Let's see.
Indents . . . removed?
Two
Spaces
Between
Each
Paragraph?
Check, check, and check. All systems are go then for the
current pulse-pounding installment. Hopefully I can avoid
the long winded pontificating that went over so darn well
the last time out, but since I basically make these things
up as I go along (I'm sure that revelation is going to get
me in trouble somehow, heh) who knows what's going to happen.
Maybe I'll break into my wicked and peerless dance moves,
which don't really exist. Perhaps I'll phrase the rest of
this column as a touching Japanese poem, which I won't understand
because I don't know Japanese (or any other language, I
barely know English some days).
Or maybe, just maybe I'll can the bizarre crap and get
into critiquing the chapter, which is theoretically what
y'all are here for.
This time out, we're onto Gabe's third chapter of his epic,
which he's been faithfully working on while I sit here babbling
useless things. The third chapter is a sense in an important
milestone because I think it shows that the author is serious.
It's easy to write a beginning, just about every has a really
cool beginning to a story in their head. All you really
need for a good first chapter is a good premise or "hook".
Whether it's "Harold, I can't believe that you're the
killer!" or standing down the street while a million
lemmings pop out of a manhole cover and devour the guy nearby
down to a skeleton or "It was right after the planet
exploded that things started to get bad" . . . we've
all got great ideas on how to start a story. The problem
comes later on when you try to continue the story and this
is where most people run into problems, because now you
have to start worrying about such silly things as plot and
characterization and (probably the hardest thing for multi-chapter
epics) pacing, as well as narrative cohesion and dialogue
and descriptions. Understandably, most folks find this to
be more trouble than its worth, especially if you don't
have the incentive of a six digit advance check winging
your way to give you that extra get up and go. After all,
what's really more alluring, sitting hunched in front of
a computer/typewriter for x amount of hours, banging out
something that you probably aren't going to get right the
first time anyway, with the distinct possibility that you're
going to have to do it all over again for the next chapter
. . . or indulging in the timeless entertainment of a nation,
you know, like Big Brother? Not a tough choice, really,
when you come down to it. If I weren't such a blatant monomaniac,
I know what I'd choose.
But Gabe here bucks the trend of most writers and forges
boldly onward, into the aforementioned third chapter, where
most would-be writers would have given up a chapter or so
ago. He's got the drive, apparently, but the proof is always
in the results and looking at the chapter itself we see
that . . . it's good. Yup. You heard right. Not just good,
but really good, not World Fantasy Award quality
or anything but considering that I had my quibbles with
the first two chapters in various places, there is no major
aspect of the chapter I can really pull apart. It's like
something clicked and Gabe has, for lack of a better word,
found his groove. The chapter flows reasonably well, the
dialogue snaps back and forth nicely and we're starting
to see a plot forming. This kids, is what we call improvement
and this is how you do it, right here. Gabe hits the learning
curve and rides it nicely and the what we're left with is
the best chapter so far out of the set. This is the reason
I prefer to do multi-chapter stories in these columns, because
over time you get to see how things develop and I think
that's more fun to comment on then just sticking with one-off
stories.
As I said, I have no major quibbles with this chapter,
but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try and find some
nitpicky stuff to comment on . . . because I'm that much
of a bastard. But you folks all knew that already. Moving
on, then.
The chapter opening is quite atmospheric and starts to
give us some hints of what exactly is troubling Valdor .
. . it carries the first mention so far of the cause of
his visions and a potential reason for them . . . he has
to save someone. But it's not clear whether it's someone
he is currently supposed to save or someone he failed to
save . . . maybe it's something that hasn't happened yet,
like his future self screws it up and because of that the
visions are warping time and making his past/current self
experience his failures, taunting him in the present and
hinting that he's going to fail when it counts the most.
Is that true? Who knows? Valdor keeps to himself, like a
true man should. Heh.
The second vision is the most relevant so far that we've
seen . . . my only complaint is that it's too literal, not
in the sense that it's not some freeform hallucinogenic
mess that I would do because I strive to turn off all my
potential readers, but that it's supposed to be a vision
and all the past visions had a very hazy, unreal quality
to them, which this one lacks, it's almost like Valdor is
simply teleported from the marketplace (that blacksmith
is a good example of why you shouldn't make weapons you
don't know how to use) to the sacrifice scene, and considering
it's the most feverish of the visions so far, I would make
the prose reflect that, throwing down a battery of grainy,
sweaty imagery, plunging the reader into a dozen sensations
at once, wrapping them in the grit and the heat and the
(I'll say it) dangerous sensuality of the sacrifice . .
