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4/25/16 - Kuiper - Thresholds and Footholds, chapter 2


Kuiper

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Hey guys, sorry to be getting this one up late.

 

As mentioned before, "Thresholds and Footholds" is intended to be a series of vignettes that can function more-or-less independently of each other, but I'm not taking the time to "reset" and introduce the fantastical elements of the setting each time.

 

For the sake of having context for everyone's remarks, I'm curious as to whether you read the first "chapter" before reading this one, and how (not) reading it shaped your impressions of this one, especially since there are key plot points in this story that revolve around an understanding of the rules of the magic as it's introduced in the first chapter.

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Hey!
​I have not read your first chapter, so I have absolutely no idea how your magic system works. That being said, when I read this it became apparent to me that it has something to do with death - rather, it has something to do with the instance between life and death, which I think was represented by the timeless, empty feeling of the bar the characters were in. Actually, if you hadn't told me that it was magic, my sci-fi attuned mind would've just gone "oh, so there's some kind of high-tech device that allows them to do this".

​Now on to the story - I was actually quite interested in it. It's a nice manifestation of the "in late, out early" and you did a good job filling in the details just enough so that I understood what's at stake and what was actually happening without drowning me in too much info. Honestly, I'm really curious to read more things from this universe, so keep at it!

The phone call in the beginning had me a little confused once I read through the whole chapter - but I figure she was talking to somebody she actually loved (not Kiyoshi), but I got the impression she was talking about her job as a waitress in the Yakuza bar, not the Interpol job. Hmm, curious.​
 

There were some mistakes along the way like "You know, one of these days, one or both of is going to die from stress" - I think you meant both of us? After that there's "Neat, of course - the same way she had grown drinking it in her New Mexico apartment." - grown used to?
Anyway, these are small and easy to mend things, and either I stopped noticing them along the story, or you just made them in the beginning, which I can totally understand (I call it the "I just started writing this" syndrome, when I'm not fully focused on writing and I make mistakes that I don't when I get fully into it).

​I liked the pacing of the whole thing, the switching between the parts in the bar and the memories - it answered the questions I had just in time, without giving me too much information.

​I was a bit taken out at the beginning with the nationality mentions, but that might just be me. I realize you wanted to make a distinction between the two women, but I think that Samantha's remark about how Nakamoto (Kiyoshi) likes white women, along with something like "looking at the bartender's darker skin" would make it smoother?

​The switch between the men at the ending I found really satisfactory, giving a bit more depth to whole thing whilst raising some questions about what happens next - you did a good job at simultaneously answering the small questions, while leaving the big one still unanswered (as it should be this early in the story).

Overall: I'm actually quite interested in the story, as it seems to be set in the modern world, yet there's this weird magic that I don't understand fully (but I don't think I should at this point, or maybe it's that I haven't read the first chapter - either way, it doesn't bother me). I want to see where it goes next.

​Have a great day!




 

Edited by Valthyr
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Um, how do you get to this bar?

That was a very good story. I had some slight issue issues with the pacing, I felt that some of the punch lines could be delivered with more oomph, but it was an enjoyable read. I was thinking MP5s, bulletproof vests, how does she know that? but it turns out she's Interpol. Incidentally, really? Interpol? CIA works just as good, and has the advantage of sounding cooler and more spy-like. Also, it would be nice for a one-line explanation of how precisely Samantha survived a chest shot (i.e. took a kidney but missed her heart), why she gave intel to who she thought was Kiyoshi in the first place, and I assume Samantha is wearing a recorder of some kind, so mention it, maybe?

Also, I didn't read the first one so perhaps I'm missing something, but, once again, how precisely does one get to this bar? Invitation only, we'll pick you up? Yoga meditations?

Edited by aeromancer
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Hey there Kuiper,

 

I have not read the first chapter, but the info gave in the beginning was plenty to make everything that followed easy to comprehend.

