So, if you recognise Lester's 'book', it's because you have indeed seen it before. It started as a very silly short story I wrote and posted on YWS (that would grow into a novella which would not be posted), and it suddenly sparked some weird inspiration in me. It's sort of the backbone for Rapture. It's not supposed to be quality literature, but it will become important. Anyway, here you go. Not the most exciting installation, but necessary.
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“Jesus mother of God, Brian.”
“I do not think that’s an expression.”
They were in the campus library, which was utterly abandoned a half-hour before closing time. Shelves of dusty reference books towered above, outdated and rarely opened. The little wooden table beneath was home to Lester’s laptop, his notebook, Lester himself, and several empty cans of ultra-caffeinated energy drink that had both the colour and flavour of cough syrup. While it couldn’t be said that he lived there, as hours were from 7:30 AM to 10:00 PM weekdays, it was where he spent the majority of his time. Brian pulled up an undersized chair.
“Seriously, I’m working on my thesis. What do you want?”
Brian pulled back the screen.
“Is your thesis on funny cat pictures?”
Lester blushed, which was not flattering on his pale and freckly complexion. In fact, whenever he was embarrassed or flustered whatsoever he had a tendency to turn a shade of red exactly like that of his hair. He had had several nicknames in his life, the most prominent being “Bloody Larry”. He despised being called Larry.
“No. What do you want? I have about four thousand kittens I could be looking at right now.”
“You’re weird as fuck, bro. But yeah. This is, apparently, all we will ever need to know about screenwriting. Courtesy of Prof Ozzy.” He tapped the dark brown cover. “I figured we’d get started. I mean, why not?”
Lester sighed. “Look, I seriously still think this will crash and burn. Why are you so confident in this?”
Brian smiled winningly, which was a skill he had acquired and mastered over time. He was perhaps the textbook definition of tall, dark, and handsome, which girls drooled over and Lester found utterly unconvincing. “I just have a feeling. Come on. I agree that it’s not, like, amazing. Or even good. Because I know you wrote most of it in the bathroom of that rave. But it’s got these little parts here and there that are just… good. And I feel like it would make a great-ass movie. I mean, here. The first sentence,” he pulled the small novella out of his book bag and opened it to the first page. “It’s great. Read it.”
“I wrote it. I know what it is.”
“Yeah, but just read it.”
*
Death and Other Diplomats
By Lester Medinsky
Chapter one
Humans are curious beings. They are inquisitive, sensitive, rash. They think they are superior over all else, engrossed with themselves. They think they are powerful. They are ever so wrong.
“Come on!” Sara’s mom called. “School starts in five minutes!”
Sara sighed, running the gloss wand over her mouth. “Coming!” She yelled back. School, she thought, would be pointless if she wasn’t popular. She loved to watch people cringe as she walked down the hallway, scattering to make way for her, the queen of the school. She walked to the car, a deep blue Saleen S7. She felt untouchable, perfect. Powerful, she thought, as the car drove through the metal gates of her house.
West Heights Middle School. Prissy children, running to rooms where they are to be educated. I go now, but only because I am currently a child of 13 and those of that age must do so. However, I find it amusing to watch these young ones form powerful social monarchies, with unspoken rules and boundaries. I am an outcast. But there is always a queen.
New kid today, Sara thought as she walked into the school, surrounded by friends and followers. She liked days like this, where the air seemed charged, and heavy clouds loomed overhead, threatening to burst. She laughed at someone’s idiotic joke, knowing that not speaking would make her look dumb. She tuned in on the office, at the figures behind the frosted glass. The door opened, and there she was. The new kid was a girl. She was plain with shortish brown hair, slightly frizzy. A bit on the pudgy side, but with athletic legs and broad shoulders. Her face was rosy and kind of pretty. Then the girl faced Sara, locking eyes. Her eyes… Sara thought. They were a piercing, dark, electric blue. They seemed to bore through her, and in that single moment, Sara felt that this girl knew everything about her. New Girl smiled. No, not a smile, a smirk. Sara’s eyes closed to a slit. No one smirked at her. No one. And in that moment, she vowed that she would make this girl’s life miserable. After all, Sara was the queen.
My mind flashed, as it does when a problem arises. I turned around. Girl. Human. She was tall, blonde. Muddy brown eyes. Profligate amounts of makeup. I tapped into her thoughts. Oh, this one didn’t like me. Her name was Saraphina. 13 years old. Queen. Excellent. I enjoyed letting the royalty think that they were stronger than me; that I was weak. Once in a while, I would meet an especially annoying one at an inconvenient time, and lose control. Forget how breakable they were. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that here. I walked away, to my new classroom. Her glare followed me.
“No.” Sara breathed.
“What?” asked her best friend Ashley.
“New Girl smirked at me.” She growled.
“Ooo. Another soul to crush.” Ashley laughed, flipping her blonde highlighted, brown hair. Sara hummed in reply. There was something different about this one.
Sara sat at her cheap fake-wood desk, droning out the teacher. She was carving her initials into it with a pen when the teacher said something that actually interested her.
“Class, today we have a new student!” teacher gushed. “Come on up here, dear.” Sara hadn’t even noticed New Girl sitting in the back corner. “Now, sweetie, what’s your name?” Teacher asked, laying her hand on New Girl’s shoulder. New Girl jumped away from the hand like it was electric, earning a few giggles from the students. Sara got the idea that she hadn’t been trying to be funny.
