3.3.14 - hawkedup - Dark Matter Memories 004

[hawkedup]

Since a lot of your feedback can and should be applied to the next batch of chapters after what you've already read, I'm skipping ahead to the end of Part 2. This batch of chapters focuses on the minutes leading up to Kara's extraction.
 

What you need know:
 

The sixth Sapphire failed to possess Kara Howill. Instead, it was sucked into the city network via that giant satellite dish I mention in the first Emily chapter. This is why the "machine uprising" seems so limited. Because it is. The Jester has dubbed the creature in the machine "Gomer".
 

On her way down the stairs of her apartment building, Kara runs into a woman named Abri who is actually a defective android who the Jester has programmed to kill Jaime.

While on the stairwell, they are attacked but saved by Isaac. This is a pure action/chase type scene that leads into what you are about to read now.
 

Also other stuff that isn't relevant to this specific section.

 

This is also the first piece I'm submitting having edited it with your guys' previous commends and feedback in mind. Tear it apart, please!

 

 

 

Oh yeah, Kara has a bit of a potty mouth in this one.

[andyk he/him]

My over-riding thought on this was that it was too drawn out for what seems intended as a scene of action and tension. In a few different ways - primarily extended dialogue and prose that repeats on a theme - the scene gets drawn out when it feels like it should snap along. It's not about any of the individual bits being bad, it's about the overall effect they have together.

 

If you have the time I suggest saving a second copy of this and trying to cut it down by a third or a quarter in terms of word count. That's probably more than you need to lose, but going through the exercise will help you think about what really matters to you in the scene and what's slowing it down. Then you can take that experience back to the original copy and see about speeding it up. Also, that way you'll be working out a way of cutting that suits you, rather than one based on my taste in prose.

[jagabond]

Neat ending! I am getting steadily more invested as I read on. I'm posting from my phone during lunch break so no wall of quotes today.

I think you could cut a bit of the dialogue, maybe even weave some of the opposite POV sections together and get the action going sooner. I generally agree with andyk; if you plunge us in and keep the dialogue short and important, you'll get that sense of immediacy that youre summoning.

I'm still not a huge fan of the dialogue, insofar as I'm not able to see when something is banter or a joke, but I think that may be a matter of taste?

[Robinski he/him]

Overall, I enjoyed the story (or this part of the whole), but there were some things that frustrated me – which I’ve tried to capture in my detailed comments on your submissions to date. I think others have mentioned scene setting being a bit sparse – I can agree with that, although I did have a rather fuzzy picture in my head throughout.

 

The biggest thing in this part for me was trying to bridge the continuity gap from the previous part, where I felt like I’d missed some good stuff, but I was sometimes struggling to bridge the gap. And I don’t really understand why the Sapphires didn’t stand together – also, what about the plot to kill their chief, and where did Emily go? [Okay, I've read the thread and your liner notes now, and I get what's happened, up to a point. Taking that into account, seems to me Gomer isn't nearly powerful enough, and just disappears from the scene. I'm with Andy on cutting down, but might go further in going back through all four parts and trimming where things don't both world/character build and push the story forward.]

 

I think there’s potential here, I like to read smart and sassy, which is a style I'm comfortable with, but I think there are things that need tightening up.

 

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Page 1 – Jester speaking to Gomer sounded very maid-and-butler to my ear, also, we haven’t met Gomer before, so not sure exactly what it is, other than some kind of robot/computer?

 

Page 2 – Impossible to defeat? Really? Surely not. And, I'm not sure if we’ve really got a sense that the Sapphires are all that powerful. I can’t think of when we’ve had that shown to us, but we’ve been told – which is the wrong way round, of course.

 

Page 3 – I might have said this before, but there’s a real danger in characters referring to their own humour (or that of other characters), because unless the humour is funny, it will sound completely hollow.

 

Page 3 – I don’t get the reference to John Connor jokes – I know who John Connor is ‘natch, but the reference I don’t get.

 

Page 4 – The posturing at the end of this section sounds like it’s happening in slow motion. I don’t get a sense of tension in this face-off, due to all the joking possibly, and because I don’t really know how dangerous the Sapphire’s are, I don’t get much sense of threat from the Jester, therefore I'm not feeling concern for the Magenta’s safety.

 

Page 5 – Who’s Abri, and where did she come from?

