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Post by Cy Skywalker on Sept 9, 2006 15:06:00 GMT -5
YAY!!! Thanks. You don't think Mourn's "dark past" is too clické? And really it's not meant to be in this case where so many things are. I can't put up the next chapter right now because for some reason my fictionpress account isn't coming up, but i will (or you could visit www.fictionpress.net/~nemonus sometime when it works if you want to read more).
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scarecrow
Rank 3 (Almost Not a Newbie)
Posts: 408
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Post by scarecrow on Sept 9, 2006 15:08:18 GMT -5
I don't think it's cliche at all. In fact, considering that plotseeking has some sort of involvement with books and literature, I'd say it fits it all quite well.
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Sept 16, 2006 13:54:41 GMT -5
VI
Neither of them slept well that night, and much to his chagrin she chose to tell him her tale only as the highway out of Niagara introduced him to a new terror; speed limit signs in metric.
“My friends and I always wrote, what if these characters came into our world. Fan fiction. I guess–I guess my ‘seeker powers first introduced an inter-universe machine into canon. Must of been to quick for your people.” Long pause, while she decided what to say. “Ah, to many arrived. I was kidnaped by the baddies. Trained and given canon powers–by a machine we invented in another story–by...the one you met last night. I fell in love. Didn’t send him back with the others. Couldn’t decide between normalcy and this dark side. Chose both.
“I don’t exist because I...my original self...the me in this story...created a Plot for me, I guess, where I returned to him in the real world.”
She had started glib, attempting to tell this oversimplification as indeed a story. But with the choppy sentences her voice grew dull and she leaned against the window staring down her scarred reflection.
Constantine knew the rest. He had found her toying with others’s harmless tie-in work.
He guided the Miata around a ponderous semi in the rain-threatened sunlight. He could only think to say, “So you’re a fictioneer.”
“If you find my Plot I’ll kill you in some way Hannibal would have liked.”
He took this at the grimly humorous value they had learned to tack on most insults. “I’d probably taste like soylent brown.”
She stuck her tongue out at mention of the brown, nutritious glop books with lack of food description had to offer their inhabitants.
It was only another layer; another fine twist, or maybe fine print. Warning: your apprentice may come with a mysterious, dark, rather untypical past.
Constantine was not any more afraid of her, though the stalking magic “master” could create some Real World trouble, if suddenly he chose to be less shadowy and subtle.
They skimmed into Toronto. August’s parents and brother lived near , only a few blocks away from, the huge Eaton Centre mall, so the agents got rooms in the hotel immediately adjacent to it. Constantine left Mourn ordered in a dinner, blocking her in with some picture books–their innocence counteracted almost any teenage ‘seeker, so she would stay away from the door. He shook cramps out of his arms int eh yellow-hued, modern elevator and then traveled the short hall to the lobby and casual seating. As the trim woman at the desk converted his American money he pondered the murder.
August’s novel worked in a fantasy land called Ralya, a medieval-like realm whose normal state of existence was ruling by a “Lord”, a stygian researcher whose magic-fueled experiments were cruel but unnoticeable to the general public. Our hero Kaythe stumbled upon a portal to an experiment’s locale in the company of two friends, and in his revulsion released some Pandora’s box of dark energy. Now pursued by the Lord Fisku’s mutated minions, he fled through a world changing for the worse, finally finding aid with an attractive female half-elf and her father, the last of the elves. Dad goes dark, the five kids become skilled in less evil magic, and they become new democratic rulers by the end of the well written and Found but un-moral-infused book.
A writer’s commandment floated through Constantine’s thoughts; show, don’t tell. It would be a good idea to check a copy of the novel that was up for sale here, instead of his own library one. Marketing could be a potent signaling to an unchanging Plot.
August had no motive for killing the girl, and no one else did either. August had been in that town for an unknown reason.
Fanfic authors sometimes had strange effects on localized Plots...
