the_wrong_people epitome of incomprehensibility Ho_chi_minh was kind of pretty though, wasn't he? I always have a crush on the wrong people. Osama bin Laden, for instance, looked too much like Cruella de Vil because of that odd graying pattern (whiter on the sides of the beard) and they were both quite beautiful to me when I was young. 150526 ... e_o_I Is it "grey" or "gray"? I never know. Someone on the Internet thought the "hero" of Fifty Shades of Grey was Dorian Gray, but it is clearly not because they are spelled differently. In Fifty Shades, is there a gay painter who is the tragic romantic and the voice of virtue? He was probably there behind the walls, having wild times in a room of a different colour. 150526 ... amy marie good point? 150527 ... nr i think "He was probably there behind the walls, having wild times in a room of a different colour" would make a great first line for a story. also, i think gray is usually the american spelling, and grey the british. 150527 ... nr i have to edit using 'gray' which always feels weird to do. 150527 ... e_o_i Not a point, just a tangent :) A serious point might be the charisma of dangerous leaders (rather than the subjective category of "good looks") and I think you already said that (sorry for posting irrelevant things on the ho_chi_minh blathe - I forgot to change the title). nr - to me that line o' mine's kinda vague, but what you wrote reminds me of something Pearl Pirie said in a chapbook of writing prompts: to take what you think is a good ending line to a poem and then start the poem with it instead. I mean, it's harder if the end line refers to things that came before, but maybe you can have the mystery first and then the explanation, and then people will want to reread it... I dunno. Pronouns. I think my problem with that sentence is putting down a pronoun before I know what the noun is. It's against the natural order. God created plants and Adam and Eve, not it and him and her. (Slinks shamefully away, meek-memed.) 150527 ... e_o_i Oh, but a first-person narrator could be thinking "he." The narrator wouldn't necessarily to refer to Basil Hallward by his name when first thinking about him. I was thinking in third-person. Last short story I read was by O. Henry. Could Basil and Lord Henry Wotton, the bad-influence-on-Dorian guy, be former lovers? I read Dorian as quite straight, however. Westboro Baptist Church has all the wrong people, but at least they take a firm and principled stance against crossover fanfiction. 150527 ... e_o_i If I remember correctly, I think my fictional frenemy Anne of Green Gables said something about gray vs. grey: gray seems cold while grey seems softer, more inviting. 150527 ... nr i like vague beginnings. but usually do prefer they eventually lead into an explanation. 150527 ... amy marie Woomaan Talk Town Talk Or just, not woman_nag 150528 ... past yet they can't escape each other. 150528 what's it to you? who go blather from