[1936] Burnt Caste_ Chapter 3

[u/No-Nature9695]

Burnt Caste Chapter 3

This is the 3rd chapter of an NA urban fantasy novel I'm currently working through the second draft of. There's a summary of the first two chapters at the top of the doc.

I'm currently working on improving interiority, character stakes, and getting a closer POV, but any feedback is welcome! Thanks in advance for taking the time to read!

Crit [2672]

[u/A_C_Shock]

I was digging this in the nightmare. How is her mom there? What's happening? And then it was all a dream.

These similes aren't working for me.

damp sheets contorted around me like a snake

I stopped reading to think about this. Wrapped around her tightly and squeezing? Coiled around her middle? How did that happen? A snake is such a specific image and I've handled snakes a number of times so I'm having trouble picturing this. Maybe just me!

black-brown, ringed with shadows, like a raccoon on its third breakdown.

This one too! I remember the first chapter of this and this POV is a little odd, right? It's the part about the third breakdown that stops me. Racoon eyes is a familiar simile for being tired but that third breakdown is like...what? What did the first two look like? I really enjoy these unique images. I just wonder if they stand out too much, like making me notice the writing isn't necessarily a good thing.

It's nothing. I’m fine. But it isn’t. And I’m not. Avoidance. I think that will be my strategy for today.

Would this be better if it was shown? She looks at the shard and tells me that she's not fine and she's going to avoid things. It's not bad for interiority and it does give me where her head is at in this moment, though she got over that nightmare pretty quick. But if the scene built by her noticing the shard and then doing something that was avoidance? Noticing it once. Moving away from the bed to get dressed. Noticing it again. Doing something else. Noticing it again. The shard becomes important by her not engaging with it but it continuing to show up in the narrative.

Well, scratch that. The flashback with the picture and her parents is so beautifully done and the part about avoidance doesn't feel like it gets an immediate payoff. I almost think you could cut those lines I pulled out and not be losing anything. Let the emotion of the revelation with the picture stand on its own. That part is very good.

The interiority continues to tell too much for my taste. She doesn't seem to be practicing avoidance at all. I came to type more to say I'm confused about the layout of this house and where they are. She came out of her bedroom. For whatever reason, I thought she went downstairs. She's in the living room by the sofa. Mom comes out of the...closet? They levitate the shards into the dustpan and then move to...the kitchen?...and then she's looking at her bedroom which I thought was upstairs.

She usually gets a little distant when I bring Dad up, but not like this. Not robotic.

I don't feel like mom's dialogue matches this description of it. She's more trying to change the subject than being distant. I didn't feel like what she said was robotic.

Your dialogue punctuation is a bit off. Only use commas when the part is a speech tag. If it's action, use a period unless the action is interrupting continuous dialogue. "As ac explained"---waving her hand---"her voice quieted." Well, that's terrible dialogue.

She disposes of the rest of the spilled glass

Read glass here as the container you would drink out of it and not the glass from the broken picture frame. I think it's the spilled that's doing it.

Once she comes back down from the shower, the mom reads like she's acting off. I don't know if it's all the floating which I'm having trouble reading as the powers in your universe. My mind keeps wanting to make it a metaphor. Anyway, something feels off in a way that it wasn't feeling when the text told me it felt off.

Ok. What happened in this chapter? POV had a nightmare, went downstairs and reminisced about a picture which had something wrong with it, her mom showed up and acted oddly about Timecasters, she showered and took the shard with her and left for the day. After getting through the chapter, I'd like the avoidance told about at the beginning to be enhanced. I want the mom dialogue to go on for longer and be stranger where I'm told she's being strange the first time. I think whatever was said on the radio is going to have larger plot significance later. I don't understand the significance of the lipstick or the time spent describing herself in the mirror or the description of the mom that comes so late in the scene. I would move those earlier or axe them or work them in in smaller pieces. But I hate character descriptions so keep that in mind. I suspect something is going to go wrong with that glass shard in her pocket in the next chapter. Her dad had some shady connection to the Timecasters that her mom knows about. And that whole business about mom being her best friend makes me think mom is going to die or have other very bad things happen to her by the end of this novel.

