For the full journey, you’ll read the original version of Cherry Soda, come back and read my editor notes, read the first rewrite of the story, come back and read my final notes, and finally read read the final version. You can also do whatever combination makes sense to you.

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One: The original version of Cherry Soda

Two: My first editorial notes:

Dear Haley,

It’s rare that I’ve offered to do this, but something struck me about your story, and in it, I see a path for you to make some quick advancements as a writer. The critique process can be painful, but that’s not my intent. I chose your story because I see potential.

The Quick Fixes:

First, there’s the issue of “the diner table” which is an awkward construction. For far too long, I wasn’t sure if you meant dinner table. That’s some confusion we can avoid by removing “at the diner table” entirely.

When talking about Jenny’s boyfriend, you write: “She’d had a crush on him…” You mean Becky had a crush, but the structure of the sentence suggests that the “she” in question is Jenny. We can solve that by replacing the pronoun with the correct name.

Describing the stranger as looking like a beatnik is jarring. It’s an uncommon reference and suggests the story takes places sixty years ago. It’s also unnecessary, as you then show us what that means. We can solve that by removing the beatnik reference.

You need to make it clear from the beginning that it’s night, but there’s more that needs to be established early on.

Some More Difficult Issues:

The tone of the story isn’t horror, and that’s okay if that’s your intent. However, the reveal should be foreshadowed. It needs to feel right for the story, and to do that we need to establish certain themes earlier. Five paragraphs in, you tell us she’s hungry, but that hunger is the key theme. Consider tying a rumbling tummy to the slurping of her cherry soda in the first paragraph, thereby tying the hunger to your metaphor for drinking blood. Don’t just tell us she’s hungry. It’s a key point. Make us feel it.

Then you can remove the hunger reference later, as the reader will be keenly aware. It’s a paragraph of contradictory statements, anyway. She didn’t eat all day in anticipation of eating lots of junk food but then ordered the smallest burger and fries. It’s more likely that she didn’t eat because she’s self-conscious around her “friends”, but you don’t have to tell us that. As we feel her hunger and then see her discomfort around her thin, childhood friends, we’ll understand.

More Work-Intensive Issues:

Becky is too unguarded and trusting. You felt this and tried to adjust for it by having her question herself after the fact, and that’s a tactic we’ve all tried at some point. I’d like to see you go back and rework the dialog to justify them walking together. If it’s a case of hypnotic suggestion, give hints without saying outright. Perhaps she thinks she’s dizzy from hunger.

Watch for phrases which add no meaning. I’ll illustrate using the first paragraph. (I’ll also remove the “diner table” reference as that’s a different problem.)

Becky froze as everyone turned around and stared at her. She’d just made a loud slurping noise finishing the last of her cherry soda. She hadn’t meant to; it was a force of habit with her.

That they stare at her is implied. She’s sitting next to them, so they don’t turn around. They just turn and look, and we can assume her slurping her drink wasn’t someone else’s habit.

In the silence of that moment, before she’s able to apologize and when everyone’s attention is on her, that would be the most impactful moment to add the tummy rumble, adding to her embarrassment.

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Three: The first rewrite of the story

Four: My notes after the rewrite:

I’ve just begun, but I’m really liking what you’ve done with it. I’ll point out some trifles as they come to mind, and we’ll see what’s to be addressed after.

I would recommend removing this line:

Sally, Jenny and Mary-sue. They were all thin and pretty and looked great in the latest fashions. She was too fat to look good in anything. Each of them had a boy seated next to them. She was sitting alone in the corner of the booth.

You set up her weight issue well enough without it, and it doesn’t quite land the way you want.

Capitalize both names in Mary Sue.

Some minor points and suggestions:

She broke into a run, not wanting to hear anymore [any more]. Cool, night air brushed her wet face as she burst through the doors. Tears ran freely now. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed [period needed]

She heard [H]her stomach growl[ed] again, there was [like] a hole sucking on her insides. She didn’t even get to eat anything and she wanted food so bad.

I’m making these recommendations because, if we’re making the same point twice, we want to keep the stronger one. We want to remove the filter of her hearing her stomach. Now we hear it instead, and the intimacy between us and the character grows. We change the comma splice into a simile, easing the flow of the sentence, and finally we remove what we know and what can be inferred and get right to the the point.

The elements the story needed are falling into place. This is very promising.

She startled at the voice coming from behind. It sounded like an 80 year old man who’d smoked twenty packs a day from birth.

I want to suggest simplifying this into one long sentence or two fragments. Remove the direction. Make the thought flow.

To her surprise, the speaker was a young man.

This line doesn’t work. It destroys so much of what you’re building up by removing the intimacy and distancing the reader from the characters and the story. The culprits are “to her surprise” and “the speaker”.

He was dressed in a leather jacket and had a goatee [I corrected the spelling]. His thick curls sprang wildly from underneath a poor boy cap, reminding her of a lion. He smelled of tobacco [spelling again—maybe these are regional differences?] and motor oil.

If you want, you can cut the line that doesn’t work and have this one begin: He was a young man dressed in…

Only I don’t recommend keeping the word dressed. I want something that will work with both the leather jacket and the goatee. Styled is a choice. He was a young man, styled in a leather jacket and goatee. If he were a different type of character he could be hiding behind them, but that doesn’t feel right. Sporting instead of styled in would work, as would boasting.

I want to suggest Thick curls instead of His thick curls, and mostly that doesn’t matter, except that you’re running a series of sentences that begin with He and this one begins with His. Remove the word and you improve the variation.

Not the kind of man she should be talking to. She glanced around; [T]the street was empty except for the two of them. Her heart beat a little faster.

Nice. I know it’s strange to say I like it when I’m suggesting cuts, but the removals are meant to reveal what’s already there.

“Sure, I’m fine,” she muttered and wiped her tears.

“Oh sorry, I should have known you were crying tears of joy.”

She didn’t have anything to say to that. He took out a pack of cigarettes from his jean pocket.

“I saw what happened. Great friends you’ve got there.”

“Well, I guess they aren’t really my friends. What’s it to you?”

“Oh nothing. I just don’t think anyone deserves to be treated that way.”

The dialog was something I wanted to address more after the initial rewrite, but this is so much better. It feels much more natural. I’m going to make suggestions anyway, but with everything I suggest, remember that it’s just my opinion.

My suggestion is the last line. This is the climax of this micro-segment of dialog, Cut the fluff.

“Oh nothing. I just don’t think anyone [No one] deserves to be treated that way.”

His words caused [Her] tears to well up again. She blinked and looked away. Her head was swimming [swam] and the ground felt unsteady beneath her.

Again, I’m cutting to reveal what’s there (and to keep verb tenses consistent). The last line of the paragraph is different, though.

She really needed something to eat.

There’s a missed opportunity here to tie this into the segue you’re attempting with the dialog. You need to give her a reason to walk with this stranger and also reveal the impact her hunger is having. Right now, you’ve shown us and then told us with that closing line.

