Writing Mania discussion
Critique My Story!!!
>
Uncivil Wars - Crit my excerpts?
date
newest »
newest »
Before commenting, I'd just like to know, is this the chapter? Sorry...missed the bit where you said it's the prologue. This is unedited? You have serious writing chops. Your style is atmospheric, showing signs of the kind of world building a lot of readers enjoy. ,Not a huge fan of torture or psychic kitties myself, but I've always said, a good writer can make a reader buy into anything.
I hope this is your true prologue and that you're able to throw us into the middle of the story just like this. As a reader, I'm happy to play catch up, so to speak. I like it if the writer doesn't spell everything out for me.
I think this is really good, and I look forward to reading more, but I agree that it seems kind of choppy and rushed in parts.
Sorry, Roxanne...forgive me for indulging my habit of using old fashioned and obscure idioms. It always confuses things but I can't seem to help myself. 'Chops' is an old show biz term originating as a jazz colloquialism, referring to great skill or talent.
Willow wrote: "Before commenting, I'd just like to know, is this the chapter? Sorry...missed the bit where you said it's the prologue. This is unedited? You have serious writing chops. Your style is atmospheric,..."
This is the prologue I was referring to, yes. Sorry for the confusion.
Thank you so much for commenting! I'm not a huge fan of torture or talking animals myself, so the notion of opening the story on them worries me. However, I do think this scene might be the right one to get readers want to keep going, find out how we got to that point and realize there are high stakes to come. If you were able to tolerate it that's promising ;)
This is the prologue I was referring to, yes. Sorry for the confusion.
Thank you so much for commenting! I'm not a huge fan of torture or talking animals myself, so the notion of opening the story on them worries me. However, I do think this scene might be the right one to get readers want to keep going, find out how we got to that point and realize there are high stakes to come. If you were able to tolerate it that's promising ;)
Roxanne wrote: "I think this is really good, and I look forward to reading more, but I agree that it seems kind of choppy and rushed in parts."
Oh? *ears perk up* That's actually really interesting, because I've been accused of being too wordy and belaboring things too much in my fanfic-writing past. Will take any excuse to write more instead of less ;)
Oh? *ears perk up* That's actually really interesting, because I've been accused of being too wordy and belaboring things too much in my fanfic-writing past. Will take any excuse to write more instead of less ;)
Willow wrote: "Sorry, Roxanne...forgive me for indulging my habit of using old fashioned and obscure idioms. It always confuses things but I can't seem to help myself. 'Chops' is an old show biz term originating ..."Oh, really? I've always used the term to mean "chopped up", like with a knife chopping vegetables. As in, it jumps between scenes.
Jessi wrote: "Oh? *ears perk up* That's actually really interesting, because I've been accused of being..."I always add too many details! ^w^ It makes it a pain to type it all up (lol) but I think it's worth it in the end. So yeah, add as much more as you want. :)
Roxanne wrote: "Jessi wrote: "Oh? *ears perk up* That's actually really interesting, because I've been accused of being..."I always add too many details! ^w^ It makes it a pain to type it all up (lol) but I thin..."
See, and this is the funny thing about the relationship between readers and writers. There are as many types of readers as there are writers. Personally I like the jump from one place to another.
It really works for me in a prologue, whetting my appetite and making me want to know about the characters and circumstances.
Willow wrote: "Roxanne wrote: "Jessi wrote: "Oh? *ears perk up* That's actually really interesting, because I've been accused of being..."I always add too many details! ^w^ It makes it a pain to type it all up ..."
I agree with you. The jump does make me curious. It makes me think of books where authors write things to purposely confuse you so you stay tuned in to see how it all fall into place.
Willow wrote: " There are as many types of readers as there are writers."Definitely. :)
The delivery is of the unpolished first draft variety, I plan to tighten up the writing later and am working on characters and emotional content right now.
This is the prologue, set well into the storyline. This is what I mean about getting reactions; would talking kittens and torture scenes make you throw the book against the wall, or be interested in reading on?
####
Fire swept through canyons and towns and turned the sky a hazy yellow. Time to check out of this hotel and get on the road.
Marshal walked into the sterile little bathroom, which was currently occupied by a stray kitten, a scrawny orange tabby with runny eyes and a frantic manner. He’d picked it up out of sympathy only to find there wasn’t a humane society in town that would take it.
The small creature was currently straining at its harness, trying frantically to get loose as though its life depended on it. The litter box was upended, its contents joining that of the water bowl on the not-so-sterile-after-all floor and coating the damp paws of said kitten.
He sighed and knelt at its side, speaking in calming tones. “What’s the matter with you, little one?”
The terrified kitten huddled against his side, pawing at his clothing. “Something terrible is going to happen.”
“What?” he asked, quietly stroking it.
“I don’t know. We have to get out of here now, or we’ll die. Everything’s going to die.” The kitten buried its head against him, shaking.
He sighed and picked up the diminutive feline, maintaining a firm hold on the harness in case it tried to panic and bolt. Something was telling him to heed its advice, and now. He carried it out to the main room. Grab your suitcase and call for the first cab out of town.
His adrenaline didn’t spike when he looked out of the window and saw that the formerly green trees outside were now shades of burnt brown and black. Why should that come as a surprise to a man heeding the advice of a talking psychic kitten?
Forget the suitcase. He raced down the stairs clutching only the frightened bundle of fur and legs that were clinging to him with painfully sharp claws.
