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Young Writers Society


16+

Bad Lights, Good Lights [Chapter 3.2]

by Lightsong


Warning: This work has been rated 16+.

We went back home just in time for Maghrib prayer. At the the living room, the rectangular prayer mats were laid out; one for Father, placed horizontally; behind it and in the same position was Imran’s; and another one placed vertically for me and Mother. I walked hurriedly to the toilet at the back, but lo and behold, someone was using it. I bit my lip. I guessed I should use the one in my room.

After taking wudu, I went back to the living room. Imran had already cited out loud and quick iqama, the second call to the prayer. I took my place beside Mother. Father glared at my movement, his mouth flat as he was obviously disliked people who attended a prayer hastily. I felt annoyed. When the iqama ended with the line, la ilaha illa-llah - There is no God but Allah - we took a quick prayer to it before Father started the Maghrib prayer by citing a takbir, a loud, lyrical say of allahu akbhar, which meant God is Great.

As usual, my mind wasn’t in the prayer. It was hard to fully absorb it when you didn’t even know the meaning of all those things you muttered in your heart. I had to cited Surah Al-Fatiha - literally meaning The Opening, the first chapter of the Quran. It consisted of seven verses, and one of the primary surah. I didn’t know the meaning although I remembered it. Must be because Arab language was hard. I never liked it.

After the prayer ended, Imran, Mother, and I went to kiss each other’s had - the sequence was decided by age - in which we kissed Father’s hand - he didn’t take my hand. My eyes started to get warm but I was too tired to cry. Imran and I kissed Mother’s hands, and I kissed Imran’s hand. It was a pleasure to have someone kissed your hand. I guessed it made you feel they were grateful for having you or respect you.

After that, I quickly went to my room, eager to take off the praying clothes and let hair got air treatment from the spinning fan. Convinced that the fan alone wasn’t enough, I turned on the air conditioner, which made the room cooler. Scarlet rested on the bed with me. We stayed lazy and relaxed like this, welcoming silence that calmed us.

After a short while, the door opened, revealing Imran’s head. He peeked at me. “Don’’t you have to get ready for tonight?” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper. “Why are you lying like that like you’re dying?”

I opened one of my eyes to look at him. “I’m tired. Wake me up in five minutes.”

He sighed and closed the door, leaving me with Scarlet. I closed my eye, and let subconsciousness slowly overtook my my body. This day was tiring. I mean, the light hunt - a term I made up and thought was cool - ended with no desirable outcome. I should ask Sarah about the Blue House member. And how about the red and purple lights, Carmine and Mauvine? I needed to do something about that.

With that in mind, I stayed dead temporarily.

~*~*~

I felt someone shaking my shoulder.

“Merah, wake up,” Imran said, the urgency in his voice made evidence by the emphasis he put into his words.

I opened my eyes slowly. Man, I felt like sleeping for five seconds - maybe even less - like a reader reading the part where I was sleeping in one paragraph and read I woke up in the next one. I stretched out my arms, letting out the lingering laziness left by the nap. I looked at Imran and saw he had changed his clothes. And man, did he look good with that black board shorts and gray A-shirt. We were going to meet Sarah and Sunglow, not a girl who he could date.

Oh wait. He could date Sarah... if he wanted me to kill him in the goriest way.

I decided to check how things were going for him. “Imran,” I said, standing up and getting to my wardrobe. I took a white towel out of it. “The thing you said earlier... it doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

I turned at him and saw him raise his eyebrow. He chuckled. “It’s nothing. I just thought that I’d just go with the flow since she keeps flirting with me. Thought I could entertain her for a short while.”

I nodded, and gestured to the door. “I’m going to take a bath.”

He went out of the room and I sent a dagger glare to Scarlet who had been watching us in silence. “As usual, you stay in the wardrobe.”

He hummed, annoyed. “Why do I have to go in there every time you take a bath? Believe me, Merah. You are so unappealing to me.” he floated and phased through the wardrobe, out of my view.

I smiled, and got into the bathroom.

~*~*~

We arrived at Sarah’s house at eight. Imran had talked with Father about us getting to her house. Father was more lenient to him than he was to me. Right now, I didn’t mind. I wasn’t in the mood to talk with Father. He could look at me and be reminded of my trivial fault for all he wanted. Seriously. I was using the earphone - the music was loud - when he called me yesterday. After the third call, I replied back. The time I got to him, he was ready to send a barrage of shouts and insults to me.

