Mark, don't say your writing does not engage. It usually does, and very effectively. When your name's on it I check it out.

I love the play-on-words-thing you do. It's clever, and invites all kinds of word association pairings which is under your scalp in there somewhere. It's unique to you. I've never seen anyone do this as you have. There might be a point where your specialty becomes mannered here or there, and then cleverness can take the place of what is real there and hurts.

In this piece there are places where your technique works and some places where it doesn't.

I liked the last paragraph, especially the last line "It's always the same to him because it's always the same him." It was actually a shocker in a way, because although the word play is consistant throughout, I didn't realize before, it was all the same to him. I knew of course, it was the same him.

So the previous wordplay covers up the slap at the end, because it looks like all the same game. I had to read it twice.

Use this wordplay judiciously, would be my advice, and then when it comes, it comes out of the bushes right onto your head.

In previous chapters, "lumbers from her slumber... feel clammy against his calmly contained chaos" didn't do it for me. Too forced in my very humble opinion, just as a reader, too bent on impressing perhaps, or hiding your real pain. Make a joke, that hides it in real life. But in writing, do you want to hide it?

I can tell you're writing about a painful situation, and the failure of men and women to speak the same language sometimes. You do connect, Mark. You have, here, though you have done your best to lay rhymes over it so no one will see.

You're right--this piece doesn't engage me, I don't care about the characters or their situation.

Two things I noticed right away.

1) Some word play is fine but IMHO you're overdoing it. It's become annoying and cutesy. I end up paying more attention to *you* than to your characters. Well, speaking precisely, I'm not paying attention to you or your characters because I've left your work to check my email or play Solitaire.

2) You're telling, not showing. This castrates your piece. You're telling me he's feeling this or that, you're not showing it via action or even dialogue. Look:

as he notices he’s getting a little long in the tooth. He faces his face and his heart sinks as he splashes the cold water from the faucet into every facet of his façade.

She doesn’t anticipate contradiction so she assumes confirmation.

Although under the same roof, she’s under the assumption that his manner is aloof.

He’s not cold; he’s contained. He’s not indifferent; he promised himself that he'd make a difference. Now he just wants things to be different. Same woman or different woman: it makes no difference. It’s all the same to him because it’s always the same him.

This is tedious to read. It's news reporting, it's not prose.

I'm not trying to dog you, I have no agenda other than doing what I can to improve your writing by offering my opinion, which is worth only what you think it is.

Here's a suggestion. Go to a used book store, pickup any three novels by Louis L'Amour. Then, a copy of Flannery O'Connor's short stories or any of her novels. Finally, grab Hemingway short stories or novels. "Old Man & the Sea" is a good one.

Read these, then read them again. See how different they are yet each shows you what the characters are thinking or feeling by what they say and do. This is the ideal. In a perfect novel, you'd never need to stick your camera lens into a character's head because every action the character took would illustrate his emotional state, attitude, intention, character, etc.

It's a hard read (I usually read Tier 2 posts over my morning coffee). Hey, that's fine. You want the reader to do some work. So much of modern writing spoon feeds to the point of tedium.

And yet this does get a little tedious if the truth be told. I was waiting for the next play on words rather than the next revelation. The cleverness of the author was getting in the way of finding the characters.

There is a tale to tell here, though: the quiet disintergration of a relationship, perhaps the 'bedlam' that the mind becomes when tough roads are taken. Here we only get to see the door to bedlam, not the inner cells.

Let me begin with a statement that has to do with what you asked. It is off-putting when someone posts and says, "Often my writing doesn't engage." Leave the conclusions to the people posting. Ask, rather than tell. Does my writing in this piece - because this is the only one we are looking at now - engage? When you give the conclusion, how do we answer? Either we have to contradict you and say, but your work does engage and be talking about your feelings, not your work, or agree with you and wonder if you drew my conclusion or if I did.

Okay, to the body of work. One general rule of writing is that writing should flow so smoothly that the reader sees only the bridge, not the superstructure holding it up. In your first paragraph it appears to be a lesson in the use of the pronouns he and she and him and her. I started thinking about the rules of grammar instead of your story. Also, he she him and her are not descriptive of anything except that one had a talleywhacker and the other a gilleyclicker.

So, take your opening paragraph and ask: WHAT CAN I DO TO DESCRIBE THE TWO PEOPLE IN A MANNER THAT THE READER WILL KNOW WHO THEY ARE WITHOUT MY ADDING MANY WORDS OR BEING INTRUSIVE?

Then you take four more non-descriptive words and add to the weight of the paragraph without adding to the strength: anything, everything, something, nothing. NOW YOU HAVE A PARAGRAPH WITH A DOUBLE SET OF EMPTY, REPETITIOUS WORDS AND YOU BEGIN TO LOSE READERS WHO WANT TO KNOW WHAT YOUR SUBJECT MATTER IS.

"He feels her pulse against his chest while she sleeps. His emotions echo her breaths as they enter and they exit. His chest is bathed in sweat and he shivers from his chill. He gently glides back from her back so his wet won’t awake. He stares through his mourning as she sleeps until morning. He used to tell her everything. Now he’ll tell her anything. He’d tell her something but he’s afraid she’ll think it’s nothing."

Then you play word games: "lumber from her slumber," "arrest of her rest." I'm waiting for angle of the dangle, geator with the heater and boss with the hot sauce.

