writing Jiro with the girls spirit inside him was a challenge i seem to rememebr. ive got part 4 and a part -1 and -2 and some other space vampire segments knocking about.
Love the fluidity of the movement. It’s almost a long tracking shot with small cuts that served the images conveyed.
Aside from the typos it’s solid. I was a bit skeptical of the delivery boy at first but once it kicks it pulls. In a sense I got some of John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China’s visuals from this. Not as a copy, more as a parallel reality where the events are dipped in gore.
yes... i was desperate to get this done out of respect for Emil who did his work some time back now. and I was up until 330 am on it so i missed a couple of typos which i can now see GLARING.
REALLY pleased you liked the fluidity...its hard work re writing... im going to get it right from day one next time i write something fresh on this one. if you do want more... Jiro Jones 2 and 3 are up and RAW. on my stack 😀
and finally thank you so so much for reading and spending your time to gimme feed back. it really makes my day. 😎
I’m going to have to access it from my laptop ‘cos I just looked it up here in the app and it ain’t showing. It happened with James and AP’s Usable Fudge. I can’t find it in the app, and to read I have to go in my laptop(which is why I haven’t finished it yet).
i think it means second son in japanese.... it took me ages to decide on it. hes mixed race and theres history in japan. jiro lives in Pacific north west. his grandmother fled Japan. ancient secrets... yada yada. Jiro Jones had a ring to it. Kimiko took even longer to decide on heh
I really liked the original, and this is even better! It's frictionless now (save for a typo or two), and the details hit harder. Jiro conversing through Stone's earpiece is still my favorite part. It's such an absurd but honest moment, like, my god what else can he do but react moment to moment? The character feels real there
I loved that bit so much. @Nick Winney has a good story here, and he says he’s been working on it for YEARS. He’s improved as a writer so much since I’ve met him because of @Edith Bow’s stream of consciousness prompt workshop group that I think Jiro deserves an entire redraft, or a pick back up.
It wasn’t bad, and had great vibes, but after reading some of his more recent shorts (especially his entry for Dark Tidings) when I read this I knew Nick just needed to do another draft and it would be polished. Hell, his one pass pieces that are stream of consciousness have been some bangers. (The first one I remember involved a murderer who ends up getting burnt to death in a psych ward and gave me chills.)
Thanks emil. this kinda comment means the world to me, and undoubtedly @edith bow was my initial inspiration for the stream of consciousness work and new found self belief. closely followed by the fiction culture vultures on here!
You deserve to believe in yourself. And yes, you're a very good writer. As for the tech issues you mention in another comment, remind me to tell you the story of "The Russians" of the Nine Story Hotel, because their history and stories have been updated like, eight times in the past twenty years or whatever since I wrote my first this is not a novel, it's a garbage fire with interesting characters.
all ears! you do solid tech. i did try and put some better gun craft in the edit. i am terrified of guns though. its the fear that if i get one I will just uncontrollably kill everyone round me by mistake
Nah, guns are fairly inert objects. I’m from the United States though, and from a rural backwater in the south at that (well, mid-south, somewhere in the southern Ohio river valley off the Cumberland in far west Kentucky, the town I grew up in, I shit you not, was named Needmore.) So we basically had gun safety in kindergarten and everyone had a rifle and shotgun or three rattling around. This was before everyone and their Hinge date decided they needed an AR-15 to fight… You know, they never really can quite justify that one, and it ends up in an escalatory spiral of armament, but whatever, it was before this cultural milieu.
The AR-15 is just a dressed up scary looking .223 hunting rifle by the way. Which when people call it a varmint gun, they do literally mean that it’s good for shooting squirrels etc. (NATO 5.56/.223 is technically, when used militarily, considered to be a wounding round. And now you’re asking me Emil, why would the military, any military want a rifle that fires an underpowered round designed to wound and not kill, is killing not the point? And I say, well, yes, and no. The point in war is not killing, it’s winning, and doctrinally a wounded soldier saps more enemy resources than a dead one. And much like the infamous ambush scene in Full Metal Jacket, a wounded enemy is much more likely to scream “ouch help, I’ve been shot” and bring more of his friends scurrying out of cover and into the kill corridor. If you’re a student of history, which if I remember right you are, just think of the wars after the breakup of Yugoslavia. The sniper war in Serbia and Boznia Herzegovina where famously it was quite popular for plain clothes fighters from high perches in Soviet style apartment blocks to shoot children in their little child extremities and then wait for people to come out and pile bodies on top of bodies. Coincidentally the most popular way to take care of this issue involved mortar fusillades, which just pissed off the people in the half or totally demolished apartment blocks and drove to more killing.)
But the easiest thing in firearms safety to remember is that 1. a weapon is always loaded. Did you just unload it? Did you drop the magazine and rack the shot in the boot? Cool, now remember, it’s still loaded until you prove otherwise. 2. Never point a firearm at anything you’re not willing to kill or destroy, living or otherwise, yes, this goes for the terra firma you’re pointing it at as well. 3. NEVER HAND SOMEONE A LOADED WEAPON. 4. Never keep your finger on the trigger unless you’re about to kill, wound, or miss with the shot entirely whatever you’re pointing at.
That’s like, the one’s they hammer into you in intro to gun safety. I’d add in “Always use ear protection” because contrary to what all media would have you think, weapons fire is quite loud, and when it is in the same room as you my god, you’re going to go half deaf after the first shot. (This doesn’t help with aural occlusion, which is already a problem in high tension scenarios, but that’s another complex issue entirely.)
Otherwise they’re mostly expensive single purpose tools (hell, I have knives that I worry about more than I would worry about a Glock because they’re much lower maintenance and in theory I’m more likely to hurt myself by accident while handling them. Google the Gerber Mk II, mine is named Judy. Or the Ka-Bar Marine fighting knife, of which mine is named Bertha. Yes, I name everything.)
I am greedy for more Jiro. Nick is a fantastic writer and storyteller (I mean that Nick). Have you read his "The Turkish Barbers" flash? I think it really shows off his prowess, it's damn good!
He might be the most pleasant fellow I've had the privilege to meet with the most fucked up imagination. I'm jealous
Turkish Barber is on the shortlist now that I've had thirty seconds to breathe and I can get back to work without worrying about the family imploding completely while moving six minutes away from our former abode. (I think anyway.)
thank you MP. emil made a great point about the tech which shows how long ago i wrote this initially... airpods? barely had ipods back then... so i made up some other rrason for wired coms... now i can see part 2 has continuity issues heh.
I have the story plotted out a bit. the baddie is the character in The Taurocteny... like a 2000 year old space vampire with a gene splicing lab and bits of crashed space craft all along the camino de campostella pilgrim route... this is probs going to be my first novel im going to try and finish up. I think the story has legs. its my writing stamina that doesnt haha!
I was JUST saying your imagination is dark and fucked up (I love it) and apparently you have space vampires living in it?! Christ man, write this novel I need to read that shit!
Uh-oh. I was sort of afraid this might be my reaction when I started to read the edit post (I couldn't get through the whole of it tbh). Hopefully you'll appreciate my honest critique, though.
To put it simply, I far preferred the original.
So obviously I owe you an explanation for why. This version has the entire point of the original stripped out. There isn't much character anymore. There's no Lovecraftian madness. There is no emotional effect on the reader.
Here's the total irony about the critique. The reason why the original was so brilliant is because the style of the writing is a perfect reflection of the action presented to the reader, as well as the view from Jiro's increasingly messed up mind. It immediately puts the reader inside Jiro's head, so we are seeing the entire scenario from his point of view. That's to say, his mental state point of view. Further, he has just come from 'ordinary reality' into a world of seething, incomprehensible madness. And so, too, does the reader precisely because you link the reader to Jiro. And that is why the style of writing in the original is so perfect, because it's jagged, relentless, with sudden mad glimpses and hints of this horror over here and that horror over there and of course, because the reader doesn't really know entirely what's going on this perfectly reflects Jiro's perception.
The last thing we want in a scene like this is some 'break from the narrative' to give a visual description of the surroundings. That sort of thing comes across like you are simply, unemotionally describing to us some movie that you are watching, or a comic you're reading.
Then there's the 'main character's thoughts in italics' - that absolutely doesn't work here at all. The original like I said is relentless, it's like this series of flashes, bam bam bam - and that's exactly Jiro's mind throughout the entire sequence of events. He's not thinking straight. He's not observing normally. He sees things in his peripheral vision which immediately turn his head, then something else, and something else. And he can't make sense of it all because it's incompatible with his worldview. Relentless is the word. Time - especially time - is no longer able to be perceived properly. This version has these individual paragraphs which are simply like descriptions of each image in a comic, then there's 'what's in the dialogue bubble' (the italics), and then we move to the next image. But that's not what would be going through Jiro's head. Jiro is not reading a comic. He is right there. The italics (his thoughts and feelings) are mixed in with the description, which itself is full of holes as it should be. Because he's confused and he doesn't know what the fuck is going on. And in the original, so is the reader, right from the word go.
And that's exciting. This version isn't. It's formulaic.