No stranger approached Constantine from a concealed corner hawking fitting information, nor did a mysterious letter appear pushed under his door, not did anyone from the home ‘seeker office call with relayed information. He planned to call this evening and set up a short interview with the Augusts in the morning.
He remembered this place. In the center of the skyscrapers a court had been paved with stones, the same that climbed the walls of the dwarfed Gothic church. Another section of paving stones created the alternating colors of a flat labyrinth.
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Oct 11, 2006 7:45:01 GMT -5
I wish scarecrow hadn't died...
VII (? I have trouble keeping track of chappie numbers.)
Constantine led his apprentice to the massive book store of Eaton Centre soon after the wide street of mall opened to the public. They walked together, ‘seekers and public, under the curved silver ceiling and ever changing wallscreens of ads. He thought that it looked amazingly like the future, this avenue of commercialism overshadowed by unmarked offices in vertical rank. Some day, he thought, they will build apartments in malls, and thus the false utopia will begin.
Fiction was shelved at the top level with a wooden floor and a view to the walkway and lower floors below. Constantine watched Mourn with the proverbial hawk-like eyes as they paced between the shelves under the appropriate music of Coldplay. Perhaps she would break–he discovered fiction to be in alphabetical order but bypassed those shelves to the sci-fi/fantasy section. She closed her eyes to walk, and recited the first rhythm of the Verses of Description.
The world it shakes
the ink it scrapes
and bends its ears to listen
without light entropy quickens.
Constantine traced along and found Roaring Thane. He caught Mourn’s black hood and pulled her over. He was dressed more normally than usual today in jeans and a blue camp shirt. “Help me here.”
Together they read silently a random passage from the paperback, enough to get the feel of it, end to end and with depth.
Nothing emerged until in pure irritation Constantine flipped to the back of the book, glanced into the eyes of the balding, black-and-white-captured writer. Then he felt that calm grid of word knowledge which the author himself tapped in to, and felt the stirrings of sequel strangely disrupted.
“Yes,” said Constantine. “Something’s weird in there too.” Pause. “I’m going to look around the world for signs of sequel.” New bad guys planning, unlikely (future) heroes getting wistful or finally content, strange natural occurrences–if the ‘seeker entered in now he could be there when the new story began and, even more exciting, the author found out about it.
“You have to go in?” Mourn mumbled.
“Should. You can’t. Rules, my apprentice, even though our first mission shouldst need another.” Then he looked at her sternly, seriously, hoping to succeed at convincing her he outranked her again. It had been decreed that she could not physically enter in to any fiction, although she protested or admitted that her canon powers probably would not aid her there and her Plotseeker skills were tough but instinctual. Constantine said, “Stay here. This book is moderately paced, so time there will probably match ours. I’ll try not to be more than a week–you know how long word takes to travel in a midevil fantasy, unless I find a loophole. “ His voice was lowered, proof against mundane customers. “Go back to the hotel and keep low; you can use the card for food.” He took her by the shoulders and she flinched, not to be away but in a truncated move forward for some fast kind of martial hold. Constantine braved her variegated hazel-yellow eyes.”This is a trust-test. I can’t deny you knowing that.”
She nodded, firm.
“Ok.” Quickly he whirled, backed the novel up against the mosaic shelf, and fully opened himself up to the foreign Plot (a trick it takes the longest of all to learn).
