March 29 - Bravesamwise - To Make a Demon

[Bravesamwise84]

Sorry, I know it was supposed to be last week, but I got side-tracked.

One of my first explorations with something a little more disturbing.

Question for those who have already read it;

There are parts where the Ba'al was thinking particularly nasty, disturbing things when thinking about humans. I meant for that to be a simple part of being a demon - something to keep reminding you that, while you might begin to sympathize with him a little bit, whatever he came from, he is consumed with violence and rage now.

The problem I see is that it looks like he is particularly vengeful toward his fiance. He doesn't have reason to be - and he's not, its a problem with the writing. Any advice on how I can clarify the difference?

[Shivertongue]

Very interesting. I enjoyed the writing itself quite a bit; the flow was very nice, and pulled me along at a steady pace throughout. A few punctuation and spelling issues, but nothing too drastic that I noticed.

It's stated near the beginning to take place shortly after California became a state, but the feeling I got from it was a bit more confusing. Some aspects made me think of an older time period - the attempted arranged marriage and the challenge to duel, which I know are not specific to older periods but carry that feel anyway. Other things made me think more modern, such as the narrator (Ba'al? We were never given a name, and he took the old Ba'al's place, so I guess that should do for now) meeting his fiancée at the theater; it took me a moment to realize it was likely a stage show, and not a movie, which wouldn't have been around in that time. That might just be me, though, and my having just seen Alice in Wonderland less than an hour ago.

I like New Ba'al, and I like the way in which he tells his story. The violence he holds towards humanity in general fit perfectly with the character, and give it a slightly darker feel with the otherwise calm narrative. I especially liked the interspersing of the description of his shop and the contents within with what he would prefer to use each item for now.

One thing I found slightly confusing was the scene with his fiancee and the duelist. It may just be a perspective issue, but it should have been obvious that she was being raped. The struggling would have been obvious, and would her screams, unless she'd decided to simply give up and lie there. The final look on her face didn't give towards rape either -

'My old lover lay prostate, her throat gleaming, her face frozen; twisted in some passionate expression. '

Now, I could see, perhaps, the expression on her face coming about at seeing her rapist die suddenly, but it seemed as if they met their end at the same moment, and thus her facial expression should have been less pleasant and more fearful or disgusted.

Overall, I enjoyed this quite a bit, despite my nitpicking over the rape scene (that seems an odd thing to say, looking back...). I'm quite curious to see what comes of this.

[lethalfalcon]

Um... wow, that was pretty cool.

I will agree with the point Shiver brought up about the rape. Very few women are just going to take it submissively. The way you made it look was consensual. It had me fooled, which is good, but unrealistic. I'm sure there is some way you could make it look more like rape to the reader, but still make him our little nice-guy-turned-evil oblivious. Then you as the reader are like "no no NO, don't do it!"... and he does it. I know he's grief-stricken, so it could be easy to mistake tears of pain for tears of pleasure, and things like that... but you need to drop more hints to the reader.

The only other thing I had an issue with is the reference to car salesmen. If this is the time period I think you're in, you're around 1870-1900. Car dealerships are more... 1920s or so (ironically, the first car dealership in Cali was in San Francisco, which burned down in 1906 in the 'quake). So, they weren't popular until much later, and the sleazy practices didn't come out until there was more competition (which was *really* discouraged in the beginning... and yes, I just spent more time researching the first car dealerships than I've spent writing this post; hooray!).

Honestly, I don't see much of a problem with his vengeance toward his fiancée. As a Demon, you made it clear that he hates anything "good". He hates his past life, and he can't understand how or why he found any joy. Since she was a good part of that joy, he would, by simple association, hate her, too. It's like he's locked in "everything good is bad" mode, which makes sense for someone who has no heart.

All in all, I enjoyed it. It was pretty short, but I think that's what you were going for.

[LongTimeUnderdog]

To put it simply, it could have been a lot better.

That is not to say the piece itself was not interesting enough.  Your first little line, "I was not always a Demon," was hooking enough and kept me going through the piece, but I really think you should have slowed it down.

The piece is a lot of exposition into his life and the chicks.  Alternatively, if you took some more time and gave us things like dialogue and showed us a bit more of the man who became a demon, and slowed the processes so we could emotionally empathize better, I think you'd find a rather amazing strength to the piece.  It's not bad as it is, but I think it could be better.  I'd like to give specific examples of this . . . but really . . . it's kind of pervasive through the whole piece.