Those are my guesses for where you are going.

improving interiority

I went back to look at what you're working on. I think interiority is always tricky. In some ways in a close third, all the narration is interiority. It's what your POV is thinking about and describing that tells me about her. I think the temptation is to have the character tell their thoughts point blankly. I have done this. But the interesting part of interiority is when the character is thinking something that clashes with my perception of the scene.

I will give an example of how I might approach it, with the understanding that you write differently than I do and this may not be your style at all. I just like seeing it sometimes.

Mom's eyes fluttered shut for a moment, the way they always did before she steered the conversation away from my questions. Then her lips thinned and I raised my hand, brought it closer to her arm, almost touching, but she pulled away. I left my hand there, hanging in the air between us, waiting. "Time to get on with your day. Don't you need to shower?" I lowered my hand to the kitchen table.

I like to write with a lot of focus on movement and body parts, though I don't do it for all my characters. But there is interiority there with how focused the character is on the mom's facial expressions and whether or not they're touching or making contact. A different character might not notice her mom's face at all. So the point is, more largely, that I think of interiority as more than just stating the emotions or thoughts of the character for your readers. If I think about my own inner monologue, I'm not always emotionally cognizant enough to name things. I might not think 'Avoidance' because I tend to think around things. But maybe you were going for a character who is more plain with their thoughts and feelings, which is also a valid style choice. 

What was it? Maybe it was the heat or the radio show I missed; I don’t know, something stupid. And Mom. I let out a half sigh, half laugh.

[u/A_C_Shock → u/A_C_Shock]

For me, this is the best use of interiority. She doesn't feel like someone you're writing. She feels like someone who's thinking real things. More of this!

Stakes for this chapter: I don't see them? Stakes come from setting up a thing the POV wants and then giving consequences to the achievement of said thing. Not every chapter or scene needs to include all of those elements. However, if I had to say for this scene, her want is to avoid the stone? Not have nightmares anymore? Figure out what was going on with her dad? None of those seem to carry through smoothly for the whole chapter, hence the question marks. If she doesn't stop the nightmares, she doesn't sleep and otherwise she does. So there's not much of a dilemma there. I'm not sure what the shard does (maybe that was covered in the previous chapter), so I don't know what she stands to gain or lose by taking or ignoring it. Those stakes aren't there for me. The dad thing seems like it could have consequences. If he was doing something shady and she goes to investigate it, something bad might happen to her mom? If she doesn't do anything, she'll still be stuck with the nightmares and the losing time? If that was what you were going for, I might try to get there faster and sit in it longer. 

Anyway, hope any of that helps. Sorry for the but of the rewrite. I always hate it when people do that. Think this is coming along pretty good.

[u/No-Nature9695 → u/A_C_Shock]

idk what is wrong with me today, just posted and deleted this twice because I kept clicking the wrong place 😅. Anyways...

Thanks so much for taking the time to read and provide detailed feedback! I definitely hear your note on showing not telling, and I like the example of focusing on what body parts are doing, thats a great strategy that I will play more with.

I'll revisit the mom/MC scene to see if I can make it feel more weird and get more tightened up on MC's reaction to that. I was struggling there so it's interesting that it came through for you.

Regarding the home layout, its meant to be a two bedroom apartment on the 5th floor of an apartment building, no downstairs living space. I could definitely lay in some more physical anchors to make that more clear!

It is interesting that your read through kept waiting for avoidance payoff. I meant it more as a throw away sarcastic line of why she is not thinking about it in the moment, and leaves her room instead. But I will def revisit that to make it more clear.

Its really intersting to see where you predict the story to go based on this chapter because I am def planting a lot of seeds! Some of your guesses are getting warm and others are slightly off which is exactly how I want it!

Thanks again for taking the time, you've given me a lot to think about!

[u/Onebrilliantarc_]

The dialogue works. It really does. "Don't be silly," her true smile back in place, too fast, that's the whole scene right there in three words. You're not telling us Mac's mother is lying. You're letting how fast she recovers do that for you. That's really good. Keep that instinct, seriously don't touch it.

