Hi JJ,
The Disclaimer:
In general, I hate templates. But for the sake of brevity, I have decided to use one. At least, this bare-bones layout that hopefully will provide worthwhile feedback without predetermining the outcome of the review with a set structure or agenda, (I give into this template idea if for no better reason than to reduce my typing of this disclaimer.)
There are no experts in creative writing, there are people with some experience, and folks like me who have been studying the subject for some time. This art-form is totally subjective, and my opinions are meant to show you how I perceived your work. I make no assertions as to the correctness of any statement as most are based on information I have learned from the so-called experts. (So … it’s all subject to be wrong.)
Unless someone has requested something specific in a review, I usually wait until after I have read their posting several times before deciding what to comment about. I want folks to feel like I took the time to create a review that is unique to them and without some preset agenda. (I don’t want you to feel like I provided you an off the shelf, generic labeled can of English peas.)
Why this story?
Some of my learned contemporaries insist that we should include an explanation as to how we chose your work. In this case, it is unnecessary as you are the one who requested the review. But to show some solidarity with my reviewing cohorts, I have included the reason for this review so that others can understand how easy it is, to be used, and abused by their fellow writers. Getting reviews is not hard, just request one.
You asked for a review, not a copy-edit, so that is what I will try to provide, emotions and observations about the story. No editing concerns. (Not much need to worry about that in the beginning draft stage.) This is the end of the template.
First an apology:
I pray you will forgive my tardiness in getting this requested review to you. I would offer an explanation for its lateness, but they would provide nothing in the way of relief for my ill manners. But know that I am repentant for its delayed arrival all the same.
I read the first three chapters and will read more over the next few days. But you are already aware of how far I am behind in my forum obligations. So, I ask further forgiveness if I can not get back to the remaining five chapters you have posted until after I have tried to answer some of my other forum requests and obligations.
What I got from your story:
Well, to use the old idiom. "This is a fine kettle of fish if I ever saw one."
So far, in the first three chapters you provided the makings of an interesting tale of intrigue. A girl with rare genes, a propensity for violence, (I say this because she sleeps with a pistol holstered to her bed post … it’s not in the nightstand drawer, where most conservative women keep their weapons.) Her disquieting nature may be learned as a necessary protection from her father’s gallivanting allover hell’s half-acre with her, when she was his small child, clinging to his shirt-tails, and I understood this as an answer to his deep depression over her mother’s death. It is interesting that still after his own death he remains a functional ancillary influence on her psyche. Now, you add in her very troubling dreams (you said she called these traumas; “events”) which are possibly linked to her condition, or are there more sinister forces at work that we are not aware of yet.
Then, we meet the colonel. If ever there was a fellow that was carrying a full lot of trouble; it is he. Once a note-worthy solider, now a clandestine, officially sanctioned mercenary for the behind the scenes government that works to protect us from ourselves and our inability to handle the truth. It seems he is a wounded man in both spirit and body; perplexed to be an assassin with a troubled conscience. And why not, he apparently has been very good at being a bad man, or at least at doing the things his government has asked him to do in the name of the greater good. (Is that a contradiction, or, is that just the normal definition of our modern government? I wonder if the NSA will take note of my seemingly disparaging comment.)
Now, you throw into that mix, the tale of a mystic island set on the northern-most edge of the great Pacific Rim. An island held separated from our possible conquest by a mysterious invisible and origin unknown force-field. Dare I not be intrigued that our heroine in her epileptic fits has a hinting of some force calling her to that sinister, danger packed place? And of course it is dangerous; why else would our government work so hard to keep its existence secret and its access forbidden?
You packed a ton of insight in these first three chapters, (not counting the short Prologue) and although the concept of mysterious alien artifacts calling humans into their influence is not entirely original, the box office successes of like stories prove it is popular enough to be palatable for the taste of Sci-Fi junkies like me.
I found the description of Merci's condition (if we wrongfully to label it as such,) very good I liked the concept and explanation of it. I found it very understandable and plausible.
I liked the fact that you are not writing this as a young adult story and found the implied sense that Merci is a naturist with her uninhibited musing at her naked form reflected in the windows. I found her flower watering a complete hoot. But then, I am of your generation and find it appealing to reflect upon those days where we rejected the societal constraints of propriety and embraced the idea that love and love making should be free of embarrassment. Though Merci being a child of even the early eighties; would make her parents very late bloomers in the age of flower power, it is still fun to be of that generation.
I was not abashed by her or Colonel Sam Remy’s propensity for gruff language. And clearly the depictions at the beginning of chapter two (Dead Soldiers,) are well beyond appropriate for the young or the squeamish. This is an adult story with so far minor nudity, extreme violence, and what some may describe as harsh language. (Though, these days it is not at all uncommon to hear it spoken by a ten year-old on our inner city streets.)
Okay, perhaps that will give you some idea of what I saw as your presentation of a plot line. I know it’s not a line by line analysis of what I took from your story, or what I thought you were trying to portray. But I find that, in the reviews that I receive, it's the ones that tell me that my reader got the basics the most helpful. I need to know that they have an overall picture of what is about to unfold and that I didn't miss giving them some important fact that will cause confusion later in the story. I hope my discourse here gives you some sense that you are getting your story points across as you planned.
