Greetings.
I wrote something recently that got good reviews from non-mythos readers, but wonder how it would be received by members of the Temple. I really want to hone my technique and mind so that I might become a true Cycle writer. If you get the time, and feel like reading, check it out at:
http://www.deviantart.com/view/12359617/
http://www.deviantart.com/view/12359617/
The Title is PerfeCtion, and is written with the strange sense of outside-ness that accompanied HPL
Enjoy!'
Hack writer or Well intented amateur?
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Hack writer or Well intented amateur?
SI SIBI MONVMENTVM REQVIRES, CIRVUMSPICE
I just read the story..
It read like it could have been an episode of the twilight zone, which is not neccesarily a bad thing. I really enjoyed the style of writing, and your plentiful use of adjectives really helped to visualize everything. I am a big fan of good description, and you do it very well.
The main character is really nicely defined, as far as his thoughts, and what kind of person he seems to be. Many stories tend to either mention too little about the main character, or they give plenty of info, but mainly just background information that does not really tell 'who' the charcter is. Good job on that!
There were a few parts that had me wondering, but that may be your intention. Such as what happened to his head? Why can the animals talk at the end? And the plants from the crack in the ceiling? The story certainly does make one think
Overall, I really enjoyed it. The main thing I would recommend (if you are open to suggestion), is a bit of work on the end. It seems to be a world void of personality and individuality, but given the views of the character, it does not seem that he would consider that a "hell-world". Maybe more information could be given on why he feels that way. He must feel strongly obviously to be willing to kill himself (even if he was tempted to before).
I am assuming that the 'spell' worked perfectly, but the results were just not what he expected. Is this the case? Or did he simply foul it up somehow? If it is the former, perhaps his feelings of failure could be emphasized more, or at lease somehow make the 'new world' seem more shocking (not so much in an evil way, but more of a human way - as in his emotions of it all).
Anyway, perhaps I am rambling a bit Feel free to ignore any of this heh.
As mentioned above, It was good overall. I ended up looking up the details on the Liber Ivonis to refresh my memory. For those of you who are not familiar with it, It was also called the 'Book of Eibon', and the 'Libre d'Eibon'. It was invented by Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft had a couple of passing mentions of it in some of his stories. Quotes from the fictitious book appear in Smith's story 'Ubbo-Sathia'.
The version called 'Liber Ivonis' (in the tales) was a Latin translation of the Book of Eibon by Caius Phillipus Faber. "One of the known copies existed for 91 years in an arcane library in the Free-Will Church of Providence, Rhode Island. After Robert Blake’s death in 1935 to the Haunter of the Dark, a Doctor Dexter removed this and other tomes and added it to his library." (More Clark Ashton Smith tid-bits )
btw, why did he think the "wheels looked odd" ?
It read like it could have been an episode of the twilight zone, which is not neccesarily a bad thing. I really enjoyed the style of writing, and your plentiful use of adjectives really helped to visualize everything. I am a big fan of good description, and you do it very well.
The main character is really nicely defined, as far as his thoughts, and what kind of person he seems to be. Many stories tend to either mention too little about the main character, or they give plenty of info, but mainly just background information that does not really tell 'who' the charcter is. Good job on that!
There were a few parts that had me wondering, but that may be your intention. Such as what happened to his head? Why can the animals talk at the end? And the plants from the crack in the ceiling? The story certainly does make one think
Overall, I really enjoyed it. The main thing I would recommend (if you are open to suggestion), is a bit of work on the end. It seems to be a world void of personality and individuality, but given the views of the character, it does not seem that he would consider that a "hell-world". Maybe more information could be given on why he feels that way. He must feel strongly obviously to be willing to kill himself (even if he was tempted to before).
I am assuming that the 'spell' worked perfectly, but the results were just not what he expected. Is this the case? Or did he simply foul it up somehow? If it is the former, perhaps his feelings of failure could be emphasized more, or at lease somehow make the 'new world' seem more shocking (not so much in an evil way, but more of a human way - as in his emotions of it all).
Anyway, perhaps I am rambling a bit
Feel free to ignore any of this heh.As mentioned above, It was good overall. I ended up looking up the details on the Liber Ivonis to refresh my memory. For those of you who are not familiar with it, It was also called the 'Book of Eibon', and the 'Libre d'Eibon'. It was invented by Clark Ashton Smith. Lovecraft had a couple of passing mentions of it in some of his stories. Quotes from the fictitious book appear in Smith's story 'Ubbo-Sathia'.
