This is my first attempt at YA. It's a sci-fi/horror kind of thing. Not sure I love it. Maybe it's needs more clarity, or more punch in the language. Is it suspenseful at all? Any ideas on how to make it better?
Writing that kicks your ass
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That moment as you come out of sleep has a name: Hypnopompic: "Hypnopompic hallucinations are visual, tactile, auditory, or other sensory events, usually brief but occasionally prolonged, that occur at the transition from sleep to wakefulness (hypnopompic). The phenomenon is thought to have been first described by the Dutch physician Isbrand Van Diemerbroeck in 1664.[1] The person may hear sounds that are not there and see visual hallucinations. These visual and auditory images are very vivid and may be bizarre or disturbing." Couldn't resist throwing that in. "WAKE UP" is funnier, but it includes all the elements described by Van what's his name. The reality of these states is what intrigues me about the story. I have no idea if what Donner sees is real or hallucinatory. Who cares. I can see how hitting his head affects his days, his dreams, his protective devices. His only salvation is leaping around like Spiderman. I don't buy worlds where zombies and reapers want to suck your time away from you. But I do buy waking up from a dream and imagining that that world exists. If you keep the ricochet between what Donner actually experienced and what he thinks is in front of him, I am scared and hope he figures it out without 25 years of therapy/counseling. The language is fast and filled with physical detail. Love it.
ReplyDeleteKeep it going! Makes me wonder where you've been the last few years. :)
Dave-
ReplyDeleteThis is absolutely suspenseful, and the language is good. I actually really like the narration quite a lot. The language is contemporary and colloquial but is occasionally poetic, like in,“That clear calm on the other side of a pounding heart.”
I also think you have a knack for writing action—it’s clean, clear, and well-choreographed. Especially the paragraph on the last page that begins, “I sprang up.” Very well done.
And the title is perfect. It’s got that “working on several levels” thing going for it. And I think that Bill’s onto something with his comment about Van-whatshisname. Some deeper exploration needs to be done there.
My only complaint? It ends waaaaaaay too abruptly!
Did you say this was a short story? Is this just part of it, or is it the whole thing? I don’t want to tell you what you should do with your work, but PLEASE don’t let this be just a short story! You’ve got at least a novella here! You do such a great job of giving us the information we need when we need it (like Donner hitting his head in gymnastics—which is a great detail that tells us something about him, provides an explanation for his easy transition in to super-hero fighting moves, and provides the catalyst for these weird events to being unfolding), but I kind of want to see the events as they unfold. I want to know why he had an appointment with Ms. Fibbins. I want to see him hit his head, hear him get the first messages from Sabola, witness the first few flickers of this world showing through. (I like the way you described his vision as individual frames flickering into a movie, by the way!).
I see so many possibilities, and this story and premise and protagonist all really excite me. I hope you decide to do something with it. I think you could even weave in a thread about the definition Bill provides—about that state between awake and a sleep where the unreal feels real. And I do think you can walk the line between reality and unreality for most (if not all) of the book—letting us feel comfortable in believing one or the other is true but then introducing little nuggets that makes us doubt our assessments.
Did you ever read GOING BOVINE? It’s narrated by a kid that gets Mad Cow, and we walk that reality/unreality line with him throughout the novel.
And I’m not even sure if you intended reality to be ambiguous in your story or not—if not, make that clearer and ignore what I’m saying. But if you did, I think you’ve touched a sort of dark and frightening possibility with this tale—is Donner just a troubled kid who poses a potential danger to his classmates and teachers, or is he really the Source—a kind of hero? Ever see DONNIE DARKO? I hope so. But if not, watch it post-haste. Besides the malevolent/benevolent question, there are great threads woven in about time-travel, fate, and coincidence. I’ve actually always seen EDWARD SCISSORHANDS as a sort-of-parable for the potential for latent violence in alienated youth, too. But I’ve sure you’ve seen that and made that assessment on your own ;-).
Thanks for sharing, dude. Write on!
Ri
Dave,
ReplyDeleteI don’t think I’d ever read anything YA from you, so I was happy to see a YA story from you--knowing how stellar your writing always is, I knew you’d rock YA! Your story doesn’t disappoint!
One thing you do particularly well is use the YA point of view as the way to enter the story. Through this young adult, Donner (his last name, I believe), you lead your reader into this world. And so we see what Donner sees, feels what he feels—the hickie on Alison White’s neck, the pressure of the chalk on the chalkboard, the sensations Donner feels as he’s kissing Sabola (or sort of having her breath the blue glow into him), etc.
Also, somehow this whole scenario of Donner’s classmates being “puppeteered” around by these reapers also feels so very YA. Something weird about those YA years is how kids are in such social flux, even from situation to situation. Depending on who else is present, for example, person A might either be really nice to person B or act as if person B doesn’t exist at all. It’s almost as if weird social forces take control over young adults’ behavior—as if these forces puppeteer young adults. Maybe even as we age, social forces still puppet us to some extent. Anyway, the reapers puppeteering Donner’s classmates speaks to me on some primal, very true level, and perhaps that’s why I can’t articulate my response in so many words. This story you’ve given is fascinating and hard-driving because of these reapers and what they’re doing, because of Saboda and this idea of Source (how cool is that?).