[Bravesamwise84]

To put it simply, it could have been a lot better.

I'm sorry Longtimeunderdog but nothing about your entire post was helpful to me in the slightest. I'm sorry you felt so jipped by my writing. I'm not that offended, but seriously - in a situation where I'm trying to improve as a writer, all I got from you was, "You should have written something different."

The only other thing I had an issue with is the reference to car salesmen.

Yeah, that is kind of confusing and out of nowhere. It is congruent with the character since, he's not mortal and is currently telling the story about what happened to him about a hundred and fifty years ago, but the reference isn't needed and it is obviously confusing, so it gets cut.

It may just be a perspective issue, but it should have been obvious that she was being raped.

The other reference to the rape scene are helpful, thank you. I was trying to go for an Unreliable Narrator thing, where he thinks she's crying at first, then he assumes her expression is erotic as opposed to twisted in pain, and he really only could bear to watch for a split second. As to her fighting him back; I don't have the experience myself, but most accounts I've read about people who have gone through this kind of thing is that the rapist spends time making the person helpless, either emotionally (verbal abuse or intimidation) or physically (drugs or physical violence). I'm not writing her perspective though, I'm writing his - and he doesn't witness everything.

I'll have to think about what hints I can drop to the readers about what is going on (rape) in order to make the ending click better. Of course it's a delicate situation, because I also need to set up his deception by Ba'al.

[lethalfalcon]

Ah, I didn't realize that you were "interviewing" him (that's kinda what it feels like) around the present day. That makes more sense that he'd know modern-day car salesmen, having witnessed them post death. Perhaps you just need a hint at the beginning about how he's been brooding for over a century, to help place his current time relative to when he actually died.

As for the rape... the only way I could think to show it was not consensual would be in the way the arsonist acts. They're usually very dominant, and like to show it, saying things like "You know you want me" and such. The trick here would be for our dead lover to not see through it in his rage/misery. Unfortunately, if you want a true unreliable narrator, I don't think we're supposed to know the truth if it's only from his perspective, so maybe it's written correctly (and I just don't like it that way). Usually an unreliable narrator is displayed to be such through other viewpoints if the author wants them to know, or by a later event clarifying things (which is what you did at the very end, with the angel).

I had another thought. Since this is 150 years in the future, perhaps the reason why he's vengeful toward his fiancée is because he blames her. Now, it isn't her fault, but a demon with no heart would have to justify his existence... maybe he feels that she should have been stronger, or that she shouldn't have acted like it was consensual. If he had only known, he could have killed only the arsonist, and the old Ba'al wouldn't have been able to trick him into killing them both.  So it's her fault that he's who he is now (which is actually very unreliable, come to think of it).

[Bravesamwise84]

You hit on an interesting point there. In truth, there is much more to the story, but I was writing a short story for a class submission. Also, I was trying my hand at something a little tragic, but alas, even this story does not end tragically. There is more to it;  things that answer some of your questions. I don't know how I feel about editing this one, but I have thought about writing other installments that cover other areas of Ba'al's life, or the life of the person he's opening up to.

I think for simplicity's sake I'll cut the salesman line. The fact that he's telling the story now is not intrinsic to what's going on - I want the reader to be able to follow more smoothly along his transformation from a good man to a demon. Since it was a jostling/distracting line, I think it'd be best to simply cut it.

I need to add something to that scene... perhaps the old Ba'al plants a seed of suspicion a little earlier, and then I can put in a couple more details, such as how the rapist is holding her wrists, or something... then as an audience we can put together the truth, all the while being able to see Ba'al being misled...? Something like that. This is good practice for me; editing things so that the ending works even better.

Thanks for all your advice lethalfalcon =) And Happy April Fool's... may you avoid tasteless jokes today if at all possible.

[clarissavandell]

I thought it was a very interesting beginning... I have to agree with previous comments about the rape, but there's a situation and a large potential for a really good plot here.  This might be just me, but maybe there was a bit of an imbalance with exposition and dialogue.  However, the dialogue took place solely in the Spirit World, so that indicates most of the action will occur there.  But there isn't any important input from me, I'm afraid.  This is something worth going into.