|
 Newest draft hereI posted this short story a while back on the Thunderdome in a brawl against Sebmojo. I actually think this story has a lot of potential, and I want to submit it to be published. So, fellow CC'ers, if you'd be willing to oblige me, I'd like a full crit. I want a full autopsy--dissection, diagnosis, the works. Thanks in advance. False God (1189 words) My name is Jordan and I was here to try to convince my Dad to leave a death cult. “Dad, please,” I pleaded with him as he bowed in front of the macabre shrine of Santa Muerte. “Please, we miss you.” My words fell on deaf ears as he kept worshiping at the foot of the shrine. The local patron saint of death and mortality, her image is a corrupted version of Our Lady of Guadalupe; a skeletal woman clad in robes, wearing a crucifix around her neck. In her right hand, she holds a scythe ready to harvest souls while in her left she holds a globe, symbolizing her dominion over all. Like my father, other worshipers were presenting their tributes of flowers, incense, and candles to the feet of the shrine while praying for her blessings and forgives. “Dad, please-” I tried again before I saw a familiar face walk inside and across the aisle. “Father Aguilar?” I've never seen my pastor angry in my entire life and when I saw him, he was absolutely livid. He immediately made his way to the front and stood next to the false idol. “Step down, padre!” a heckler from the audience said. "How dare you desecrate our Lady's shrine!" another person shouted. “Shrine? Blasphemy!” Father Aguilar exclaimed. “This is not a shrine, it's a pagan idol! And all of you are dooming yourselves to a life of torment and hellfire!” “Who are you to tell us who we can and can't worship?” Another heckler called out from the crowd. “Exodus 20, verse five,” Father Aguilar quoted. “'You shall not worship or serve a false idol; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God!'” “Where was your God when my girlfriend was kidnapped by the Cartel?” a voice from the crowd called out. “She's dead now!” she shouted as everyone else roared in agreement. “Please!” Father Aguilar pleaded with the crowd. “I ask you, why worship death when you should instead worship our lord and savior, Jesus Christ? Who died for your sins to ensure us all everlasting life?” “Get him out of here,” said someone else as the crowd got up and pulled him down from the shrine. “Please, listen to my words! Salvation lies not in false Gods but in the one true God!” I followed Father Aguilar outside as he was thrown out of the building. And there he was, his hands over his face making a silent prayer in despair. “Father?” “Jordan!” Father Aguilar hugged me. “What are you doing here, my son?” I dropped my head in shame. “My Dad’s in there. I've been trying for weeks to get him to come back to church, but...” “I know, son,” he said sympathetically. “Father, this cult has him in their grasp and I have no idea how to get him out,” I told him. “Don't lose faith, Jordan,” Father Aguilar told me in spite of his obvious doubt. “The Lord will help us find a way.” I gave a half-hearted smile. “But Father, it's not like we can call fire down from the heavens.” The story of Elijah and the false prophets was my favorite in the Bible. I was joking, but the Father stared at me. “Who says we can't?” He asked. “Wh-What are you thinking, Father?” “Does your father still have his gun?” “Yeah but it's for killing coyotes. Why-” “Just bring it and meet me here.” I showed up later on with my Dad's shotgun and found the Father holding a gas can and I immediately knew what he had in mind. Walking in, I fired a shot in the air to keep the crowd in check as the Father stepped up to the shrine. “In Second Kings, the prophet Ezekiel challenged the false prophets of Baal by seeing whose God would send fire from the heavens first,” he said as he doused the statue of Santa Muerte in gas. “Let's see if your God would stand my test of fire!” He pulled out a lighter and lit the statue. As soon as it erupted in flames, they were extinguished by some unseen force. A host of spirits appeared and enveloped Father Aguilar as he levitated in the air. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he pleaded as the spirits filled the air with unearthly shrieking. They flew inside him and after a moment of deathly silence, Father Aguilar screamed in pain and burst into flames. Nothing of Father Aguilar remained except his charred skeleton which fell to the ground in a pile of ashes. I was hyperventilating as I held the shotgun in a death grip. I locked eyes with the idol. I knew at that moment, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I was damned. A glint of light caught my eyes and I looked down towards my chest. I was wearing my rosary under my shirt. And it was glowing. I grabbed my cross as another host of spirits appeared from the idol. Just as it flew at me, I took my rosary out from underneath my shirt and held it above my head. I wrapped my fingers around the glowing cross and I felt a warmth flowing through my hand which coursed through my veins and radiated around me. The miasma dissipated and I heard the idol screech. The spirits flew around the idol and transformed into a giant, skeletal dragon which spread its wings and roared at me. My rosary wasn’t just a simple cross--it was a symbol of my faith, my conviction, and my belief in Jesus Christ. It was that which Santa Muerte, in her complete dominion over death, could never extinguish. So why did Father Aguilar burn while I still stood? Because I had what he didn’t--the faith of a child. Focusing my faith into it, the light formed into a suit of armor. I threw my hands up and it formed into a sword and shield. The dragon took a deep breath and spewed hellfire from its gaping maw. I raised my shield and blocked the flames. Before the dragon could get its second wind, I ran towards it, jumped as high as I could, and wrapped my arms around its neck. The dragon bucked and thrashed trying to throw me off. I pulled myself up on its neck, raised my sword above my head, and thrust it straight into the back of its neck. The dragon screeched as I gritted my teeth and ripped it's head clean off. The beast collapsed and I fell to the ground while everything formed by the spirits of the dead and my faith evaporated. As the shrine disintegrated, I stood in front of a whole crowd of people with their faces transfixed on me in fearsome awe. They bowed. They chanted my name. They repeated it over and over again. My eyes gaped. My body was covered in cold sweat. When I saw my Dad bowing in front of me, the horror finally became reality--I had become a false god. I screamed as I heard a raspy voice laughing triumphantly in my ear. Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 06:48 on Oct 29, 2014 |
#
?