 

  • First italicized Scene: I don’t know how I feel about this as an opening, even after having read the whole thing at one go this morning. (This is read-through 2 for comment purpose). I didn’t like having one named and one unnamed character then and now on read two, knowing where the story is going, I’m not sure that it was necessary. It does ramp the tension a little as I was supposing that the line about stress killing her or not was foreshadowing, but knowing that the premise is a bar for the afterlife and life to meet, I don’t think you need such a structured hook. This isn’t the first chapter; it’s the second. Chances are your reader has already decided whether your writing is their kind of thing or not.

 

  • ‘gaudy and sterile’ was a really weird juxtaposition for me. If you accompanied it with some specific details to explain what you meant maybe it would work better. Otherwise, those two things don’t mesh well together as stand alone adjectives.

 

  • ‘The fact she was a customer now…’ This made it sound like she had worked at this particular bar. Probably should tweak the wording to make it clearer.

 

  • ‘fell out of her seat’ – Firstly, I think this is not as good a description as most of your other imagery is. I won’t call it cliché, but it’s certainly stock. Also, in retrospect of the double twists at the end, I’m not sure how it can make sense seeing as how she seems to be purposefully staking the place out for this guy.

 

  • ‘Chinese-American’ bartender: I have two problems with this bit. First, you just introduced a Japanese named character that I haven’t quite got a handle on as a character yet and then you throw in a background character and describe them with Chinese. After seeing the rest of plot, it’s obvious that the bartender’s nationality has no bearing on the plot at all, so I’m not sure why you used that detail to characterize her. In the moment, it made me think I had misread something. Furthermore, referring to the bartender this way makes it doubly confusing when the narrator magically knows the bartender’s name later in the narrative. 

 

  • ‘Hay-ou’ This bothered me a bit. Hey you isn’t idiomatic or figurative speech, so why doesn’t Nakamoto understand it when he speaks with relatively advanced language structures later. It’s inconsistent with language development stages. If Samantha used something more colloquial or figurative, I’d believe this interaction was real, but here, it feels like good writing trying to fake knowledge of language acquisition.

 

  • The topic of women is weird in this entire situation. I understand that as a mob boss he’s totally acting alpha male to max, but it was still weird that none of it flustered Samantha at all.

 

  • I wish ‘He rubbed his fingers together’ came before ‘Why do you think we always pay in cash?’ I would enjoy the dialogue there better if I could picture his hands at work while he’s talking, rather than adding it afterwards.

 

  • ‘I know I should take responsibility…’ Samantha’s dialogue here seems to betray her here. She speaks like a sophisticated thinker, but then things like sexual equality don’t bother her, and furthermore, if she’s Interpol playing at being someone not educated enough to do more than make money as a bartender, shouldn’t she play her role a little more authentically? I’m not sure entirely sure, but I think it’s worth questioning and considering.

 

  • ‘Especially not with you…’ Sleaze level to the max here.  I mean that as a compliment to the writing.

 

  • The flashback jolted me out of the narrative a bit. Maybe because I didn’t want to leave the conversation?

 

  • Question: If she’s with Interpol afterall…why didn’t she get a heads up that something was going down tonight? Is that normal undercover protocol? (I really have no clue)

 

  • I like that her ability to note details a normal bartender wouldn’t foreshadows what she really is, but why is she dropping the tray of drinks? This feels weird just like her ‘almost falling out her chair’ at the beginning of the narrative. Odd reactions for someone who’s supposed to play their part and keep their cool under dangerous circumstances. If she were dropping the tree to cause a distraction or something then maybe?  I don’t know. I’m struggling with her characterization.

 

  • ‘his right hand was near his chest’ I had to stop and reread this phrase several times and I think you mean the holster thing that sometimes loops around shoulder/armpit region?

 

  • ‘bleeping Yakuza’ I like that this misleads Nakamoto/reader to think she died, although I wish I know at what moment a bullet hit her. I can chalk that up to shock I guess.

