April 5- clarissavandell - Vices - Prologue + Chapter 1

[lethalfalcon]

Guess I'll start your thread for you.

I found the writing to be modern, and very loose. This is probably a good thing.

The prologue... really wasn't doing much for me. Well, let me rephrase: it didn't seem to really fit. Given that your story takes place in Manhattan, 2010, the prologue in 1888 feels a bit lost. If you're going to go back and forth between the two times, that's cool, and I'll address the issue again once I've read more of the past. If you're not, then I'm not sure it's really necessary to bring up 3 characters that have no life beyond the first 1k words. *I* would almost like to see how Gail managed to get into the mess. Starting out with something like:

It didn't work. The board bounced off his skull, causing her to drop it. He screamed bloody murder....

or something.

One other big problem I had was trying to separate Ray's vision from the rest of the story. I can tell it's there, but it's really hard for me to tell when he slipped into it. Perhaps you need to use some sort of differentiation in font, be it italics, or blockquote... something. I guessed it was "the accident" that he was reliving, but I was confused as to why, too. Something with the bridge?

When they get home, I'm a little confused as to why Dan comes out and asks "You were in Jail?" Didn't they just talk about that on the phone? Did he not hear about it somehow? She was rambling for quite some time, it appears. I suppose it could be a rhetorical question, though, and Gail just answers it again because she's a smartass.

A continuity issue: Gail says on the phone that Dan and Ray were asleep at 1 in the afternoon... but in the apartment, Ray says he's been up since 4 (am?). Both of those can't be true. If he's been up since 4pm, then he probably wouldn't be very tired, I don't think.

I'm not entirely sure whether you need to change this or not, but vampires, daywalker or no, don't generally think things like "It was only seven o’ clock in the evening" To most vampires (night creatures that they are), 7pm is really late to be "up". Unless they live normal-ish lives, I suppose. Not sure how much you're trying to break out of the traditional vamp model.

I think what you have is a good start. It's light right now, but certainly different from Twilight (gushy romance) or Blade (full of action). I'm interested to see where you're going with it.

[clarissavandell]

Certainly a lot of good feedback there, especially the bit about the timing issues...  The characters from the prologue actually pop back into the story chapter two, but maybe I could insert that before Ray's?  But yes, I like the idea you have with using Gail's arrest as the catalyst for the scene.

[lethalfalcon]

If you're going to be writing a dual-time book, then it might be best that you leave it as the prologue, but then give us the Gail scene at the very beginning of Chapter 1, with a scene separator afterward. Not quite sure. Each method has its merits, but having a really really short scene with Gail, then switching 132 years into the past to see different characters for another short scene, then back to the future with Ray might not be a good idea. Might want to see what others chime in with.

[clarissavandell]

Ah, but it isn't dual time.  One of the wonderful things about vampires is that they can live a long time isn't it?   

[LongTimeUnderdog]

Lethal is all over rightness on the language of said vampires in the 1880s.  I'm not actually sure they would have called it the "United States," then either.  I'm not sure what they would have called it but in my (limited) international travels, no one now calls it that either that I've met.

Unlike Lethal, I had no problem at all with the present-past-present time switch at the bridge.  So that part may be more hit or miss and person dependent.  Though I will confess to reading his comments before reading the piece, so I may have been influenced.

The time change from Nineteenth century to twenty-first century did not bother me either, but again that might be due to reading Lethal's comments first and then reading your piece.  When it comes to vampire stories, I personally expect time differentials.  I'm expecting their to be a tragic past or something to the character.  It sounds kind of like expecting a cliche but as you mentioned, vampires do live a long time, so we can be expectant of that.

Once we get to chapter 1, the dialogue is better, as are the prose.  There are moments, like at the end with "He would kill another innocent bystander to delay his own death," where I think you could be more creative in the lines, but again, that might just be me.

What I enjoyed, perhaps the most, of your little piece here is your selection of vampire myths and how you integrated them into the story.  With any vampy story, we're going to need to know the rules of the vampires up front and I thought you did a good job of blending those in with the narrative.  He sees his reflection, he can go out in the day light, very old school and classic.  I'm a sucker for more classic vamps (I'm a Buffy fan but I did wish it had used a less modern mythos).

I had some issues understanding who was who, in the story.  It wasn't until Ray and Gail are home that I was able to better identify who was who and what was unique about them.  They all seemed . . . very generic as far as vampire characters went and that caused them to blend together in my mind.  I'm sure they are NOT very generic characters but their original identifiers were, to me at least, and so I just had trouble with that.