Sep 17, 2014 18:27
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 07:32 |
|
|
Honestly I don't think this story is at the point where it deserves a line by line critique. It's certainly nowhere near the point of being publishable right now. Anyway, for the record, your basic premise was kind of neat. I liked the idea of a priest trying to prove an idol is false and getting zapped to a crisp for his trouble. It's just that the actual technical details of the story are quite weak. There are almost no descriptions in this story and as a result there is no atmosphere. Other than a couple lines about the death statue there's literally no attempt at scene setting here. It almost feels like the action is taking place in an empty white void. There's also very little characterization. We have virtually no information about any of the important characters here and only the vaguest sense of their motivation. You sort of allude to the idea that people in the village have joined the cult out of desperation but this only comes up a single throwaway line. The dialogue is honestly painful. It doesn't sound remotely authentic and in some cases its incredibly cheesy. This story does have a plot of sorts but it's a really weak one. We don't know why the Dad joined the cult. We don't know anything about the cult or why it started. We don't have any context for Father Aguilar showing up all angry, or his seemingly very rash decision to storm back into the death shrine to burn it down. For that matter, we don't even have a great sense of the protagonists motivations other than a throw away line about how he misses his Dad. Then we get to the actual action, and that is honestly the worst part of all: quote:He pulled out a lighter and lit the statue. As soon as it erupted in flames, they were extinguished by some unseen force. A host of spirits appeared and enveloped Father Aguilar as he levitated in the air. "A host of spirits appeared and enveloped Father Aguilar as he levitated in the air"? What the gently caress? Up to this point the story has been grounded in the real world. Suddenly you introduce a supernatural element and you handle it in the strangest way possible, passing over it in a single line. How am I supposed to have any context for what these "spirits" would look like? When something this fantastical happens you need to have some way to keep the reader invested in the story. You could do that by actually putting us in the characters head. What is he seeing, hearing, smelling, thinking etc. What do the spirits look like? How does he even know that they are spirits? From the way you describe this and from the surprisingly muted reaction of everyone present it feels as though this dude getting levitated and set on fire isn't that much more unusual than him getting hit by a car or falling and spraining his ankle. This is such a crucial part of the story, where you transition from the mundane to the fantastical, and you brush over it in one paragraph, shattering any suspension of disbelief the reader might have had. It doesn't help that from here on out the story starts to read like some kind of Dungeons and Dragons fan fiction. So then the main character "focuses" and that somehow gives him the power to summon armor. Huh? What? Did he do that on purpose? Was he surprised when armour suddenly appeared around him? What the gently caress is going on? And he fights a dragon? Blah? What?  This is all so bizarre and out of left field.If you want a sense of how to improve then you really need to look no further than the guy you were brawling against, sebmojo, and his story "Airman Jim versus the Leviathan". It isn't perfect but it really demonstrates some of the traits that your story lacks. For instance, the opening paragraph: sebmojo posted:Jim gritted his teeth against the freezing wind and the cold metal of the eyescope. Below him the cloud sea stretched out, dominated by a single huge, drifting cumulus, drenched with peach and purple from the setting sun. Through his brass eyescope Jim could see a flyer doing a sweep, the faraway buzz of its engine like a mournful wasp. He shoved the scope back into his pocket and shut his eyes tight to stop the self-pitying tears. It’s not fair, he thought. I’m a better airman than any of the other kids. First of all he engages more of our senses than just sight. Notice how he uses the sense of touch and hearing to make the scene more evocative and draw the reader into what is happening. This first paragraph has more evocative scene setting than your entire story. It also gives us a much better sense of the protagonists motivations. Also notice how later in the story, when the action really gets going, sebmojo dedicates an appropriate amount of time to actually describing what is happening: quote:The pirate flyer was a skittish minx of a thing in the air, its engine howling anxiously at him and wanting to flip him over and dive for the cloud sea at anything harder than a twitch. With aching care he put the craft into a slow dive and grinned as he felt it firming up. Airspeed, that’s what you like, isn’t it? Jim slammed the throttle in full and howled with glee as a huge invisible fist pushed him back into his seat. Again, notice how he's describing more than just the visuals, and how that helps the reader actually envision what is happening. This is a pretty sharp contrast to your own description about some unspecified "spirits" setting a guy on fire somehow, or a none descript "dragon" suddenly appearing, or how the main character wills a none description suit of armour into existence. Sorry if this is harsh but if you're already musing about publishing your stories then you clearly need a reality check. You're nowhere near that level yet and fooling yourself into thinking otherwise is just going to make it harder for you to actually improve.
|
|
#
?
Sep 18, 2014 18:08
|
|
|
I have a new draft. Helsing, I've taken your criticisms into consideration. I've also taken into consideration the criticisms of two other persons who I've had them look at it. Before I post it, I want to address two of your criticisms. I'm aware the dialogue is hokey. My intent is to emulate the overly formal and often bombastic dialogue style from The Bible and other Christian inspired tales like "The Faerie Queene" by Edmund Spenser. That corniness is supposed to transfer into outright terror when the Shrine of Santa Muerte is revealed to host an ancient death God. More natural dialogue, in my opinion, would undercut the narrative of a kid challenging a Death God and failing, not to mention the theme of unquestionable faith. I will, however, concede that I need to improve upon the dialogue if I'm trying to emulate that style. I can't figure out how, though. I've given a brief description why Jordan's dad fell into the cult. I didn't feel that it was all that important. His dad's the impetus, sure. But I don't know, it's not the cult that's the villain, it's the god that they're worshiping. Hopefully, I've improved upon myself with this new draft. Draft in next post. Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 03:46 on Sep 24, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 03:42
|
|
|
False God My name is Jordan and I’m here trying to convince my Dad to leave a death cult. “Dad, please,” I plead with him as he bows in front of the macabre shrine of Santa Muerte. “Please, we miss you.” My words fall on deaf ears as he keeps worshiping at the foot of the shrine. Santa Muerte is the local deity of death and mortality whose image is a corrupted version of Our Lady of Guadalupe; a skeletal woman clad in robes, wearing a crucifix around her neck. In her right hand, she holds a scythe ready to harvest souls while in her left she holds a globe, symbolizing her dominion over all. Like my Dad, other worshipers were presenting their tributes of flowers, incense, and candles to the feet of the shrine while praying for her blessings and forgiveness. "Dad, please," I try again, but he won't budge. A familiar person walks inside and storms towards the idol. "Father Aguilar?" Father Aguilar is the priest of our local parish. In recent months, with the drug violence escalating, worship in the false god Santa Muerte has reached a fever-pitch as dozens upon dozens of members of our church have left--my Dad included, when my Mom died in a cartel shootout. Like everybody else, he's become disillusioned in their faith in God. Now they all seek solace in the macabre idol in front of me. In response, Father Aguilar is now on a righteous crusade against Santa Muerte worship. I’ve never seen Father Aguilar so angry in my life. His eyes are absent of the kind of love and caring he usually has for his flock--they’re instead filled with fire and brimstone. He immediately makes his way to the front and stood next to the false idol. “Step down, padre!” a cultist shouts. "How dare you desecrate our Lady's shrine!" shouts another. “Shrine? Blasphemy!” Father Aguilar exclaims. “This is not a shrine, it's a pagan idol! And all of you are dooming yourselves to a life of torment and hellfire!” “Who are you to tell us who we can and can't worship?” a cultist asks angrily. “Exodus 20, verse five,” Father Aguilar quoted to the crowd. “'You shall not worship or serve a false idol; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God!'” “Where was your God when my girlfriend was kidnapped by the Cartel? She's dead now!” a voice shouts as everyone else roars in agreement. “Please!” Father Aguilar pleads with the crowd. “I ask you, why worship death when you should instead worship our lord and savior, Jesus Christ? Who died for your sins to ensure us all everlasting life?” “Get him out of here,” someone else says as the cult rises and forces Father Aguilar away from the idol. “Please, listen to my words! Salvation lies not in false gods, but in the one true God!” His words falling on deaf ears, I follow Father Aguilar outside as he’s thrown out the building. He kneels to the ground with his hands covering his face as he