I suggest you cut that line and replace it with new dialog. He says she doesn’t look well. She says she’s just hungry. Low blood sugar. He says they’ve got to get something in her, and until they do, she’s in no shape to walk alone.

She wants to decline but can’t. Instead, she accepts his protection.

That’s how I think you can best use the details you’ve built up to move her into the situation the story needs.

Now these lines go:

“Thanks. I should be getting home.”

“Okay. How you getting there?”

“Oh, I’ll walk, my neighborhood is just a few blocks away.”

But work this in as part of his offer to help get her home:

“I could give you a lift.” He inclined his head towards a Harley Davidson parked a few feet away.

She struggled to come up with the right thing to say to get him to leave her alone without making him mad. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and she couldn’t think properly.

Her response changes, though. Focus on the details of her dizziness from hunger. She tells him she’s afraid she’d fall off.

“No thank you, I can’t get on a bike. My father would kill me.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

She took two steps and stumbled.

“Woah, you okay there.[?]”

“Yeah, I’m just feeling a little woozy.”

Keep it focused and tight.

“I don’t like letting you go off into the street like this. Let me walk with you a bit.”

Maybe he was dangerous, maybe she would collapse in the road on the way home, she didn’t know anymore. She was too hungry and tired and faint to argue.

“All right,” she agreed.

The long sentence is a comma splice. Twice. Keep it if you want. Change it into abrupt, short sentences if you prefer.

They walked in silence for a bit. The dizziness had faded, but her thoughts were covered in a thick blanket. She couldn’t concentrate on anything with her stomach gnawing at her.

You repeat the phrase “a bit” in close proximity. Cut this one. Keep the tense intimate. Don’t explain your metaphor. You’ve set it up. We’re with you.

“I never got your name,” she said, trying to regain focus. “I’m Becky, by the way.”

“You can call me Steve.”

“All right, Steve. So, are you a part of a biker gang or something?”

“A gang? No way. I ride solo. I’m a lone wolf.”

“So what do you do for a living?”

“I don’t do anything for a living, I just live. Each morning, I get on my bike and go wherever the road takes me. I sleep under the stars. I do whatever I want.”

“So you’re a bum.”

“That’s what most people would call me, I suppose.”

“I think I might envy you. It sounds so free. Still, it must be a hard life, on the streets.”

“Not for me.”

When she calls him a bum, it’s too direct. She’s not that impolite. The reference to her father didn’t work for me before, and I think I’m going to suggest removing the idea that she still lives with her parents. We’ll see when we get that far, but this is where a reference would work: “My dad would say you’re a bum.”

I almost wrote “father” because that’s the word you used. Is Becky the kind of person who call him father or would she call him dad?

The moon ducked in and out behind the oak trees as they reached the suburbs. Closer to food. There was leftover chicken, and ice cream in the freezer, and Cheez Whiz…

“Don’t you ever get lonely though?” she asked.

He took a drag from his cigarette.

“Sure, course I do. But it’s better this way. Safer for people to stay away from me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I’ve never been cut out for civilized society. My appetites are just too strong. I’ve tried to fight them, truly I have. But I always lose.”

I love that section.

She supposed he was talking about alcohol or drugs. Or women? Who was she to judge, when all she could think about was getting home so she could stuff her face.[?]

“I see,” she said. “You know, I think I might become a lone wolf too. People are just too mean and fake. Who needs ‘em’.”

“Good for you. With enemies like those, who needs friends, right.[?]”

She glanced away, smiling. Then stopped walking.

“Well, here we are.”

“Your parents. They home?” he asked.

“No, they went to a party.”

I’m going to suggest something more subtle from him and less reckless from her. He’ll ask something like: anyone home to make sure you’re okay?

“Yeah,” she lied. “I’ll be fine.”

The second part of that suggestion is whatever, but I really want her response to be instinctual. She doesn’t know why she’s lying. We don’t know. But we know she is lying and there’s no one waiting for her. She’s in danger.

“I just want to say, those boys are fools. I think you’re just swell. I like a girl with some meat on her bones.”

I think swell is interesting. It’s anachronistic. That character shouldn’t say it. No one in 2025 should say it, but least of all him. It reveals something about his character. He’s not who he appears to be, and part of that, is he’s much older and carrying slang from another time.

The just is overdoing it, however.

She forced a smile. She [and] felt exposed, like she was standing there naked, even with all her clothes on.

I’m addressing these sentences separately because their needs are different. The part above just needs tightening up.

The second part:

What had she been thinking, walking around at night with a strange man.

I want you to give this sentence style. You can ask the first part of your question (and remember your question mark) and then follow it by fragments. One or two words each. That’s one option. You choose, but it needs some stylistic punch. It’s an important thought and needs to drive home its point with panache.

“Well… Good night then. Thanks for walking me home.”

He flicked his half[-]finished cigarette to the pavement and stomped on it.

“Good night Becky. It was real nice talking to you.”

“Nice talking to you too. Good night.”

She took several steps backward, turned around towards the house. Picked up her pace. Then b[B]roke into a run.

Turned around is unnecessary and too much, other than that, the other cuts are a matter of taste. Entirely optional.

Arms like steel bars locked around her waist, pulled her to the ground. Fangs glinted in the moonlight. Then the sting, just above her collarbone.

She tried to fight him, but it was like trying to lift a truck. Tried to scream, but had no breath.

Hot blood trickled down her chest and pooled on the lawn. The last thing she saw before she closed her eyes was the safety of her house a few feet away.

The important cut here is “pooled on the lawn.” When in her POV, and I don’t think she sees that.

“You’re a vampire.”

“And now, so are you.”

I think it works better if you don’t state the obvious. Also, no comma needed here:

I didn’t realize how lonely I was, until I saw you sitting there in that diner, fighting a hunger you could never satisfy.

When he says, It does feel great, don’t it? That turn of phrase turns the statement into a question. I think it needs a question mark, but if you intentionally want it the other way, that’s cool.

Her hunger was worse than ever. Her body [shook] was shaking with [an] overwhelming urge to bite into flesh.

If you keep the ending a little less direct, I think it really works.

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Five: My Notes Upon Reading the Third Draft

(I’ll share the link to the final / third (or is it fourth?) draft at the end.)

You’ve come so far, and you’re almost ready.

She’d been so desperate to not [to] stay home on a Saturday night, she’d accepted an invitation to eat out that was offered out of pity. She’d drifted away from her childhood friends over the years, yet kept hanging on, begging for their scraps, hoping something would change, somehow.

Here, we have a repeated use of she’d which we need to tone down. Using it to start two sentences and an additional phrase within that first sentence is too much.

The second note is a split infinitive, but split infinitives are acceptable now. It’s not the crime our English teacher’s made us believe, and while I’ve taught myself to be comfortable with the phrasing “not to stay home,” you might not be. If you want to keep the split infinitive, keep it.

