[FFML] The Shadow over Nishinomiya

[Michael Clark]

> I tried to adjust my eyes to the gloom in the room. Other than the
> light from the hall, there was only a small sliver of light from the
> far side, where the curtains did not quite meet. Under that far light
> hunched a figure that now looked up with enormous circular eyes. After
> a moment I realized that these must be glasses, worn by a diminutive
> figure, with distances so hard to judge in the darkness.

The repetition of "light" strikes me here.  I'm not sure there's a
better alternative, but I find such repetitions in close proximity
noticeable.  What do you think of the use of "now" here?

> Haruhi stepped inside and felt along the wall. She flipped a switch,
> but the shadows remained unlit, "It's burned out?"

I'm uncertain about the comma after unlit.  If this were dialogue and an
action one would do something like, say...

"It's burned out?"  She flipped a switch, but the shadows remained
unlit.

Or, since that question mark obfuscates things...

"It's burned out."  She flipped a switch...

At any rate, it gives me pause, and I suspect that ending the sentence
with "unlit" and starting a new one would be more correct.

> "Uh, excuse me," I said to the dweller in darkness, "Do you know where
> the members of the Supernatural Phenomenon Research Club are?"

Similarly, I've thought the "d" in "Do you..." should be lowercase, or
the sentence should end at "darkness".

> "They did not return," The speaker sounded female. She whispered
> hoarsely as if she had not been called on to use her voice for a long
> while.

And, along the same vein, end the sentence at "return".  "The speaker
sounded female" isn't a dialogue tag.  There are several other instances
of this, so I'll refrain from pointing them out further, lest I be
repetitive.

> The shadowy figure flinched away from the light, and covered her face
> with a book. She wore the proper uniform for a freshman girl at our
> North High School, but she was so slight that she could have easily
> have passed for a junior high school student of three years younger.
> Her short hair however was of a silver gray hue to be expected from a
> woman many decades older.

Should it be "silver-gray" instead?  I think there should be no comma
after "light," as the phrase that comes after it isn't an independent
clause.  I also think the juxtaposition of "younger" versus "older"
could be made more snappy by removing one of them, but that would
require some modification of the passage.

> "See[,] Kyon[?]" Haruhi turned to me[.]  "The club will close if she
> doesn't get more members, so we're doing her a favor."

My suggestions in brackets.

> I took a moment to look around the room. Besides the chair the girl
> sat in, there were four other chairs around a table and bookshelves
> along one wall, that were filled with what seemed to be very old
> books. Some of the book titles were in East Asian scripts, some were
> in European scripts, mostly English, German and some Russian, a few
> were in Arabic and Hebrew, and some were in scripts I had not seen
> before.

I think some repetition can be avoided by saying "others" instead of
"other chairs".  I'd also suggest "wall, which" instead of "wall, that",
but the placement of the following clause is awkward (unavoidably
awkward, but awkward), as it's hard to get it closer to "bookshelves",
which is what it's really describing.

I also think the repetition of "scripts" is distracting, but I admit, I
can think of only a small number of alternatives:  Chinese characters,
Latin and Cyrillic script, Arabic and Hebrew glyphs?  I concede it may
not be as natural.

> Everything was covered in dust. The school janitorial staff must not
> have visited this room for months, perhaps years. I looked down at the
> floor. There were three sets of footprints in the dust from three
> different shoe sizes. I saw my and Haruhi's footprints from the door
> to our current positions, and many smaller prints from that girl's
> chair to the bookshelves and back. Haruhi and I must have covered
> exactly her steps that she took to the door and back each day.

Hm.  Perhaps more description of everything being covered it dust.  Show
me it's in the pages, on the books' jackets.

> Thirty minutes later, after standing on the table to replace the
> lights, I was using the mop and bucket Haruhi had borrowed to clean
> the floor. I had considered telling her to have me start by dusting so
> that I wouldn't have to redo the mopping after the dust had settled,
> but I didn't want to suggest to her additional tasks I should do.
>
> "So Miss Nagato, what's that book like?" I asked the girl who had
> continued to read through all this.

It's economical to tell us that Nagato has been reading throughout
Kyon's duties, but perhaps that can be shown by, for example, Kyon
telling us how he had to mop around Nagato's chair while the girl stayed
utterly glued to it (and her book).

> She held the book up towards the sting of the uncovered florescents.
> The title seemed to be in Arabic or something. She went back to
> reading[,] and I went back to mopping.

Strictly speaking, though I understand the reasons to avoid that comma
if that was the intention.

> When I returned home, my grade[-]school sister looked me over then
> remarked, "What's with all the dust Kyon? Have you been exploring
> forgotten tombs again? Just kidding. I know you never do anything
> interesting," She ran off to her room laughing.
>
> Just once, I'd like her to call me ["]big brother["] again.
>
> The next day I sat in the slightly[-]more[-]livable clubroom and did
> my homework while I waited for Haruhi to show up. Miss Nagato had
> flinched again when I had turned on the lights and then ignored my
> greeting when I noticed she was there. She was reading another book.
> This time the cover title was in German. How many languages did she
> know? She must be one of those reclusive kid geniuses you read about
> from time to time. Perhaps she was junior school aged, of normal
> height for her age, and just a few grades advanced.

Some small suggestions here, though I admit the second set of dashes
would seem distracting, even if they'd be, as far as I can tell,
strictly correct.

> "I found her wandering around the school in a daze," Haruhi turned to
> her captive, "What sort of after class activities do you have[,]
> Mikuru?"

And another.

> "I can't[;] it's our family shrine!"

And another.


On the whole, I can imagine what Nagato must be reading.  The atmosphere
for this club room feels right.  Is there a possibility you'd take this
any further?

-Michael Clark