Chrissie Glazebrook's "Salt".

Doesn't really do anything for me. Although flimsiness in short stories is often part of their appeal, this seemed to lack neccessary substance. I also found the "erotic" ending quite sordid. There are some witty lines but others like (am paraphrasing here) "David Beckham doing a penalty kick in my ribcage" really grates.

The thing about the Beckham reference and expressions like "driving you majorly wild" is that they represent the narrator, the diction of this kid just out of sixth form college. The reason I like this piece so much is because it does something extremely difficult, which is to create a flowing narrative that mixes the requirements of artistic narrative with a valid working-class voice. I've tried to do this - in my first-person stories it's what I want to do - and it's murder. I like the piece's propulsiveness, its rhythmic poetry, the setting of one word against another. Take this: By that time the looms have already been going for a couple of hours. Jepson's runs two shifts: six till two, and two till ten. As a new trainee you'll work from eight till four for the first fortnight. Listen to those vowel sounds clang and clatter off each other there. Most writers can't do this, can't spring the mundane to life. There's truth in this piece, too, though not made explicit. Something about those random, meaningless friendships and intensities you form in casual jobs, the unforgettable vividness of unexpected, inappropriate, irrelevant sexual moments. It's all a matter of opinion, I suppose. Maybe I was surprised to find anything good on "Save Our Short Story". Anyone else disappointed so far with that well-meaning project?

Yes, it is a bit of a disappointment. I hadn't visited for ages until you flagged this and I think there are definitely people here who write better - you, D. Bes for one. I understand what you mean about the teenager-ish references but in short stories I always like them to be vaguely timeless e.g. refer to things that a "Yoof" would be interested in without referring to specific items relating to 2004 (footballers, soap operas etc.) or even better, that the writer concocts an imaginary contemporary scene. However, I guess it is all down to personal taste.

I think that these contemporary references serve to add to what I was saying before about it being over and done once you'd read it, it's 'moment form' to use a classical music boffin's phrase. I think this is appropriate to the content as Bes says, it's about a kid just out of sixth-form and timelessness isn't the issue. But as you say Rachel, different people like to get different things out of stories. You would have preferred a timeless ring. I agree with Bes about the rhythmic quality. There is definately a correspondence between the content and the means of expression that gives a satisfying unity.

'The thing about the Beckham reference and expressions like "driving you majorly wild" is that they represent the narrator, the diction of this kid just out of sixth form college.' But it doesn't. It represents what people think someone in that situation ought to sound like, not how they do. The Beckham reference is a naff, generalised snatch of pop-culture and for me, it utterly fails to convince. In a longer piece, where other elements worked to build the character, an author might earn it, but in the short story it felt cliched and jarring. It reminded me of a Victoria Wood monolgue.

I know what you mean about a longer context to earn the authenticity of the character, but I don't think I'd go quite as far as Victoria Wood. Actually, you could argue the converse, and say that some of V.Ws monologues would make good, amusing short stories - I'll never forget the one she did about giving birth, paraphrasing here, but there was this bit when the baby's head had just appeared, and the midwife says 'do you want to have a look at your baby's head' and Wood goes on...'it was just like being in a hairdresser's salon when they offer you the mirror to see the back of your head and you have to say "ooh, yes, very nice" '. Gone off the point a bit there!

I think I'm tending more towards Rokkit's view. It was a decent, competent piece and the narrative voice was strong; but I felt the second-person narration was overly tricksy and didn't achieve anything that 'she' or 'I' wouldn't have done - in fact, it made me feel remote from the story rather than immersed in it, and at the end, I just didn't feel that the story had done a lot. There were some very neat touches, I felt the tedium and noise of the looms was done well, but the Beckham line was particularly clunky. For one thing, the guy is known for free-kicks rather than penalties and for another, he doesn't hit the ball particularly hard, it is technique rather than power. I liked the name of the other character a lot, reminded me of a band called Veruca Salt who used to do a cover of "She Don't use jelly" and of course the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory girl. The downbeat end line I rather liked. To be fair to Chrissie, Alan Warner sold a truckload of books on the strength of very much this sort of style and theme in Movern Caller and got a film deal out of it. I enjoyed reading it, but was expecting a bit more flair.

Andrew said: But this is a girl out of sixth form college, not a sports journalist. It's difficult to discuss this without getting all meta, but although, as Rokkit suggests, this isn't anything a girl out of sixth form college might say, it *is* something she might write. Chrissie Glazebrook does a lot of school and community work so she's probably run across this sort of metaphor time and time again. Here's a narrator who's very good at describing objectively but who becomes, yes, clunky, when trying to get a handle on her emotions. Like many people in real life. But that's the problem with first person narrators, particularly with demotic first-person narrators. Where is the writer and where is the character? In this case, the piece is so intense that I feel Glazebrook is writing about herself - something that happened years ago when mills like this were more common - under the mask of Lucas, perhaps as a way of stopping herself being too articulate about it. We all have different opinions, so I won't seek to change any one's mind, but this is, for me, different from Alan Warner's writing in "Morvern Caller" and "The Sopranos". Glazebrook isn't strictly a literary writer; she writes what I'd call mainstream fiction, readily graspable by most readers, not obscure. I've read the story three times now and printed it off. And the ending gets to me more each time. But I suspect you have to have been there to feel moved by that hard, helpless, meaningless longing that Lucas is left with at the end. I don't mean been there sexually in particular - for me it's a strength of the piece that we don't know if Lucas is a lesbian, has lesbian tendencies that she's suppressed or found out about for the first time in these sudden ways, or is just a heterosexual girl who's considered an outsider for other reasons. Or bisexual. It doesn't matter to me, because I relate to that thing of a sudden wild closeness with work partners - who may be more adorable and vivid than any of your actual friends, achingly so; certainly more so than you (you could never have earned this friend except by chance) - which has no wider application than the workplace or a short specific span of time. It is out of your control; it just happens, and might arouse or hurt you, though you can't let on. You don't go on to be close friends with the people, or ever see them again. That's not your place.

