Story Discussion: Jan 18, 2008. " The Darkness Beyond " by fieryjen

[fieryjen]

I read Chapter 1 & 2 yesterday. Haven't read any of the other comments yet, so I'll just give you some impressions and then go back and pick up the gist of the discussion and see what everyone's saying.

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and comment.

I think, more than that, you do a lot of head-hopping—telling us what Cian and Briar are thinking even in the same paragraph so we're never quite sure of our point of view.

This concerns me - I thought I'd been pretty good about staying in one head. Where did I do that?

All this extra verbiage gives the prose a soft and fuzzy quality, when what you want—especially in a description of something striking—is clarity and vividness and brilliance. Even a striking metaphor wouldn't hurt.

I think this might be a remnant of English being my second language. I'm not trying to make excuses - just to think of why this might be. I have trouble being clear and concise because I'm usually not one hundred percent confident in my word choices. So if I want to express something, I tend to slip into what you call "fuzzy" description, trying to use the words that I'm more familiar with to circumscribe what I want to say, and throwing some more words into the sentence for good measure. Then again, it could just be an unfortunate quality of my writing style in general. No matter which is the case though, I need to work on it.

Your examples are very helpful. Thanks for taking the time to lay out the weaknesses of the scene. It's been a great help understanding how to tackle the problem of the fuzziness, missing mood and all.

I also see that I was pretty much dead wrong about what happens in this story. Apparently the portal leads to a whole new adventure? That's encouraging. I wish I'd seen that sooner. If that's the case, I'd suggest you seriously reconsider the way you've chapterized the book and break Chapter 2 where this post-portal story is more strongly hinted at, or at least put in sufficient foreshadowing so we appreciate the significance of the portal when it appears. Because as it is, I just took the portal for some sort of gimmick and stopped reading, thinking I knew what was going to happen.

I haven't read ahead and still don't know what the portal is, but surely it's something the vamps could mention as they're discussing what happened to Briar's essence? Some sort of set-up is necessary if it marks that big a turning point in the story.

Noted, and agreed. Foreshadowing this event in some form or fashion is now near the top of my growing list of to-do's for this story.

 

[jomar]

Cian felt a small twinge of regret as he thought of his former lover, her angelic face flushed and head thrown back in ecstasy. The way she had looked when he had first caught them in bed together, a few years ago. The way she had so often looked when Cian had bedded her. He wasn't a sore loser by any means, but he still missed fucking her sometimes. Like right now.

When I first read this I thought this para meant that Hannah was Cian's former lover, and was confused when they didn't know each other when he found her. On rereading, I guess you meant Meraja who was mentioned in the previous paragraph. Sorry 'bout that.

Daddy was definitely a gun nut. I thought about having Hannah mention somewhere halfway through that she first shot a gun when she was ten or something like that, and maybe I should consider adding that again. The only real advantage Hannah has against the vampires is that she's a pretty good shot, so I'd like to keep that in the story.

I don't think you have to mention it then unless it's natural. You can let us know later on.

The kind of setting I had in mind was one of these ancient houses with really thick walls, so he'd be sitting sideways, basically inside the rectangular wall cutout for the window. I had no clue how to describe that though, I didn't know the words, and so I just ended up glossing over it. Yep, will do the polishing.

Ahh. I got you.

Off to chapter two.

 

[fieryjen]

When I first read this I thought this para meant that Hannah was Cian's former lover, and was confused when they didn't know each other when he found her. On rereading, I guess you meant Meraja who was mentioned in the previous paragraph. Sorry 'bout that.

I must have missed your earlier comment on this (sorry about that), otherwise I would have replied to clear it up. Yes, you got it right, he was thinking of Meraja. I thought it was clear enough, since he wouldn't have had to picture Hannah in his mind - she's right in front of him in that particular scene. Do you think this is confusing enough to warrant clarification?

I don't think you have to mention it then unless it's natural. You can let us know later on.

Ahh. I got you.

Off to chapter two.

As previously mentioned, I have a lot in my head about these two characters, and most of it didn't end up making it into the story. This is one of the things I'd like to add in the re-write.

Thanks for your comments so far

 

[jomar]

I must have missed your earlier comment on this (sorry about that), otherwise I would have replied to clear it up. Yes, you got it right, he was thinking of Meraja. I thought it was clear enough, since he wouldn't have had to picture Hannah in his mind - she's right in front of him in that particular scene. Do you think this is confusing enough to warrant clarification?

Probably not, since apparently I was the only one who didn't get it.

Thanks for your comments so far

You're very welcome.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Re: Head-hopping

Well, you may be right. Maybe I was misreading. It jumped at me here:

Cian could see that the girl was close now, and by Briar's moans, he could tell that his friend was as well. He leaned forward in anticipation as Briar tried his best to time their orgasms perfectly, a trick Cian had actually taught him a long time ago...

I guess Briar might have tried his best to time their orgasms by some visual means that Cian could see, but it just seemed to me that suddenly we were inside Briar's head.

My mistake. Sorry.

 

[Penelope Street]

I see we have quite a few Vampire Story haters here, huh?

Yet we've still written vampire tales recently. Go figure!

The headache is a direct result of the healing draining her energy. I should have been more clear on that also.

If there's a good reason for the headache, I'm not sure you want to be more clear about that reason- especially not at the moment Hannah experiences it. If you want to explain it, you might find an ideal moment later when Hannah is coming to terms with the novelty of her essence-harboring experience. I can imagine there are moments when it would be perfectly natural for her to ask Cian about it, like the next time she gets hurt.

