November 2nd -LongTimeUnderdog - The Name of God, Chapter 3

[LongTimeUnderdog]

So here it is, my first submission.  I'm really excited.  I have been editing it as I find time, but I'm not submitting it because of that.  I'm submitting it, with flaws purposely so I know how to direct my thinking.  Admittedly I probably should not be reading Karen Miller before writing.  It does all sorts of things to my writing . . .

Anyway the piece it self:

This chapter is one of the more trouble sections.  I wish It wasn't but I really need help with it.  To discuss what happened before, well . . . you haven't missed much.  This piece is only the second time the audience will have seen Jin'Cathul, and all they would need to know about before is that he's a slave, something bad happened to his father, who was what we would call a research scientist (only studying magic instead of biology or some such important thing).  Jin's abilities with magic are limited . . . at best.  Jin loves math and analytical thinking.  Oh yeah, and he's only ten years old.


Also, I hope my email is shipping it.  I've already got a notice about complications.

[Andrew the Great]

I got it. I'll critique it after I finish my Government homework. So apparently it shipped to me at least.

To anyone who's not getting these - check your junk folder. About 50% of the Reading Excuses emails end up in my junk folder until I rescue them.

[Frog]

I got it too. Don't be so quick to call us out for something as silly as neglecting a junk folder, Andrew. We have been doing this for a while.

[Frog]

Well... it was rough. I think you could have some potential here but it was really rough.
Main concerns. There were lots of info dumps, lots of telling and most of the dialogue was extremely awkward. I think you may be going for an dialect in some of the characters, but it seemed overdone. Jin did not seem like a ten year old at all (I would have put him in his teens) and I think a lot of the grit will end up being overbearing. This will probably need lots of editing (mostly condensing) but I was interested in your world and some of the characters (hated all the girls, but the boys were all right).   
 Sorry if this seems harsh. I am glad to have you in the group and want to help if there is something specific you want to ask about. Keep writing.

[Recovering_Cynic]

Thoughts while reading:

I actually liked the dialects and the dialogue in the beginning.  It was very harsh--maybe a bit too harsh, especially if you are for YA--but it was realistic, which I appreciated.  Perhaps it might be shortened a little?

I do agree with Frog, however, that some of the thoughts Jin has are much older than those of a twelve year old boy, but only in certain parts the paragraph beginning "Jin began to wonder if all the women . . ."  is a good example.

I love your description of the caravan!  Well done, although I have to wonder why such an impressive display was put on for mere slavers...  Perhaps if this is just a stop along the way to a more important visit?

Okay "The sparks".  It wasn't real clear what happened when Jin freed himself.  Perhaps a bit of clarification there would help, although not much.  Maybe a sentence.  How did Burm know about them?  Wouldn't the slavers get suspicious if the kid made sparks all the time?

Perhaps there is too much self pity/self esteem problems with Jin.  I know he's been abused, but life has just taken what looks like a good turn, so it might laying on more pity-party-ness might not be the best idea there at the end.

Overall opinion:  I really liked it.  It was well written and it certainly caught my interest.  I didn't think it was too info dumpy at all; I thought the information was conveyed well.  I would keep reading if this were the first chapter.  The only thing I would really change is to tone down the harshness a bit in the beginning, unless that is the tone you want to set for the book.  For me personally, it was just a tiny bit too much, but only just barely.  Perhaps it just brought back too many bad memories from wrestling practices in junior high...

Anyway, I think the story has amazing potential.  By all means, continue.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

I appreciate what everyone said and I thank you for your input.  After rereading some of the piece I'm fairly sure I know exactly where you are all coming from.

Concerns for from the author:

It's really to harsh/gritty?  Of course that concerns me  but could someone provide specific examples  so I don't make that mistake in the future?

To Frog:  Thank you for your notes about the characters.  So what was it specifically about the chicks you didn't like?  What was it about the dudes that you did like?

