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This opening works on me. I'm not sure it works for me or not. I feel its strengths and shortcomings are in a balance, neither quite leading the other. One of the more appealing qualities for me is also one of the drawbacks. This reads like an English second language voice, like a second-degree translation that is both delightful and awkward to read.
The first sentence feels out of place, an action summary, a tell. Checking a watch for the time seems to me a nonvolitional act, an impluse often used in prose to express anxiety, also in the real world an impulsive action to cover an emotional reaction. Does Kang Kun Hee consciously (volitionally) check the time? Is he a strong subject of that action or expression? Doesn't it feel like narrator voice and then the next two sentences are character voice? And now-a-days, aren't cell phones used more often instead as timekeepers?
Time used in subject position, for example: His watch read midnight. Time, Kang Hun Hee thought. . . .
Though I think the sentence fragment interjection "Time." is in free direct thought, it sets up expressing character voice without the thought tag and smoothly flows into the folllowing free direct thought. That's strong writing. The first sentence is closer to narrator voice, making this opening feel a little unsettled from unnecessary switching back and forth between character and narrator voice.
Similarly, the fourth sentence, "He maneuvered the car into a tight parking space on a narrow street in Shin Jeju." feels like narrator voice. Might a more dramatic scenario be in character voice, experiencing parking frustration and reacting emotionally so the flow from Kang's thoughts to his external sensations goes forward smoothly? If he's driving and checking the time, late, might not parking be more than tight and narrow? A nuisance? Tight and narrow parking maneuvers summarize from narrator voice what Kang cannot see. They tell readers information that might be expressed more artfully from closer in Kang's viewpoint.
The rest of the paragraph flows much more artfully, smoothly, and dramatically. Kang emotionally expresses the sensations he experiences and emotionally reacts to them. Though "Slurred voices of drunk tourists stumbled down the alleyways running from the nightclub like vines." is a little jumbled. What is the main subject? Slurred voices, drunken tourists, or alleyways? "Running from the nightclub like vines" is the dependent clause modifying which subject? The mental image I get is drunk voices stumble down the alleyways and the tourists run from the nightclub like vines.
The three three-name characters with similar hard-consonant sounds makes them too much alike for me to easily distinguish in the moment and remember for later who's who. Full names in chapter seven? I imagine these characters have been inroduced before; chapter seven is a little late to introduce an entire new cast of characters. Is not Kang at least introduced earlier? His intimate at times thoughts imply he is.
The second paragraph returns to narrator voice without a transition and is all tell. The first sentence a summary tell; the second sentence a summary (Kang doesn't see himself step) and static tell (looking verb saw, Kang cannot see himself look). Are Song and Kim just sitting (static)? Maybe they're covertly observing Kang come in or aggressively playing dominoes or Mahjhong or Go, they emotionally react to Kang's arrival, and Kang emotionally reacts to their wasting time, as Kang had priorly reacted to other mortals wasting their time.
The third sentence is the most awkward. Can a café stand? I know the idiom to stand still's meaning. But stood empty? I feel like that's trying for the delightful awkwardness of a slanted metaphor, but it evokes an image of a crowd standing around frozen, like Song and Kim are frozen as well. "Besides the two of them" is an awkward pronoun referent placed to suggest the café is the pronoun phrase's subject. Maybe a comma after "empty" and omitting the one following "them" would clarify the inverted dependent clause's meaning "The café stood empty, besides the two of them and a hunched backed ajuma in colorful shawls working behind the counter." Or recast into conventional syntax: //Besides the two of them, the café stood empty.//
The last clause of the last sentence reads a little awkwardly too. The ajuma is the only character in the café who is not static at the moment Kang stops (static) at the entrance to take in the café's setting. "Hunched backed" is unconventional; hunchbacked is standard. Either way, the concluding sentence clause's position and dynamic action implies the ajuma will be more important to Kang than Song or Kim, who he came to see.
I feel like this chapter's opening is the strongest I've read so far, from more dynamic and dramatic description and closer narrative distance to the central character of the chapter: Kang. I'm conflcted by the delight and awkwardness of a seeming English second language voice that bumps and stalls me as I read. In the balance, I see stronger writing blunted by shortcomings that pull me out of the story.
I'm curious about the chapter title "Stone." This opening seems to be about time. Connecting the title and the motif or theme of time I feel needs to be done soon if not in the thirteen lines so that the title's relevance enhances the opening and the chapter's meaning to the whole.
quote: Either way, the concluding sentence clause's position and dynamic action implies the ajuma will be more important to Kang than Song or Kim, who he came to see.
Hey wow, yeah, I'm surprised you caught this. The ajuma kills him at the end of this chapter, but the two other characters don't discover this until later. The emphasis on time in this first 13 is supposed to have it all feel like a full circle at the chapter's conclusion. Everyone's life is finite, even Kun Hee's, who thinks he has an eternity of it.