On to some more observations:
You used a prologue: I know there are a number of points of view on this particular subject. I have seen many in the classics, but much fewer in our more modern works and that may be due to the prevailing wisdom of agents and publishing editor’s claims of their lack of value. I don’t always agree with their assessments, and there are some examples that I think show the power of these devices.
Here is one that I have used before:
Kilimanjaro is a snow-covered mountain 19,710 feet high and is said to be the highest mountain in Africa. Its western summit is called the Masai "Ngaje Ngai," the House of God. Close to the western summit there is the dried and frozen carcass of a leopard. No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude.
This is the opening text in Hemingway's short story ‘The Snows of Kilimanjaro'. It appears before the title and is not related to the story in any way, or at least not directly. Most publishing editor today would advise that it provides no value and should be cut from the story. Yet with but 58 words before one even gets to the title… Mr. Hemingway takes you to Africa, puts you on the side of a mystic mountain and plants an idea of death in our minds. If you haven't read this story, here's a link "Snows of Kilimanjaro" you may be like me, and not find anyplace in the story that the information and mood setting of his prologue (even though he did not label it as such.) could have been better stated. But in today markets a prologue is almost instant cause for rejection. However, I believe that we can get away with their use if we use them wisely. I have by way of my own research come up with a list for their use or exclusion:
•Use only if information is needed that cannot be told in the story elsewhere.
•They should not be used as a hook, that’s what the first sentence of chapter one is for.
•They often work if giving the story narrator’s voice an identity is important.
•They must be short.
•They must never be redundant. Meaning they cannot say something that the reader will find out later in the story.
•They do work to explain very long gaps in time.
•And of course we can use Hemingway's trick and not label them as a prologue.
With this all said, I offer that nothing in your prologue is a call to war, it is more the jacket cover preview (I know that's what the literal definition of the prologue is. But that was its purpose in the 15th century before they printed programs for the stage.) When used as a preview, they become a commercial and that maybe what truly turns the modern publisher off. Inside the covers of our books is one last place we don't have to put up with commercials. I believe everything in your Prologue would fit easily into the body of the story.
The Tell:
Now, I can hear you now. “Oh my god, is he really going to drag out this reviewers mantra?”
JJ, I do realize that this is your first draft and that you haven't even come close to the end of the story. That is why S.P.A.G. and "Telling" are not staggering issues at this stage of the game. But I more than once, started to feel bored and was tempted to skip a sentence or two to get to the meat of the story. I have been told more than once this same thing about my own stories. They tell me that it is a sign that we are not being concise, or that we are telling too much. To that end, I think we share more than being part of the baby boomer generation.
I think there are tons of places that you can use ‘Show' very effectively to set a mood, the scene, or give us insight into character personality. I very much suggest that you may want to add more show when you finally get to the revision stage of the story. I am not going to start giving examples because it is obvious you understand Show vs. Tell, you use it in your story. What I am suggesting is that you use it a bit more. I found that in my own works where I used an ebb and flow system, like waves at the beach, I have been more successful. However I think the key is the randomness of these waves. Just like at the beach waves are not always predictable they come in differing series, some are low, some are wide, and some are towering swells that provide an excitement that seem better experienced than described. I think our Show vs. Tell tactics should mimic those flow patterns. Of course, I don’t know how well this analogy works for someone living in Alaska. The closest I have even gotten to your neck of the woods is Bellingham Washington. And my visit to their beach was in March, so I did not get an overwhelming desire to jump in and play in the surf.
May I share the best Quote I have received from a successful author?
I am lucky in that I am able to attend lectures and literary events to hear advice and interact with some of our best known authors and so called experts. This past February of 2013 I was privileged to have been at Detroit's Mercy University there to attend one of the last lectures of Elmore Leonard. In that lecture, someone asked him if he could give only one piece of advice to new writers what would that advice be. He said that just one piece of advice would do us little good and that he wouldn't know for sure what to say, but if pressed to just one lesson that helped him in his writing it would be; "Always leave out the stuff people skip over."
This is a repeated theme I have heard from many different Authors, although I think Steven King is the only one to admit he took the saying from Elmore Leonard. King does expound on the idea in much more detail than Mr. Leonard does. He explains that while he knows every detail about every character in one of his stories, it is not necessary for his readers to have the same level of understanding. He says if some person, place or thing is not absolutely necessary to the story leave them out. He said never give a name to an ancillary character unless the hero is going to kill or make love to them. Meaning if the only job of the postman is to deliver the mail? Then his name can be simply be the Postman.
Killing our darlings and being concise:
To this end I felt there were many places in your story that provided too much information. Sometimes information may be essential to make the scene real for you. But if it doesn’t move the story forward it is often a distraction for us the reader. Here is just one small example; where you explain how Mercedes gets her name.
