2.24.14 - hawkedup - Dark Matter Memories 003

[hawkedup]

Previously:

 

(Forgot this in the e-mail, sorry!)

Team Magenta is a group of interdimensional travelers whose job it is to extract "targets" from different dimensions, people like them who have a strong enough dark matter signature to slip between dimensions. The hard part is getting to the target before the Sapphires can do the same. If the target falls into Sapphire hands, it means torment and death.

 

Team Magenta's newest target is named Kara Howill. She is what most people would consider a crazy cat lady, and according to a Sapphire known as the Jester, the harbinger of the apocalypse. (She is going to one day form a bridge between dimensions and bring about the end of the multiverse.)

 

Now, the Jester, Team Magenta, and Kara's sister Emily all converge on Kara's location.

 

Meanwhile....

 

 

 

 

 

Hey guys.

 

So my book is separated into 5 parts of about 80 pages each. This submission brings you guys up through page 60 and almost the end of Part 1. Here is how the parts breakdown just in case you are wondering.

Part 1 - Mainly Introduction (but hopefully not boring)
 

Part 2 - The extraction of Kara (this section has almost no infodumping and is the book's first big climactic part)
 

Part 3 - Kara's first mission as part of Team Magenta (Jaime takes her to exorcize a lesser monster from a possessed child)
 

Part 4 - Return of Abri (a shorter part, more of an interlude, revolving around an android you haven't met yet who the Jester programs to assassinate Jaime)
 

Part 5 - The final showdown with the Jester and freeing Kara's home dimension from Gomer (the entity in control of the machines).

Edited February 25, 2014 by hawkedup

[andyk]

There's plenty going on, which is good, but I'm having trouble picturing it. I didn't have a clear picture of what sort of world Team Magenta had popped into, in terms of technology level, architectural style, stuff like that. Similarly with Emily, I struggled with not knowing how the world was ending or what this looked like in practice - 'one look out the window showed that the world below was changed forever' - what did she see that told her this? Once I realised that the separate threads were now in the same world that helped a little, but I still would have liked a little more detail early enough in events to set the scene.

 

Kara's talking to her cats might be more engaging if you took out the tell and made it all show - just a bit of dialogue where she's doing the OTT crazy cat lady talk, rather than telling us she was talking to her cats in such-and-such a way.

 

Some of the Team Magenta banter, like the bit around labels and predicting 'skynet waiting to happen', lost its impact for me by being drawn out. Having this banter develops their characters nicely, but I think it would work better as brief, snappy one or two-line bits broken up among the action.

 

I'm enjoying seeing how the threads are coming together, and looking forward to seeing what the separate characters make of each other when they meet.

[jagabond]

I tried to keep my nitpicks to areas where the reason behind the comment served a larger purpose. I could follow it, and there's potential for gathering momentum here, but needs a little tightening in the mechanics. Really, I would have liked to see more happen; like last time, there is a description of events currently happening, but I don't feel like they're happening to the characters, just around them.

 

I see why Kara's intro was the most relevant, but maybe add something in to indirectly connect her to other characters? A half-page snippet of her being off her nut is fun, but some local physical detail could do a lot to expand character (like walking past a case where there should've been a gun, or an offhand remark about a skiff falling from the sky).

 

 

"Isaac finally turned his flashlight on, and Jaime was able to turn his glasses to another setting. Now, he scanned for a way out."  'Finally' and 'now' are words you really want to avoid when commanding your pace.  "Anyway", "still", etc.

 

"Vibali stuck out her tongue and brought out, once again, her tablet, which she expanded to the size of a moderately sized window." Repetition with "size". There's a handful of these micro descriptions which take away from the flow. You can let the reader judge how big the tablet gets if it's the size of a window. This is a minor nitpick, to be sure, but I see enough of them in the prose to mention it. I'm super guilty of it, too, wanting to address every detail.