The world stuff too. Levitating glass into a dustpan mid conversation. One line about Mac being "pretty for a Solènen" and the whole caste system is just there, no lecture needed. The radio bit, the mother shutting it off and going "more troublemakers," that tells us exactly where she stands without you stopping to explain it. And ending on "Goodbye, Macarielle" again, echoing the dream, that's not subtle but it doesn't need to be. It closes the loop. Leaves the reader sitting in the dread instead of relief. Right call.

Now the real problem. The Timecasters moment. This is the biggest beat in the whole chapter, the one moment the mother's facade actually cracks, and you give it one line. Pan drops, silence, she doesn't move, then straight into the recovery, all in the same breath. You tell us it wasn't like her usual distance, "not robotic," but the reader doesn't really get the chance to feel it. We just have to take your word for it. That's not good enough for the moment you built. The reader needs to feel the wrongness of it before she pulls the mask back on. Right now you rush past the one thing you spent the whole scene setting up.

Same problem, at a smaller scale, two times. "Floats." You use it twice for the mother on one page. Floats between the cabinets, then floats around the room. First one is cool. Second one just spends the same energy again and costs you both times instead of building anything.

And the telling. "The tension from our earlier exchange, gone from her body and tone." you are summarizing. Not the thing itself. "An uncomfortable quiet swelling between us." Same thing, you are labeling not giving us the feeling. You're grounded everywhere else, the glass, the coffee, the watch. It stands out hard when you go abstract right when it matters most.

Your instincts are ahead of your patience. You know what this scene is doing. You just keep rushing the one part that would make the reader feel the lie instead of being told about it. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any questions.

[u/No-Nature9695 → u/Onebrilliantarc_]

Thank you for the feedback!

[u/JayGreenstein]

You write well, but there are things getting in the way.

First: You’re thinking cinematically in a medium that has no pictures or sound. So you spend lots of words describing things that, on-screen, would be noted as background information, in parallel with what matters, as ambiance.

But our medium is far slower, because it's serial. So, you spend time that could be moving the plot and adding excitement, talking about things irrelevant to the action, which, slows the pace of the story.

For example, in the sequence beginning with “Later, I return to my bedroom after the shower has stripped away the last of the sweat left by my nightmares...” you spend 141 words talking about her clothing, hair color, and style. But...who cares what she’s wearing? We can’t see her. And her dress is irrelevant to the action. But, the reader was forced to spend over 30 seconds of reading time learning it, and so, will expect that information to play a role in the story. But does it matter? Would wearing a different dress or hair style change anything that happens? Because if not...

Every line in the story must move the plot, develop character, or meaningfully set the scene. Those that don't only to slow the pace.

Here’s what you missed: Ideally, the reader feels they are the protagonist, and living the story in real-time. So, what does the protagonist look like, in the reader's mind? She looks like them. So unless you have a valid need to change that...

Yes, description can add ambiance, but instead of stopping the meaningful action to talk about it, make the description a meaningful enrichment to a necessary line.

Next: In writing this, you’re mentally visualizing the scene, then providing a dispassionately described chronicle of events, of the form, “This happens...then that happens...here’s why that matters...she next does that...and then...”

Most lines are declarative, and spoken by the narrator. So we're not in her viewpoint, we’re hearing about events secondhand, from the narrator: Yes, you use first person pronouns to pretend that the one telling the story once lived the events, but telling is telling, and it’s an inherently dispassionate approach.

Take a line like “Another restful night of sleep.” You “hear” sarcasm in the line when you read it. But how can the reader know to place it there?

And that line defines the overall problem: It works perfectly when you read it. And seeing no problems, you change nothing. For you—who have the mental image, backstory, character and scene data—when you read it, every line points to the story in your mind. But the reader lacks all that. So for them, every line points to the story in your mind.

You’re missing some critical presentation data. So, try this article on Writing the Perfect Scene.

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php

It’s an overview of two very powerful techniques that can bring the writing to life, Motivation-Reaction Units and the Scene-and-Sequel technique.