There isn't the hook here to emotionally connect with the main character. Because no emotion. Perhaps the worst aspect is how Jiro actually seems to start acting totally rationally and cool and collected which he absolutely would not in such a situation (and doesn't in the original, remember). He would be frantic. Remember his entire worldview has just been utterly destroyed in an instant. Remember also how in part 2 and 3, despite being told by the guy on the end of the phone to kill the girl he hesitates and doesn't do what he's told and that's what provides the serious drama and tension of the situation - you, the reader, are almost screaming at him to kill her because you know she's a monster, but he refuses to listen. If you continued 2 and 3 with this new part 1 then there would be a massive continuity error there. You'd have to rewrite the entire sequence that happens after this point because we'd be talking about a different character. Or the same character with a different mindset. He has suddenly, and inexplicably, come to terms with this entirely new mad world he's been thrown into and is acting calmly. Sorry, that's not psychologically realistic.
Furthermore, all this visual description - which totally breaks the flow of the narrative - completely detracts from the story and is unnecessary and it's not what Jiro is seeing. He is not taking time out to update his internal map. He's frantic. So these distracting descriptions prevent the emotional flow of the story. Besides, the reader, remember, always fills in the subtext themselves (with your hints as a writer) and you absolutely need to allow the reader to ask questions. As the writer, that's how you hook them - like 'I don't know what's going on here but it's fucking exciting so I'm going to keep on reading'. The last thing you do is stop the action, give the reader a quick visual breakdown, then start up again. It's the not knowing exactly where each door is and each object and all that which provides the terror and the suspense - again, which is what Jiro is feeling and seeing.
I'm probably burbling now actually and repeating myself, but this version simply doesn't capture the essence of what's actually going on in this scenario, which is pure horrific madness. There is a disconnect between it and Jiro, your main character, and thus the reader too. The engagement isn't there anymore. We are no longer watching all this from his eyes and his mind. We are watching you telling us about some movie you are watching in the next room.
As an exercise in 'descriptive writing' sure, this re-write isn't bad at all. But as an exercise in actual writing, in which the style of writing itself emotionally captures the action and the character, no - that's been lost. This is a description of a movie on a screen. I, the reader, am not there anymore, inside the screen (think 'The Ring').
This is perhaps the great irony of a lot of these 'editorial critiques' with regards to 'how to write'. How to write is an exercise in engaging the reader. That's it. It's not about spending ages painfully agitating over choices of which words to use. Most of the advice they give is rubbish. If I want to start with a gerund then I will. Or an adverb. Or whatever. As a writer, you don't follow rules, you follow a 'feeling' for how to write, in the sense of 'yeah, that word wouldn't work there' or 'this works here'. You just know. It's partly why I've often said that a person is either a writer or they are not. If they are, they don't need to be told 'how to write' - especially because, in the end, they are not in fact being told 'how to write' at all - the irony is they are being told 'how to edit'. And a lot of the time, that editing means the writer's original feeling and intention is ripped out. And the heart of the piece is gone.
So, spend lots of time thinking about the timeline and the continuity and so on before you write, so the whole idea is clear in your mind, but not on the actual writing. Writers don't need to spend ages writing, let alone editing. And your stream of consciousness exercises prove that you are a writer. A real writer. A good writer. Not an editor.
I decided quite some time ago not to listen to editors. I can do my own editing, thank you very much, because it's my story, not anyone else's. And I am a writer.
Hi Evelyn - wow - thank you for taking so much time to read this give me your thoughts. Firstly, I love that you liked the original version and I understand what you are saying totally - it was written straight from the gut and with very little concern for literary technique - mostly just from my love of a "ripping yarn" as I like to call it, and which I still feel drawn to write more than anything else. You are a writer of ripping yarns yourself, which I have loved reading.
I can also see what you are saying about how the edited piece feels completely different. For me, this was an exercise to tighten up style - there were quite a few glaring problems with the first one which were there because it was splurged out - and if you didn't dig too deep, then they weren't noticeable, and if you liked the first version, then you will already have your own impression of Jiro as a character and the edited version will no doubt feel like he is a different character and yes parts 2 and 3 would not work unless they also got a similar treatment - or I decide to revert to a more relaxed and less structured style. I'm just experimenting and seeing how it ends up.
As I say - for me this was an exercise to tighten things up, impose some stylings on it and think about the scene and the mechanics and to try to make some aspects more realistic with the benefit of the advice from someone that writes fiction that I really admire for its tightness of structure and stylings - so the suited henchmen and guns I felt really needed improvement - the setting needed to work better - like the door opening and closing was really all wrong and some of the elements in the room like the metal rods were not doin what I really wanted them to do either.
the wired tech would also be a real problem for me if I go back to write this now - everyone will be like - what the hell do the earphones need wires for - so I wanted to play about with that too - although I do like the "using the corpse as a telephone" quite a lot.
I wanted to try to create more of a visual sense without relying on some somewhat cliched word constructions - I can see that the scene where Jiro goes into the room - the effect of this is much more muted now than the splurge of half sentences I used initially which as you say created that sense of confusion and what the fuck is going on.
When I finally get this story built from its bits and the whole tale structured, its probably going to end up somewhere in between because my natural style is my style and re-writing this paying close attention to Emil's editing advice and suggestions was actually a really tough exercise because it made me think about what I was writing a lot more carefully - that exercise was something I really enjoyed doing, but I am not going to be able to write a book thinking about what would Emil have to say - but I am still going to take on board his advice.
I know you also have editorial experience going back years and you are comfortable with your own style and abilities so I can see why you are dismissive of the use of editors as possibly stifling and I take it a huge compliment that you say I write well enough without it - but I haven't been doing this seriously for very long, really - less than a year truth be told, and I want to soak up all the advice I can and of course. some people will like things one way better than another.
Now I just need to settle down to write the skeleton of this story into something I can hang these bits and bobs from. space vampires, mysterious black suits, missing sisters, arcane rituals and swords and super powers - piece of cake. hoho.
thank you again - I really appreciate the thought and your time and your opinion - as always
Having slept on it I’m able to condense my reaction/thoughts a lot better now.
Essentially the problem is that editors keep telling people to ‘show not tell’ - but actually you shouldn’t do either. What you should do is ‘suggest’ and ‘prompt’. The worst thing you can possibly do is give descriptions, especially when they break up what is - in this scene/sequence - supposed to be a fast-paced, visceral and very sudden exposure to madness and horror.
The reason is because of ‘narrative theory’, which essentially comes down to basic human psychology and especially ‘cognitive processing’. It goes like this. The human brain is not a computer. It doesn’t take in a massive amount of detail, take a while to process it, then splurge something out the other end. It doesn’t have the processing capacity for that. So the way cognition works is ‘heuristic’ - that’s to say it’s a ‘best efficiency’ model. The brain takes what it thinks are the most important bits, and then it ‘imagines’ the rest, based on prior knowledge (patterns), instinct, and emotion. All the best writers know this. So too do magicians and propagandists.
Here’s an example: ‘Jiro rounded the stairwell’. That’s all you need to say because every reader has experience of a stairwell. And you do ‘round’ it because the human motion of turning 90 degrees is a fluid movement. It’s not a robotic ‘reach the top of the stairs. Stop. Immediate 90 degree flip. Eyes front. Start walking again.’ - that’s what the robot’s computer program would say, and humans don’t need that. To say ‘stairwells aren’t round’ totally misses that point. Humans do round stairwells, because humans are not robots.
Where ‘engagement’ with a story comes in is precisely when the reader ‘has to fill in the gaps’. Take that away from the reader and you’ve lost them.
If there is no extra work for the brain to do, then the reader has no engagement. The reader is not filling in any of those gaps. You have taken their agency away. Because there is no ‘unspoken subtext’ - as I say, it’s the reader who fills in the gaps, not the writer. Because of the way the brain processes scenes.
Think about all the best horror movies you love. You are absolutely not shown the monster in full detail until the end (usually the final turning point between act two and act three). That opening scene of Jaws - that’s scary because you don’t see the shark. Spielberg knows perfectly well the viewer is ‘imagining the worst’ - the reader/viewer’s imagination is always more than the writer’s description. Or the original Alien. If you saw the alien at the beginning it wouldn’t be scary in the slightest. And so on and so on. You know what I mean.
In this edited version I no longer care about Jiro. He has no real character anymore. The suits have been reduced to vague peripheral NPCs in a computer game. Ironically I don’t know what the monsters look like either because my own imagination hasn’t done any work. And when you mention the girl’s foot has been chewed off I don’t care. It’s not shocking. In the original I physically recoiled at that bit, because my brain was being relentlessly pummelled by quickfire. It was frantic and that’s the reason it worked so well. There’s was no let up. Which is what I mean about how the style of the writing precisely matched the dramatic action.
Then you add the bit about the girl isn’t the one he’s looking for. You don’t need to say that. It’s ‘implied’, because if it was her Jiro would react differently and both he and we would know. That explanatory addition at the beginning when you say he was looking for someone - this should either be a separate chapter sometime before (as a suggestion) or sometime after (as a flashback perhaps). Make the reader ask questions, then don’t answer them straight away. Force the reader to keep those questions in their heads.
