Rutabaga

I'm in awe of the many layers textured together in this story. (You knew "texture" was a verb, right?) And the discovery in the boat yard adds an interesting twist of intrigue and peril. Can't wait for more. R

"Will you still respect me in the morning?" said no hand to a teenage boy ever. R

What about pregnant Kleenexes, or socks? The mind boggles. R

I like it too. There is a biblical analog in Matthew 25:40, where Jesus says "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." R

Among professional speakers the "starfish story" is considered a cliché that provokes rolling eyes. It has been used to death by motivational speakers. R

It seems apparent that for all the walls that Silas has built up around himself, and all his external self-sufficiency, it is not necessary to scratch the surface very much at all to find a very fragile and vulnerable soul underneath. I think Silas instinctively recognizes this, which leads him to avoid situations that threaten the frozen state in which he has placed himself. Believing (with justification) that his parents reject him, and also believing (apparently incorrectly) that Ian had rejected him, would be a colossal emotional burden to carry for two years starting at the young age of 14. By bottling up his emotions he has not grieved the loss of his parents. I think Brady is absolutely correct that Silas needs time to thaw, to reconnect with his emotions, and to develop a genuine capacity to feel where now he experiences only numbness. It promises to be a challenging journey. R

As I recall, his mom (who was working the midnight to eight shift) stated her intention to attend Tony's game, but evidently never did. We don't see the parents congratulating him on his games, or the favorable newspaper write up. And there is no mention in the story of the parents taking an apartment in Davis. It just seems to me that the parents have become more self-absorbed even as they see Tony's distress. His mom, in particular, seems to have turned into a completely different person from the easy-going and helpful soul of the early part of the story, who was happy to assist the boys in learning the bones of the body. There is no apparent reason for this change. I would think there would be tremendous pressure on the overall marriage at this point. R

Hasn't he heard of a Fleshlight? R

Fair comment. R

I notice there has been a substantial amount of silent rewriting of earlier chapters to clean up many of the anomalies I have noted. I think the changes improve the overall logic of the story. But I still have trouble with the overall behavior of Tony's parents. R

It is scary how many parents are pathologically unfit to have children. R

Suddenly it started to work. Weird. R

Is anyone else having trouble seeing the original post? I get a blank white screen. R

Well, OK, but someone needs to have that same talk with the parents. All of a sudden they seem to have zero interest in his life. They're not coming to his football games. We never heard them congratulate him on being a class officer. They seem to be virtually incommunicado, and it's inexplicable. They have not moved away (yet). They just seem to have abandoned Tony. I consider their actions pathological. R

How'd you know? R

R

Although I have lived in California most of my life I know zero about surfing, so Chris could be making it all up and I wouldn't know the difference. (I'm sure that's not happening.). Lucas and Neil seem like good kids and Mr. Beale seems like someone useful to have around. Carlos, on the other hand . . . R

I still find myself bewildered by the massive change in the dynamic between Tony and his parents, especially his mother. I can't imagine how they could have pushed him so far out of their lives. R

Seems like (at the moment) Brady is doing a lot more thinking about Silas than vice versa. I think we're all hoping that will change. R

Very nicely done. R

As usual I got ahead of myself in my thinking without explaining my train of thought. The reason I wondered about Child Protective Services in Utah is that here we have a family that has abused and then thrown out two sons (Silas and Ian). If either of them had sought help from a Utah CPS agency I have to wonder whether they would have gotten any. Which led to another train of thought (and a fairly obvious one) -- if and when the Colorado CPS official shows up to inquire about Chelsea, how long will it be before Silas is scrutinized for whether he is in a proper home situation? If Officer Higgins shows up and reports on the story that Silas told her, that will quickly prove to be false. Hopefully Ian and Jenny would step in and say that he is with them. What Silas really needs to do is to become officially emancipated. R

I was just thinking . . . does the concept of Child Protective Services even exist in Utah? R

And Adelaide saves the day. Is there a special place in Hell for the Pastor Simms of the world? R

I'll start, since I brought up the subject. My strong preferences are for either well-crafted first-person, or third-person with a single point of view predominating and always that of the POV character when that character is present. By well-crafted first person, I mean that the narrative plausibly reflects what and how the POV character (the narrator) experiences the events and participates in them. I am also happy to hear that character's internal take on these things ("she came in wearing a dress that must have been ordered from a Sears catalog") or internal dialogue about situations ("I couldn't just walk up to him and say that . . . could I? Surely he'd beat me to a pulp. Maybe I could . . ."). Part of well-crafted also includes deft handling of exposition concerning matters that the POV character did not directly experience -- such as using newspaper articles, police reports, diary entries made by a deceased relative, etc. And in situations where it is unavoidable, interludes of third-person narrative to present events that take place outside the presence of the POV character. I would cite Jonathan Kellerman's Alex Delaware novels as good examples of this craft. Also, Elizabeth Peters's Amelia Peabody novels do this well. As for third person, I prefer that the author stick with one POV character throughout. J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books do this. At times when she describes events happening outside of Harry's presence -- such as a meeting with Lord Voldemort and his minions -- the events are presented quite objectively, without an obvious POV character. Whenever Harry is involved with a scene, his reactions and concern are the ones shared with the readers. What I especially don't like is stories where the POV ball keeps bouncing back and forth, especially when it's between two characters who are not vastly different (i.e., two different teenagers). I find it more distracting than helpful. I find that often the "inner thoughts" revealed are obvious ones. And I find that it spoils a lot of the tension and interest of the story for both sides of it to be preented at once. In the end, I think it comes down to the question whether the author actually trusts the readers to connect the dots that he's laying out. If the author keeps jumping in and announcing what the correct interpretation of a scene is, it kind of takes the reader's involvement down to a lower level. I think that is not the best strategy. R

I looked high and low for a previous thread on this story and couldn't find one. So now that it's a Dude's Pick it seems high time. It's an engaging story even as it treads some well-worn paths. I'm especially impressed as it was apparently a first effort, if I understand an earlier post correctly. My main complaint is the very one that was the subject of this 2008 series of posts: forums.awesomedude.com/index.php?showtopic=3254. Personally I found the ever-shifting POV to be very distracting. Thank heavens, at least, that we didn't also have the internal thoughts of Kevin (which would have essentially removed the story from the story. We actually have kind of a blend between multiple third-person POVs and an additional omniscient POV where the author makes observations and pronouncements about the thoughts and insights of the POV characters. I realize that this is partially a matter of taste and partially a matter of cultural conditioning. In the 19th century it was common for authors such as Dickens to inject their omniscient personal observations throughout a novel. In contemporary times, this is done much more sparingly, if at all. Similarly, at least in any given scene, the contemporary view is to stick faithfully to one POV, and to let the reader discern (or not) what may be going on in the heads of the other characters on the same footing as the POV character. I know there have been many discussions here about the pluses and minuses of multiple POVs, whether they are announced by naming the character at the beginning of a section (something I deplore) or simply by having one character think and say something followed immediately by a description of what the other character(s) think about that statement. I'm more used to looking for clues about the other character(s)'s reaction rather than simply having it announced to me. But I agree with the observation that having written something that people are reading is a major achievement. Cory is a very likeable and engaging character, and the reader is rooting for him all the way. That is a good thing. R