Sally, Jenny and Mary-Sue. They were all thin and pretty and looked great in the latest fashions. Each of them had a boy seated next to them. Becky She was sitting alone in the corner of the booth.

Becky is not the subject of the rest of the paragraph, so you can’t reference her with a pronoun without causing confusion over who you mean.

“You need to get some food in you. You need a lift?.” He inclined his head towards a Harley Davidson parked a few feet away.

We can avoid the repetition of starting both sentences in the dialog with you because the you can be left understood, without being written.

Only it’s not just the you. The need is also a problem. Change one.

Some possibilities:

You’ve got to get some food in you. / You gotta get some food in you.

-or-

Want a lift? / Wanna lift? (Depending on how he should speak)

(Also remember to remove the extra period.)

She struggled to come up with the right thing to say to get him to leave her alone without making him mad. Her head felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and she couldn’t think properly.

Here the repetition is the string of prepositional phrases all beginning with to.

Instead of “the right thing to say” she can struggle to come up with the right words, so he’d leave her alone…

But now we’ve changed the sentence so the ending “without making him mad” don’t have the logical link you’d created. You can choose to change the phrasing, but the phrase can also be assumed. I’d cut the phrase and end with leave her alone.

“Woah, you okay there.”

That’s a question. Give it a question mark.

“All right,” she agreed.

Style choice: you do what seems right for you. I’d leave off the speech tag. It feels redundant.

She felt something else. Hunger hit her senseless. Her whole body ached with it. It was no longer burgers and chips she was craving.

Did you mean hunger hit her senses or that hunger hit her and left her senseless? Either way, I’d cut the word. It’s confusing.

You have two uses of the word it back to back. You can cut the first usage with losing any meaning. That’s also why I recommended cutting “her senseless” instead of just “senseless,” because otherwise, you have the same word, back to back.

Those are my final recommendations. When you’re ready to publish, send me the links to the various versions! Well done.

Six: The Final Story

I’ve offered notes on a few stories before but never in stages. This approach allowed me to address the necessary points without overwhelming the author, and I hope that, in the end, both she and you are pleased with the results.

I love what she did with the story, and I’m honored to have played a role.

Read the final version here.

— Thaddeus Thomas

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

The Unmapping by

Empire’s Daughter by

Why Teach? by

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Murakami begins with a flight as the context for the memory of a lost love—a fading memory. A love twice lost.

Robbins begins with a city mysteriously losing order, buildings standing out of place, and a woman desperately trying to communicate the location of an injured man.

Thorpe begins with age-old traditions unsettled as the boundaries between Empire and village, man and woman, are broken down and blurred.

Shull begins with a teacher at a school that has forbidden all books and where a student has died—a boy he’d known from the age of eight and who had, in his kindness, made him a better teacher.

These stories present worlds at a point where they’re knocked askew and strange to those who knew them well. Time. The impossible. Politics. Death. Whatever the culprit, we begin after the damage is done, and our protagonist witnesses the damage. In trying to make sense of it for themselves, they help us understand the world that was and the world that is becoming, and we understand the character through the context of change.

Murakami begins his book this way:

It’s a metaphor for all these stories, characters dropping out clear altitudes into an occluded confusion on route to wherever they’re going. One proposal for the purpose of a first sentence is to forecast the novel. One might suggest other ways Sylvia Plath accomplished this in The Bell Jar, but I suggest one major foretelling is found in the SPOILER IN FOOTNOTES.1

The Unmapping by Denise S. Robbins was just released this year by Mareas Books. It’s described as “a character-driven, literary speculative exploration of a city’s descent into chaos and confusion.”2

The city is key, so the book begins:

The peace suggests the chaos to come.

Why Teach? by Peter Shull was also just released this year. It positions the characters between the funeral and a night club—between dusk and dawn, between death and life.

Empire’s Daughter by Marian L. Thorpe can be read as a standalone, but it begins a multi-book saga—eight books, all published and ready to be read. It also begins by introducing the agent of change:

Each book, in its own way, with its own focus, forecasting the novel in the first line. Each book introducing us to a story world thrown off-balance by change. Each book drastically different from the others.

And the writing in all of them distresses me with the amount of talent on display. Okay, one of the books is a classic. I accept that, but one of the other three books could have at least been mediocre. When I think of every bad sentence I’ve ever written and every story that failed to grab the reader—

These books grab you, and one of the shared elements between them is that contrast between what should be and what is. It’s as if the character is an arrow, and the book presents the intended target, now burned and destroyed. In each case, the nature of the target reveals the nature of the arrow and suggests a new target will arise.

I’ll be writing more about these books is the coming weeks.

Is it a coincidence though? The shared nature of their beginnings?

The Bell Jar begins not just with a young woman obsessed and sick with the idea of electrocutions, it begins with a young woman who should be having the time of her life, thrust out of a small town, too poor to own a magazine, and into New York, working for one. Only, she’s lost, and she’s miserable.

The world as it should be and the world as it is.

All The Pretty Horses begins with a young man at the death of his grandfather. The ranch is the world as it should be, and when it’s taken away, the young man rides to Mexico, hoping to find it again.

Blood Meridian captures the world as it should be and the world as it is in the absence of the boy’s mother and in the fact that his father was once a teacher, but the boy can neither read nor write.

In The Talented Mr. Ripley, Tom’s being followed and immediately assumes the police are onto him. This is the world that is. His pursuer turns out to be in the rich father of a friend of his who needs someone to bring him home from Europe. The rich man’s life is the world that should be.

Sometimes a character pursues what’s taken from him. Sometimes, what’s taken feeds another kind of hunger.

— Thaddeus Thomas

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NOTE: Barring Norwegian Wood, I received copies of the other three books for free. Empire’s Daughter was the first of these as I manage Marian’s Book Funnel account, and I’ve since bought an additional copy of her book in another format.

by M. P. Fitzgerald

It’s easy to consider Andy Futuro a science fiction horror author. His stories are often unsettling, dripping with voice, and fit within a cyberpunk setting better than a sentient ramen noodle vending machine. You would not be wrong to call him this.

But I’m here to tell you that he’s a satirist.

And a masterful one.

Andy Futuro’s Vaquera is Johnathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal modernised. The audacity of this, if done by a less talented author, would make a Professor in English light her class on fire. Not only does he accomplish this, but sets off fireworks as he lands it.

A Modest Proposal is the gold standard of satire, and as a satirist myself, the idea of modernizing it furrows brows. The language within it may be archaic to a present-day reader, but by-and-large its contents still hit as hilarious and horrific, and though written for a specific historic context (a subjugated Ireland), its struggles of class and inhumane treatment of the impoverished ring true today. It hit then, and it hits now– so why modernize it?

Vaquera answers that question.

You got comfortable.

Fuck you.

Andy Futuro’s short story is disquieting from the open, only releasing tension for uncomfortable laughs, the story then sadly informs us that this is only second gear before ramping it up with nitros– the driver ignoring the road and looking back at you, never dropping eye contact, insisting you did this.

