Sept 14 2009 Hamster, Soul Taker Chapter 6

[Hamster]

Hi all,

Been a long time since I've submitted something, and this happens to also be a resubmission to a few of you, albeit with a lot of changes(but it's still very, very rough)

And to those of you who have been around for my old submissions, I'm going to be reworking Kale's character a bit, so let me know if anything different about his personality or what have you is noticable in this chapter.

Hope you guys enjoy it(or at least take the time to read it  )

Feel free to tear through everything, especially on character development, which I need to be a strongpoint for my novel, but is one of the weak points of my writing...

[Recovering_Cynic]

Thoughts while reading:

This paragraph confused me.  The last sentence seems to be referring to the two (previously killed) dead boys.

“Gods, I hate myself,” he muttered beneath his breath.
He never felt right destroying the life of one so young. He remembered a job from years past: He ripped the souls from two screaming youths, while their father and mother watched. Their soulless eyes staring into his was something he would never forget. But he had to do it; there couldn’t be anyone left to reveal his position to the patrolling Helmsmen.

So the "diplomatic way" involves breaking the kid's arm?


I'm having a hard time picturing your fight scene with the urchin.  This description in particular was really awkward:

Kale latched onto the wrist, and pulled it towards him, extending the arm at the same time as throwing the boy off balance. 

Okay, the sentry monologues before hitting Kale.  Why?  And why doesn't Kale do something while the guy is blabbing?


Show don't tell:

It must have looked like a limping three-legged cat as he tried to escape.

If he really looked like a three legged cat, well then say he "ran like a three legged cat". 


Okay, overall impression:

I see what you are trying to do with Kale, the struggle between being a monster and wanting to fight the monster within.  The problem is, the way it's written now, Kale seems more schizophrenic than anything else, jumping from one extreme to the other with little warning to the reader.  His character is hard to pin down, and therefore hard to sympathise with.  Walking the middle ground is hard (I know, I'm dealing with the same issue right now), but right now you're not really in the middle, but kind of all over the map.

The only other thing that bothered me some was the dialogue, which is written in Old English.  Maybe it's because I am picking up the book in the middle (I only read the synopsis), but the Old English dialect didn't really work for me, especially mixed with the Modern English prose descriptions.  This might just be a personal thing, so feel free to keep it the way it is if other people like it.

Keep working at it.  You'll get it

[RavenstarRHJF]

You seem to have a better handle on all the different emotions Kale's going through right now- but Cynic is right.  All these emotive descriptions are lumped too close together with little to no transitions between them.  By all means, keep them!  Just give a little more warning when you're about to transition, or, when you're about to send us two conflicting messages (like how he's not afraid of physical darkness, but then later on goes on about how he loathes the dark and only wants to see light again), give us the conflict right then, and elaborate later on.  I.E.  "Kale wasn't afraid of the darkness, not like lesser men might be, but at the same time..."  "Kale had an alternative to dying of thirst, but he put it off as long as possible..."  See what I did there?  I'm sure you can come up with something.

Overall, much improved from the first draft!  I particularly liked his inner struggle at the end.

You do have some problems with tenses and awkward phrasings, though. 

Then he struck like a Korvani serpent, with such inhuman speeds only as a Soul Taker can, he rushed at the boy with his right hand.

Here, for instance.  Struck and rushed are past tense, can is present.  And the whole thing could be rephrased much more efficiently. 
There are other instances, but that's clean-up work, and I bet you're more concerned about actually getting the story down at the moment.

Keep on keepin' on!   

[Silk]

Kale says, about ripping the souls from two youths while their parents watch: "But he had to do it; there couldn’t be anyone left to reveal his position to the patrolling Helmsmen." Uh, you've sort of implied that he didn't kill the parents. Which seems rather counter productive.

The way you've chosen to pass the time during Kale's captivity is rather effective. I like it.

I don't think I buy him not falling asleep for days on end, though. People are pretty good at tuning out sound when they need to--especially when they're as exhausted as Kale must be after being awake for days (and especially when they start to get used to the racket, as you've indicated here). Also, severe sleep deprivation has pretty serious effects both on the body and the mind.

The jailer's florid dialogue bugged me a bit, but maybe it's supposed to.

I don't really have much else to say, except to echo what Raven and Cynic have said about Kale's characterization. Sorry this is so short.

[Frog]

Sorry this is late. I wanted to take some time to look over the first version so I could see where you made changes and had a full MS dropped in my lap this week and yeah, I have more excuses, but you probably don't want to hear them. On to the evil  critique!

Thoughts While Reading:
I don't remember you using blurbs to start your chapters before. Is this something you are going to do every time? Otherwise it is going to look odd to do it here.

By the thieves actions (kicking a leg and tugging at his boot), I would guess they either were planning on waking him or not very bright and I am leaning towards the later at this point.

You're ruining the irony of the situation (a kid trying to threaten Kale) by over explaining it. By the end I wasn't smiling, I was going "I get it already, move on."

"But he had to do it; there couldn’t be anyone left to reveal his position to the patrolling Helmsmen."

What about the parents watching?

He didn’t look used to pulling a knife on someone, even if he had the mouth of a mercenary.

You already showed us this, so you don't need to tell us.

There is no way I am buying that he didn't notice a hood sown into his neck before the jailer mentioned it. I mean, your neck really isn't all that thick (that's were we trach people for a reason) and it is mixed into the whole breathing and talking that he is doing now without any apparent difficulty.

I like how he ripped it open, but immediately following that I need some indication of his surroundings. How much can he see? And if he is wandering around there for days, is he in a barred cell where he can see out to a hallway or other prisoners or is it stone or something else? Is he trying anything to get out? And where was the jailer hanging out this whole time they were talking, because if he's in the cell with him I'd guess it would get violent a lot sooner.

Okay, unless he is trying to stay awake on purpose, he's going to fall asleep at some point and it would probably be better for him if he had.

No, I won’t kill for the sake of it, I won’t.

Since when? It thought that was what Kale did best.

I liked the last bit of dialogue with the jailer.

Overall impression:
Well, I am not going to give you too much grief about your overall plot or Kale's characterization or any other issues I usually bring up in your work because I don't know where all your rewrites are and such, but just focusing on this scene, there are some improvements. You seem to be trying to get inside Kale's head more and work out his motivations which is very good step to take to make him more sympathetic (if that is what you want), but I wouldn't put so much of it or at least try to organize better so it flows and doesn't contradict itself within the same scene as others had said. Grammar/punctuation needs a look over, especially around the dialogue. I am curious about the jailers, but I am a bit confused by some of their actions/methods, so I want their reasoning to be good and I want to know at least some of it soon. Keep working, it is getting better and has some really good moments.