Then there’s the really bad bit when you mention the monster’s weight and actually use the word ‘fibreglass’ - that suddenly makes the reader think ‘B-movie prop’. It’s not scary anymore.
So all the important bits summarised by the following words: visceral, shocking, horror, drama & tension, madness, ‘not being able to make sense of what the fuck is going on’ - all these elements are now lost, because the reader isn’t doing any work anymore. That’s the psychology of narrative theory. If you ‘tell or show’ too much, you lose the reader’s engagement and they’re not interested.
Remember also - readers do not read like editors. They are not picking apart sentence structures and word choices. They’re not doing ‘close reading’. The only time they would look up, as it were, is if they come across some obviously badly written or clunky or cliched sentence.
All your best writing is already encompassing that. Look over it again and you will realise you have only given the reader sufficient ‘prompts’. You haven’t shown and you haven’t told. And so the reader is engaged. How would, say Legacy read if you stopped the action and gave the reader some detailed map-like layout of the garden and the old church etc. You know perfectly well people’s imagination can picture a scary old overgrown church. You don’t need to use words like ‘scary overgrown church’.
"Essentially the problem is that editors keep telling people to ‘show not tell’ - but actually you shouldn’t do either. What you should do is ‘suggest’ and ‘prompt’. The worst thing you can possibly do is give descriptions, especially when they break up what is - in this scene/sequence - supposed to be a fast-paced, visceral and very sudden exposure to madness and horror."
Yes, absolutely agreed, but the chapter was fifteen years old and parts were incomprehensibly or incongruously written with a lot of confused sequences of action. (And I don't mean the kind where people are kung-fu fighting.)
A story is a tension pump. There was no tension in the original chapter. And not much horror. I still haven't read the revision because I'm catching up on paid work and unpacking my house after the worst first quarter year of my life since my best friend hanged herself in 2023, but I'm not JUST reading as an editor. I liked the first version as a reader, but as a simple reader. If you put that in front of me at a bookstore where I'm browsing to buy and I landed on that page as a tester, I'd put it down, or if I paid for it, I'd be annoyed.
"The only time they would look up, as it were, is if they come across some obviously badly written or clunky or cliched sentence." - and there were more than a few in the original draft. That's literally a good editor's job. That IS close reading.
I come from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, I've also been writing all my life, and while you have issue with editors in general, you're speaking about my work in particular. I know narrative theory, but this is as written a very visual piece with limited interiority on Jiro. Yes, Jiro can round the stairwell but he has to be going up or down, there must be a sense of placement, and in this story even reading casually unless you've never paid attention to a page before, there are more than a half dozen places where you're going to be absolutely confused as a reader as to where and how Jiro exists with regards to the door, stairs, and penthouse.
I’ve yet to read the revised version, but what you’re describing, I agree with, the only problem is that it works best in first person and not close third.
I don’t give prescriptive advice unless very specific and very brief because it’s mostly bullshit and it goes against my ideas and thoughts AS AN EDITOR.
The previous version of this story is not what you think it is. You could go back and read it ten thousand times and it’s still got inconsistencies, problems with place (some of which the reader cannot infer or which contradict other sentences already written.) Now, this would be a little fine if done correctly in first person, but in close third with limited interiority, it certainly doesn’t. Someone is telling this story. The narrator of a piece is a voice as well.
I haven’t read this yet but I’m going to suggest that some of your critique is fair, some is incredibly off base, and some makes no sense (he started acting irrationally rational in the previous draft once he found the girl, and he wasn’t nearly as confounded to have been confronted with demonic horrors as I would expect. At one point his heart begins to slow when it absolutely would not, he’d have so much adrenaline and cortisol in his blood he’d be ready to run a Marathon nude up K-2)
Nick is a phenomenally talented and skilled writer, but the original, while being very fun, lacked a lot of things that I would expect from more polished work, and he admitted as much since it’s more than a decade old.
And this wasn’t a critique. You give crits in workshops. This was a developmental and line editorial pass. I’ve been doing this for ten years professionally, I’ve been in or around publishing for twenty years, and I’m an author myself.
There’s a reason that people work with me. I’d be happy to read this and address your issues or have a friendly chat about it, but I’d like for you to please not slander my name, my craft, and my work outright. Which you more than happily do at the bottom.
Nabokov could get away with his thunderous “STET” to any editor, who he considered mostly to be meal worms and parasites, but he was Nabokov. (Along with this, did you actually read the editorial pass? Or did you just read the before and after?) And in the end, even Borges ended up editing Nabokov for fun in his later years, which is hilarious.
No, the previous version no matter what was flawed but lacked tension, place, pace, and worked as a draft. This too, may work, as a draft. But as a professional author and editor, I disagree with a plurality of your complaints.
As to Nick, what he thinks in the end, and how the piece is received, will most likely drive the direction that he takes the story. (And the whole thing, by his own admission, could use a rewrite.)
But if you want more of what you’re discussing, I’d suggest taking the POV to first so the narrator is unreliable from the start. In close third as is written, those things are very hard to pull off effectively and in the previous draft were not pulled off as well or effectively as they could be.
Aside from some technical details, MOST of my editorial work, since I do developmental AND line, is inspecting and questioning the work of whoever I’m editing. I don’t want them to lose their voice, I want them to find it. I don’t want them to flatten their style, I want them to discover it. I don’t want them to treat anything I say as gospel, I want them to question it right back.
The relationship between a good author and a good editor is symbiotic. It doesn’t go one way.
I’m sorry if you disagree with Nick’s choices, and I’d like to know if you actually READ the dev and line pass. If so, let’s discuss.
I'm not going to put (and wouldn't dream of putting) words into Evelyn's mouth - but I would be surprised if she intended to malign you personally. I think it is rather the editorial process in general and its effect on a writers' native output. Her opinion is also important to me - I think she is saying JUST USE THE FORCE LUKE .
What I found interesting is that she says it feels like a sort of verbal graphic novel now and compared to the original it feels stilted, and PK Anthony commented that they loved the manga comic book feel that it had. I wonder if I have over constructed it...
Anyhow - I love you both and you both speak your minds forcefully and I know how incredibly wedded to THE WORK you are - I trust that differences of opinion shall not become pistols at dawn over perceived slights and challenging reposts.
So - much encouraged by all the time and feedback you have lavished on my writing, Emil, I do aim to fashion a novel from the glowing embers of this - its not a story that can be told 1st person - you are right there - although I have strayed into that style in some other bits - it will need a refresh that's for sure - and I do need to settle on what sort of confused mixed race super power enhanced young man Jiro is (and I have to convince myself he isn't me, tempting though it would be) - there's some back story pieces I am going to post I think - will help me refresh my memory about the story I dreamed up all them yars ago.
and when you get to read the edited version, it goes without saying I will be all ears for anything more you might have to say about it.
Sorry - I just sort of worked out what I really meant from a structural point of view whilst I was munching on my chicken sandwich. You said it would work better in 1st rather than close 3rd. This is where I disagree. Here's why.
In this edited version we have a mixture - or a constant switching, rather - between 'distanced' 3rd and then 1st. The 1st being the italics of course. This simply doesn't work because it's disjointed and disengaging. It's also a bit patronising to the reader (because readers are - or should be - intelligent enough to recognise the difference). It also breaks up the pacing and slows it down terribly, when the scene itself is supposed to be a relentless staccato horror.
Ironically - there IS no close 3rd anymore. This is the problem!
The reason being that in the original version these 3rd/1st switches were mixed in together within single paragraphs (which adds to the 'closeness'). What this means - in terms of narrative theory/psychology - is that Jiro is 'right in the middle of the action'. And because I, the reader, have immediately been able to emotionally identify with the character, I too am 'right in there' with him. Because humans are social animals and they have empathy. This why they see the world in terms of stories, but only in terms of stories that have characters - 'characters' are the expression of the social aspect of human psychology. The 'impersonal descriptive' is therefore not engaging to the human brain. It's just scenery. This is why writers shouldn't spend so much time on descriptions.
By 'removing' (or separating) the 1st person (italics - character's thoughts) from the descriptive 3rd, this key aspect of being 'right inside the action' is lost. I can no longer identify/empathise with the character. So I don't care about him anymore! I, the reader, am now distanced and simply listening to someone describe a movie they are watching (as I put it before).
This is also what I mean about trusting the reader. Readers (well, good readers anyhow) are intelligent enough to know the difference between 1st and 3rd, and they really don't need it laid out for them in separate paragraphs.
The original version, which mixed the two, was - here's the irony - a precise expression of the dramatic action that's happening, both descriptively, and in terms of Jiro's mental state. So the writing style, in other words, reflects the narrative.
Still, and having said all that - I do admit that it has been a while since I read the original so I am going by what I remember, which is admittedly coloured by an emotional reaction to it. Maybe if I re-read it will turn out that a lot of your critique is indeed valid. And that would indeed be ironic (at my expense).