Vaquera is deceptively simple in its narration. This should have been the first warning that he cut the seatbelts. Told through a simple transcript of a corporate board teleconference, the story unfolds as the wealthy discuss their methods for gaslamping1 the populace as they do damage control from spreading a very visible disease before pivoting to, well, A Modest Goddamn Proposal. Know that Mr. Futuro is capable of incredible prose. His other story, 11:11, showcases the poetry the man is capable of (in 2nd POV, no less); he can, if he has the inclination, write with literary style, and here he refrains from doing so.

Why?

Because I suspect he knows that the wretched actions of the wealthy, paired in their own words, indifferent to all but the bottom line of the dollar, is the most horrific malice that could be penned to page.

One does not write A Modest Proposal simply to entertain you. It is a scream from a man watching his kin dying to a bored lifeguard to please, do something, do anything! You do not write Vaquera to warn us that in the near future the rich might eat us, you write it at the top of your lungs because they have been eating us this whole time.

And you got comfortable watching them. You let them.

Andy Futuro is having none of it.

So go get uncomfortable.

Andy Futuro

This probably isn't for you, but if it is you're going to want to subscribe right away. Science fiction, horror, and dirtbag literature. Experimental EDM.

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It was never “gaslighting”, you made that up because you are crazy.

Graphomania with M.P. Fitzgerald

The circus is here, and you forgot to lock your door: M.P. Fitzgerald writes dark-humored sci-fi for dream criminals.

Hosted by The Literary Salon:

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I just wrote a piece about how we don’t need critiques. It’s the article presented in full on the cover page of Literary Salon Magazine #1, of which this critique is a part. I think that counts as hypocrisy or hubris. Mostly hubris.

I offer or agree to do these when the emotional reaction is just right. It’s a perfect storm of love and loathing, but I see the promise in the story and the writer—and I believe it can become something worth risking a critique over.

To Stefan’s credit, when I offered to do this, I told him he should turn me down, and he didn’t. I said these tend to be painful, and the last writer was tempted to unpublish the story that same night. By the next morning, the world was okay again, but for a while, it was nothing but gloom. You don’t want this.

Stefan said he did. So here we are.

Heaven help us.

Read the story, and then come back here. Or just read the story and forget this entirely.

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This article is part of Literary Salon, issue #1. Click on the link to check out the rest of the issue, which will continue as a work-in-progress until May, 21st 2025.

The Cosmonaut part 4 by Stefan Baciu

Let’s start with what I’ve already told Stefan. The story begins in the wrong place. It’s close, and there are only three paragraphs to lose, which isn’t bad. This is the beginning:

Decades he spent in this house of the dead, decades that turn into moments in his memory, the first of all his faculties that he abandons as he begins to pray. The Hermit scratches his beard, that long white snake slithering on the ground as he stands up praying on the cool sand facing the unforgiving sunrise asking for mercy from his unknowable all-loving Lord, the ruined entrance of the tomb behind him he prostrates falling and rising like the eagles that stride through the sky.

The writing has a Cormac-McCarthy level of disdain for the comma, but this captures my attention and imagination. It’s good.

What I didn’t know at this point, is there’s a Princes Bride quality to the story—a story told within the story—and Baciu is capturing the flavor of a certain kind of book. Maybe the first three paragraphs with all its preface-style world-building is appropriate for the kind of book he’s conjuring for us. Maybe the language captures the imagined author, but I’m reminded of my rule of warning when it comes to parody.

I’ve seen writers parody boring writing, and it doesn’t come across as parody. Just boring.

When we are attempting these kinds of narrative tricks, the fundamentals don’t change. It doesn’t matter what the source we’re imitating did. We’re still committed to rewarding the reader for the investment of their time, and that means that we begin the story with the story, not a quick history of the world. Without a character of interest in a promising situation, none of that information matters.

The first job of the writer is to make us care, and this is where I begin to care. I love that “first” sentence. I’m intrigued by the character.

Personally, I’ve decided it’s dangerous to use designations like “the Hermit,” but in this case, I’ve cut everything but two paragraphs of the story-within-the-story before we get to the “real” characters. It can work.

The transition is lovely because the contrast is so deliciously high, and I have learned to serve before the throne of contrast. It’s the key to keeping your reader’s attention.

“Very interesting tale, old man, as always, you’ve surpassed yourself,” said Mr. Zaharia, taking the oars into his hand after he noticed that the sun started to set.

One of my weaknesses as a writer is delight in the nonlinear, but on a line level, even I have to admit the reader’s mind gives itself to our story through linear progression.

taking the oars into his hand after he noticed that the sun started to set.

We can dump the speech tag, and have Mr. Zaharia notice the setting sun and take up the oars. The more the mind has to piece together meaning on a line level, the more we suspect there’s something wrong with the writing. The sentence is grammatically correct. It flows, and everything it says is clear. Yet, the order of events—

Why should it matter? I agree. I wish it didn’t. Have your read my novella Warp & Woof? It embraces a nonlinear narrative like a lover and then gets arrested for indecent exposure. I wish it didn’t matter.

But just as we’re being introduced to this new setting, we’re told the story backwards and don’t know the sun setting until the end. By the time we’re invited to picture it, it’s time to move on. We no longer see the setting, but we’re told that’s why he picked up the oars.

It’s a more mundane construction, but sometimes that’s what’s required to communicate the story. Invest in clarity and the image and then contrast it with linguistic flourish in the right places. Instead of tripping over your prose, your readers will think you’re a genius.

Still lingering on this small paragraph, look for the unnecessary phrase. Our words should carry weight. If he’s taking up the oars, our readers aren’t imagining he’s doing so with his teeth. If he is, tell us that. Avoid overtly stating what’s already implied.

Also, if we were to keep the line as it is, we’d still need to correct the construction.

taking the oars into his hand after he noticed that the sun started to set.

We’re in past tense, and this contiunued use of a simple past tense fails to communicate either past or present action.

We can go with past action:

he noticed the sun had started to set.

Or we can go present:

he noticed the sun starting to set.

But the current construction is lost in time.

“Can you read some more?” asked Mara, almost jumping from her seat beside Mihai.

“It’s getting late, Princess Bolkonsky. We'd best be docking soon, or else the park administration will make us sleep on the boat,” said Mr. Zaharia as he started to row.

“Grandpa Zaharia, you know I don’t know who you’re talking about. Please stop calling me that,” said Mara with a playful pout.

“Them’s the rules, dear. You get to call me Grandpa, even though I ain’t related to you, and I get to call you Princess Bolkonsky. And why haven’t you read War and Peace yet?” asked Mr. Zaharia, starting to row. Mihai was with the Hermit and the Messenger, eyes glued to the yellow pages on which his unscipherable handwriting was laid as neatly as he could.

