Hi all!
This excerpt picks up exactly where the last piece I posted (in July, I think?) leaves off. Hopefully you had the chance to read it, because you might be a bit lost otherwise. But I'll try to catch you up. Chapter 1 begins on December 20 (the dates are maybe slightly different in the draft of chapters 1-4 that I sent in July). Simon chats with an old man—in a Winnebago that appears to be hastily fashioned into a bloodmobile—about an impending crisis. Then the chapters alternate between the events of December 20-21 (as the crisis unfolds) and the month leading up to the crisis. During the “backtrack” chapters, we meet Simon’s mom, his brother Benjy, his best friend and partner-in-crime Mark (they conduct “missions,” including one during the morning announcements at school in chapter 4), and the cute and exciting new girl Ingrid. The chapters I've sent (5 and 6) continue the alternating pattern—chapter 5 is near the crisis point and chapter 6 backtracks to an exploration of the Winnebago Simon sees outside his kitchen window in chapter 2. Hope that helps!
I'm looking for feedback on movement, voice, characterization, and any other help you can offer. Is the story, for instance, COHERENT!? If you haven't read the 20 pages that precede this excerpt yet (and would like to), OR if you're completely lost with these chapters (because I stink at synopses), I can send you the first 20 pages and you can comment on them instead of (or, if you're ambitious, in addition to) these 12 pages.
Writing that kicks your ass
Sunday, October 3, 2010
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Riley,
ReplyDeleteSwitching back and forth in time is working well—very well. The November storyline is moving toward important events that happen in the middle of the timeline, and the December storyline is hurtling toward the crisis. I particularly like how the impending crisis in the December storyline lends a sense of foreboding to the November storyline. It seems that by December, Simon’s mood has changed dramatically, and I can tell he’s been on a losing streak and he’s getting a little desperate. But I expect that Simon will have the opportunity to prove himself. I don’t know what the opportunity will be, and I don’t know if he’ll prove to be a good brother and a good friend and if he’ll do right by Thomas, but I do know that Simon is clever enough and that he has the intensity to make the climax thrilling. He’s an awesome character.
There is a lot at stake for Simon, and you do such a nice job of establishing the stakes with a stunning line or two in the December scene that you then play off of in the November scene. In the December scene, Thomas asks if this is about Benjy, and Simon says no so curtly that we can’t help but wonder. Then, in the November scene, Simon is busted by his mother for not bringing Benjy home. Simon is about to protest, but he knows his little brother Benjy needs more help than he did at Benjy’s age and he should have brought Benjy home (he didn’t, it seems, because he’s interested in Ingrid). Another detail from December that stuns: the fact that Simon has told his friends who Thomas is but not what he is. Thomas takes this almost as a betrayal, it seems, and I wonder if by December a rift has also grown between Simon and both Mark and Ingrid—the November scene captures why such a rift may come about. You’re doing so much with little touches of foreshadowing—you’re using this story design with such ingenuity!
Also, I love the friendship between Simon and Mark—they know each other so well that their familiarity is fertile for humor and conflict. Simon knows that Mark has long believed spitting staves nausea and seems to expect Mark to heave (ha!), and it’s because Simon and Mark know each other so well that Mark walking off with his arm around Ingrid hurts Simon all the more. Also, if I remember the last section correctly, Simon and Mark have been going on special “missions” together, so they would know each other’s odd little beliefs about what staves off nausea, and introducing Ingrid into the equation shakes things up nicely, maybe even straining the little tensions that already had been in Simon and Mark’s relationship. As a reader I’m excited and anxious about seeing what happens to this friendship.
I write all this praise for the Simon/Mark relationship, though I realize it may not be the most prominent relationship in the story (I just wanted to praise how well you capture the friendship!). Simon’s other relationships offer great possibility for conflict and character transformation. Will Simon become a better brother? Son? How will things shake out between him and Ingrid? And what about Thomas? It seems Simon has a duty—a deeply human kind of duty—to aid Thomas in some way. What will happen there? All of these questions are compelling me to read onward. You’ve done a great job of making me care about Simon and how he’ll navigate these relationships. From the way the relationships are developing, I feel that the story has good pacing.
ReplyDeleteThe dialogue is amazing—it’s lively and fun and surprising and full of interesting tensions (I love the tension in the conversation between Simon and Thomas). Each character has a distinct—and interesting—voice.
You do a wonderful job of keeping description to a minimum—especially description of gestures and expressions (one of my compulsions). Because the description is so spare, the details you do give speak loud—they’re extra vivid. An example: Ingrid humming the appropriate Rolling Stones tune after Mark says something about the windows being painted black. From the way Simon reports that detail, I know how into her he is—she’s a girl who knows and likes the things he knows and likes, and she’s clever and quick.
So, to sum up, I like a lot about Dark is the Night—I hope letting you know what I like helps you know what to follow and what to make more of. I can’t wait to read more!!!
Thanks for the comments, Andy! I now have a better idea of where to focus and how to sharpen as I move forward.
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