Subject: [FFML] Re: [Original] Beauty in Darkness [Plus a quick update]
From: Gary Kleppe
Date: 3/29/2002, 11:41 AM
To: allyn yonge
CC: FFML@anifics.com


Word wrapping looks good in this draft, apart from a few glitches.

allyn yonge <ayonge@yahoo.com> wrote:

   Beauty in Darkness

DOUG MACKENZIE: Who turned out the lights, eh?

BOB MACKENZIE: Oh. Um, I did.

DOUG MACKENZIE: Beauty.

    "Please sir, we need water." 

"Please, sir,
(Always separate an address -- the identification of who's being talked
to -- from other dialog with commas.)

    Vassili Sashenko looked sharply at the frail
lookingfourteen old, then at the sea of blond haired

frail-looking fourteen-year-old,
(spacing, hyphenation, missing word)

children layinglimply on the truck bed. Cursing he

lying limply
(spacing, and wrong word -- "laying" is when you do it to something
else, e.g. bricks, or an egg)

Cursing, he

    "Thank you," the black haired child whispered.

Nobody ever notices... Oh, wait. [ORIG] story. Never mind. ^_^;;
Black-haired should be hyphenated, BTW.

    "That means 'sweet flower'?"  He said soothingly

he
(no caps; when you have a "said" or similarly functioning verb that
explicitly refers to the line of dialog, don't start a new sentence.)

    *The Wind.*

*The wind.*

(Unless this is meant as a reference to some particular deity or spirit
which personifies the wind, no caps.)

     Vassili smiled. "Well Sothea, we'll get you back

"Well, Sothea, we'll

    *Because alive, they're worth ten million USD..

Either one dot or four here, depending on whether you didn't or did want
it to trail off with ellipses.

Even the local girls  'recruited' as babysitters would
bring a few thousand.* 

ERIC IDLE: Babysitter. No, it's a babysitter. Babysitter? Babysitter --
I don't want a babysitter.
     
    A crossbow bolt slammed into one of the lounging
guards, pinning him to the side of the truck.

Into the guard himself, or just his clothes?

    "Dammit! Odd sections cover left, even sections
right!"  As if any of the damned *pizda* knew  their
right from their left, he thought sourly.  A writhing
bundle flew through the air, dropping down the open
hatch of his lead BMP-1.  An instant later the rear
doors burst open with a bang as the eleven man squad

eleven-man

exploded out the back, screaming throwing

screaming, throwing

    *At least the money is good*, he thought sourly,

good,* he

    "The Doctor wishes to know what is holding up our
progress." The caravan leader, Pol asked.

"The doctor wishes

(Otherwise Vas should answer "Tell him we lost the Tardis key!" Note
that when used as a name, without the "the," you *would* capitalize
"doctor." "The doctor? Which doctor? You mean Doctor Smith? Yes,
Doctor.")

progress," the

leader, Pol, asked.

****
    Stepping into the luxury trailer Vassili

trailer, Vassili

shuddered at the thirty degree temperature drop.  Pol

thirty-degree

vanished into the back and Vassili took glass of tea

took a glass

>from a tray. It was just the way he liked it, with
bits of lemon and strawberry.  He held a lump of
coarse sugar in his teeth and sipped the tea through
it
as he paced around the room knowing that he might have
a wait of a few minutes or several hours. Trailing a
hand along an ermine covered wall he caught a glimpse

wall, he

of his rather ordinary face  reflected in some
sterling silver trim he looked like a Russian turnip

trim. He
(or)
trim; he

    A high pitched cry, like a kitten caught under
the
wheels of a car, brought him out of his reverie with a

Geez, this guy comes up with such delicate metaphors. ^_^;;;

    "It is the hand which separates man from the
beast," Dr. Arnie's rich hypnotic  baritone flowed

beast." Dr.
(In this case, the verb only indirectly refers to the dialog. His voice
didn't flow the words "It is...." -- it just flowed.)

over Vassili like warm butter. "The human hand is
nature's most perfect tool "  long slender fingers

Long
(caps)

writhed about each other in a sinuous dance as he
smoothed a mixture of musk and herbs into his skin.

LIME: Hey!

MINT: Stop that!

    A faint look of distaste came over Arnie's face.
"Women are such filthy creatures, aren't they?"

    Vassili kept silent, knowing that Arnie preferred
to answer his own questions. 

    "Treacherous, weak, disgusting in their personal
habits and morals." Arnie lowered himself into a

VAS: Well, I -- *BR-RA-AA-AA-PP* -- dunno, really.

