Here's another installment of Sludge. There are some name changes. Mr. Rogers is now Dr. Bradshaw, Glade is Sludge, Glade's friend Rob is not Hammer and Sludge's nemesis on the fistball field is now Lora instead of Dora.
Any and all comments are appreciated. What works and how can it be made more engaging to middle-grade readers.
Thanks
Writing that kicks your ass
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I made a typo in my post, sorry. It should read, "Sludge's friend Rob is now Hammer."
ReplyDeleteDear dear Alan, it was so fun to delve back into the wild, mind-bending, hilarious world of Sludge. Every time I do, I'm always enthralled with how easy and fun it is to root for Sludge, a kid who can overcome anything with his sense of humor and resilience. He's such a great character. He also puts a kind, human heart in the center of this dark tale.
ReplyDeleteI was slightly disoriented, I must confess, unsure as I was where this was in the story. Apparently he was recaptured in between your last installment and this one. Might be something I missed when I stepped out of the group for a few months. Anyways, I didn't remember some of the characters very well - like Savvy and Hammer. I thought also perhaps the scene where they're recalling their half-forgotten memories at the picnic might be a good moment to give one or two of these friends some more dimension or character reinforcement. Just a thought.
Speaking of dimension, I loved that Sludge tried to appeal to the white ninja's forgotten sense of humanity! The mystery of the ninja deepens as we learn that he/she might be a captive too! Perhaps the ninja was even the one messing with the blue sludge dosage?
The blue sludge as a blocker is a cool and sinister idea - especially with it's addictive qualities! And it's so exciting how you allow Sludge just a little remnant of remembering what it's like without the stuff. It's like not only must he remember how awesome he was with all his powers, he has to have his other self come back and tell him what he needs to know so they can't control him.
A note for your next revision on that conversation with himself - I would try simplifying and cutting it down more. Fast-paced stories like yours tend to make me rush through any long dialogue scenes because I don't want the action to stop. I would try boiling those two and a half pages of dialogue down to the most essential information, at least just to see how you like it.
1. They've split Sludge into two people, the one they can brainwash and control and the one they're smothering, the one who remembers who he really is.
2. The blue sludge is a blocker of some kind that prevents his fractured self from meeting back together.
3.For some mysterious but seemingly intentional reason, his blue sludge dosage was missed.
Another thrilling installment. Keep going Alan! Most quotable Sludge line this time: "Two goods meant it would be extra bad."
Alan, as always, wonderful writing and entertaining storytelling! The sustained excitement, the laugh-out-loud humor, the intelligent and persistent protagonist we all root for--all awesome, all vintage Alan.
ReplyDeleteHaving the benefit (and honor!) of reading a whole draft of this book, I didn't feel disoriented. I do like the new names for the secondary characters, and I do think Dave points out a good place for possibly letting characters such as Savvy and Hammer develop their characters a little more. Maybe we hear them speak? This story thrives so much on dialogue--Sludge, Lora, and Dr. Bradshaw all have such distinct voices. Maybe Savvy and Hammer's voices could be made just as distinct? Maybe one speaks in short, slow sentences while the other speaks in longer, breezier sentences? How might their unique ways of speaking evoke their unique personalities? Maybe they do and say things that foreshadow their actions later in the book?
Having read the whole story, I do think the story is a good, solid whole. Perhaps it may be a good strategy to look at individual scenes as Dave suggests looking at the scene in which Sludge converses with himself. I like the possibility Dave describes for how this scene could be punchier. This scene sort of defines the "rules" by which the bad guys are splitting part of Sludge off from himself, so it helps to have the "rules" conveyed as clearly and concisely as possible. Maybe the "other Sludge" knows they have limited time is much more urgent, and his urgency might help drive the scene to be a little quicker and conciser (I think I just made that word up!). Maybe it might help do one pass through the book in which you tinker with all the scenes that "establish rules"? Perhaps it help us to create revision/re-imagining tasks that are easy to handle. Writing is a book is so hard!!!