Merci had no real memories of her mother, only faded glimpses, moments in time, tending the vegetable garden next to the barn, in the greenhouse collecting the evening salad, sitting by the fireplace, reading to Merci from an illustrated story book. Her father had told her about his unrequited love for Sara Pleasant on several occasions, the most revealing while camping in the kakadu National Preserve in Northern Australia. In the flickering light of the campfire, seven year old Merci learned she was born in the back of a pre-war psychedelia splattered Mercedes Benz urban-bus during the San Bernardino music festival of 1983. Before the ambulance arrived, two of Sara’s closest friends, who had minutes before saturated the bus in an aromatic haze of Panama Red, had to become giggly mid-wives. Lucky for Sara, her two pot-addled friends were daughters of a pediatric nurse, and bringing a baby into the world was all in a days work. Her father had witnessed the entire event with mouth agape, holding Sara’s hands while the two jabbering flower children gently coaxed Merci from her mother’s womb. Sara had whispered her name only moments after Merci’s first breaths. Mercedes, an obvious choice given the place of her birth, and Asteria for the Greek Goddess of the stars and planets, stargazing being one of Sara’s favorite past times.
Would it make any difference if you left out the information about the girls who delivered her or that their mother was a nurse, and how does that information qualify them to deliver a baby anyway? The whole scene (at least to me) was out of place and tells us about her parents who are both dead. What does this do for the story in Merci’s present day life? It doesn’t move the story forward it is a sweet and funny antidote but not essential, it is what we must learn to recognize as a darling, and it is important to kill our darlings. Again that is just one example. I think there are many more that you might want to ask that same question about. Is it germane to the story, is it a darling, filler fluff, or just mood setting. That is not to say the setting a mood is not essential. But I think it is only necessary if it is needed to explain why a character might do something out of their nature. If their reaction is predictable then the reader well see the punch or face slap coming and you don't need to set the mood, you simply have the action followed by the reaction that is the definition of conflict.
Which brings me to that subject, conflict! While you have a long ways to go before you are into the meat of the story, every chapter must have conflict to keep the reader involved. Without this story element, they will not stay. I think in this beginning you have a ton of conflict even if they are personal demons that these two heroes must wrestle with, but you must, (like me,) remember that every action must have a reaction to filling the role as conflict. Even if the action is only a thought it must have a reaction, either as physical action, verbal, or a mental equivalent.
I say this because Sam has his demons, yet his conflict with them is not as evident as they could be. What are the reactions to his attacks of conscience? You furnished one, he went back to find the source of the children’s voices he heard and he got his leg blown off for his efforts. But then, you let the others on the team off without any consequences, I mean really, two of them retire, and the powers-that-be shelf the remaining team. The death in combat of a dozen children ages 5 to 14 is a major conflict with our human sensibilities and yet the reaction to the event seemed far less equal to the conflict initiator. I think having a major unresolved conflict issue is a problem for most readers and we should be careful to keep a reasonable balance. That is, unless the disproportional response is part of the conflict design. Is this one of Sam’s issues, one of his demons, to fester inside, and continue to grow unresolved until later? Is he to lament over why they did not tell him there were children in the house he was sent to blow up? If not then why give the details at all other then to explain his missing leg.
A closing, Sort of:
JJ do not take a single word of this review as being negative that is not the case at all. I mentioned observation based on my own experiences, and they mean nothing went you measure them to your own. This is a fine story so far, and I really do look forward to reading more and to seeing where you are going to take us. And again, I cannot emphasize how little my observations mean when you haven't gotten past chapter eight in the story. Even the shortest Sci-Fi novel makes it to ninety-thousand words, and it’s much more common for them to be a hundred-fifteen to hundred-forty-thousand words. Until then, I wouldn’t pay much attention to any think people might say to you. Keep plugging away until you get close to that point you think you could let your agent make you type the words “The End.”
That’s one more thing Steven King said, he never finished a story, he just had to stop so he could sell something to pay the electric bill. But until then, I offer that every time I open one of my stories I find something I want to change. Many times I find people's suggestions or critiques meaningless as I find I have rewritten or even deleted whole chapters. My best used key, on my computer, is the delete button.
Now, there is a lot to praise in this story. I liked the plot and the characters immensely, so I give it a 4.0 for the artistic value. However, I think that today's editors would think that in its present status it was full of opportunities for improvement in style and technique. I guess, I will be harsh by some folks standards and rate it with a 3.0 But that is not fair as it is obvious you are still writing the story and not yet started your rewrites. I imagine it's good that the rating system doesn't mean much except to our egos. And I believe that if we stay at this writing thing long enough we learn to mask them. The over all rating comes out to a 3.5 not bad for a store still in the the draft.
Anyway, I hope there is something contained within these ramblings that you find interesting and maybe even thought provoking. I understand we all pour souls into our stories, and they become as protected as our children. But if you are a father you will understand sometime our kids need a thump to get their attention. It never means we don't love them. No, quite the contrary, we find it very easy to ignore children we do not care about.
These thoughts notwithstanding … don’t worry; the delete button will work fine on your PC. Also I am an engineer by training, so I am used to being called less than intelligent. And I understand if you should think I would look good in the funny papers. (Those, not of our generation might not understand the reference, but perhaps it will give them some entertainment to look it up.)
Best of the day sir,
Joey C.
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