makes a silent prayer of despair. “Father Aguilar?” I ask “Jordan!” Father Aguilar turns and hugs me. “What are you doing here, my son?” I drop my head in shame. “My Dad’s in there. I’ve been trying for the longest time to get him out, but…” “I know, son,” he says sympathetically. “Father, this cult has him in their grasp and I have no idea how to get him out,” I tell him. “Don't lose faith, Jordan,” Father Aguilar told me in spite of his obvious despair. “The Lord will help us find a way.” I gave a half-hearted smile. “But Father, it's not like we can call fire down from the heavens.” The story of Elijah and the false prophets was my favorite in the Bible. According to the Bible, Elijah challenges the false prophets by seeing whose god could send down fire from the heavens first. I was joking, but he stares at me. “Who says we can't?” he asks. “Wh-What are you thinking, Father?” “Does your father still have his gun?” “Yeah but it's for killing coyotes. Why-” “Go get it and bring it here.” My house is a block away, so I run as fast as I can to get my Dad’s shotgun. I return with the gun and see Father Aguilar holding a gas can. I nod at him, knowing exactly what he has in mind. We walk into the shrine, surrounded on all sides by angry cultists. Before a single person can rise up in anger, I fire a single shot in the air. Everyone jumps and backs away from us as I hold the gun out and pan it around. As I corral the cult, Father Aguilar positions himself next to the idol of Santa Muerte. “In Second Kings, the prophet Ezekiel challenged the false prophets of Baal by seeing whose God would send fire from the heavens first,” he says while dousing statue of Santa Muerte in gas. “Let's see if your god would stand my test of fire!” He pulls out a lighter and ignites the gas-soaked idol. But as soon as it erupts in flames, it extinguishes. What happens next will be forever burned into my memory. The eyes of the statue flash blood-red. I hear a raspy snarl and from the statue, something escapes from it. It appears as a giant miasma made up entirely of wisps. Looking closer, I see human forms--arms, clothes, hair, and, disturbingly enough, faces. Faces of the young and the old, all of them contorted and stretched out in pure agony, all of them unified in a single, horrifying, unholy scream. I find myself so transfixed in this demonic force, that I’m completely frozen in fear. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Father Aguilar pleads as the spirits surround him in a shrieking whirlwind. They then fly inside him, absorbing themselves within his body. After a moment of deathly silence, Father Aguilar screams in agony and bursts into hellfire. The smell of burned flesh and fat fills the air as the flames dissipate. Nothing of Father Aguilar remains except a blackened skeleton which collapses into a pile of ash. The spirits escape from the pile and return from once they came, inside the idol. Everybody else gasps in terror. I’m too busy hyperventilating, trying to keep my palpitating heart from bursting from my chest and escaping my body in pure terror. I look eyes with the demonic idol. At this moment, I truly fear for my immortal soul. I know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am damned. A glint of light catches my eyes and I look down towards my chest. I’m wearing my rosary around my neck. And it’s glowing. I grab my cross as another host of spirits escape from the idol. I wrap my fingers around it tightly and I feel a warmth flowing through my hand, coursing through veins, radiating around me. The spirits dissipate around my aura and I hear the idol snarl. The spirits now collect themselves and transform. They take the form of a beast--a gargantuan, satanic dragon with giant wings and glowing red eyes. It spreads its wings and roars at me. My rosary isn’t just a simple cross--it’s a symbol of my belief, my conviction, and my child-like faith in the grace and love of my savior, Jesus Christ. It is that which Santa Muerte, in all her demonic power and dominion over death, can never extinguish. The light that surrounds me forms into the full armor of God--the breastplate of truth protects my heart, the belt of truth is buckled around my waist, and my feet are fitted with the readiness that comes in the gospel of peace. The dragon takes a deep breath and spews hellfire from its gaping maw. I take up my shield of faith and hold it aloft, blocking the flames entirely. Before the dragon can get its second wind, I tighten my helmet of righteousness on my head and draw my sword of the spirit, ready to confront the evil one. I run up and swing my sword at its mouth, cutting into its nose. The dragon recoils in pain, lifting its head and snarling at me. With its soft underbelly exposed, I cry out in rage and rush towards it with my sword pointed out, stabbing it. The dragon screams in pain while I hold the sword tight in both hands and lift it overhead, cutting further into its vile belly to disembowel it. The dragon lets out a fatal scream and collapses. Everything from the spirits that formed it to my faith that formed my armor evaporates. The shrine explodes and fragments. I cover my face as I feel the fragments cutting into my skin. I now stand in front of a whole crowd of people, covered in dust and bits of stone, whose faces are transfixed upon me in fearsome awe. They bow. They chant my name. They repeat it, over and over again. My eyes gape. My body is covered in cold sweat, stinging into my open cuts. I see my Dad bowing in front of me. Now the horror truly dawns upon me--I have finally become the one thing I fear and despise the most, I have become a false god. I scream as I hear a raspy voice laughing triumphantly in my ear.
|
|
#
?
Sep 24, 2014 03:43
|
|
|
Oh. Well, I read the original draft and your reply to Helsing's critique, and I don't really want to re-read the new draft (sorry), but I noticed, 1) that you for some reason switched to present tense. I guess you're experimenting, but I'd be interested to know what the purpose of that is. 2) and tying into the previous point, you say that you want to emulate the Bible. I don't think you can do it by half, and I'm not sure you're even there. I haven't read any Edmund Spenser, so maybe there's more similarity there. I don't mean to say that I can't tolerate an imitation of the Bible that isn't completely faithful. I think you have too little of it there to make it noticeable, and the story comes off just as rudimental modern prose. The thing is, as I understand it, the Bible is rudimental at heart, because it's spoken legends put into writing, and spoken stories are rudimental compared to well-developed literature. But on top of that, the modern Bible is a product of translation and adaptation by people holding it to be a very sacred text, and depending on the edition this brings with itself a quite distinct vocabulary. To sum up, emulating the Bible might not be as simple as it seems, and if you still want to go that route I suggest you take a better look at it. However, it might not make your story the most publishable material. If you, instead, want to go for modern prose, you need to redo your dialog accordingly, as I've noticed that you have left it the same in the last edit.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 19:10
|
|
|
supermikhail posted:Oh. Well, I read the original draft and your reply to Helsing's critique, and I don't really want to re-read the new draft (sorry), but I noticed, EDIT: I'm on a 1st Person POV kick, right now, that's why.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 20:05
|
|
|
I like the basic ideas at work here, but it lacks important details, and the re-write, from what I skimmed over, seems to address this by telling rather than showing. The opening line draws me in, but it's a bit sparse, which is a common observation I made. I'd open the story with the description of the altar and the crowd. Take your time a bit, use the descriptor to start forming some sense of personality for our narrator. Showcase a bit of his sense of self in how he views a church and its procession. Since there's only one real set piece to this story, taking a couple paragraphs to really explore what this church looks and sounds and smells like would be a good use of space, especially since you have no need to really detail the faceless crowd of worshipers. You lack description where I feel it is needed. What do these spirits look like? I think ghosts, certainly, but a few details would go a long way. Like "whisps of fog rose from the padre's feet, vague claws tugging at his robes, skeletal grins rising from the mist." or something like that. Give them some sort of imagery. I also dislike the name "Santa Muerte", if only because I feel it is too "on the nose" although I am well-aware that there are similar actual idols and names that exist in Mexico right now. But "Saint Death" is a bit lacking in any poetry for my taste. Personally, I'd have the patron of death be, perhaps, something like La Llarona, a folk-maiden deified, or an actual victim of murder also sanctified, or perhaps a historical figure associated with the drug war, or even just something like "The Lady of Decay" for a bit more flair. I'd reccomend making taking a stream-of-consciousness route for the climax as well, to indicate the narrator's increasing loss of sanity in the face of his faith being burned away. It would cement the fear too.
|
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 20:16
|
|
|
BottledBodhisvata posted:I like the basic ideas at work here, but it lacks important details, and the re-write, from what I skimmed over, seems to address this by telling rather than showing. EDIT: I wanna ask, does Jordan describing his armor through Ephesians 6: 10-18 work? I want to properly convey how much he believes in his faith, so I figured that describing things like the armor through Biblical text would be only proper for his character. Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 21:04 on Sep 25, 2014 |
|
#
?
