Terry

[Slammr (imported)]

This story is an indictment of our penal system's treatment of youthful offender, but it's also a love story. Jon is hopelessly in love with Terry. He has been since the first moment he saw him when he moved to Terry's school in the ninth grade. I had intended it to be a story of unrequited love-with Terry never reciprocating, but writing the story as Jon, I couldn't do that to him.

The story is probably too erotic-with graphic descriptions of both consensual and forced sex-to be mainstream. I could blame that on writing for the archive, but-truthfully-they're in the story because I enjoyed writing the story thusly.

When I wrote the first chapter of this story another writer for the Archive-whom I regard as a friend-asked me not to kill either of these boys. I told him that I couldn't promise that, but any harm I do to either of these boys is done with regret. After living them for over a year, I care about them-in some ways, when I'm writing, I am them-but everything I've written and will write does happen in our prisons today. I've talked to people who have either witnessed it or experienced it.

Thanks, of course, to Jesus, Krister, and Paolo for their comments. There are none on the Archive for whom I have more esteem. Therefore, I appreciate their approval.

I've submitted Chap 12 to the Archive today. Chap 14 is posted on:

http://www.slammr.com/

The advantage of reading it there is that I can edit those versions after posting them.

[Slammr (imported)]

To make this a mainstream story would require more than removing the more graphic descriptions, it would require a complete rewrite-because it's not actually a prison story. That's only the setting. I'm writing this story as a tragic love story-and mainstream isn't ready for a tragic homosexual love story. I could perhaps write a story about two boys who get sent to prison, but it wouldn't be "Terry."

[Slammr (imported)]

The story has taken a turn. Chapter 15 has gone in a direction I hadn't planned-but that's what's so exciting about writing. Often I'm as surprised as the readers. I'm not certain where it goes from here-and it'll probably end as I originally planned, but I guess we'll find out together. Chapter 13 has been submitted to the Archive. Chapter 15 is at:

http://www.slammr.com/

Posting it there first gives me an opportunity to let the chapter ripen. Versions there are subject to change before being posted on the Archive.

[Slammr (imported)]

Because of the change of direction that Chapter 15 took, I had to rewrite Chapter 14, which I submitted to the Archive today. If you read it at slammr.com, you'll find the version now posted both there and here quite different from the original. Terry didn't feel real to me. He wasn't being affected by what was happening to him at the Walls. I think that the current version is more realistic-any comments or preferences?

[stan (imported)]

Slammr

I just finished reading 'Terry', and I must say the ending is very moving and the writing very strong. The bleakness is fitting: it kind of reminds me of the bleakness in '1984' with the breaking of the main character's soul. And that is a more devastating indictment of the prison system than any graphic depiction of physical torture.

What can I say? well done for having the courage to follow it through!

I am curious though: how had you envisaged the story ending originally?

[Paolo]

An excellent conclusion to a powerful read.

Well done.

[Slammr (imported)]

Slammr

I just finished reading 'Terry', and I must say the ending is very moving and the writing very strong. The bleakness is fitting: it kind of reminds me of the bleakness in '1984' with the breaking of the main character's soul. And that is a more devastating indictment of the prison system than any graphic depiction of physical torture.

What can I say? well done for having the courage to follow it through!

I am curious though: how had you envisaged the story ending originally?

Stan:

I had originally planned for Snyder to kill Terry, but blame it on Jon. The last part of the story would have been about Jon's stay on death row, then about the time at the Walls, where the death chamber is, leading up to his execution. The close would have been by the chaplain who had been with him when he was executed. Jon would have given the last of his manuscript to him.

For some reason, I was having trouble writing that ending, even though I think it would have been an appropriate one. With that ending in mind, the story had sat for almost a year. Once I deviated from it, I reached the conclusion of the story quickly. Not knowing, until I was writing, how any particular session was going to conclude, once again added passion to the writing process. I had to sit down and write to find out what was going to happen next.

It led to some inconsistencies because of the serial nature of writing the story. The change in Terry's personality might have been too abrupt. Although I think the other ending would have been powerful, in some ways it seemed too contrived-possibly containing too much moralizing, too much of a protest against capital punishment. I do oppose capital punishment, but the story was really about Jon's love for Terry, not a protest against the prison system, or capital punishment, although that was concomitant to the story. The story was about Jon's unrequited love for Terry. I think the present ending better portrayed that.

[stan (imported)]

Slammr,

I think that the current ending is by far a better choice! Snyder killing Terry would have been more predictable and would have meant that the boys are simply the victims of brutality. As the story goes however, they are not simply killed by the system, rather they are broken and destroyed: apart from his physical mutilation, Jon also loses his capacity to love and this is far more powerful and I would venture (although I know very little about prisons), far more realistic. And as for what Terry loses, well, it is all in your story's last paragraph really!

I for one am grateful that you waited this long so that Jon could tell his own story.

Thanks again!

[PitLoverVA (imported)]

The conclusion of the "Terry" series is powerfully satisfying from a dramatic sense by being very unsatisfying emotionally. The wistfulness and horror of the spiritual destruction of the two boys is far worse than anything they endured physically, and as such it leaves the reader to experience a shadow of what the characters themselves experienced. This fitting and more realistic story arc is the hallmark of an excellent writer.

Wonderful work, Slammr!

[kurbysmith (imported)]

that link is no longer working..... Not a complaint, just an observation.