 

  • ‘Eileen walked up’--- This is the bit that was weird. Narrator didn’t know the character name before, but now they do, and then you bother to get the name in dialogue. Odd. (maybe just a rough draft oversight?)

 

  • Why the paragraph change between “Ah well…” and “It may be my deceased…” It’s the same character acting and talking with no interlude to anyone else’s actions or reactions.

 

  • ‘Forbidden fruit…’ She’s throwing insinuating language at him but then evil eyeing him when he acts on it? Again, Samantha’s dialogue and actions don’t always seem to match.

 

  • The second flashback was easier to accept once the pattern had been established.

 

  • Sorry, but the name Kiyoshi makes me think of the Kiyoshi warriors in Avatar the Last Airbender…

 

  • The Kojiri comedic break was good and needed.

 

  • ‘I know contempt’  Another bit of dialogue that doesn’t seem to agree with something established earlier. Nakamoto said that he thought she would be drawn to him, drawn to a man of power, but now he’s saying he knew all along that she held him in contempt. Well, which was it?

 

  • The use of Japanese here with no translation really made me feel cheated out of something important. I know ‘Omae wa’ is You…but the rest?  Okay, so she’s showing off she knew Japanese after all, but I still felt cheated out of content in the moment.

 

  • Creeped? You mean crept? I’d take ‘creeped’ as in creeped out where the long e is preserved but not here. It looks wrong.

 

  • Love the switcheroo with Nakamoto and Kiyoshi. Great twist.

 

  • So Kiyoshi/Nakamoto was playing her, suggested by the sinister smile, but I feel a little cheated by skipping to no resolution on how that conversation ended or what Samantha thought was going on with that man in the interim after he found out she was Interpol.

 

  • The final twist of her not being dead was also great for me; however, the ending image lost some bang with the use of the verb fading. With the quick pace of all the reveals at the ending, the slow verb made the impact lose something for me.

 

  • Overall, I enjoyed the chapter, but want to see some character motives and sentences tightened up. Thanks for sharing.
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I wasn't here for chapter 1, so the 'Eileen' and 'LA' comments might be explained in the first story.

Grown drinking: grown used to drinking

Eileen: You might want to avoid naming an Asian woman Eileen or Irene. There's a pretty well-known, somewhat offcolor joke you'll remind a lot of people of, distracting from your story.

What do you call a woman with one leg? Eileen. When she's from Japan? Irene.

LA: You might mention this earlier. Since the Yakuza feature so heavily, I was assuming that Samantha was an expat living in Japan. Unless the previous story established that all the stories are set in LA?

You don't have to stop pretending: you don't have to keep pretending.

Kiyoshi and Kojiri: For Anglo American readers, these two names are easily confused. Having them appear so close together in the narrative made me go back to make sure that they were in fact two different characters.

Turn try: try

 

Overall, I thought it was good and would love to read more.

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Hey guys, thanks for all the feedback, especially the remarks on individual details of the story, it'll definitely be helpful on the next editing pass.  It also seems like people liked the twist, which I'm really glad to hear; there are lots of finer things that need to be ironed out, but it sounds like at its core, the story is functioning as I intended it to.

 

There are some individual points I'd like to address when I have the time to type up a more substantial response (hopefully within the next 24 hours), but this one probably sticks out the most:

 

Regarding the situation with the bartender: I agree, it is a bit weird in its current form.  Eileen the Chinese-American bartender is intended to be a semi-permanent fixture of the setting (I'm actually working on a re-write of chapter 1 that gives her a more proper introduction).  The first draft of this story opened with a bit of banter between Samantha and Eileen (and give her a bit more dialog after faux Nakamoto showed up), but in the end I decided that having Eileen participating in the story to that degree distracted from the story I was trying to tell, so I attempted to minimize her role and make her more of a background character, even going as far as to strip out references to her name to emphasize her role as a background character--but I did an incomplete job of that, and so halfway through she suddenly becomes "Eileen."