 

Page 5 – ‘The man in motley (???) stood...’

 

Page 7 – Sounds like something exciting happened with the nanny bots and Isaac et al, but we didn’t get to see it.

 

Page 7 – I see now that Abri is an android, but still don’t know where she came from. I feel like we are missing a section of the story. Everything seems to have skipped on to get to this point from where we were in 003. It’s not that I can’t cope with it, but it feels like going out of the room when a movie’s playing and coming back ten minutes later. You can guess how the characters have got to where they are now, but it feels like you’ve missed an exciting bit and are back at the talking and standing around.

 

Page 8 – I like how you link back to the previous dialogue through Kara hearing the com feed to bring the two strands together. I found that effective.

 

Page 8 – Out of nowhere, Abri seems to have acquired consciousness – to me it felt dropped in out of the blue. This seems to have come from Vabli’s incantation. Did the story foreshadow witchcraft/magic? I don’t remember if it was, but it might be my inability to retain facts.

 

Page 10 – ‘science wizard’ – excellent!! – Although it did bring to mind the ‘science oven’ from American Hustle.

 

Page 12 – Vibali says the same thing three times here. I get that she’s trying to motivate Kara to get moving, but it jarred a bit for me, because the phrases don’t seem to be delivered in that way.

 

Page 13 – Hang on, I'm pretty sure that Emily has the grandfather’s revolver, how did Kara get it?

 

Page 13 – I'm not sure I understand why Kara is struck immobile so suddenly. And why the reference to Emily – where and when did they encounter Emily – where is Emily?

 

Page 14 – There are occasional grammar points throughout, which I don’t normally mention, but this paragraph stopped me. It should sound slick and action-packed, but I found it awkward and baggy. Please excuse the edit, it’s easier to show what I blathering about.

 

He fired one pistol at a time until until emptythe bullets ran out, then fired shot the other, while slamming the first gun down on to auto-load from his belt, reloading it, before and then bringing shooting it up to bear again.

 

He fired one pistol until empty then shot the other, slamming the first down to auto-load from his belt before shooting it again.

 

Page 15 – Grenade launcher made me smile! Not quite sure how it worked though, and why blades get through the Jester shield but he can stop bullets – is it a speed thing? Possible, but how does dust/powder get through? I spent some moment distracted by trying to figure the logic of the force-field.

 

Page 17 – Repetition of ‘...over her shoulder...’

 

Page 18 – For me, the new section/page each time the point of view changes (seems like) started feeling disjointed in 002 – why not just use a blank space between viewpoints?

 

Page 20 – ‘This is not how I pictured this going.’ – great line I thought.

 

Page 21 – ‘If a stray bullet hit Maria, it was all over.’ Is she so easy to kill?

 

Page 22/23 – It think there’s more excitement, immediacy and surprise in this combat than there was in the confrontation with the Jester, probably because of the banter and posturing, which disappears when the fighting starts. Kara’s loss of a hand works well, the failed attempts waiting for green, using her stump and forgetting to close her eyes. It’s straightforward stuff, but it’s quick and dynamic. ‘Kara grabbed Vibali’s ankle just above the ankle...’ distracted me though.

 

Page 24/25 – And the description of the transfer and then the white room is effective, I think. Kara’s reaction is convincing as the way Vibali reacts to her when now on familiar territory.

[Mandamon he/him]

I think the others have picked out the same points I did, so not much to say here.  I agree with cutting anything that doesn't move the story along.  I was also more confused than I expected from missing the middle part, even though it seems not a lot of time has passed.  I think your descriptions of action are good, but as jagabond says, the dialogue tends to pull me out.

 

Overall from what I've seen, I think the characters of the Sapphires could be more distinct and less cartoony-villain.  We never really get a good sense of them except the standard destroy-the-world (or mulitverse) fare.  What do they gain?  Why go to all this trouble?  Can they be altruistic at all, or is there no choice for them?

[hawkedup]

Thanks for the feedback guys! I was beginning to see that there was no way I could get feedback on my whole book here so I jumped ahead to the end of part 2 (the scene you read is toward the middle of the book). This may have been a mistake, but what can you do?

 

Do you guys think it would be better if I stepped the narrator our of the characters heads a bit more?

 

To answer a few of your questions about the parts I skipped.