If we’ve dumped the speech tag in the first paragraph, Mara’s tag construction isn’t repetitive. It’s far too easy to fall into a speech-tag, gerunding pattern.

Mr. Zaharia starts to row twice here. Cut the action on the first and cut the speech tag on the second.

The final sentence fails to end properly. It would work if we added “manage” at the end. Alternatively, “as nearly as possible.” Better yet, remove the passive verb construction. “…on which he’d laid his unscipherable handwriting as neatly as he could.”

The rest of the dialogue simply needs variation in the speech tags and action, otherwise it’s a lovely little scene.

As we transition back to the story they’re telling, I love the switch in tenses. The first problem is still the tags and accompanying actions. With only two speakers, some of these quotes can hang unadorned.

The second?

The Messenger grits his teeth as he tries to hide his amazement at the Hermit’s discernment—for a sonowar must have only a handful of feelings and show none.

In the opening section, we went from the preface-like material (which we’ve cut) to a focus on the Hermit and the arrival of the Messenger. The reading stops, and when it picks up again, the scene is being told from the Messenger’s point of view. There’s nothing here to make a transition like that work, and because the introduction of the Hermit is the most powerful image thus far, we don’t want to lose it to focus on the Messenger.

Does the scene work if we move it to the Hermit’s POV? I think we can lose the Messenger’s thoughts and be just fine.

The final problem with the section is ironic. It ends with tagless speech, but the Messenger’s last statements were broken into two paragraphs with their own tags and actions. (That’s a problem. The mind anticipates the new paragraph is a new speaker.) We then get a paragraph in the Messenger’s mind, and then the only unadorned speech, yet…and this time, I can’t be sure who’s speaking.

Then we move to another layer of story within a story within a story, reaching Inception-level complexities, and I love it.

My first piece of advice for this section is the break that ends it. Your nonfiction can survive being interrupted with reminders to subscribe. Fiction cannot. I’m not sure if it’s really a break, and when we land on the other side, I don’t know who’s speaking or where we are. Confusion is deadly in fiction.

But we’re not there yet.

Brigg was still absorbed in his manuscript, dusting off some sand that the Messenger had scattered with his oil-bike. He studied the dark etchings left by the new typewriter on the fine white paper, like a wizard poring over runes of eldritch knowledge.

I love surreal imagery, but the reader is still trying to understand where we are and what’s going on. The sand imagery is more confusion.

The speech again. We need variation. If the readers anticipate the construction of our setences, they’re bored and we’re doomed.

We return to the story:

“I came to ask for your counsel, but I am willing to leave with your head if you keep offending the honor of the Padahar.” His fist was clenched—and so was his heart.

We’re cutting back, only to lead with a pronoun, and we’ve changed POVs again into something more external and godlike, capable of knowing the Messenger’s heart was closed. Then we return to the Messenger’s point of view.

The conversation here is why I wanted to critique this story. It caught my attention, but we need to pull it out of the character’s head. Make the character’s talk real. Consider keeping it in the Hermit’s POV. Work on that speech tag / action variation.

This also brings us back to what the in-story author was saying. Give us some action at the end of the section—not violence, as that wouldn’t be appropiate for the framing. The Hermit already has Christ-like allusions. You could have him write in the sand as he speaks. If he’s a magician, he could conjure a flower out of the lifeless dune as a metaphorical backdrop to his words.

This is your chapter’s climactic moment. Keep it focused. You’re going in multiple directions, throwing in the burning of students, and the reader doesn’t know what’s important. The Hermit’s final words are about the young dying for the ideas of the old, but he’s not talking about the sonawars being murdered if they catch a cold. Or is he? It felt like he’s referring to war, but there’s not much certainty here. Focus and bring clarity to the point all this had led up to.

That point needs to reflect back on the details you brought up in the section with the author. What stands out in my mind are the mention of the Nazis, the talk about the difficulty in capturing our intent in art, and the author’s love of the pulps from his youth. Now within the fantasy world, they’re at war. There’s your connection to the Nazis. The Messenger mindset could be emphasized to capture the pulp’s worship of action and violence, and if we give the POV to the Hermit, we could see his struggle to impart truth to the Messenger, the intent being lost on the closed mind of the Messenger.

I strongly suggest a focus on the imagination of the Hermit, because that’s your most obvious, overarching theme in all the layers of the story. It’s a tale about the conflict between creativity and violence and what our minds can birth in a place of peace. Everything you’ve been setting up needs to resonate here. This isn’t the time to throw in something entirely new.

“I want to know what happens next,” Mara said, as she saw her father pull into the parkway with his brand-new Dacia 1310. She knew he wouldn’t get out of the car for anything—just honk—because Mr. Zaharia made him uneasy. The air was grey with dusk, and the seagulls circled Casa Scânteii like the vultures of Planet Ephraim. Lenin’s statue watched over them like the Hermit watched the vastness of the desert.

The imagery from the story blending into the previous section didn’t work, but it works beautifully here. I love the final twist in the identity of the old man, and we end with a focus, once again, on imagination and art (storytelling).

This story has so much that’s good in it, and it has the potential for more. Best of all, it’s trying to say something. Actually, it’s trying to say a little too much. Focus, and it will be powerful.

Before I end this, allow me to say that in the brief time we’re with Mr. Zaharia and Mara, I really enjoy their interaction and the greater world it suggests. They are delightful.

—Thaddeus Thomas

Pablo asked if I’d take a look at the WIP he posted, and I quickly saw his piece as something I wanted to write about, as it gave me a chance to talk about attempting something brave and difficult in fiction.

It’s not easy to take feedback, and part of that difficulty is the author’s common duality that vacillates between insisting we’re the greatest writer who ever lived and the worst who ever lived. Anything that suggests we’re not better than Shakespeare leaves us worse than the hairball spewed by Dan Brown’s cat. Intellectually, we know better. Emotionally, we know nada. It’s not easy.

Nor is it easy to give feedback. For one, each and every one of us believes we know more than we do and also less than we do. (Notice a trend?) We are absolutely certain about things we’re entirely wrong about, but our most ignorant opinions are usually based on a reality we’ve sensed within the story, something we’re reacting to but have failed to identify, let alone solve. A clever author can see past our limits and understand the underlying problem.

If only we were more consistently clever, this would be so much easier.

Let’s talk about Cavadonga.

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Now, let’s discuss: Cavodanga.

Read: Cavadonga.

I love how this story opens. The rhythm of the writing becomes the music in the club, and I can feel the movement of their dance. The writing is sensual and smooth.

Baez is clearly someone who’s worked at perfecting his art. He takes chances and attempts things that novice writers have been told can’t be done. It’s against the rules. Stop. You can’t do that. Here are the rules. Follow them.

Baez head hops, and yes, you can head hop—as long as you can pull it off. He’s writing from a god’s-eye-view, knowing truths about numerous characters that none of the POV characters would know, and his is an intimate god. This isn’t removed and cold. He’s in their heads and in their heads and in their heads.

