Aevin

[an:9ee6a605e6]I feel bad for posting this while my other post is still floating around, but I really need opinions on this. I started writing what I expected to be a first person narrative, and realized after a few paragraphs it was actually stream of consciousness--something I've never tried before. I don't know if this works at all. It's very wierd, very different from anything I've done before.

Well ... Any reader of my novel would know by know that Rice is a six-year-old psychic (he's a cliché, but he's my cliché and I love him). Rice was once called "Saek," but lost a large part of his memory (including his name) because of some mysterious trauma. In this section, Rice is dreaming the story of his past to Michael, the main character of the novel.

Criticisms and comments welcome, as always. Please, tell me if this works.[/an:9ee6a605e6]

Mommy.... Mommy was old. Too old for a kid, but young enough for me. And I never had a daddy. Mommy told me she prayed to the gods, to any god that would listen. Then she was full of a baby, and that baby became Saek. Became me.

Mommy wanted me to be special. So she prayed, and I knew things. I knew her mind. I knew the future. I felt her love. Smooth and warm. Simple, I felt it. But not any more.

Saek means prophet. I don't know what prophet means.

Why can't I feel it any more?

She called me her little child of the stars. Her baby boy of the stars. She was lonely, so she prayed for me. I came to her. She held me, and she thought me. I felt her love in her mind. In her body. Smooth and warm, all around me. Love smells nice.

She wasn't Saek. She wasn't prophet. But she felt my love, too. I think she felt it in my eyes. I could feel her mind, and if I thought more, I could feel it harder.

I don't want to remember.

I dreamed. I dreamed of a boy. Cool, pale eyes. Cool, yellow hair. Smiling smile. In my dream, I felt his mind. He thought evil. Bright evil. Pretty evil. Smiling evil. So I loved him.

You think dark evil, because you're scared. You don't know how to make bright evil.. But I love you, too.

I love you and Ellis, because you're the same. But I can't love mommy anymore.
No! No! No! No! No!

I dreamed of him when Mommy wasn't thinking me. I didn't mean to do it. He had cool eyes and neat hair, but I wasn't asleep. I felt his mind, and he talked to me.

Form your soul into a blade.

A knife?

Yes. A knife. You're small. You're only five. Defenseless. I can give Saek a weapon.

I don't want one.

Yes, you do. I've felt your mind, too.

With your Godsight.

Yes. Godsight. It showed me your mind, but never his. Never the mind of the other me. Oh, muse! It comes unbidden, and leaves on a whim: how very like a dream....
Am I dreaming now?

Yes, Saek. You are dreaming. So do as I say--no harm can come from a dream, can it?

Yes, it can.

You're absolutely right. The horror of dreams is precisely what makes them so lovely. In dreams, we see things brighter than they really are. Even darkness can sparkle with light in a nightmare. You'll see what I mean soon enough--have you ever seen the blood of the mind?

But I don't want a weapon.

Yes, you do. You'll see the blood as bright as paint, Saek! Make your soul a knife. Feel harder, your soul a knife. Now ... DO IT!

No knife! Not a knife!

Yes knife. Soul a knife.

No! No! No! No! No!

Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!

He made me do it. My soul knife. You can change your mind. Your soul. Make it harder, sharper. Water can crush. Wind can slice. And soul can kill.

He made me feel my mommy's mind. She didn't think me. He made me feel harder, and she thought me. Made me feel her love. Made me feel it too hard. With my soul, my knife.

Then, it was gone.

I saw the blood. From her eyes. Her ears. Her mind. Mind blood, brighter than paint, bright like mirrors. Blinding. Pretty.

No more love in her eyes. No more love in her mind. Nothing.

But the blood was very bright.

Feeling her nothing, I screamed.

I screamed for a year. I screamed away Ellis. I screamed away everything. Until all I felt was screaming, even though my voice stopped. And my arms. And my legs. And my mind. I screamed away five and Saek. I screamed in six and Rice.

And I can't feel Mommy's love anymore.

__________________
"Go to, like, greater adventures!"
--Din from Namco's Tales of the Abyss

zaoshang

As an exercise, it's okay. But as a serious text, I don't think it has fully reached its intentions. I had a hard time understanding what was going on, and what they talked about. I know it's stream of counsciousness, but still... Hm. I don't know what to say. Maybe it makes more sense inside the whole novel (which I'm not familiar with)...

