# Penny, Penny (mild horror/strong language/mature content/4k)



## VonBradstein (Oct 20, 2017)

_***A horror story I would like some feedback on. A different subject matter and vibe from my usual work - I don't write many shorts. Thanks in advance and, remember, feel free to link to your work for a reciprocal critique!****
_

Penny, Penny

There were pennies and then there were diamonds in disguise. Alan’s job was to know the difference.

In the coin-collecting world anything rare always came about by accident. The 1943 copper wheat was queen of happy screw ups. According to numismatist lore it had come about by illegal blanks having being left in the presses during the war after the Fed switched to steel. Those steel ‘war’ pennies were prizes in themselves, but even they were worth nothing compared to the illicit ’43's. They were were ugly things, to tell the truth, and not all that different from any other wheat – or even any modern penny. But that was not the point. It rarely is. The story was what attracted people - the way they had come into being. The idea of some dumb fuck on a long-ago Friday afternoon creating something precious by pure stupidity. Numismatists, casual collectors and rogue dummies alike got a kick out of legends like that. These days there were only about forty verified survivors in the world, not even enough for each American who had gone to space. They got a kick out of that too.

“Would it be worth anything?”

Here, on a whole different sort of Friday afternoon, Alan Seymour Kestrel was finally looking at one. At least that’s what _he_ believed. _He_ was a silly young kid in a cheap button down shirt and polyester pants. His tie was a thick flap of ugly paisley from some uniform supply house. He was a kid all right, but even for a kid he looked pathetic. Over his left nipple he wore a name badge that dangled on a pin. _Devin_, it said. _Superviso_r.

_Supervisor, _thought Alan, the idea tickling him. This kid looked too young to shave. Like he called his mother whenever he caught his dick in his zipper. But no, it was _Supervisor. Devin the Fucking Supervisor._ In another life, he would have found time to mock the very suggestion the kid even had a wheat penny. But today he was too tired. Facts made people argue. 
_And besides-
_
“I guarantee it’s worth at least zero-point-zero-one dollars,” he had said, his go-to line whenever he fielded such a question off the cuff – and he fielded it a lot. The worst were that atrocious breed of creatures he generally referred to as the _Gray Bearded Virgins of the Beach_. Those goofy, awkward freaks with their metal detectors and rubber sandals. Men old enough to know better who came in stinking of sun oil and shellfish and traipsing hitchhiking sand, usually bearing a filthy gift of a petrified old dime or a rusted-to-shit Kennedy half-rock fresh from the nearest dilapidated seafront and expecting the goddamn red carpet rolled out. One time one such particular idiot had even brought a cracked Seminole arrowhead he’d fished from some swamp, eyes gleaming like he’d stumbled on Pocahontas's dildo. Well, this kid wasn’t as bad as all that. _But he wasn’t much better_. 

The kid giggled. He had fished out a Ziploc. Handing it over with his pupils engorged in excitement.

“Let’s havva look then,” Alan told the kid, yawning as he tore open the bag and dumped out the single coin it contained.

“Hmm…” 

He took a sip from the warming can of Dr. Pepper that had sat for much of the day beside the register, and picked up the tiny penny. It felt different, that much was true. Lighter – yes –and oddly thinner. He pulled out the large magnifying glass. The dull orange loomed large. Abraham Lincoln, looking to the right. Only Abraham ever looked right. The rest – Jefferson, Washington and the rest – their engraved images all pointed left, away from Abe. Liberal loons had theories about that, some malarkey to do with slavery or something. After a few seconds of peering, Alan put down the glass. Took another sip. His hand trembled just slightly, not enough to be noticeable.

The young man smiled eagerly. “So?”

Alan shook his head somberly.

“What is it?” The kid's face began to fall.

“Sorry kid.”

“Sorry? You mean-”

“It’s an old coin,” Alan agreed, his voice roughening the way it always did when he tried to sound sympathetic. “The date’s 1993.” He sniffed. “Makes her almost as old as you I bet?”

“1993.” The young man looked perplexed. “No, it's 1943 isn't it?”

“Oh no.” Alan smiled. “No, no. I agree the fours and the nines do look similar. A common cause of heartbreak, unfortunately. If I was ’43 you’d know it.” He breathed in, puffing his chest, feeling fairly certain the kid wouldn’t know it. Kid like that probably didn’t even know how to drive stick or jump start his own car. He didn’t know coins any more than he knew good whiskey. The notion that he was some kind of manager at whatever dismal hellhole he worked at was as funny as it was tragic. What kind of saps did a guy like that convince to listen to him? _God help him if he ever gets near a pussy_. 

“But it’s a wheat penny, right?” The kid looked markedly confused. “I didn’t think they even made them, wheats, in 1993? Is that wrong?”

Alan took the coin, rolled it in his hand. Wheat or not, it did feel different. “This is a ’93,” he said, with well-practiced confidence. Neither confirm or deny – a five second Google search would reveal wheat coins had ended production half a century ago. He tapped it idly on the counter. “You was asking about how much?”

The kid looked despairing. “Let me guess it’s worthless?”

“Depends,” Alan said, waving his hand as though such questions were up to the gods. “How much worth were you hopin’ for exactly?”

