Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-1306136-20140404154657/@comment-24077689-20140404180501

OK HERE WE GO REVIEW TIME

So the first sentence is awkward, you have some decent imagery, but first of all your wording is banal. It’s boring. It’s played out. “Lightning snaked across the evening sky” is a beautiful image, but it’s one that’s been used a hundred times in a hundred different genres by a hundred different authors. Plus the way it reads, it just seems awkward to me, if you cut up this first sentence and rearranged it I think you could get a lot more out of it. As a matter of fact, you could cut up the entire first paragraph, you’ve got some interesting ideas showing through here but I feel like the way you arranged it leaves something to be desired. As an example of what I’m talking about you could rearrange it as such: “The outside the archaic structure is pelted by wave after wave of torrential rain. Thunder cracked loudly as lightning snaked across the evening sky. Wind bellowed against the outside of the library, threatening to tear the whole structure down. No sane person would dare brave this weather just to read some old, musty, books.”

I’m not saying you have to arrange it like that, but that’s an example of a way that you could. The arrangement reads a bit better and it’s more interesting. But, like I said, you don’t have to. There are several different ways I could see that first paragraph being arranged.

Now you mentioned making the protagonist a student instead of a librarian. My freshman year, my wife (then girlfriend) had a roommate that worked stupid hours at our college’s library. She worked as a student librarian, basically, often until 2 in the morning by herself. So I think the librarian image is interesting, but you’re right not entirely relatable. Make him a student-worker of some kind.

In paragraph 4 you mention the wood “flexing in the cold of the rain”. I’d amend that, wood doesn’t flex in the cold. The increased moisture would cause them to swell. This might seem minor, but the devil’s in the details, as the old adage goes. The floorboards swelling might cause rubbing, but it’s unlikely, so you may want to revisit this and mention something about a squeaky floorboard or something. Honestly, I have no ideas for this. And don’t mention shit like “it was the only logical explanation”. Not very many people actually talk like that, I’d say remove this and just mention you guessing about the swelling, and then laughing at yourself.

Why is the wood deteriorating? Why would an old library be decrepit? Most old libraries are kept up very well. You could mention something about losing funding, but it’s very doubtful that the library would be decrepit or deteriorating, especially if they’ve got the funding to hire a late night person. Most small town libraries shut down at a reasonable time. So, unless it’s a really fucking big library, like an inner city library it likely wouldn’t be over-night. Amend “that’s just irrational” to “that’d be irrational”.

“Who was flayed alive on the Seventieth day of September”, might want to change that to “seventeenth”.

The idea of a book like this is fantastic, it’s a great concept. But his reactions, the way he reads it, it could all be detailed more elegantly. One of my biggest pet peeves is when people misuse the ellipses, you don’t do it often which I’m thankful for, but “my life has been already detailed... I fumbled through the pages”, the ellipsis here is not necessary; don’t use this as a placeholder for space, periods, or commas. Both times you use it are erroneous. Instead, consider using the semicolon or the comma.

How do echoes take an ominous tone? I’d also instead of just saying “rotting meat”; specify again something like “rotting fish”, the earlier description of the smell of fish that had been rotting in stagnant water was great. Rotting fish has a very distinct smell, unlike other meat when it rots. If anybody knows what that really smells like it’ll immediately turn on the alarm in their head.

You spend a lot of time telling us about echoes. In the beginning you have two or three descriptions of echoes, and then you have more echoing, then ominously toned echoes, then his boots hitting the floor echoes. We get it, the library echoes. You don’t have to tell us every time there’s an echo.

“the sound overwhelming even the rain and thunder outside.” I would amend that, “overwhelming” is not the right word for that sentence. Then like three sentences later you describe the overwhelming roar. And while I’m on the subject, “roar” is not a good word either. Your diction here leaves a lot to be desired. Perhaps instead of “roar” consider words like “crescendo” or “cacophony”. The last sentence in this paragraph is super weird, fix it. I get the thumping steps, I get the distraction, but once again your diction and the structure you’ve given this sentence leaves a lot to be desired.

Watch your tense, you say “my head throbbed, waves of pain shooting…” change it to “…waves of pain shot…” there are occasional tense problems throughout, just keep an eye out for them. This paragraph could likewise use some work, you’ve got restraints, and I’m just not seeing some of the style you’re occasionally giving me glimpses of.

“It  was like the buzzing of hornets…” Man, that is a fantastic image. I love this whole paragraph, but you could remove completely the whole “I didn’t need to make sure, but I knew”. This sentence throws off the beauty of the rest of the prose. Just go right into, “The coverless pages lay flat and wrinkles on the table, squished under his forceful writing.” You did a fantastic job with this paragraph, the descriptions of his hands and ligaments straining. Wonderful.