Sep 25, 2014 20:55
|
|
|
 I don't like it. As criticism I can offer that it's clunky. Possibly you overdid it with de-verbosing. Possibly it's the style. I still think that if you're imitating someone, you should try to make it a closer fit. (Assuming what you're trying to imitate is good - I still haven't read that author.) If they didn't describe armor it's of course going to be harder. I keep looking at the dialog, and to be bitingly frank, I don't know what you mean by "bombastic", to me it comes off as childish, somewhere on the level of a bad anime. I sort of get a kick reading it in that style, but you probably don't intend to take the story in this direction.
|
|
#
?
Sep 26, 2014 00:18
|
|
|
Third Draft. Hopefully this one's the charm. False God My name is Jordan and I’m here trying to convince my Dad to leave a death cult. “Dad, please,” I plead with him as he bows in front of the macabre shrine of Santa Muerte. “Please, we miss you.” My words fall on deaf ears as he keeps worshiping at the foot of the shrine. Santa Muerte is the local deity of death and mortality whose image is a corrupted version of Our Lady of Guadalupe; a skeletal woman clad in robes, wearing a crucifix around her neck. In her right hand, she holds a scythe ready to harvest souls while in her left she holds a globe, symbolizing her dominion over all. Like my Dad, other worshipers were presenting their tributes of flowers, incense, and candles to the feet of the shrine while praying for her blessings and forgiveness. The shrine itself isn’t like a proper church; one with pews, a pulpit, or even a pastor. It’s an empty room, no bigger than my church’s humble-sized recreation hall. The floor is bare and there’s nothing else except the worshipers, their offerings, and the idol itself. It’s rather eerie, in retrospect, how these cultists can hold services with such minimalism while what I’m used to involves much, much, more structure and regalia. It’s clear that their faith is so strong that they do not require the sorts of rituals and processions that I and many of my fellow believers in the one, true God are accustomed to. "Dad, please," I try again, but he won't budge. A familiar person walks inside and storms towards the idol. "Father Aguilar?" Father Aguilar is the priest of our local parish. In recent months, with the drug violence escalating, worship in the false god Santa Muerte has reached a fever-pitch as dozens upon dozens of members of our church have left, Dad included. Like everybody else, he's become disillusioned in their faith in God. Now they all seek solace in the macabre idol in front of me. In response, Father Aguilar is now on a righteous crusade against Santa Muerte worship. I’ve never seen Father Aguilar so angry in my life. His eyes are absent of the kind of love and caring he usually has for his flock--they’re instead filled with fire and brimstone. He immediately makes his way to the front and stood next to the false idol. “Step down, padre!” a cultist shouts. "How dare you desecrate our Lady's shrine!" "Shrine? This is no shrine, it's a pagan idol!" Father Aguilar exclaims with religious fervor. "And all of you are dooming yourselves to a life of damnation and hellfire!” “Who are you to judge us?" another cultist says accusingly. “Exodus 20, verse five,” he quotes to the crowd. “'You shall not worship or serve a false idol; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God!'” “Where was your God when my wife was kidnapped by the Cartel?" Dad shouts at him. "She's dead now!” Everyone else roars in agreement. “Please!” Father Aguilar pleads with the crowd. “I ask you, why worship death when you should instead worship our lord and savior, Jesus Christ? Who died for your sins to ensure us all everlasting life?” “Get him out of here,” someone else says as the cult rises and forces him away from the idol. “Please, listen to my words! Salvation lies not in false gods, but in the one true God!” His words falling on deaf ears, I follow Father Aguilar outside as he’s thrown out the building. He kneels to the ground with his hands covering his face as he makes a silent prayer of despair. “Father Aguilar?” I ask “Jordan!” Father Aguilar turns and hugs me. “What are you doing here, my son?” I drop my head in shame. “My Dad’s in there. I’ve been trying for the longest time to get him out, but…” “I know, son,” he says and wraps his arm around me. “Father, this cult has him in their grasp and I have no idea how to get him out.” “Don't lose faith, Jordan, the Lord will help us find a way.” I give him a half-hearted smile. “But Father, it's not like we can call fire down from the heavens.” According to the Bible, the Prophet Elijah challenged the false prophets of Baal by having two separate altars built to see whose god would send fire from the heavens first. It was my favorite Biblical story, and I meant what I said in jest. “Who says we can't?” he asks. “Wh-What do you mean?” “Does your father still have his gun?” “Yeah but it's for killing coyotes. Why-” “Go get it and bring it here.” My house is a block away, so I run as fast as I can to get my Dad’s shotgun. I return with the gun and see Father Aguilar holding a gas can. I nod at him, knowing exactly what he has in mind. We walk into the shrine, surrounded on all sides by angry cultists. Before a single person could rise up in anger, I fire a single shot in the air. Everyone jumps and backs away from us as I hold the gun out and pan it around. As I corral the cult, Father Aguilar positions himself next to the idol of Santa Muerte. “In Second Kings, the prophet Ezekiel challenged the false prophets of Baal by seeing whose God would send fire from the heavens first,” he says while dousing statue of Santa Muerte in gas. “Let's see if your god would stand my test of fire!” He pulls out a lighter and ignites the gas-soaked idol. But as soon as it erupts in flames, it extinguishes. The eyes of the statue flash bright-red. I hear a raspy snarl and from the statue while a giant miasma flows exudes from it like smoke. No, not smoke, it's a miasma ; comprised of human figures complete with faces and bodies. Faces of the young and the old, all of them contorted and stretched out in pure agony, all of them unified in a single, horrifying, unholy scream. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Father Aguilar pleads as the spirits surround him in a shrieking whirlwind. Skeletal hands, outstretched into claws, grab onto him and tether themselves on him like streamers onto a may pole. Their wailing is now louder and higher like an infernal orchestra led by their unseen and incomprehensible conductor. They then fly inside him, absorbing themselves within his body. After a moment of deathly silence, Father Aguilar screams in agony and bursts into hellfire. The smell of burned flesh and fat fills the air as the flames dissipate. Nothing of Father Aguilar remains except a blackened skeleton which collapses into a pile of ash. The spirits escape from the pile and return from once they came, inside the idol. Everybody else gasps in terror. I want to run as fast as I can but I’m hyperventilating too hard, trying to keep my palpitating heart from bursting from my chest and escaping my body in pure terror. I lock eyes with the demonic idol. Locking eyes with the demonic idol I grab the shotgun tightly, turn the barrel towards my chin, and slip my finger around the trigger. I no longer fear for my immortal soul for I know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am damned. A glint of light catches my eyes and I look down towards my chest. It's the rosary around my neck and it's glowing. I grab my cross as another host of spirits escape from the idol. I wrap my fingers around it tightly and I feel a warmth flowing through my hand, coursing through veins, radiating around me. The spirits dissipate around my aura and I hear the idol snarl. The spirits now collect themselves and transform. They take the form of a beast--a gargantuan, satanic dragon with giant wings and glowing red eyes. It spreads its wings and roars at me. My rosary isn’t just a simple cross, it’s a symbol of my belief, my conviction, and my child-like faith in the grace and love of my savior, Jesus Christ. It is that which Santa Muerte, in all her demonic power and dominion over death, can never extinguish. The light that surrounds me forms into the full armor of God. The breastplate of truth protects my heart, the belt of truth is buckled around my waist, and my feet are fitted with the readiness that comes in the gospel of peace. The dragon takes a deep breath and spews hellfire from its gaping maw. I take up my shield of faith and hold it aloft, blocking the flames entirely. Before the dragon can get its second wind, I tighten my helmet of righteousness on my head and draw my sword of the spirit, ready to confront the evil one. I run up and swing my sword at its mouth, cutting into its nose. The dragon recoils in pain, lifting its head and snarling at me. With its soft underbelly exposed, I cry out in rage and rush towards it with my sword pointed out, stabbing it. The dragon screams in pain while I hold the sword tight in both hands and lift it overhead, cutting further into its vile belly to disembowel it. The dragon lets out one final scream and collapses. Everything from the spirits that formed it to my faith that formed my armor evaporates. The shrine explodes and fragments. I cover my face as I feel the fragments cutting into my skin. I now stand in front of a whole crowd of people, covered in dust and bits of stone, whose faces are transfixed upon me in fearsome awe. They bow. They chant my name. They repeat it, over and over again. My eyes gape. My body is covered in cold sweat, stinging into my open cuts. I see my Dad bowing in front of me. Now the horror truly dawns upon me--I have finally become the one thing I fear and despise the most, I have become a false god. I scream as I hear a raspy voice laughing triumphantly in my ear.
