Andrew Statum

Hey Andrew--

I am so glad that you are continuing with your story and I am eager to see where it goes. You are definately off to a great start. I like the idea of confining it to the one afternoon at the diner. I've always thought diners were curious places . . . so many people from so many places. . . different backgrounds and secrets . . . for all you know you're sitting next to a man who just killed his mother because she nagged him one too many times. . . interesting place, diners. Definately a great setting for the story you are creating. . . I'm not sure how I feel about the title. . . I definately like the use of the word fugue. . . it may be a little "kitschy" but if you are attached to it. . . go for it. If not. . . definately keep the word fugue in mind and see what else comes up . . .

Okay. . .just thought about it a little more and I'm thinking I might like the title more than I previously thought. When I first thought of your story I thought about the characters going through fugue-like states. . . this kind of boiling pot of emotion and conflict . . . but then I started thinking about your title and it makes the subject not so much the characters as the place. I'm not sure if that is what you intended. . . but I'm now picturing the diner as a living, breathing creature that kind of feeds off of all the characters that enter its front door (I'm not being literal here--obviously this isn't a story of a diner come to life . . it just creates a really interesting way of thinking about diners). Maybe my imagination is getting away from me (you can thank Stephen King). . . maybe you don't intend for that at all . . . but that's the image that is being created in my head. It's as if the diner represents our brain and everything that is going on inside. . . I don't know. . . I liked your story before this image. . . and I like it just as much if not more now. . . it's added a different dimension to consider. It's good. Real good. Keep going!

Hi, Andrew.

I loved your story thus far, and I think you are on your way. I like the idea of a fugue, and especially what you say about how every day is a reckoning with one's past, and how that reckoning takes place in the solitude and loneliness of one's conscousness. If you can get that theme across, along with the great characterization, it will be a fine story indeed.

Maryellen

Hi Andrew. I'm also glad you're continuing with this story. It seems like a good opportunity to try something challenging and stretch your writing muscles-- with lots of room for payoff, since you already have a strong draft you know people respond well to.

I like the title too, but I do wonder if it introduces language way beyond anything your characters would ever use. If that's the case, it might create too much of a ravine between you and them. What do you think?

I *really* like your central question here, about every day as a reckoning with the past. If that's true for everybody in the diner, there interactions are particularly loaded--or, as Freud might say, "overdetermined" (meaning every detail has multiple causes and many meanings).

Andrew,

I think you have much of the work toward this end done. I really like the fugue idea. You asked in class whether or not it was a good idea and if it was worth it. It is worth it. What if no one gets it? Fuck 'em if they dont, I say. It's your project first - consider your audience later. Right now you need to put yourself on the page and let it hang. The fugue is the frame, and not THE focus of the story. It is your focus. Use it to that end, and the body will come to the reader in reading it.

I think the most important thing to bring out in the surface of the story is the marriage of the everyday with the past, the magnitude in the mind versus the minutiae of the day. This is the strength of your narrative, and the crux of your projects analysis of consciousness.