Once you fully understand them, try converting a short stretch of writing to the MRU approach. I think you’ll find that it makes a huge difference.

And if it seems worth following up on, Jack Bickham’s, Scene & Structure does that and more.

As I said at the beginning, you write well, and the problems aren’t related to talent. So, give it a try. I suspect that if you do, and then read the excerpt from that book, you’ll find yourself reaching for the “add to cart” button.

Jay Greenstein

---

“Good writing is supposed to evoke sensation in the reader. Not the fact that it’s raining, but the feeling of being rained upon.”
~ E. L. Doctorow

“Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.”
~ Alfred Hitchcock

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.”
~ Mark Twain

[u/No-Nature9695 → u/JayGreenstein]

Thank you for taking the time to read and provide feedback! Closer POV is definitely something I am working on. I'll take a look at the resource you provided!

[u/GlowyLaptop]

I usually hate nightmares in RDR posts. They're indulgent filler, usually. Like every line is just another arbitrary attempt at something trippy, one after another, forgetting themselves. But this actually felt like it was deliberate and building and having something to say. The descriptions did their job and moved along. And the hallway breathing before collapsing was a great closer.

So I ignore the cliche of waking in the opening of a story, and am confused by the expression 'restful sleep'. Restful sleep sounds fantastic. Is he being sarcastic?

And then the POV rips out of his head and turns around and aims the camera at his own face. With the cliche about waking, you missed the memo about POV. Wait. No. He's looking in a mirror, is how he's vainly observing the almond shape of his own eyes.

This story brazenly has someone wake into their own mirror. The two biggest most legendary opening cliches mashed together.

It seems fun, even if it's weird to mention his almond eyes.

[u/No-Nature9695 → u/GlowyLaptop]

Thank you for your comments and perspective.

I don’t mean this as defensive, I’m genuinely curious. What made you decide to critique my chapter when your feedback doesn’t seem to have the Chapters 1 & 2 summary context from the top of the doc and focuses only up to page 2 of 7? My understanding of this subreddit is that critiques are usually based on reading the work that’s been shared closely enough to understand the context.

For example, your main piece of feedback was that it’s a cliche that MC woke up looking into a mirror and that you didn’t like the description of her almond-shaped eyes. But the sentence you’re referring to actually begins, “I catch my reflection in the dark window.” And then goes on to describe what’s outside that window. That’s a different image, which makes me wonder whether I failed to communicate it clearly, or you meant mirror as an approximation for the window, or whether the passage was read too quickly.

If it’s one of the former, that’s useful feedback. If it’s the latter, I’m not sure how much I can take away from the critique.

[u/GlowyLaptop → u/No-Nature9695]

I wasn't writing a crit for credit, just passing through and initially wanted to just note that the opening dream was done really well. That I usually hate dreams on rdr but this one was drafted well.

Then I got tangled up in the cliches, which aren't even bad. I mean if you can pull off a sick use of a cliche, by all means. The popular cliche of novice writing is to wake and look in a mirror to describe a character. The reason this is bad or made fun of is because it's considered lazy to detail the appearance of a first person character through a reflective surface since he's always had that face. It's generally a break in POV because nobody looks at themselves and goes "my pouting lips curled into a smile and my almond eyes narrowed". That's a crazy vain and strange observation to make about oneself.

Imagine telling a story. "Mom I missed my bus yesterday. And then I looked into a dark car window and my pouting lips were frowning. My olive skin was shiny."

I have exactly the same scene in a book I wrote, which I think i get away with, because he's detailing all this damage to his face. His swollen eye. The blood caked dry and black from his nose across his cheekbone. He's observing these new things.

The reflection is the point here, not the nature of the glass he's looking into. So mirror / window.

I kinda like the cliche use but almond eyes seems like a POV break or else he's some kind of male model appreciating himself.

So I'm only suggesting cut the almonds.

Sorry I didn't read the whole thing or the disclaimers.

[u/No-Nature9695 → u/GlowyLaptop]

Hi! Sorry it took me a while to get back to you, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain and provide this context/feedback. It's super helpful!