Jeff Derrickson

Positive Feedback

I began writing Positive last summer, and I’ve been itching to share it in a workshop format to get some feedback.  I drew the story from an experience I had while working at Katz’s Deli in Houston.  The gist of the story really did happen, and I thought it could make a good story.  I did not put a lot of focus on the actual restaurant because I wanted the story to be more about Dray and the waiter sub-culture, which is characterized by profanity, a degree of fakeness, and the overall camaraderie of servers. 

I wanted Dray, named after Flavor Flav, aka William Drayton, to be somewhat worldly, so I portrayed him as someone who had a lot of exposure to other cultures in his life.  His good friend and co-worker, Jon, is black, and I wanted there to be a comfort between the two to exchange racist humor.  The character of Jon is a composite of several multi-cultural male friends of mine that took me under their wing, so to speak.  They exposed me to different aspects of their culture, but they also introduced me to different outlooks on life, primary toward the dating realm.  Dray is experiencing this sort of education from Jon.

Merikris was borrowed from a girl I met at a dry cleaner.  This was her true name, but we never had a friendship outside the cleaner.  Merikris’s personality is drawn from a more extreme version of my girlfriend.  The idea of Dray’s ex-girlfriend, Farah, cheating on him was drawn from an experience in which I was cheated on, and in subsequent chapters Farah will be based upon that ex of mine.  Speaking of future chapters, I definitely want to explore this story further, but it was also important to me that I write each chapter as something of a complete story.  I personally don’t like “filler” chapters.  Every scene must matter to me.

The story had to be R-rated in order to make sense, as waiters definitely use profanity, especially the “eff word,” as well as frank dialogue about salty topics.  It was a concern of mine that the story would be bogged down by the language, despite my belief that I was writing in the true way that people talk.  My girlfriend advised me to not use “fuck” quite so many times, because it takes away the impact of the word.  I tended to agree with that, so I revised it quite a bit before it hit the workshop.

The experience in the workshop was positive and a lot of fun.  There was only one person who was offended outright by the subject matter.  On their feedback they wrote “I was not able to focus upon your story because of the vulgar language.  I particularly did not enjoy your references to the female anatomy.”  Unfortunately, this was all the person wrote.  I know that this writing style is not for everyone, and there were many scenes that could potentially offend, but without constructive criticism, it’s difficult to try and make it more universal.  There were many requests to include more “waiter speak,” but I honestly did not want the restaurant and its functions to have the spotlight, because this was done quite nicely in the movie Waiting.  I revised to include a reference to “Serverish,” and I explained the back wait, which is a major setting in response to this.  I also explained the idea of gratuity, since there seemed to be some confusion there.  I also added some smells towards the end, for a touch of the sensory.

Some minor issues that were corrected were my overuse of ellipses.  I admit I like ellipses better than dashes, but dashes are what the majority likes to see.  I also removed some semicolons.  I thought I had a handle on their usage, but apparently I need to practice further.  I don’t think I used them incorrectly, per se, but where I used them a period did just fine.  I liked the advice on apostrophe usage, that it should not be used for 80s and should be used for Merikris’s in addition to that final “s,” and these troubleshooting tips are going to stay with me forever.

People in the workshop wanted to see more of the “real” Dray, since it was made clear that when Dray is at his tables he’s somewhat disingenuous.  I added a bit of inner monologue towards the end that explains that Dray’s server persona is not necessarily fake, but actually is his own personality turned up to the extreme.  At this point in the story, Dray is still finding out a lot about himself, so I wanted to convey that as much as possible.

My major problem is the issue of tense and point of view.  I wanted the story to be in first person and in present tense, but there were many suggestions to convert it to third person, with an omnipresent narrator.  I tend to disagree with that, because I would like the reader to learn alongside Dray, who is still ignorant in many ways.  As for tense, I’ve done many revisions to keep it in the present tense, but I seem to write more naturally in the past tense.  I plan on carefully re-tooling the story to this end, but I haven’t made a final decision regarding which tense to stick with.  I want the story to be as strong as possible, so I would like to explore which tense will truly be right for it.

One of the best suggestions I received was to include a scene with Jon at a table.  I included a scene in which Jon interacts with a table of church-goers.  I have witnessed similar events, and I got a kick out of writing it.  Also requested was a foil for Dray, so to speak; a lady waiter who is somewhat of a prude that tells the boys to tone it down.  To this end, I created Callie, who I describe as a mini-manager for the previously unnamed manager, Victor, who goofs off in the office all day.  She has a small part, because she interjects into a conversation with Dray and Jon, and I wanted to keep that scene rolling.  I like her character, though, and I may develop it for future chapters.  Upon another great suggestion, I added a scene in which Jason, Merikris’s boyfriend, eggs Dray on in his pursuit of his lady.

Whenever I get some nice, quality time to spend with Positive, I want to strip it bare and figure out the tense issues.  I think the issue of tense is a problem in my schema, and I can’t think of a better way to get a better hold on the issue than to revise my story further.  I also want to add to the story.  The next chapter will really explore Dray and who he is as he anticipates his date with Merikris.  Merikris will then have sex with Dray and disappear, reversing the traditional gender conventions of the “one night stand,” and leaving Dray a confused dramatic mess.  I can see it becoming something along the lines of a CW teen drama series, but right now I’m more concerned with getting the story on paper.  I want to explore a lot of issues, such as the emotional power and physical dangers of sex, using different perspectives to gain a clearer view of self, and the place of a man who is clearly not considered an “alpha male” in today’s society.  It’s an ambitious project, and I just require a lot of time to execute it.  That and a little positivity, I suppose.