“My name,” said New Girl in a voice like ice, “Is Nerezza.”Everyone hushed. Thunder boomed outside, and a feeling of coldness swept through the room. Nerezza walked back to her seat. Teacher said nothing, but looked rather shocked. What is so weird about her? Sara wondered. Something mysterious. Cold. Dark. Then she saw her opportunity. “A-hem. I would be happy to show Nerezza around the school!” She exclaimed, although she had no intention to. Nerezza stiffened and clenched her fists. Suddenly, Sara’s vision swam, and intense pain shot through her skull.
“Honey? Are you okay?” Teacher asked. The pain faded, and Nerezza slouched in her seat. Sara meekly nodded. “Well, I’m sure that Nerezza would love for you to give her a tour!” Then teacher turned around to write something on the blackboard, and Sara went back to carving.
Stupid, stupid girl! Did she not feel fear, even just a touch? She thinks that she is powerful. And this Saraphina will soon find out that she is anything but.
*
“Profligate, huh? Somebody had a thesaurus on hand.”
“Oh God. It just seems to get worse every time I read it. How in hell do you see this as a movie?”
“Picture this,” Brian swept a hand through the air for overdramatic emphasis. “There’s the opening song. Whatever. You have the names of the directors, producers, whatever. Real old school, yeah, but you put all the names on, like, the bottles on the Sara chick’s makeup table. And then you put one name, like, right in the tube of lip gloss, and then she puts it on, and you have this shot of her mouth. And then you hear her mom call. And it sort of starts from there. Yeah?”
Lester thought for a moment, then smiled. “I actually… you might not be a complete idiot after all, Brian. My bad.”
“Thank you, kind sir. Please deposit all fucks you have previously not given into the bin by the door.”
“And… now you’re an idiot again. But yeah. Let’s work on this.”
“I knew you’d c—“
The librarian interrupted Brian’s sentiment from her desk at the front of the room. “We’re closing now, boys. You’ll have to leave.”
Lester stood up. “Alright. Let’s leave. We’ll work in the morning before Psych.”
Brian flashed his trademark grin. “Oh, no, my dear fellow. I have other plans.”
“You’re not British. Don’t talk like that.”
“Shut up. Let’s go.”
*
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125,018 Literary Works • 672,857 Reviews
This didn’t sound conversational enough… “Why do you think it’ll work?” would be better.
This didn’t make any sense to me.
Missed a space.
Good! Two things, though. One, why the sudden need for hair color descriptions? I'm never a big fan of that sort of thing. It makes sense in Lester's book, but not in... the actual book. It might be a good idea to make sure there's a clear contrast in Lester's and your writing styles. It's also weird because we've already had a scene with them and that didn't have any descriptions. Two, I feel like Lester changed his mind rather quickly at the end. It didn't feel that believable.
Prolix
You're right, I just sort of started banging it out at two in the morning and I was like "HAIR! Everyone should know about hair colour! And descriptions! All of them!" And this whole installment is kind of terrible. I will definitely be fixing this a lot. Definitely taking those out. Yeah, sometimes old Tori sneaks in and wants to have a lot of pretty descriptions and sparkles and lip gloss, and new Tori goes to sleep and is like "Yeah, bro you can handle this one." So. Lots of work to be done here. It's basically just a transitional scene. But do you think I should ever give a description of Brian and Lester? Because for me, personally, I like to have some sort of skeleton on which to form a mental image of characters. But I'm not sure. Whenever I try to work them in they see exceptionally juvenile. I need helpsss.
Thanks so much! You are a very helpful person.
Aw, thanks, glad I could help. c:
Sure, you can describe them. You just have to be careful. Think about your favorite books/short stories and see how much description those characters have. These would be my suggestions:
1. Make it sound natural. Lester's description was okay, but the fact you threw in Brian's right after made it stand out to me. It's also probably best to pair a description with an action, i.e. "She tucked her blonde hair behind her ear," instead of, "She had blonde hair."
2. Avoid stereotypes/boring/perfect. Real people are funny-looking, and we want our characters to be as real as possible. So instead of giving them a simple hair color or eye color (so many characters have "icy blue" eyes), give them a weird mole or a big nose or an interesting voice.
3. Choose your description for a reason. At the least, it just support their characterization in some sort of intuitive sense. Like dumb blondes and smart brunettes. (but that's both stereotypical and untrue.) You can also choose it for more complex, symbolic reasons. Holden Caulfield has gray hair on half of his head to show how he has both adult and childish tendencies. George Milton is "dark" to support his role of Cain in the Cain and Abel allegory.
I think it's really neat you're using "old Tori's" story for Lester's book. Such a productive thing to do with your earlier work.
Awesome! That is some solid advice. I do believe that I describe a later character as having those "icy blue eyes" later. So that will be changed. You're totally right. And I'm so glad you get the use of my story. I was afraid people would think I was being lazy and just trying to recycle it or something, but I really did get a lot of ideas from it, even though it's pretty awful.
If you have anything you want reviewed, let me know. You've been a big help to me thus far, so it's the least I can do.
Oh dear, sorry about the icy blue eyes... I realized that when I read the fourth chapter. Although that may actually work with Missy, since you're portraying her as a stereotype (but with something else going on.)
I just posted this weird, experimental story I really don't like, if you want to take a look.