The Temple of Dagon

Herein lies my first real attempt at a story. It's about a Harvard professors expedition to the Arizonan desert and the horror he discovers.

Please, please, please rip it to pieces on everything you can.

Newest version can be read here. Please don't mind the varying text size at the very beginning. That's not how it was meant to be and turned up that way somehow.

Newest version can be can be download as a .doc here as it was meant to be read.

I have my own problems with it, but I'll post those later, once it's been given enough time to be read by enough people.

hey, i put some notes for you throughout the first half of the word document. grab it from here, and again later when i finish the process. i'm trying to make lots of notes—more than i normally would (since you did such a bang-up job for me)... hope it's helpful

Thanks for the edits JJ, I've started making them already. I can't believe I missed some of that stuff pointed out.

I think I'm missing some of the signifiacnce here, but I don't understand why the Indian is imprisoned in a place which seems to be a sort of library/museum.

I'll clear that up asap.

you can get the fully-marked-up .doc now, from the same url as above. it's more copyediting than reviewing.. i'll read it again, straight through, and see if i can make some more generalized comments later.

Newly edited version is up. Click the links in my first post.

it's a pretty faithful tribute to the classic mythos formula (the investigation that goes horribly wrong). calling it 'formulaic' doesn't necessarily mean it's bad—but it puts more pressure on you to really tell the story in an engrossing way. the challenge is to be daring and careful at the same time, ending up with something that's simultaneously familiar and novel for the reader.

one thing you might encounter trouble with is the 'crossover' between the mythos and christian canology. in my opinion, the two systems are incompatible: christianity provides a 'trump card' that is absent from the mythos deck, where there is no repentance or salvation because human morality doesn't really matter in the scheme of things. of course you have every right to deal with them however you want, but some hardcore lovecraftians will reject it.. unless you manage to weave a very intriguing connection between azathoth and jehovah, but that would be another story.

this draft is a definite improvement over the first, but it could still use some editing. i've just addressed a few points here to give you an idea of which technical gremlins to look out for:

Enkil wrote:I assume I need no introduction, though if in the case that I do my name is Marius Blackwood...

awkward verbosity—this could be replaced with 'but'

...as a result of my following experiences.

the syntax of 'following' doesn't work here. more like '...as a result of the experiences I shall now describe.'

...an expedition to recover yet unknown myths of surviving aboriginal tribes...

unknown things are discovered, not recovered. could say 'seek out' instead. and i think 'yet-unknown' should be hyphenated (not positive)

...a student of European Folklore... ...while majoring in Anthropology...

i don't think folklore and anthropology have to be capitalized unless you're referring to the 'Department of.'

On the third day, the third of October, this all changed.

the third day, including the 'start' day of sept. 17, would be sept. 19.
* you still have marius' name as ----- in the dialogue

...an unusually large sarcophagus looking obstruction...

this would work for an expressive quality, such as 'scary-looking' or 'expensive-looking,' but i think 'sarcophagus-like' would be more appropriate here

...the singular interest was this strange, leafed stem, sarcophagus...

are you trying to use 'leafed stem' as an adjective? how about 'this sarcophagus with its strangely-marked lid'

...and there are other bugs, but i think these are enough to help you spot the others. i see no reason why the final draft of this shouldn't be included among the stories housed here at the temple!

As far as the mythos-christianity thing goes, when I first started out (the first draft I posted was actually my 4th) it wasn't a mythos story, except for mention of the Al Azif. I'm still thinking of taking the mythos out of it, in fact I'm leaning towards it. But right now I'm a little stressed from school stuff and don't feel like rewriting it just yet. I'd say next draft within the next week and a half.

Does the Indian mans dialog come off as cheesy? It sort of does to me.

I'm also entirely unsure about the Fuhrer paragraph, I like the idea but the way I excuted it is just so... blah. I could rewrite it but I don't see any other real way to do it.

Thanks for the edits.

Enkil wrote:Does the Indian mans dialog come off as cheesy? It sort of does to me.

i'd say it's a little over-the-top, but it depends on the audience. there are probably a lot of people who would think they're the coolest lines in the story. it must be a matter of taste..

I'm also entirely unsure about the Fuhrer paragraph, I like the idea but the way I excuted it is just so... blah. I could rewrite it but I don't see any other real way to do it.

i was wondering why you brought that up.. most readers, i suspect, will immediately think of indiana jones at that point. kind of a distraction from the main story at the last minute

i hope i haven't discouraged you with all this feedback. i wasn't sure if you wanted just one round of 'ripping to pieces,' or repetitive scrutiny (which i would appreciate for 'chaparral heights' ahem everybody)..

Don't mind it at all :D I'm just getting worn out from getting stuff together for when I go to school in Glasgow in September. Plus, and this probably isn't a good thing, but I've read the story so much I'm getting sick of it, lmfao.

Perhaps I'll break up the dulldom by reading Chaparral Heights another time have you gone through with the edits yet?

yeah, i guess we can call the current version my 'first redraft.' i keep thinking of little things that can be improved, so i won't call it final final until it stops haunting me. meanwhile, i've started another story featuring genevieve from the library.

anyway, i know what it's like to feel burned out.. this is why i'm taking it extremely easy in my current writing projects (as far as pressuring myself to make progress), so i can't fault you for stepping back for a while.

i think we're on the right track with this forum, though.. i hope more of these writers will take part in this. either that, or tell me what other website could provide this kind of cooperation, with this level of expertise in the genre?

like the homestar runner theme song says:
'everybody, everybody!
everybody, everybody!
everybody, everybody!
everybody, wah dee doh dee duh!

Ok, so hopefully this will be my last draft or second to last draft. I fixed up most everything, worked out the mythos-cannon hybrid thing.

i'm slowly marking it up.. check here for progress

I just had a meeting with the Writer in Residence here at Glasgow Uni, Liz Lochhead. She had absolutely zero criticisms of it, I actually had to prod her for them, and even then she only came up with three, and it was mere semantics. She even strongly encouraged me to try and publish it.

Thanks for all the help JJ, truely. I'm gonna start reading The Depths again right after this.