 

 

I didn't get the suave/hijab joke. Or the one about ribs in their second segment. In general I find it hard to click with those two, since all we get of the dynamic is iffy humor. I'll second andyk about their "Skynet" exchange being a little drawn out.

 

The description of the gun as an open to Emily's section? Totally cool. The idea that she's got so much emphasis on her grandfather's entirely custom sidearm is a great character note, and it sets a cold, determined tone for Emily to fill. Really effective (although maybe a tad too long in detailing how she cares for it).

 

And then, yup, she's doubtful. Saw it coming but that doesn't mean it's bad. Does take away from her badassery though, so I'm actively interested in how she comes along. This is helped by her being the first POV of chapter 2, which was my introduction to the story.

 

It seems pretty disingenuous to have skiffs falling from the sky and blaming the majority of death during an apocalypse on sheer human stupidity! 

 

I still have a hard time syncing with Jaime. Is he an experienced, jaded soldier of some fashion trying to save someone important? Is he goofy and cheeky? The characters he's interacting with aren't helping to flesh him out, and that's the biggest problem with his scenes.

 

There was a lot more I liked in this chapter, so it's definitely picking up.

[hawkedup]

Thanks guys, this makes me confident that I'm close to a red pen edit (which is my final edit and the point where I go back and just make everything tighter by getting rid of filler words and superfluous dialogue/detail).

 

I see what you guys are saying about the actual end of the world scenes needing more oomph. I also think sometimes the POV character's train of thought is being confused with narration, which is something I need to work on.

 

The jokes are hard because it's important to me that Jaime and Vibali know what they are talking about, but sometimes the reader doesn't (later, I try to throw in a couple references that even I don't fully understand). For instance, do I explain that Suave is a type of shampoo? Or how do I let that be known through the dialogue even though the characters wouldn't speak that way? I'm starting to think I need a bit more tell in the dialogue, a way for readers to say, "I don't really get this reference, but I get why it applies based on the context and explanation."

 

I'm hoping that as we approach part 2 you'll feel yourself connecting with the characters a bit more if for no other reason than when writing this I didn't really feel I knew the characters voices until the end of Part 2 and most of the dialogue you have read so far has been retrofitted in a later draft. Cohesion is key.

 

Valuable input as always!

Jagabond, would you be interested in doing a quick read over of the first 20 pages? I don't want you to critique it or anything, but I'm worried some of your concerns have already been addressed, and I'd like to know what you think of Team Magenta after seeing them on a different mission and at home a bit before the events in the last two submissions. If you don't feel at least a bit more connection to them, then, then I know something is fundamentally missing. I understand if you're too busy.

Edited February 26, 2014 by hawkedup

[jagabond]

Yeah man, I was actually going to request to read it since I'm curious of how much I ascertained from these chapters stacks up to what chapter 1 entails. Go ahead and send it my way

Edited February 26, 2014 by jagabond

[Robinski]

There’s a lot going on in this chapter, which held my interest, and I enjoyed the sections with Emily, and the one with Kara. The problem I have is that Team Magenta does not convince me, I don’t feel that their mission parameters are fell defined, and they seem to act in an inconsistent way, or at least in a way that doesn’t seem rational to me (maybe it’s me). Since they are at the core of the action (it seems), I think that weakens the story.

 

The other difficulty I had was the telling – there was quite a bit of telling us how chaotic it was, but I didn’t get any real sense of that - it seems a very passive apocalypse. There were a couple of passing descriptions about the signs of a POD crushing someone, and a women being crushed by a skiff, but no sense of the madness that would surround the end of a world (or rather a civilisation).

 

I still think there’s a lot of potential in DMM, but I think it needs another pass. Keen to read more, especially the clash between the Sapphires and Team Magenta - with Emily thrown in there two, which you’ve built up to rather well, I think.

 

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

 

Page 1 – I really like the idea of holographic cats and holographic food for them, it’s the ultimate Tamagotchi!!

 

Page 3 – I like the slapstick humour in the Magenta’s ‘materialising’ in the basement room, made me smile, but I think chaos is too strong a word to use.