So you and Nick may well be right in that some kind of inbetween his original and this close-edit version is the ideal solution - however, I would say that the final version should be closer to his original, inter-mixing these 1st/3rd structural devices. If it's exactly halfway, or closer to this new version, then it becomes a different story. Still valuable, for sure, but a different narrative with a different effect on the reader, and that's the point where narrative theory considerations come in. So maybe I'm simply saying my preference would be more towards the original experimental-esque blurring the rules of 1st/3rd structure.
But equally maybe - if I had not read or even known about the original version, I would have a different, more positive reaction to this new version, because I would not be comparing it to anything. No cognitive bias, lol.
A lot of the time, a writer has to think about how to have the writing style reflect the story that wants to be told. That's why for some stories, close edits are a really bad thing! For others, they are, indeed, absolutely necessary. The trick is knowing when to use which approach...
Anyhow - there's my thoughts. Not a negative attack on you as an editor. Not meant to be, anyway.
it might be interesting to immediately read part 2 which remains in the original style to see the immediate contrasts. in truth i never gave any active thought to the 1st 2nd third person perspective s when writing until recently and realised i flopped about between them somewhat willy nilly but generally tending to the 3rd person in the middle of the action descriptive and alot of internal monologue with italicised thoughts and swearing. most of my stuff is like that except some of the deliberate POV 1st person exercises
Yeah - that was my impression, and it worked for me because you yourself were ‘right in there’, partly because you didn’t give active thought to the POV. So no overthinking. Because of that, I was in there too. What you wrote, or how you wrote, rather, reflected what was actually happening ‘on the screen’ so to speak. Staccato is the word I was looking for.
I think the time for ‘overthinking’ happens before we sit down and write. That’s where we should iron out all the continuity errors and stuff. That way, when we sit down to write, it can come out organically. We are so familiar with ‘what’s going to happen’ as well as knowing the characters (and their voices) intimately, that we simply switch the appropriate bit of our brain on and out it all comes.
I spend more time writing in my head beforehand than I ever do actually typing. Like the other day I wrote 3 scenes for Katrina, which was around 5k words in total, and it only took me as long as it takes to type 5k words. Maybe 2-3 hours or so. That’s because I’d already written those scenes half a dozen times in my head. The fun bit was how the dialogue veered off slightly from the previous (unwritten) versions. I got to ‘read’ it for the first time. And because of all the work I did beforehand in my head, none of those scenes require any editing whatsoever beyond typos and a few punctuation changes perhaps. If anything, I might add a few extra lines. But incessant close-editing? Absolutely not. I might as well throw it all away and start again from scratch. And that’s not an option.
Obviously that’s my own approach to writing. Others might just suddenly have an idea and then start writing (I used to do that all the time when I was young). That’s the kind of thing that probably does benefit from close editing. I do my close editing beforehand, in other words. That way I don’t get frustrated afterwards.
I think there are two main issues. First - as you are sort of hinting I think, as an 'exercise' in the craft of writing and indeed 'thinking about writing', this sequence of editing and then rewriting according to the editing notes/suggestions is certainly worthwhile. What Nick has really done here is create a sort of 'experimental version' based very specifically to the notes. Like 'what would the story look like if the editor wrote it'. Or 'in my head, as a writer, how I am visualising this scene'.
In other words, this edited experimental version is 'writer's notes'. One might put it differently - this version reads like the kind of notes that one would give to a comic book illustrator, or a movie director. The director, cinematographer, actors etc. would then have to 'interpret' this and turn it into something worth watching. Likewise, a 'writer' would then take this 'breakdown of what's happening in this scene' and turn it into a genuine narrative.
So this is where my other issue comes in. It's contained in the word 'accuracy'. 'Accuracy' should be avoided at all costs in a proper narrative, because of human psychology. Humans 'actively engage' in a piece of writing only when they have to do some work themselves - i.e. fill in the stuff that isn't mentioned. This is called subtext of course. The writer doesn't do subtext, the reader does it. The writer just 'prompts'. This is narrative theory.
Furthermore, readers do not read like close-editors. They do not notice 'lack of accuracy'. Example: 'Jiro rounded the stairwell'. That's perfect, because every reader knows what a stairwell looks like. They know that human motion is a fluid quarter-circle, not a robotic 90 degree shift around a square corner. By forcing the reader to 'remember their experience of rounding a corner on a stairwell' they are now 'engaged' and an 'active participant'.
So, yes, a 'close edit' as you have done is good for perhaps pointing out 'accuracy errors', and 'continuity errors' etc., but it's not good for translating into writing.
I think perhaps what I'm maybe saying here is that writers should trust readers more. Readers have sufficient imagination to fill stuff in. And they would only notice 'significant' continuity errors and most importantly psychological character errors making something 'not believable'. They don't notice little things, unless those little things are made prominent, which is what turning a close edit into a transcription does. It highlights all that and the reader is more likely to start picking holes in the writer's work.
So writers shouldn't do 'show not tell' - they should do neither. They should 'prompt' and 'suggest' and then let the reader do the work. This is narrative theory. Which is psychology.
So maybe you and I are talking about two different things here - you are doing 'editing' and I am doing 'narrative theory'. So yeah, perhaps I've been talking at cross purposes - sorry! But I do think that narrative theory concerns should trump close edits. Maybe that's my point.
But certainly true that working with your close-edit is a very valuable thing. So don't think I'm impugning your craft!
I cant tell you how much I appreciate your time and views as a reader and writer. I get a bit emotional actually with the engagement of you frankly superb people here and how inspired I feel to get this sort of depth of thoughtful commentary on stuff i write. Me! writing stuff that people read. still getting used to that.
Here's a good (finally!) succinct version of what I keep getting at with this narrative theory thing.
Good stories/writing works because of two fundamental points, which is the essence of narrative theory.
1/ What's known as 'knowledge gaps';
And 2/ human psychology.
By this I mean 'human psychology' fills in 'gaps'. If you don't have knowledge gaps then there's nothing for the reader to do - and therefore, social empathy and curiosity and suchlike - there is no 'reader engagement'.
Knowledge gaps come in many forms. There's gaps between what the writer knows and the reader knows - meaning 'key questions' which the reader instinctively asks. The most obvious general one being firstly 'what's going on here' and secondly 'what's going to happen'.
Then we can get clever. So there are 'privilege gaps' - this is where the reader knows something the character doesn't. Version one. Version two is 'character A knows something character B doesn't' (but the reader does know - or even more clever, 'thinks they know' - you can do 'twists' with that one - this works really well for mystery stuff of course - I'll be doing this all the time with my Katrina story, because it's largely a conspiracy thriller).
Notice also the human tendency to 'believe what the other person is telling them'. So they just assume that what a narrator, or character, says 'must be true'. So when you have a line like:
"I don't really know Kung-Fu", Katrina lied.
That simple sentence implies a massive amount of information. All based on 'narrative theory'.
You can also have 'writer/narrator CLEARLY knows something the reader doesn't and the reader knows there is something the narrator is withholding (likewise between characters).
Then there's 'character knows something the reader doesn't'.
You can see where I'm going with this. There are always three, not two, people in a story. You have the writer, the character(s), and the reader. Good writers know this instinctively of course. Bad writers - and bad editors - don't know this. Or they forget it, or ignore it or something.
Obviously it's best not to overthink or overplay this sort of thing. A lot of the time it's just organic and natural, and a basic product of the archetypal narrative which is 'a character in a setting who wants something but has trouble getting it'. That basic universal set-up already incorporates knowledge gaps, simply by virtue of the fact that to begin with the reader 1/ doesn't yet know the character or what they want, and 2/ doesn't know whether the character will get it or not (i.e. how the story ends). A lot of the drama, then, comes from what happens along the way.
I've got a funny one for you based on that universal setup. Person needs to take a shit. That's it. In ordinary life, this isn't interesting. But according to the rules of narrative theory, it is a story. 'character who wants something'. It's not interesting because usually it's easy. You just go to the bog and have a dump. No drama there at all. But now start adding stuff. Like, maybe there's someone already in the loo. Key question - 'can he hold it in?' Then, 'what if there's no bogroll?'. Now you have 'drama' - which is essentially 'forces of antagonism vis-a-vis the protagonist'.
Now add setting and another character - this is happening in a curry house. Maybe he's a right-wing arsehole and the Bangladeshis put extra chillies in his Jalfrezi. Or maybe he's an arrogant arsehole who thought he could show off by ordering a phal. And the Bangles put an 'out of order' sign on the loo (because it's a manic Monday).
And so on. See how we've turned a boring everyday thing into a proper story. And all of it is based on narrative theory - key questions, knowledge gaps, natural human empathy which engages with a character. All leading to linear narrative.
And in terms of 'close edits' - it doesn't just 'not matter one jot' to the story what the precise descriptions are, it actually detracts from it. So we leave out those descriptions, we don't show or tell. Everyone knows what a curry house looks like. Let them use their own memories to visualise it. We focus on the story, and let the reader's brain do the work. So my point is that a lot of editors lose sight of all this stuff. They focus on the 'use of words' - not the narrative.