. I'm not saying turn it into a demo tape for a porn video,
but I think there should be a certain nonlinear aspect to
it, because it's just images assaulting Valdor's senses
. . . I would definitely flirt some more offbeat descriptions
here, to emphasize this, don't have the knife-fellow just
make a cut with the dagger, have him "casually, as
if scratching an itch, he methodically carves a rigid line
in his palm, not seeming to notice the blood welling up
in the jagged cut left in its wake" which is admittedly
a poor example but I tend toward the more description heavy
scenes anyway . . . the point I'm trying to make is that
setting the mood can be an important key to fixing the scene
in the reader's head and doing your best to make it as weird
and hellish as possible is a good start. This would be the
kind of place you might want to switch to present tense,
just to indicate a shift in consciousness and make the scene
more immediate, that way the reader is experiencing it at
the same time Valdor is.
Of course Valdor does make a point to note that it isn't
a vision, with the assumption that this is really happening
(at that exact moment? We can't say) but doesn't really
say how he knows. Is it because he's perceiving the event
in a more literal fashion? Hm. If that's the case, ignore
all the babbling up there then. The final scene of the "vision"
I do like for its air of menace as the people involved in
the sacrifice apparently notice him standing there (whoops!)
. . . overall an effective scene, although its relevance
to the plot is still unknown . . . guess we have to keep
reading, eh?
Though as Valdor is waking up, he agrees with Hadrian's
assessment that it was indeed a vision, so I'm confused.
Vision or not? Hm. We shall see, I guess. On a technical
note, and I'm not sure if this is you or just website formatting
madness, be careful when structuring dialogue . . . there's
a few places I noticed where you have two people speaking
in the same paragraph, which is considered English grammar
Bad Form . . . when you change the speaker you switch to
a new paragraph, even if you're doing it fifty times in
the same conversation (and trust me, I've been there). It
does tend to take up a lot of space but it keeps things
relatively simple. Unless you're doing it to be a "Stick
it to the Man!" kind of maverick, in which case, carry
on and fight that good fight. Far be it for me to tread
on another man's radicalism.
That said, the dialogue in this story is the best so far,
dropping most of the overdramatic bombast that sometimes
characterized the first couple of chapters and moving into
a more naturalistic type of speech, with Hadrian and Valdor
playing especially well off each other. It's not Woody Allen
but it does the job and you can just about figure out who
is speaking without even looking at the narration, perhaps
the greatest goal in writing any dialogue. I feel it's better
to rely on the dialogue to carry the story rather than the
narration itself, since it tends to feel like an information
dump on the reader otherwise. So far, so good.
I especially like Gabe's method of breaking the story up
into little scenes, sometimes just to move the time forward
and sometimes to showcase what's going on in other corners
of the plot and to foreshadow future developments. I think
just about any "epic" type story has to involve
multiple plotlines to keep the reader interested and the
best way to maintain a sense of pacing is to jump back and
forth amongst those plots. One of the aspects of Neil Stephenson's
Quicksilver that I didn't like (besides the fact
I think he's vastly overrated) was that he separated the
main plots of the book, sectioning them off into separate
novels, so the reader was forced to slog through the boring
political maneuvering before launching into some more exciting
action oriented stuff and then dropped back into the talky
political stuff again. He mostly fixed the problem with
the second book in the series, but as a reader I think mingling
the various plots is a far better way to keep the reader
engaged, plus it keeps the impression that ten thousand
things are going on at once. So hopefully Gabe will keep
up that aspect of the story and continue to do that . .
. not that it would be a totally dull story to simply follow
Valdor and Hadrian around but I think it works better taking
the spotlight off on them in parts.
Rasa is an interesting fellow and it's good to see that
we have two short people in the cast now, since small people
are often neglected in literature, except as comic relief
(which Hadrian kind of is, but he's also a main character,
so it balances) and Rasa seems the typical advisor type,
stern and no-nonsense and probably way smarter than either
of our main characters, though he's not calling attention
to it. I do want to say that carrying potions around on
your belt and tunic is not a good idea unless they're made
of Tubberware since if I hit Rasa really hard in the midriff
area I'll probably break most of them and I don't think
I want any of that stuff on my skin, let alone mixing together.