Baez ignores the white-space rules that help is delineate differences and switch between characters.1 He’ll move from her POV to his in a single paragraph, and the fact that he’s breaking rules is the point. Usually, I’d say that the only rule that matters is that what works rules, but thinking about this story has changed my mind. That’s the ultimate goal. Yes. But until a story is in its final form, it really doesn’t matter if something doesn’t work. The attempt is what matters, and then—if it’s not working—the solution.

Here’s a thought for you. What makes a great writer? One answer is the willingness to make the attempt and then the effort to avoid the easy solution. The easiest solution is to follow every rule you originally and intentionally broke. The lazy solution is to take something brilliant but fatally flawed and replace it with something boring that works. The choice to follow the rule you broke can be legitimate, and perhaps Baez would do well to occasionally take the easy path and follow the rules. That’s not the go-to solution, however. If you’re making the effort to do something different, then figure out how to make it work.

You Might Deserve Compensation

You can break the rules, but usually, you can’t just break the rules. Your reader may need for your style to accomplish what the regular rules would usually handle. We’ve seen this exemplified in the works of Cormac McCarthy. His heavy use of conjunctions compensates for his lack of commas. His frequent use of backwoods dialogue helps distinguish between speaker and narrator, even without quotation marks.

Baez’s story opens with the seeming promise of an easy, sensual, literary read—but that’s not really what’s going on. Instead, he’s offered us an assurance that he knows what he’s doing so that we’ll have reason to give him the benefit of the doubt when the story starts to challenge us.

This is where the challenge begins, but the question is whether Baez has compensated for the rules he’s broken, and (if not) can the reader survive without a little grace?

Their eyes held by the invisible bridge of energy that ran straight from their stomach. Could he be more than a one night stand? How can you tell? (1)

You want to dip out?, as he danced. Say yes, baby. I shouldn’t be out. Whatever, I ain’t scared… (2)

What?, she heard him. She turned and parked it up, as she looked back at him, and pressed some more. Letting go made her feel pleased, soon to be satisfied, she hoped. Please, God, let this one be a good one for me. (3)

Un Hijo en la Disco by Jowell y Randy feat Casa de Leones started to blast through the speakers.

Buy me a drink?

He heard her crisp and clear. Eyeing the floor. Spotted the bar. What do you drink?, he raised his voice, and lightly grabbed her elbow. She likes feeling his touch on her skin. (4)

I don’t drink beer, papi. She ground on him, jean on cotton skirt, everything up a la Lazarus. Blood flowing. She felt him, that isn’t metal. Hairs on end her skin tightened.

Ok, I’ll be right back, he smirked. (5)

(Note: I switch to address the author directly as I comment.)

(1) This is a good transition into her intimate first-person headspace.

(2) Until just this moment, I thought the italics were his thoughts as they’re connected to his speech and actions. They make more sense coming from her, though. If we’re still in her head, then follow the white-space rules here. If they’re his, it’s too soon. We just entered her headspace.

(3) All of this is making sense based on the new interpretation of part 2. The failure to distinguish between his actions and her thoughts had me really confused, but make space in part 2 and all of this section works.

(4) We’re going to be head hopping, and you need to train your reader for that. The question we’ll have to answer is whether this is the way to do it. Now we’re in his head space. “He heard her crisp and clear.” At the end of the paragraph, we break white-space rules again, smashing in her POV. Respect the white space.

Additional note: The sentence in her POV slips into present tense.

(5) Another rule you’re breaking is using speech tags (see comma) with actions that aren’t speech. However, your rule-breaking punctuation signals the intent.

Section summary: Respect white-space rules and carefully consider if those few words in his POV are the right introduction to the head hopping. Watch for switches in tense. A couple of paragraphs later: “the island-bar is set…”

I play with tenses. It’s legit to do so, even if the standard rule is to maintain past tense even if you’re speaking of things which continue to be true. However, unless this serves a story purpose, I’d just follow the rule as the reader is challenged well enough as it is.

Note:

Her stare followed him as he swam through the crowd, and ran her tongue over her bottom lip, and took a soft bite.

Her stare ran her tongue over her bottom lip and took a soft bite? This needs fixing.

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The Last Defender Against Chaos and Confusion

At this point, the story is transitioning away from our original POV couple, and this is another key point in teaching the reader how to understand the story.

Can I get two Don Q with a splash of scotch and bitters—I want two whiskeys—What is it that I’m drinking?—Can I get a um—the shaker shook, the ice chilled the shaker in the bartender’s hands, she took and expedited the orders as swift as the men that sneaked their heaters inside their companies purse—the walls washed green. The bartender scoped the bar—her attention stopped on a man with a fitted cap, a cuban links chain, shaved, full tattoo sleeve, and two diamond earrings; strobes.

As your reader, when I get to the dialog (which has no internal guide to establish the speakers), I’m going to assume it’s the original couple speaking. I assumed it was the man ordering for them. In reality, this is snatches of orders from various customers, and I don’t see this working at this point in the story. Cut the dialog, focus on the bartender. (You don’t have to call her “the bartender” the second time. The focus is still confidently on her.)

There is a sweep of attention you’re bringing us through here that works really well without the dialogue, but with it, the reader is lost. The confusion over the dialog has kept us fixed on the couple when you’re trying to deftly guide our attention away.

Let’s go back to point (4), as that was the only moment that you dipped deeply into his POV. I say it doesn’t work. Stay with his partner until you transition through the bartender.

They moved towards the VIP section.

You’re transitioning your reader and need to be careful. I’m assuming “they” references the bottle girls, and making the reader assume what the pronoun signifies is a mistake you can’t afford with the moves you’re making.

You transition into the dialog of the man speaking to the Ukrainian well, but her internal thought doesn’t work. It’s not clear, and that lack of clarity adds nothing to your work but confusion:

One more year for this nightmare to be over, mused the Ukrainian.

It’s a clunky line in an otherwise graceful paragraph.

Respect the white space when you transition to the other bottle girl. Also, the reason given for the footballer’s presence takes away from the clarity of the sentence, and you can’t afford a lack of clarity.

Mist—laser lights shot through everything and everyone—Black fit cap, man, not drinking. Full BBL on the face of the man with the dead stare, her curves drew in looks, his attention displayed in how he scanned the crowd. He smacked her ass, and continued to scan. Xavi, Xavi… let me catch you lacking, sato… , he wished, cock half hard. In that pool of flesh, the woman he came in with, adjusted her cinched dress as she moved, and made her way to the bar. (1)

Get me a French 75 and a Manhattan with Rye, ordered the man with the heart that beat inside his jeans. (2)

Rocks?

Hard.

Neat. He looked back to see if she’s looking at him, and she was, but he didn’t see her, couldn’t find her.

