Reading Excuses rdpulfer 03142016 The Rule of Three 244 words

[rdpulfer]

Hey everyone,

 

This is a short piece I did for a contest put on by my local writing organization. Since I didn't win, I've decided to try retooling it into a flash fiction submission. I'd love to know what's working and what might need more detail.

[Mandamon]

This is a good scene.  However, the question of "three" is never really answered.  I'm assuming this is some sort of personification of death, and its apprentice.  But more than three deaths happen will at once.  Does the three signify the way the souls go to their final destination?  do other souls go somewhere else?  Otherwise, how do mortals know about thre rule of three?

 

The other thing that I noticed was the metaphor of the fire and the forest at the end.  It felt almost tacked on (if you can tack something to 200 words).  If I had seen a mention of the metaphor at the beginning as well as at the end, it would tie together better for me.

 

One word choice comment:

 

"Besides, humans dig for inspiration in the darkest of times and places. Taking three ensures it’s dark, but not insurmountable.”"

--ensures what is insurmountable?  The times?  the dark?  The place?  Humans?  

[kais]

My first thoughts are that it is very adjective heavy, and this makes the sentences difficult to read. I am also jarred out of the narrative by Unnecessary Capitalization. Once or twice it is effective at drawing attention to a specific title. More than that and it looks like translated German.

 

First page, you have three sentences in a row that either start with a conjunction, or something very similar (but, because, besides). From the apprentice this type of speaking seems natural, but from a master I would expect more formal language, especially if you have little time to differentiate between them in terms of characters.

 

'Inspiration is humanity's greatest renewable resource', followed by 'and this inspiration is renewable?" This makes me not like the apprentice. S/he is clearly not paying attention. I assume the forest analogy is for the 'renewable resource' line? A more direct tie in would make that clearer, especially since that metaphor, with fire, seems to be the crux of the narrative.

 

The last sentence could be tweaked to have more punch. A tie back to the forest metaphor would drive it more, I think, than the tie to inspiration. In terms of the title too, your bigger themes are inspiration and forests. Either changing the title to reflect that, or hammering the three more would help.

 

 

Thinking back on the forest and fire imagery, there are so many places you could go with that. Some forest systems are fire adapted. Jack pine cones can't open without a certain level of heat. Pacific Northwest forests have to burn regularly or the coarse woody debris build to such a level that raging wildfires get out of control. When you discuss fire as death and humanity as the forest, some more in-depth metaphors could be used (even assuming readers don't have basic fire ecosystem knowledge). Jack pine knowledge is a little specialized, but most people know about needing to do controlled burns to limit forest fuel build up. Altering the line a bit to indicate the burning/killing is to thin humanity so it doesn't do something like use up Earth's resources or something like that could be very cool.

 

Nice work!

[Eisenheim]

This is a cool idea.  I assume the rule of three intended is the one about celebrity deaths.

 

That said, nothing that's on the page yet makes it a story, flash or otherwise.  It's just the idea that the rule of three has a personified agency behind it expressed in narrative rather than simple exposition.  I think if you want it to be a story, you need a character and character involving plot to go along with the idea, like they said in the most recent Writing Excuses episode.

[Asmodemon]

I know this is flash fiction and thus rather short, but it seems more like the seed of a story than a story itself.

 

First sentence: I liked the first sentence for setting the scene, but after that the story might just as well be in a void with faceless characters.

 

Rule of Three: Is that based on the idea of the Holy Trinity? The importance of the number three is very cultural specific, there are plenty of places where the number three has no meaning at all. That makes it a bit odd that this Master names it the gospel truth of humanity.

 

What happens to these three souls?: It’s not clear why these three souls are singled out and what the difference is between this and a regular killing by Death, since you say that his blade falls on all mortals. So what’s actually going on here?

 

Dark but not insurmountable: I take it you mean the loss of inspiration is not insurmountable and the world without these three people in it is not so much darker? That does not really become all that clear from the text. The sentence reads a bit awkward.

