20151123 - Shrike76 - Prayers for Rain (3100)

[Shrike76]

A short story. 

Let me know what does or doesn't work for you, if the characters and the story are believable, and if the overall shape of the story is a problem or not.

[Mandamon]

I liked this a lot.  It's well written and I the characters seem real.  It was a little slow to get into, and the fantasy aspect of it didn't really come into play until 3/4 of the way through.  I felt like I was waiting for something to happen.

 

However, in the end, I liked where you went with it.

 

I didn't understand the section about the shuffling and the squirmy leg on page 4.  You hadn't introduced how the dreams work yet, and I was imagining an alien observer or controller for some reason.

 

Looking back over the story, I'm not sure whether it's told chronologically or from the time period of the last section.  I assumed chronologically at first, but now I'm thinking the main character is stepping back into dreams about his father after the funeral.  Still not really sure.

 

One edit: Diana is spelled with one "n" on page 7 and two "n"s on page 10

 

Overall, this was very thought provoking and a good read.  Just a couple places where some parts could be clarified.

[rdpulfer]

- Like Mandamon, the pacing is a little slow, and I think you could either cut the first section, or use it to establish more characterization.

 

- The bit with Diana is a little strange. It feels somehow out of place. It could be a little too matter-of-fact because you tell the reader it's a dream instead of letting the reader discover it. 

 

- I would have liked just a little bit more biographical information about the main character. I'm assuming he reconnected with Diana and had a son? It would be just be nice to show how a little more of his life as an adult.

 

- Overall, I really liked this piece. It's very touching and compelling. Like Mandamon, I think it just needs a little more polishing and it will be a great read. 

[Shrike76]

I didn't understand the section about the shuffling and the squirmy leg on page 4.  You hadn't introduced how the dreams work yet, and I was imagining an alien observer or controller for some reason.

 

Looking back over the story, I'm not sure whether it's told chronologically or from the time period of the last section.  I assumed chronologically at first, but now I'm thinking the main character is stepping back into dreams about his father after the funeral.  Still not really sure.

 

You are correct, it's mostly chronological with and the "present" is the final scene, along with all the non-dream descriptive scenes before it. The structure is where I got hung up the most on this one. In my first draft, the "real" scenes were italicized, and the dreams weren't, but then I didn't want the entire last, longest scene to be italicized. This attempt separates the scenes with asterisks and uses a different verb tense, but I'm not keen on that either as I think it just makes it even more confusing. I'm not really sure what the fix for that is, although I'd toyed with taking those little "real" scenes out completely, aside from the last one. not sure that's effective either.

 

Thanks for your feedback! I think I need my mental hamster to run around on his wheel for a bit longer on this one before I try another draft.

[Shrike76]

- The bit with Diana is a little strange. It feels somehow out of place. It could be a little too matter-of-fact because you tell the reader it's a dream instead of letting the reader discover it. 

 

- I would have liked just a little bit more biographical information about the main character. I'm assuming he reconnected with Diana and had a son? It would be just be nice to show how a little more of his life as an adult.

 

For your first point, The first sequence isn't identified at all as a dream, and I kind of wanted the second one to be a transition where we find out concretely that it's a dream, and by the last one the dream would be expected before it even starts as by then the story format would be firmly established. You're right that I was a bit blunt about it, but I was worried that if I'd left it subtle it might be missed completely, so I decided to hang a lantern on it, as it were. I'll see if I can find a better way to communicate it.

 

For your second point, I mentioned that he hasn't seen Dianna in 15 years so what's meant to be implied is that his son is by someone else, but it might not be obvious enough. I'd also considered putting in another scene where we see the main character as an adult, but I thought it would water down the meat of the story, and cause it to feel like it was dragging on. When I was outlining it I felt that three dream sequences was about right, less is more and all that jazz. 

 

Thank you for your time and comments. Food for thought as always

[Shrike76]

You hadn't introduced how the dreams work yet, and I was imagining an alien observer or controller for some reason.

 

You're biased

There are no evil plant-under-the-hat aliens in this one

[Mandamon]

You're biased

There are no evil plant-under-the-hat aliens in this one

Lol!

[rohyu]

I agree with rd and Mand about the story starting slowly. His dad explaining the 'dream orbs' to him was interesting. I don't know if there was some deeper meaning to the repeated phrase about how much the dad loves the son. There doesn't have to be, I just wasn't sure if there was meant to be.