 

At this point I'm not sure what the best way to handle her role in the story is.  On one hand, I feel like giving her a name early on gives her more attention than perhaps she is due, but on the other hand, leaving her nameless could lead to more awkward interaction and narration later on.

Edited by Kuiper
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Hi! I've not read the first chapter, so the following impressions are not based on any backstory.

 

As I go

- page 2: I don't think you need to state that Nakamoto is Japanese. If people don't get that from the name, then that's fine.

- page 2: instead of telling us the bartender is Chinese-America, show us through dialogue or description. Otherwise with this, and the section before it, it feels like you're forcing diversity through telling instead of just having diverse characters

- page 2: "You only like white women." Purposeful racism? This type of line is under heavy fire right now and is a very loaded statement to make. If you're trying to show something about the two characters, it's working. 

- page 10: the interpol reveal falls flat. I'm not sure what to suggest to fix it, however. Maybe a little bit more personal backstory of Samantha first? Maybe an allusion to knowing Japanese, some sort of other skill that all the spies have?

- page 10: The Nakamoto reveal is nice, but I'd like to see more of Samantha's reaction. She handles it too calmly, and it makes the reveal have less impact

 

 

 

Overall

I'm interested in the general idea of the story, but the extended dialogue lagged in sections. The last few pages, with all the reveals, were interesting for the most part, but then there were so many I started getting confused. I also would like to know how she can just leave death. Is she in a coma? Maybe that was covered in chapter one. 

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First up, yes I read the first chapter.  It actually made me a little less interested in this story to start with, as I was not expecting to have enough time to get to know the characters, but you did a good job with this.  I liked this submission a lot more than the first one.

 

pg 1: "she had grown drinking "

grown up

 

pg 5: "Nakamoto began speaking"

--repetitive as he then speaks.

next line, "Nakamoto began stepping forward. "

--he either steps or he doesn't

 

pg 11: you never translate the Japanese.  I get the gist of it, but I'd like to know what it meant exactly.

 

pg 13: Kiyoshi/Nakamoto:  Good reveal, but now I'm questioning things.  How long have they been switched?  Was Nakamoto still running things?  How did Samantha develop a relationship if the real Nakamoto was still running things at that point?  Wouldn't she have found out?

 

Ok, despite my problems with the logic of the first plot twist, I really liked the end.  I had to think back through to realize you never said what happened after she got shot.

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- I really like the concept.

 

- I don't believe Interpol has the ability to make arrests. I think they are more of an inter-agency network that helps law enforcement organizations from different countries collaborate. I'm not sure if the CIA can make arrests either, at least officially.

 

- I like the twist of Nakamoto having a double.

 

- As I said, I really like the premise, but at least in this chapter, it plays such a small role in the story. I would liked to seen more of the bar's supernatural element, even if it just in the background.

 

- That said, I really liked the pacing of the story and the action of the flashbacks.  

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A lot of people have expressed that they don't fully understand how the magic works.  My big question in response: does the lack of information make you feel curious in a way that makes you want to keep reading future chapters?  Or does it frustrate you in a way that would discourage you from continuing to read?
 
I am pretty stingy in revealing details of the how the magic works and the world these characters inhabit--part of my intent for this "series" was for each of the vignettes to explore a different facet of the setting.  At some point there will be a vignette which is focused more on the nature of the bar itself, and others exploring "mechanics" of the magic system.  But I don't want to dole out the information so slowly that people get frustrated and confused.
 

I also would like to know how she can just leave death. Is she in a coma? Maybe that was covered in chapter one. 

