The Killing Floor - Week 11

[clauderainsrm.livejournal.com]

I'm going to open it back up to everyone this week. BUT I will ask that if you HAVE gone before, to wait 24 hours and if there is still one of the 5 spots available, go ahead and take it.

If you haven't though - this is a great chance to come in and get some of that good ole constructive criticism that you have been craving!

Comments

[kickthehobbit.livejournal.com]

(Part 2/2, stupid character limits. :) )

Now—whether or not it hooks. No. It doesn't. I'm sorry—I hate to state something that baldly, but as someone reading this, I didn't care about reading more. I didn't actively hate it or anything—it just didn't capture enough of my attention that I'd be willing to read the rest of the novel. I think that addressing the things that I've talked about above, mostly working on flow, will help with that.

Finally—one of the things that threw me about this, that is probably worth mentioning—while this is really great in parts, and while parts of it work really well, there are areas that don't work so well. You're already stretching suspension of disbelief with writing about death—to make that work, you need to write really solid, believable characters and put them into believable scenes. There's one scene in particular that really isn't working right now—when Evangeline runs into Jakob as he's leaving the tattoo shop. Again—I realize that he's supposed to be dark and complicated, but literally growling at your protagonist and pushing her away feels less dark and complicated and more ridiculous. Adults don't behave that way, and to have her do anything other than dismiss him as a childish asshole—because that's how he's behaving, tattoos or no—feels unrealistic.

I don't think this is something you should just give up on getting published—I'm not going to tell you to ebook it. I think it is something that could be traditionally published if you were willing to put in the work. It's a good draft—it's not quite up to the point where I'd start pitching it. Consider the feedback you'll get from other people in The Killing Floor, and go forward from there.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Thanks for reading and taking the time to comment - I really appreciate that!

So, you're saying that in the first 10% of the story you want to see the entire cast of characters fleshed out? I'm not sure how one could do that. :)

The segues are meant to be jarring - Death and Jakob's stories are conjoined chapters and the story is Evangeline's. Jakob's bits only come after Death's voice and they entwine. That is obviously not working for you but it is woven throughout and perhaps if you were hooked, which I know you are not, then the ending would balance the staccato beginnings?

I will take a closer look at Jakob's intro. He IS a child - it's a maturing story about his growth once he becomes involved with Evangeline.

Some small critiques you've made have me realizing that I'm not being clear enough because of misinterpretation of the scenes - I'll def take a closer look at those things!

Sorry to not pull you in. That's the key of the first ten thousand words...wish I could unlock it.

[kickthehobbit.livejournal.com]

(I took time to read your response then go ahead and re-read the piece, so hopefully this will be clear. :) )

It's not that I want to see the characters fleshed out so much as—you have these interactions between Evangeline and the other people in the tattoo shop. Mark, I'm fine with—it's characters like Frank who seem to have been inserted almost to give comic relief and don't really 'gel' with the rest of the story. I don't think you need to flesh them out so much as think of what purpose they're serving. Are they a major part of the story? If they're not, then why do they get so much dialog? If this is Evangeline's story, then the crux of this first section should be on the interaction between her and Mark—and we don't need one-liners from Frank to cement that.

Regarding the Death and Jakob bits—perhaps I should have been clearer in what did vs. did not work for me in the story. I think that as it stands right now, the short, choppy bits you have that are Death/Jakob are clearly detracting from the story and are not doing what you intend them to do. They are what threw me out of the story the most and what ultimately made me go, "This has potential but isn't working as a cohesive whole yet." Yes, they're supposed to be short and jarring—I understood that their being short and choppy was deliberate, that this is something you are doing—but again, instead of working and making the reader go, "Wow, this is weird and uncomfortable and I want to know more about what's going on", they, to me, took me out of the story without doing anything to add to it. If the passages that were from Jakob's point of view had been more developed—less ambiguous (which I feel was likely also deliberate—my apologies if I'm wrong)—if they set it up and made it clear that he's someone the reader should be interested in, by virtue of making him interesting—less dark and mysterious and more fully realized and human—then they might work. It's similar to what I told icaruslived about some of his work—you know these characters inside and out. You know what their motivations are, the way they are. You know everything about them. You created them. The trouble is getting that onto the page—showing your reader why they should care, while maintaining the balance between showing and telling. When I read this first section, what I get is that Jakob is some dark, brooding, childish asshole—and as much as I want to go, "OK, what's the story with the tattoos?", I ultimately find myself going, "Does it really matter what the story with the tattoos is when he's really not a character I'm otherwise interested in?"

That's the difficulty of writing. If you can nail that, you'll manage the hook within the first 10K words, no problem—because people will be interested by the characters as well as by the central 'mystery' of the plot. You've got a plot that is interesting, and I want to see where you're going with it. My main "beef", so to speak, is that things don't hang together well, yet—but that's something that can be fixed with judicious editing.

[bleodswean.livejournal.com]

Again, I appreciate you taking the time.

You're coming through loud and clear. No worries. You don't like this first introduction and you don't care about the characters. No one is introduced for comic relief and all the characters figure in the story. It is a love story about Jakob and Evangeline, about a broken boy but a girl who is actually more broken. I think that needs to be arrived at and not explained in the first two scenes. I think sometimes we get too much exposition, the writer telling us how to perceive a character, rather than allowing the reader to make up their own mind. You say you don't care for Jakob - that's the effect that is intended. Evangeline is also not particularly likable. Mark and Death should be the only sympathetic characters at this point.

I understand that Death's voice isn't working for you. At all. And I appreciate you saying so! Believe me when I say that I'm taking your concrit and trying to "see" the story fresh!

What is my plot? And how is it more/less interesting?