The Tales of Arc

Arc’s strokes grew more fluid and defined as he became further engrossed by his work. The massive brush in hand, the scent of fresh paint, the music of the Catalyst blaring in his headphones, he couldn’t truly describe the feeling, but the word perfection was ever enticing.
He looked to the incomplete mural cast upon the rustic, Roman-styled wall before him then closed his eyes to refresh the vision. Such beauty vivid in his mental scene. A woman, lovely in appearance, caressing the winds with an absolute passion and strength. Her expression riddled with the joy of knowing and her body a system of curves in simple harmony with the sky. If only he could bring to reality a glimpse of that truth, that honesty which lay just at the fingertips of humanity, then maybe they would grasp it and never let it go.That hope in mind, he continued to spill his very soul beneath the antique light fixtures and priceless tapestries of the dining room surrounding.
What had brought him to this? The question had never crossed his mind. It’d been beaten into submission by a sense of self-assurance long ago. Arc wouldn’t think to doubt it, all that mattered was his art and the message it would come to make.
The bristles dipped into the open jugs of liquid creation strapped to his lower back with a soft splash. He could think of no sound more soothing but as if in some crude competition, the metallic click of a gun being cocked sounded and the back of Arc’s burgundy hood was warped by the pressure of a pistol chamber.
“What the hell is it you think you’re doing?” roared a middle aged fellow attached to the firearm. Arc paused his ipod and pulled the headphones from his ears, a mischievious grin wide between his cheeks and his mind still fogged by dreams of his other world.
“I’m sorry, could you repeat that? I was in the middle of something,”Arc asked with a lash of sarcasm.
“Oh, of course. Why don’t I just go on ahead and repeat myself so that every damn vandal in my house can hear it!” The man’s eyes grew wide and the index finger of his empty hand raised with the birth of an idea, “Or, better yet, why don’t we have Sweetness answer? Sweetness, would you mind answering the young man?” he looked to Sweetness wrapped within the grip of his palm and pulled the trigger, begging for a reply. That optic vibrance died as the room was filled with the most unexpected of noises. Not a bang nor a cry, but a pompous laughter ricocheted off the walls escaping from under the brim of that bloodless, burgundy hood.
Again and again. The man tore at his pistol’s trigger like a madman to no effect other than making stronger that vile laughter. Finally realizing the futility of his efforts, he reeled his pistol arm back and whipped it at Arc with every ounce of force in his body.
The chuckles ended with a sigh as Arc spun beside the strike’s range, made a finishing swipe along his work, and blasted a tongue of flame from his lips in a single movement, his attacker tumbling to the marble flooring with a crash.
The kerosene laced paint ignited instantly, at first bringing to life the female and her airy background, then dancing widly about the flammable replicas of 1st Century furnishings littering the floor. The man looked to his richly crafted decorum becoming finely toasted from his place upon the marble. Devastation tugged at every crevice of his face and warped his expression into that of a child who’d been given a taste of candy only to be told he could never have another.
“You might want to get out of here,” Arc suggested as he faced his would-be-shooter for the first time. Looking into those faded brown eyes, tinged orange by the growing glow, he endulged himself for a moment, intrigued by the middle aged man turned infant.
Though always sure of himself, Arc could never understand what would cause someone to act in such a way. To feel pain at the loss of mere objects that had never truly been theirs to begin with, the thought only brought with it disgust. But fully absorbing the figure, Arc could see that there was really little else to the man. He was but a series of plagiarisms and fallacies draped in the most extravagant, and obviously uncomfortable, fabrics. Just another face amidst the crowd, branded by the logo of Leonard Rencal upon his breast pocket.
Arc decided he’d had his fill and, rather than pity the destroyed, he left the massive mansion of Henry Slipe in utter silence, an inferno blazing in his wake.

Hey, nice work!

I'll start by summarizing my thoughts. I was very impressed by the ideas in this piece and the strong main character. I was also impressed by the inventiveness of your style. However I felt your communication could have been improved.

The main character was very interesting. he is full of seeming contradictions(this is good in this case) self confident yet philosophical, constructive yet also destructive, normal (has an ipod) yet magical (is a dragon?). Intriguing, I want to know more.

I liked how you used the idea of painting to bring a sensuousness to the piece. The philosophical bit at the beginning was classy - It wasn't just airy fairy but told us about the characters motivations. It helps us to understand some the contradictions in his character. The descriptions of the rooms fixtures brings us right back down to earth, a contrast that strengthens both descriptive sections.

You've also found a good balance between mystery and disclosure.

The guard's character was a bit flat, but it was perfectly adequate for someone who dies so soon. i liked the way he called his gun 'sweetness'. The twist around the middle of him being a vandal was brilliant; It turned the audiences expectations of arc upside down.

Ok, now the not so good bits. It was hard work reading some of this. I had to go back several times to clarify meanings. To some extent it's a result of your ambitious style, but I think you could improve. You may have heard it before, but: Use shorter sentences, use less adverbs and adjectives. Its hard, i know, but you need to experiment and develop your style to be more readable.

I'll do an example:

The bristles dipped into the open jugs of liquid creation strapped to his lower back with a soft splash. He could think of no sound more soothing but as if in some crude competition, the metallic click of a gun being cocked sounded and the back of Arc’s burgundy hood was warped by the pressure of a pistol chamber.

“What the hell is it you think you’re doing?” roared a middle aged fellow attached to the firearm. Arc paused his ipod and pulled the headphones from his ears, a mischievious grin wide between his cheeks and his mind still fogged by dreams of his other world.

The crude competition bit made no sense to me first time round. You have lots of good stuff, but there's such thing as too much of a good thing.

I'll cut it down heavily and see how it looks:


The bristles dipped into the open jugs of liquid creation. He could think of no sound more soothing.
A gun being cocked clicked. The back of Arc’s hood was warped by a pistol chamber.

“What the hell is it you think you’re doing?” roared a middle aged fellow. Arc paused his ipod and pulled the headphones from his ears. A mischievious grin was wide between his cheeks; his mind was still fogged by dreams.


That was pretty heavy cutting I agree. It could probably still do with some more work. But now its so much easier to read. Notice how I cut out extraneous phrases like "attached to the firearm". At first it looked like it wouldn't make sense without the qualification. But it does. You need to leave somethings for the audience to work out, and somethings for them to imagine for themselves.

You don't have to cut it back that much, that's just my style, not yours. But experiment with being more concise.

Anyhow, good work and keep writing!