The parenthesis pushed his restrictive physical body through a sheet of pixilated gold; Mourn or a mundane would see him disappear, and the book fall to the floor. Constantine retained that careful balance called knowing what is real, and landed on feet, hands, and the edges of his trenchcoat in a grassy evening forest of Roaring Thane.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2006 14:20:16 GMT -5
well blow me down. ok i said I would review so I shall start reading
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Oct 23, 2006 15:40:48 GMT -5
I – wow. This is really going somewhere. I’m intrigued and compelled to read on. Good start! II – “The emergency lights only were on” seems kinda weird and doesn’t flow that well. Other than that, it’s shaping up well and Den has already mentioned the typo. Enjoying this so far and I still WANT to read on III- it’s all good I think. I can see why it could be considered it confusing but I think I am following it so far. A good read and once again I am compelled to read on. This is rather a rare occurrence I might add. So well done IV – I don’t really have any criticisms for this chapter. It has made what is going on so much clearer for me and I’m quite happy now V – scarecrow has already reviewed this chapter and corrected what little was required. Another good chapter. This one let you get to know both of them in a subtle, but useful way VI – “They had packed clothes, water, and a couple katanas” I just love this! What else could you possibly need? Why a couple of katanas *shakes head and laughs to self *. “would bring him peace in purpose” this correct? But dude… wow. I mean it. I’m bowled over here. I always thought you were good, but this is… stunning! I can’t keep myself from reading on! VII – “Must of been to quick for your people.” Should be “too quick”. I’m being picky now cause you’re too good to make this mistake “Constantine left Mourn ordered in a dinner” might want to check this. “his arms int eh yellow” I’m being picky I know… “As the trim woman at the desk converted his American money he pondered the murder.” Should be a comma after money. I’m picky…. But am lovin it! Keep it up! However I need to stop here for the moment but I shall continue asap!
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Post by Chris on Oct 24, 2006 9:37:33 GMT -5
I have read this in its entirity, but I will hold off on making a review until you completed it. Just wanted to encourage you by letting you know that someone was reading.
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Oct 24, 2006 14:51:57 GMT -5
Thanks , Pestilence. It's gonna be quite a while untill it's finished, so I'd rather you review while the beginning stuff is fresh in your mind, if you don't have a problem with that.
Schmuggles, you have well-ly smote the typos/sentences which trip over themselves. Thank you.
LOL! Indeed!
Feel free to comment on my characters and world-building, cause those are what I believe holds up this novel.
A short chapter:
********** Mourn picked the paperback off the floor of Indigo Booksellers gently. She had not felt the slip of paper in her hands for a long time, and so appreciated it, and had to exercise a large amount of self control to slide this one puzzle piece back into the long, patterned shelf.
It tickled, addicted--all these worlds around her, some with a fan following and some not but she could not sense that, only know it from ArEl trends. Her own section now, her home--
She would not turn that way. They were back there, her shelves, and incarnations of his face, beautiful and savage, with the other characters they had sought out to know--she would not turn. The ‘seekers would banish her, and that would loose everything, plus get her killed or detained, bored/bound for life.
When an addiction is strong the way to resist it is sometimes to remove it; she knew that this method worked. But going home (to the hotel) would mean walking through the bookstore, and a significant number of bibliophile mundanes could not do that without the twitch of desire...
And the copyrighted past slanted so close.
Mourn whirled, braced a hand against the book their work revolved around, and willed in her ignorance to follow Constantine through its borders.
It snatched her in.
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Post by Chris on Oct 24, 2006 16:38:16 GMT -5
Before I continue, I want you to know that this review might be way off, because your writing style confuses me a lot. I sincerely think that it would be much better to wait until you were through with it, because in its completeness I might find more clarity, but I will try my best to just go ahead with what I already know. Seeing as how I will need to review it again when it is complete, I'll be brief. Well, as brief as I can.
I think this story is about a Plotseeker who finds that his enigmatic, supernatural new partner is just as perplexing and mysterious as his latest case, and may even have a connection to it. I think this story is meant to entertain through drama, mystery and references to familiar books, and it think that your audience is your fellow guildians.
From what I can tell, this decidedly confusing, almost unintelligible yet confoundingly gripping whodunit is about Constantine Kipling, a Plotseeker. What is a Plotseeker? Damned if I know for sure, but what I can say that there is something about it that makes me feel it is the equivalent of the police officer, but whose duty is to stop fluctuations in the fictional world(s). And what a fictional world it is, in that there are the ever-present references to other prominent works of fiction, all of which seem to have similar themes and genres as this work. Constantine has a new partner, Mourn, who is a broody teenage girl with a scar on her face and some badass supernatural abilities. Together, they are working on a case where a fantasy author Matt August is suspected of murdering someone.