The multiple dialogue parts in the same paragraph reaches
its peak of confusion in the scene where the crew is walking
through the forest and it does make the scene hard to read
because you assume that the person who started talking in
the one still talking in the rest of the paragraph, when
that's not the case.
The walk is nice and creepy and atmospheric, which is a
definite plus, highlighting different nuances of the characters
(Rasa's subtle power and mysteriousness, Valdor's world
weary knowledge and Hadrian's "get me out of here!")
and overall well done, especially the moment when the banshees
show up and Valdor is more intrigued than scared out of
his skull, he takes a moment to analyze the scene logically
and files the knowledge away for later, like any smart hero
would do. If I did have a thematic complaint so far, it's
that you're using all the standard staples of fantasy, but
basically translating them unchanged into the plot instead
of doing anything different with them. So far the terms
"elves" and "gnomes" and "halflings"
and "banshees" and so on are pretty much the same
stuff we'd see in all fantasy stories, when I think what
you want to do is try to find a different spin on things,
your own interpretation of these standard fantasy archetypes
because this is stuff that has been around for twenty or
thirty years now, saturating the world through Tolkein and
Dungeons & Dragons and all that fun stuff. It's nice
to revisit old friends, but I'd be curious to see if your
imagination really went nuts, how you would interpret the
usual fantasy beasts and concepts and whatnot. Again, this
is not something that's going to be readily apparent by
the third chapter and you might be getting ready to pull
the rug out from under all of this very soon, but it's definitely
something to think about as you plot future chapters, try
not to settle into the basic concepts simply because it's
more understandable to the reader through a sense of familiarity.
Shake them up, thrust your version out and say, "Well
you thought it was like that but it's really like this"
and when they whine and complain that "That's not how
it's supposed to be" you can turn around and be like,
"Yeah? Who says?". I'm not saying that you have
to reinvent fantasy as we know it, but don't settle for
the cookie cutter version just because it's easier (not
that you are, but I'm just throwing this out as a consideration),
take the names and concepts as a starting point and go off
somewhere different with them. It's a fine line between
giving the reader what they want and going off in your own
direction and it can quickly devolve into an exercise in
accessibility with the reader going from being too
familiar to simply being thrown out into the deep end without
any kind of liferaft (case in point: my stories, as the
website's esteemed founder can attest to . . . you definitely
don't want to go that far, trust me).
After all, what if situations were reversed and Valdor
was the happy-go-lucky human bard with Hadrian his gritty
halfling warrior companion? It would certainly play against
reader expectations. Not that I'm saying you should radically
rewrite the story because it works the way you have it now,
but you see how the archetypes infest our subconscious and
the characters just tend to fall into their expected roles.
Of course there's probably other elements that are involved
as well, that just aren't immediately apparent and never
will be because, well, we're not you. That goes for everyone.
There's a reason that Tristian isn't a woman.
Moving on to more concrete matters, the entrance to the
sorceress' banquet hall is very well thought out, the details
with the fire fairies were a nice touch, I thought. And
you do mess with the typical roles in having Sidria's home
constructed well under ground, although they still seem
like normal human and elves, they just like living in a
cave. Although frankly if all caves were that nice, I'd
live underground as well. And this section does call into
doubt Sidria's near defeat at the hands of the lizard-fellow,
since she seems powerful enough to level a small town, so
one scaly assassin shouldn't have been a problem. Perhaps
she's most effective in her place of power? We'll have to
keep reading. Valdor's unease is conveyed well though and
is a nice contrast to Hadrian's innate sociability, as he
fits in right away with that universal language of song
. . . it can be argued that he's too trusting by far and
that Valdor has a right to be paranoid. Of course, being
that it looks like Sidria was either dominating Hadrian
or implanting a suggestion to him in the last scene before
Valdor starts feeling really weird, I'd say that she has
something unpleasant planned. Or maybe tiny men turn her
on. Hey, we don't judge here in this column.