[Recovering_Cynic]

For me personally, I think it was the note you started on.  Perhaps if we had read the previous chapters it would not be a problem, but here we start with a woman threatening (and almost completing) the castration of a small boy.  We are hit with that from the first paragraph if I recall.  Myself, as a male who appreciates all of his fleshy bits, I felt a little uncomfortable with getting that as the first taste of a piece of literature.  Like I said earlier, that may just be a symptom of starting in Chapter 3.

I think if your reader had some small assurance that the boy wasn't actually about to be castrated, it wouldn't be as much of a problem, but at this point, we know nothing and have no expectations.  For all we know, he actually was about to lose the family jewels.  Once the caravan showed up, well, then I saw where the story was going, and I enjoyed it more.

[Frog]

I'm glad you were able to find some of it helpful! I really don't like being harsh and was a bit worried....

As far as grit... well mostly it was you spent a LOT of time focused on the nudity of the boys especially with Jin and his developing manhood. Now I'm a nurse and you are not about to make me blush, but really I am just not that interested. It just be that I am not your chosen audience (it happens, especially since I read like a girl and am usually drawn to the lighter fantasy) but if you want my advice I wouldn't tell you to cut it out as it seems to be a ligament conflict, but I would tone it down and be a tad more subtle.

The problem I had with the girls was that there just wasn't much to them. The best way I can think to discribe it is that the boys seemed to have full characters even within this small section but the girls only seemed to be there to serve a function and that function was to ogle or torment the boys as the case may be. One particular line that bothered me was from the younger girl when she declared she would not sleep with the MC for bad behavior. I am not sure of her exact age but assuming that she was close to the MC, it made her seem over the top perverted and reflected poorly on her mother's example, where as with the boys we actually got something beyond the overactive sex drive. Now having a few characters like that wouldn't be a deal breaker for me, but they wouldn't be characters I would personally want to spend a lot of time with, as I would only see them in a negative light. I am all for a character having faults (for example I had no problem with the fact that Jin was very introspective and in 'pity me' mode at this point, even if it made him seem more like a teen than a child), but I really need to respect them in some level in order to root and stick with them through the long haul.

Good luck.

[Recovering_Cynic]

The lunatic fighter lady might need some toning down (see previous post), but I'll have to disagree about the two buyers.  I found their casualness (and bluntness) about sex to be interesting, not because I'm some kind of perv, but because it was original.  I thought it represented a culture alien from our own, and it made me want to know more about it.  The women hold the power and get whatever they want, but what they want isn't necessarily what the reader would expect.  It was fresh, tantalizing, and therefore interesting to me.  I want to see how the social structure works where the values are so completely different from my own, but that is just me.

[Frog]

Really? I can think of several books were that was the case. Salvador... Jordan... certain characters in the little I've read of Goodkind.... Yeah, enough that I wouldn't find an overly sexual female run society 'fresh' and enough to know that I don't care for them. It wouldn't be a complete deal breaker as I said but if these as main characters I am supposed to sympathize with, I would still want hints that there was something more to them then that established part of their characters, though this may all be a matter of personal taste.

[RavenstarRHJF]

I don't think there was necessarily too much exposition, but you could probably streamline it a lot.  We still need to know the information so we can see who and what everything is, but some things don't need all the details.

I'm a bit confused about the Pits.  The way you describe it sounds like, well, a huge open pit in the ground where they keep all the slaves. But the only thing we see is a small group of boys being trained in combat.  Where is the training field?  Is it just the floor of the pit?  Why aren't there very many slaves there?  Is Jalean and her group the people who control the Pits, or are there several 'trainers' offering different 'wares?'  Where are the slaves taken when they aren't training?  Also, I'm getting the impression that only men are slaves or servants, but the presence of dancing girls in the procession suggests otherwise.  (And why does a matron going to buy slaves need a cavalcade that big, anyway?  Is it just a side trip- is she on her way somewhere else? And if so, why not just go around the Pits?  I say this, because she dismisses the procession once out of the Pits so they can go buy clothes and weapons.)

I'm getting a good sense of the flavor of the society, but it's not quite there yet.

