2013 Jul 15 - cjhuitt - Mutiny in the Night

[cjhuitt]

Another of the stories I wrote last month, though written after my poll on titles, so it wasn't included there.  This is Mutiny in the Night, a ~1700 word short story.

[Carcinios]

Maybe its just because this is the second RE submission involving POV death in a short story I have read today but I found myself  dissatisfied with the way this ended. The story didn't really go anywhere: We knew the mutiny was coming and it came, and then went. Jared's betrayal was obvious from the moment he walked into the cabin with the other mutineeers. Surprise is hard to get right especially with genre savy readers still it would be improved by there being a little more build up and depth to the mutiny rather than having the big plot drop right at the start. The Captain suspecting there is an imminent mutiny is a lot more interesting than him waiting for one to happen.

 

The main reason this didn't work for me was that I don't think this kind of plot works well in short fiction. Mutiny like events and especially betrayals need emotional investment to pack a punch and I had none for any of the characters involved. Not surprising, I had only met them a few pages before. In fiction this short a strong story seed is more important than extremely well developed characters. Your last submission did this really well: taking an unusual setting (which was cool) and not trying to squeeze too much character development into it. This time your seed (Mutiny) needed well developed characters and you just didn't have the space to pull it off.

 

Hope that is helpful

[Mandamon]

Generally, I agree with Carcinios.  I thought the story was well written, the characters were fine, but I guessed at the twist from when Jared was introduced as having sussed out the mutiny.

The story was a pretty generic lineup of stating the intent and then just writing it out.  Again, nothing wrong technically with how it was written, and I thought the atmosphere of the ship was very believable.  But, either there should have been another element to the story idea, or the story should have been longer to develop characters more.

One technical comment:
pg 1: "Bryon wondered why anyone would choose to spoil such a scene."
--was someone spoiling it?  was he referring to mutiny?  If so, the reader doesn't know about it yet.

[Asmodemon]

I don’t want to sound harsh, but this story isn’t really memorable. There’s talk of a mutiny, it happens, people die, the end.

 

Passive: In the time it took before the mutiny happened we see Bryon waiting for it to happen. He already has a plan, he’s already sure it’s going to happen. All he has to do is wait and that’s what he does. That’s actually rather boring. There is no suspense, only certainty. The main character is passive throughout the story. What captain waits for the mutiny to happen? He should have rounded up loyal men and arrested the traitors. That’s far more pro-active and interesting.  

 

Of the ship: Nitpick, but the second paragraph contains three instances of ‘of the ship’. After the second one I was thinking to myself, yes, I know we’re on a ship, please stop mentioning it in the exact same fashion.

 

Jared: His betrayal didn’t come as a surprise at all, I’m afraid.

 

Plan: I’m confused about the plan. On the second page Bryon notes that the mutineers would see how outnumbered they were and give up. Well, at the end, it’s just Bryon and Jared against the mutineers. I was scratching my head, where were the reinforcements and why isn’t Bryon surprised they weren’t there? If ambushing the mutineers was the plan he should have made note of such a massive deviation.

 

Point: What was the point of the mutiny? I get it that Jared might be a power hungry bastard who wants to off his captain, but the captain seems like a good man. He seems to keep a good ship – why would these crewmembers, who would not become the new captain, join the mutiny? What’s in it for them?

[cjhuitt]

Thanks everyone for the feedback so far.  I knew there were some things wrong, and you've clarified them for me, though I had hoped I could "smoke and mirrors" a couple aspects of it.  Also, there were a couple spots I was worried about where nobody has complained yet, so I'll take that as a good sign for those things.

[Turos]

Haha! I really like this. The details of a beautiful night followed by the captain's musing of why it should be spoiled had a good effect. It drew me in, making me wonder why, and thus continue reading.

 

The plot twist at the end is perfect. It caught me unaware and made me feel shocked at the choice made. The situation is not original in stories, but it is still good, especially for the length of story you composed.

 

Keep writing, I want to see how you add to the skill you already exhibit in suspense.

[Trizee]

I basically agree with what everyone else has said, but I'll try and add something new...

 

The thing I was missing the most in this story is the rationale behind the mutiny. I wasn't even sure whose side I should be on, for all I knew, they had a perfectly good reason to mutiny... Also, at the end, Jared calls in the watch, clearly expecting them to be upset about the mutiny- they're on Bryon's side- so why doesn't Bryon get their help to defeat the mutineers instead of facing 3:1 odds (I think their were 6 of them?). Furthermore, what would the mutineers do if they managed to kill Bryon- they would probably just get arrested- did they have a plan?