“I don’t know.” Devin the Supervisor shrugged, his face slightly peached. “I heard my grandpa say once that coin was real rare. But he never said how or anything.” He laughed, embarrassed. “Here, I’ll take it back. Sorry to waste your time, Mr...”

“Kestrel,” Alan said, smiling. He didn’t give it back. Not yet. “Not so fast, young mister…?”

“Sofia. Devin Sofia.”

“Devin Sofia,” Alan repeated, his smile growing inwardly. What a perfectly ridiculous name for an idiot boy to have. “Well, Devin, I can do a little better,” he said, nodding gravely. “A little. A 93 may not sound that old but it’s…” He counted briefly. “Well, twenty-four years? Twenty-five? Anyhow, it’s actually pretty old. It’s…” He paused. “I can do fifty. What do you say?”

“Fifty,” the boy repeated, noncommittally. He turned his head sideways. “Is that normal?”

“Normal? Whaddya mean?”

“For a ’93.” The kid squinted. Perhaps not quite as dumb as he looked, Alan thought. 

He shrugged. “Maybe a little better. I’m a long term collector, see? Not some hack in the game for a quick payday. Thing about antique anything, kiddo, they get more antique-y with time. Which means right now we’re at fifty. In ten years, maybe that little coin you got might hit seventy or seventy-five. Depends. But let’s be honest, your ’93 won’t last five seconds tumbling round your pocket now that you know what it is, will it?"

The kid thought for a moment, then shook his head.

“Even if it did, ten years is a long time to wait just for an extra Andy Jackson, ain't it?” Kestrel paused, contemplating this. “But here…” He swept the small sales floor with his hand once more: Five hundred square feet of glass cases. An old fashioned stereo always playing Gershwin. _Classical music for classical tastes_, he always explained. “That lil’ old ’93 will take its rightful place in my collection. And fifty bucks is what, a tank of a gas? A nice little date for you and some little girl? Its relative, my friend. All of it. Take it from an old timer who knows.”

Devin's eyes were still glued to the coin embedded in Alan’s hand. Alan smiled back. Any dealer knew the trick was to hold on as long as possible. Mental separation followed the physical. Always. 

“You’re sure it’s not worth more?”

“Yeah, kid. Wish I was.”

“I just don’t know why he’d say it was special.” The kid was looking away in defeat. His eyes peeled at the glass off to the side of the counter. Inside was a silver nickel, a Ben Franklin Half, and the _piece de resistance_ itself: A Kansas 2005 state quarter on which the national motto had been misspelled as _In God We Rust. _“I’m getting married,” the kid said, unexpectedly. He looked back, his lower lip twitching unsettlingly. “That’s the problem.”

“Oh,” Alan said, frowning. _What the hell does that have to do with the price of bananas?_ “Well congrats, I guess?”

“That penny was supposed to help pay for the wedding,” Devin blurted, eyes suddenly tearful. His breath caught. “Butyou’re saying…you’re saying its worthless? I don’t understand how the hell that’s possible!”

“Hey,” Alan said, gritting his teeth. His palm inside the still-closed fist had begun to sweat. The damn AC had been on the fritz for the last month. He took another swig from the can and wiped his mouth. The fake cherry flavor seemed suddenly bitter. “Look I don’t make the rules,” he told the kid, sternly. “It’s worth what it’s worth, what somebody would pay. Mine’s a damn good offer but you’re always free to go someplace else. There’s a place up in Tallahassee I can recommend, if you want I’ll...”

“It’s fine.” The kid was defeated. He wasn’t going to Tallahassee. “I’ll take the fifty.”

Alan’s thick eyebrows rose. His free hand shuffled in the cash box below. “You sure? You can’t go back, you know that right?”

“Yeah, it’s cool, I don’t care.” Devin the Supervisor smiled, looking a little yellow. “I got to get going anyhow. Thank you for your help.”

…..

The dial tone drone for a good minute before it was answered. 

“Ronald L. Deutsch & Associates.” The voice belonged to a familiar gravelly-throated broad who always sounded like she was deep into the valium.

 “How you doin’ Marnie-baby?”

“I’m doin’,” she replied, immediately disinterested. “What do you want, Kestrel?”

Alan found himself, still unable to remove the grin that had stuck around for the last hour. “Deutsch around?”

“He’s in a meeting.”

“Then go get him, tell him I got a hot one.” Alan let out an unintentional chuckle. “Almost hot as you, Marnie.”

“Doubt that,” Marnie replied, automatically. The tone bleeped with the transfer. 

As he waited, Alan found himself thinking vaguely about Marnie. He had never met her in person, but some women you didn’t really need to meet to know things about. Some women you could hear in their voice how they looked. The Marnie Kestrel saw was probably in her forties – the right end – with a flock of reddish curls, the kind the younger girls didn’t wear these days, and a body still mostly holding up. She smoked, that was obvious, and probably drank dark liquors and tequilas. The good stuff. Never beer. In other words, she was the kind of woman who haunted a middle aged man’s dreams. _Always a heartbreaker, ol’ Marnie.
_
“Kestrel?” Deutsch’s voice was thick like the sound a block of wood makes wedged into the underside of a door. He sounded a little tired, but that was the extent of what could be determined by the greeting. “You there?”

