sibilation

This is a part of my novel, which I'm getting close to finishing. I have a particular question which I'll ask at the end of the excerpt. Hope you enjoy reading it.

‘So you’ve been living with Angela? How long have you known her?’
‘We’ve been living together for maybe a fortnight, and we met a day or two before that.’
‘Only a fortnight?’
‘Yeah, but we’re already pretty good friends I think, and she doesn’t seem like the type to make friends easily. What about you? You’re from her home town right?’
‘Yeah, I haven’t been there in… well about the same length of time I haven’t seen Angela actually.’
‘Oh? How long is that?’
‘Hmm, I don’t know exactly…’
‘Since late last year?’
‘Yeah, that’s about right.’
Kirsty half exclaimed, ‘So you’re one of the two that disappeared?’
‘Yeah, I suppose from Angela’s point of view that’s what happened…’
‘Shit, Angela’s like… I think she’s depressed because of you going off with her friend. What happened then? She ditched you and now you’ve come crawling back? You’d better not…’
Eric responded angrily, ‘Angela told you I left?’
‘No, but…’
Kirsty was interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. Eric picked up his coffee, which had probably gone cold by now, and stood, facing the door through which Angela came shortly afterwards.
‘Eric!’ Angela cried, rushing forward to hug him.
Kirsty gaped at her – she didn’t think Angela was capable of crying someone’s name and hugging them. Then looking a little to the left she gasped… in his surprise at Angela’s sudden appearance Eric had dropped the mug of coffee, but rather than crashing to the ground, it had stopped mid-air. Not just stopped as though attached to string though, but with the liquid spilling out, both the cup and the coffee had frozen.
Eric had noticed Kirsty’s reaction. ‘Angela…’
‘Sorry, I’m suffocating you… are you alright? Where have you…?’ Angela began to pull back from Eric, noticed the cup frozen in the act of spilling, and spun to see Kirsty.
‘She doesn’t know about…?’ asked Eric, waving his hand. At this signal the coffee flowed back into the cup which then floated to a table nearby.
Angela answered nervously, ‘Not exactly… but Kirsty, you must have noticed something right? Like how you’re always saying how lucky I am?’
‘What are you saying?’ Kirsty asked.
‘At the start of last year I found this book,’ Angela went to the small bookshelf in her room, and took from it a volume that Kirsty had seen before, but which she hadn’t noticed among the things in Angela’s room, despite how obvious it was. It was brightly coloured, yellow with waves of blue and red splashing across the cover. Angela continued, ‘And it taught me how to influence things… well, when I’m not up to it myself. Like when I got my job, or when we first met, I made that guy at the hotel think he knew me so we could get the free room. I can also use telekinesis like Eric just did, though stopping a liquid mid-air is difficult.’
Hesitantly, suddenly aware that the friend she’d thought was harmless was actually more powerful than Kirsty had imagined, Kirsty asked ‘Have you done anything to me?’
‘Nothing,’ Angela said without hesitation. ‘I’ve read your surface thoughts at times, but I haven’t gone any further than that… oh, except that when we first met, I had cast a spell to make people with cars notice me.’
‘You’ve been reading my thoughts?’
‘Not often… only because I wanted to befriend you.’
Kirsty wasn’t sure what to make of that. ‘Are you reading my thoughts right now?’ She blinked and looked at Eric, then added ‘and you Eric?’
‘No, I wouldn’t be invading your privacy like that,’ said Angela.
‘Me neither,’ said Eric.
Kirsty sighed, there was no way to know if they were telling the truth. But that meant that all she could do was trust them.
‘So… when Eric disappeared, that was because of this… magic?’
‘Yes, and I’ve been wondering what happened afterwards…’ Angela looked at Eric and continued ‘Where’d you go when you disappeared?’
‘That’s a long story,’ Eric began ‘but to begin with I went to this spirit plane…’
‘Wait a second,’ interrupted Kirsty, ‘I still don’t understand how he went missing to begin with.’
‘That’s also a long story,’ said Angela, and then she sighed. ‘But I guess it makes sense to tell you that story first. Okay, it all started when I found the book… wait, it’d be easier if… here, let me touch your head. I can give you the memories directly
‘What do you mean?’
‘I can use magic to plant my memories inside your head. It’ll be quicker than telling you the story, and quite painless. Do you trust me?’
Kirsty took a deep breath. ‘Yeah.’
Angela reached out to put her hands on either side of Kirsty’s head, saying ‘Close your eyes… and I know this is weird, but try to relax.’
Kirsty took another deep breath and closed her eyes. She found her mind going blank on its own and then the memories started coming. It was like falling asleep, like slipping into dream… to dream of Angela’s past.


So, I gave this story (the whole story) to my cousin, and she didn't realise that the following section was a flashback. I've changed it since then, and so I want to know if this seems like it's leading up to a flashback or not. That's the main thing. Any other feedback is also appreciated.

WriterJohnB

The last couple of paragraphs seem to lead up to a flashback. Probably because, as a reader, I'm coming in to an ongoing novel, this makes little sense to me. Other than that, there's so much dialogue (and the first few lines are difficult to follow without attribution) that the action (magic) is overwhelmed. But, like I said, I'm coming in without a clue.

JohnB

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Doctor Fabergé

sibilation

I liked the idea very much, but then again I'm a sucker for magic in contemporary times.

But, beyond the paragraph format and lack of double spacing, I am only really going to comment on the dialogue (wow does that sound pretentious or what!). I didn't find the dialogue believable, it's a little forced. I would recommend a simple enough exercise to improve it; try transcribing a recorded conversation. Pick a movie, tv show or radio conversation would be best and write down exactly what is said word for word (including ummms and arrrs). You'll be amazed at how disjointed verbal conversations can be - then clean it up to make it easier to read.

It's an interesting story from what I've read so far.

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alanmt

to answer your question: yes. I expected a flashback to follow. Seems pretty clear to me.

It was a little hard to follow the dialogue at the beginning and figure out who was who and what their relationship to Angela was. I am still not clear if Kirsty is just a roommate or a lover.

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sibilation

Thanks for answering my question, I've been wondering about it for a while. To answer one question, Kirsty is just a room-mate. Thanks for the other feedback too... I'll take a look at my dialogue, though I know how disjointed normal conversation is, and for the sake of clarity I tend to not bother making my dialogue too realistic. I'll take a look at it anyway.

I'll also look into making the action stand out a bit more, I had actually thought about that. My stuff does tend to be a bit dialogue heavy, which is maybe something I should look at.

Oh yeah, sorry about the formatting, next time I post something in here I'll do some spacing between paragraphs.

--Sibi