The B&B Writers Thread - The Bear and Badger

Dark Soldier

Cheers for the advice, Nick's already replied because he's a don so will see how it goes. Its just the basics really, how to layer samples into a song, some technical terms etc. Won't be mentioning software names and that as its a minefield.

Would be interested in reading it tiger, I had a similar stab at something akin to it a while back (mine was based around giants) but it came out a mess so I abandoned it.

Tempy

DandB Sound Studio eh

Dark Soldier

Sadly can't do DnB as it'd need to be a popular track

Tempy

Here's a weird one I am going to indulge myself on. I reviewed Alien: Covenant for the Uni mag. The initial review was around 500-ish words long. The editor liked it and wanted it in the magazine itself, saying the full review could go online. This was after I had also expanded my initial review to about 900 words for my own entertainment. So now I have 3 reviews of Alien: Covenant, that are all different lengths, and that exercised different skills. There are spoilers obviously so I'll understand if people don't fancy reading them right away, but if you're interested in entertaining me which do you think is best, and why? The opinion of "they're all shite mate" is valid too.

Original Mid-length review:

Spoiler:

The Alien series is on balance as much about creation as it is about destruction. Prometheus attempted to steer the narrative away from genre archetypes that previous films relied on, instead focusing on Scott’s pet topic of man’s origin. The result of the attempt to square the history of the franchise against this new direction means that the overarching narrative has now reached MCU levels of baffling, with its twisted self-referential story, and a repetition of certain formulaic elements.

Covenant falls foul of these issues, ultimately robbing itself of any purpose as it is simply a stepping stone for a larger story. The film opens with Weyland (Guy Pearce) having a portentous conversation about mankind and their legacy with his uncanny artificial son (Michael Fassbender). We then skip forward to see a later android model, Walter (also Fassbender), attempting to correct a failure that threatens the lives of the cryogenically frozen colonists on the titular ship.

The disaster takes out the ship’s captain, who is also the husband of this film’s female centrepiece, Daniels. Katherine Waterston handles the central role well, largely playing up to the role created by Weaver’s Ripley - one of the many elements of previous films that are needlessly referenced. The crew are littered with famous faces like Danny McBride’s Tennessee and Billy Crudup’s Oram who both cause friction as their respective camaraderie and faith clash with their responsibilities, ostensibly justifying the rash decisions various members make later on.

Scott’s handling of pacing is tight, and the framing often beautiful as the planet's lush, harsh scenery lends a more feral slant to proceedings. The action that commences at planet fall is a heady mix of dread, gleeful body horror and abrupt violence. A cloaked stranger eventually rescues the crew and leads them to a desolate ruin which is a mix of the hellscapes of Bosch and the ruins of Pompeii, littered with allusions to Dore’s art for Paradise Lost.

It’s clear that these classical references are not just skin deep, with a meeting between synthetic brothers allowing Michael Fassbender to dip his toe into some delightful thespian onanism over the meaning of existence. David teaches Walter how to play the flute (coming dangerously close to Bacall’s famous “you know how to whistle, don’t you Steve?”) and the pair batter through a bevy of aphorisms and other ostentatious literary quotations.

As with Prometheus, the theme of the fall of man is mused on heavily, with the planet acting as a spoiled Eden, ruined by a single infraction. Walter suggests to David that one note out of order can send a whole symphony crashing down, and it’s a line that lingers in the mind long after the film. Does it fully justify some of the baffling decisions made by members of the crew or is it just a reference that’s specific to android’s battle of wits?

Scott makes it hard to tell as so much of Covenant is retreading old ground, but there’s definitely a greater desire to play with the DNA of the series here, and the franchise seems to be simply slowing this evolution down.

Indulgent, Tempy length review.

The short, torture and heavily edited review:

Spoiler:

The Alien series is on balance as much about creation as it is about destruction. Prometheus steered the narrative away from the genre archetypes of previous entries, instead focusing on man’s cosmic origin. Squaring Alien’s cinematic legacy against a new direction resulted in MCU levels of twisted self-referential plotting, and a recycling of formal elements.

Covenant falls foul of the same, robbing itself of purpose, a bullet point in a larger plot. The film opens with Weyland (Guy Pearce) in a tone setting conversation about the origin of man with his artificial son, David (Michael Fassbender). We then skip forward to the titular colony ship as disaster strikes, with Walter (also Fassbender) waking the crew into action.

A grim death leaves Daniels battling between grief and duty and Katherine Waterston embraces the role deftly, playing up to the no-nonsense attitude of Ripley, and Scott’s directing is exceptional as expected.

The planet's lush, harsh scenery lends a more feral slant to proceedings than prior entries. The initial but inevitable encounter hostile, parasitic life is the precise mix of dread, gleeful body horror and abrupt violence the series is celebrated for. A swift change of scenery to a city that looks like Pompeii spliced with Dore’s art for Paradise Lost takes us on a more existential tack however.