I don't really have anything to say about the apparently woman-dominated society, yet.  At this point it isn't rubbing me the wrong way, but I think it could easily get to that point.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

One of the issues that I have with people complaining that the way women are portrayed in this story is "rubbing them the wrong way," is that if I reversed all the genders, I'm very sure there would be no complaints.  Now by reversing I'm not speaking about simply changing "hes" to "shes" but deeper things like behaviors, mannerisms and so forth.

It's been a very difficult line to walk along, wanting to create the themes I want and still not go all Candide on them (I so hated that book).

I've been wondering if the complaint with how the women are portrayed is more personal and less to do with the writing.  There are a good number of stories about slave owners and task masters (all male) who are very harsh and cruel people.  As readers we observe those under their whips as sympathetic.  We are uncomfortable with their situation and want it to change.  Rooting for the underdog, if you will (no name pun intended).  And there are plenty of other stories, such as the Godspeaker Trilogy by Karen Miller where men enslave women and sell them as concubines or whatever else they do with them.  In fact females in that world are far worse then second class citizens, ranking somewhere along fourth or fifth class.  The idea of the strong woman escaping the oppressive man is a fairly common theme in many stories (including a great number of works by Joss Whedon).

So I suppose the real question is, why is changing the genders of this archtype so offensive?  I'm certainly not offended by the reverse (as discussed in the previous chapter) and I'm male.  What's the difference?  Why is it different?

If there is anyone out there with some kind of input, constructive input, into this I would really appreciate it?

[RavenstarRHJF]

Well, I'm NOT offended.  I realize that slavery makes people do stupidly horrible things- all people, not just men.  At the same time, it gets progressively more uncomfortable the more women you portray as being harsh, cruel, and unkind (admittedly because I am female, and it's easier to identify with female characters).

I guess what I'm saying is, even in the stories where slavery and subjection of women is normal, there's usually at least one male who "respects and honors" the women, and has at least internal conflict about the situation.  So far, you haven't presented anything like that.  But you've only submitted two chapters here, so... I'll wait and see before judging.

Actually, from what you've given us, Mav could go either way at this point- she doesn't immediately demand Jin's execution for being able to read, but she also treats him like the slave he is.

[Frog]

I agree with Raven.

I don't have a problem with portraying a few despicable women. Some women are pretty despicable. The problem for me comes is that they seemed to be the only women around and women we were supposed to sympathize with. You have some extreme males as well (such as the other slave) but I don't have a problem with it, because you have Jin and that other father I could see myself sympathizing with in the future.

I personally don't see it as a double standard at all, as I personally wouldn't read a book where the reverse was true either; all completely domineering men. Haven't read Miller and haven't read Whedon. Which could, as I have said, make this all more a matter of personal taste, and I am sorry, but there really isn't a lot you can do about that. Some books are going to appeal to some more than others and that is just the way it goes. It doesn't mean there is anything 'wrong' with it. So if you think it works for your book and it is the way you want it, don't let me or anyone else stop you. Just write your book the way you want it, make it the best book possible, and I am sure you'll find an audience who will love it.

[Silk]

While I'm fine with Jaleon abusing her slaves as a way to set her character, I got bored of her abusin Jin fairly quickly. She spends several pages doing it, right off the bat, and uses most of the same insults.

Also, she seemed to go fairly quickly from insults to wanting to kill something (Jin). While I can (though I don't know, because this isn't an aspect of her character that you've touched on so far) that she doesn't think of slaves as people, and that killing one therefore isn't a big deal, I can't imagine her doing very well as a slave trainer if she kills every slave that annoys her. Slaves, after all, cost money.

Also on the subject of Jaleon: The inconsistency in spelling her name. Sometimes it's Jaleon, sometimes it's Jalean.

When you describe the crest that the soldiers from Maz's caravan are wearing, you pass up a really great opportunity to describe the murt, which has come up a few times by this point. You describe the crest as having a beast "like" a murt, and while you do a fairly good job of describing the rest of the crest, that particular bit of information is meaningless to us.