 

Rhetorical question: The Master just said inspiration is a renewable resource, so when the Apprentice asks if it’s renewable it makes the apprentice seem sort of stupid. A different reading might be that the Apprentice is skeptical about the Master’s claim that inspiration is renewable (which is better in my opinion), but that alternative reading I only thought of on a second pass through the story.

 

Capitalization: There is a lot of capitalization of words, that are not really necessary and are kind of distracting.

 

Grammar: Some grammar issues, after someone speaks, you shouldn’t  capitalize the next bit if you use use words like ‘said’ after speaking.

So this: “But why three?” The Apprentice said.

Should be: “But why three?” the apprentice said. (and I’d replace said by asked too)

 

Reveal: Good reveal with the two characters being Death, but that does mean that before that moment these characters are completely undescribed which makes it harder to imagine what’s going on while reading the story.

[rdpulfer]

Thanks for the comments so far. This was a for a contest where I had to use certain words (most of the "i" words, like "inspiration", "innocence", "indulgence", etc.) I'll probably have to remove some of them. 

 

I definitely think the story needs some more conflict . . . just the Master answering the Apprentice's question doesn't necessarily make it a story.

 

And it looks like I'll have to elaborate what the Rule of Three is. You are correct that it has to do with Celebrity Deaths, Eisenheim. Maybe I'll have the Apprentice initially mishandling the Rule, so you get to see how deaths are regularly handled, and then have the Master explain it to him.

 

Thanks for the information on forest fires, kaisa! 

[kais]

 

Thanks for the information on forest fires, kaisa! 

If you want to run with any of that, feel free to PM me. Some of the rangeland fire grad students are right next to my office at my university, so I hear talk of fire on a daily basis. Also they are always setting things on fire, both on and off their burn table. My life.... yup.

[Robinski]

Line comments as I read, as usual.

 

“their glowing, electric vapor never losing their its individual integrity” – I think – it refers to the vapor.

 

The punctuation is weird. “It is nothing,” the Apprentice began. – As a case in point, these are not separate sentences.

 

“Inspiration is humanity’s greatest renewable resource” – Excellent line.

 

“The Apprentice handed the Master his long, sharp scythe. Together, they went to the place where humans dwelt, powered by the engines of inspiration” – I find the last line a bit unclear. It sounds like Death and his apprentice are powered by inspiration, or use it for propulsion, which doesn’t seem consistent with the theme of the story.

 

Also, I'm set to wondering about the metaphor. It was a bit unclear to me how the things related. So, by killing some people, death inspires the ones that remain?

[Kammererite]

Definitely an intriguing scene. the death aspect came across nicely.

 

I was interested the whole time, but it doesn't feel like there was a story to me, just a cool scene.

 

Last line. I was confused by this. It seamed to be saying death uses inspiration as fuel, but felt like it was referring to humanity.

 

Cheers

[rdpulfer]

Thanks guys! Like I said, I wrote this for a local contest/writing prompt. That said, it looks like I need to hammer out what the Rule of Three entails a bit more. 

[Marci]

Thanks for sharing your submission, rdpulfer!

 

Overall, I was intrigued by the short scene, and was able to suss out what you were aiming for with the rule of three, Inspiration, etc. As others have stated, I think the significance of the three entwined souls could be clarified better, because not all souls leave the mortal plane in threes, correct? While all life is significant, the grouped souls gave lasting contributions, or brought beauty and meaning to the world, which is where the distinction comes in.

 

I agree that the Master needs to speak with more formality. Fleshing out the physical descriptions for both Master and Apprentice would be appreciated, too. Just a few hints here and there, even describing tone or facial expression, would be helpful.

 

I liked the forest fire metaphor! New life arising from ashes...

 

It was mentioned already that different cultures find significance in different numbers. Perhaps a way to be more inclusive here is to introduce one or two other examples of intwined souls grouped in different numbers. 

 

Thanks again!