If it was just me, he wouldn’t be that bad. It just that at the time he called me, he was in the middle of an argument with Mother. She argued with him about Imran taking care of the bitch’s - his second wife’s - prepaid shop. She didn’t like Imran or me working there, serving customers under a mere table fan and with lack of rest. Not to mention, it was the bitch’s job, not us.

I shook my head, shooing yesterday’s memories. Since Father married with that bitch, our daily days were always almost filled with drama - unwanted one. Right now, there was a bigger issue at hand. My best friend almost died because of a stalker black light and I needed to stop others like it. We waited for her in front of the house, and she appeared with Sunglow and a car key. She would be driving our motorcycle couldn’t take the three of us. She had her driving license, I didn’t. I only had riding license.

Although the night was still young, the too-dark sky worried me a bit. Black lights could camouflage themselves in this situation. We had Scarlet and Sunglow, though, a warrior and a queen. We should be fully armed and prepared. If we wanted physical strength, we could trust it to Imran. Taking a deep breath, Sarah started the engine and drove the car to the place Sunglow had mentioned.


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Sun May 01, 2016 2:33 pm
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Carlito wrote a review...



Hello again! Happy review day! :D

This section felt a bit choppy to me because there were three distinct sections and each distinct section was short. I get that you're trying to show a lot of different things and move the plot along while still giving us information, but I think you're trying to do too much. Did you plot this novel before you started writing (as in plan what was going to happen in each chapter or scene) or did you just go for it (as in you know the major plot points and then just write)?

If you didn't plot, I think you could benefit from plotting in the next draft. I used to not be a plotter and I would just write and see what happened. I wrote several novels that way, and now I've been converted to plotting :) I think one issue with this story is that your chapters have too much going on in them. I'm not sure what the main idea of each chapter is because they go in so many directions.

When you start the next draft, one exercise that I find really helpful is to read each chapter and try to write one sentence that summarizes the main point of that chapter or how the plot moves forward in that chapter. If you can't come up with a sentence, that's a problem because nothing is happening and there's no main point. If you can't do it in one sentence, that's a problem because too much is happening in that chapter.

Now some people like to write really long chapters, and that's fine. You're kind of in that boat. So you might not be able to write one sentence. You could either shorten your chapters, or you could do this for each individual scene in a chapter (like whenever you have a line break between scenes). You'd have to do a bit more analyzing then because you'll have to figure out with each of those scenes, if the scene is important enough for the plot to be there. Is it moving the plot forward? Is it giving us a really important character or world insight? Without that scene would there be something missing in the novel? Then you should also think of the chapter as a whole and think about what you want the goal for that chapter to be and whether or not each individual scene helps to achieve that goal. Ask yourself if that scene wasn't there, would the chapter still make sense? Would the chapter still achieve its goal? It's hard work, and you might have to cut some scenes or move some things around or change where you break chapters, but I think it's really helpful getting the big picture of the novel together.

So with this chapter, we have three events:
1. the prayer
2. getting ready to leave
3. arriving at Sarah's house

Let's break each of these down a bit.

1. The prayer
I thought this section was interesting because it brings in that nice cultural aspect to the story. I'm glad that just because all of this exciting stuff is going on with the lights, you're not forgetting about their regular lives and customs. You describe well and you explain well, but this scene fell a bit flat for me because it felt a bit devoid of emotion. It felt like Merah was just going through the motions and explaining what was going on rather than being an active member of the scene. Rosey has a great article about breathing emotion into scenes that might help. The other thing I would think about is showing the actions of everyone there and including a ton of Merah's thoughts and feelings and reactions. Show her dad glaring and then immediately have her reaction - like what she thinks and feels in that moment. Stuff like that to give it a bit more life.

I really like the little bits of internal monologue you included about her feelings towards what she's doing and how her heart isn't really in this. It adds some nice natural conflict because religion is obviously important to her parents and her family and while she's going through the motions, she doesn't really buy into it.

2. Getting ready to leave
The part of this I found interesting was the short conversation she had with Imran about Sarah. I think it could be important because you could use it to advance the Imran/Sarah subplot. If you include it, I would expand it. I want to know more about how Imran feels about her and what he's planning on doing and why and how Merah feels about all of that. I would want them to have a bit more back and forth to show both of their personalities but also to show how they interact as siblings and what their sibling relationship is like. I'm not sure if the bath part needs to be in there. It kind of distracts from the more interesting part of the conversation in my opinion.