The desk clerk tried to reassure him. “That was only a spot fire, the main one is still miles away. We’re in no danger.”
The kitten begged to differ. “Something terrible is happening. We have to leave now.” Its entire body was rigid in fear, its claws jutting unwittingly into his stomach.
Tate spoke politely to the clerk. “Call me a cab, now. I’m getting out of here.”
The desk clerk picked up a phone and spoke quietly, her calm diminishing as she took in the kitten’s genuine terror. Tate took the moment to wipe some of the gunk from its bleary eyes.
“You need to see a vet,” he commented. The kitten’s expression was frantic. Forget the vet, get me the hell out of here.
The clerk was wasting too much time, talking politely with her suit and her elegance. He would get his own cab. He stepped out of the revolving glass door with its gold script and logos into a disaster zone. The main fire wasn’t miles away, it was here.
The air was superheated, searing his lungs and choking him. Trees and buildings were bursting into flames in advance of the main line of fire, and he was seized for the first time with genuine terror when he heard screams. People weren’t getting out of this.
There had been no evacuation, no escape. The kitten was silent, huddled against his body with its head buried under his arm.
Something terrible was happening.
A cab came flying down the street, his cab. He stepped forward, waving frantically. The hurtling cab didn’t slow or alter course as it slammed into his side and raced down the street. This time it was him screaming, clutching at his side, paralyzed.
It was almost a relief, almost, to open his eyes and realize he was in the interrogation room. He wasn’t paralyzed, he was tied up. The pain in his side was as awful as he remembered from getting hit with the cab, and his eyes followed the floor until they found a pair of feet, followed the legs up to - Kendall.
“You sure you want information from a guy who’s hallucinating psychic talking kittens?” Marshal asked weakly. “Real reliable source, that.”
“Positive,” said Kendall.
If he’d been thinking about telling them about his undercover assignment, it was no longer a possibility.
Psychic talking kittens or no, the reality of fire consuming communities and lives, families and pets and dreams, was too horrible to contemplate. If the price to be paid to prevent that was to allow these people to torture him as an enemy, so be it.
He heard himself sob quietly, and didn’t try to stop the tears. He was grieving for himself and his own fate in here, sobbing for the fate of the people who would die if Gadget Fuller's attack wasn’t stopped successfully, even crying for Kendall, who had the eyes of a man who would never forgive himself when he learned what he was really doing here.
“Taze him again,” ordered Kendall, his voice somehow lacking in hardness. The pain almost felt worse than being burned alive, wrenching his already abused body into a convulsion it couldn’t handle and combining the pain of every beating he’d received here into one devastating jolt.
He knew he was broken, knew that was why he was crying. He had no will left to care or to move, to stop tears or fight or even hate. I’m being tortured, and hallucinating talking kittens, and that all seems very normal. Why the hell not? He couldn't see, not really.
Shock had taken over, the shape of a room or passage of time irrelevant. Someone was wiping the tears away from his face with a cold, damp cloth, a surprisingly soothing gesture.
“I know you’re protecting something,” said Kendall, his voice gentle. “And I’m getting the idea it means enough that you’ll go through this hell to keep your secrets. Okay. But is it really as worthwhile as you think?”
“Yes,” whispered Tate. It struck his conscious mind how sick it was that he found the gentle words and touches of his own torturer so soothing. What was it in the human mind, the human survival instinct, that was capable of this?
“Death, destruction of innocent people - wholesale slaughter - lives - when does that become something any man can fight for so fiercely? How much hate do you have to feel to not see the other side of that?”
“I’m - doing - this - to save them,” replied Tate, his voice coming out a weak croak. Kendall’s words sounded like something he would say to a subject, back in that other life. He cut short his own attempt at emotional kinship. You tried to understand, you didn’t tie them up and -
“Save who?” asked Kendall. Tate didn’t answer, knew he shouldn’t have said even that much. All he had done was give Kendall another line of questioning to pursue, more chances to hurt him. He let his head hang limp, his eyes closed, and waited for the inevitable.
No blows came, no shocks.
“The kitten,” he whispered, his foggy mind having finally come up with a way to cover for his slip. “It’s - it says something terrible is going to happen.”
Alan Kendall was feeling a little like the monster so many people would willingly condemn him as. He didn't like that feeling. He'd never felt sympathy for a detainee.
Something terrible is going to happen. The dazed man had said it over and over again in the grip of his hallucination. This time it was just a dodge, a cover. But before, it had been real. I’m doing this to save them. Something terrible is going to happen.
He’d not said those words as a warning, or with the glee of a man who had engineered it. It had been the determination of a broken man to cling to - something - in the throes of misery and hallucination.
Kendall sat down in shock, watching the limp figure hanging there. Tate had never struck him as a vicious person, a thing he’d written off and ascribed to his own gullibility. He was hiding something, for damn sure.
But what if what the agent was hiding was something completely different from anything Kendall had imagined? He remembered the heartbreaking acceptance with which Tate had placed his own wrists in the restraints. What if he knew he had to endure whatever they did to him, or something terrible was going to happen?
What if I’ve been torturing a hero?
He studied Tate. After all this, was it going to come down to trust? All the pain, the terror, the games, useless because this still in the end came down to one human being deciding whether or not to trust the word and character of another? Tate was still crying quietly, not tears of self-pity but of grief and heartbreak.