 

Emily got to Kara's apartment, gave her the duffel bag and gun, and activated a safety lock-down that allowed Kara to stay "hidden" for three days and then her and Ricard flew off. The next we hear about Ricard, he is flying the Jester to the showdown you just read. Dun dun duuunnnn... (I currently have how the Jester got to Ricard and Emily as it's own part later but thinking of just dropping it in here.)

 

Um... During the three days Team Magenta sets up a "foothold for humanity" for all the people they were able to save on the streets (everyone inside the buildings except for Kara have disappeared). This isn't really plot important but I feel it shows that Team Magenta aren't professionals and that sometimes that's a good thing because they save a bunch of people when they don't have to.

 

Isaac periodically checks on Kara until Kara finally leaves lock-down after 72-hours. She runs into Abri and then Isaac saves them from attacking nanny bots. This is a pretty action only 15-20 page part that comes right before this one.

 

The Jester and other Sapphires kill the Professor, but it's part of the Professor's plan to get Six Sapphires later.

 

The way I'm using dark matter is one of the things I'm most proud of. Yes it started out being all very Michio Kaku, but it's evolved into something that I find far more fun to write and read. I'm taking Clarke's phrase, "Magic is just science we don't understand yet," and taking it one step further. Magic and science, at least in this once case, are the same thing.

 

On the one hand dark matter can be manipulated with tech, but on the other hand over the years people have found that it also reacts to certain sounds. In a lot of dimensions, this was and still is mistaken for magic. The incantations during this part of the book are actually foreshadowing for the next part of the book where Jaime takes Kara to a dimension that still believes in magic. In Book 2 they go to a high fantasy world where there is no real science at all and only "magic".

 

I'm a firm believer in Sanderson's Laws of Magic, so I have a very specific explanation for all of this all worked out, why dark matter can do certain things and not others, where it comes from, why it reacts to sound as well as tech, and so on, though I'm remiss to put it into the story since the characters don't actually know the truth yet. What do you guys think?

Edited March 5, 2014 by hawkedup

[manaheim]

First, I was definitely interested in the story.  Even being as late as I am coming into this, I was able to follow along and get enough of the world elements to be able to understand what was going on.

 

I agree with the prior comments about pacing and trimming. I think some of this is related to the amount of detail you're giving us in the fights. The guy shooting both pistols, one at a time, then slamming them into his belt to reload, etc. Something else to consider here is that in many cases what is interesting about the fights is how people were feeling and reacting, and less of the cinematic re-telling of a fight scene. In other words, when I watch the Matrix, I love to see Neo shoot up the lobby and everyone in it. But when I'm reading about it, I'd rather be in the character's head.

 

I also think the overlapping times when switching the POV contributes somewhat to the pacing issues. Also the frequency of the POV changes introduces some challenges where I am having to re-orient myself to a new character very quickly and frequently. In the last Jester POV, you actually wound up recounting most of the fight from the Jester's POV, but didn't really give us a lot in the way of new information.

 

There were also a number of moments where I felt like you were trying too hard to interject some extra information. Someone made the maid and butler comment earlier. I also wonder where this is the latter part of your book, how some of this information isn't already known to the reader. The bit about "Jaime had trained himself to follow two conversations..." was one example that stood out for me. It knocked me out of the story.

 

I grind my teeth over saying anything about this, but I also wanted to call out some originality questions.  "The Multiverse" struck me as something that we've heard a lot in the past decade or so, and it jarred me every time I read it.  Also the "slow entry shield" thing has been done quite a lot.  They're both cool ideas, but I worry about seeing them in anything new.

 

There's a whole lot of interesting stuff going on in there. Some sort of wild assassin thing that dresses like a jester, robots, evidently a woman made out of dark matter...?  Very cool stuff.  I'm looking forward to reading more. I hope my comments are helpful.

[hawkedup]

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of using the word "multiverse" either. I'm hoping I have inspiration that'll both a- sound cooler and b- fit better. Multiverse implies something different than what's actually going on (for instance, dark matter is a very real and very detectible substance that has only been around for a finite number of years) but for right now I'm letting it be a place holder until I can think of something like "Cosmere". On the other hand I wanted to change "dark matter" into something else, too, but then the name of the book Dark Matter Memories sort of just fell into place perfectly so I might leave that one.