Mourn is apparently one of the very inconsistencies in fiction that it is Constantine's job to correct, and instead of 'containment' or 'capture', she is being rehabilitated, and it seems that Constantine is just the right person to do it. He is constantly wary of her, perhaps afraid of her dangerous potential. Understandably, because Mourn possesses some very abusable abilities. She's got one resembling the Jedi mind trick, she can snap wires just with the power of her mind. We don't even know all she can do, and apparently neither does Constantine. "Constantine just wondered what she knew. Could she sense his thought patterns, how afraid he was, how much of this came from Security and his mother?" She even goes as far as to say that she could kill Constantine if she wanted to, and he doesn't disbelieve it. But he's the adult, and he's responsible for her rehabilitation. She just wants to be a normal teenager, and he knows that and preys on it to keep her grounded, to keep her under control, and when she tests the boundaries of their newfound relationship, he rises to the challenge magnificently, becoming the stern, firm, authoritative father-figure or the sincere, caring confidant or any role that the situation calls for with a mere glance or a few choice words, never alienating her, but never letting forget that he's in control. Their relationship is the greatest of the many highlights for me.
Other standout pluses include the foreboding mood, which perfectly sets an awesome feel to delve into the story, and the certainly undeniable style of Cy herself, a style which shows a keen presence of mind and an a masterful sense of theme and scale that gives a sort of grandiose elegance.
Unfortunately, irregardless of all that raw talent, Cy manages to let it make the plot itself be so ambiguous that it alienates the reader to the point of frustration. I have never read so much and understood so little in all my life, and judging from the sort of vague responses of my fellow reviewers (plotwise, anyway), I'm not the only one. In writing what could have been an engaging, exciting, profound story, Cy has forgotten her audience and left them in such a lurch that the greatest praise I can give this indecipherable mess is that it is a beautiful, taxing and ultimately discouraging chore.
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Oct 26, 2006 11:38:41 GMT -5
Thank you very much. After you have read more to your satisfaction, please tell me what I might do to make it not so confusing, "alienating". Some is meant to be mysterious, but not frustratingly so. Do you not identify enough with the Plotseekers' general mission because you're not sure, for example, why they were founded? Your review shows that you picked up on pretty much all I mean to get across.
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Nov 3, 2006 15:35:28 GMT -5
X
He had no sense of smell. Though many books, like this one, described smells only in certain dramatic (and therefore more shocking) instances, Constantine never quite got used to the amputation of this sense or failed to appreciate it in ArEl.
Why do fictioneers have noses? To scent the dough in the author’s next paycheck...so some joked. Constantine smiled wryly.
The forest around him otherwise held no difference from a verdant pine and oak forest of Earth. Sparse weeds bloomed; a trackway led forward and backward from him, hugging the bumpy ground, rounding a small knoll a few meters away. Birds sang unseen in the spring temperature.
Constantine shook himself to rid his limbs of the disjointedness of transit. The book’s final words petered off in the back of his mind but now independent ones floated up to perhaps be pieced into the sequel, words keyed to this reality. He had entered in at the source of the disturbance, instead of at a specific scene, and while dangerous this would give him answers. Plans of an ArEl interview canceled, he began to walk along the path.
A hawklike shadow made by the animal dragons of this canon rippled overhead.
Constantine rounded the needle-decked knoll and found a teen or pre-teen girl sitting with her back to a tree, smiling, with her fingers drumming on her jeans. Needles from the pine tree behind her had caught in her punky blonde hair. She was taller and therefor appeared slimmer than Mourn, but the smooth arms and shoulders visible out of her pink-and-yellow-striped top lacked muscle. She looked up at him from behind entirely clear glasses when Constantine approached, and he knew that she was not fiction because he could not discern the color of her eyes. One hand switched to a folded green bundle and golden dagger beside her left hip.
“Wait.” said Constantine.