The follow up paragraph leaves a lot to be desired, though. First of all “Pleaded, begged for my life.” Needs to be fixed to “Plead, beg for my life.” It’s just boring, him talking about his promises and pleas, we can assume that he’s pleading and promising. I’d personally spend some time and describe him croaking out his please, instead of telling us exactly what his pleas are. We can infer from the tone of the story and paragraph that he’s making promises. “There was only the persistent sound of words being written on paper” OK, there’s that style we were talking about. It’s too bad that you only have it at the end of the paragraph. It’s really disappointing after the last paragraph how you follow it up.

Again, watch your tense “He has the pen, and I am his story”. A sudden shift in tenses is mad distracting, either keep it in the past tense or modify the story to present tense, which personally I think would work better overall for the story, just change the rest of it to present tense.

I don’t like the description “his terrible visage casting shadows upon me…” it could use some work. Like I said earlier, it’s a fine description, it adds a certain amount of imagery, but it’s played out. Instead, maybe revisit the dying incandescent bulb. Think about the kind of shadows, the dance that they would do under a dying bulb of that sort, especially if the weather outside was causing power fluctuations.

<p class="MsoNormal">“How does he want my story to end?”

<p class="MsoNormal">This is great, I love this. It’s a fantastic segue; it adds a certain degree of panic.

<p class="MsoNormal">You’re off to a good start; I’d say in the sentence “it did me no little pleasure to hear his voice torn raw by anguish.” Remove the “little”, if it reads as “it did me no pleasure” it seems as if the creature has a certain level of regret for the fate of Harvey, but must continue as an agent of destiny or for the sake of the story. Which is fairly sinister. “…words that I write ever so endlessly” is a really awkward wording.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Change the first sentence here to simply “Blinded by fear, he failed to see the array of knives arranged neatly on my table.” And I’d probably change that to “the table”, that way it makes the creature seem more an agent of fate rather than an active player in the story. I don’t know, it just seems like it’d be a bit scarier if he’s the vessel through which the story comes rather than becoming a willing participant in the story.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Again, it’s weird that the creature is making active descriptions. I might use this as a chance to continue the Harvey narrative. So Harvey’s perceptions end and now we’re in the book actively. Maybe instead of just ending what Harvey sees make it an active like “Harvey, bound to the table, looks wildly around the room, seeing the multitude of leather bound books and his eyes lock on the stripped body of Alex, his skin laid out, ready to be tanned. His face contorted in the final terrifying moments of his life.”

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I understand why you aren’t satisfied with the ending. It’s an unsatisfying ending indeed. I think instead of describing how the dagger and the three inches of steel in his neck, describe the process. Go back to the idea that the creature doesn’t necessarily enjoy his suffering, but for the sake of the book it must happen. Just remember, this was a book about Harvey’s life, it makes total sense that it continues the narrative from Harvey’s perspective up to the very end.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">I think once you describe the end of Harvey you should get out of the italics and shift to the perspective of the creature, what he’s doing with the flesh, he tans it, and he sows the flesh, needle going in and out. Do some research on leather bound books, the binding process. Describe how the book is bound, describe the strenuous work of tanning his skin. Then end it the same: “Leather’s made. Book’s bound.”

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">CONCLUSION:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">So you have a great idea here, you have a marvelous creature. In some ways I think it works that you don’t describe him, you don’t have him speak. But I also would like to see something like in The Midnight Meat Train, where Barker describes the creatures and it’s revealed that they’re ancient and they’ve always been there. I think adding a description of the books could do just that, describe the hundreds or possibly thousands of volumes there are, some of them looking ancient. Make it apparent that in that archaic building, this creature has always been.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">As for the student thing, if you describe how long he’s been there, it might also work that he chooses his victims by them working at the library. So you could describe the book beginning at about the time he began working at the library and you could say that you got the job as a summer position in high school and you’ve kept it for X amount of years. I think it’d work if you kept him a librarian but had him be a young man in his early 20’s or so.

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">Anthropodermic bibliopegy was never a common practice, that’s what makes this so shocking. But I agree, you give the creature too much voice. Like I said, when in the story, continue Harvey’s story, just shift it to the third person. Not that it’s from the perspective of the creature anymore but you’re describing what Harvey is seeing and experiencing. Then go into his death, and then go into the creature skinning him, tanning his flesh, and binding his book. Another volume on the shelf.

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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">GRAYDON:

<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify">The news report epilogue is a terrible idea. Seriously. It’s such an overused trope; it’s not shocking, plain and simple. It’s a massive cliché; it’d be tragic to use it on such an original idea. And I think you’re misrepresenting what happened in the story. It’s not really a serial killer, it’s a being, it’s a keeper of lives and books. It’s a librarian, and I think that juxtaposition is brilliant; the creature is a librarian in his own right.