Beyond the Darkness - For Those of You Who Asked

WARNING!!!!

I started this post as a response to questions people asked and it kind of turned into a rant or at least a tossing out of things that I'm trying to figure out about writing this particular speculative fiction piece.

After my post last night, quite a few people asked me what other reviews said about the Chapter 1 & 2 combination I have posted several different places.

A few of you mentioned that you didn't see that particular review at OWW. It's NOT at OWW. I do have Beyond the Darkness - Ch 1 & 2 up multiple places and have a couple of people who have read it outside of that.

I think devinharris is the only person who has read the entire novella. And, no, she didn't have any of the bad things to say. (Hi, Sis!)

I have maybe 11-12 reviews/critiques/opinions on the first chunk (Chapters 1 & 2). None on Chapter 3, which is posted only at Quill N Ink right now. I MIGHT put Chapter 3 up at OWW today. Haven't decided. Trying to deal with writing things in my head first and I guess I fear that if I get another huge disappointment, it'll hamper my ability to deal with this. Of course, I might get brave. One never knows.

What I expected from reviews (because I'm my own worse critique and because I know I'm not a good writer) was that I expected people to laugh at the idea and I expected people to tell me that my writing sucks.

Nobody told me that my writing sucked. Some people liked it, which gave me some warm fuzzies, I'll admit. Some people didn't comment on the writing at all, so those opinions could go either way and I'm trying NOT to read anything into that.

Nobody came right out and laughed at the idea. I did get the one comment that it wasn't marketable, though. I got another comment that said they weren't sure something like that was marketable and that it sounded more like a manga idea. I got a third that said it was more of a YA piece because it MENTIONED anime and manga and, of course, only kids like those, right?

So, the seed of doubt is in my mind. What if I'm writing crap? What if all my fears are founded and I really am?

Anyway, other comments.

There were lots and lots of things that were not mentioned twice across the range of critiques. Some ranged from personal preferences of the reader to the fact that they were NOT part of my target audience. One person, for example, hadn't ever even heard of anime and manga, one person thought it was a waste of time for Koji to be interested in that...personal type preferences.

Most people liked Koji and his best friend, Hiroshi, and said the chemistry between them worked. That made me happy, cause they just clicked when I wrote them. :)

Many people said that Koji's dad was unrealistic and those kinds of things don't happen. Uh, guess what? They DO! Koji's dad was a combination of culture and also people I really know. The verbal abuse is very common. Ask me why I don't believe in my writing and don't think I'm good enough. Ask my son, who has a 4.0 average in college why he doesn't think he's good enough. (And, why I left my husband.) Ask any number of people who have undergone verbal abuse at the hands of parents and/or spouses what it does to a person. (And, no Koji's dad was not based on my experiences, personally. I just know it can happen.)

Which leads into two other complaints I received.

Several peeople said Koji was a big boy and should fight back. One said he should beat up his dad. These people are obviously NOT familiar with victims.

Another person said that Koji was unrealistic because us artistic types (writers, artists, musicians) NEVER got down on their dreams.

Welcome to the real world.

A couple of people mentioned that Koji was way too concerned with concert tickets when there were monsters running around. (More on the monsters down below.) And, after his dad had beaten him.

I admit that I probably need to pump up Faith, Hope and Love more and the fact that they're a phenomenon. More hype, more of the fact that they've been dying for these tickets forever.

However, only a couple of people actually got the fact that this was a big deal because Faith, Hope and Love are--SHOCK--part of the story. They were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. These are the main characters in my novel series. (Not in their singing personas most of the time, of course.) These people affects Koji's life...and not just by their music.

I don't think I mentioned anything in the story that wasn't important at some point later in the story.

So, here's a question for you folks. (Anyone that made it this far.) When you read, how much do you want spelled out in advance for you? How much are you willing to trust the writer? And, do you believe that everything needs to be spelled out in the first chapter?

