Author: Stephanie McGill
Date:   05-04-05 17:47

I do what I have to do and I don’t give @!#$ what anybody got to say about it. And if any ***** got the nerves to say anything about it I’ma cut that *****. I live for money and I’ll do anything to get it and I don’t care where it comes from cause all money is green.

I don’t care what anybody thinks about my mom cuz she is tha @!#$. She had me when she was 15 and at the age of 8 she started teaching me everything I needed to know about playing niggaz for their money. Me and my gurlz got the game of playing niggaz down to a point. I taught them a few things about what I know about getting money but I’m not telling them every thing. They my gurlz and all but a ***** needs a few tricks of her own. As well as teaching me the tricks of playing niggaz my momma also taught me how to use what I got to get what I want as well as strip tease and how to gamble. My momma had us living large. We had as a cold little condo right near the beach. It was filled with everything from white leather couches, large screen tv’s, entertainment centers, everything. We even had a few new cars. To all them other niggaz my mother had inherited a large amount of money from her grandfather, which worked out fine because she was half white. And you know white people have money. I had to share my part of the luxury with my little sister Trina and my brother Terrence but had taken up the name T-Mac at the tender age of 8.
As far as my gurlz go I don’t trust them as far as I can throw them and trust me that it much. My homegurls was all about 1 thing money. But I aint care because they know I would @!#$ and suck they man for some money as quick as they do mine. Together there was 5 of us. Me, Lexus, Tiffany, Rica, and Samione. Samoine was my top *****, unlike tha rest of them hoes Samoine had a mind of her own. She picked up a few tricks without me and she also had her own trade, she was a booster. Now see, me and her had like this little agreement between us “you don’t touch mines and I won’t touch yours”. That went for everything including men, money and other @!#$. Now see there was these north side *****es who just thought they was the @!#$. And we aint like that at all. Now it just doesn’t seem like they undastand they aint got @!#$ on us. We were flyy, sexy, street smart and bout it. They had this one fat ***** on they team that I just couldn’t stand. Her name was Aasia and let me tell you now. I would kill that ***** if I could get my chance.

Author: Simon Says
Date:   05-04-05 21:48

Stephanie.

Let me start out by saying I don't necessarily have a problem with narratives written in dialect (a la Huck Finn) and I'm not offended by bad words or a narrator that isn't sympathetic.

This just didn't flow for me - partly because of the dialect it wasn't a smooth read. But I think the problem with flow is more than just the dialect - I think in part it's kind of all over the place detail wise - there's not much flow to the narrator's thoughts.

I'm not sure what this piece is - an essay? a novel? short story? If it is a piece of fiction then you really need to have some action, It's all exposition. Way too much in one place.

If it's a character essay of some kind - you still need to flesh out the narrator more. The details aren't really doing it. She's coming off as a caricature rather than a character.

Author: Roy Abrahams
Date:   05-05-05 21:09

"She had me when she was 15 and at the age of 8 she started teaching me everything I needed to know about..."

At the age of 8, she hadn't had you yet. Just one example of doom.

Author: Brian Libby
Date:   05-08-05 13:53

What is it?? Surely you have not written an entire book in this peasant dialect! The sort of people who talk this way do not buy books, and literate people would hardly want to be subjected to this for more than a paragraph or so at a time, IMHO.

Author: Ed Leahy
Date:   05-25-05 18:10

The problem with cramming all the bad words, street dialect and Raging Bitch motif into three paragraphs is that there is no room for anything else. Simon mentioned Huck Finn, but the dialect used there wasn't laid on nearly as thickly and it wasn't competing with all the other assaults on the senses. If you dial it all down a few notches, you might have a better chance of connecting with the reader.

Is the narrator here also the main character? That appears to be the case, and that probably will make it even more difficult for the reader to want to pursue the story. A narrator that off-putting might be very effective relating the story of a more likable and sympathetic character.

Author: Harper
Date:   05-26-05 08:04

I have to admit that the first time I opened this post I read about two lines before closing it up. I don't know why I tried it again, and I feel sure you probably won't get that chance with an agent or average reader. The issue is how to keep the dynamic of the voice, which is great by the way, without turning people off with the relentless street. I'm not sure how you would do that, but experiment with it.

You also cover a lot of ground in a few paragraphs. It almost reads like a character sketch or a spoken piece. If it's going to be a longer piece of fiction, it sounds like you are going somewhere with it, but set it out in scenes, with dialog, and give the reader a rest from the dialect.

A book I read recently was written from a different time, when the language clearly would have been different from ours. The writer conveyed that by consistently thoughout the book spelling two words in a way that conveyed that difference. It totally did the trick. I'm not suggesting that you pare it down that much, but it's an example of how little one really needs to make the point.