|
|
#
?
Oct 8, 2014 23:16
|
|
|
Well, in case this is indeed the final draft, I'm going to go into nitpicking.  quote:Presenting their tributes... to the feet of the shrine quote:A familiar person walks inside... I want to back up a bit - quote:It's rather eerie, in retrospect... quote:Like everybody else, he's become disillusioned in their faith in God. quote:His eyes are absent of the kind of love and caring he usually has for his flock... quote:He immediately makes his way to the front and quote:“Step down, padre!” a cultist shouts. "How dare you desecrate our Lady's shrine!  quote:Father Aguilar exclaims with religious fervor quote:“Who are you to judge us?" another cultist says accusingly. quote:"She's dead now!” Everyone else roars in agreement. quote:“I ask you, why worship death when you should instead worship our lord and savior, Jesus Christ? Who died for your sins to ensure us all everlasting life?” quote:“Who says we can't?” he asks.  quote:Before a single person could rise up in anger, I fire a single shot in the air. quote:Everyone jumps and backs away from us as I hold the gun out and pan it around. As I corral the cult, Father Aguilar positions himself next to the idol of Santa Muerte. quote:“In Second Kings, the prophet Ezekiel challenged the false prophets of Baal by seeing whose God would send fire from the heavens first,” he says while dousing statue of Santa Muerte in gas. “Let's see if your god would stand my test of fire!” quote:I hear a raspy snarl and from the statue while a giant miasma flows exudes from it like smoke. quote:“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Father Aguilar pleads... quote:The spirits escape from the pile and return from quote:Everybody else gasps in terror. I want to run as fast as I can but I’m hyperventilating too hard... Also, writers until now have been satisfied with "frozen in terror" and similar succinct descriptions. I don't know why you have to go into anatomical detail. quote:I lock eyes with the demonic idol. Locking eyes with the demonic idol I grab the shotgun tightly quote:Locking eyes with the demonic idol I grab the shotgun tightly, turn the barrel towards my chin, and slip my finger around the trigger. I no longer fear for my immortal soul for I know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am damned. I don't understand the motivation behind the protagonist's actions. A second ago he was quite eager to run away, then without much preamble he wants to kill himself. I'm not sure what effect you want to achieve, but you could insert a freeze-frame in which the protagonist's worldview turns on its head.quote:I grab my cross as another host of spirits escape from the idol. I wrap my fingers around it tightly and quote:a gargantuan, satanic dragon with giant wings and glowing red eyes... In conclusion, you've really upped it with descriptions, especially in the beginning... hold on. quote:In her right hand, she holds a scythe ready to harvest souls while in her left she holds a globe... As I was saying, your descriptions have improved, but it may be not apparent because of the unusual narration. I'm sorry to say but I think it's still nowhere near ready for publication.
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 13:35
|
|
|
Benny the Snake posted:My name is Jordan and I’m here trying to convince my Dad to leave a death cult. This is a really banal first line. It makes it sound like your main character is at an AA meeting or something. I'm sure there's a better way you can express this. quote:Santa Muerte is the local deity of death and mortality whose image is a corrupted version of Our Lady of Guadalupe; a skeletal woman clad in robes, wearing a crucifix around her neck. In her right hand, she holds a scythe ready to harvest souls while in her left she holds a globe, symbolizing her dominion over all. Like my Dad, other worshipers were presenting their tributes of flowers, incense, and candles to the feet of the shrine while praying for her blessings and forgiveness. You switch tenses in the last sentence. quote:The shrine itself isn’t like a proper church; one with pews, a pulpit, or even a pastor. That's not how you use a semi-colon. With a semi-colon, each part needs to be an independent sentence. quote:Like everybody else, he's become disillusioned in their faith in God. I get what you mean here, but this sounds awkward. I would recommend sticking with "his" instead of "their". quote:I drop my head in shame. “My Dad’s in there. I’ve been trying for the longest time to get him out, but…” A sentence that ends in trailing ellipses has four ellipses, not three. A few things: 1. Benny, I've read a number of your stories in Thunderdome and your E/N thread, and to be honest, you are nowhere near close to getting something published. I'm not saying you're the worst writer ever of course, but your writing is still very amateurish, and as such, tends to veer towards the cliche. Like, pretty much everything in this story has been done a million times before in books, movies, and TV, and it doesn't really inspire me to keep reading. The only thing I wanted to know more about why was people had started worshiping Santa Muerte and you just briefly touched on that. Also, the two main characters aren't very sympathetic, and just babble on a lot about God, and I guess I feel like I can sympathize more with the cult, since neither the priest nor the narrator can provide them what they're seeking. Anyways, don't worry about getting published right now. Read a ton of books and write constantly, and then come back and show us what you've got. There's a reason why they say your first 1000 pieces are always crap (and that was true for me too). 2. Get a copy of Strunk and White and read it cover-to-cover. Your grammar is not very good for someone who claims to be an English major, and if you submit works full of grammar errors, you're going to get automatically rejected, because why would the editors pick your work over 50 others where the person took the time to edit their work thoroughly?
|
|
#
?
