Setting Sun (passage)

[Baker]

Have always been meaning to write, but never really built up the confidence, so I guess it would be nice to get some second opions/tips before I develop this story completely. I have plots/concepts/character development planned, I just need to follow through with writing it. (Haven't written much)

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Tom sat in silence listening to the wind softly hitting his ear as he stroked his chin hairs. waiting for his friend to arrive as swirls of different shaped clouds washed over the halfway descending sun as it cast a cold autumn shadow. He sat in contemplation of his own life and of his moments devoid of physical motion. The leaves departed the tree's like children sick of their ageing parents, as they get picked up by the wind and blown whichever direction freedom would allow them. Ben finally arrived clutching his sweaty white shirt and breathing deeply like a cartoon character of someone who'd just taken too much cocaine and then run 10 miles. He shot his hand out to shake Tom's hand, breathing too deeply to sit down.

"it's been a long time man, how've you been" Ben stuttered as the pockets of air caught his voice by suprise.

"yeah not bad, getting by, taking some time off from teaching the kids at work to check out where i'm at you know? And i'm looking into getting out of this country as fast as I can, for a scene change or something" Tom replied calmly with some warmth and appreciation that Ben had finally arrived "how about yourself?"

"Yeah, I've been through better times in my life" he paused to chuckle with a bit of concern and to help maintain his breathless state "But I don't want to talk about that just yet, Beth warned me, that you've been going through some rough times yourself".

"Oh.. I suppose I have.. I guess i've been a bit, Mmm, how shall I say it? Lost in contemplation about the meaning of life and every bit of confusion that goes with being lost in contemplation of such an elaborate question. After my mum died, it just kind of dawned on me, that life is over so quickly and there isn't really anything that I can find to give it that bit more meaning, I just haven't been able to work it out, we take care of one another, try to provide comfort for one another, try to appreciate life, for what? To die in peace? What happens when you feel that you're already peaceful, all you can do is encourage other people to die peacefully, when my mum died, something clicked in my brain, and I started contemplating the worthiness of my own existence, I just can't seem to justify it."

"Ha, sounds like me about 2 years ago!" Ben proclaimed as he glanced over his shoulder over his shoulder to scan the now orange backdrop for any other guests in the park behind him "I was looking for my to find myself too, that's when I found this!" He exclaimed as he picked up Tom's arm and pushed a sealed plastic container into his palm. "Don't open it yet, wait till you get home."

Tom studied the container for a second before closing his hand. There was a pause in the conversation as Tom felt mildly nostalgic watching the falling leaves glow golden as they picked up the suns rays.
"Yeah I suppose it's like that aye? My mum was just so colourful, and then one day she was no longer animated, and the luminance left my life, however beautiful it was, it makes me consider the depths of the universe if this current life is just like the tip of the iceburg of what we can see." Tom noted.

Ben sat down and was starting to calm down now, as he began to appreciate his surrounding environment "Yeah, it does make you wonder. My girlfriend just broke up with me, she took half the shit in the house while I wasn't there, she came back and told me. I was so pissed at her when she left that night, I literally felt like choking her, like it was too much to have had that shit taken away from me, you know what I mean? But what you realize is that it's not the discomfort I now feel, it's what I took for granted that is now lost... my girlfriend" Ben sighed.

Tom put the container in his pocket, and daydreamed about it's possible significance form a moment as he watched his temperamental friend appear as though he gained a sense of peace from the approaching night sky viewing the orange hues of the sun on the clouds turn pink.

 

[Lutz]

It sounds to me like you don't have a lot to say but would like to describe it in detail.

"I thought my ideas were so clear. I wanted to make an honest film. No lies whatsoever. I thought I had something so simple to say. Something useful to everybody. A film that could help bury forever all those dead things we carry within ourselves. Instead, I'm the one without the courage to bury anything at all. When did I go wrong? I really have nothing to say, but I want to say it all the same."

 

[Baker]

haha, it was more like the reverse, I have a lot to say
but don't want to say it in detail because then i'm telling the reader what to think.

It was a bit of character building
that would lead into a lot of spiritual development.

I just don't like the idea of in your face messages, as I feel the best way to teach someone a lesson is to catalyse them teaching themselves. That way people get the warmth of feeling like they worked things out themselves.

I've had people say things to me, that I didn't understand until about a year later, and I was too young, naieve and superficial to pick up anything of what they said, but somehow the thoughts stuck in my mind and humbled me down the track.

I'm not saying this piece is anything special, but those are my intentions if I ever decide to write this book.
Attack politics, culture, freedom, spirituality, in a exaggerated futuristic story from several philosophical viewpoints, to not only keep the reader interested in its development, but me as an author.

 

[Lutz]

Personally I am a huge fan of the stage whisper. I love it when - say in a movie - someone is walking down the street wearing a hat and a bystander looks at another bystander and says "Look at their hat!"
Just as a small criticism (because everyone can write words as a standard of language and every person believes they are a writer who can freely critic a writers writing when they are not a writer!). I find the physicality of the universe you are creating very clunky. That is - to me - it stands out as something there purely for the sake of it. It isn't something I savour. Also I think the way you are orchestrating it works against your purpose of not telling the reader what to think. Just taking in the first sentence "Tom sat in silence listening to the wind softly hitting his ear as he stroked his chin hairs" you are actually telling the reader what to think i.e.This happened this way. If you take an observational perspective it becomes more compelling to describe something as we see it flavoured through another persons eyes. That flavour ads character to a character and character to other characters. If you have Ben observe Tom stroke his chin hairs it says the same thing but because it is obeservational it takes on a different message, it is voyeuristic, shows part of a thought and takes on more sensual connotations (which if I am not mistaken physicality in literature tends to try to take on these traits). For purely physical writing you might be interested in Jean Genet.

 

[Jabberwocky]

^^^that was interesting to read. i never thought of expressive dialogue versus observational dialogue. i must try this technique in my writting.