Focus on your story not on playing word games with the reader. We know you are intelligent and witty but the writer is so visible when you do this. "See how smart I am?" I think of Sally Fields at the Academy Awards Ceremony: "You do love me, you really do love me!" No Sally, YOU hate you or you wouldn't be forcing that conclusion.

After you finish with the hehimsheher and anyoneanywherefuckmeHenryIwanttofeelalive! you do move on to make some superb statements about relationships!

Take out all the statements about relationships. Wrap them in velvet. Blow up the rest. Build from the strengths out rather than leaving them at the bottom of the tank with the fish doo-doo and uneaten bread crumbs.

Hope this helps. I intentionally went to metaphor because it is a technique, that if you choose it for this story, you will have something very special and that will have an impact on any reader who has a pulse. A great picture needs a great frame. Rembrandt in a five-and-dime aluminum frame would not be a million dollar seller. Writing depends on framing because all plots are basically taken from the same dozen or so that Pliny and Shakespeare used. Hemingway didn't bother with half of them and still had a lifetime's worth of writing in him.

Hey guys, thanks for the critiques. I can see I need to peel the banana. So, I’ll re-edit and see where it leads. I’m eager to see how your words fit my mouth.

Maybe this could be edited into a story. I don’t know. I don’t write stories but maybe that’s a vein I should tap. It began as an essay on a man’s middle-aged crisis. That this aspect went unnoticed screams as loudly as my verbiage.

Thanks for taking the time and the effort to read and to judge and to offer. I’m grateful. I don’t know why so few people understand that revision means to see it again. Thanks for offering your view and helping me to review.

Mark, sorry to be late in commenting.

First I empathize with the birthing pains involved in making up stories from scratch. I note that this piece started as an essay? Then maybe that is what it's meant to be. No need to try and cram it into a fiction box. Although I commend you for wanting to stretch your wings!

For this reader the piece was far too clever, packed with too many writerly tricks and turns. My own writing often suffers from this effect. Cleverness is seductive for me as a writer but often creates distance between reader and story.

You definitely have the seed of a story or an essay here. I already want to know more about this man and his history with women. The challenge is to step back, remove yourself from the writing and allow your characters to tell the story. Let me get inside their skins, feel what they feel.

Very much like your comment on revision: "...revision means to see it again."

Indeed.

Kat -

You’re not belated. I always appreciate your insight. I like this group. If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have sought advice and slapped my work on here.

The truth is that I knew my piece was too affected to be effective. I'm in marketing and I knew that my placed keywords and taglines distracted from the text. I mean I get that. I need to stop sabotaging with misplaced placements. I struggle with the line between attract and distract. Or God forbid, obstruct. And I struggle with having a voice in a world that’s placed IPOD buds in each ear.

And I also struggle (and all writers now struggle) because I know that contemporary readers skim more than read and glean more than study. So I know that a writer has to grab hold or come to grips with the realization that she'll remain unread. Classic fiction won't (and doesn't) sell in our contemporary times. When was the last time Faulkner was on a best seller's list? If college profs didn't teach 'um ... Americans would have forgot 'um. (Does anyone know who won the Nobel Prize in 1978 for literature?) Past writers faced less competition for fellow eyes.

A 21st century writer now must present a work that either shocks with skims of scatology or scattered scandal or salaciousness. Or he'll have to be content with a small subset who seek something more substantial. Contemporary men's minds and times are too constricted to construct or to comprehend anything past a four letter word or a two dimensional image. And hey, I'm not asserting that I'm writing for a subset. I'm saying I'm trying for something above the waist that's also not a waste of my time or my reader's time. I struggle with finding a balance. Parts of my piece sucked. I'm not stupid. So I wasn’t successful on my seesaw. I’m glad for the criticism because everyone showed me the degree I had digressed.

Also, I don't put worth in the rules of writing. The game's changed. The stories have been told. The only thing new under the sun is the sunbathers. So perspective is one variable and enlightenment is the other. I read in the hopes that someone has a perspective that explains why the sun is so hot on contemporary skin or why sunshine is so necessary to those who‘ve been told to sneak to the shade. I write in the hope that another seeker might find solace alongside my shine. And “show don’t tell” is dicey. We’ve been taught to see but few have been taught to understand. I think as writers it’s time to discern that the character has been served until it’s merely a common caricature. Isn’t it time we served the truth of the idea? I mean, why applaud the stereo speaker when it’s the composer who created the tune? I think it’s time we listened to the lyrics instead of applauding the singer.

I don't write fiction. I embrace reality and dismiss fantasy. I want to know my reality so that I can have a realistic reaction. So, all my writing is autobiographical. My piece? He is me. I know that all men know the sadness of feeling a cold back against their chests and all men know the loneliness of sighing their secrets to an indifferent ear. Hell I can assume that women know the sorrow too. So my topic is practically cliché. I tried to illustrate an idiosyncratic perspective. Obviously idiosyncrasy beget idiocy. Yet, criticism doesn’t sting me. I’ve been in the sunshine long enough not to burn when I feel a bit of heat. Yet I’ve been close enough to enlightenment to feel the glow from the warmth.

I hope other writers will slap their work on the board so that we can all learn from each other. I appreciate the input. I appreciate your input. Anyone with a head can see your talent kid. Thanks.

Oh and btw - Isaac Bashevis Singer won in 1978. I looked it up.