 

You did a great job showing what year it was for each section. The father mentioning going to the moon for instance.

 

All in all I enjoyed the story. It was entertaining without being action packed.

[Robinski]

What a great story, I really enjoyed this. I'm not sure I quite got all the nuance of the interconnections between the ‘different’ characters, but it did not affect my enjoyment of the story. I had a distinct catch in my throat as I reached the end. That recurrence of the fatherly phrase had a similar affect on me, if not as intense, as Goodnight Moon or I’ll Love You Forever (just thinking about that one has me welling up – as any parent who has read it to their child, or has an elderly parent, will understand). Sorry – digression – back to your story!

 

‘Prayers for Rain’ is wonderfully gentle, yet still a powerful and thought-provoking read. In a time when gritty realism and hard-hitting violence (and language, and sex) increasingly are the flavour-of-the-month in SFF, this story is an object lesson for any new writer, I think. The lesson is that having a powerful effect on the reader does not mean dialling up the shock factor, but dialling up the emotional reaction of characters, and putting them in situations where their emotions are challenged, not their physical attributes.

 

Excellent job, I hope you have or are planning to submit ‘Prayers for Rain’. With some polish, I would be very happy to encounter this story in an anthology.

 

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

 

The rain ‘breathing’ bothered me. I thought it was a bit incongruous.

 

I felt I wanted to read ‘whisper their names to me’ – especially since that seems to chime with the rain breathing. The phrase ‘whisper me’ tripped me up.

 

“An adult’s weight makes the edge of the mattress sag” – lovely phrase, so familiar (from old memories). The word ‘gravity’ jarred for me.

 

“smoke-deepened voice” – excellent, I can hear it.

 

My first thought was that the corn was involved in his breakfast, then my brain tried to see the phrase “corn and manure” as referring to both breakfast and spring. It was my third attempt to reconcile the phrasing the brought me to the point of the corn being outside – I think?

 

Didn’t he smell the ham?

 

“it wouldn’t make him happy” – phrase is rather passive, compared to “would make him unhappy”.

 

Seems like the row a long way if they’ve made an early start, but don’t reach their destination until noon. Are they still on their land?

 

When you mention the ham-and-cheese, my British sensibility tells me that he thought earlier that there was no ham to go with his eggs. I realise however, that the first reference to ham presumably means ‘bacon’, as opposed to cold ham as in ham-and-cheese. Maybe this would only be a problem for British readers, but I think it could easily be solved by substituting ‘bacon’ for ‘ham’ in the first reference.

 

The boat being anchored threw me a bit, as I took the reference literally, my thought was that the boat would just be ‘tied-up’. I realise that is a form of anchoring, but the word threw me.

 

I'm slightly familiar with pipe smoking, and know there can be a fair bit of back and forth with knocking out dottle and repacking the pipe, then lighting and relighting, but it seemed to me that his dad had no longer lit the pipe than he was emptying it, which felt off to me.

 

“I hope for a fish to bite, for something to break the flow of conversation but Dad doesn’t say anything and the moment is gone.” Something about this phrasing threw me. I thought it sounded like we wanted the moment to end and yet when it does, he is regretful, like an opportunity has passed. Seemed contradictory.

 

That is a huge amount of fish to eat. Fish is really quite filling, it is still meat after all. I couldn’t stretch my credulity to cover this bit.

 

“He’s got his eyes closed” This phrasing felt long-winded to me, compared to “His eyes are closed,” for example.

 

The line “turn of the TV” smacked me around the face, it seemed like a mistake because they were camping, then I get to “takes all our gear to the car”, and I'm still thinking mistake

 

“but he doesn’t mention” – missing word

 

“I’d have preferred if he’d asked me if I was on drugs.” This line felt over-familiar. Also, ‘college’ threw me, as I hadn’t quite grasped the time-shifting nature of the story, although I certainly knew by this point that something unusual was happening.

 

“Next thing I know we’re in the boat” – this phrase kind of telegraphs it, but the reader should know by this point, so I had no problem with the big signpost.

 

“The other night I had this one where I was falling through the air with a parachute.” This line made me think that the kid actually became a soldier in his adult form.

 

“Who’s that?” Sshe asks,” – typo.