“Deutsch? Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”

“What’s up? This better be good, pal.”

“You’re not going to believe me,” Alan said, finally daring to open his palm. He flashed a glance at the door, always afraid of being overheard, but the door was closed. He had closed early today.  “I found one.”

“Found what?”

“You know what.” He let out a sharp giggle. 

“You don’t mean…”

“A forty-three wheat. Decent shape. A little weathered but nothin’ that won’t clear up.”

“You’re kidding? How?”

“Oh, don’t you worry about that.” Alan chuckled into the phone. “I just wanted to let you know. And it’s real, before you start that baloney. You can drive down here and see for yourself if you want. Or have Marnie come...” He snorted. “So you want the finder’s fee or you interested in talking big?”

Deutsch was quiet in thought for several seconds. “I’ll need to check it out,” he said, stonily. “Not interested in getting fucked by you, Kestrel.”

“Likewise. Now Marnie on the other hand…”

“Knock it off, Alan,” Deutsch snapped. “I’m interested, okay? It’s worth sixty cash if you can get it here by tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow…?”

“Otherwise you can shove it up your ass. What do you say?”

“Tomorrow,” Alan said again. He looked up at the wall clock. It was already past six. He sighed, gripping the phone set closer and letting the coin drop to the counter. It clattered thinly. Almost musically. “The post office closes in thirty minutes, Deutsch.”

“Then you better get going, huh?” A chomping sound. Deutsch eating chips or something, sounding every bit the ugly beast he was. “Come on Kestrel, let’s see you run. Run like a little piggy-wig.” He snorted laughter. “Serious, I want it by tomorrow. I’m not having you waste more of my time than you already will when I find out you sent me another dud.” 

The line clicked. Dead air. 

“Jackass,” Alan muttered, replacing the receiver. He took another sip from the nearly-empty can of Dr. Pepper and looked down at the penny, stooping to its level so it looked larger. In truth the mail wasn’t the only source of anxiety. The idea of mailing such a valuable thing was. If there was one symptom to a life of duping the naïve and stupid it was a constant sense of only being one bad decision away from joining that shitty little club. He had done business with Deutsch before, often in fact, but never with a ’43 wheat penny or anything approaching that value. Even the Franklin half rock, the silver coins from the war days, and the occasional double-stamped specimen, some of them selling for hundreds or thousands, even all of them together had never approached the same level of volatile resplendence as one ’43 wheat. A ’43 wheat which could easily go for forty at a collector’s auction (or sixty if Deutsch came through) and that had cost Alan Kestrel no more than fifty dollars and a torpedo for some silly kid’s dreams. Never mind the money, it was the profit margin that was at stake – the genius flourish of a superior mind flattening a lesser one. But the result was deep unsettlement.

_Could drive it? New York’s not that far.
_
Alan smiled. Yeah, sure, could drive it. Or magic carpet it. Or run like Forest Gump. Wasn’t going to happen. Not with a bladder like a sieve and an ’89 Caddy that looked sleek but could barely make it to Miami. Not in one day, with all that, and a business to run. No, sir.

“You got it, Deutschy,” he said, picking up the coin, his head already turning, searching for an envelope. 

…

In reality Alan had never known Deutsch to, as he so eloquently put it, ‘fuck’ him. A man like Deutsch had a certain reputation he seemed interested in keeping that made Alan feel better about trusting him the longer he thought about it. Sixty cash was a lot of money to Alan, but it was chump change to a man like Deutsch. Not enough cheddar to soil a reputation over, by his reckoning. At least not for Deutsch. No, he would send it good old-fashioned registered USPS mail. Nothing fancy. Include a SAE and instructions to have the check mailed to Florida by Wednesday or else he’d be the first to inform _Collector’s Monthly_ that Deutsch & Associates were a bunch of hucksters. Alan was no big leaguer, a fact he was all too aware of, but his word still counted for something in the jittery world of coin dealing. 

“All right, fucker, I’m just gonna--”

For several moments Alan stared dumbly at the chipped veneer of the counter. The coin had been there. Sitting right there. He hadn’t touched it. There had been no phantom gust of wind (_maybe if they’d fix the damn air conditioning_) and nobody had come into the store. 

_You probably brushed it…on accident?
_
Squatting, Alan craned his head under the counter, but there was no sign. The coin had simply vanished. No sooner had the thought arrived an irrational panic struck. 

_The doors, _he wondered. _What if the doors weren’t locked? What if – if –
_
His bald head shot up, colliding with the lip of the desk. A red-blue haze descended. Alan felt his knees gradually buckle away. A moment later and – bam! – he was on his back on the filthy green carpet staring up with his lower lip twitching. Something sticky crawled at his temple from the place the counter had hit.

“Mr. Kestrel?” a voice spoke. It was coming from the other side of the counter. 

…..

The voice was soft and clipped with politeness. The kind usually belonging to a door-to-door salesman. Either that or – worse - a damn missionary. 

“Mr. Kestrel?”

Alan let out a low grunt. His eyes suddenly felt very heavy. “Who’s that?” 

No answer. From across the still, warm air he heard what sounded like a dry clinking. Like keys.