This concerns me - I thought I'd been pretty good about staying in one head. Where did I do that?

I don't think there are major shifts where the perspective leaps from one character to another and stays there for a paragraph or two before returning- but there are places where the narrative can be interpreted as revealing what non-pov characters feel and why they behave in certain ways. If instead, we witnessed these character's actions and expressions through the pov character, we'd be compelled to deduce the other character's thoughts and emotions. It's closely related that old telling versus showing issue and I think this may be what Doc was talking about when he said something about the descriptions being 'telly'.

The sentence in bold below is one that jumped out at me when I read it.

Hannah was dizzy after staring at it for only a moment, and when she turned her head away from it, she noticed that it seemed to have an effect on everyone else in the room as well.

They were deadly afraid.

All of them were clinging to each other, staring at the distortion in terror, or alternatively pacing the circumference of the room, and after a moment, Hannah understood why. The hole was moving.

Should the reader accept such statements as a subjective aspect of one character's experience or an objective proclamation from the narrator? I tend to interpret sentences like the one above as the latter, especially when they receive a paragraph all their own. Is this poor reading on my part? I really don't know, but if other readers do the same then even in terror, also above, could create a mild pov shift. If you want to get even nit-pickier, what about employing tentatively, as opposed to slowly, in the following sentence?

The older woman by the doorway yelled that order, and the vampires, who had tentatively begun to move up the stairs and towards the door, sped up.

Each of these issues are minor on their own, but there are quite a few of them. I hope I'm not being patronzing. Here's a final example:

Cian looked up and past Hannah, faint amusement visible on his face. "No."

The above sentence at least implies he's amused, but we don't really know what his expression is. I like the following sentence much better because we see what Hannah sees.

"Sadist," Hannah accused him and his smile widened.

Even if these aren't truly perspective issues, they are at least places where the narration may be weak.


After thinking about it a bit more, I realize how much this relates to Verdad's earlier comment:

"The girl was close now" is better than "Cian could see that the girl was close now" the majority of time.

I'm also reminded of a single-sentence paragraph from one of Doc's stories a few years back where I thought the line should be attributed to the protagonist and if not then it sounded more like a sweeping announcement from above. Other readers felt the line was clearly a thought of the person in question. It all goes to show how different readers experience a story in different ways.

Of course, I'm still pondering how to improve the introduction of the vampire group, since you have a great point here as well - it does feel a lot like "here comes Candidate Number One, this is what they're like" "and now there's Candidate Number Two, this is them"...

Do you think I could get away with introducing a few of them the way I have been (the ones that will end up having a more important role), and having some walk in as a group, leaving them anonymous until it switches back to Hannah's PoV

Yes, I think you could more than get away with that. Then you could probably even skip the entire second scene and go straight to the third.

I'm confused as to which scenes you're referring to.

I think it's fine to introduce the vampires when each interacts with Hannah. This way, we'd get to know them in the same way she does. It might still be a little confusing- but she'd probably be confused too, so that might even be a good thing.

I don't want him to lose the cruelty entirely - I think that's one of the more important aspects of the character.
...
I wanted him to be a bit bratty

I hope we haven't given you the impression Cian isn't a valid character just because we don't like him. He is cruel and bratty- so why would we like him? You've really done a great job developing his character in the manner you intended.

I think this might be a remnant of English being my second language. I'm not trying to make excuses...

Wow. If you're going to use an excuse, why not use a good one! I would not have guessed you didn't use English on a daily basis. Even if the narrative is a little fuzzy, I'm not sure I can truly say how impressed I am with what you've done.

 

[jomar]

chapter 2.

I know you know it all needs polishing and tightening up to make the setting and tension sparkle and snap so I won't belabor that.

I'm sort of having a hard time with Hannah, though. I know she's strong and capable and thinks fast on her feet, but why isn't she scared to death? I mean, she's having a really bad day - she had to kill someone, then is threatened to be killed at the hands of a band of dysfunctional vampires when an otherworldly portal appears. How can he be so unflappable? The average person would be short circuiting!

Anyway, in the opening paragraphs she's surprised she's not all that scared and I wondered why not? Is she that unemotional? Does the essence do something we don't know about yet? Or have the vampires done something to reduce her fear?

I thought things really picked up nicely when the portal appeared, though agree it should be mentioned/foreshadowed earlier.

But again, and maybe it's just me not being patient and letting it happen, I had a quibble with Hannah's leaping to the conclusion that someone or something is helping her by sending a portal. That's pretty quick thinking under her circumstances. It might be a desperate hope, but it might seem more natural if she notes the portal shows up at the right moment and she does the math: certain death if she stays with the vampires, who knows what will happen if she goes through the portal, 'crossing her fingers' that maybe its appearance isn't a coincidence. Maybe she even asks Cian where it leads to.

Then I thought back to the first chapter when Hannah was pretty calmly sitting in her apartment, waiting for something with a gun after her visit to the hospital. Why would she do that? Did she suspect something we don't know about? Was she afraid Briar wasn't dead and would come after her?

I don't mean to be rude or come across as overly critical by any means because I do think you have a really cool twist on a vampire story. It's a good story. It's just that there seems to be a lot that is not known at the outset, which is fine of course, though hopefully, some is explained as things move along.

 

[Penelope Street]

Hi Fiery,

Are we done already? I read a bit more and it didn't change my overall opinion; the plot is promising, but I still can't stand Cian. The latter issue may not be problem if I'm not part of your target audience.

Regardless, I'm still super impressed by your ability to write such a complex, lengthy tale in a second language.

Take Care,
Penny