Fun with editing

In the comments back here, JA Baker reminds us that a couple of chapters of SUZANNE’s novel are now available for critique. Now credit where credit is due, at least SUZANNE has 5 chapters of a novel, which is 5 more than I’ve got. But I’d like to be part of the solution anyway, so I grabbed a few paragraphs for some helpful editing. I quickly ascertained that it would be way too easy to spice up this literary consommee, so why not make the task a little more challenging by doing it in the style of, say, Charles Bukowski? This kind of thing has been done here before — longtime readers will remember the frame on the right from early this year.

So without further ado…

The original:

“For the better part of the afternoon, Tori had been rolling around in her Murphy bed sobbing uncontrollably. That morning, she woke up feeling nauseous, and she was still expecting her period. She made her way to the dollar store to buy a cheap pregnancy test. When it turned up positive, she couldn’t believe it and made her way to the pharmacy and spent fifteen dollars to get a top-of-the line brand.

And it confirmed her worst nightmare.

This was not supposed to happen! She protested to herself. How? What am I going to do?

She looked at the alarm clock on the night stand. He would be arriving soon. She had to pull herself together to figure out what she was going to say. She didn’t feel like keeping this to herself. It was news that was too important to keep a secret. He would figure out something was bugging her anyway.

She sat up and tried to stop the hiccupping. If only Jack weren’t married, maybe…maybe this could work. He’s a family man…The thought of a lost opportunity made her cry again. If only he weren’t married!”

The edit:

For the better part of the afternoon, Tori had been rolling around on the soiled, crusty sheets of her Murphy bed, puking her guts out. That morning, she woke up feeling like 10 pounds of shit in a 5 pound bag, and she still hadn’t come on the rag. In a hungover haze, she stumbled to the dollar store to buy a cheap pregnancy test. There was no time to fuck around: she deeked into an alleyway and had a long, satisfying piss into her empty Timmy Ho’s cup, then watched for the blue line. When it came up she couldn’t believe it, and angrily tossing the cup into the faces of the anonymous and uncaring mob roiling on the sidewalk, she staggered to the pharmacy and spent a double sawbuck on a top-of-the line brand.

And it confirmed her worst nightmare.

What the fuck! She protested to herself. How? The question revived dark, sweaty and sodden images of all the greasy, grunting couplings she and Jack had enjoyed. That’s how.

Back home in the sticky, stained comfort of her squalid Murphy Bed, Tori cast a bleary-eyed glance at the alarm clock on the night stand and groped for the open bottle of muscatel beside it, all that remained of the previous night’s bellowing, bare-assed encounter with Jack. He’d be reeling in with his dick in his hand any minute now. She had to get her shit together to figure out how the fuck she was going to frame this set-up. She didn’t feel like keeping it to herself… fuck that. Jack’s animal cunning would tell him something was rattling her cage anyway.

She sat up, hiccuped and heaved drily, a rivulet of drool running down her chin. If only he weren’t married, maybe…maybe she could hook him. Aw fuck, she thought, he’s a family man. At the thought of a lost opportunity, her dry heaves were punctuated with sobs, and tears ran down her face as inexorably as Jack’s putrid spawn grew within her.”

Well that was fun! This is a story that just begs to be Bukowski-ized, Vonnegutted, or even (as JA suggested) MST3K’d. Go ahead, grab a paragraph and exercise your creative muscles.