I mentioned this in the opening "recap," where I described the bar as a place "that is open to both the living (who can enter and exit the bar freely) and the souls of the dead."  Basically, at the end, Samantha insinuates that she was never dead to begin with. This is a place where living people (who can enter and exit the bar "normally") and dead people (who only have a temporary body for as long as they are in the bar) are indistinguishable from each other as long as they are in the bar, so it's possible for a living person to masquerade as a dead person--or visa versa.  That being said, it's possible that Samantha lied about lying--maybe she really was dead the whole time, but decided that pretending that she was alive the whole time would be a good way to mess with faux-Nakamoto's head before she left.  Whether Samantha is a living person masquerading as a dead person or a dead person masquerading as a living person is left as an exercise to the reader.

 

 

The first flashback is weird and jarring: I'm not sure if there's a way around that (though it is certainly possible to minimize the extent of how jarring it is).  Actually, the first (opening) flashback is probably the least-necessary part of the story, and it wasn't part of the original draft.  The thing I realized is that no matter what I did, the first time I jumped into flashback, it would be a little jarring. So I decided to get the weirdness out of the way at the beginning, to prevent it from disrupting the story in mid-flow.  And because the first flashback is unnecessary, the reader doesn't miss out on much if they spend that time being confused.  Maybe there's a better way to handle the learning curve, but if there's going to be any confusion, I'd prefer to front-load it. I'm certainly open to suggestions on this.
 
 
Remarks on Interpol: Shame on me for not doing proper research.  My thinking was "Japanese crime syndicate operating in the US, that's international and therefore the domain of interpol, right?"  My thought process really did not go any further than that.  Based on a bit of Wikipedia research, it seems like the guys actually coming to make the arrest in a Los Angeles bar would be FBI.  I believe rdpulfer is correct in that Interpol, if they were involved at all, would likely act by bridging/sharing intelligence between foreign and domestic intelligence agencies, and that the guys actually marching.  I'll try to get my facts right next time.
 
 
Samantha speaking Japanese: "omae wa mou shindeiru" means "you are already dead."  (Those who share my affection for 1980's shounen manga may also recognize it a signature line from Hokuto no Ken.) The real significance of this line is Samantha demonstrating that she has the ability to speak (and understand) Japanese, but including the translation for the reader likely adds more to the scene than it takes away, so I'll include the translation it in future drafts.
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Kuiper,

 

Preference: Could you mark out or denote who you're responding to somehow in your comments back? I would have missed that you answered/responded to some of my concerns if I hadn't scanned through the stuff before it and caught the Japanese words.

 

Also, I don't mind not knowing how the magic system works. I didn't say that in my response, but just so you know it didn't bother everyone, I'll give you my opinion, too. First of all, you gave me all I needed to know in the preface. I know this is a second chapter, and if it had been a first, I expect we would have gotten a little explanation in text of how it works. Even so, I wouldn't expect a whole explanation nor do I need one. The magical conceit you're constructing is a bar where the dead and living can enter. That's it. That's all I need to know. Digging any deeper than that would be like reading "The Hobbit" and asking to know how come Smaug exists. It's a fantasy world, and dragons happen. (Hm, I might like that on a bumper sticker.) Otherwise, if anything had affected the plot of the story you told us that felt odd, I would question it--like if there were rules that would have made the characters act differently, I would need to know them. As it stands, I could dispel my disbelief because everything flowed naturally within the confines of a short piece and the nature of the genre. If you put a lot of talk about the "rules", it might telegraph the ending or just make the text bulkier. I'd let this concern sit on the back burner for a while and decide it based on the broader scope of the work rather than flash impression of a partial text, if I were you. Hope that helps balance your thoughts on the issue. :)

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Detailed comments below. I wasn’t especially bowled over by this chapter, and the ending became apparent in advance, but not too far for me, since you kept the revelation about Nakamoto back to the last page or two. My main problem was that the characters didn’t engage me. I wasn’t interested in what happened to them. Part of the difficulty, I think, is because they are already dead, so what happened to them is in the past, and the only thing in their future is going on the door and fading into nothing.

