealed until the very end, but….well, that world ends up being the focal point for…a majority of the story.” Once all the characters were introduced and the beginning was pretty much completely laid out.

He dipped his head then raised his eyes to look at Lani. “I’m really glad you liked it. I’m really….I get insecure sometimes about…my…writing…thank you.”

[Lani Hunter]

All writing was an expression and what really mattered in the end was getting the message out. Sure there was always going to be the industry and how people needed to like it to buy it, but in the end what was the point if all that was being written was useless. Lani blinked slowly as he listened and pondered his start. He wondered if he came off harsh but he also didn’t think he was being too harsh. They were here to help each other, not to tear each other down. But if he sugar coated then nothing would be improved. He liked the mysterious effect but when something seemed vital to the movement of the story, it was important, in Lani’s opinion, to pick and choose what was important enough for that wow factor. If it got too much it was likely that the reader was going to sigh and pass the book by after a while.

The telekinetic nodded and his smile hid a thought. “I would too, I don’t think it’s what you expect either,” he said, partially unsure where he wanted to take it. There were so many ideas floating around, some were good and some were terrible, some seemed good and then had a fatal flaw. Lani supposed in the same way the point by point writing style could get tiresome, as the reader was never surprised unless the main character was. There was no question in their character and there was no mystery in the turn of the actions. It was like the reader was counting on some outside source to cause a disruption in the character’s life. It was a fine balance and maybe both of them were in their extremes and needed someone to tell them to come back from the edge.

Lani eyed Zach, catching nothing of malice in his statements, he had no reason to believe that Zach knew much of anything, but he’d responded intelligently and that was to be respected. In his own way Zach had had to earn Lani’s respect or every suggestion would have a grain of salt. It was clear Zach had an idea of what he was doing and so Lani took him seriously. It was partially why Lani decided to go in with everything he had. It wasn’t as organized as he would have liked it, but Lani was a linear human being. His words got jumbled a little as he worked on getting his brain to organize its self and his tongue worked out. Lani nodded, glad that Zach didn’t jump to the defensive. The goal wasn’t for Lani to attack him as a writer, it was to help. There was a lot in this preliminary passage that could be explored. So many pieces of this human named Adam that could be expanded.

Sitting back in his chair he nodded in understanding, working through his thoughts. “I see,” he said and crossed his arms and put his hand in a fist against his lips as he thought. He hummed as he reread the section with a glance and finally spoke again. “There is something about this scene here that doesn’t make sense. Why not just say ‘Marie’ here instead of where you say ‘the voice’ that would at least give the reader a reference point. It was hard to place,” he suggested pointing to the section with the end of his pencil. “I think if you really wanted to save it for a later scene it would at least give the reader something to wonder about if you clarified who he was speaking to. Even if Adam is crazy, he thinks he’s talking to the Marie alive in the painting, so why not let the reader know that and then there can still be the mystery because the reader can think what they want but they won’t know for sure until you explain it.”

Lani smiled and rolled his head back in amusement. Of course he wasn’t going to tell him. He let out a breath of a laugh and shook his head as he wondered if he was going to have this nagging at him for a long time. It appeared though, that Zach was going to have pity on him. “That’s a really cool idea,” he said a smile still on his face. “I’d really like to read it if you ever get it out there,” he said, it sounded like something he would enjoy. The telekinetic cocked his head slightly his expression giving away nothing but polite interest. Poor, nervy guy. Lani was surprised, he felt the same way, but well, he hadn’t had the guts to admit that he was nervy about his own writing. This was the first time in a long time he’d allowed someone to actually read something he’d written. He simply gave Zach a smile. “You shouldn’t be, it’s really good. Have you taken classes?”

[Deleted]

Zach would openly admit that this bit of his writing wasn’t his best work. He’d struggled to get even this much out on paper. Such was apparent by the numerous scrawls and scribbles he’d made across the page, as if he couldn’t decide what was better, what was worse, what he should include, and what he should revise. It was like as he wrote it nothing seemed good enough. That was how he’d been writing for the past several weeks, actually. Actually, the amount he’d accomplished in this single writing session was about equal to what he’d managed in the past few weeks. His concentration was shot, to be honest. It was all he could do to keep up with his column at the school newspaper, and even then the quality of his writing had decreased dramatically, so much he was visually embarrassed of the work he’d been turning in.