ARN: Another beer?

VAS: Don't mind if I *urp* do.

chair. "Yet they also have curative properties."
Steepling his fingers he looked meditatively at the
faintly bloody bundle. "For the first six
months of life the female has the ability to
rejuvenate and reinvigorate the male by acting as a
receptacle for excessive phlegm." Arnie looked at
Vassili thoughtfully."Perhaps you could take care
this?"

take care of this?"

    Pol pulled back a corner of the blanket and
Vassili stared at the tiny infant, laying like a
broken doll in Pol's
hands.

    "You're not squeamish, are you?" Arnie asked
softly.

Typical Yonge villain. ^_^;;;;;

ARN: Now go get me some cute little puppies to strangle! *Move,* you
fool!

    "Ccomrades," Kokh roared, "today we learn about

"Comrades,"

the 37mm cannon." He struggled with the ropes holding
the tarpaulin over the bulky weapon.

    " Sargeant," Vassili stepped forward. "Let me

"Sergeant."
(Spelling, punctuation, extra space. Alternatively, he could use
"Sarge." for short.)

    Arnie smiled to himself as Vassili took another
small step down the path to complete domination. The
Russian had been more difficult than most, but the
effort was worth it. "Explain these delays."  Arnie

delays,"

said as Pol left the trailer, "Our cargo is

trailer. "Our

    "Being forced to take this circuitous route is
intolerable." Arnie complained pettishly. "I've always

intolerable," Arnie

    "Politicians have no understanding of objective
reality as men of the world do."  Vassili replied

do,"

    "I don't have anyone trained in jungle fighting."
He didn't add that if he let them go into the jungle,
they'd run for home.

VAS: What was I thinking, recruiting baseball players into my mercenary
army?!

ARN: Well, they were free agents.

"And it's hard to kill what you
can't see. The heat and wildlife," he waved his hand
in the general direction of the thick green jungle
that surrounded them. " fool the Thermal Imagers. And

Suggest:

wildlife," he said, waving his... them, "fool

(Not sure if you can put an action in the middle of a sentence of dialog
without a "said" or similar verb. If you can do it at all, you'll
probably have to use dashes or something. Ookla, being even more of a
grammar pedant than I am, might want to correct me on this. ^_^)

    "Why crossbows?" Arnie rapped the table top
peevishly. 

    "They're  quiet and they don't have a thermal
signature." Vassili explained.

signature," Vassili

VAS: And our vampire troops won't go near them! AH AH! BLOOD!

    Vassili shook his head. "Helicopter  troops could
have hit us weeks ago. No, I think this is a group of
poachers who stumbled across us and are knocking out
our vehicles for salvage. The real danger," he tapped
the map, "is that they send someone to alert the army.

Suggest: danger," he said as he tapped the map, "is
(see above)

    Walnut sized insects whizzed out of the mist and

Walnut-sized

banged off the truck windscreen with a sound like
glass
pencils breaking as Vassili swept the jungle with the
last TI.

VAS: Break out the HP! Gah, I hate that reverse Polish data entry....

    A sudden gurgling cry brought his head around
toward the rear of the column. In the thermal sight a
fiery ghost flew a meter off the ground, and where it
went, men died. The terrifying apparition was halfway
through the line of men and truck before anyone could
react then the world erupted in a blaze of gunfire. 

react; then
(or)
react, and then

    Hot wind, harbinger of the coming monsoon, blew a
hole in the mist and Vassili yanked off the TI
goggles, to see a figure on a bicycle, pumping madly

goggles to see
(don't think you need the comma there)

    "It would seem so." Vassili looked at the bound
figure laying in the dirt. About ten or twelve he

lying
(see above)

twelve, he

guessed, right side horribly scarred and right foot
replaced with a crude prosthetic  probably a

prosthetic. Probably
(At least you need some sort of connector there; a semicolon or maybe a
dash would work as well.)

butterfly-mine or she would be dead, he thought. "I'd

Not sure if "butterfly mine" needs to be hyphenated.

    Arnie's eyes moistened with pleasure as he
removed a thin flexible blade from his bag and knelt
next to the semi- conscious girl. "I am going to ask

semi-conscious
(don't need a space there)

questions," he ripped open her shirt, drawing the

questions." He

blade across one childish nipple. "you are going to

nipple. "You

answer."

GIRL: Could I give the answers first? Like on Jeopardy?