 

About the execution of the mutiny itself- why did they come armed mostly with clubs? Couldn't they at least find some knives?

 

Despite these drawbacks, the story was well written and Bryon was definitely a likeable character!

[cjhuitt]

Thanks also, Turos and Trizee.

 

Haha! I really like this. The details of a beautiful night followed by the captain's musing of why it should be spoiled had a good effect. It drew me in, making me wonder why, and thus continue reading.

 

The plot twist at the end is perfect. It caught me unaware and made me feel shocked at the choice made. The situation is not original in stories, but it is still good, especially for the length of story you composed.

 

Keep writing, I want to see how you add to the skill you already exhibit in suspense.

 

It's good to see comments like this also, to remind me that for any story, there will be some that naturally like it and some that naturally don't.  I need to remember not to self-select my way out of potentially good stories based on my own gut feel, because sometimes it is wrong (and sometimes it is right, or at least I can't help but follow it).

[Robinski]

Page 1: Good first sentence, right away I'm wondering why the captain is apprehensive. Minor style point, ‘the ship’ is used a lot in the first few lines - as others have said - distracting.

 

Again, ‘Jared’ used three times in quick succession, also a bit distracting. I am intrigued now about the mutiny however, wondering about the circumstances surrounding it.

 

Four uses of ‘side’ in the last paragraph.

 

Page 2: I'm not keen on the line about his feet being sentient in their own right, dangerous notion!

 

Page 5: ‘Dear Lord in Heaven, Bryon thought. That may make up for Jared's helpfulness all by itself.’ I'm not quite sure what he means here, also the underline seems a bit strange, is that a formatting issue? He seems to mean that Jared’s words will have a counterproductive effect. That becomes evident from what happens next, but I wasn’t entirely clear on that from the captain’s words.

 

My first assumption was that the two shots together were both Jared’s, however it seems that it was one each, maybe it’s just me or perhaps it’s worth clarifying.

 

 

This must be the least I’ve written about any story that I’ve comment on so far. I thought the writing was tight, my only quibble was the word repetition at the beginning, a minor point, but I think it’s worth changing as it does catch the attention.

 

The main point I would make though, as others have said (please excuse repetition), is I think that the ending is easy to predict. The piece is so short that there is only one strand, so the most obvious scope for a plausible twist is for Jared to be double-crossing the captain. I would say I was starting to think that way at Page 2, because of how often the captain thinks about how helpful Jared is being, it becomes the classic Shakespeare line, ‘The lady doth protest too much’, okay not a lady, but you get my point.

 

I then started thinking what you might do to fix that if you felt it was necessary. Perhaps it’s a double bluff and the captain suspects, and is ready for the fact, that Jared is planning the double cross. Or perhaps the captain is ready for the double cross, but in fact, Jared was genuine all along, and the captain is left in gnawing, unresolved doubt.

 

Just a couple of notions to ponder, but putting that aside, I thought the writing was good, the action skipped along, not giving the reader much time to settle, the fighting scene is snappy and exciting. Good writing for me, but worth thinking about the ending which I think lets the rest down.

[andyk]

I agree with a lot of what's come before, both the positives and the negatives.

 

I thought the writing was good. This is often something I forget to say, because good writing often fades into the background and lets you get on with enjoying the story. You mostly achieved that here, while also getting a sense of the PoV character across in the way you described stuff early on. I think that once the action starts it might be worth shortening up some of the sentences, to accelerate the pace - for example 'A sudden ruckus commenced as a half-dozen or more men piled into the room' - it's a moment of action, so making this shorter would help pacing - do 'sudden' and 'or more' add more in meaning than they take out in pace? But then, I generally like sharp, speedy prose, so this may just be personal taste.

 

Like some of the others, I noticed that we didn't know why the mutiny was happening, and that bothered me. Discussing it would have made the situation more real, and given insight into all the characters' motives.

 

I saw the twist coming from very early on, and I think the main reason this was a problem was that there weren't many other developments in the plot. They expect a mutiny, it happens as expected, they defeat it as planned. This meant these was no tension or doubt. Consider adding more pinches and turns, points where things get worse and events head in different directions, where the logical but unexpected happens. The story needs more of this, and it'll help to draw attention from the Bryon/Jared relationship, making the end less obvious.

 

Nice to see that your month-long writing mission produced so much work with potential - I look forward to what happens next time you're on a mission!