wind rattles the blinds
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windrattlestheblinds oooh, who?
Nov 6, 2014
windrattlestheblinds i say, as if i will know this person...
Nov 6, 2014
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...iiiiii was going to sleep but i accidentally rewrote my first chapter instead.
whoops?
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windrattlestheblinds uh, thanks?
Oct 18, 2014
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windrattlestheblinds wAT that's amazing what is she from
Oct 17, 2014
Rosendorn Sheeee was one of the makeups presented in the "Burtonesque" episode of Face Off, Season 2! She literally never shows up in anything but about 5 minutes of judges comments because the goal of the show is to create various special effects makeups.
Oct 17, 2014
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windrattlestheblinds I don't care either
Oct 8, 2014
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aaaaaand three chapters in i've already managed to render my old outline obsolete.
*grumpily adds more chapters to compensate*
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parts one and two of monachopsis chapter one have been posted
@Rosey%20Unicorn @ThereseCricket @Wolfie36 @GreenTulip
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this morning i woke up at two in the afternoon. missed class. phone nowhere to be found. looked for half an hour before i found it in one of the boxes under my bed, turned off, underneath one of my winter coats.
apparently i hid it in my sleep when the alarm went off because i have no memory of this
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I've edited The Progeny: Chapter 1 (Revised) so you can hopefully get a better understanding of Evie's character. Hope it clears everything up
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whenever i write the word "separated" i always start off fine, then get confused and go back and do it like "seperated" and then i'm like "darn it i was right the first time."
EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.
Noelle omg, I have the same exact problem!
Aug 16, 2014
SpiritedWolfe "Separated has two a's separated by an r." That's how I remember it. (Though I didn't really learn how to spell that until a month or two ago xD)
Aug 16, 2014
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(My reply from your last comment on The Progeny) :
This chapter is only five pages long. You can't expect to get everything from it. It was just to introduce one of the main characters and set up the world in which the story takes place. If you judge every book by the first few pages, I feel you will miss out on good stories. As I said before, I thoroughly enjoyed a series where I disliked the main character, and she was the first character to be introduced. As I carried on reading, I found myself falling in love with characters that had been introduced later on. I don't agree that a book needs to be complex from the start, it would just be confusing and tiring. Things needs to build up, to develop and progress.
All that what you have said about your character and consequences and ripple effects DOES happen in this story. Just not in the first chapter. Things need to build to something.
The whole conversation with Eric was simply that he had been on a few dates with a girl, it was going okay but now he's been put off because she likes being bitten. What you said about Clarissa being sick is a great idea, but it's not what I am going for. Eric's blasé tone was to show that he is not that worried and he is just speculating about the compelling thing. If he really thought Clarissa was in danger, he would have been more upset. And plus, the relationship between him and Clarissa is not very intimate. They went on three dates and it's not likely there's going to be a fourth. And from what Evie said, Clarissa is in fact in no danger at all. She’s just a girl with a fetish for fangs.
The homeless guy was forgotten about because he is forgettable to Evie. Evie is a 100 year old vampire. If she worried over every little bite, she wouldn't have lasted that long. Yes, sometimes her primal urges come to the surface and she wants blood from the vein but she knows how to handle her vampirism and knows when to stop drinking. If I used your change, that would give the impression that Evie is unstable when in fact, she is very stable.
The 'cry for help' was supposed to be vague. Caius had not intentionally let Evie see into his mind. He had been weak and it had been an accidental slip up because, remember, he had not called for Evie's help, meaning that he did not want her to know what was happening to him and cause her more pain. It would have been stupid and ridiculously coincidental if the 'cry for help' just happened to have happened when Caius was in some deep routed conversation with his torturer, talking about his plan. The guy that has Caius has a rational reason for what he is doing. It's just not explained yet. Because it's the first chapter. It's supposed to leave you intrigued and asking questions, which is has done for you because you said so in your first comment.
Basically, what you are supposed to get from this chapter is that humans have a good reason to dislike vampires. Vampires have a good reason to dislike humans. It's a two way street. Evie is a vampire pretending to be a human and a lot of her dislike for the human race comes from her being envious. She doesn't want to be a vampire. She wants to be human. She doesn't want to lie to Eric and keep secrets from him. She doesn't want to be a part of the species that he has no time for. But she is separated from the humans. In fact, they are her food, hence the part with the tramp.
If I included all the changes that you suggested, it would turn this novel completely on its head. They are good ideas, but just not what I am going for. It would make vampires seem monstrous but they are not. They are creatures that have learned to keep their primal desires to a minimum.
Evie is not a moral character. She is a vampire. She acts like a vampire. But she is not as evil as you say she is. Give her time to show that to you. Don't judge things too quickly.
windrattlestheblinds Your chapter is five pages long, and the suggestions I offered would add up to maybe ten extra lines, if that. Not even half a page. I'm not asking for dissertations--I'm asking for flashes of depth and consequence. Even throwing in just *one* little glimpse of real consequence would be enough. It doesn't have to be all three, or even any of the ones that I suggested.