(…_or coins_)

“We’re…we’re closed,” he stammered, standing up, his eyes immediately rooting at the Treasure Chest – an old steamer trunk where he dumped the worthless yet saleable. World coins, mainly. Old French Francs, Pesetas and Italian Lire. A few Commie Rubles. It was popular with the looky-loos who occasionally wandered in when they were bored of the beach. It was about the only thing that sold with those people. 

But there was nobody there. 

Alan looked around, frowning. “We’re closed,” he said again. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention to the locks. But I’m closed. Thank you and-”

“Your locks work fine.”

Alan frowned. The movement of skin disturbed the place where he’d hurt his head. The blood from the cut ran straight across his eye, making it water. The glassy cases glimmered in the blur. He had shut off most of the lights and the small floor was gloomy. The only light besides the dusty old reading lamp he kept by the register came from the only window, a slit-type design through which nothing but daylight and air could travel.

There was no sign of the speaker. None.

“Very funny,” Alan muttered, craning his neck to see past the cases where, he assumed, the asshole had to be hiding. He waited, but there was no revelation. No _boo-gotcha. _The seconds dragged on. The longer he waited, the more unnerved he began to feel. 

Silently, and never once taking his eyes from the cases, he crept along the counter to where he could reach the handle to the entrance with the tips of his fingers at a stretch. Reaching, he expected fully for the door to come open. It was, after all the only door to the place.

“I told you,” the voice said. “Your locks work fine.”

Alan pulled his hand from the door, pressing his back to the wall as he glared in dismay. The door was, indeed, locked. Now his heart had begun to throb. The only other alternative was that somebody had snuck in before he had closed and hidden away. But how? In a tiny store full of glass-everything, the idea was ludicrous. Almost as ludicrous as the idea of there being an actual person in the store. The voice _sounded _like it was no more than ten feet away. But there was nobody there. But how was that possible?

It wasn’t.

“So it does,” Alan muttered, reaching under the counter again. This time it was for the bat he kept – for twenty years, never used. He reached. Found it. Brought it up behind his shoulder with a grimace. 

“I wouldn’t do that if I was you,” the voice breezed. But too late. Alan felt his muscles trigger, the bat hurtling past his eyes so fast it was a fan of tired brown. The sound was bright, like waves breaking on Tapaciola Beach. A burst of glass sprung, scattering across the tiny shop. Alan felt the shards sting his face, dangerously close to his bloodied eyeball.  Wincing, he waited for it to pass. When the last splint had settled, the voice spoke again.

“You can’t hurt me, Mr. Kestrel." It was too soft to truly seem defiant. It simply sounded like it was stating a fact - like it was reading an uneventful weather report. “I feel nothing.”

“Who are you?”

“I am many things, and yet only one thing.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“What you value most, and what you value least.”

Alan stared at the remaining glass cases. Now his heart no longer seemed to beat at all but exist in a bunched fist of cold. His forehead was pouring sweat. “That doesn’t make no goddamn sense!”

 “I am worth what I am worth,” the voice said, seeming thinner now, less an amicable gust and more a sheet of steel hammered thin enough to slice skin without detection. “What somebody would pay.”

A sickly chill passed. Alan looked down where, at his feet, a small pile of copper and silver lay in a nest of shattered glass. The rest of his collection, carefully arranged in the cases.

“What you paid,” the voice added. 

“You…” Alan whispered, raising the bat again as his eyes bulged. “No.”

“I am a story, Mr. Kestrel.”

“No, you’re not.”

"You said so yourself." There was an airy laugh, a kind of sizzling of bodiless breath. “A hundred times over the years. You remember that, don't you ? A lowly object with a story. It’s all about the story, is it not?” 

“Shut the hell up!”

“How many stories are in these glass cages of yours, one wonders?” 

It was coming from everywhere, Alan realized. And it wasn’t just one voice. No. It was a hundred voices. A thousand. All of them working in unison, serving only to surround him as he crept between the cases, still fruitlessly searching for a man – some sentient thing – crouched and hidden and monstrous. But there was none there in the shadows. Only the coins, dull in the lightless glass.

“So many stories. All of them stained by one.” It paused. When it spoke again there was a darkness in its tone. “Yours.”

“Mine? What do you m-”

“Yours become ours. Our good corrupted by bad. You took them away, Mr. Kestrel, our stories. Our real stories." There was a low hissing, like steam from a stopped kettle. "You cheapened us.”

“Bullshit!” Alan yelled. “This isn’t funny! Not funny at all! You come out and I’ll let you go, otherwise-”

“Oh, Mr. Kestrel,” the voice murmured. From somewhere – nowhere really – Alan thought he heard something move. Distant whispers of a tiny-footed movement passing through the silence. Gershwin, he noticed, had stopped. Had he stopped the stereo? He couldn’t remember doing so. Something told him he hadn’t. “What makes you think it is you who hold us?”

“You sonofabitch!” Alan took a swing, leveling his entire body weight into a vicious strike through three of the largest glass cases. The bat cut through like a spoon through soup in an explosion of glass. 

Through it, Alan heard what sounded like screams. Like tiny, tiny screams.

 “GOTCHA!” 

He shrieked, letting out a joyous snarl. He swung the bat again. Another crash, the skeleton of the case buckling, toppling, colliding with another and setting that one down like vast dominos. The strange little screams loudened. He heard them better now. There were a million. A billion. Painful and terrified and small. In that moment, it was like some kind of rapturous music. A kind of gasoline tossed on the fire of blind fury. He kept swinging.