 

“...crouches down by the shore of the water” – the whole phrase felt overly complex to me.

 

“no problems adjusting to the the brightness” – typo.

 

“How is this possible, Dad?” – People very rarely use names or titles in the real world, unless trying to attract someone’s attention, so this felt awkward to me.

 

“his stuffed kangaroo cradled in his arm” – typo.

[Robinski]

As usual, Mandamon has got everything, including the 'Doh, I meant to mention that!' things.  (Hi, Man! How's it going? Seems like an age.)

 

I'm going to almost completely disagree with RDP (Sorry!). I thought the pacing was fine, and the scene with Dianna was sweet, just enough of a hint of young love lost (or not?), which suited the story perfectly. I definitely don't want any more biographical detail. For me, the story is not about the character, but about the emotional ideas. Giving the boy or the father a name would shift the focus away from the emotional journey. I don't think that's the right thing to do. I prefer to wonder (as per my comments), if the boy became/is a soldier, etc. I don't want details which would muddy the emotional waters.

 

Personally, I would not reintroduce the italics. I think the story needs the reader to be unsure at first about what is real/present and what is dream/memory. Using separators is also awkward, agreed. What about an extra line between sections? It would be more subtle, which I think is what you're looking for, something less overt than italics or separators.

 

The main character is an adult in the last short scene, is he not? I don't think another scene is needed.

 

Stick with your initial instincts, I think they are very close to the mark. I don't think you need to go at this version with a heavy hand.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Robinski

[Shrike76]

Robinski: Thanks for the comments! I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'll definitely keep your line-specific notes in mind for the next draft.

 

The italics vs. scene break is still what I feel is the clumsiest part of this story. Scene breaks give the impression that the scene has changed (even without separators), but not so much that the context has changed (dream vs. reality). I find them jarring here in a way that the italics weren't, and in a way I was hoping to avoid. Ideally I'd have put the dreams in italics and the real world in normal font, but then 90% or my story would have been italicized. I definitely am not sold on the different verb tenses between scenes. I'll need to think on it more, and hopefully settle on something I like.

 

Yes, the main character is an adult in the last scene. I don't know what age he is exactly but in my mind it was mid-to-late thirties or so. And I don't think I deliberately left out the names, but I never felt they were necessary or that the story would fail without them, aside from Dianna.

 

I had toyed with adding another scene at the end, with the main character as an old man, but it felt like denouement I didn't need in a story this short, especially as I felt the loop had closed fairly cleanly ("In late, out early").

[Robinski]

I think you're right. Ending of the recurring line I a nice way to round things off. Very effective, I think.

[Kammererite]

What happened to the ham he smelled for breakfast?

 

Pages 2-3. The pipe smoking jarred me a little. He just lit the pipe and then it was already out.  

 

At the end of the first sequence on page 4. Several things happen here but there is no physical movement by the character which threw me out of the story. If the father is outside by the river; How does he hear his sons awake? did he make a sound? and second when does the dad get back to the tent to tousles his sons hair and hug him.

 

The small time paragraphs between the sequences really disoriented me. I had to go back and re-read sections to try and orient myself when ever there was a scene break.  

 

The pace really picked up once the father shows up in the dream and I was enthralled. That said I did not find the beginning slow. 

 

Unfortunately  the twist flew over my head and because of that i felt left wanting and a little confuse. This might just be my dense reader syndrome. (I never figure out plot twist ahead of time when i read novels.) 

 

Over all, i enjoyed reading the story despite missing the twist, and once i read the comments and earned that about the twist, i though it was really cool idea.

Edited December 21, 2015 by Kammererite

[Shrike76]

What happened to the ham he smelled for breakfast?

 

Pages 2-3. The pipe smoking jarred me a little. He just lit the pipe and then it was already out.

 

At the end of the first sequence on page 4. Several things happen here but there is no physical movement by the character which threw me out of the story. If the father is outside by the river; How does he hear his sons awake? did he make a sound? and second when does the dad get back to the tent to tousles his sons hair and hug him.

 

The small time paragraphs between the sequences really disoriented me. I had to go back and re-read sections to try and orient myself when ever there was a scene break.  

 

Unfortunately  the twist flew over my head and because of that i felt left wanting and a little confuse. This might just be my dense reader syndrome. (I never figure out plot twist ahead of time when i read novels.) 