Interesting that Valdor was able to not only get outside
but go away a good distance and nothing in the forest bothered
him. Magical guardians? Where? Guess they took the night
off, or Sidria realized that he left (there was a magical
seal on the entrance, I imagine it lets her know if people
are coming or going) and made sure that none of the things
in the forest bothered him. The conversation between Valdor
and Sidria is interesting, though it's not clear how forthcoming
Sidria is being, whether she's actually honest with Valdor
or she's merely playing a role and telling him what he wants
to hear. She gives him the next clue to the plot, although
I hope she's going to give him a little more direction than
a picture of a valley without telling him where it is or
how to get there. Some help you are lady. Be careful with
the linearity of the plot, however, I liked the multifaceted
nature of the story that you were showing us earlier and
make sure it doesn't slide into "Valdor goes here and
this person tells him to go here, but when he gets there
he has to go here . . ." and so on . . . we call those
Plot Coupons, straight point A to point B plotting, I'd
go for a little more looseness but then this is epic fantasy
so I imagine some wrinkles will develop shortly. I'm also
interested in trying to figure out why she made Valdor and
Hadrian come all that way only to just tell Valdor "go
to this valley" . . . she couldn't mention that in
the Inn? Or did she want to get a better look at them first
. . . and perhaps implant things in them? Hm. The plot thicks.
The end scene is the most tantalizing and a very subtle
cliffhanger that's very nicely done. Sidria merely remembering
the exploits of the night and noting that it's put her in
a better position against her "enemies", leaving
it unclear just how her "enemies" are and if they
would be Valdor's enemies as well. If she hadn't already
basically instructed Valdor to bring the child back after
he rescues her (which leads to a question, Valdor specifically
said that his glimpse of the child wasn't a vision (because
it was a literal representation instead of a metaphorical
construct? Eh?) . . . so is it going to happen or was it
happening already . . . if it's the latter you'd think Sidria
might be pushing them along a little bit more, whip out
that teleport spell, lady!) I'd say that her outright mention
that she wants the child might be tipping your hand in terms
of her motivation but she went and dropped that hint already.
And the Black Shard of Odan? The boy gets around! Perhaps
its his fossilized poop? Now that would be quality. And
she wants to go home? Maybe it's to a parallel universe.
Heh.
The bad jokes suggest that it's time we started bringing
this to a close. You might think there's nowhere to go but
up but oh you'd be sadly mistaken. Getting back to my original
point, Gabe's cliffhanger is a well constructed one . .
. it's not a pulse pounding "will they escape from
the death trap?" sort of thing, nor does it hint at
the status quo being irreversibly damaged or anything crazy
like that . . . but it does give a strong hint that things
aren't quite what they seem, without going into complete
detail about what it all means, leaving you to read the
next chapter (and preferably future ones) to figure out
the rest. So while it doesn't grab you by the throat until
those pretty veins in your forehead pop and politely demand
that you read the next chapter or else . . . it does lay
down strong hints that if you keep reading, mysteries will
be revealed and those mysteries will be worth sifting through
the story for. Which in itself is enough, not every chapter
has to end with something exploding (I still haven't learned
that lesson, alas) and this works fine. I want to know what
happens next. Isn't that the goal?
The best chapter yet. I might as well state that now. I
really have no major complaints (I mean, er, "comments")
about this chapter, everything works the way its supposed
to, every scene furthers the plot, the dialogue and the
characterizations works, the pace is decent . . . it's all
good, as the hip kids say. So far Gabe has managed great
leaps in quality from chapter to chapter, from "decent"
to "interesting" to "good", now the
trick is to take that "good" and turn it into
"great" or even beyond, by taking the things that
work now and making them work even better, make the dialogue
sharper and more cutting, the plotting denser and the pacing
tighter, by turning the characters from people we read into
people we honesty care about. It's not easy but you've got
the groundwork laid out and in this chapter I think we've
seen hints that you can make it work.
Whoa . . . I actually said something that didn't make me
look like a total bastard. I . . . I feel faint. Whatever
will I do now? I think I'll insult people to bolster my
own rickety self esteem. Hey, you! You, over there! That's
right, you have a big nose.
See, now I feel a lot better about myself, as shallow as
that seems. And when I feel better I can provide the best
. . . oh, look Big Nose came back. With another friend.
Who has a big nose. And, ah, big everything else. Maybe
we're all going to share a laugh in this wondrous thing
called life. Oh, look, and it's loaded. Now nice.
I think I must be going away now.
Run!
MB
9.05.04
"The microphone cut off so we're screaming at the top
of our lungs . . ." - Tilly & the Wall, "Nights
of Living Dead"
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