Floral Aberration by Marion Engelkehttp

“Floral Aberration” caught my eye this month with its engaging pace, immersive worldbuilding, and a core mystery that made me want to read on to find out what this one odd detail was all about. However, its somewhat abrupt reveal, and the flurry of information that includes, meant that despite the excellent grounding in the first half of the piece, I left it feeling somewhat lost. So this month, I’d like to talk about the role consistency of characterization plays in the other elements of craft: notably, pacing and worldbuilding.

“Floral Aberration” establishes a strong rhythm to the prose early, and a world grounded in not just visuals but smells, textures, materials, temperature, and motion. The setting in “Floral Aberration” is established quickly, in a few strong strokes: I especially liked including Antonia’s physical reaction to the environment—her aching shoulders and running nose—as part of the initial scene-setting work. It’s a little too infrequent that I see characters reacting to their environments in reasonable physical ways, and Antonia’s sniffles and foggy glasses imbue both her and the piece with a concrete, grounded physicality.

It also sets a solid context for the meaningfulness of Antonia’s headache when she sees the wallpaper. There’s a lesson in this regarding how we couch our plot cues and clues: had Antonia’s headaches been her only physical reaction to the space, the clue would have stood out in an over-obvious way, and felt hackneyed. Given the physicality of her environment, it’s one more thing—and comes across much more subtly than it could.

“Floral Aberration” moves swiftly and interestingly until the question of the wallpaper comes into focus, and then the methods of information delivery to the readers and Antonia both—and the plot logic—start to falter. Antonia’s realization about the wallpaper—and the way Vidur just kind of gives over the truth once she’s heard it in his conversation with Utz—feel abrupt, as does Vidur’s explanation of the Travelers and Antonia’s choice to flee. There’s a question of proportionate weight in the gravity of the information Antonia learns versus how she learns it: magic portal-creating wallpaper being found out because of an overheard—and public!—conversation? Secret classes of portal-creating navigators informed on by infodump?

There’s a perception in story and in life—right or wrong—that the value of a revelation is directly linked to how much we have to work for it, and there’s an inherent issue, in “Floral Aberration”, where Antonia never really works for any of the information she receives. The only thing she makes effort toward, the test, she fails, and everything else is handed to her in ways that sometimes feel overly plot-convenient. I’d suggest considering ways for Antonia to get her information that are both less abrupt and a little more organic, and fit more tidily with her character goals—which leads into the question of characterization.

While my issues with the end of “Floral Aberration” are a matter of pacing—the setup for this revelation is given much more spotlighting, and much more page weight than the revelation itself—it’s also a question, I think, of consistency in Antonia’s character.

There are solid reasons given for Antonia wanting to escape her childhood home: she doesn’t like farm work, which seems later like a cover for getting away from her family and their expectations on her sexual identity. She does, however, want to drive trains, and where her choice at the end of the piece doesn’t fit, for me, is with her reaction to losing that particular dream. When Antonia’s chance to drive trains is taken away, she doesn’t push forward into something new, or related: she accepts a job at Vidur’s café, doing work she’s uninterested in and living in a space that actively upsets her. This is a person who has already worked hard to leave home and build a new life for herself, and has described this as her dream. When that resignation is shown, it’s indicative that a lot of her drive to escape has broken—but then it suddenly reasserts itself after Vidur’s offer, yet not in the way that takes her toward her dream. She is being offered the chance to work on trains at a yet higher level: why not take it? If her actual goal wasn’t trains, but escape, why did she ever stay at Vidur’s café?

It’s this inconsistency in her characterization: the switch-flipping of what she actually wanted, and her failure to consistently react from internal motives—that truly does damage to the end of “Floral Aberration” for me. I’d suggest that the first move, in a new draft, would be to ascertain clearly what Antonia wants and why she wants it, and have her actions and reactions stem entirely from those internal motives rather than the needs of the plot.

There are other small issues, but mostly nitpicks: Why would Vidur and Antonia appearing in a secure facility, during a sensitive operation, be cause for nothing more than annoyance? Surely someone in security would get involved. Why recruit for something so important in a way that’s so roundabout and sinister-looking in the first place, when all the other jobs in this organization are so rigorously standardized and streamlined that you can only take the test once?

It speaks to my faith in the narrative that I’m picking at these questions, and I think that once “Floral Aberration” is using a consistent set of desires and motives to propel its narrative, a lot of those nitpicks will matter less to me, or clear themselves up.

Best of luck with a new draft!