At first, the short-sentence rhythm created a nice effect. Then it became tiresome. For example:

-here, it was just too much for me. If you inserted a long sentence here and there, I'd say it would sound much better, as in the following two passages:

I have a problem with this sentence:

-I admit you can break any rule in a stream-of-consciousness prose, but this sentence sounds just clumsy. It reminds me those foreign language tutorials, which were stuffed up with example sentences with absolutely no care for the meaning, such as: "The sun is shining now, but horses have four legs."

In short: I kind of like your text, but I don't get the idea. I think this story just needs a bit of editing. Sorry I couldn't be more constructive.

Aevin

Thanks, Zaoshang.

First of all, I do think the piece would make more sense at its proper place in the novel. Most of the story is relatively coherent, and a reader who knows all the characters would have an easier time.

Your suggestions are great. Very helpful. I'll pay more attention to what you're calling the "rhythm" of the piece; since it's not conventional prose, I should take a little more care to make it formally pleasing. Poetic, if I want to go that far.

Your confusion is understandable ... mainly because Rice is a confusing kid. But I'll work with this and use your suggestions. It is only a rough draft; I think I may just need to stew on it for awhile. By the time I've finished the novel, maybe I'll have a better idea what I need to do with this.

Thanks again for your suggestions!

--Aevin

__________________
"Go to, like, greater adventures!"
--Din from Namco's Tales of the Abyss

cyberspecter

Hi Aevin,

As usual, I missed this post til now. But better late then never.

Ok so you know there can be a little work on the pacing and mood. But overall I liked this piece. You have a way of making evil somehow beautiful in its creepyness.


This is exactly what I mean by creepy beautiful. It just reads well to me.

I really need to keep up with this story. Can you email me what you have?

'Specter

__________________
Cyberspecter
(Evil incarnate, devourer of souls....and pizza)
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Bad Spellers of the World, Untie! -Tee shirt slogan.

LiberalDem

Hola--

Reading this out of context is, obviously, confusing. I thought that as a stream-of-consciousness it was very well written, but without reading what it is attached to, I can't give a thorough critique. I did, however, really like:

Seriously, gave me goosebumps. I loved this!

Goes without saying that I'd like to see more. Good job!

__________________
"I am a work in progress dressed in the fabric of a world unfolding offering me intricate patterns of questions rhythms that never come clean and strengths that you still haven't seen." Ani DiFranco (The Slant)

Aevin

Thanks, CS and Liberal.

I'm glad you enjoyed this, even though it's out of context and confusing. I would have posted the scenes directly before and after this segment to get readers more into it, but then it would have been too long to expect anyone to read.

I'm flattered, Cyberspecter, but I don't really know if I've got anything you'd like to read. I've written about 2/3rds of my novel, but most of it is on paper. What I've got on the computer is isolated sections that don't reveal a lot about plot. Most of the coherent story sections I've got are too long for you to want to read.

Still, I'm encouraged by your interest. As a matter of fact, I need to disappear about now to work on it more ....

__________________
"Go to, like, greater adventures!"
--Din from Namco's Tales of the Abyss

Ilan Bouchard

I was also baffled by it. It started, and ended, as if it were a small child describing life, but in the middle is a dream. Actually, it does make sense, to have it slightly garbled, as small children are often like that. I was a bit miffed by the sentences though; they were just so small! And simple, which is fine, but I thought it started to outweigh that of how a child would normally speak. Still good though, I liked it.

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Ruthless comments encouraged!

Aevin

Thanks for reading, Ilan.

I can't help but think this would make a lot more sense if you knew the character more, but the fact is ... it is supposed to be confusing to a degree.

However, my goal is to make it sound like a six-year-old boy the whole way through, and I've just overkilled it at times.

Hmm ... For the sake of clarity, I'll explain just a few things. "Godsight" is an ability that Ellis (the blond kid) has that enables him to see through the eyes and minds of others. However, his ability is entirely random; he can't choose what he sees. Like a dream. He briefly complains that it won't show him the mind of his rival, Michael, who looks exactly like him.

The section in italics is Ellis trying to get Saek (Rice) to kill his mother using his psychic powers--by, as Ellis says, making his soul into a knife and using it as a weapon. This section is in the form of dialog, but I haven't used tags to show this. It bounces fairly predictably back and forth between Ellis and Saek.

Any direct adresses ("you") are being "spoken" to Michael, Ellis's double and the main character of the story. Michael is essentially hearing this story as a dream of Saek's.

Hope this clarified some things.

__________________
"Go to, like, greater adventures!"
--Din from Namco's Tales of the Abyss