One of my all-time fave stories of yours is the one about the sandwich shop guy who loses his job and starts getting the pigeons involved. That's perfect narrative, that one - for all the reasons I just burbled on about in my customarily irritating way.
This was wicked fun to read, especially with all the edits helping it fire on all cylinders! Definitely want to check out the rest of the story. Might just be because I’ve been binging Tokyo Ghoul lately, but the flow of the action and the imagery of the setting really had everything playing in my mind like panels of an action horror manga. Loved it.
the link for pt3 is at the end of part2
writing Jiro with the girls spirit inside him was a challenge i seem to rememebr. ive got part 4 and a part -1 and -2 and some other space vampire segments knocking about.
Wait, the chick’s spirit ends up inside Jiro? I need to go back and read whatever else you have posted of this.
Love the fluidity of the movement. It’s almost a long tracking shot with small cuts that served the images conveyed.
Aside from the typos it’s solid. I was a bit skeptical of the delivery boy at first but once it kicks it pulls. In a sense I got some of John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China’s visuals from this. Not as a copy, more as a parallel reality where the events are dipped in gore.
Solid piece, man. I’d like to dig into the rest.
yes... i was desperate to get this done out of respect for Emil who did his work some time back now. and I was up until 330 am on it so i missed a couple of typos which i can now see GLARING.
REALLY pleased you liked the fluidity...its hard work re writing... im going to get it right from day one next time i write something fresh on this one. if you do want more... Jiro Jones 2 and 3 are up and RAW. on my stack 😀
and finally thank you so so much for reading and spending your time to gimme feed back. it really makes my day. 😎
I’m going to have to access it from my laptop ‘cos I just looked it up here in the app and it ain’t showing. It happened with James and AP’s Usable Fudge. I can’t find it in the app, and to read I have to go in my laptop(which is why I haven’t finished it yet).
That’s something Substack should work on.
https://open.substack.com/pub/nickwinney/p/jiro-jones-pt-2?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2fhpll
https://open.substack.com/pub/nickwinney/p/jiro-jones?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=2fhpll
the un edited part 1... you can find the STOP LISTEN marker quite easy. part I won't make sense if u dont read the end of part 1 (funny that )
oh... hang in... the EDIT wasnt ALL OF PART 1.
you need to go to part 1 to finish that first ...
I’ll have that in mind as I read it.
Jiro’s a good name btw. Just with that one read and he’s already a character living in my head.
Agreed, I liked the name immediately for some reason. It’s a little pulpy at first, but it plays. I dug it.
i think it means second son in japanese.... it took me ages to decide on it. hes mixed race and theres history in japan. jiro lives in Pacific north west. his grandmother fled Japan. ancient secrets... yada yada. Jiro Jones had a ring to it. Kimiko took even longer to decide on heh
They both come off as fresh, imo.
So the first non edited part? Then this?
yes
the edit was limited to 2500 words so I had to cut the tail off of it
the un edited part 1 will seem a bit shaky i think after reading the edited version 😄
This is some good writing Nick! Great job.
I really liked the original, and this is even better! It's frictionless now (save for a typo or two), and the details hit harder. Jiro conversing through Stone's earpiece is still my favorite part. It's such an absurd but honest moment, like, my god what else can he do but react moment to moment? The character feels real there
I loved that bit so much. @Nick Winney has a good story here, and he says he’s been working on it for YEARS. He’s improved as a writer so much since I’ve met him because of @Edith Bow’s stream of consciousness prompt workshop group that I think Jiro deserves an entire redraft, or a pick back up.
It wasn’t bad, and had great vibes, but after reading some of his more recent shorts (especially his entry for Dark Tidings) when I read this I knew Nick just needed to do another draft and it would be polished. Hell, his one pass pieces that are stream of consciousness have been some bangers. (The first one I remember involved a murderer who ends up getting burnt to death in a psych ward and gave me chills.)
Thanks emil. this kinda comment means the world to me, and undoubtedly @edith bow was my initial inspiration for the stream of consciousness work and new found self belief. closely followed by the fiction culture vultures on here!
You deserve to believe in yourself. And yes, you're a very good writer. As for the tech issues you mention in another comment, remind me to tell you the story of "The Russians" of the Nine Story Hotel, because their history and stories have been updated like, eight times in the past twenty years or whatever since I wrote my first this is not a novel, it's a garbage fire with interesting characters.
all ears! you do solid tech. i did try and put some better gun craft in the edit. i am terrified of guns though. its the fear that if i get one I will just uncontrollably kill everyone round me by mistake
Nah, guns are fairly inert objects. I’m from the United States though, and from a rural backwater in the south at that (well, mid-south, somewhere in the southern Ohio river valley off the Cumberland in far west Kentucky, the town I grew up in, I shit you not, was named Needmore.) So we basically had gun safety in kindergarten and everyone had a rifle and shotgun or three rattling around. This was before everyone and their Hinge date decided they needed an AR-15 to fight… You know, they never really can quite justify that one, and it ends up in an escalatory spiral of armament, but whatever, it was before this cultural milieu.
The AR-15 is just a dressed up scary looking .223 hunting rifle by the way. Which when people call it a varmint gun, they do literally mean that it’s good for shooting squirrels etc. (NATO 5.56/.223 is technically, when used militarily, considered to be a wounding round. And now you’re asking me Emil, why would the military, any military want a rifle that fires an underpowered round designed to wound and not kill, is killing not the point? And I say, well, yes, and no. The point in war is not killing, it’s winning, and doctrinally a wounded soldier saps more enemy resources than a dead one. And much like the infamous ambush scene in Full Metal Jacket, a wounded enemy is much more likely to scream “ouch help, I’ve been shot” and bring more of his friends scurrying out of cover and into the kill corridor. If you’re a student of history, which if I remember right you are, just think of the wars after the breakup of Yugoslavia. The sniper war in Serbia and Boznia Herzegovina where famously it was quite popular for plain clothes fighters from high perches in Soviet style apartment blocks to shoot children in their little child extremities and then wait for people to come out and pile bodies on top of bodies. Coincidentally the most popular way to take care of this issue involved mortar fusillades, which just pissed off the people in the half or totally demolished apartment blocks and drove to more killing.)
But the easiest thing in firearms safety to remember is that 1. a weapon is always loaded. Did you just unload it? Did you drop the magazine and rack the shot in the boot? Cool, now remember, it’s still loaded until you prove otherwise. 2. Never point a firearm at anything you’re not willing to kill or destroy, living or otherwise, yes, this goes for the terra firma you’re pointing it at as well. 3. NEVER HAND SOMEONE A LOADED WEAPON. 4. Never keep your finger on the trigger unless you’re about to kill, wound, or miss with the shot entirely whatever you’re pointing at.
That’s like, the one’s they hammer into you in intro to gun safety. I’d add in “Always use ear protection” because contrary to what all media would have you think, weapons fire is quite loud, and when it is in the same room as you my god, you’re going to go half deaf after the first shot. (This doesn’t help with aural occlusion, which is already a problem in high tension scenarios, but that’s another complex issue entirely.)
Otherwise they’re mostly expensive single purpose tools (hell, I have knives that I worry about more than I would worry about a Glock because they’re much lower maintenance and in theory I’m more likely to hurt myself by accident while handling them. Google the Gerber Mk II, mine is named Judy. Or the Ka-Bar Marine fighting knife, of which mine is named Bertha. Yes, I name everything.)
I am greedy for more Jiro. Nick is a fantastic writer and storyteller (I mean that Nick). Have you read his "The Turkish Barbers" flash? I think it really shows off his prowess, it's damn good!
He might be the most pleasant fellow I've had the privilege to meet with the most fucked up imagination. I'm jealous
I don't have 33 tabs open in browser, YOU DO.
That would be ABSURD. I have eleven tabs open in each of three separate browser windows because I am normal and go away
I’m going to go turn the GPU on the laptop on because Chrome is eating too much of everything.
Turkish Barber is on the shortlist now that I've had thirty seconds to breathe and I can get back to work without worrying about the family imploding completely while moving six minutes away from our former abode. (I think anyway.)
it will take you but a minute. 250 words. i like that story. short was good for the flow but indid have a longer piece in mind for the concept...
I do wonder where all the dark stuff comes from because my life has been pretty vanilla.
That. It's always the ones you don't expect.
thank you MP. emil made a great point about the tech which shows how long ago i wrote this initially... airpods? barely had ipods back then... so i made up some other rrason for wired coms... now i can see part 2 has continuity issues heh.
I have the story plotted out a bit. the baddie is the character in The Taurocteny... like a 2000 year old space vampire with a gene splicing lab and bits of crashed space craft all along the camino de campostella pilgrim route... this is probs going to be my first novel im going to try and finish up. I think the story has legs. its my writing stamina that doesnt haha!
Jesus, where do you even get this? A space vampire, crashed spacecraft along the Camino de Campostella? You're a madlad. I love it.
😎
I was JUST saying your imagination is dark and fucked up (I love it) and apparently you have space vampires living in it?! Christ man, write this novel I need to read that shit!
Uh-oh. I was sort of afraid this might be my reaction when I started to read the edit post (I couldn't get through the whole of it tbh). Hopefully you'll appreciate my honest critique, though.