I write with the "plants" and "payoffs" system in mind. Maybe because I wrote sceenplays for so long. I don't know. But, Chapter 1 and Chapter 2 both have plants that will be paid off later...both with the mundane and the speculative in mind.

Probably the biggest consistent complaint that I got was that the first and second chapters had different feels to them. They said that the first had supernatural, specfic elements. The second was grounded in the real world.

I should point out, though, that there were at least three--maybe four--people that liked it that way and that seemed to get what I was doing.

The fact that other people didn't lets me know one of two things. Either I need to do some more work on Chapter 1, cause most people seem pretty good with Chapter 2. (And, I do have some changes in mind to fix it.) Or, I wait and see if Chapter 1 makes more sense to them after they read more. (IF they read more.)

For those of you who have read Chapter 1, if I tell you the following, does it make any difference on your opinion of what you read?

NOBODY realized that KOJI NEVER ACTUALLY SAW A MONSTER!!!!! Yes, I set up monsters. But, Koji didn't see one. The orbs he saw are NOT eyes and they're explained later when he finds himself back down there with someone else. Also, Koji spends some time chastising himself about his active imagination. A couple of people told me he spent too much time thinking. Do you, as a writer, spend time thinking about what you're going to write? Koji is combination writer/artist because he wants to write manga and create anime. He thinks about fantastic storylines a lot.

Did Koji see any monsters on the way back to Tokyo? No. For a reason. There was no monster there. Did he think there had been? YES! Will there be later? YES! Was there now? No. There was something strange, something he couldn't explain. It was NOT a monster.

My question is this. Do you think I actually need to have Koji think about not seeing any monsters on the way home and doubt what he experienced on the mountain?

As mentioned earlier, Faith, Hope and Love DO have purpose in the story. I don't want to spoil by mentioning who/what they are, but, to those of you who read, what would set them up better for you? And, make them seem less of a "coincidence" to the story. Or, do you think it's a case of the reader needing to read further before deciding that they're not needed?

I do have to admit that I got one review that wasn't particularly glowing. Especially from the perspective that they didn't think Chapters 1 and 2 went well together. HOWEVER...this particular gentleman got all the underlying themes and how things connected (especially the darkness) and it was soooooo AWESOME to see that somebody really got what I was trying to do in and beneath the framework of manga and monsters, you know? Because the title, itself, Beyond the Darkness, deals with the darkness and hopelessness of Koji's life and future as well as the darkness in the "chasm" and a more profound darkness that comes later in the story. One that Koji has to overcome and rise above...one that helps him learn to deal with himself and his problems and his dreams. And in overcoming the fantastic, he learns that he can deal with the real world and his hopes and dreams, too.

Oh, one thing that three or four people mentioned was that they thought this was a traditional fantasy piece at first because of the reference to "sacred mountain" and that it jarred them out of the story when Koji had a flashlight. I'm going to fix that.

I think he's going to be carrying a sketchbook and be up there (against direct orders) to sketch the abandon temple...instead of offering to the baby gods...which were going to be shown later, but which are NOT the monsters in question. They were a set up to come back to later in one of my novels that takes place in Japan. And, perhaps a set up across stories like that won't work.

You see, my entire point in posting this as a ROUGH draft was to see if it can stand alone, as a novella, on its own two feet, with all the unspoken background (that mostly being Faith, Hope and Love and what they do (other than just sing) or if it needs to be set in a novel, along with a follow-up short story that deals with Koji, Hiroshi, and another character that's introduced in Chapter 3.

Have I lost you completely now?

Probably. My brain works in strange ways. It has big, enormous, huge story arcs in it that span huge amounts of time.

Maybe I'm just nuts. Maybe I write crap.

I don't know.

But, I do know that, in each character I create, I find a life and a story to tell. And, those characters come to life for me and I love writing about them...whether there's a market for my material or not.

And, on that, I've probably ranted more than enough, left out half the things I meant to say...and I've got to go to work. Boooo! Hissssss!

And, yes, I've probably left out some of the comments folks had on the piece, too.

Everybody have a good day!