One little thing I found odd - when Merah says "man, did he look good with that black..." That's her brother. Why is she saying he looks good?

3. Arriving at Sarah's house
This was the part I was more hesitant about. If you're going to show them arriving at Sarah's house, show that and save the monologue about her father for a different time. I thought the monologue was interesting (a bit too repetitive with "bitch" in my opinion) but it distracts from what's happening, which is that they've arrived at this house and they're getting ready to go on their mission. Maybe find a different place to include all of these thoughts and feelings about her father. Maybe show a conversation with the father before they leave and then on their way over to Sarah's Merah is thinking all of these things.


See you soon! Let me know if you have any questions/if anything I said was confusing! :D




Lightsong says...


Thanks for the review!

As always, I agree with what you've said. I pretty much wrote the first thing that came to mind when I was writing this, so I'd totally think more about the plot for future drafts, considering the novel would be finished, that is. >.>

I guess I need to flesh things out more. And the demonstration of Merah's relationship with Imran as siblings should have a better inspection. It seems like I'm over the line at some points. o.o' Probably because Imran's from one of my short story (this novel is based on that) and I like him so much, so my feelings spilled. <3 I'm going to improve that. ._.



Carlito says...


Totally understandable!! Glad you found it helpful! :D



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Sat Jan 23, 2016 10:26 pm
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Noelle wrote a review...



Hi there!

I'm glad we got explanations of what the prayer/religious terms are. Now I have a better idea about what's going on during prayer time. It flows well too. Sometimes writers can get wrapped up in explanations that they forget to make it work in the story. You fit it in nicely.

One thing I've noticed about your novel as a whole is that there's a lot of plot and not as much story. Plot is the actual events of the story while story is told through the characters. For example (I put it in the spoiler because it's a big chunk):

Spoiler! :
We went back home just in time for Maghrib prayer. At the the living room, the rectangular prayer mats were laid out; one for Father, placed horizontally; behind it and in the same position was Imran’s; and another one placed vertically for me and Mother. I walked hurriedly to the toilet at the back, but lo and behold, someone was using it. I bit my lip. I guessed I should use the one in my room.

After taking wudu, I went back to the living room. Imran had already cited out loud and quick iqama, the second call to the prayer. I took my place beside Mother. Father glared at my movement, his mouth flat as he was obviously disliked people who attended a prayer hastily. I felt annoyed. When the iqama ended with the line, la ilaha illa-llah - There is no God but Allah - we took a quick prayer to it before Father started the Maghrib prayer by citing a takbir, a loud, lyrical say of allahu akbhar, which meant God is Great.

As usual, my mind wasn’t in the prayer. It was hard to fully absorb it when you didn’t even know the meaning of all those things you muttered in your heart. I had to cited Surah Al-Fatiha - literally meaning The Opening, the first chapter of the Quran. It consisted of seven verses, and one of the primary surah. I didn’t know the meaning although I remembered it. Must be because Arab language was hard. I never liked it.

After the prayer ended, Imran, Mother, and I went to kiss each other’s had - the sequence was decided by age - in which we kissed Father’s hand - he didn’t take my hand. My eyes started to get warm but I was too tired to cry. Imran and I kissed Mother’s hands, and I kissed Imran’s hand. It was a pleasure to have someone kissed your hand. I guessed it made you feel they were grateful for having you or respect you.

As you read through it it's sort of like Merah is just going through the motions. Like "It's prayer time. First we did this, then I read this, then my brother did this." That's all fine and good, but there's nothing deeper than that. I want to be able to connect with Merah. The second to last paragraph here starts with "As usual, my mind wasn't in the prayer." I was expecting her mind to go off on some sort of tangent thinking about whatever else is going on in her life. That's not what happens though. Take those opportunities to branch off from the plot and really bring the characters's lives to life.

With that in mind, I stayed dead temporarily.

This is just a nitpick, really. I don't quite understand the image of staying "dead temporarily." I guess that's a way of saying she doesn't move or anything, but it's just weird to read.