Rye whiskey stirred in the glass, a copper swizzle stick held by well-formed photogenic hands, micro tattoos on her fingers, her brown hair up in a checkered claw clip. She looked at the man’s lips—Nice kisser, bet he’s cheap—her way of listening, she read lips. His were full, two drinks, nobody’s with him , she noticed—vigorous shakes of gin, ice, and simple syrup shake in the shaker—the tattoos, her hair, the neckline, nose piercing, fox eyes, her lips. He felt warm soft flesh press against his back, two arms shooting around his ribs, they roped him in a tender embrace. The bartender asked, 75, Rye Manhattan up? I want tequila now. Hurry up, papi. I love this song, her cotton skirt riding up. Esclava Remix by Bryant Myers played. (3)

(1) The overall effect you pull off in this section is great, but it stumbles in this paragraph, lacking clarity in introducing characters we’re meant to follow.

(1 and 2) Is the man in sentence one the man in sentence 2 and also the man with the heartbeat in his jeans? First, they better be, otherwise you’re asking me to focus in way to many directions. Second, if that’s true, then he’s the only male you’ve centered in this section. References to “the man” makes me expect you’re talking about someone new. Just use the pronoun after you’ve introduced him.

(3) I love the transition from his headspace to hers. Well played, until…

He felt warm soft flesh press against his back, two arms shooting around his ribs, they roped him in a tender embrace.

Keep with her point of view. You’re about to transition again and jumping back into his headspace now is just too much.

That transition? Now you’re moving into full tilt, one head to another. It’s good. You’ve got it, and you’ve taught us how to read.

Until this, which I loath with the heat of hell in August:

What the fuck is up, hijo e’ putas?, animated the host.

Just before that, “the man” just needs to be a pronoun:

People around eyed the man

I’d assumed the host was the man with the blunt, but I can see that’s not the case.

This is one of those moments when the lazy fix is the right one. Cut the tag. Start the paragraph with a boring introduction of the character and let us focus on the dialog. It can be a simple: The host called out,

You’re drawing attention to the wrong place.

Technically, the only thing wrong here is the missing space, but you don’t need all those commas. One or none will work:

It’s ladies night, all night,baby.

And then we’re back to “the man.” If you trust me to know what “man” you’re talking about, you give me far too much credit. How’s this for a suggestion?

Back at the bar, the man grabbed his Rye Manhattan and handed the French 75 to his newfound shortie. Jade eyes with the gold dress recognized Xavi, but not the candy next to him. She clutched her purse. Xavi recognized her.

Cut the comma in the Jade eyes sentence.

Voiced. I’m not a fan of your tags. They read like amateur work in an otherwise professional piece. Said blends into the background, just like your host. I gave it time to grow on me, but it’s not happening. The earlier tag, he smirked, is a classic beginners mistake. Smirking doesn’t create words. With all you’re trying to pull off, I gave you enough credit to ride it out and see. All I see now is it doesn’t work for me. Do with that what you will.

Here’s another habit that undermines your work. You introduce character action and follow it with someone else’s dialog. You’ve respected the white space here, but it still creates confusion where you can’t afford it.

Your descriptions and actions sing. Your tags croak like a dying frog.

Action. Dialog. Skip the tag.

And then the last paragraph you slap some random group of girls into Green Eyes’s space. I’d say white space, but you’re about to move into more dialog between the same two girls. Cut the background actors.

Green Eyes, put her left hand on the purse’s zipper, fingers like spider legs, still.

Papi, who the fuck’s this bitch? Who the fuck are you talkin’ to my man like that? You got me fucked up, hollered Xavi’s fling.

Girl step your corny-ass back. You don’t want none of this, threatened Green Eyes. Step the fuck back you nosy, ratty hair, plastic filled cheeks looking-ass ho’. One group of four girls shuffled their eyes from Xavi to Jade Eyes and said something in each other’s ear; nervous.

Next paragraph you’ve got Xavi slapped on the tail end of the girl’s dialog, and then you go into dialog that I think belongs to Green Eyes, but you’ve just focused on Xavi, so the brain wants to say this is Xavi speaking.

Say less. You looking fly, tho’—fixed on Xavi’s thick gold link chains…

Unless the argument between the girls is important, there’s too much focus here. It should be a suggestion not a dictation, and what’s the focus of this paragraph? Who’s the focus. You’re trying to navigate us from Eyes’ headspace to Xavi’s, and it isn’t working. On top of that, you’re throwing plot-important names at us.

The paragraph needs work—give it careful consideration and work.

Papi—This is good. This is the most anchoring word in the whole story. I know we’re back where we started.

But this, no:

Caging his heart, ribs contained the exhilarated organ that pumped massive amounts of its liquid, it escaped his arms and legs and went inwards: he could stay and fight or he could run and keep looking over his shoulder.

That doesn’t work.

The cut to the ginger? “He just hit?” That was forever ago. And we’re dipping into ginger’s thoughts? Nah. Cut him out of the paragraph. Focus on the couple. Get her into the bathroom.

The next paragraph is good but again, cut the ginger on the floor.

Vague. Cut:

others started their plans to capture the rappers attention.

Now you’re going full tilt again, and it’s working.

Ginger leaking urine. That works. It’s a good time to bring him back.

You’ve got us on a full tilt run to the end. You mentioned a possible section following this, but the action has strained the limits of the reader. Xavi getting to the exit is a good place to end, but we need clarity here. Tagged in the back. Did Xavi die?

If he’s dead, give us Melissa on her own for one paragraph at the close. Give us somewhere to land and to understand where this has left us. If he’s alive, give us one paragraph with him—and no one else’s POV.

The full tilt is confusing but not in a bad way, but we need some clarity to close.

Closing Thoughts

When breaking the rules, sometimes we have to set priorities. What experimentation matters most and why? Here, the important aspect is the head-hopping. The story depends on it, and all other aspects serve its purpose.

That means some of the rule breaking I was originally willing to give some space to prove itself, I had to advise against in the end. The story needs clarity, and some choices undermine that clarity.

The story is beautifully written and exciting both in terms of the story it tells and the form the story takes in the telling. In this case, the form is all about head-hopping.

— Thaddeus Thomas

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New! Weekly Flash Fiction for Paid Subscribers—these won’t be emailed to you, but you’ll find the link in my regular posts. Here’s a tiny piece of horror: No One to Blame.

Some time ago I wrote a piece and called it Putting the Zing in Your Long Action. It was about writing cumulative sentences in the manner of Hemingway and as championed by Brooks Landan. It was popular and drove several subscriptions. No one complained, but I realized rather late that people might have been expecting something different from that title.

So now, I’m writing about action.

But first, you have a story to read: Balthazar: The King of Killers.

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Now let’s cut to the action.

Did you read the story? Seriously that’s a prerequisite, and reading it is a class in its own right.

