posted
This is a 10,000-word piece I'm writing for my Master's degree. Each section is headed by the person who narrates it, so this first section is headed 'Tim'. This is SF/noir.
MONSTER
Tim
Monster smells of lavender and cumin. She is cold, ice cold, as she ties Carrot to the legs of the workbench. Those things are bolted into the floor, so he’s not moving. And she looks rational, like she does this at breakfast every morning. Pours herself a glass of orange, the pulpy kind, and takes herself a bunch of hostages whilst waiting for the toast to brown.
She butters the toast with a machete.
Of course, we’re not hostages.
She puts the barrel of the gun against my temple and says, ‘Where’d you put it?’
Sweat pours down my face. She’s close enough to count the droplets; she knows I’m ****ting bricks. I can feel my face burn red. That’s the blood rushing to my brain, loaded with adrenaline.
posted
That beginning is VERY effective. Two things, though:
1)Carrot is the name of a popular character in Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, and that might throw some readers, possibly.
2)Is the entire thing like this? I know this is for a class and everyone with a degree hates passive voice, but if you write the whole thing as stark and creepy as this, it will lose effectiveness.
Chuck Pahluniak (sp.) did something similar with different narrators with very different voices, that might be what you are going for. (Which creates a tension between being derivitive and weakening your own work by trying to avoid it, because that's the most obvious way to make the serial narrators thing work well.) I think it would be healthier, if so, not to go TOO far different with each character.
By far the best thing I have read all week. At first I though that it reminded me of something that I have read. Then I thought that I had actually read it before. Then I realized that I just wanted to read it. Do send a link when it is published. Or if you need a reader sign me up.
posted
Wow! Thanks, guys. These are really encouraging comments.
Feathersnow: Yes, I see the Palahniuk similarities. And yes, I was intending for different sections to have different narrators. I really wanted to introduce 'Monster' through the eyes of others first, so she's painted as horrific and deformed. But then I wanted to later invert this, with her girlfriend describing the same horrific body in beautiful terms, and with Monster narrating enough sections that we empathise with her.
Monster, BTW, is the protagonist, not the bad guy. I just felt that the best way to describe her in monstrous terms was not for her to introduce herself, but for someone else to do it for us.
I will certainly send the piece on once it's done.
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