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From: weiss@gondor.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Auto Encounters of the 3rd Kind!
Message-ID: <1682@gondor.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 25-Apr-85 12:36:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: gondor.1682
Posted: Thu Apr 25 12:36:28 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 5-May-85 03:11:54 EDT
References: <1626@decwrl.UUCP> <1672@gondor.UUCP> <16@utastro.UUCP>
Organization: The Church of The SubGenius.
Lines: 43

> Sorry Mike.  Ken Arndt is way ahead of you.  Consider the facts.
> 
> Ken wrote a classic "man against subhuman" adventure story.  At every step
> of the way he shared with the reader his manly yet passionate feelings.
> The reader couldn't help but imagine Clint Eastwood sitting behind the 
> dashboard in the jungles of New Hampshire.  Who among us was not cheering
> as the subhuman detritus from an earlier evolutionary stage drove off meekly
> into the sunset?  What male reader was not gripped by the overwhelming desire
> to do the same?  What female reader avoided that passionate moment of weakness
> as she contemplated our hero?
> 
> By contrast, your story is extremely weak on characterization.  Stretching
> the genre by making your hero a psychopathic criminal was an imaginative
> and daring step.  However, by confining your story to a simple account
> of your protagonist's actions you failed to make your hero convincing, and
> more importantly, failed to make him sympathetic.
> 
> In short, I call this one a clear victory for Ken.  It is an honor to be in
> his audience.  Mr. Weiss, I advise you to study the postings of the master
> more diligently.  It is not enough to have a smooth writing style.  One must
> learn to enter into the reader's heart.

Sorry, I didn't know I was in a contest with anyone.  I heard Ken tell a
good story, and I liked it a lot.  I was relating a simple event that 
happened to me one day.  I wasn't trying to compare myself with Ken or
make myself look more 'cool' or 'macho'.  As Joe Friday used to say, 
"Please, sir, just the facts."   (I love Dragnet, though Joe could've
taken a few lessons from Eastwood, my absolute main main.)  Ken is the 
undisbuted muck-raking, emotion-raising Head Flameball as far as I am 
concerned and he can keep the job.  Just wanted to share a god time I had,
sorry if you had to read to much into it.

If you feel obliged to respond to this, I shall be happy to cut you
into shreds with some free-lance verbal abuse.   Thank you.


Ps: *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE ***  No.

-- 
I don't practice what I preach because 
I am not the type of person I'm preaching to.

Michael S. Weiss                               BITNET:  weiss@psuvaxg.bitnet