Evie believes that Clarissa is in no danger--and maybe she's right--but Eric has every reason to feel the same way. Evie is a vampire and defensive of her race, and she clearly thinks humans have no sound reason for fearing/hating vampires. Eric is a human who's afraid of vampires. And maybe in general vampire bars aren't dangerous, but Clarissa has a preexisting medical condition (like anemia) that makes them unsafe FOR HER, and it's a calculated risk on her part. Or maybe Eric's just projecting his own fears onto the situation.
The point being: If you can't handle having a human character who's established as not liking vampires express valid and specific reasoning for not liking vampires, chances are high that you're playing favorites and pampering your vampires too much. It's okay for characters to have and express genuine reasons for not liking your fantasy races, you know, or just to say and believe things that you know aren't true. People make mistakes. So do characters.
If Evie can't bear feeling "peckish" for the thirty seconds it takes her to run home and crack open a blood bag, and resorts to attacking people on the street, then I submit to you that she is unstable. Or at the very least, she has next to no impulse control. Even non-sapient animals can go for thirty seconds without food.
I never once got the impression that the cry for help was a mistake on Caius's part. If that's the case, I don't think it would be contrived at all if he slipped up in the same moment he begged his torturer to stop--begging presumably means that he's hit a breaking point, especially if he's usually the stoic type. Ergo, less self-control.
Reading the chapter doesn't give me the impression that Evie is envious of humanity. At all. She seems more or less content with her lot, barring a few wistful reminiscences about how warm water used to feel nice and now it doesn't, and also wishing she could come out as a vampire because pretending to be human sucks. Likewise, the chapter doesn't present a balanced view of humans v. vampires; it shows me a ton of reasons for humans to revile vampires while the vampire whines about how humans are just so hateful.
As an author, you can't go to all of your readers and say "keep going past the first chapter! It gets really good after chapter two, I swear!" You have to catch them with the first chapter. That's why it's the most important chapter in the book, and why it's so important for it to be as perfect and as grabby as you can possibly make it. "But all of these structural problems are solved later on" isn't cutting it, because as a reader, I'm not going to reserve judgement until the climax. I'm going to start judging the second I crack open the book.
Lastly: Is it your opinion that your vampires are not that bad and unfairly oppressed by humankind? Do you think that Evie is right, and humans are wrong to be afraid of vampires within the context of your story?
If so, I don't think there's any point in continuing this discussion, because that means it's a conflict between my moral feelings and yours, not so much a question of the writing itself and whether or not it could be made stronger. In human-vampire conflicts, I side with humans every time, and the critique I'm offering you comes from that perspective. If you feel that your vampires ultimately have the moral high ground in the argument for their right to live as they are now, then there's not a whole lot I can do to convince you otherwise. I'll keep reading and offering my thoughts, but I'm not really interested in infinite rounds of this conversation if it's not going to go anywhere.
Aug 15, 2014
MissGangamash Evie is defensive and doesn't believe vampires as a whole are a threat, yes. Eric is not necessary afraid of vampires, he just doesn't trust them. And Clarissa doesn't have a medical condition, you were the one who made that up. Eric is simply just putting his point across. He doesn't trust vampires and doesn't really understand the weird fang fetish Clarissa has, which is totally understandable.
Eric has established valid reasons for him not trusting vampires. They have gifts that could easily be used for evil. I am not pampering vampires. They can compel and they could use it for evil. Evie knows that Eric's theory of 'vampire pimps' is wrong because she can tell if a human has already been compelled and so she knows that the Dial-a-bite service is legit.
Vampires like blood from the vein better than blood bags. Evie likes to drink from the vein and yes, unfortunately she spotted that homeless man before she went home.
'Makers can communicate to their progeny and visa versa through their mind, not intentionally, but more on a subconscious level.' It's mentioned in the chapter about the cries for help, maybe you missed it.
I don't expect you to fully understand Evie's character in this chapter. She's a complex character. She's had a tough life. You'll learn more if you keep reading.
This is from the point of view of a vampire. If this was from the point of view of a human, it would be completely different. Because this is from Evie's perspective, there is going to be more emphasis of vampires not being treated fairly because she is one of the people who feels victimised. If this was from the point of view of a human, then it would probably focus more on the threat that vampires COULD be.
A book is supposed to get better and better as it goes on. As characters are introduced, as they develop and their backstories are explored and plots thicken. If you dislike this chapter and don't feel the need to read on then don't. It's simple. I don't expect everyone to enjoy what I write.
My opinion is that the vampires in this book are doing the best they can to be seen as acceptable and not posing a threat. I'm not saying that accounts for all of them. I think the humans have a right to be wary and if I lived in this world, I probably won't go out at night.
I'm not saying that either of them have a moral high ground. I feel like the vampires are being oppressed and seen as guilty and monstrous due to things that have happened in the past. But I also feel sympathetic towards the vampires that have done nothing to deserve it. (Not saying that Evie is one of those vampires, that's up to my readers to decide)
I do think we just have different views though. I like to keep an open mind and as I said before, I like films and books that explores the dark side to humanity whereas, as you said, you always side with humanity. And simply because of this, I don't think you will enjoy my book and I am completely okay with that. It can't be to everyone's taste.
Aug 15, 2014
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Nov 3, 2014