Hmm. But if you're writing about inarticulate people, there's still a writer in you that is making it coherent and hold together. I'd have less problem with this line if it were spoken dialogue. But it is descriptive prose, and in my opinion, a clunky bit of descriptive prose. It is not sufficient to say, 'but I'm writing about inarticulate people so I can be sloppy with my writing'. Part of the core of the piece is that the 'you' character is obviously not stupid, has something about her, more than the other members of the factory. It doesn't describe what it sets out to describe, is my problem with it. I am actually fonder of this piece a couple of hours later. I think the characters are good, the atmosphere is good, the friendship is good. For me, though, it just lacked a bit of oomph. As a slice of life vignette, lovely, but I'd have liked some more substance. (And for me, it was an AWFUL lot like Morven Callar) Also agree with Neil - there were some very purple passages in the sex scenes. I'd have been expecting an editor to have sorted those out. Personally, Dotty, I think that story of yours about the children and the marriage breakdown, had far more to admire.

Fabulous, loved every word of it.

Jesus. That is frightening. It was so easy to read it felt like falling. And beautiful too. That is one of the best short stories I have read in too long. Thanks for flagging this Bes.

Do you really think it's that good? I got a distinct feeling of blah. The narrative voice is easy to follow, granted, and there are some nice details of how the looms work, but so what? What's the point of it? The passionate interludes are okay - so far, so titillating - but ultimately vapid and pointless. On the front page it says: "'Sexual desire is never as simple as we expect,' says editor Val McDermid 'and the erotic takes many strange and wonderful forms. These two stories are unpredictable in the directions they take us, leaving us looking in the mirror, wondering about ourselves and how easily we might tumble into the unforeseen.'" I say - what a load of pseudo-bollocks. The story was competently written but trite. The characters were thinly sketched and a lot of space wasted on unnecessary and often cliched description - 'this urban wasteland'. The use of the second person seems to be an attempt at immediacy, maybe trying to make it more hard-hitting, but it ends up feeling heavy-handed and clumsy. Spack, Bezzo, I love yez, I really love yez, but you boys have temporarily lost it.

Or maybe you have?

That is always an imminent and terrifying possibility. But I'm still not going to pay 'Salt' a condiment.

Mmmm ... I like Chrissie's writing and I thought the setting was well described but I didn't find the erotic element "unpredictable" or "strange and wonderful". Also I thought some of it was overwritten, such as: "The you inside rouses from its persistent vegetative state, does twenty laps of the ceiling and rockets skywards to Planet Bliss". But, yes, "Madolescents" is marvellous.

That's a strong bit of writing indeed. However, i found it more of a turn off than anything. I mean, fancy all that cotton fluff going down your throat. I prefer sex in bed. Or in libraries. I don't doubt for a minute that this sort of thing goes on all the time.

I enjoyed it, but couldn't help thinking it was familiar. Particularly the tongue fuck and the clit showing. Any thoughts?

Hmm, I still thought it was an absolute beaut. I also think that Tim is miserable and has clearly never worked on a loom or had a casual lesbian relationship in his life. Thus, he can't relate.

Have you then Spack? *sniggers*

Maybe he was just taking the piss, i thought it was an excellent short.

Rokkit said: 'feeling heavy-handed and clumsy.' certainly there's some of that in the story. Seriously I know what he means about it being heavy-handed, but I think that's a conscious style choice, I think gritty is perhaps what it is. Not sure about clumsy. This is the sort of story you could chuck at a brick wall and not bust. There's certainly nothing delicate in there. It's a bit like lesbian rape, and I find the vacancy of the victim puzzling. Or is it just that the story can't take reflection, that's not what it's meant to do? It's all sensation, just that. There's a lot that seems primitive in it, where body is everything, and childlike too, though the stirrings are of a mature body. In fact, the more I think about it the less I like it. and I think the reason for this is that once it's done it's done and I don't have any lingering feelings about it. Give me Winterson any day.

Maybe I've *both* worked looms and had a casual lesbian relationship which ended abruptly and this story brings back bad memories. But seriously, I'm not saying it's crap or anything. It's all right, but I wouldn't take it out and buy it dinner. To put my feelings about it into context, I have read pieces of fiction by both d.beswetherick and spack which I think are more engaging and better written, so naturally I was surprised when they both went: 'Yeeha! Sure is a great story, pardner.'

Me too Rokkit, I loved Bes's 'Darren Southgates Eyes' and commented on it in the middle of some thread ages ago.