 

The writing could be tightened up, some of the phrasing is awkward, and some of the philosophising is pat – i.e. unsurprising and verging on cliché. There isn’t much description. I think that’s okay for the setting, since most readers will know what the inside of a bar looks like, but there’s almost nothing to give the reader a picture of the characters.

 

I think you have a real challenge ahead to write a novel in this vein, and I don’t see how you can create enough different stories to engage the reader for 100k words, especially if the characters don’t have a through line. Maybe there are a couple of short stories here, but I couldn’t stick with this in long form.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Hmm, I'm sorta confused straight away. So Samantha and the person she’s speaking to are both bartenders in supernatural bars? Curious.

 

“she had grown into drinking it” – I think.

 

‘Incandescent’ usually refers to fierce/strong light (or fierce rage), I think. I felt it a bit odd that it created a warm effect.

 

“That place of employment had felt so gaudy” – You’ve already said she worked there – this is awkward – but maybe ‘workplace’ is you want to stress the point. Also, how can something be gaudy and sterile at the same time – that really stopped me in my tracks.

 

“stopped herself from responding to the sound” – Awkward wording for me. You easily could replace this phrase with the word ‘turning’. I find wordiness distracting, personally, (which is rich coming from me.

 

“nearly fell out of her seat” – seems overdramatic to me, almost introducing (unintended) humour to what I feel is meant to be a serious situation.

 

Three instances of the word ‘bar’ in about 12 words.

 

Nakamoto’s English seems fine – it seems weird that he can’t pronounce ‘Manhattan’.

 

I think the dialogue between Samantha and Nakamoto could be tightened up. The bits about the Manhattan and the whisky don’t add anything, imho.

 

The action around the van felt improbable to me. (1) A van parked outside a bar would be some distance away from someone inside. I doubt that a person behind or near the counter could see someone in a vehicle on the kerb. (2) If the guys outside are staking out the joint, it seems unlikely they would be in plain sight, or caught looking into the bar. (3) ‘Several gentlemen on either side of him’ makes the door sounds enormously side. Don't they in fact have to come through one or two at a time?

 

He cratered to the floor” – not cratered, I think.

 

“And his actions reflect on me.” – Back to my point about the Manhattan – this guy’s English is good – I don’t buy he can’t pronounce that, especially if it’s his favourite drink.

 

“We don't have Hibiki like you asked for.” – Unnecessary, and I just don’t care about these details, they’re in the way of the story.

 

“Samantha's laughter began with a polite feigned laughter that she had practiced so many times as a cocktail waitress, but soon it faded into a genuine laugh” – convoluted and confusing wording.

 

The walls could have ears” – this is the latest of several phrases in this chapter that I find rather clichéd. They include his heart racing, which isn’t much of a revelation, and forbidden fruit being the sweetest. I like to be surprised when I'm reading, but this kind of pat philosophy is rather groan-inducing.

 

I get no sense from anything so far that Samantha’s job was oppressive.

 

“"Spunk," said Samantha.” – Lol, was that line meant to be laugh-out-loud funny?

 

“Samantha, you don't have to can stop pretending” – Or ‘don’t have to pretend’.

 

“Yes, all those 'business meetings' that I sat in on” – This is surprising. Why would he let her sit in? Her role in his organisation in unclear, passing envelopes is one thing, but if she can’t speak Japanese, then why was she sitting in?

 

“A smile creeped crept over Nakamoto's face”

 

“"So that means the real Nakamoto—"” – this line makes her look dumb. He’s just explained it and she’s just repeating what he said.

 

How is it that Interpol is operating in the US? I find that hard to believe. Also, how is it that Interpol can offer immunity in the US? I find that very, very hard to believe.

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The FBI is definitely a lot more believable, Kuper, and there's also a lot more information on how the FBI operates readily available. But don't feel too bad - I've seen "Interpol" used in tons of movies and TV shows interchangeably with law enforcement agencies. It's another one of those Hollywood myths :)

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