“BASTARDS! BASTARDS! BASTARDS!”

Below the ugly green carpet had vanished beneath glass. Scattered and buried, the coins lay. The screams, or whatever they had truly been, had faded into silence. Resting on his knees, Alan huffed the fetid air, waiting for the voice to speak again. Primed for it. But it didn’t. Instead there was only his heart. His heart slowing itself at the gradual rate of his advanced years. “Got you,” Alan muttered, dropping the bat and leveling a loogie across the ruins. “Nobody fucks with Alan Kestrel.”

Mumbling incoherently he staggered back to the counter. Now the sweat ran down across his eyes. It was hard to tell if he was still bleeding or not. Everything that might have told him lay mashed on the floor. Somewhere in the scuffle his spectacles had come loose and lay somewhere, cracked and destroyed in one of the vast pyres. 

_Nevermind, _he told himself. Whatever it was that had just unfolded over the last few minutes, as bizarre and costly, mattered nothing. The coins were all right. The voice had been right about that, at least: They felt nothing, the coins. Alan knew that better than anybody. Some of them had survived three hundred years. They had survived worse than baseball bats and moments of insanity. He would dig them all from the glass, starting with the ’43 wheat. Deutsch could go fuck himself, when all was said and done. He could drive it to New York if it was that goddamn important – and it probably wasn’t. Deutsch was just playing power games. But if it mattered he would drive it there and give it to the bastard on a little velvet pillow in return for a big fat check. He would do that and be rich enough to start over. 

“No sir,” Alan said out loud. It felt good to say. “No sir-ee.”

He picked up the warm can of leftover Dr. Pepper. There was a little left. 

_God, I’m thirsty. 
_
As he tilted back the can, something clinked. 

“Un-gh.” 

Before he could stop it, that same something had rattled past his dentures and skipped around his tongue like a freshmen receiver. At once a strange tightening had appeared. Alan began to scream, feeling veins pop beneath the skin like ringworm under heat. But the scream went nowhere. It pushed, pounded at the walls of his throat, struggled and clawed as he rose, snatching at his throat. 

"Unnnn-gh! Unn! Unnnnngh-gh-ghhh!"

In the back of his mouth, his tongue had begun to swell. Further down, much further, the breath beat at the door like desperate men trapped in a burning room. In the space between he could taste it; the bitterness of the penny wedged.


----------



## bdcharles (Oct 20, 2017)

Hi,

It's good to see alot of your quality phrasecraft here; eg:

The line clicked. Dead air. 

However I think you might see if you can trim the up-front exposition a bit. There's a lot of history and not much goings-on at the beginning.

The voice was okay, perfectly serviceable though not the most original - sort of a hard-bitten man-voice. Was it the right voice for a coin collector? I dunno. If I was to be tempted into such a story, I might want a more educated, professiorial quasi-Victoriana about the place. But that's just me. This disconnect threw me a bit and made me struggle.

This bit:

Gershwin, he noticed, had stopped.

was great. Perfect. Invoking silence in prose is an artform all its own. You contextualise it well.

There were a few phrases where I think there might be words missing; eg:

Alan felt his muscles trigger, the bat hurtling past his eyes so fast it was a fan of tired brown.

^ what does this mean?

This line:

Something sticky crawled at his temple from the place the counter had hit.

was great - really nice, sensory, and invokes precisely what you wanted it to, without having to say the word "blood".

Think also about sentences where you could illustrate character via actions or dialogue; showing us rather than telling. Telling sometimes is ok but it can also pause the movement to drop in a little info, which disrupts the flow of the story; eg:

Alan was no big leaguer, a fact he was all too aware of, 

All this being said, I like the very niche subject. I always enjoy writers who can take a quite obscure thing and make it pop and subjectwise, you definitely had my interest. Anyway hope all this helps you out


----------



## VonBradstein (Oct 21, 2017)

bdcharles said:


> Hi,
> 
> It's good to see alot of your quality phrasecraft here; eg:
> 
> ...



Thanks Charles!

This piece definitely needs editing. I think in future I will try to do that before requesting critiques - definitely I prefer reading others work that has been edited. 

I think I definitely agree that maybe it starts off a little slow with the history. I wanted to share some info I learned but (as I always preach again doing) I think I overwrote it.

"A fan of tired brown" is the blur of the swinging bat. Perhaps needs reworked if it's unclear. 

As far as the voice I had an idea of a pawnshop esque vibe. I'm not sure where you're based, but perhaps the disconnect may be to do with that? Here in the states a lot of collectible dealership type "buy sell trade" places are fairly down heel as they make money off poor people trading heirlooms. 

I'm not sure if Alan is really a good representation to be honest but in any case I liked the idea of an antique dealer being, shall we say, a little on the rougher side as opposed to the more archetypal bookish sort. In any event I take full responsibility for the triumphs and failures of my characters so if it didn't work for you it didn't work [emoji846]


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## Jay Greenstein (Oct 21, 2017)

What you're presenting is a transcription of you telling the story to an audience. And as such you, because you're alone on stage with no visuals, explain things, to set the scene. But on the page, as in film, you have actors to play the roles—people to live the story, not to be talked about by a narrator.