    Vassili turned away from the muffled scream,
wondering if he should point out the girl probably
didn't speak English.

Given that this isn't an English-speaking country, Arn's either a
comlete idiot for not considering this possibility, or he doesn't really
care. ^_^;;

 Walking down the column he saw
that most of the damage consisted of slashed tires and
smashed radiators.

    *What the hell was she up to?* Vassili knelt by

GIRL: The thirty-fourth car, when I got caught.

VAS: Thanks, that's what I figured.

the abandoned bicycle just like the ones the Vietminh

bicycle, just
(or)
bicycle. It was just

had used to drive out the French and Americans. That
explained how she was able to move so quickly and
quietly. He noted frayed wired dangling from the

frayed wires

generator and an empty clamp for the
headlamp.  *Shovel*, he looked at the bloody,

*Shovel.* He

sharpened
implement with respect, *a handful of rice, two

respect. *A

packages of instant oatmeal and a crossbow.* Ignoring

VAS: A jug of wine, a loaf of bread....

the high pitched wail behind him he hefted the weapon
looking at the six remaining arrows.  

Suggest:
he hefted the weapon and looked at
(As written, the weapon is what's doing the looking, which obviously
isn't what you mean.)

    Another sobbing cry, and another.  Standing the
bicycle upright he straightened the bent front wheel
and rolled the machine back and forth. *What the hell
did she think*----  a fat spark jumped between the
bare wires ----  

think--* A fat... wires.
(I think)
 
   *Six arrows left . . .Why a frontal attack?*

GIRL: Seemed like a shame to let them go to waste.

   *Slashed tires . . . On the cargo transports.*

on
(no caps; it continues the same sentence.)

   *Maybe I ought to see if that night-manager job is

"Night manager" probably shouldn't be hyphenated as a noun. (As an
adjective, e.g. night-managing job, it would be hyphenated.)

    "They didn't tell you?" McIntosh looked down at
the frail, emaciated figure, bandaged stumps moving
feebly like a beetle turned on it's back. "It's Dr.

its
("it's" means "it is" or "it was" or maybe "it has")

Death."

RORY: Jack Kevorkian?!? Oh WOW! Can I get his autogr-- um, I guess not.

    "The bastard who killed all those children and
put
drawings of it on the internet!" Anderson's face

internet?"
(from context, he's clearly intoning it as a question)

    "Actually," Anderson said reluctantly, "we
tracked herdown a few days ago."

her down

    "Even accused criminals have rights." McIntosh
looked sternly at Anderson. "Her Majesty wants me to
deal with this  personally."

****

    "This is very dangerous. My last six couriers
quit, or have gone missing." Jun-Chhoun Prak looked
doubtfully at the small scarred girl. 

    Veata shrugged.  "I need work, and Sothea needs

"I need work" seems to imply a job ethic that Vea probably wouldn't
have. Maybe "I need money" or something like that?

    "That is not a problem," Veata's scared face lit

problem." Veata's

Why does she look scared? This description doesn't seem to match her
behavior in the scene.

Beauty in Darkness was originally conceived as
as fanfic. However I needed an original story for
A-kon and I realized that the basic concept
would lend itself well to the project. I was going
to do an historical piece (Tokagawa era) but it
kept growing to novel length and the contest
has a 2500 word limit. This was originally
3540 words. The last 115 were the hardest to
cut.

I hope you liked it. 

On the positive side, it was a nicely expressive piece of writing, with
enough technical details to give the right flavor but not overwhelm and
drag down the story.

But the ending felt incomplete, like there should've been more of a
payoff of some sort -- whether from plot, character, theme, or something
else. Veata as terrorist/freedom fighter/whatever you wanna call it
isn't that much of a surprise because we don't really get to know her
earlier as anything else.

Also, and I'm not sure if it would help with what I mentioned above or
not, but I think giving us a glimpse inside Dr. Arn's mind would've
enhanced the story. Certainly we're not going to agree with what he did,
but we could at least be made to understand it a little better, and that
can increase the impact of a story by making it more believable. Yes, I
know that in real life, we can only guess at what makes people like this
tick. But this isn't real life, it's a fictionalization of real life,
and one of the whole reasons for doing that is to make the
un-understandable understandable.

Anyhow, glad to see you writing again, and good luck with the contest.

(I may go back and re-write it as a fanfic. It all
depends on time constraints and how well the
[original] is reveived, etc, etc. ^_O)

I'll get the defibrillator. :-D


Gary Kleppe
http://www.akane.org/gary/comics.html

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