Burnt Tongue

The King of Killers

Andrew Robert Colom asked me a question in a podcast about how we compete with video game violence…

Read more

a year ago · 24 likes · 23 comments · Emil Ottoman

I think Emil Ottoman called this a 0 draft, meaning it’s not polished, but he’s sharing the fruits of his labor with us all the same. It’s the action which draws us, and that’s where Emil achieved something I called:

The Proustian John Wick

Excluding the preamble of murmurs, the introduction to the battle comes through an elevator ride that’s made interesting in its old fashioned style and in the character of the operator. The theme of time is touched upon as well, but the story officially begins as Belthazaar steps out into the hall:

I take from this piece five suggestions, which I’m just going to give you up front because I’ve skimmed too many articles looking for the points being made. Hmmm. Bullet points. That seems appropriate:

• Suggestion number one: don’t feel rushed. Narrative time and story time are not the same.

• Suggestion number two: define the objective and the obstacles in the way.

• Suggestion number three: let us feel the villain and the stakes.

• Suggestion number four: the details of the action are less important than how those moments feel.

• Suggestion number five: action is an expression of character, tone, and setting.

See what other essays I have to offer:

I’ve given you my intended structure—now I suppose I’m free to toss it out and write this any way I choose.

An Action Autopsy

Our characters are Balthazaar, Vlad (our dude in distress), our villain Bosch and his henchmen. We pause before the upcoming action to have a moment between Bal and Vlad whose chess discussion relates thematically to the upcoming action.

We see the connection between the men and a debt Bal owes. Vlad isn’t so much teaching him about chess as he is about violence. Bal is thinking six moves ahead when what he needs to do is recognize the patterns and act. We’re given so much here, in understanding the action, the character, and his relationship with the one under threat.

I’m not sure what I think of the choice to hold back the revelation that Vlad is the one who needs saving, but those uncertain choices in a 0 draft aren’t why we’re here.

Emil holds on to that slowed time as he describes Bal and gets into his head.

Bal’s attitude toward killing is tied to Vlad discussing the art (or lack thereof) in chess:

And all of this happens in the time it takes Bal to step out of the elevator and into the hallway, and his killing of the guards at the elevator is the first real action.

Balthazar flips a Benchmade Infidel out his coat sleeve, the spring loaded blade sliding from the handle into place as it enters his grip, an extension of himself. His weight shifts right foot heavy, arm an extension of his shoulder, viper fast, and the infidel cuts every bit of the right side guard’s throat from near his spine forward. Can’t even gargle on the way down. Before the dead man’s knees hit ground Balthazar’s weight has shifted to his left foot, pushing off with his right. Black Nitrile hand over startled mouth, ten stab wounds and a finale up through neck, blade popping out of throat on the inside. Hand over mouth, knife in place, he eases the man down to the ground slow like.

No noise. Any noise, and this is blown.

The light thump on the carpet of the other man dropping reads as background.

The details here are precise and intentional, but the accumulative importance isn’t that you know exactly what Bal did and how these men died. The significance is Bal’s mastery. The feeling is surgical, calm, and swift. The feeling is death as art, which is the character’s intent.

More cinematic slow-motion description introduces the first of the guns and ties that gun back to Vlad. We mustn’t forget Vlad.

Emil moves us into Bal’s assessment of his environment, which reveals as much about the character as it does the length and width of the hallways.

From there, Emil takes us through the violence like chess played by an artist, but the important work has already been done. We’ve slowed time down to understand the situation and experience the first few kills. The narrative can speed up now without losing us.

And then for the climactic showdown, the action itself slows down. The reader has a chance to re-orient herself and to wonder how Bal will get out of this one—hopefully with Vlad still alive.

• don’t feel rushed. Narrative time and story time are not the same.

• define the objective and the obstacles in the way.

• let us feel the villain and the stakes.

• the details of the action are less important than how those moments feel.

• action is an expression of character, tone, and setting.

One of the techniques Emil uses in this second half is the splitting of asides between bits of action, as if the narrator’s been interrupted by the speed of the action. It allows for more insight with shorter, more punctuated interruptions to action.

And these interruptions hide the fact that action isn’t inherently interesting. We love everything around the action—the suspense, the horror, or the absolute coolness (depending on the character and the tone)—but punching and shooting gets old really quick.

A standard piece of advice with an action scene is to structure it with three acts. Emil weighs that first act heavy because that’s where much of the anticipation and uncertainty lies. Once we get a feeling for how untouchable this guy is, some of the suspense will be lost, but Emil keeps that a purely hypothetical problem by moving us quickly through a chess-structured second act that’s peppered with a killer’s insights.

The third acts upsets this certainty by having Bal reach the end of his ability to see patterns and react. He kills his way to the door, and that’s where everything becomes a greater uncertainty. The suspense returns.

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The Author’s Side

Let’s talk with , himself, and see what he has to say about this masterwork of action:

Love it. Excellent breakdown work. And... creepy good insights into how I actually DO work my action sequences....

There's more context to the chess game, Vlad is the pattern recognition machine because he's the professional soldier, Balthazar is already the artist way back then, (the age of these characters is all very indeterminate because the hotel is a very strange place indeed.) Vlad plays chess as a pure professional does, Balthazar is the artist in both instances, the reason he can't beat Vlad in chess is because he's always trying the more artful move. Vlad is just playing to win. But Balthazar is playing to play. The concept of thinking of the final hallway as a chess board, that's creative. Vlad would have done what a warfighter does. He would have either committed to the hallway from a full turn and started popping everyone, or (It's established earlier) He would toss a grenade around the corner, he's a pragmatist and literal warfighter, Balthazar is the king of killers because he is the top assassin AND Van Gogh at the same time.

Bosch IS Balthazar's literal opposite. You got that right. If you read ALL the WIP fragments on my Substack, you'll know the terrain. They're all right there, nobody has read them, and then I just posted king of killers because I wanted to show some good action.

I could have just as well used one of the Lost and Founds.

Actually, there's one of the Lost and Founds that shows how Vlad works as opposed to Balthazar. (There's a lot up to King of killers, which is technically wip 6) Lot of toss off sentences of Vlad casually turning people's heads inside out at close range while following his wife, (because that action is supposed to be boring, for him it's just a Tuesday) who is out of her mind on cocaine, being haunted by one of the ghosts in the hotel, and also sort of a witch. (Also, a scene where Xenia, his wife, beats a whore, one of three sisters, to death with the blunt end of a Stoli bottle because she is insulted by the whore. I'm the reason there's a moratorium on killing stock characters in the Hotel, because I killed one in like, my third story, in the most brutal manner possible. By having her head pounded into the lobby carpet by an angry six foot tall Chechen killer high on a quarter ounce of blow.) (A LOT of these WIPS will receive MAJOR overhauls in light of everything that got published in the hotel last year.) Xenia's lobby assault uses a different framing device, I put it on a clock, the clock is David Bowie performing Moonage Daydream live in Santa Monica 1971, I wrote the scene to the song, restarting the song every time I wanted there to be a break. If you start the song when it says in the story, and read at a medium pace, the end of the song lines up relatively well with the end of the action sequence.

—Emil Ottoman

— Thaddeus Thomas