–Leah Bobet, author of Above (2012) and An Inheritance of Ashes (2015)

The Citadel, CH1PT1 by Saidhbh Duncan

This is a good beginning. It establishes the setting, sketches enough of the world that the reader gets a sense of where she is, and introduces the two narrators. Their voices are distinct and they present two different views of the same situation. The result is a rounded picture of the central figure, Lutran, and a set of questions and ambiguities that kept this reader reading.

As I said, a good start. The imagery is vivid, though sometimes a bit distracting—the stuttering blood, for example—and the writing overall is strong.

Here’s what I get from a cold read without background:

We’re in what looks like an alternate France, perhaps preindustrial but data so far is lacking; someone might pull out a gun later, or we may see a higher-tech facet of the world. Magic works, and something called the Citadel has some sort of power over it. I am wondering as I read, how this relates to or is inspired by the Citadel from Game of Thrones. Intentional? Coincidental?

Religion is powerful force here. Poorly and hastily built street confessionals thrown up everywhere, staffed by “presters,” i.e. priest figures, indicate some sort of upsurge in religious power or religiosity. Or is this a form of governmental control? Spying? I want to read on, to see if my questions are answered.

Meanwhile it appears that people with evident high competence and skill levels, and presumed education, believe that priests speak directly to God, and interpret God’s will or intentions. What I get from that is that in the belief system of this world, God speaks through sanctioned intermediaries, not directly to layfolk.

Which is very Roman Catholic, and subtle and impressive in terms of below-the-surface worldbuilding. There’s another layer, too, in that the prester in his confessional is not actually in direct contact with the Deity; he’s no more or less aware of divine will or intentions than anyone else. And like anyone else, if he wants God to act, he has to pray, and then wait for evidence that the prayer has been heard. This may point to a deep conflict within the world of the novel, and perhaps the novel itself.

It’s a bleak world, with terrible weather and harsh penalties for infractions. There appear to be no women in the street, and none among the principal characters—which of course may change in later chapters. I would hope so, as a reader, since I like to see myself represented in the works I read. And as a Western medievalist I can confirm that the female half of the species was distinctly in evidence in every city and town.

The author’s note asks about Piers’ dialect. I’ve noticed a recent fashion for writing in nonstandard English, after a long period of writers avoiding it, and when it works, it really works. But it’s a challenge to pull off.

Here, as I came in cold, my first impression was that I was reading a Weird West novel, because this particular variety of dialect points that direction. “It does” is kind of Cockney, but “ain’t” and “you reckon” and many of the subsequent stylistic choices have an American feel. There are slippages, too, into a more sophisticated or more widely traveled imagery: the cobblestones are wading, like an hundred islands in a dirty sea, for example. (And is the “an” intentional, indicating a more archaic pronunciation of “hundred”?)

I’m not seeing France in Piers’ diction, despite the rest of the indicators, the slant of the names and places, the pervasiveness and general direction of the religion. He confuses me with his shifts and verbal signals; I don’t know where to place him or how to hear him. Even his name has resonances that aren’t quite clear. Is he Old French Piers, or Middle English Piers? He’s probably not American West despite the way he talks, and the setting feels as if it’s meant to be more European than North American.

I have ingrained “Do Not Dialect” conditioning from my writer-childhood, so that’s a set of assumptions I have to factor in. I would, as a reader, like to something that clarifies why an English or American lower-class-type person with a medieval nickname is traveling around alternate France.

I don’t think the dialect should disappear altogether, because the distinction between the two voices is one of the things that makes the opening work. We get a sense of who the narrators are through their words as well as their names, occupations, and actions. But I think Piers can speak more neutrally and still do the job he’s meant to do.

There’s a multifold challenge here, if I am reading it right and Piers is telling his half of the story in some form of French. Since he’s written in English, the English has to work as English but also convey the not-English-ness of the character—without slipping into stereotype or caricature. If he’s not French, then there’s the question of where all the French names come from and why they remained French when the dialect of the countryside shifted to English.

The simplest fix I might suggest is to tone down the dialect: neutral narration, with a few carefully chosen words and constructions that convey the non-English-neutrality of Piers’ viewpoint. Vocabulary, choice of words, the order in which those words are written, can do a lot with a little. So can keeping the dialect to a minimum in narration but letting it do its thing in dialogue.

In the end, the best rule I can point to is Whatever Works. For me, this chapter works well, questions of dialect aside; I would definitely want to read on.

–Judith Tarr

The Last Keytarist by Scott Beckman

Horror critic Douglas E. Winter wrote, “There is thus no effective horror without a context of normality. The best horror fiction effectively counterfeits reality. . . . Eschew exotic locales and the lifestyles of the rich and famous.” “The Last Keytarist” is an excellent example of the power generated by setting a horror story in a context of normality. Protagonist Dave works in a pet store in a mall, a setting we’re all very familiar with. This allows us to easily visualize the strange events and feel like we’re there. It also makes the strange events more believable, because they occur in this familiar setting, and it allows us to focus our attention on the strangeness, since we can effortlessly fill in the pet store details.