Oct 9, 2014 22:01
|
|
|
This is my final prompt. Hopefully it's fit to submit. False God (1732 words) My name is Jordan and I’m here trying to convince my Dad to leave a death cult. “Dad, please,” I plead with him as he bows in front of the macabre shrine of Santa Muerte. “Please, we miss you.” My words fall on deaf ears as he keeps worshiping at the foot of the shrine. Santa Muerte is the local deity of death and mortality whose image is a corrupted version of Our Lady of Guadalupe; a skeletal woman clad in robes, wearing a crucifix around her neck. In her right hand, she wields a scythe ready to harvest souls while in her left she holds a globe, symbolizing her dominion over all. Like my Dad, other worshipers are presenting their tributes of flowers, incense, and candles at the feet of the shrine while praying for her blessings and forgiveness. The shrine itself isn’t like a proper church, one with pews, a pulpit, or even a pastor. It’s an empty room, no bigger than my church’s humble-sized recreation hall. The floor is bare and there’s nothing else except the worshipers, their offerings, and the idol itself. It’s rather eerie, in retrospect, how these cultists can hold services with such minimalism while what I’m used to involves much, much, more structure and regalia. It’s clear that their faith is so strong that they do not require the sorts of rituals and processions that I and many of my fellow believers in the one, true God are accustomed to. "Dad, please," I try again, but he won't budge. An enraged person walks inside and storms towards the idol. "Father Aguilar?" Father Aguilar is the priest of our local parish. In recent months, with the drug violence escalating, worship in the false god Santa Muerte has reached a fever-pitch as dozens upon dozens of members of our church have left--my Dad included, when my Mom died in a cartel shootout. Like everybody else, he's become disillusioned in his faith in God. Now they all seek solace in the macabre idol in front of me. In response, Father Aguilar is now on a righteous crusade against Santa Muerte worship. I’ve never seen Father Aguilar so angry in my life. His eyes are absent of the love and caring he usually has for his flock--they’re instead filled with fire and brimstone. He immediately makes his way to the front and stands next to the false idol. “Get down from there, padre!” a cultist shouts. "How dare you desecrate our Lady's shrine!" shouts another. “Shrine? Blasphemy!” Father Aguilar exclaims. “This is not a shrine, it's a pagan idol! And all of you are dooming yourselves to a life of damnation and hellfire!” “Who are you to tell us who we can and can't worship?” a cultist asks angrily. “Exodus 20, verse five,” he quotes to the crowd. “'You shall not worship or serve a false idol; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God!'” “Where was your God when my wife was kidnapped by the Cartel?" My Dad shouted at him. "She's dead now!” Everyone else roars in agreement. “Please!” Father Aguilar pleads with the crowd. “I ask you, why worship death when you should instead worship our lord and savior, Jesus Christ, who died for your sins to ensure us all everlasting life?” “Get him out of here,” someone else says as the cult rises and forces him away from the idol. “Please, listen to my words! Salvation lies not in false gods, but in the one true God!” His words falling on deaf ears, I follow Father Aguilar outside as he’s thrown out the building. He kneels to the ground with his hands covering his face as he makes a silent prayer of despair. “Father Aguilar?” I ask “Jordan!” Father Aguilar turns and hugs me. “What are you doing here, my son?” I drop my head in shame. “My Dad’s in there. I’ve been trying for the longest time to get him out, but.…” “I know, son,” he says and wraps his arm around me. “Father, this cult has him in their grasp and I have no idea how to get him out.” “Don't lose faith, Jordan, the Lord will help us find a way.” I give him a half-hearted smile. “But Father, it's not like we can call fire down from the heavens.” The Story of Elijah and the false prophets was my favorite in the Bible. In the story, Elijah challenges them by having two altars built to see who's god would send fire from the heavens first. I was joking, but Father Aguilar stares at me. "Wh-What are you thinking, Father?" I asks. “Does your father still have his gun?” “Yeah but it's for killing coyotes. Why-” “Go get it and bring it here.” My house is a block away, so I run as fast as I can to get my Dad’s shotgun. I return with the gun and see Father Aguilar holding a gas can. I nod at him, knowing exactly what he has in mind. We walk into the shrine, surrounded on all sides by angry cultists. Before a single person can rise up in anger, I fire a single shot in the air. Everyone jumps and backs away from us as I hold the gun out and pan it around. As I corral the cult, Father Aguilar positions himself next to the idol of Santa Muerte. “In Second Kings, the prophet Ezekiel challenged the false prophets of Baal by seeing whose God would send fire from the heavens first,” he says while dousing statue of Santa Muerte in gas. “Let's see if your god would stand my test of fire!” He pulls out a lighter and ignites the gas-soaked idol. But as soon as it erupts in flames, it extinguishes. The eyes of the statue flash blood-red. I hear a raspy snarl and from the statue and something escapes from it. It appears as a giant miasma made up entirely of what I can’t even properly fathom. The miasma is comprised of human figures, complete with faces and bodies. Faces of the young and the old, all of them contorted and stretched out in pure agony, all of them unified in a single, horrifying, unholy scream. I find myself so transfixed in this demonic force, that I’m completely frozen in fear. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Father Aguilar exclaims as the spirits surround him in a shrieking whirlwind. Skeletal hands, outstretched into claws, grab onto him and tether themselves on him like streamers onto a may pole. Their wailing is now louder and higher like an infernal orchestra, and it’s led by their unseen and incomprehensible conductor. They then fly inside him, absorbing themselves within his body. After a moment of deathly silence, Father Aguilar screams in agony and bursts into hellfire. The smell of burned flesh and fat fills the air as the flames dissipate. Nothing of Father Aguilar remains except a blackened skeleton which collapses into a pile of ash. The spirits escape from the pile and return from once they came, inside the idol. Everybody else gasps in terror. I want to run as fast as I can but I’m too busy trying to keep my palpitating heart from bursting from my chest and escaping my body in pure terror. Locking eyes with the demonic idol, I turn my Dad's shotgun on myself and wrap my finger around the trigger. I no longer fear for my immortal soul for I know now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I am damned. A glint of light catches my eyes and I look down towards my chest. I’m wearing my rosary around my neck. And it’s glowing. I grab my cross as another host of spirits escape from the idol. I wrap my fingers around it tightly and I feel a warmth flowing through my hand, coursing through my veins, radiating around me. The spirits dissipate around my aura and I hear the idol snarl. The spirits now collect themselves and transform. They take the form of a beast--a gargantuan, satanic-looking dragon with giant wings and glowing red eyes. It spreads its wings and roars at me. My rosary isn’t just a simple cross--it’s a symbol of my belief, my conviction, and my child-like faith in the grace and love of my savior, Jesus Christ. It is that which Santa Muerte, in all her demonic power and dominion over death, can never extinguish. The light that surrounds me forms into the full armor of God--the breastplate of truth protects my heart, the belt of truth is buckled around my waist, and my feet are fitted with the readiness that comes in the gospel of peace. The dragon takes a deep breath and spews hellfire from its gaping maw. I take up my shield of faith and hold it aloft, blocking the flames entirely. Before the dragon can get its second wind, I tighten my helmet of righteousness on my head and draw my sword of the spirit, ready to confront the evil one. I run up and swing my sword at its mouth, cutting into its nose. The dragon recoils in pain, lifting its head and snarling at me. With its soft underbelly exposed, I cry out in rage and rush towards it with my sword pointed out, stabbing it. The dragon screams in pain while I hold the sword tight in both hands and lift it overhead, cutting further into its vile belly to disembowel it. The dragon lets out a fatal scream and collapses. Everything from the spirits that formed it to my faith that formed my armor evaporates. The shrine explodes and fragments. I cover my face as I feel the fragments cutting into my skin. I now stand in front of a whole crowd of people, covered in dust and bits of stone, whose faces are transfixed upon me in fearsome awe. They bow. They chant my name. They repeat it, over and over again. My eyes gape. My body is covered in cold sweat, stinging into my open cuts. I see my Dad bowing in front of me. Now the horror truly dawns upon me--I have finally become the one thing I fear and despise the most, I have become a false god. I scream as I hear a raspy voice laughing triumphantly in my ear. Benny the Snake fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Oct 29, 2014 |
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2014 06:47
|
|
|
I probably wasted my time, but below is a line-by-line. Look, Benny, all the grammatical issues remaining aside, this is not a piece that is going to get accepted by a real lit mag. Why? Because it's a giant cliche, which everyone has read a million times before. There is nothing interesting or a new twist on the cliche here; it's just a paint-by-numbers "babby's first horror story" work. Put this in a drawer and go write more stories and you will help yourself far more than sending this out somewhere. Benny the Snake posted:This is my final prompt. Hopefully it's fit to submit.
|
|
#
?