Here's the thing. on the page you call tell the reader how a character delivered a given line. You can tell the reader the emotion in the mind of the one speaking and acting. But you cannot tell the reader how *you* would speak a line. So while in a performance your voice would be filled with emotion, that happens because you know how you should read the line. But the reader doesn't know what the line will say till after it's read. And by then it's too, late.

Look at it this way: Suppose you hear that a famous agent is going to be at the local library and listen to authors read three pages of their work, looking for one or two to represent. So you head there with this piece, ready to make it shine.

But when you get there, you learn that you misunderstand. The agent plans to have people, chosen at random, read each piece aloud. They will have no time to practice, and will not know what the story's about before they're handed the pages and asked to read. And, the ones chosen will have no performance experience. So there you are. Would you be good with that, or be upset that the people won't know how you want it read?

My point? The situation I just described pretty well fits the average reader with a book they're thinking of buying. They pick it up and begin reading. And that's your audition, just like it would be were it read to an agent. So if you would be hesitant about the agent hearing such a read you should be just as concerned about your potential readers.

It's not a matter of writing skill or potential/talent. It's that the writing skills we learn in our school days, and our verbal storytelling skills are inappropriate to fiction on the age. Our medium is very different from screen, stage, or verbal storytelling. And because it is, we need the set of writing skills that were developed for fiction in that medium. Definitions, like what a scene is, change. And if we don't know what elements make up a scene in our medium, and how to manage them, how can we write one that works?

It's not a big deal, because we all are faced with the same problem, one we're not even aware we have, and must resolve. As Mark Twain wisely put it, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” And we leave our schooldays with a whole lot of "Just ain't so," though we're not aware of it, and think we have the recording part of writing under control. But we don't because in our school days we learn only nonfiction writing techniques.

So a but of time spent acquiring the tools of the pro is a wise investment of time—and fun if you're truly meant to be a writer.

My personal suggestion is to go to the best, Dwight Swain's, Techniques of the Selling Writer. Perhaps I'm biased because I'd sold nothing before reading that book, and had no clue of how to write (though I'd written six unsold novels and thought I was pretty good) Swain fixed that. But still, it's the kind of book to read slowly, with time taken to think over each point as it's raised, and practice it. It's also the kind of book that makes you slap your forehead and say, "Why didn't I think of that?"

There are articles online, some of them mine. And there are articles here, worth reading. But my personal feeling is to go to the pros. With them, we know the advice works well enough that they make their living because of that knowledge.

But whatever you do, hang in there, and keep on writing.


----------



## VonBradstein (Oct 21, 2017)

Hi Jay,

Is your post intended for this thread? 

VB


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## JustRob (Oct 21, 2017)

I tried reading this but got confused as to who "he" was each time the word occurred at the start. As a result I didn't get a clear image of the scene and my mind quickly wandered off onto another subject. Maybe my attention span is slipping with my advancing age or maybe those two he's are genuinely confusing. I have in the past suggested that writers are using character's names too much and "he" or "she" would suffice much of the time, especially when there is only one of each in the scene, but here I needed clearer scene-setting and establishment of the POV. Give me that and maybe I'll return to read the whole thing. Fair enough?

P.S.

Being English I also have no idea what a "wheat" is in this context. I wasn't even aware that the US had "pennies". Too many unknowns to take in at the outset then.


----------



## Jay Greenstein (Oct 21, 2017)

It was a critique of the story being presented. The short version: You're 100% telling when you should be showing.


----------



## VonBradstein (Oct 22, 2017)

JustRob said:


> I tried reading this but got confused as to who "he" was each time the word occurred at the start. As a result I didn't get a clear image of the scene and my mind quickly wandered off onto another subject. Maybe my attention span is slipping with my advancing age or maybe those two he's are genuinely confusing. I have in the past suggested that writers are using character's names too much and "he" or "she" would suffice much of the time, especially when there is only one of each in the scene, but here I needed clearer scene-setting and establishment of the POV. Give me that and maybe I'll return to read the whole thing. Fair enough?
> 
> P.S.
> 
> Being English I also have no idea what a "wheat" is in this context. I wasn't even aware that the US had "pennies". Too many unknowns to take in at the outset then.



Thanks for the feedback. It is well taken. I definitely see your point about the 'he' issue and will work on that.

The US does indeed have pennies - though not 'pence'. A penny is just a term for a one cent piece, though not official. Wheat pennies were the older form of pennies used until the fifties and certain types are highly valued by collectors.


----------



## VonBradstein (Oct 22, 2017)

Jay Greenstein said:


> It was a critique of the story being presented. The short version: You're 100% telling when you should be showing.



Thank you for your feedback. The reason I was (genuinely, not facetiously) confused is because despite your lengthy post you did not once refer to the story or any part of it. I actually thought you had written a response to one of my discussion threads. 