Fantasy authors Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman advise writers to stay within their “strangeness budget,” cautioning them from making a story too strange to handle. “The Last Keytarist” has quite a bit of strangeness, but I never felt overwhelmed by it. Instead, I was excited by it, because the story is set so solidly in a non-strange location with a non-strange protagonist. Limiting the strangeness to particular elements allows the author to escalate that strangeness in a very exciting way–from talking animals to invading aliens to a cat who’s queen of the universe and a musical instrument that carries the power to stop the aliens–without ever exceeding its strangeness budget.

I really enjoyed the first half of this story. I think the second half could be improved in several ways.

The point of view, which starts out omniscient and then moves into Dave’s head for most of the story, never quite gets close enough to Dave. An unintentionally distant POV is a common problem. Small word choices can often create distance. For example, calling the character “Dave” rather than “he” creates distance. “Dave” is used quite a lot. Dave’s actions are often rushed over, so we don’t really feel we’re in his body going through these actions. For example, “Dave opens all the cages and the animals pour free, snarling and snapping at the alien limbs.” While the story can’t show Dave opening each cage–that would be boring and make this a very long story–it could show us Dave opening the first cage, and perhaps the second, and then recapitulate (summarize) the rest. Since Dave hates animals, it would be interesting to see his reaction to the animals climbing over him to get to the aliens. This would deepen his character and prepare us for his character arc, which has him loving the animals at the end. One of the cages might contain the cat who’s queen of the universe, so we could see an interaction between them. The sentence quoted is also confusing because “snarling and snapping” seems to relate to how the animals treat Dave, and it’s not until we get to the last two words of the sentence that we realize the animals have already run past Dave.

Another example of the distant POV occurs when Dave plays his keytar to drive the aliens away, and the aliens scream: “The screams get into Dave’s head, threatening to burst his brains from his skull, but he winces through the pain and plays on.” This doesn’t feel like it’s conveying what Dave is really going through. It feels like a distant, rushed description. The distance in the POV prevents me from experiencing the story with the immediacy and emotion that would maximize its impact.

This ties to a related issue, which is that Dave doesn’t react to some key moments that seem like they’d stimulate a reaction from him. For example, the frog tells him he’s the greatest living keytarist in all realms of reality. That would be like telling one of us we’re the greatest living writer. I would have a reaction to that. Then Dave touches his keytar and his body sends a spark of electricity through the keytar, which it’s never done before. Yet he doesn’t react. When the hamster tells him to play the song of victory, Dave has no reaction, so I don’t know if he knows the song of victory or not. Is he concerned because he doesn’t know the song? I never know whether he actually plays the song of victory. As far as I know, Dave is just playing a single chord, yet he never worries about whether it will work or not. This lack of reaction at key moments prevents Dave from feeling like a real person and allowing me to connect to him in a strong way.

The final area I’d like to discuss is the plot. The denouement, with the “it was all a dream” followed by “oh no it wasn’t” was disappointing for me. This is a familiar ending for many horror/fantasy stories. Just because it’s familiar doesn’t mean it can’t work, but to work, it needs to be appropriate to the story and done in a way that feels fresh and true. For me, this ending doesn’t seem to fit the story. The story, with its escalation of strangeness in the middle, seems like it has moved beyond reality, and to return to reality seems like moving backwards, not an exciting twist. If I’m supposed to believe that it was all an hallucination, that leaves me very sad and unsatisfied. If I’m supposed to believe that it might have been real, that is inconsistent with the leveled skyscrapers, which seem suddenly intact again. The most important element is the tone. I feel I’ve been playing a very fun game reading this story, and then the fun is killed when Dave wakes up in the hospital. A possible alternative might be to have Dave wake up surrounded by the animals, who explain that they’ve erased the memory of the invasion from humanity and made them think massive earthquakes caused all the destruction, and they’re getting requests from all across the universe for him to play and save their planet, so he can work at the pet store by day and play at night. Something like that would bring the spirit of fun to a nice conclusion.

The story has a lot of strengths. I hope my comments are helpful.

–Jeanne Cavelos, editor, writer, director of Odyssey

THE SWAN SONG OF OLIVER ROSEN, CHAPTERS 1 & 2 REV by Sarah Elizabeth

LO, I TEACH YOU THE UNDERMAN! by Patrick Gardner