I also love the idea of time being something that we humans have within us and that we lose. I mean, we are always losing time. In a sense, this is the great tragedy woven right into what we are—we’re transitory beings. We’re born and then we just keep approaching death (grim, but true). This story uses that state of things to generate urgency—and beings such as Saboda, who take that lost time and breath it back into Source so that new things can be created, and beings such as the reapers, who feed greedily on time. Beings like Saboda speak to a wondrous way of thinking about life and the universe—how although time destroys much, much is also created, and life has found ways to renew itself. And beings such as the reapers perhaps speak to that destructive aspect of the universe as well as to our anxieties about our mortality.
And then there’s this: We discover that Donner is Source, and he’s sort of made superheroic by the energy that Saboda breathes into him (I love the descriptions of him ashing the reapers!).
I also like that Donner’s a gymnast. I imagine him being small but strong and powerful and nimble—he has the physicality to fight reapers, and now he has the super abilities (or realizes that he has them—since Saboda has told him before that he is Source) also required.
Yes, this could be a dream—the protag does begin the story in that “hypnopompic” state (I LOVE that word, Bill! I might even ask my coworkers to call me “Hypnopompic”!). I’m all in for the ride wherever it goes—into the fantastic or into the seemingly-fantastic-but-still-explainable (maybe the “psychological fantastic” or something?). And I share Riley’s feeling that the story could on. Are the reapers massing here for some reason relating to Donner being Source? What can the protag do to take care of the conflict? Can the conflict be full resolved (maybe reapers are an immutable aspect of existence or something)?
Again, Dave, thrilling writing (the descriptions—so evocative!) and thrilling storytelling! Thank you!
Dave,
ReplyDeleteGreat first YA story. Wish all my first attempts at doing new stuff were so successful. It’s certainly punchy and pretty clear. And yes, it is suspenseful. Personally, I like the whole time-sucking thing. And I agree with Riley that you have a knack for writing action.
I don’t mind waiting to learn more details about Donner’s head-conking and all its effects until later as back story. But at some point I definitely want to know more about his injury and the six months between then and where the story begins; including more about the communications from the previously unseen Sebola.
I also wouldn’t mind some hints to prep. me more for the type of story this is. That being said, I love when a story gets right into it as this one did.
The time leaking out of people until they die thing, with creatures that feed on that time, is a very cool idea. Time being recycled so it can become something new is also awesome. I love the whole Source thing. Time is so weird and the more science learns about it the stranger it becomes and the more possibilities seem arise.
I also love that what the Reapers do is sort of an alternative vampire thing. That something so vital to our life as time could be taken from us without us even knowing it is freaky. How often do we say stuff like, “Where did all the time go?” Now I know who keeps steeling it. Damn Reapers!
It’s great to know some of the Reapers’ strengths and weaknesses right off. They can’t touch conscious people, but they can hurt Donner with people who aren’t conscious. And in a school there are always kids who aren’t all that awake. Perfect place for a first attack.
I do have a question about the story’s progression. Some of the others sort of mentioned this. If the story is about Donner, the Source kid, then it felt like he went from not knowing anything, and having no defense against the Reapers, to being able to totally kick their butts pretty quickly. I wonder if he got too powerful too fast. Where does the story go from here if he can already kick the Reapers’ butts?
It makes me wonder what the story is. Not that your story has to run with the crowd, but stories where the main character acquires powers is usually preceded by a time of struggle where the character comes to understand the source of his powers and as a result also learns about himself. It’s usually not until then that he can effectively use those abilities. But maybe Donner did pay his dues in some way that we are not yet aware of. Will this gradually be revealed as backstory and make up a big part of the whole story? Again, I’m so curious about what happened during that six months between the head injury and where the story begins. How much growth happened during that time?
If you ever saw that old TV series, Kung Fu, then you saw a similar use of backstory. You see Qui Chang use all this awesome Kung Fu right away, but then there is all this cool back story that is revealed over time about he got so awesome. But he had to pay for his awesomeness. I don’t quite see that being set up for with Donner, but it could certainly be.
You ended with that shout-out to the reader. Which makes me wonder if this a totally different story all together. Are we, as readers, characters in the story? Are we going on a journey together with Donner that is totally separate from Donner’s ascension to power? Is this story going to be about the reader’s ascension? If it’s really our story, that could be cool. However, if you can somehow pull that off, I’d still like to see more of Donner’s struggle to becoming so freaking awesome. That would better prepare the reader for his or her own journey; if that’s where you’re going.
I’m hooked. I like sci-fi/fantasy and this story entertained me very much. I want to see where it’s going. I want to know all about the importance of Donner as the Source to our world, and I want to know about Sabola and her whole world. And I’ll bet there are lots of YA boys out there who will want to know what it’s like to kiss a hot energy/time being.
Thanks guys for great feedback. This was TOTALLY a short story, so it's interesting to see how most of you mentioned you wanted more or needed things better explained. It probably doesn't work as well as I'd like as a complete story right now. My idea was that the story with the massing reapers and what happens next should pick up in the reader's world as he or she reads the last words. As for whether it's a hallucination or not, it seemed more fun to let the reader decide how far to take it in their real life.
ReplyDeleteAnd Alan that's a really good point about showing Donner's journey and struggle more, rather than him just getting the power transmuted through the kiss. Again, great reason to make this more of a novella.
Bill, thanks for an awesome new term I'd like to write another story about some day: hypnopompic.
Yeah Riley, thanks for reminding me about that book Going Bovine, which I've meant to read for some time now. And Donnie Darko? Definitely! One of the best stories in cinema, in my opinion!
Andy, great questions I'm going to use if I ever decide to expand this story.