Jay, I do not disagree with what you state in that post and frequently make similar assertions in my own critiques of others, in fact. The problem I have is that your wisdom tends to fall on deaf ears if you do not provide examples. Asserting I am "100% telling instead of showing" may or may not be accurate - I would in my own defense say that while this may be on the whole a little too "telly" it is not 100% tell - is rather senseless as you do not point to areas where that is clearly the case. Which means I do not know what it was that made you get that impression. Again, this would not be a problem if it was the whole piece but I respectfully cannot understand how the following passage could count as "tell" in anybody's reckoning. If so, please enlighten me?
_*“Kestrel?” Deutsch’s voice was thick like the sound a block of wood makes wedged into the underside of a door. He sounded a little tired, but that was the extent of what could be determined by the greeting. “You there?”
“Deutsch? Yeah, yeah, I’m here.”
“What’s up? This better be good.”
“You’re not going to believe me,” Alan said, finally daring to open his palm. He flashed a glance at the door, always afraid of being overheard, but the door was closed. He had closed early today. “I found one.”
“Found what?”
“You know what.” He let out a sharp giggle. 
“You don’t mean…”
“A forty-three wheat. Decent shape. A little weathered but nothin’ that won’t clear up.”
“You’re kidding? How?”
“Oh, don’t you worry about that.”*_

So without reference I am a little unsure what to do with your intelligent and well-intended advice. Please know that I am not precious about my work whatsoever, and do appreciate you taking the time (and any further time you may take) to say whatever you feel about my work and any work I post and that your comments are very well taken, however in the interests of taking them a little better I would appreciate if the areas falling flat are mentioned and any general assessment be in proportion - as demonstrated by bdcharles (who made the same point you did). Soap-boxing about what you think good writing is or is not is what, I believe, the Writing Discussion sections are for. I see you are a published author so believe me when I say your feedback is definitely what I want, however I just did not get much at all out of your response. On the contrary, it felt rather condescending. If you just didn't like the piece at all I'm okay with that - but that would be a different thing to saying it is "100% tell", right?

You can trust I will approach your work the same way if and when I see it posted


----------



## Jay Greenstein (Oct 23, 2017)

> _*“Kestrel?” Deutsch’s voice was thick like the sound a block of  wood makes wedged into the underside of a door. He sounded a little  tired, but that was the extent of what could be determined by the  greeting. “You there?”*_


When you tell the reader how his voice sounds, who's making that judgment? Kestrel? It doesn't appear so, because he doesn't react to it, make a decision based on it, or say anything about it to anyone. So this is you, providing information the protagonist is ignoring, because it's how _you_ hear the conversation. You're telling the reader how it would sound to them were they watching the film. But it's Kestrel's story. He's living it.And if it doesn't matter to him why does the reader care? So yes, this is telling.

Here's the opening, as an acquiring editor might view it:





> There were pennies and then there were diamonds in disguise. Alan’s job was to know the difference. This is you telling the reader something they've not been made to want to know, and for which they have no context. As they read this they don't know where they are, what's going on, whose skin we're wearing
> 
> In the coin-collecting world anything rare always came about by  accident. The 1943 copper wheat was queen of happy screw ups. According  to numismatist lore it had come about by illegal blanks having being  left in the presses during the war after the Fed switched to steel.  Those steel ‘war’ pennies were prizes in themselves, but even they were  worth nothing compared to the illicit ’43's. They were were ugly things,  to tell the truth, and not all that different from any other wheat – or  even any modern penny. But that was not the point. It rarely is. The  story was what attracted people - the way they had come into being. The  idea of some dumb fuck on a long-ago Friday afternoon creating something  precious by pure stupidity. Numismatists, casual collectors and rogue  dummies alike got a kick out of legends like that. These days there were  only about forty verified survivors in the world, not even enough for  each American who had gone to space. They got a kick out of that too. Again, the reader has not a clue of why someone they know nothing about is talking to them about coin collecting (though this could still be the protagonist in first person. So we should know which it is). You're giving them facts without context for why _they_ want/need to know this. So you're informing a reader. But we read fiction to be entertained. More then that, you're talking to the reader as you would were they with you. So like any verbal storyteller you're setting the scene. But you're not a verbal storyteller, and as I said in my first post, the reader _can not hear your voice speaking the narrator's lines._ The words you present, here, are basically, a storyteller's script minus the stage directions. That can't work because the printed word cannot reproduce your performance.
> 
> ...


From start to finish, you, the storyteller are talking to the reader and explaining what matters to the story, not to the protagonist. And because the viewpoint is yours, you have him notice things in the way you, the observer do. So,a customer comes in the store, and the protagonist decides, first, that he's a "silly young kid," based on no evidence that we know of. But then, you have him notice all kinds of things, none of which relate to the fact that he's a potential customer. But in his viewpoint his person represents income. So wouldn't that be the first thing he focuses on?

But, it appears that you want him to be a smart-ass who respects no one, so _after_ you tell us he decides the person is "silly," _you, as yourself_ tell the reader of his opinion. So we're not in that store (if it is a store). We're with the narrator, who is explaining—telling us—the story.

But readers aren't seeking to learn what happened. That's history, not story. They don't care what the narrator thinks/wants/needs. Readers want to be made to live the story in real time, with the protagonist as their avatar. They want the story to be in the viewpoint of the protagonist, not the narrator. And that matters a great deal. For why, you might want to look at my article, _What in the hell is POV?_ I'm not allowed to link to the article in the body of the post, though. Every character is different, and it's viewpoint that makes the reader know the story as our protagonist does. But presenting viewpoint is a skill unique to our medium, one not even hinted at in our schooldays.

