Critique #5: Douglas Blaine
Katharine Kerr June 22nd, 2006
Submitted June 22, 2006:
Blots of spring snow hung in the air, slowly embracing the ground, the way stars hang in the night sky, slowly colliding with the horizon. Cary Wind-Braided-Reeds folded the moleskine closed and placed it in the breast pocket of his stole. The small black notebook stuck in the monk’s fingertips while he considered the stiff trees in the rising mist. Eventually his grip failed and gravity completed his stalled action. Cary directed his thoughts downward to the moldering aspen leaves dark with wet at his hooves. David’s departure had stirred up a circle of snowlessness when he wheeled back to slap Cary in response to the monk’s parting comment. That spot, in conjunction with his brother’s straight-line exit, formed a ragged exclamation point in the whitening forest.
Now alone, Cary intended to stand in the cold sullenly until the echo of his brother’s words faded, the sting from the slap subsided, and the damning punctuation mark was obscured by more snow. Eventually he shrugged the dripping slush from his withers and returned to the monastery.
Douglas,
Unfortunately snow falls faster than stars meet the horizon, so unless you have some time-lapse photography or trance meditation thing going, the opening simile doesn’t work.
The idea of a centaur monk with a fur stole and a moleskine notebook is an engaging one, but the rest of the prose was overwrought. Worse, you put the action out of the scene and started with the reaction to it. I also didn’t know whether Cary was a faun or a centaur until the last sentence, and now I’m wondering whether David slapped his cheek or his haunches.
Start with the actual confrontation with the brother, and try to find a way to work the fact that they’re centaurs in the first line. Readers like to form images of characters in their heads and it annoys some (myself included) to have to keep reediting them down the road as you slowly feed us new details. Yes, it can be done to effect, but generally it just looks coy and annoying.
Also, while you’ve done a nice job of implying he’s a centaur, you come right out and say he’s a monk. Why coy about one detail and not the other? Either mention hooves, whithers and a tonsure in the first paragraph, or else say “the centaur monk” and have done with it. I prefer it being told by implication, but the trouble with telling one thing and implying the other is makes you waffle between the third person full omniscient and limited omniscient, or worse, looks like the full omniscient trying to play coy, which as I said, annoys some readers.
Let the snow fall on the bald spot of his tonsure and let him wipe it off with his fingers while he switches his tail to remove it from his ass. That would show us far better than what you have here.
Best on revisions.
Kevin,
I struggled with describing Cary explicitly. Other readers have been 50:50 on liking or disliking the implict version. Since I prefer it myself I stuck with it. But you’ve made a cleaner argument than half those others or myself why not to use it.
My main thinking was I would never come out and say “Bob the human walked over to the fruit stand.” but I would say “Bob the monk…”. How then could I say “Bob the centaur monk…”?
But I am liking the simplicity of “Dude. He’s a centaur. Get on with it.” more than I had. Saves me work.
Thanks!
Douglas,
You’re welcome, but let me explicate a bit here. Telling us anything about a character, while it does save time, is also in the full omniscient, because people generally don’t think about their age, sex, profession or race unless it is actually germane to the scene. That said, if it’s something radically different than what’s expected, you need to establish it beforehand.
Naming conventions and pronouns make it easy for you do establish sex. With clerical orders, there’s also an easy cheat with a title: “Brother Cary.” And that’s even okay since he likely thinks of himself as “Brother Cary.” So all that’s left is to let us know he’s a centaur. Have him shuffle his hooves in the first sentence. And leave the pretentious quasi-native-American surname for his actual brother.
One technique you can use–if you have to–is to use the full omniscient for the establishing shot, then narrow in to the limited omniscient for better engagement with the characters. I don’t like the technique much, since it makes for overly swatchlike descriptions, but some are fond of it.
Other things you can do to let us know he’s a centaur is to have someone else comment on it. Is he the only centaur in a monastery with human monks, or is he part of a centaur monastery? I expect if centaurs had monasteries, there’d be all sorts of interesting customs. Some combination between albs and saddle blankets for one. And there wouldn’t be anyone climbing a bell tower either.
Anyway, best on revisions.