To put it simply, I far preferred the original.
So obviously I owe you an explanation for why. This version has the entire point of the original stripped out. There isn't much character anymore. There's no Lovecraftian madness. There is no emotional effect on the reader.
Here's the total irony about the critique. The reason why the original was so brilliant is because the style of the writing is a perfect reflection of the action presented to the reader, as well as the view from Jiro's increasingly messed up mind. It immediately puts the reader inside Jiro's head, so we are seeing the entire scenario from his point of view. That's to say, his mental state point of view. Further, he has just come from 'ordinary reality' into a world of seething, incomprehensible madness. And so, too, does the reader precisely because you link the reader to Jiro. And that is why the style of writing in the original is so perfect, because it's jagged, relentless, with sudden mad glimpses and hints of this horror over here and that horror over there and of course, because the reader doesn't really know entirely what's going on this perfectly reflects Jiro's perception.
The last thing we want in a scene like this is some 'break from the narrative' to give a visual description of the surroundings. That sort of thing comes across like you are simply, unemotionally describing to us some movie that you are watching, or a comic you're reading.
Then there's the 'main character's thoughts in italics' - that absolutely doesn't work here at all. The original like I said is relentless, it's like this series of flashes, bam bam bam - and that's exactly Jiro's mind throughout the entire sequence of events. He's not thinking straight. He's not observing normally. He sees things in his peripheral vision which immediately turn his head, then something else, and something else. And he can't make sense of it all because it's incompatible with his worldview. Relentless is the word. Time - especially time - is no longer able to be perceived properly. This version has these individual paragraphs which are simply like descriptions of each image in a comic, then there's 'what's in the dialogue bubble' (the italics), and then we move to the next image. But that's not what would be going through Jiro's head. Jiro is not reading a comic. He is right there. The italics (his thoughts and feelings) are mixed in with the description, which itself is full of holes as it should be. Because he's confused and he doesn't know what the fuck is going on. And in the original, so is the reader, right from the word go.
And that's exciting. This version isn't. It's formulaic.
There isn't the hook here to emotionally connect with the main character. Because no emotion. Perhaps the worst aspect is how Jiro actually seems to start acting totally rationally and cool and collected which he absolutely would not in such a situation (and doesn't in the original, remember). He would be frantic. Remember his entire worldview has just been utterly destroyed in an instant. Remember also how in part 2 and 3, despite being told by the guy on the end of the phone to kill the girl he hesitates and doesn't do what he's told and that's what provides the serious drama and tension of the situation - you, the reader, are almost screaming at him to kill her because you know she's a monster, but he refuses to listen. If you continued 2 and 3 with this new part 1 then there would be a massive continuity error there. You'd have to rewrite the entire sequence that happens after this point because we'd be talking about a different character. Or the same character with a different mindset. He has suddenly, and inexplicably, come to terms with this entirely new mad world he's been thrown into and is acting calmly. Sorry, that's not psychologically realistic.
Furthermore, all this visual description - which totally breaks the flow of the narrative - completely detracts from the story and is unnecessary and it's not what Jiro is seeing. He is not taking time out to update his internal map. He's frantic. So these distracting descriptions prevent the emotional flow of the story. Besides, the reader, remember, always fills in the subtext themselves (with your hints as a writer) and you absolutely need to allow the reader to ask questions. As the writer, that's how you hook them - like 'I don't know what's going on here but it's fucking exciting so I'm going to keep on reading'. The last thing you do is stop the action, give the reader a quick visual breakdown, then start up again. It's the not knowing exactly where each door is and each object and all that which provides the terror and the suspense - again, which is what Jiro is feeling and seeing.
I'm probably burbling now actually and repeating myself, but this version simply doesn't capture the essence of what's actually going on in this scenario, which is pure horrific madness. There is a disconnect between it and Jiro, your main character, and thus the reader too. The engagement isn't there anymore. We are no longer watching all this from his eyes and his mind. We are watching you telling us about some movie you are watching in the next room.
As an exercise in 'descriptive writing' sure, this re-write isn't bad at all. But as an exercise in actual writing, in which the style of writing itself emotionally captures the action and the character, no - that's been lost. This is a description of a movie on a screen. I, the reader, am not there anymore, inside the screen (think 'The Ring').
This is perhaps the great irony of a lot of these 'editorial critiques' with regards to 'how to write'. How to write is an exercise in engaging the reader. That's it. It's not about spending ages painfully agitating over choices of which words to use. Most of the advice they give is rubbish. If I want to start with a gerund then I will. Or an adverb. Or whatever. As a writer, you don't follow rules, you follow a 'feeling' for how to write, in the sense of 'yeah, that word wouldn't work there' or 'this works here'. You just know. It's partly why I've often said that a person is either a writer or they are not. If they are, they don't need to be told 'how to write' - especially because, in the end, they are not in fact being told 'how to write' at all - the irony is they are being told 'how to edit'. And a lot of the time, that editing means the writer's original feeling and intention is ripped out. And the heart of the piece is gone.
So, spend lots of time thinking about the timeline and the continuity and so on before you write, so the whole idea is clear in your mind, but not on the actual writing. Writers don't need to spend ages writing, let alone editing. And your stream of consciousness exercises prove that you are a writer. A real writer. A good writer. Not an editor.
I decided quite some time ago not to listen to editors. I can do my own editing, thank you very much, because it's my story, not anyone else's. And I am a writer.
End of burble. Sorry it was so long.
Hi Evelyn - wow - thank you for taking so much time to read this give me your thoughts. Firstly, I love that you liked the original version and I understand what you are saying totally - it was written straight from the gut and with very little concern for literary technique - mostly just from my love of a "ripping yarn" as I like to call it, and which I still feel drawn to write more than anything else. You are a writer of ripping yarns yourself, which I have loved reading.
I can also see what you are saying about how the edited piece feels completely different. For me, this was an exercise to tighten up style - there were quite a few glaring problems with the first one which were there because it was splurged out - and if you didn't dig too deep, then they weren't noticeable, and if you liked the first version, then you will already have your own impression of Jiro as a character and the edited version will no doubt feel like he is a different character and yes parts 2 and 3 would not work unless they also got a similar treatment - or I decide to revert to a more relaxed and less structured style. I'm just experimenting and seeing how it ends up.
As I say - for me this was an exercise to tighten things up, impose some stylings on it and think about the scene and the mechanics and to try to make some aspects more realistic with the benefit of the advice from someone that writes fiction that I really admire for its tightness of structure and stylings - so the suited henchmen and guns I felt really needed improvement - the setting needed to work better - like the door opening and closing was really all wrong and some of the elements in the room like the metal rods were not doin what I really wanted them to do either.
the wired tech would also be a real problem for me if I go back to write this now - everyone will be like - what the hell do the earphones need wires for - so I wanted to play about with that too - although I do like the "using the corpse as a telephone" quite a lot.
I wanted to try to create more of a visual sense without relying on some somewhat cliched word constructions - I can see that the scene where Jiro goes into the room - the effect of this is much more muted now than the splurge of half sentences I used initially which as you say created that sense of confusion and what the fuck is going on.
When I finally get this story built from its bits and the whole tale structured, its probably going to end up somewhere in between because my natural style is my style and re-writing this paying close attention to Emil's editing advice and suggestions was actually a really tough exercise because it made me think about what I was writing a lot more carefully - that exercise was something I really enjoyed doing, but I am not going to be able to write a book thinking about what would Emil have to say - but I am still going to take on board his advice.
I know you also have editorial experience going back years and you are comfortable with your own style and abilities so I can see why you are dismissive of the use of editors as possibly stifling and I take it a huge compliment that you say I write well enough without it - but I haven't been doing this seriously for very long, really - less than a year truth be told, and I want to soak up all the advice I can and of course. some people will like things one way better than another.
Now I just need to settle down to write the skeleton of this story into something I can hang these bits and bobs from. space vampires, mysterious black suits, missing sisters, arcane rituals and swords and super powers - piece of cake. hoho.
thank you again - I really appreciate the thought and your time and your opinion - as always
Having slept on it I’m able to condense my reaction/thoughts a lot better now.
Essentially the problem is that editors keep telling people to ‘show not tell’ - but actually you shouldn’t do either. What you should do is ‘suggest’ and ‘prompt’. The worst thing you can possibly do is give descriptions, especially when they break up what is - in this scene/sequence - supposed to be a fast-paced, visceral and very sudden exposure to madness and horror.
The reason is because of ‘narrative theory’, which essentially comes down to basic human psychology and especially ‘cognitive processing’. It goes like this. The human brain is not a computer. It doesn’t take in a massive amount of detail, take a while to process it, then splurge something out the other end. It doesn’t have the processing capacity for that. So the way cognition works is ‘heuristic’ - that’s to say it’s a ‘best efficiency’ model. The brain takes what it thinks are the most important bits, and then it ‘imagines’ the rest, based on prior knowledge (patterns), instinct, and emotion. All the best writers know this. So too do magicians and propagandists.