I'm not so fond of the breaks in this part of the chapter. It doesn't really do anything for the flow of the story. To be honest it gets a bit confusing. Why do we need to jump around this much? How much time has past? There are many different ways one can show a passage of time during a novel. One way, one that I'm quite fond of, is going through everything the character is thinking in there mind. Just a single thought, or a few mixed together, that would really pass the time. For Merah there are plenty of things to think about. Another way to avoid the pauses is to just barrel right through it. Have her be lying on the bed and then all of the sudden feel someone shaking her shoulder, completely unaware that she had zoned out, or slept, for a long time. In situations like the ones I mentioned the flow of the story is still there and there's not a large pause between events.

That's it for this review. I'm heading over to the last part of the chapter next!

Keep writing!
**Noelle**




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Sun Oct 25, 2015 4:54 pm
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backroadstraveler wrote a review...



Hey Lightsong! It's backroads again, I'm here to review!!

Again, the entire chapter has a much nicer flow than before! Your characters really seem to come to life, and I loved the irony in this part:

Man, I felt like sleeping for five seconds - maybe even less - like a reader reading the part where I was sleeping in one paragraph and read I woke up in the next one.


A couple of more nit-picky comments-

I guessed I should use the one in my room.
This sentence takes away from the flow a bit. Grammatically speaking, I think it's correct (then again, grammar is not my strong suit), but it just feels disjoint. I would recommend something like 'I growled under my breath and dashed to the one in my room'- just something that connects a little more to Merah's emotions.

I felt annoyed.
Show, don't tell. What was Merah doing to indicate that she was annoyed- or how was she trying to hide it from her father?

“Why are you lying like that like you’re dying?”
Another flow thing- I would change end the question after 'that' and then ask 'Are you dying?' It would just flow a little better, though I know it's speech pattern so that's totally your call. (you could also add to the joking feel and Merah could answer 'yes' if you wanted)

it was the bitch’s job, not us
Did you mean 'ours'? Honestly I would add a little more to the entire bit with the second mom. Why does Merah hate her so much that she only refers to her as 'the bitch?' As a reader I would appreciate a little more background knowledge here. Otherwise, I would move this bit or an earlier, more fitting part in the story.

Most of my comments are nit-picky or personal preference on this one- you did a great job with this part, and I love the humor you have peppered in! Keep writing!!!
-backroadstraveler




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Fri Oct 16, 2015 7:20 pm
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RagingLive wrote a review...



Hello, Lightsong! RagingLive here to review you chapter, and I just want to apologize really quickly on account of it taking me awhile to get to it. I hope that you don't hold it against me for too long! :P

In this chapter alone, having never read any of your others that I can remember, I felt as though I knew each of the characters. I could tell the character traits of Father especially, and found this consistency throughout. Great job!
I am wondering as of late if English is you second language. If it isn't, I hope I haven't offended you, but just due to a few ways in which you phrased things it kind of left me wondering.

I had to cited Surah Al-Fatiha

This sentence here is a bit confused, tense-wise. 'Had' and 'to' don't belong in this sentence as it is presently laid out. If you want to keep it in past tense you simply must remove the 'to', but if you want to change it to something that the narrator had yet to do in this part of the story, simply say "I had to recite Surah Al-Fatiha"

Imran, Mother, and I went to kiss each other’s had

I believe that you meant to say 'hand' instead of 'had' just a little typo, I'm sure ;)

It was a pleasure to have someone kissed your hand.

In my mind, 'pleasure' describes something that is luxurious or something that one likes to do. Maybe used in some way similar to this: "We were going to Hawaii, a trip meant only for our pleasure and relaxation."
But in the quoted sentence, pleasure doesn't really seem to fit. Who's pleasure? Is it the pleasure of the person who kisses you hand or is it the your pleasure when someone kisses your hand? Maybe the word 'honor' would fit better?

“Don’’t you have to get ready for tonight?”

I think that you meant to have a apostrophe instead of a quotation in the word "don't". Just a slip of the fingers! :)

We arrived at Sarah’s house at eight. Imran had talked with Father about us getting to her house.

'Getting' doesn't quite fit here. Did Imran talk to Father about how they could 'get' there, i.e. take a car or ride bicycles or something of the like? From what was said in your paragraph, I think that Imran talked to Father about going to Sarah's house.

I think that you left this chapter at a good place but left it open to some suspense. I have to admit that I'm normally not a big fan of fantasy, but you do have a nice writing style in a setting that I don't often see. Great work!

Keep writing and keep on smiling!! :D
~RagingLive





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