The Story of Not (revised)

Note: I'm not sure if I still like this title. If you have any other ideas please let me know. :)

Once upon a time that never happened, in a kingdom that did not exist, a princess was not born. Only Fate itself knew that there should have been a princess. Because there was no princess, the evil queen was not evil, Prince Charming would be a girl, there were only six dwarfs, the Big Bad Wolf would be good, there where no fairy godmothers, and frogs were not princes.

The princess that never existed had several brothers. Her brothers didn't know they should have had a sister. Fate would never let that be revealed. Had she been born she would have been very close with the youngest of her brothers. His name was Not, because his kingdom did not exist.

In the kingdom that did not exist there where no lords or ladies, no witches or wizards, no peasants or animals. All because this kingdom was Not's and in a kingdom of Not there can be nothing, because Nothing was his mother. His father was No One. No One had no friends because everyone knew someone and if you know someone then you don't know No One.

No One was not a very smart man, if he was then that would have made him someone. That was very bad for his kingdom, so it was good that this kingdom did not exist.

No One did have one good quality, he loved his wife very much. But it was for that very reason that Not did not like his parents. When No One has Nothing that means everyone has something. When everyone has something then nobody is without, which means no one has not. If No One had Not then that made Not very unimportant. If Someone had Not then he would have had a place in the world. But alas, his father was No One.

This would not have been a problem has it not been for the fact that Unimportant was Not's brother. Just like his father, Not did not like his brothers and did not want to be like them. For once Unimportant agreed with not, and they determined that something must be done about this.

Nothing saw what they where doing, but even though No One did not want them to she did Nothing. This was because Nothing cannot do anything, otherwise she would not be Nothing.

When Nobody saw them doing this, that was a different story. Partially because Nobody was No One's brother and he knew it would annoy him and partially because Nobody knew Fate and Fate had told him there should have been a marvelous story here. Nobody was very interested in being part of such a story so he offered to help them.

Nobody explained to them that for Not to be important they first had to make Nothing Something. Not was Not because there was Nothing, so he couldn't be anything other then Not until there was Something. But Nothing was married to No One and No One could not marry something. So to make Nothing something they had to first make No One someone.

No One was happy being No One. How could Not convince him he to become someone? All Not ever did was not what he wanted. How could he get No One to do what he wanted?

Not decided to ask Unimportant to try and make their father someone. Trying to do this made Unimportant very important to Not. No One realized that his son had become Important and that made him suspicious. What could have made someone so unimportant important? This was strange, very strange. But to do something about it might make him someone notable, and he liked being No One. So he did nothing, just like his wife. People always say that imitation is the best form of flattery, so No One had killed two birds with one stone.

Important tried as hard as he could to make No One become Someone, but No One kept on doing nothing. And when someone does nothing then they are no one. Important asked Nobody for help. Nobody was hesitant at first. If he helped he would become Somebody, and that was a scary idea. What if he didn't like being Somebody? It would bring him a lot of attention and fame. What if he could not handle the pressure? He put much thought into the matter. Would it be so bad to be Somebody? Yes, it is new and there is no going back, but maybe it was worth it. Maybe he would enjoy being Somebody. Even if he didn't, Not and Important needed his help and this was the only way. Nobody decided to help them. It wasn't that hard, because when No One sets his mind to something Nobody can change his mind.

No One had agreed to try and become someone. But how does no one become someone? He must do something, and to do something you need something to do. So they had brought themselves back to trying to make Nothing something.

For No One to be someone he needed something. For Nothing to be something she needed something. So for either to change they need the other to change, which meens they must change together.

Nothing didn't care if she was nothing or something, so naturally she did nothing. In doing nothing she made No One try to do something which made him Someone. Fate saw the paradox of Someone having Nothing. It would indeed be possible for Someone to have nothing material, but for Someone to be Someone they need to have something. Whether that something is a name, a personality, or an idea, there was something. Fate could not stand for there to be such a paradox in its universe, so it made Nothing into Something.

By No One becoming Someone and Nothing becoming Something, Nobody became Somebody.

Not only ever gets what he does not want. Since he wanted Someone and Something, either they cannot exist or he cannot be Not. Someone and Something did exist, so Not could not be Not. That made Not Is. Is was very happy to be Is and not Not.

Now that Is is, the princess can be. So Someone and Something had a daughter, and she was Be. Be could only be because Important is important, Someone is someone, Something is something, Somebody is somebody, and Is is there to hold it all together,

When Be was born the evil queen could be evil, Prince Charming could be born a boy, there could be seven dwarfs, the Big Bad Wolf would be bad, there could be fairy godmothers, and frogs could be princes.

Now, because Be was there, the kingdom could be a kingdom with lords and ladies, witches and wizards, peasants and animal.

All because Be and Is work together to hold things together. And indeed, Together was their younger sister.

So if anyone ever tells you that you're a Nobody, or No One, or Nothing, or Unimportant, or anything like that, remember that one person's desire to be something better made everyone else better. Just because he wanted to be. And Be was there.

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Sun Feb 22, 2015 9:29 pm

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Firestarter wrote a review...