Writing a book is hard, but I imagine you have a ton of fun as you're writing, Alan, because I have a ton of fun reading your stuff!
Here's my fav Sludge quote from this excerpt: "When I woke up it was obvious that the new schedule would be even worse than I expected because the first thing I saw was Lora’s face." Ha!!!
Great work, Alan! Keep it up!
To Alan, The Dystopian King,
ReplyDeleteI looked up "dystopian" on my smart phone. She said, "An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded one." My first thought is Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451." Books are burned, to destroy history and memory, an awful thought for a guy working in a library. But Sludge is in the middle of a corporate nightmare where business runs the world, not politicians or dictators. The Mathews Corp takes "very good care of his employees. We have a retirement plan, on-site exercise.... etc." Dr. Bradshaw is the evil COO and Mathews is the even more evil CEO.
"Wicked and smart" is such a great,simple way to describe Mr. Mathews. We sometimes wonder how and why bad things happen in the world. Sludge gives your readers insight into how good and evil are present and how maybe, just maybe, good wins. Sludge has all the characteristics of today's battlefield between good and evil and the grayness of it. Will Sludge save his friends, will he find his father, will he bring his own schizoid personality back together by remembering, by not forgetting? Maybe he will go to Dachau and find something that Mathews is trying to hide.
You are showing your readers how good, Sludge and friends, struggle and somehow overcome evil, represented by the Mathews Corp.
Andy and Dave speak to your craft and I totally agree with their comments and suggestions.
Your ability to describe the physical and emotional turmoil that Sludge is going through is, I can't think of a better phrase, weirdly genius.
I encourage you to finish this wonderful book and show your target audience how their lives face many of the same challenges facing Sludge.
It is up to them to figure out who they are, how they will overcome challenges and make a contribution to the world they live in.
Chiming in, as usual, from behind the 8-ball... You didn't give us the chapter where he was recaptured, did you? Or did others see it earlier, but not in this round? It sounds like I"m not the only one who felt a bit disoriented. I continue to love Sludge, love the voice. You do such a masterful job of carrying along this extremely complicated sic-fi plot with this first person protag who's obviously extremely smart but who also is just a KID, It's just beautiful how you juxtapose those things. And in the midst of all the Frankensteinia, suddenly you've got this brilliantly surreal picnic.
ReplyDeleteIt's so poignant, his wisps of memory about the yellow notebook and his escape. Very powerful. Well done, making him lose those memories.
Here's something I wondered about: the dream version of Sludge says he's getting weaker, he's disappearing. Then later he says he'll explain 'later' about Bradshaw ratting him out to Mathews. It seems awfully optimistic to assume he - the dream Sludge - will have a 'later' in which to explain, if he's disappearing.
Also - at the end Sludge is worried about his teammates, and runs faster than he ever has, not to win extra blue sludge but to save their lives. It FEELS like the reader should know or at least be able to guess what the threat to their lives is, other than choking - like this should have been hinted at in the text - but if it was, I totally missed it.
And then the white ninja appears. I haven't seen much of the ninja before. You've got various colors of sludge. You've got ninja(s). You've got evil wolf/dogs. You've got memory manipulation. You've got enhanced abilities. In the chapters I've read, I haven't seen any indication of the purpose of all this corporate evil. Andy's read the whole thing, and maybe it ultimately all hangs together - but to me, right now, it feels like it could use a little streamlining. Or maybe it's just that there's a lot of disparate things packed into this particular 20 pages. I'd really love to read the whole thing from beginning to end.
Carolyn,
ReplyDeleteYou made some great comments that will help me make this piece better.
I apologize to everyone for sending this to you out of sequence. I thought this was the next part to send but now realize that Andy is the only one to whom I sent the previous scenes. Your comments are all still highly relevant and addressed some concerns I had. Thank you.