Oct 29, 2014 17:16
|
|
|
Grammatical fine-tuning aside, let's take a gander at the core building blocks of your story. I'm aware I'm probably wasting my time, but after all the stuff you've pulled here and in IRC I feel like we need an ultimatum. I will not look over anything else you have ever or will ever write, Benny, until you have demonstrated to me that you've read this post and internalized its points. Your protagonist is Jordan, presumably a young man, whose father has turned to a death cult following the cross-fire murder of his wife. Not just him, either, but a good number of people. Enough to empty the local parish. But Jordan wants his father out, so this becomes our driving force. There are four characters at the heart of this story: Jordan, Jordan's dad, Father Aguilar, and the demon Santa Muerte. Jordan is religious, cares about his father (though apparently only his father), and that is pretty much everything we know about him. Everyone else fares worse. Jordan's father ends up a footnote. Father Aguilar is a cardboard cut-out of a Catholic priest. The demon is monstrous but in a very video gamey way. None of these characters are particularly interesting, engaging, or even off-puttingly compelling. Jordan has been trying to convince his father to leave this cult for some time. Father Aguilar has been trying to squash the cult. Neither of them demonstrate much in the way of theological rhetoric, the two of them content to demand people stop because they were asked to. That sort of naivety doesn't speak well of either of them. Finally they strike up the idea to emulate the story of Elijah, which is just about the only remotely interesting thing anyone in this story attempts. Sadly, it turns out to be a wash, the good priest vaporized for his troubles. (Father Aguilar's death is almost almost interesting if only by implication. Either Santa Muerte's power is real but God's is not, Santa Muerte's power trumps God's, or Father Aguilar's faith/reasoning in his actions are more muddled than Jordan perceives. Since a paragraph down Jordan's rosary gives him mystical powers which still fail to slay the beast "Laughing triumphantly in [his] ear," the answer appears to be the second choice - his apparent victory little more than a spiritual electrical light show) His rosary clutched to his chest, Jordan defeats the demon Father Aguilar could not, only for everyone in attendance to turn to him as their new idol. Quite the predicament! Actually, this sounds pretty familiar. Let's check out what the Good Book has to say about the matter. The Bible, Acts 14: 8-18 posted:In Lystra there sat a man who was lame. He had been that way from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, “Stand up on your feet!” At that, the man jumped up and began to walk. Also, this is tangential, but why did Jordan think he was damned earlier on when Father Aguilar got barbequed? Scared I get, but damned? If merely witnessing a demon in action is enough to drat someone, quite a few fairly important Biblical figures would be damned by association. Let's loop back to the beginning here, chart this whole thing out. Jordan's mom dies, Jordan's dad joins a death cult. Jordan tries to get his dad to leave the cult without success. Father Aguilar is introduced and also revealed to have failed. Alright. The scope and stakes of the story are set. Jordan and Father Aguilar conspire to enact a loose interpretation of a famous Biblical story. For a fleeting moment it looks like they are successful, only for all hell to break loose. Father Aguilar is killed. Rising action, complication; the story is now at its emotional peak. It's all on Jordan now. In this, his darkest hour, he turns to the Lord, and gains the necessary Mario power-ups required to emerge victorious. BUT IT WAS ALL A RUSE. Jordan turns to find himself the new false idol these people now worship, and despairs. The demon taunts him from beyond. The story is finished. Generally speaking, most stories (especially short stories) can be divided into three acts. The protagonist wants something, works for it, then succeeds or fails. Pretty simple, though not necessarily satisfying on its own. I want a glass of water, so I go get one. I fill up a cup and drink it. I feel refreshed. That's a story alright, but who cares? This is why, typically, you introduce complications. The protagonist wants something, but some external or internal force complicates matters. They work towards their goal, but it's not as easy as they might've hoped. Finally they succeed (or fail) by overcoming (or succumbing) to the previously alluded to internal or external factors in a way that is interesting. In your case, Benny, your protagonist fails. Okay. That's fine in and of itself, but WHY does he fail? In this case it's because the demon is effectively all-powerful, only granting him the brief illusion of victory. He never stood a chance. He would have accomplished exactly as much by staying in bed today. That isn't satisfying. He loses because the game says he loses, not because he failed a challenge or fell victim to his flaws. Shoot man, he didn't even botch a dice roll. This wasn't even bad luck. Insert concluding remarks here. No tl;dr. I've already given you over a thousand words of advice on this story, which is probably more than it deserved.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2014 00:16
|
|
|
I'm not a good writer in the slightest, as evidenced by my AV and my performance in last years Thunderdome. The thing that makes me sad here is the story has some potential if only for the accidental implication that I over analyzed to find. Wouldn't it be a really neat idea if the entire thing was a ruse set up by the demon? The whole slaying light show, the priest and his father? The demon just needed a new mouth piece to feed praise and worship from. So rather than moving on and attempting to further establish there current religion decided. "gently caress it, I want some of this Christianity goodness." There by tricking Jordan into being the driving force behind a subsect of belief based on Jordan's demon slaying prowess.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2014 01:31
|
|
|
Thanks, BadSeafood, my old friend. I hope that my future Thunderdome endeavors will prove that I have internalized it. Jimson posted:I'm not a good writer in the slightest, as evidenced by my AV and my performance in last years Thunderdome. The thing that makes me sad here is the story has some potential if only for the accidental implication that I over analyzed to find.
|
|
#
?
Oct 30, 2014 07:20
|
|
|
There are some notable improvements between drafts but this is still essentially an amateur story so I think you're well advised to set it aside for now. Just keep writing and you'll improve. Something else you need to do, though, is make sure you're reading a lot. You cannot be a good writer if you don't read. And whatever you do, don't exclusively read the genre you intend to write for. If you're going to write sci fi or horror stories then read some literary fiction or at least a western or a noir detective story. Make yourself branch out. Spend at least an hour or two every day reading novels or stories and make sure a lot of what you're reading is form genres you're not as familiar or comfortable with. A lot of people who think they want to be writers actually just want to make movies, and they treat writing as a cheaper way of doing that. They have a specific scene or image in their head and they try to reproduce it with prose. But it never works, because the things that make for a good film aren't the things that make for a good piece of fiction. So if you want to be a writer you need to make sure that you've developing an appreciation for the unique attributes that make prose fiction so compelling, and to do that you need to be reading as much as you are writing.
|
|
#
?
Oct 31, 2014 20:59
|
|
|
I've had some controversial thoughts brewing in my head on this topic lately, I hope you'll indulge me. I don't think there have been, or at least I've never been presented with any studies that confirmed the fact that a lot of diverse reading causes, or even correlates with good writing. This may be related to the fact that everyone has their own standard for good writing so a randomized group of judges could easily produce a "no preference" average result for a group of stories of different genres, or maybe of a single genre but by different writers... actually, of a single writer, at different times in his or her career (when both the daily and accumulated amount of reading differing). And maybe this doesn't have to go as far as preference. I am quite confident that there would be the same ambiguous result if the judges were instructed to mark stories that they considered simply good. Unless probably if you presented them with Shakespeare, and even then, I don't think that would be a universal esteem of quality, considering that a randomized group of judges wouldn't understand half the words and expressions used by Shakespeare. So adding the amount and variety of reading to this hardly makes sense. There, I've said it. Note that I didn't say that I'm opposed to diverse reading. Just something I've been thinking about in relation to me leading a writing thread at one time. (And telling other people how to become better writers. I regret things.)