I have to agree with Cynic, though, I really enjoyed the description of the caravan in general (though I'm also right with Cynic in wondering why such a display was put on for simple slavers).

I have to agree with Cynic on a couple of other points, too; a little bit of clarification (it probably wouldn't take much) on what happened with the sparks--and maybe some reaction from Burm that tells us a little bit about how common this sort of ability is or whether others (like Burm) knew he had it. And I also wondered (though I was kind of on the fence about it) if the self-pity at the end might be little too much. I certainly empathize with Jin's feelings that being sold might not be a good thing, but is there also some small relief that he's away from Jaleon, some bit of hope that things will be better, something? Actually, including those emotions could be a big help even if you don't lose the self-pity bits at the end. People can certainly have emotions that conflict with one another.

I'm not... entirely sure I buy the way Maz recognized Burm, particularly right off the bat (unless there's something to this reunion that we don't know). But for a chance caravan coming in off the road, it seems like a huge coincidence.

From the way Jaleon treated Maz, I'm guessing she must be someone that Jaleon has a lot of respect for, and at the moment I'm thinking that it's a personal respect rather than (or only) respect for Maz's social position. I'm leaning this way mostly because Jaleon didn't just bite her lip and sell Jin for as high a price as she could manage.

Why was Jaleon the one dressing Jin up and, especially, scarring his cheeks? Since Jin belongs to Maz now, shouldn't Maz be the one overseeing that?

Maz remarks that Herme isn't actually related to Jin and "neither is the man Jin calls father". I'm unclear on this; I thought that Herme WAS Jin's father. Or perhaps I should say that Jin thought Herme was his father.

I thought Jin was older than ten; I would have put him in his early teens, at least, but I thought I saw something in the text that suggested he was twelve, but your email says ten, so... Yeah. He doesn't read at all like a ten-year-old (though I could accept him sounding a little older than his age, considering his situation). Also, if he's so young I don't quite understand why everyone is giving him such a hard time about being weak and whatnot. Even if he's tall for his age, it seems kind of ... short-sighted.

RE grit: I did find her fascination with Jin's, ahem, parts a little bit annoying after a while--though I appreciated that Jin found it bizarre too. I'm not sure if it was the actual content here that bugged me, or just the repetition that I mentioned above. Either way, I certainly don't think it should go away. But you can safely tone it down a bit, I think.

I thought the bluntness regarding sex was interesting too (though it's true we don't see much else of the women. I'm willing to let that slide for now since we haven't seen much of the women at all. It does kind of seem like it's ONLY the women, but then, we only see two boys in this scene: Jin and, much more minimally, Burm). I don't even mind it in Maz's daughter, depending on her age (because right now I have no idea). If she's mid-teens or older, than that's fine. If she's closer to Jin's age, then I think Frog is right and you do have a problem. (I've been a ten-year-old girl, so I think I can safely say that they REALLY don't care about those things.)

I didn't think that the over-sexualized aspects of the society were particularly female (remember, we haven't seen many of the men yet), nor did I think they were really that overly sexualized, just not reticent about expressing their thoughts on the matter. I WOULD be leery of the society where females are totally in power and nothing but walking sex drives, because aside from perpetuating a not-very-nice stereotype it most certainly has been done before (RA Salvatore's drow society comes to mind), but I don't think that there's anything wrong with characters just being blunt about sex.

A little more description about the environment, like the Pits themselves, could definitely be helpful. Also, at least SOME passing reference to people who aren't the slavers, Jin, or Burm. Before Maz and her company show up, I seriously don't think we get ONE mention of a person who is not Jin, Burm or Jaleon; not even as objects in space. I don't think you have to spend much time on either of these things; even a couple of well-placed sentences could potentially fix that up.

Anyway. Overall, I enjoyed the piece. I'm interested in the premise and curious to know what happens next, so good work there. I think your biggest hurdle in this chapter is the opening scene (Jaleon abusing Jin) which, as I mentioned, I found a little long. It seems like all these things I (and others) have been mentioning are fairly easy fixes, though. So good luck!