 

Page 4 – The humour about the hair feels more forced. Is Suave a real thing? If so, beware of cultural or commercial references that a significant part of your readership probably wouldn’t get. If it’s a made up in-setting reference, beware in case it takes people out of the story because it distracts them (or maybe it was just me!).

 

Page 5 – ‘...guilty conscience...’ Just guilt, I think.

 

Page 5 – I know it’s probably difficult, given the importance of the dialogue, but it strikes me that they aren’t making much of an effort to be stealthy/quiet, or at least you don’t describe events in those terms.

 

Page 5 – ‘...came to a market.’ sounded a bit plodding to me and took the pace out of the scene, I think their appearance could be more dynamic.

 

Page 5 – ‘...red “V” shaped splat...’ – excellent!

 

Page 6 – It took me a moment to put ‘police ordnance drone’ and ‘pod’ together – perhaps capitalise? Ah, I see that you do use CAPS later on.

 

Page 6 – I don’t get a sense of panic from the description of the market. I think some more brief sensory information would help.

 

Page 7 – For a team on an important extraction mission, they spend an awful long time standing around quipping with each other – especially here. I realise that is the tone of the story, but as per my previous comment, it does take away from the sense of panic / chaos and the urgency that I think should still be there. I'm no expert on comedy (but I know what I like...), but I think an important part of making it work would be to ensure that the jokes don’t detract from the action.

 

Page 8 – The line ‘It wasn't authentic, of course.’ seems just to repeat what we already know, since we’ve just learned that Grandfather Howill built the gun, therefore seems redundant.

 

Page 9 – My sense of excitement rose when we rejoined Emily, who has a gun on Ricard, but then we spend a couple of pages hearing about the history of the gun, which I thought took all the tension out of the situation.

 

Page 12 – I like the whole passage with Emily, I think it’s well handled, has a nice pace and tone. If I had to put my finger on something lacking there I’d say that Ricard’s character isn’t really brought out, so it feels as if Emily is the only one contributing to the situation.

 

Page 12 – ‘Another scenario they hadn't prepared for...’ I didn’t really understand this statement.

 

Page 12 – How do they know it isn’t the machine uprising? I didn’t see where this statement came from.

 

Page 13 – Why does he owe her? I didn’t see that, surely he has repaid any debt by playing his part to date, which by the sound of it she could not have done without him.

 

Page 14 – I think I understand that they would wait 39 minutes before going after Kara so that they can jump away immediately, but won’t it take them most of that to get up to the 87^th floor given that the lifts are out? Just me not understanding something probably, but I struggled to make sense of that decision.

 

Page 15 – Just saying that horror and confusion engulfed them is, for me, telling not showing, as I said before, I think we need some sensory input to let us see and hear the madness, telling us it’s mad is ineffective.

 

Page 15 – As a Civil Engineer, I see no reason for water mains bursting spontaneously. It doesn’t happen in our world, how are their water mains different in such as way as this would occur? I realised the percentage of Civil Engineers in your readership maybe small, but framing events in a reality that we understand will make them more plausible, causing the fantastical stuff to have more impact.

 

Page 18 – I don’t understand why they would attempt to save anyone who isn’t within the remit of their mission – they discuss it as if it’s a serious option, but that seems inconsistent with their mission brief. You mentioned Team Magenta going into action, but I get no sense of them having any clear goal other than to waste time until they can go after Kara, but the is hardly going into action. I think there’s a lack of clarity in terms of what they are trying to do.

[hawkedup]

Thanks Rob that was very useful!

I want to pick your brain about the pipes bursting. What was going on in my mind was that these pipes are pumping water up countless buildings, each one housing as many people as a small city, and when the power went out, that water would come back down, thus bursting the pipes. Is that just way off? If so, I'm just gonna drop it entirely.

[Robinski]

I want to pick your brain about the pipes bursting.