Here’s an example: ‘Jiro rounded the stairwell’. That’s all you need to say because every reader has experience of a stairwell. And you do ‘round’ it because the human motion of turning 90 degrees is a fluid movement. It’s not a robotic ‘reach the top of the stairs. Stop. Immediate 90 degree flip. Eyes front. Start walking again.’ - that’s what the robot’s computer program would say, and humans don’t need that. To say ‘stairwells aren’t round’ totally misses that point. Humans do round stairwells, because humans are not robots.
Where ‘engagement’ with a story comes in is precisely when the reader ‘has to fill in the gaps’. Take that away from the reader and you’ve lost them.
If there is no extra work for the brain to do, then the reader has no engagement. The reader is not filling in any of those gaps. You have taken their agency away. Because there is no ‘unspoken subtext’ - as I say, it’s the reader who fills in the gaps, not the writer. Because of the way the brain processes scenes.
Think about all the best horror movies you love. You are absolutely not shown the monster in full detail until the end (usually the final turning point between act two and act three). That opening scene of Jaws - that’s scary because you don’t see the shark. Spielberg knows perfectly well the viewer is ‘imagining the worst’ - the reader/viewer’s imagination is always more than the writer’s description. Or the original Alien. If you saw the alien at the beginning it wouldn’t be scary in the slightest. And so on and so on. You know what I mean.
In this edited version I no longer care about Jiro. He has no real character anymore. The suits have been reduced to vague peripheral NPCs in a computer game. Ironically I don’t know what the monsters look like either because my own imagination hasn’t done any work. And when you mention the girl’s foot has been chewed off I don’t care. It’s not shocking. In the original I physically recoiled at that bit, because my brain was being relentlessly pummelled by quickfire. It was frantic and that’s the reason it worked so well. There’s was no let up. Which is what I mean about how the style of the writing precisely matched the dramatic action.
Then you add the bit about the girl isn’t the one he’s looking for. You don’t need to say that. It’s ‘implied’, because if it was her Jiro would react differently and both he and we would know. That explanatory addition at the beginning when you say he was looking for someone - this should either be a separate chapter sometime before (as a suggestion) or sometime after (as a flashback perhaps). Make the reader ask questions, then don’t answer them straight away. Force the reader to keep those questions in their heads.
Then there’s the really bad bit when you mention the monster’s weight and actually use the word ‘fibreglass’ - that suddenly makes the reader think ‘B-movie prop’. It’s not scary anymore.
So all the important bits summarised by the following words: visceral, shocking, horror, drama & tension, madness, ‘not being able to make sense of what the fuck is going on’ - all these elements are now lost, because the reader isn’t doing any work anymore. That’s the psychology of narrative theory. If you ‘tell or show’ too much, you lose the reader’s engagement and they’re not interested.
Remember also - readers do not read like editors. They are not picking apart sentence structures and word choices. They’re not doing ‘close reading’. The only time they would look up, as it were, is if they come across some obviously badly written or clunky or cliched sentence.
All your best writing is already encompassing that. Look over it again and you will realise you have only given the reader sufficient ‘prompts’. You haven’t shown and you haven’t told. And so the reader is engaged. How would, say Legacy read if you stopped the action and gave the reader some detailed map-like layout of the garden and the old church etc. You know perfectly well people’s imagination can picture a scary old overgrown church. You don’t need to use words like ‘scary overgrown church’.
Sorry - done it again. Repeating myself.
"Essentially the problem is that editors keep telling people to ‘show not tell’ - but actually you shouldn’t do either. What you should do is ‘suggest’ and ‘prompt’. The worst thing you can possibly do is give descriptions, especially when they break up what is - in this scene/sequence - supposed to be a fast-paced, visceral and very sudden exposure to madness and horror."
Yes, absolutely agreed, but the chapter was fifteen years old and parts were incomprehensibly or incongruously written with a lot of confused sequences of action. (And I don't mean the kind where people are kung-fu fighting.)
A story is a tension pump. There was no tension in the original chapter. And not much horror. I still haven't read the revision because I'm catching up on paid work and unpacking my house after the worst first quarter year of my life since my best friend hanged herself in 2023, but I'm not JUST reading as an editor. I liked the first version as a reader, but as a simple reader. If you put that in front of me at a bookstore where I'm browsing to buy and I landed on that page as a tester, I'd put it down, or if I paid for it, I'd be annoyed.
"The only time they would look up, as it were, is if they come across some obviously badly written or clunky or cliched sentence." - and there were more than a few in the original draft. That's literally a good editor's job. That IS close reading.
I come from cognitive psychology and neuroscience, I've also been writing all my life, and while you have issue with editors in general, you're speaking about my work in particular. I know narrative theory, but this is as written a very visual piece with limited interiority on Jiro. Yes, Jiro can round the stairwell but he has to be going up or down, there must be a sense of placement, and in this story even reading casually unless you've never paid attention to a page before, there are more than a half dozen places where you're going to be absolutely confused as a reader as to where and how Jiro exists with regards to the door, stairs, and penthouse.
Also, you're literally giving an editorial.
Maybe I’ll have to re-read the original again so it’s fresher in my mind…
Don't get me wrong it was very good but there were some parts that really needed some work.
Of course I say this while I walk into Ikea still having not had time to read the draft if you did for Emil is my editor.
However I did check out your substack and found some lovely and inventive fiction.
Evelyns poetry is STRONG
Hi, maligned editor in question here.
I’ve yet to read the revised version, but what you’re describing, I agree with, the only problem is that it works best in first person and not close third.
I don’t give prescriptive advice unless very specific and very brief because it’s mostly bullshit and it goes against my ideas and thoughts AS AN EDITOR.
The previous version of this story is not what you think it is. You could go back and read it ten thousand times and it’s still got inconsistencies, problems with place (some of which the reader cannot infer or which contradict other sentences already written.) Now, this would be a little fine if done correctly in first person, but in close third with limited interiority, it certainly doesn’t. Someone is telling this story. The narrator of a piece is a voice as well.
I haven’t read this yet but I’m going to suggest that some of your critique is fair, some is incredibly off base, and some makes no sense (he started acting irrationally rational in the previous draft once he found the girl, and he wasn’t nearly as confounded to have been confronted with demonic horrors as I would expect. At one point his heart begins to slow when it absolutely would not, he’d have so much adrenaline and cortisol in his blood he’d be ready to run a Marathon nude up K-2)
Nick is a phenomenally talented and skilled writer, but the original, while being very fun, lacked a lot of things that I would expect from more polished work, and he admitted as much since it’s more than a decade old.
And this wasn’t a critique. You give crits in workshops. This was a developmental and line editorial pass. I’ve been doing this for ten years professionally, I’ve been in or around publishing for twenty years, and I’m an author myself.
https://emilottoman.substack.com/p/my-name-is-my-name
There’s a reason that people work with me. I’d be happy to read this and address your issues or have a friendly chat about it, but I’d like for you to please not slander my name, my craft, and my work outright. Which you more than happily do at the bottom.
Nabokov could get away with his thunderous “STET” to any editor, who he considered mostly to be meal worms and parasites, but he was Nabokov. (Along with this, did you actually read the editorial pass? Or did you just read the before and after?) And in the end, even Borges ended up editing Nabokov for fun in his later years, which is hilarious.
No, the previous version no matter what was flawed but lacked tension, place, pace, and worked as a draft. This too, may work, as a draft. But as a professional author and editor, I disagree with a plurality of your complaints.
As to Nick, what he thinks in the end, and how the piece is received, will most likely drive the direction that he takes the story. (And the whole thing, by his own admission, could use a rewrite.)
But if you want more of what you’re discussing, I’d suggest taking the POV to first so the narrator is unreliable from the start. In close third as is written, those things are very hard to pull off effectively and in the previous draft were not pulled off as well or effectively as they could be.
Aside from some technical details, MOST of my editorial work, since I do developmental AND line, is inspecting and questioning the work of whoever I’m editing. I don’t want them to lose their voice, I want them to find it. I don’t want them to flatten their style, I want them to discover it. I don’t want them to treat anything I say as gospel, I want them to question it right back.
The relationship between a good author and a good editor is symbiotic. It doesn’t go one way.
I’m sorry if you disagree with Nick’s choices, and I’d like to know if you actually READ the dev and line pass. If so, let’s discuss.
Thanks Emil :-) wow - so much to think about.
I'm not going to put (and wouldn't dream of putting) words into Evelyn's mouth - but I would be surprised if she intended to malign you personally. I think it is rather the editorial process in general and its effect on a writers' native output. Her opinion is also important to me - I think she is saying JUST USE THE FORCE LUKE .
What I found interesting is that she says it feels like a sort of verbal graphic novel now and compared to the original it feels stilted, and PK Anthony commented that they loved the manga comic book feel that it had. I wonder if I have over constructed it...
Anyhow - I love you both and you both speak your minds forcefully and I know how incredibly wedded to THE WORK you are - I trust that differences of opinion shall not become pistols at dawn over perceived slights and challenging reposts.