The classical allusions are played upon as a meeting between synthetic brothers allows Fassbender to engage in some delightful thespian onanism. The pair batter through a bevy of aphorisms and other ostentatious literary quotations, which is as pretentious as it is raucous, revelling in existential cogitation.

Covenant plays to these themes better than Prometheus, but is shackled by rote Alien action. Walter assesses David’s possible madness, saying that one wrong note in a symphony can cause it to fall apart. It’s a line that lingers in the mind long after the film, not fully justifying some the baffling decisions made by the crew, but retroactively drawing attention David and Weyland’s Paradise Lost style relationship .

So much of Covenant is retreading old ground, and despite a greater desire to play with the DNA of the series here, the banal hangup of paying homage to earlier entries simply slows a potentially aggressive evolution down.

Tempy

I'd probably put less work into this shit if I got paid, ha. If you could also HIT THAT DAMN LIKE BUTTON on the medium post, that would be rad.

Dark Soldier

I would if it didn't link to here.

Tempy

FUCK

Edit: should be fixed, the WYSIWYG editor is being a real cunt

tigersgogrrr

Will read when I'm home (from the zoo yay). Should also have a finished short to share with any luck.

tigersgogrrr

The First Train from Dorasan.
Kinda weird-fiction. Please tell me what doesn't work. It's quite indulgent I've been doing this enough to take it if you hate it. It's based off of something else I wrote and shared but I've gutted it, changed the context, added and tweaked and honed and possibly ruined, and then doubled in length.

Enjoy! Or don't!

tigersgogrrr

Really enjoyed your review, Tempy. I really liked Prometheus so will definitely want to see Covenant at some point. I'm quite easily pleased with films to be honest.

I don't read any film crit but you're stuff always feels very good. Insightful, well written, and informative. I like it a lot and wouldn't raise my eyebrows if it was in a professional publication. I've only read the edited version thus far but I'm generally quite down with a bit more ramble/discussion as long as it is engaging so I'll let you know.

Tempy

There be spoilers though! This was really just a big bit of self-imposed homework given to me by myself after the uni said it had to be shorter. Thanks, hopefully one day i'll get there. Last exam is Wednesday, if I can get the cooking and revision done in a timely fashion, I'll treat myself to some tiger time.

tigersgogrrr

x0x0

I don't worry too much about spoilers with films like Alienz. I probably will have forgotten by the time I get to see it.

JonB

@Tiger

I'm reading through it now, making some comments and correcting a few minor grammar issues.

tigersgogrrr

You're a star.

JonB

I've got halfway and ran out of time, but I'll finish it tomorrow.

I'm picking on every little thing I see, and not all the suggestions may be valid. Overall it's very well written.

tigersgogrrr

Thanks. Please do pick on things. I need that.

The second half hasn't been revised to the same degree so I imagine you'll find a lot more issues.

Raiziel

Will definitely find time to read that some time this week, Tiger.

tigersgogrrr

Cheers. Had plenty of feedback on things that need fixing. Some silly errors, other things just to mull over.

Will try and kill some passive voice & grammar bits tonight if I get time.

tigersgogrrr

Thanks for your thoughts.

Here's a breakdown of changes so far. I've responded to certain things in the document too. Some pondering, some discussing.

- Some minor language tweaks.

- Some continuity tweaks.

- A few instances of tense changed (originally the story was in present tense and I've missed some parts in translation).

- Loads of wonderful grammar tweaks from Nora and me ol' mucker Jon.

- The removal of some passivity.

- A million other bits.

Amazing stuff. Thanks for taking the time to read and help me to tweak some bits. Some thoughts on the story as a whole and changes that might make a difference.

Spoiler:

Again, thanks. Thanks.

And thanks.

JonB

I've gone through the second half now too, with more comments.

tigersgogrrr

Brilliant stuff. Thank you so much.

Loads of useful feedback from elsewhere too.

From someone from a writing place...

Spoiler:

1) The Torque and the gift. This was based off a short story I wrote which had nothing to do with the torque.

I personally had no issue with this. I found the beginning interesting and catching, but the gift might need to be better understood by you, I think, as some things didn't quite float (as I sometimes pointed out), and the lack of reciprocity made things odd too.
To add some darkness to your story, I would have the narrator wonder, when her (I read the whole thing as HE, because the name isn't gendered enough for people not familiar with korean culture) sister starts dying, whether she's dying as well. She could feel pangs of pain, and not know where they originated from, she could feel tiredness and deduce that it isn't all hers because somehow she's still walking... Make it a bit grittier. Because then you could have the true horror of the separation as the sister dies, since our MC might suddenly gain great physical benefits : she might well realise she is in much stronger shape than she ever expected, just from losing the weight of her dying sis. This is of course a pretty dark approach, but you get my gist. You don't have to go down there, but anything you do in order to muddle things up, even in the mind of the MC, leads to further shock and awe when they are split, and makes her trauma/confusion more powerful.