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 01:49
|
|
|
Well it's not like you could really test that empirically. I can't think of any ethical / realistic way to control what kind of reading people are exposed to; you'd basically have to lock up a few people from birth, give them different things to read, ensure that they have the exact same base level of writing / reading competence, and then make them write, after which point, as you said, you couldn't objectively measure the quality of that writing anyway. That being said, on a basic level, reading alone isn't going to make you a good writer. Writing is the other half of the equation, and if you aren't writing consistently, no amount of reading is going to fill that gap. Reading helps you internalize things that everyone takes for granted, like grammar, pacing, rhythm, etc. But think of it like this: the "language" and style of different genres can be very different, before we even start to get into individual authors' styles. If you went your whole life reading nothing but high fantasy novels, and you wrote every day, you could probably write a good high fantasy novel, but it's probably going to be derivative. Likewise for any other genre. The purpose of broader reading is that you are exposed to different perspectives, styles, point of views, vocabularies, etc. I'm sure everyone has come across an author or two that just makes you stop and go "wow, I didn't know you could do that with the written word." In a vacuum, someone that reads Joyce and Tolkien is going to have a bigger toolbox than someone that just reads one or the other. Real life doesn't work like a science experiment, but I'd go out on a limb to say that gist is still the same.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 02:44
|
|
|
Maybe. That makes sense. But I've been wary of any rules and laws in writing, especially since I realized or had my eyes opened to the fact that at least traditional publishing is a lottery. Then consider that many things going on in our minds are confused and counter-intuitive, so the fact that it makes sense that diverse reading would contribute to your writing ability doesn't mean that it does. It could be a complicated mental process whose two results are better writing and more diverse reading. I just want to propose that in absence of solid evidence, reading things you like should be a valid alternative to forcing yourself to read things you don't like.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 03:41
|
|
|
I've never heard of anyone trying to "study" the correlation between diverse reading and better writing. That just isn't the kind of information that conventional studies can capture in the first place. Writing is an art, not a science. The kind of empirical studies you are thinking of are not some kind of universally valid form of knowledge, they're a way of stylizing facts gathered in the domain of the social sciences so they can be made legible to other social science practitioners. Anyway taste in fiction is obviously going to be largely subjective but if you spend your entire life reading and writing in one genre then I'm pretty sure that I won't be interested in reading what you've written, and I think that's a sentiment a lot of people will share. If you literally cannot find any enjoyment reading anything but High Fantasy or Hard SF then that definitely would make me question your qualifications to actually tell a decent story with good characters.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 19:33
|
|
|
Traditional publishing is not a lottery. You are sounding incredibly like the anime artists on Deviant Art who are incapable of drawing an accurate human likeness but defend it all by going 'you dont understand my style!!!' Stop wasting your time on 1000 word sketches and attempt a story of a significant length (20,000 words+)
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 19:36
|
|
|
While I agree that this isn't ready to be published, there is a definite improvement between the first draft and the current one. I have to disagree with the advice to write a much longer piece, though. I think there is a lot to be said for learning how to write a short story before working on something longer. Someone that writes 20 1,000 word stories is probably going to end up with a better structural understanding of storytelling than someone that just sits down and dumps 20k words on a page, assuming they aren't just writing vignettes or microfiction. Not to say that writing a longer piece isn't going to teach you anything. Practice is practice either way, and 20k words in any form is going to lead to improvement. Voice, pacing, and a better grasp on grammar / syntax is going to come with time regardless of what you write. A lot of people chip away at a novel while writing shorter stuff anyway, but I think there's something to be said for honing your ability to actually tell a good, coherent story in a thousand words or so before you sit down and try to write the next Great American Novel. Kind of a "run a 5k before you sign up for a marathon" type thing, and even though some people are exceptions, I'd wager it's valid advice for most people. If you feel like writing something longer then by all means go for it, but you shouldn't feel like you have to at this stage. There's not a whole lot to say about this piece that hasn't been said already, but I think your decision to set it aside and write something else is definitely the way to go at this juncture. Grizzled Patriarch fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Nov 1, 2014 |
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 20:12
|
|
|
supermikhail posted:Maybe. That makes sense. But I've been wary of any rules and laws in writing, especially since I realized or had my eyes opened to the fact that at least traditional publishing is a lottery.
|
|
#
?
Nov 1, 2014 20:22
|
|
|
Eau de MacGowan posted:Traditional publishing is not a lottery. What?  Helsing posted:I've never heard of anyone trying to "study" the correlation between diverse reading and better writing. That just isn't the kind of information that conventional studies can capture in the first place. Writing is an art, not a science. The kind of empirical studies you are thinking of are not some kind of universally valid form of knowledge, they're a way of stylizing facts gathered in the domain of the social sciences so they can be made legible to other social science practitioners. Firstly, I would like to make a disclaimer that I might not completely believe what I've written and am about to write here. I am to a degree agnostic regarding these issues, partly because I'm relying on pop-sci sources to draw my conclusions. Now, it sounds like you assume that if an aspiring writer reads only scifi or fantasy, he only reads trash. (Maybe you think all scifi and fantasy is trash, but that's a matter of taste and not what this discussion is about.) I think that is practically impossible, unless he specifically goes out of his way for trash. If only because the advice that I responded to is almost universal which means scifi and fantasy writers have been refining and diversifying their style for a long time (and even regardless of that advice, but simply because they naturally like different genres). So I think it can be argued that if a writer reads only scifi (because he only likes it), it should be quite possible for him (or her) to achieve stylistic refinement (if that's what it's about). As to writing in one genre and people's enjoyment of it, I believe that's what the situation is and has been maybe forever. Probably the majority of writers write in a single style, and the diversity for readers is achieved by taking many single-style writers together. Also, a single writer's style often changes over time, but I don't think you can clearly attribute that change to reading - there are many other things that could have made an influence. SurreptitiousMuffin posted:Wait, step back there chief. You're going to have to explain this one to us. I have been drawing inspiration from The Drunkard's Walk by Leonard Mlodinow so for better reasoning and interesting examples refer there. I'll just make a small argument. The widely accepted procedure in traditional publishing is this: you write a book, you submit it, you get rejected. Maybe you also get tips to improve your work, but chances are, you don't (and I'm doubtful if those tips are worth much). In fact often you have polished your work as much as you can. So you submit your book again, and get rejected. And you keep submitting until somebody takes your work. I think the statistical implications are obvious. The quality of your work doesn't change. You don't control who gets to read and evaluate your book. What changes is the accumulated chance that one of your attempts will yield a positive result. Maybe the equivalence to a lottery is unfair, I don't remember the odds in book publishing, but I know they are not in favor of an aspiring writer. So, many writers buy a ticket, to a large degree by chance a few win, if one of them buys more tickets he/she has better chances of winning. In retrospect, all this sounds kind of trite. Well, for me it's about the implications of this on conclusions that are drawn from "success" and "failure". For example, some people's advice shouldn't be given so much credence because their success is largely due to luck.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2014 02:46
|
|
|
Fair-weather publishing houses, the new boogieman CC. Check your closets. Also your mail slot.
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2014 04:52
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 30, 2024 07:32 |
|
|
Guys. Diverse reading might not be a super good thing. It might only be a kind of good thing, or a neutral thing. Publishers? Psh, they're all just people with subjective tastes. Or not. The truth is somewhere in the middle!
|
|
#
?
Nov 2, 2014 05:03
|
|