This exercise was supposed to be a way to jump start his writing muse and hopefully get himself back on track of doing things that didn’t…well, didn’t suck. Lani’s criticisms were appreciated, but Zach would be lying if he said he wasn’t slightly disheartened by them. But it helped. It helped him know where he was lacking, specifically where he was screwing up and needed to pay more attention too. And the fact that Lani was intrigued by the story did wonders for his confidence. This was the novel he’d been working on for the past forever, it seemed.

Zach nodded. “Okay…well, I guess I was going for the mystery effect there. Marie is, um…she’s going to be a pretty prominent character later on, so it maybe seems excessive…? I don’t know. I also know I was thinking that I wanted the reader to be unsure of whether it was a ‘real’ voice or just in his head….to….further that “is he crazy or not” atmosphere.” Zach wondered if that made sense. “Because, if I just specify her name right off, then it’s automatically assumed that she’s physically there, in the room with him. ‘A voice’…well, that could be coming from anywhere…does that make sense?” Maybe Zach was the one who was crazy? He was thinking he could predict how the reader would respond to such subtle differences in his words and phrasing, but….well, he wasn’t sure…maybe he was just thinking about it too hard?

Again, he was bouncing between having confidence and lacking it as they moved from criticisms to hearing that Lani would like to read the whole of the story if it ever got finished. Zach smiled widely. There was no better motivator than knowing that someone was looking forward to seeing your finished works. Of knowing you had readers who enjoyed your stories. Maybe that’s what he needed to get back on his feet. That reassurance. “I, uh….I have….I’m actually a grad student…here in the English department.” Which sounded like he was boasting. Him, a grad student, taking these silly seminar workshops like an undergrad….it almost seemed like it wasn’t fair. Maybe. “I’ve been in a slump lately…actually…so, I’ve been trying to….you know….” Get out of it, is what he was trying to say. “You…um…are you here? A student, I mean, here?”

[Lani Hunter]

Lani didn’t think he was being overly harsh, it wasn’t like he was telling Zach to quit writing and try something else. It was a good story, but at the moment it was in its minimalist form, it had the potential to be something really good, Lani could tell. This was a man who shouldn’t be deterred by what other people said, there was always going to be someone who loved it and there was always going to be someone that hated it. There were good thing and bad things, Lani couldn’t boast that he always had perfect heists, he hadn’t been caught yet, but he could definitely say that some of them had been closer to the wire than he would have liked. That didn’t mean he didn’t have the brilliant skill he had, and well, he obviously hadn’t stopped yet.

Nodding slightly Lani cocked his head a slight hum coming from him as he thought. “I understand that,” Lani said and shrugged, “Obviously do what you think is best, but you named the painting ‘Marie’ didn’t you? So people might associate the voice with the painting and well, no one really talks to paintings, so it might actually help put your character’s sanity in question.” Lani said, “A voice can come from anywhere, it’s just confusing, people like to know which part of the world they are referencing. It could also make them think that he was painting Marie, who was a loved one, we know nothing about her right now, it could be the painting, it could be a ghost, who knows,” Lani added after a thought, “I don’t know, it’s a hard one.” Lani didn’t think he had a good solution, at least not one that would satisfy Zach, but maybe now he’d be thinking about it at least.

Lani leaned back resting his elbow on the desk and his chin on his fist. He was considering the rest of this workshop, this had already been helpful and he was glad he had decided to pop into this workshop. He had never taken a formal writing class beyond the required technical writing at the community college and the English classes in high school. He already felt like Zach probably had a much better idea of what he was talking about and when he said that he was a graduate school Lani’s heart fell a little bit. Well, it was a wonder that Zach was listening to anything Lani was saying at all. He was probably sitting there wondering what this amateur thought he was talking about. Lani’s expression didn’t change but a hair and then only a raise of a brow. “Nice,” he said finally nodding his head a little bit. Well, he was thoroughly outmatched here.

“Ah, I know that feeling,” Lani said, granted he didn’t try to write for a living but he knew what it was like to put a pen down and not pick it up for days or even weeks at a time. Lani raised a brow and wondered if this guy was as crazy as his character. He waited, and he was not disappointed. He smiled slyly as Zach corrected himself. “Ah… no, actually. I’m a second year at the community college actually…” Lani said gesturing randomly in the direction of ‘away’. Well, if he probably wasn’t the most pathetic person in this room now. For all his intelligence he was terrified of applying to continue his education at a place like this. He was sure they’d laugh him off the campus for his grades at Hammel. Granted his grades in Boston hadn’t been stellar or anything but well… he hadn’t just stayed an extra year at Hammel because of his power. Lani leaned forward a bit, “Did you go here for undergrad as well?” He asked quickly to turn the conversation away from him.