The Torque I understood very little about. Now that I know it's also about dream manifestation, it makes a little more sense, but I get to wonder where the changes originate from, if no one has been sleeping since the meds? Who is distorting reality? How long do the changes last, and don't they affect people?
The devised, as a concept, was unclear until the very, very end, and definitely needs some explaining. It could make for a great world, and I think you're onto something nice, but your story could easily get 1k words on intelligent world building and stay trim.

While the North invading the South is not too far fetched, I would expect it to be a little more bloody business than intended, but more importantly I didn't understand the point of them being in shackles and mining for stuff they never saw. I think it was one of the true weaknesses of your story: I simply didn't understand WHY they were where they were, and what for. It's like you're using the North as if it suffices as an excuse in itself for oppression and outdated torture methods.
I think you can keep the North, but you might as well use your torque/devised thing the real powerhouse of the plot. Maybe someone dreamed up this massive lump that spurt out of the ground, and it's rich in some incredibly valuable material that was also dreamed up and never existed before, maybe something that allows the repression of dreams, or facilitates it? Something that would have meaning in a torque world, and would make sense for people to be enslaved and overworked for.

As for the ending, I didn't dislike or like it too much. I felt it was too fast, yes, but I regretted mostly that you mentioned flying trains before, yet didn't make the MC openly wonder if the man/woman saving them that day with a man-train monster isn't the same dreamer who spawned all these flying trains earlier.

Overall I also did feel that the korean culture was a bit heavy handed, with a lot of dance names and places names that fell down one after the other doom-doom-doom, just so we're quite sure what you're talking about.
For inner monologue or telepathic connection, it feels a bit unnatural, like calling each other by names too much in dialogue?
I would replace some of these by more casual words (temple, great market, whatev), and would also do more descriptive work. You mention names, but you did not paint anything in my mind. I didn't recognise nowadays Korea, it lacked technology... But I also know very little of past Korea myself, and your technique of names over description, while generally efficient, painted a very discount-cardboard-cutout Korea in my head. No clue of what it truly looked like or the time frame.

This like of time frame also contributed to my confusion as to why the MC is turned into little more than a slave by the chinese at the end. In a modern day world they would be refugees, not slaves. So it was unclear. not bad, but unclear.

I was satisfied by the ending, but confused at the same time, because a few points were confusing all along. I'd like tot re-read it when the torque/gift/MCs background are made clearer, so I can see how the ending holds. If you're writing true bizarre fiction, not everything ought to make perfect sense either, so no stress...

Great job overall though, as in, I wasn't ever tempted to drop the story, it was pretty compelling and well paced in its drama. Could afford more visual, and that's where I think your prose also differs from mine...
I like to pack plenty of details in the same sentence. By now I realise I work in trios very often (not always for the best hey...), and sprinkle my adjectives tightly, rather than starting new sentences. You often did that, and while I felt like I was replacing your style for mine when I did some corrections, it served to make it "less is more" in my book. Cut words down, still use the adjectives you wanted... But I'm very aware that it was often my prose style talking, more than any actual bad phrasing on your side.
So to take with a grain of salt.

tigersgogrrr

Jon - Did you find the effects of the Torque unclear? As in, not explicit early enough?

JonB

I sort of got it and just assumed it was meant to be vague. As far as I could tell, some weird supernatural event had happened, causing all sorts of anomalies sending the whole country into chaos. And then it turned out it was dreams being manifested and they learned to control what was created.

You certainly could make it more explicit earlier, if you want it to be clearer what was going on, but I didn't mind not fully understanding it until later on. It depends what you're going for.

In fact, I'd rather there was more clarity about the invasion from the North and what the main characters were doing as their slaves. That could certainly be introduced earlier and in more detail.

tigersgogrrr

Ok, thanks. I like to leave things vague but it was feedback I had and I'm loathe to change it on one person's opinion. I think short fiction is fine with leaving blanks in it. It's over quick enough that it's not like you're leaving things unexplained for 439 pages.

The slave thing I had considered...

Spoiler:

tigersgogrrr

Few revisions if anyone is bored.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r0xifiCQI_A4R5iazhlTrgUwLBkxdauXXJCfcAQXxRg/edit?usp=sharing

Raiziel

I did read your story the other week, tiger. Personally it wasn't for me, I'm afraid. I think it's already been touched on that world building was given a light touch. For me that means the character or characters have to shine, and I didn't feel there was enough depth there.

tigersgogrrr

Thanks for reading all the same, chum.

Raiziel

Hey no problem. For what it's worth I thought the setting showed great promise. I also appreciate there's only so much you can do in a short story.

tigersgogrrr

This sums it up, really.

Clarkesworld rejections/acceptances that people have logged on the submission grinder since the beginning of the Month.

Raiziel

I'm about to get into the action-packed grand finale of The Scarlet Maiden. After veering wildly from the intended middle part of the tale into unknown and unexpected territory, I'm back on my intended path. I've been really looking forward to writing this part, not least because it means I almost feel like I'm on the home stretch, but now I'm here I feel more than a little intimidated by the scale of the thing.

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