This article presents a condensation of one very powerful way of presenting viewpoint. Used well, when someone throws a dinner plate at our protagonist the reader will duck. Play with the article till it makes sense. And when it does, if it seems worth knowing more about, you might want to read the book it was condensed from. 

I know this may seem harsh, but bear in mind that nothing I've said has to do with your skill and potential as a writer. It's about the learned part of the profession—the part we're not even told exists in our schooldays, because they're training us to be useful to future employers. And as such we learn to write reports, papers, and essays. All meant to inform, and all fact based and author-centric. Nonfiction in other words. For fiction we need a set of skills that are character-centric and emotion-based.

Hope this clarifies


----------



## wkiraly (Oct 25, 2017)

First off, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I was a bit tired when I started and wasn't expecting to really be in the mood. But once I started, I just kept going, the digital equivalent of being unable to put a book down. I, for one, think you did a great job of showing not telling. I like the way your character reveals himself to be a bastard by the nasty internal dialogue as well as how he treats the kid. It was fun reading just to see where you would take this. My favorite metaphor was the "gray-bearded virgins of the beach". I pictured my Dad with his metal detector...

That said, IMHO there was sometimes a bit too much bastard and in another sense, not quite enough. He seemed to really, really hate the kid.



> Here, on a whole different sort of Friday afternoon, Alan Seymour Kestrel was finally looking at one. At least that’s what _he believed. He was a silly young kid in a cheap button down shirt and polyester pants. His tie was a thick flap of ugly paisley from some uniform supply house. He was a kid all right, but even for a kid he looked pathetic. Over his left nipple he wore a name badge that dangled on a pin. Devin, it said. Supervisor.
> 
> Supervisor, thought Alan, the idea tickling him. This kid looked too young to shave. Like he called his mother whenever he caught his dick in his zipper. But no, it was Supervisor. Devin the Fucking Supervisor. In another life, he would have found time to mock the very suggestion the kid even had a wheat penny. But today he was too tired. Facts made people argue.
> And besides-_



First, this is the spot where both JustRob and I got confused with the "he's" but that's a pretty easy fix. While I do picture Alan looking at the kid as a loser and an easy mark, to me, the calling his mother part, the fucking supervisor part, the over the nipple part, just seemed like he really hated this kid more that I would have expected without some other motivation. It struck me as a little over the top here. If the kid was described as less of a complete loser, maybe Alan's cheating of him might actually come off a little more cruel.

Still, you did a pretty good job setting up Alan's nastiness with the kid to make him deserving of the supernatural punishment. I just wonder if the voice or Alan's internal dialogue could add just one or two more stories of his cheating somebody to round out his being a bastard so he is more deserving of the punishment. One cheating of a naive kid is a good start but just maybe you could add another story or two of him taking the food out of the mouths of babes or stealing someone else's money for their heart medicine. If he's going to be supernaturally punished, I would think it might take a little more nastiness than what you show here to attract the attention of the powers that be. You hint at it but I think I want a little more.

And again, I enjoyed the writing so much, I read all the way through to the bottom, enjoying as bdcharles did your wonderful phrasecraft. But I felt slightly cheated that I never understood exactly who or what the voice was and why it targeted Alan. Maybe--and this is just one of my tropes--it was Alan's guilty conscience or maybe it was a wronged spirit attached to one of the coins or a chorus of wronged spirits attached to many of the coins that Alan stole or a devil playing a trick on Alan as he came to collect his soul. For me, some explanation here would have been more satisfying. 

I'm trying to give some suggestions here, take them for what they are worth, many may just be my own approach. But none are meant to indicate in any way I didn't enjoy it _thoroughly_.

As to reciprocal links, I won't turn down the offer. I've got two stories in these forums so far, one also horror and supernatural punishment in a different vein and tone than _I_ usually write: Something That Will Not Let Go, and something else completely different called The Big Gumshoes. As we all are wanting here, thoughts and suggestions would be appreciated.

Bill CK


----------



## VonBradstein (Oct 26, 2017)

Thanks Wrikaly!

First off, as a fellow Ohioan, obviously your opinion counts above anybody else's 

Kidding, but I appreciate the feedback. 

I don't think this is my strongest piece in terms of pay-off. On reflection, it's perhaps a little too ambiguous. Its tough because it was intended to be one of those 'what the hell?' things but I don't know if it really worked. Based on the feedback, possibly not. I definitely think I could have (should have) included more backstory on the coins.

Anyway, thanks again. I will take a look at your stuff tomorrow. I would do it tonight but they're long and I want to give you as thoughtful a review as you gave me.


----------



## Jagunco (Nov 19, 2017)

I for one thought it was pretty good. Magical revenge penny cutting a swath through disreputable coin dealers. There were a couple of thin bits, like  he had some small say in the coin world but no one seemed to know he was an unscrupulous bastard, which tends to damage ones reputation. 

I think you were right to move past these though as to try to explain it away may have made the story closer to cumbersome that ideal.

I like the lack of explanation as well. Were you tempted to have a police investigation afterwards to say like 'This happened the other year to a coin dealer in such and such' ?

All in all good mate


----------

