Apr 29 - Syme - In Darkness (V)

[Syme]

Please let me know what you think.

[Mandamon]

This is very good.

 

You might think I'm crazy, but my first instinct is that this needs to be shorter and tighter. I'll get to that in a moment.

 

Stating Martin's name is a little awkward.  You could leave it out if you wanted and just say he's guarding the stone.

 

I was drawn into the story, and very quickly tied up in Martin's character.  He's got clear goals, clear conflict, and lots of emotion.  The torture scenes get the point across and show the pain he's in, but aren't overly gruesome or prolonged.

 

I suspected Marina was probably Nathalia around page ten, when I realized she could substitute if Martin couldn't see her.

 

My main comment is that this has a good ending, but it's not the *perfect* ending.  I think this has a whole lot of potential.

 

I liked that Martin got some payback in the end, and while this is well written, there is still not quite enough zing to the twist.  And that's the whole focus of the story.  The reader knows you're not just writing something about a sorcerer getting tortured and killed, so what's the

point?  We're looking for the twist from the beginning, so it has to be really good.

 

I'd keep in the Marina/Nathalia twist as a good distraction, but then add a real curveball.  Maybe either turn this incredibly dark (the sorcerers are making him imagine all this?  Or he takes Nathalia's place and misuses the stone?) or make us think he's going to really die, and then save him somehow.  I'm sure you'll have better ideas.

 

That's why I think it could be shorter, to give the reader less time to realize what the (real) twist is.  You have a start in that he gets his

revenge on Nathalia, but I think it could be better.

 

Overall, quite good.  Polish it up and submit it somewhere!

[akoebel]

I liked this story a lot. You've managed to convey this character very well.

 

I have two small issues : 

* the voice at the beginning seems a bit remote. The character says he's in pain - and I could feel some of it - but I got the feeling he's not experiencing it at the moment. It's almost as if he was telling me after the facts, even if the present tense is tells me it's happening right now. This took me some time to be used to.

* he never questions Marina's motives. He never even suspects she might be working for his jailers  I completely expected him to be betrayed in the end - I expected Marina to be only a henchman and not The Enemy herself (nice touch) - so why someone who is obviously smart never questioned Marina's motives. Her comments about her husband are what made me suspicious to begin with and when she mentioned he needed some artifact, I was sure of her loyalties. Yet, never once did he consider he might be delivering the stone to his enemies.

 

Aside from that, really nice piece!

[Syme]

Thank you both very much for your comments. I'm glad you liked it.

 

It seems the betrayal is more obvious than I thought. That's good to know. As a writer, I always find it very hard to gauge how obvious these things are to the reader.

[cjhuitt]

I'd agree with the others that the betrayal wasn't really a surprise.  I would have been more surprised had Marina not betrayed him, given the setup... but the urging to make this shorter may be a good one, for the very reason Mandamon gave.  Either way, however, I would expect the narrator to at least contemplate the possibility that she may betray him, even if he continues in his course of action.

 

The beginning is a bit distant, though I don't know how close I'd want it given the nature of the proceedings.  I think a lot of this feeling comes from the second paragraph, where the various parts of his mind are noticing things.  I personally feel like it would be stronger if he couldn't think about anything like that while the pain was tormenting him.

 

Another aspect that may help draw the reader in a bit more is to touch more of the senses.  I'm guessing that the lack of any sensory detail beyond sight is just a coincidence and not actually a plan, but there is plenty of opportunity to add others in -- the hot smell of the branding iron, the charred smell of his own burnt flesh, the general environs... and that's just smell.  What does he hear? (Do his screams echo?  Are tools clanking together?)  What does he taste? (Blood in his mouth from biting his tongue, or lip?  Or from a split lip?  What does the cloth that got shoved in his mouth taste like?)

 

I think this could be especially important once the MC is completely blinded, because then it's all he'll have -- and they'll probably be both more prominent and more confusing without sight to help sort things out.

 

I found "the Torturer" always presented as a name to be annoying.  We don't need a real name, because that doesn't matter beyond what his role is, but it snagged my eye every time.

 

I also thought the declaration at the end of the first section ("...and I've sworn not to...") is a bit blunt, but it effectively conveys why he is being tortured.

 

I personally think you might be able to cut off the actual action of blinding him (burning the second eye), and have it implied by the torturer's preparation.  I think it would be stronger that way, and also give you a chance to linger on the last sight the MC will ever have in his life (so he thinks), and how horrible it is.  This would be another time for a bit of description of who is doing what.

 

"Very good, thank you," I reply. "Not having to see your face is a tremendous improvement."

I suggest not losing this in the revisions... I quite liked it.  I'm generally a fan of snarky MCs.

 

Finally, the ending.  I was somewhat dissatisfied with how it ended, and I think it was because, once he had gotten the stone and been betrayed, all thoughts of protecting the stone or keeping it safe from others are completely absent.  All that's present is the drive to kill the person who has killed him in turn... not a bad thing, but not what he started the story desiring.  I would assume that being First Wizard of his order means that he is fairly accomplished, and he seems to indicate such as he fights off all the other sorcerers, so I wonder if he'd be able to do something with the stone, still, perhaps even replacing it in its vault, before completely succumbing.

 

Alternately, and maybe even more effective for the story, have him torn between protecting the stone and having his revenge.  If he can only have one, which does he choose?  At that point, I think you could still have a strong ending with the same actual plot points as what is written now--it's just that some of the thought and context would have to change around them.

 

Either way (or your own way), I do think some reference to the purpose of protecting the stone is called for at the end of the story.