Hi WritingWolf,
I am here as requested. I've done my best to follow your advice on what you wanted in this critique. I will preface this critique by stating that fairy tales, and the way they are written, are one of my least favourite types of literature. I have tried to prevent any bias going into this review, but it is something to keep in mind if you believe I am being too harsh.

My initial impressions are that this still needs a lot of work. It is a difficult story for the reader to get through. However, the idea is very unique. The concept is a good one. I really like the idea of turning the traditional expectations on their head and doing a reverse fairy tale. It's clever and there's a lot of potential here. So keep that in mind.

So, in no real order, here are my thoughts for what needs work:

Too much telling

The whole story is telling. There is no showing. I am sure, by now, you have heard the phrase, "Show, don't tell." It is pretty much the most commonly quoted guidance for writers. It has its caveats and it does not always apply, but as far as general advice can go, it is one I think writers should stick to most of the time. Why is it important? It means the reader gets to be shown the story and work thinks out on their own. This gives readers pleasure. Exposition and description means you rob the reader of this pleasure. Everything is stated as it is and there is no interpretation. There have been very very few successful stories or novels that have broken this rule.

But obviously this is a fairy tale. So you're thinking - I have to use all Tell! How else could I write it? Well, there are ways to ensure that you make up for the distancing effect of the narrator in a fairy tale by making the narrator and what they are saying even more engaging in itself.

What do I mean by this? Try reading some fairy tales written by Angela Carter. She is famous for rewriting traditional fairy tales with twists, in a similar manner to what you have done. However, even though Angela uses a telling narrative, and an ever-present narrator, she makes it engaging for the reader by ensuring the physical and emotional experience of the world we've been included into is "extraordinarily vivid." (Please see this page here - these words are not all my own. I very much agree with the author here, who talks about fairy tales at the bottom of the page. She explains it better than I could.) Angela Carter's work may inspire you to be able to include elements of showing, even in a telling narrative.

Otherwise, as it currently is, I don't care. I am not pulled in. I am given no details. Everything is vague and there is nothing to grab onto, or explore, or experience.

Lifeless characters

Just because this is a fairy tale does not mean the characters have to be dry and boring. I do not understand each character, I do not know what they all want, and I do not know why I should care about them. This is a serious problem with your story. If you want to make your story engaging, you have to make your characters real people, with problems, and motives, and idiosyncrasies. At the moment I cannot tell them apart.
We have a plethora of articles on this site about writing characters for fiction. I suggest you read some of them and rewrite your characters to be believable, living people.

Bad sentences

You asked for my opinion on your sentence structure. My specific advice is you have a tendency to write very similar sentences in a row - which makes it boring to read. You need to mix it up, using a variety of short and long, to create the correct pacing for different parts of the story. My favourite way to check your sentences and your pacing is to read your story out loud. That way you can sense where it sounds wrong and where it sounds right. Try it out - it will really help.

Examples:

Because there was no princess, the evil queen was not evil, Prince Charming would be a girl, there were only six dwarfs, the Big Bad Wolf would be good, there where no fairy godmothers, and frogs were not princes.

At the moment this sentence is a mess, because you are using commas incorrectly. As you a presenting a list, you could use a colon to set it up. Alternatively, I'd trade out the commas and split this into several sentences to make it punchy and dramatic. My two suggested rewrites:

"Because there was no princess, the land changed: the evil queen was not evil, Prince Charming was a Princess, the dwarves totalled six in number, the Big Bad Wolf was neither big, nor bad, the fairy godmothers never existed, and frogs were not princes in disguise."

"The land changed. The evil queen was not evil. Prince Charming was a Princess. The dwarves totalled six in number. The Big Bad Wolf was neither big, nor bad. The fairy godmothers never existed. Frogs were not princes in disguise."

Hopefully you can see how these are better. I also made some changes to the wording to improve what you were trying to say.

"No One was not a very smart man, if he was then that would have made him someone."

"No One did have one good quality, he loved his wife very much."

"Nothing saw what they where doing, but even though No One did not want them to she did Nothing. This was because Nothing cannot do anything, otherwise she would not be Nothing.
When Nobody saw them doing this, that was a different story."

The problem with all of these sentences if that you are using the comma incorrectly. You are trying to tie two different statements together with a comma, which is not what it is for.

For example -

No One did have one good quality, he loved his wife very much.

There are two statements that are linked. If you want them in the same sentence, you either need to rewrite this, or use different punctuation. Otherwise, you could put them in different sentences.

No One did have on good quality. He loved his wife very much.
No One did have one good quality: he loved his wife very much.
The one good quality No One had was he loved his wife very much.

I personally believe the last is the best option to solve your sentences with incorrectly placed commas. It is just a symptom of you not editing your sentences. This draft has a lot of rough sentences like this that need to be edited. I am not going to go through each one and tell you what to change, as that is a skill you need to hone yourself. Editing is difficult, so here's my one piece of advice: do not read generally the whole piece. Take a paragraph at a time. Take apart each sentence and work out what you are trying to say. Read the sentence and decided whether it could be said better. Attempt to rewrite it in another document, and see which you prefer. Test it out. Delete unnecessary words. And then pick better verbs. Better adjectives. Better, stronger words which can say what you want to say in the least possible words available.