 

I should say straight off that I'm a transport planner, rather than a drainage specialist - so this is somewhat secondhand knowledge/experience.

 

I see what you're getting at, but most water supply systems are driven by gravity, for example with a reserver or water tower being above the catchment that it serves. That said, even if pumps are involved, they would be designed so that the system did not fail catastrophically in the case of a power outage. It's possible that big tower blocks would be supplied by pumping fresh water up to large tanks on the roof (see Towering Inferno!) and letting gravity feed the individuals apartments on demand, that way pumping could be done when electricity is cheap (at night) - as with pump storage hydro-electric schemes.

 

Same for foul sewerage - that stuff generally all goes down slope under gravity - only using pumping from isolated low spots caused by topography or other constraints, or once away from residential areas to transmit sewage to another part of the system where it can fall to an outfall or treatment works.

 

That's my experience in the UK anyway. I guess there are parts of the world that are very flat where the issues are different.

 

Hope this helps!

Edited February 27, 2014 by Robinski

[Mandamon]

Interesting section.  I like that the threads are coming together, but I think there is room for some more development of the team and also some some worldbuilding.

 

pg1: Kara and holocats.  Contrary to Robinski, something seems off with this to me.  I get that it's an advanced society and she's a crazy cat lady, but why go to the bother of feeding and everything when the cat is holographic?  Is there a dearth of real cats and is there a special need to pretend to feed something that will survive perfectly well without food?

I know there can be all sorts of reasons to explain this, so maybe that's what I'm getting at.  Give me a reason to believe Kara feeds holographic cats with holographic food (see section on worldbuilding below).

 

pg 4: “I don't know why aren't already,”

--missing something here.

 

Jaime:

There's a lot of setup here, but nothing really happens.  You could cut all the conversation in the hall, have them arrive outside with the blood smear, and have the same effect.

 

Andyk mentioned this already, but there's some worldbuilding missing with Kara and Emily's society.  I get that Skynet's happening, but why?  What social consequences?  How?  There's not enough time to address all this when you're flipping dimensions, but maybe throw some hints in.  Maybe you can even connect the holographic cats with this.  When the society is so far into virtual technology that it's commonplace to treat a hologram with as much devotion as a favorite pet (or another person), there is more potential for the systems to become self-aware.  Are people ready for this step?  Maybe some of them WANT their machine overlords to come about and created the singularity...

 

pg 15: "without power, a water main burst, then another, and another."

--why would they burst?  Power isn't usually used to control water.  Flow is controlled with diverter valves, so you wouldn't have any problem if the power went out.

--Yay engineers!  I wrote the above before reading the comments.  My (mechanical engineering) understanding matches Robinski's on water and sewerage treatment methods.  Engineers are inherently lazy, so having gravity do all the work with water is an accepted practice.

I'm in favor of cutting the pipes bursting.  In a built-up society, there are all sorts of safeties in place.  Nothing's going to explode if the power is out for a few minutes.  Now once flying cars start crashing into buildings, then maybe you'll have things exploding as gas mains and electrical connections get damaged.

 

pg 18: "Even the blood was compressed beneath the metal."

-Another engineering concern.  This isn't likely.  Fluids are very hard to compress.  If there was enough force to do that, the falling skiff would have gone into the pavement.  I'd cut this as well and note that the woman was reduced to a smear.

 

pg 18: "Plus, at least it's not a dry desert no man wants to go.”

“You're a dry desert no man wants to go,” Jaime said."

--I don't get it.  Sounds like you're missing a word, and the joke is rather tasteless anyway.

 

I'll have to second other comments that the team doesn't really click together.  They don't move as a unit, they waste time with useless jokes, and they don't play off each other very well.  If you have 40 minutes for an extraction covering several city blocks, you have no time to communicate except for what words are essential.  Plus they are opposing the Sapphires, so they need to get in and get out fast.  Tightening the dialogue and description will help, as will reducing the amount of movement the team has to do.  They should come in as near as possible to the target.