23 june 2013 - yankorro - the Slim Black Rectangle Ch 9,10

[yankorro]

after a long hiatus, here is the latest installment on the Slim, Black Rectangle. looking back at it after a long while, Im afraid it looks like its going to need to heavy reworking, so any pointers would be greatly appreciated.

 

So let me know anything that's boring, or confusing, or that breaks suspension of disbelief. Also anything you happen to like.

 

Cheers

~NMW

[jParker]

Preface: I have not yet read the previous installments, so any comments that would be addressed by earlier text are to be ignored.

 

Chapter Nine: 

 

A pretty solid chapter as a whole, though a few minor things bother me. The narration style seems like a semi-omniscient viewpoint; it was kind of jarring to realize that Dimas is the viewpoint character ("whispered something that Dimas couldn't hear over the hissing of the humidifier"). You never really get inside his head about anything, never hear his thoughts or concerns. However, I really do like that line as a reminder that the hero doesn't know everything.

 

Also, the scene between Dimas and Thais seems awkward at best. The attempted sex then Thais giving up on it to talk about her father--it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. The dialogue between them is reminiscent of the Star Wars prequels: two characters, sitting, talking, shot-reverse shot. There's no tension, no drama. People don't just sit calmly and chat when they have the kind of conversation Thais and Dimas have; they gesticulate, they move around, they're expressive. 

 

Least importantly, the grammar could use some tightening. A lot of questions, particularly in the dialogue between Thais and the doctor, are ended as statements. It's minor, but it changes the tone.

 

Chapter Ten

 

You asked for breaking suspension-of-disbelief: Indo-Pak League completely shattered it. The kind of tensions between India and Pakistan are insane (see: history of Kashmir); for them to shift from being mortal enemies to allies strikes me as immensely implausible. 

 

Additionally, Jimmy seems like a poor fusion of two characters: the low-life gangster and the classy mob boss--he moves between the two archetypes in his speech and it really breaks the tension of the scene. Also, really? Creole becoming a major language? Doubtful. [unless you mean creoles of previously existing languages and it is simply called "Creole".]

 

Finally, I feel like that the prototype waking up and communicating could be really, incredibly amazing. It's reminiscent of early Lost, when every other scene was a world-breaking revelation. But instead I just walk away with, "Huh. That's weird." Why is this scene significant? 

[andyk he/him]

Same caveat for me - haven't read the previous chapters, just going on this and the summary you sent.

 

I like the world you've got here and am intrigued to know more about it. It feels like there's a tangled and well-developed political situation going on in the background, which Dimas is presumably going to be drawn into by the situation with the device. Casual details help to give this a sense of reality.

 

My biggest problem was something jParker mentioned - not getting inside Dimas's head. Most of the time there was nothing about what he thought and felt, so I had no idea how to feel about anything he was seeing. This also meant I sometimes didn't know why events or conversations mattered. There were times, like when he was staring at the ceiling, that seemed like they were meant to be a moment of self-reflection, but without putting in his thoughts it was just an extended description of a ceiling.

 

I found the doctor incredibly unsympathetic, because she treated Celia and Thais fairly unsympathetically. She seemed quite insensitive for a doctor. If this was deliberate it could have done with more explanation, or with the others, including Dimas, reacting to it.

 

The conversation in Dimas's bedroom was a bit confusing, but seemed to me to imply that he's Celia's father. Whether that's the intention or not, I think that this, like some of the other situations and conversations, could have been cleared up by showing more of Dimas's thoughts and feelings. And if the PoV character really is the father of the girl he's caring for, then not revealing that until nine chapters in feels very jarring. Also, if this really is the first time Thais has spoken to her father in fifteen years then I'd expect a strong emotional reaction from her, which I didn't see.

 

I liked the descriptive parts in chapter ten, though I was again frustrated by not getting inside Dimas's head. The device activating had me really intrigued. But the bit at the station didn't work for me. When the violence started I wasn't sure whether Dimas was in among the crowd being attacked. The idea that the panicked protesters were 'strangely hushed', while dramatic, made no sense, and the same goes for a train leaving the station while there's a riot going on - surely there's a terrible risk of people getting on the tracks and being hit, never mind the fact that the train seemed crammed full of rioting crowd.

[Mandamon he/him]

I agree with jParker and Andyk.  Hadn't thought about getting into Dimas' head before, but that may be where my comment on the shift in perception between Dimas the Character and Dimas the Storyteller came from, back in chapter 3 or so.

 

Some feedback based on the previous chapters...

 

Pages 1-4.  Not sure how much this adds.  We already knew Celia was sick and certainly not doing well.  This is more of the same with a vague warning that she might possibly die (from the unsympathetic doctor)?  There's no other revelation except that the doctor will be away, but then, she doesn't seem to be doing much good so far.

 

After that, you get much more packed into one page with the revelation between Thais and Dimas than you did on the four previous pages.  Although I am a little confused as to whether it means Dimas is Riki, or if Dimas is just Celia's father.  I assume we might find out more later...

 

After that it lags a little again.  I'm a little hazy on the relationship between Gamboa, the Colonel, and Thais, probably because I haven't read all the chapters together.  However, I do remember being confused about who was doing what in the war, so it's possible you need to add a little more exposition to who did what to whom.

 

Overall, there's one big reveal in chapter 9, and aside from that, not a whole lot to move the plot along.

 

Chapter 10, good description of everything, and then nothing happens again.  I understand why you did it from a plot perspective, but you build up the drive to a new location and city the reader hasn't seen in nine chapters, and then promptly leave and go back to the original city.  We see Jimmy, but don't get any more information about what's happening because Jimmy doesn't seem to know either.  Because of the length of this work, I would question doing it that way instead of just summing it up with "Dimas got a ride all the way out to C-City for Jimmy to tell him to go back home, but on the way back..." and then go into the part with the prototype.

 

The last couple pages after that are interesting, since it's the first time the rectangle has been used.  Now I want to see what's going to happen to Dimas again, but it seems like you used 16 pages to get about 4 pages of real content across.

 

You've said before this is about 15 chapters long, and I think it (so far) started out much stronger than it has become.  This might be a case where the whole thing needs to be cut by a few chapters to keep the story going, or the sideplot of the war needs to be bumped up to fill in the dead space.  I'm interested to see how it finishes up to compare the beginning and the end.

[yankorro]

Thanks everyone for the feedback. I think this one is going snugly in the trunk now. There's a couple of cool scenes there, but I'm seeing that on the whole it's pretty unworkable as is. I may come back to it one day who knows.

 

In any case, I think I learned a lot just by finishing the dadgum thing (even if it is just a novella). The next one will be better.

 

Again, thanks to everyone who took the time to comment, (especially Mandamon!) I'll try to reciprocate.