The version called 'Liber Ivonis' (in the tales) was a Latin translation of the Book of Eibon by Caius Phillipus Faber. "One of the known copies existed for 91 years in an arcane library in the Free-Will Church of Providence, Rhode Island. After Robert Blake’s death in 1935 to the Haunter of the Dark, a Doctor Dexter removed this and other tomes and added it to his library." (More Clark Ashton Smith tid-bits
)btw, why did he think the "wheels looked odd" ?
danke
Wow, thanks for the quick feedback! Maybe i'll feel motivated to revise now ! :D
The bit with the head is intentionally ambiguous; at the time it was written the phrase "hook in my brain" was bouncing about my head, and I thought to have some literary fun
. Did he actually get hit by some mongrel urbanite, as in "Red Hook", or did he have a queer nervous break-down? Description was used as a crude type of foreshadowing... The shop is 'lurking' as to make itself more enticing, the book is promoting itself...
:rereads:
Christ, it's been a while since I've written...
Yeah, the animals talking was a mild fit of msdness...I thought that since they had been gathering to watch the spectacle, and the universe was different, maybe I ought to make them speak; It's less ponderous than typing "He pulled the trigger, completely ignorant of the fact that he had used his last bullet.."
Although maybe the cat should have said it....
The crack was supposed to be his passive nemesis, the source of all filth, (
) a fistful of gravel flung in the face of Idealism. I thought that in this world of 'perfection' would have dropped the pretense and widened the crack, allowing unwholesome and noxious vegetation to drip down. The mental imagery associated with it were the entrails of the android in 'ALIEN' and a passage from that god-awful tale, HPL (in 'Thulhu 2k, i think) where the Outer God extends an appendage from a crack above HPL's deathbed and sucks out the cancer.
At the time when i penned the Liber Ivonis bit, I was at school, and did not have access to my HPL library, the internet, or the book itself
. I just coughed up details I could remember, and swapped Hyperborean wizard for dead alchemist, hoping to lend it some credence. That's what literary pandering does to a piece. it makes you change to make things seem palatable.
all in all I think you are right.
I need to dwell more on the end...
but I'll probably just end up writing another story instead
.
I am always open to suggestions, as writing is a process...
P.S. 'The wheels looked odd' was a little test. I was wondering if anyone woould pick up on ":D Pi would be exactly 3!! :D " and the wheel bit is an allusion to that. The mirror bit, as mentioned in the errata bit, involved a second emphasis on the changed nature of light... perhaps reading more physics magazines would help with creativity
!
if the world changed, what would most make your eyes itch?(aside from an atmosphere change )
The bit with the head is intentionally ambiguous; at the time it was written the phrase "hook in my brain" was bouncing about my head, and I thought to have some literary fun
. Did he actually get hit by some mongrel urbanite, as in "Red Hook", or did he have a queer nervous break-down? Description was used as a crude type of foreshadowing... The shop is 'lurking' as to make itself more enticing, the book is promoting itself... :rereads: Christ, it's been a while since I've written...
Yeah, the animals talking was a mild fit of msdness...I thought that since they had been gathering to watch the spectacle, and the universe was different, maybe I ought to make them speak; It's less ponderous than typing "He pulled the trigger, completely ignorant of the fact that he had used his last bullet.."
Although maybe the cat should have said it....
The crack was supposed to be his passive nemesis, the source of all filth, (
) a fistful of gravel flung in the face of Idealism. I thought that in this world of 'perfection' would have dropped the pretense and widened the crack, allowing unwholesome and noxious vegetation to drip down. The mental imagery associated with it were the entrails of the android in 'ALIEN' and a passage from that god-awful tale, HPL (in 'Thulhu 2k, i think) where the Outer God extends an appendage from a crack above HPL's deathbed and sucks out the cancer.At the time when i penned the Liber Ivonis bit, I was at school, and did not have access to my HPL library, the internet, or the book itself
. I just coughed up details I could remember, and swapped Hyperborean wizard for dead alchemist, hoping to lend it some credence. That's what literary pandering does to a piece. it makes you change to make things seem palatable.all in all I think you are right.
I need to dwell more on the end...but I'll probably just end up writing another story instead
.I am always open to suggestions, as writing is a process...
P.S. 'The wheels looked odd' was a little test. I was wondering if anyone woould pick up on ":D Pi would be exactly 3!! :D " and the wheel bit is an allusion to that. The mirror bit, as mentioned in the errata bit, involved a second emphasis on the changed nature of light... perhaps reading more physics magazines would help with creativity
!if the world changed, what would most make your eyes itch?(aside from an atmosphere change
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NickolausPacione
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This does have a Lovecraftian charm. These kind of stories don't lend well on a 600 word count, this is the kind of story that would be felt at full strength if it was written out longer. Try to make it 2000 words longer, other that being too short this is a well written piece. The thing about English teachers in high school are that they don't know the real technique to writing a Mythos story. It takes real prowless to pull it off. You got the prowless but this is too short for that style.
Online Publishing Company of Cthulhu Mythos Writer, NICKOLAUS A. PACIONE. Dirty Black Winter is out now the career spanding collection. An Eye In Shadows is available on Amazon.com and Lulu.com.