She raised the dagger, pointed it at him. “You’re not supposed to be here either.” The golden blade gestured down his outfit, shaky. “Go away, this is my story.”
“That it most certainly is not.” said Constantine. “Are you, perhaps, a writer of fan fiction?”
She said, “I am Mariel Flyflame, companion of Kaythe Shadowsbane.”
Suddenly, silently, and to Constantine’s great flinching chagrin, Mourn appeared beside and in front of him, dropping a few feet to the ground with black hood and folds surrounding her dramatically.
Constantine gaped for a moment. He addressed at first the seated tall girl; “Pardon us; she likes dramatic entrances.”, and turned to Mourn, summoning to his expression all the anger and danger he felt. She turned her head away--
Said “Mariel” softly, “So does he.”
A young man came into view by the conventional act of stepping over the knoll, spear in hand, and glaring down at them like an eagle. He had dark red-brown hair and beard, all short, with penetrating blue-violet eyes, self-assured stance--Constantine closed his sense to the rush of adjectives toward the book’s hero. Kaythe jumped down and glared at Mariel. “You most certainly are not.” Said he. “If I were not already burdened with a captive I would challenge each of you to a duel, individually and without pause.”
Constantine said, “We are only passing through here. Tell me, hero, what crime has this captive committed?” He drew significant words around a few of his audible ones, suspecting that Kaythe could find them.
Indeed he could. “Yes, you are passing through from a realm of manipulative, amorous god-men. If my unexpected captive is important to a collection of your kind he must he hazardous to me as well,” He pointed the simplest of wooden spears at Mariel. “and I shall soon dispose of the company of both of you. I still require my sword back.”
Constantine fought a strong urge to call upon his strong repertoire of Shakespearean insults as Kaythe hastened away in the tree-crowded direction from whence he had come. So this was what happened when fictioneer heroes knew themselves to hold that title...
Mariel had lost any warlike demeanor; she cried snufflingly with the dagger limp in her hands on her knees.
Constantine sensed a switch of purpose and decided to leave severely berating his apprentice for later.
Mourn approached and looked down at Mariel only somewhat stoically. “You’re a blasted fangirl of his, aren’t you?”
Mariel wiped her eyes. “A little...one of my stories...I thought I had fallen asleep and dreamt more of it. It was so real. Then he was right there, but I thought I had woken up...”
“He attacked you, in your living room, when neither of you were quite out of the Plot.”
Mariel cried louder, more.
“I’m sorry.”, said Mourn.
Constantine shook his head. “Did I just hear an afore-undiscovered sense of empathy, Mourn?” He laughed. The fact remained that he had only heard of the terror of ‘rabid’ fangirls, though recruiting confused Writers just coming into their power was old business. The idea which clicked only did so in the current section of reality. To Mariel Flyflame; “Are you Marie Shandler?”
She nodded, looking around suddenly, furtive now, as if her name would further abrupt reality.
Said Mourn to this dejection, “You have no idea what love is.”
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stickers!
Rank 1 (Still a Newbie)
Waste of Paint.
Posts: 71
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Post by stickers! on Nov 11, 2006 18:33:42 GMT -5
I really like this. It's confusing but it hooks you and all that. Not being overly intelligent, don't really have much else to say. Sorry, though what's worse, not having much to say or just reading something and not saying anything? Ah well, there, take it as the passing remark of a stupid commoner, not too helpful but still an opinion. *end rambling*
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Nov 22, 2006 16:56:40 GMT -5
I'm gonna wait to post the next chapter because I need to edit it for some plot point things. Thanks, stickers(!) for your commoner but supportive review.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Nov 27, 2006 16:20:43 GMT -5
If my unexpected captive is important to a collection of your kind he must he hazardous to me as well
well there is a spelling error here. and is it supposed to say he must? or she must?
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Post by Cy Skywalker on Nov 29, 2006 15:32:13 GMT -5
"He must be hazardous", is the desired wording. Sry.
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