Good luck with a redraft. Let me know if you post it on YWS and I'll take another look!

WritingWolf says...

Thanks for the review! That was really helpful.

Points: 2816
Reviews: 125

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Sat Feb 07, 2015 3:37 am

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PickledChrissy wrote a review...

Hey,Chrissy here for a review!

Well, what can I say? Rather confusing beginning. Then again, I think it was meant to be like that. I'm going to start with nitpicks...

For once Unimportant agreed with not, and they determined that something must be done about this.

Okay, you didn't capitalize Not. Also, I suggest taking the about this off the end. It's unnecessary.

but even though No One did not want them to she did Nothing.

This was a little confusing. I think you messed up a little or something, because I don't know what you're saying there.

But to do something about it might make him someone notable

Sounds reasonable. XD

How is someone supposed to review something like that? Can't review for plot holes, cause it's kind of hard to get what the plot is. But, I think that was how you meant it.

One thing I did notice is you repeat yourself a lot. But somebody below, forget who, already talked about, so I won't say anything.

~~Oh, it's horrid. Terrible.~~

Just kidding. I love it. Keep writing!

WritingWolf says...

Thanks for the review!

Also, love your avatar, you (or for that matter I) haven't the slightest idea how many times I've watched that movie. lol

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Tue Feb 03, 2015 11:05 am

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Apricity wrote a review...

Hey Wolf, as requested.

I'm not actually going to write too long of a review, just want to focus on several things. Before I start I want to say what my thoughts on the novel were before diving into the more technical aspects of this review. I really like the idea of this story and especially the moral in it, it is very original and is definitely worth praising. The characters are rather cleverly named as well, to show who they are.

Now that being said, I'm going to contradict myself with the following points. First, whilst I was reading this my mind was going round in a circle because there were so many 'not's and other names that sounded like a tongue twister in my head. I had trouble keeping track who was who and what happened. I also noticed that you had characters popping up without any foreshadowing, I think 'Unimportant' was one of them. Now, naming your character after their virtue isn't a bad thing but with names like 'not' and 'be' and 'no one' and 'no body', it starts getting tiring and really confusing after a while. I know you're trying to drive that metaphor and message home, but there is no need to be so literal with that metaphor. Sometimes, incorporating that into a more subtle context would actually make your story even more interesting.

Instead of naming your characters so bluntly to drive that message home, have you thought about incorporating them into a story-line that would reflect their personality? There is absolutely no problem with naming one of your characters by their virtue, but all of them at the same time gets somewhat messy.

Whilst I’m on this, I know that this is meant to be a fairy-tale and all but the tone here is incredibly flat. It reminds me of someone reading the story out in a monotone because there was no description here, and there wasn’t much variation in terms of the syntax or the structure of the sentences. You’ve used very mechanical words and repeated them several times. This is extremely obvious

Nothing didn't care if she was nothing or something, so naturally she did nothing. In doing nothing she made No One try to do something which made him Someone. Fate saw the paradox of Someone having Nothing. It would indeed be possible for Someone to have nothing material, but for Someone to be Someone they need to have something. Whether that something is a name, a personality, or an idea, there was something. Fate could not stand for there to be such a paradox in its universe, so it made Nothing into Something

Here. So and so did this, and because of so and so did this. That happened and because that happened. This happened. So on and so forth, it’s really dry reading the same pattern again and again. Opt for something different, try different openings and ways to describe and convey things.

I've also noticed that your paragraphs are quite disjointed, meaning they don't all share a correlation with each other. Yes, they all contribute to the greater whole but they don't necessarily all connect with each other. That, in a story is very important.

Let’s have a look at your beginning two paragraphs, the first two paragraph talked about the kingdom in great detail but didn’t actually have anything to do with not until the third paragraph or so. They’re repeating the same point, so I’d actually get rid of the redundancy and cut to the chase. Saves the readers a lot of confusion as well, this applies for your whole story as well. If you read it through, you can probably root out some things that you’ve repeated.

That brings me to the end of this review, although there are things you need to work on (and frankly, as writers, who doesn’t need to work on their writing?) I really like the idea of this, especially the message, I adore it. Keep it the great work, and if you have any questions, please let me know.

-Flite

WritingWolf says...

Thanks for the review!

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Sat Jan 31, 2015 6:44 pm

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IceWinifredd wrote a review...

:O This is definitely not what I was expecting. I honestly love ow unique, well-written, and thought-out this is! The idea behind the story as well. A Story that NEVER happened? It takes a lot of creativity and imagination to come up with something like that! As for critiquing, I couldn't find anything that was wrong with the story. Punctuation was good, vocabulary was on point, overall format is nicely separated into reasonable paragraphs, the plot makes sense. Overall, it was a very interesting and entertaining read and I personally would recommend anybody I know to read it. I love how different it is! Excellent job my friend! I'm thoroughly impressed! -IceWinifredd

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The Story of Not (revised)

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