And it's called 'Stone' because this chapter introduces a key way to destroy the things that Kang Hun Hee, Song Ji Hun, and Kim Jung Hyun are.
quote:Full names in chapter seven? I imagine these characters have been inroduced before; chapter seven is a little late to introduce an entire new cast of characters. Is not Kang at least introduced earlier? His intimate at times thoughts imply he is
Others have noted this in previous chapters. It's because in the Western world we put the emphasis on our first names. In the Asian world, particularly Korea, the emphasis is on the last name, so it's common for even friends, when speaking to each other, to say the full name. The group is more important than the individual.
Hey, thanks for the details of this critique. I'll post a rewrite here eventually.
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quote: Either way, the concluding sentence clause's position and dynamic action implies the ajuma will be more important to Kang than Song or Kim, who he came to see.
Hey wow, yeah, I'm surprised you caught this. The ajuma kills him at the end of this chapter, but the two other characters don't discover this until later. The emphasis on time in this first 13 is supposed to have it all feel like a full circle at the chapter's conclusion. Everyone's life is finite, even Kun Hee's, who thinks he has an eternity of it.
I read closely in the moment. The more dynamic ajuma I felt either was a deliberate signal or an unintentional one.
I interact with people of many cultures, so I know oriental name conventions fairly well, like surnames come before given names and the importance those societies place on group cooperation. In my interactions with Westerners, there is a push for formal familiarity using given names. I'm old school, though. More formal until informal is appropriate. I use honorific titles and surnames for persons in superior positions even though they may be younger, subordinate in other ways, out of respect for their positions, though I will use given names in appropriate settings, mostly social and personal ones instead of professional and public ones.
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quote: More formal until informal is appropriate. I use honorific titles and surnames for persons in superior positions even though they may be younger, subordinate in other ways, out of respect for their positions, though I will use given names in appropriate settings, mostly social and personal ones instead of professional and public ones.
I think I get you. It's hard to explain, but they treat the last name here in the same manner as we treat the first name. It doesn't have to do with ones standing to the individual you're communicating with, nor is it done out of a sense of respect, or formality/informality.
I'll be out with Koreans, and we'll all be totally smashed, and someone will turn to their friend and say, "Kang Kun Hee!", using the full name, last name first. It's really just this different way in which you have to look at a person's name.
It's funny, I'm racking my brain for an appropriate comparison back home, but nothing really comes close. America is a country of individualism, Korea is a country of collectivism. This novel I'm writing, though supernatural/horror, is built around that concept of Korean collectivism.
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posted
The Z Generation in the U.S. is emerging as a more collborative social group than those who came before, mine included. But they use given names in most settings. It's a little odd and upsetting since their given names especially of Caucasians are often so similar it's challenging to tell who's who. Brandon, Justin, Allen, Steven; Martie, Cyndie, Katie, Stephanie, for example. Black folk names have turned to creative conventions, like -titia suffixes for females, and -ionte suffixes for males. Kim, Lee, and such for Orientals. Hamad and Mohamed for Arabs and Persians. Female Middle Eastern given names are more challenging, since they are prohibited from interacting with non-family male gentiles, like me. Russian given names have common -sha suffixes, Sasha, for example. And Latin peoples tend toward very long names, Illian del Norto de la Herndez Vasquez Allyon. The male honorific del Norto given first there since Allyon is the more aristocratic lineage.
Animacy, one's relational standing to others is a subtle and profound aspect I'm intrigued by. Looser social strictures favoring informality and intimacy used to be among peer cohorts. Familiarity has spread across Western culture boundaries with the rise of democracy and republicanism's egalitarian ideals, expressed in different ways in different cultures, but there's still a legacy of nominative and hierarchal status expression underlying individual identity expression. Social ranking principles just take on different expression. Humans, after all, are social beings, Belonging to a culture group matters and status within the group still matters.
What's in a name, eh? Damon Knight espouses a few insightful name convention principles in Creating Short Fiction.
posted
I liked it. It flowed nicely, and the psychic distance was pretty good. Some suggestions:
Give me a specific name for the cafe. The name would tell me something about the place he is headed. Some cafe or a cafe would be good for a place of no more consequence than it is an element of the overall scene, but this is the place he is headed. And maybe tighten up that sentence a bit. It reads like a stumble when it should be setting a pending scene.
I didn't like the mixed metaphor for the tourists' voices. 1. It draws the focus tightly on some side ambiance item. 2. Voices don't do that.
When you give me all three of the vp character's names, it does two things: 1. Makes the fact that the character is asian feel like a self-conscious author's choice. 2. Makes him more distant and harder to relate to.
I hope my comments are helpful. I'd be interested to see what happens next.
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