 

Over all, i enjoyed reading the story despite missing the twist, and once i read the comments and earned that about the twist, i though it was really cool idea.

 

I think at some point the ham became bacon and I got lost in my own draft. I'll have to re-read the pipe section so see, it might have been missing a beat.

 

I don't think you're dense. There are a lot of things I glossed over for various reasons, mostly for pacing and occasionally where I attempted to give it a dreamy quality. It's important for me to know if it goes over the head of some people, and it's inevitable that I'll get things wrong or aim for subtlety and go too far.

 

Thanks for your feedback

[Asmodemon]

I really liked this short story. I was wondering where it was going and what was up with the scenes in different tenses. I suspected that there were two timelines going on, but that one is actually a dream is pretty awesome. I even got a little choked up at the ending there – strong stuff, well done.

 

Pacing: I agree that the story started off slow and doesn’t really pick up until the dream orbs are explained. Maybe you can cut back a little on the start to get to that scene a bit faster, but I don’t think you should cut too much. This doesn’t feel like a story that is meant to be fast, it’s more like a gentle flowing river.

 

Then: Nitpick maybe, but you use ‘then’ twice in one sentence on page 2 (I was my plate…then my father…then walk through). I’m not a big fan of the word ‘then’.

 

Nameless characters: Having everyone nameless in the story worked for me. It makes it feel a lot more personal, since you can more easily see yourself in what’s going on.

 

Diana: Not quite sure about this character. I think she’s probably the protagonist’s girlfriend (in the past shown in the dreams) and when he thinks about the dream later it’s clear she’s a love lost, but the reference to her doesn’t really do much in the story for me, since the whole piece is a father-son thing.

 

Thinking about it I think I have doubts about her role in the story because  she is the only named character in the piece. The first person viewpoint protagonist doesn’t have a name. The grandpa, the father, the son, none of them has a name either, so I found it a bit jarring to suddenly get a name here. It makes it seem like she is special to the story, but for that her role is too small and it’s clearly the father-son aspect that drives the story, and not a lost love.

 

If I may make a suggestion, you could try making her nameless too. That would be more in line with the rest of the story.

[Shrike76]

Pacing: I agree that the story started off slow and doesn’t really pick up until the dream orbs are explained. Maybe you can cut back a little on the start to get to that scene a bit faster, but I don’t think you should cut too much. This doesn’t feel like a story that is meant to be fast, it’s more like a gentle flowing river.

 

Nameless characters: Having everyone nameless in the story worked for me. It makes it feel a lot more personal, since you can more easily see yourself in what’s going on.

 

Diana: Not quite sure about this character. I think she’s probably the protagonist’s girlfriend (in the past shown in the dreams) and when he thinks about the dream later it’s clear she’s a love lost, but the reference to her doesn’t really do much in the story for me, since the whole piece is a father-son thing.

 

Thinking about it I think I have doubts about her role in the story because  she is the only named character in the piece. The first person viewpoint protagonist doesn’t have a name. The grandpa, the father, the son, none of them has a name either, so I found it a bit jarring to suddenly get a name here. It makes it seem like she is special to the story, but for that her role is too small and it’s clearly the father-son aspect that drives the story, and not a lost love.

 

If I may make a suggestion, you could try making her nameless too. That would be more in line with the rest of the story.

 

I intended the story to be more of a slow burn. There's no action, and so it's basically reduced to being a character piece, with a magic system for frosting. That being said, there's been a lot of comments about the pace at the beginning, so I'll take a look into it.

 

I don't remember consciously making everyone nameless when I wrote the first draft (it's typical for me, I won't put names in until I feel forced to by the narrative, because I tend to choose names I dislike later and end up renaming people anyways), but I remember I didn't feel like anyone needed to have a name until Dianna was mentioned. Everyone else was addressed using their honorific and I never changed it because it didn't seem to me that proper names were missing. But I thought that if Dianna was just "my girlfriend" then it would have been harder for me to communicate that she existed in the past, and so she needed to be more explicitly defined. As for Dianna herself, I'll keep your comments in mind. I think she was there for me more to show the character's age at the time, and the passage of time in general, I didn't intend for her to play a big part as a lost love or anything, except maybe as a personal reminder to the character of the passage of time.

 

Thanks for the response! I appreciate this. It'll help me a lot as I take this to a rewrite, hopefully soon.