So - much encouraged by all the time and feedback you have lavished on my writing, Emil, I do aim to fashion a novel from the glowing embers of this - its not a story that can be told 1st person - you are right there - although I have strayed into that style in some other bits - it will need a refresh that's for sure - and I do need to settle on what sort of confused mixed race super power enhanced young man Jiro is (and I have to convince myself he isn't me, tempting though it would be) - there's some back story pieces I am going to post I think - will help me refresh my memory about the story I dreamed up all them yars ago.
and when you get to read the edited version, it goes without saying I will be all ears for anything more you might have to say about it.
THE WORK MUST CONTINUE
And as always, it's just a draft, you can always change it, that's the fun part.
Oh, I don't believe she meant anything against me personally, more editors in general. I'm just a guy doin' stuff.
No - I didn't! (I'll give you a fuller reply above to your direct reply to me)
Sorry - I just sort of worked out what I really meant from a structural point of view whilst I was munching on my chicken sandwich. You said it would work better in 1st rather than close 3rd. This is where I disagree. Here's why.
In this edited version we have a mixture - or a constant switching, rather - between 'distanced' 3rd and then 1st. The 1st being the italics of course. This simply doesn't work because it's disjointed and disengaging. It's also a bit patronising to the reader (because readers are - or should be - intelligent enough to recognise the difference). It also breaks up the pacing and slows it down terribly, when the scene itself is supposed to be a relentless staccato horror.
Ironically - there IS no close 3rd anymore. This is the problem!
The reason being that in the original version these 3rd/1st switches were mixed in together within single paragraphs (which adds to the 'closeness'). What this means - in terms of narrative theory/psychology - is that Jiro is 'right in the middle of the action'. And because I, the reader, have immediately been able to emotionally identify with the character, I too am 'right in there' with him. Because humans are social animals and they have empathy. This why they see the world in terms of stories, but only in terms of stories that have characters - 'characters' are the expression of the social aspect of human psychology. The 'impersonal descriptive' is therefore not engaging to the human brain. It's just scenery. This is why writers shouldn't spend so much time on descriptions.
By 'removing' (or separating) the 1st person (italics - character's thoughts) from the descriptive 3rd, this key aspect of being 'right inside the action' is lost. I can no longer identify/empathise with the character. So I don't care about him anymore! I, the reader, am now distanced and simply listening to someone describe a movie they are watching (as I put it before).
This is also what I mean about trusting the reader. Readers (well, good readers anyhow) are intelligent enough to know the difference between 1st and 3rd, and they really don't need it laid out for them in separate paragraphs.
The original version, which mixed the two, was - here's the irony - a precise expression of the dramatic action that's happening, both descriptively, and in terms of Jiro's mental state. So the writing style, in other words, reflects the narrative.
Still, and having said all that - I do admit that it has been a while since I read the original so I am going by what I remember, which is admittedly coloured by an emotional reaction to it. Maybe if I re-read it will turn out that a lot of your critique is indeed valid. And that would indeed be ironic (at my expense).
So you and Nick may well be right in that some kind of inbetween his original and this close-edit version is the ideal solution - however, I would say that the final version should be closer to his original, inter-mixing these 1st/3rd structural devices. If it's exactly halfway, or closer to this new version, then it becomes a different story. Still valuable, for sure, but a different narrative with a different effect on the reader, and that's the point where narrative theory considerations come in. So maybe I'm simply saying my preference would be more towards the original experimental-esque blurring the rules of 1st/3rd structure.
But equally maybe - if I had not read or even known about the original version, I would have a different, more positive reaction to this new version, because I would not be comparing it to anything. No cognitive bias, lol.
A lot of the time, a writer has to think about how to have the writing style reflect the story that wants to be told. That's why for some stories, close edits are a really bad thing! For others, they are, indeed, absolutely necessary. The trick is knowing when to use which approach...
Anyhow - there's my thoughts. Not a negative attack on you as an editor. Not meant to be, anyway.
it might be interesting to immediately read part 2 which remains in the original style to see the immediate contrasts. in truth i never gave any active thought to the 1st 2nd third person perspective s when writing until recently and realised i flopped about between them somewhat willy nilly but generally tending to the 3rd person in the middle of the action descriptive and alot of internal monologue with italicised thoughts and swearing. most of my stuff is like that except some of the deliberate POV 1st person exercises
Yeah - that was my impression, and it worked for me because you yourself were ‘right in there’, partly because you didn’t give active thought to the POV. So no overthinking. Because of that, I was in there too. What you wrote, or how you wrote, rather, reflected what was actually happening ‘on the screen’ so to speak. Staccato is the word I was looking for.
I think the time for ‘overthinking’ happens before we sit down and write. That’s where we should iron out all the continuity errors and stuff. That way, when we sit down to write, it can come out organically. We are so familiar with ‘what’s going to happen’ as well as knowing the characters (and their voices) intimately, that we simply switch the appropriate bit of our brain on and out it all comes.
I spend more time writing in my head beforehand than I ever do actually typing. Like the other day I wrote 3 scenes for Katrina, which was around 5k words in total, and it only took me as long as it takes to type 5k words. Maybe 2-3 hours or so. That’s because I’d already written those scenes half a dozen times in my head. The fun bit was how the dialogue veered off slightly from the previous (unwritten) versions. I got to ‘read’ it for the first time. And because of all the work I did beforehand in my head, none of those scenes require any editing whatsoever beyond typos and a few punctuation changes perhaps. If anything, I might add a few extra lines. But incessant close-editing? Absolutely not. I might as well throw it all away and start again from scratch. And that’s not an option.
Obviously that’s my own approach to writing. Others might just suddenly have an idea and then start writing (I used to do that all the time when I was young). That’s the kind of thing that probably does benefit from close editing. I do my close editing beforehand, in other words. That way I don’t get frustrated afterwards.
Obviously you deserve a good reply.
I think there are two main issues. First - as you are sort of hinting I think, as an 'exercise' in the craft of writing and indeed 'thinking about writing', this sequence of editing and then rewriting according to the editing notes/suggestions is certainly worthwhile. What Nick has really done here is create a sort of 'experimental version' based very specifically to the notes. Like 'what would the story look like if the editor wrote it'. Or 'in my head, as a writer, how I am visualising this scene'.
In other words, this edited experimental version is 'writer's notes'. One might put it differently - this version reads like the kind of notes that one would give to a comic book illustrator, or a movie director. The director, cinematographer, actors etc. would then have to 'interpret' this and turn it into something worth watching. Likewise, a 'writer' would then take this 'breakdown of what's happening in this scene' and turn it into a genuine narrative.
So this is where my other issue comes in. It's contained in the word 'accuracy'. 'Accuracy' should be avoided at all costs in a proper narrative, because of human psychology. Humans 'actively engage' in a piece of writing only when they have to do some work themselves - i.e. fill in the stuff that isn't mentioned. This is called subtext of course. The writer doesn't do subtext, the reader does it. The writer just 'prompts'. This is narrative theory.
Furthermore, readers do not read like close-editors. They do not notice 'lack of accuracy'. Example: 'Jiro rounded the stairwell'. That's perfect, because every reader knows what a stairwell looks like. They know that human motion is a fluid quarter-circle, not a robotic 90 degree shift around a square corner. By forcing the reader to 'remember their experience of rounding a corner on a stairwell' they are now 'engaged' and an 'active participant'.
So, yes, a 'close edit' as you have done is good for perhaps pointing out 'accuracy errors', and 'continuity errors' etc., but it's not good for translating into writing.
I think perhaps what I'm maybe saying here is that writers should trust readers more. Readers have sufficient imagination to fill stuff in. And they would only notice 'significant' continuity errors and most importantly psychological character errors making something 'not believable'. They don't notice little things, unless those little things are made prominent, which is what turning a close edit into a transcription does. It highlights all that and the reader is more likely to start picking holes in the writer's work.
So writers shouldn't do 'show not tell' - they should do neither. They should 'prompt' and 'suggest' and then let the reader do the work. This is narrative theory. Which is psychology.
So maybe you and I are talking about two different things here - you are doing 'editing' and I am doing 'narrative theory'. So yeah, perhaps I've been talking at cross purposes - sorry! But I do think that narrative theory concerns should trump close edits. Maybe that's my point.
But certainly true that working with your close-edit is a very valuable thing. So don't think I'm impugning your craft!
Thank you Evelyn!
I cant tell you how much I appreciate your time and views as a reader and writer. I get a bit emotional actually with the engagement of you frankly superb people here and how inspired I feel to get this sort of depth of thoughtful commentary on stuff i write. Me! writing stuff that people read. still getting used to that.
🤗
Likewise.
The fact that I'm expending all this typically somewhat uppity emotional energy here is because I care. Obviously.
Gets me into trouble a fair bit, though...
i love that you care 🥰
Here's a good (finally!) succinct version of what I keep getting at with this narrative theory thing.
Good stories/writing works because of two fundamental points, which is the essence of narrative theory.
1/ What's known as 'knowledge gaps';
And 2/ human psychology.
By this I mean 'human psychology' fills in 'gaps'. If you don't have knowledge gaps then there's nothing for the reader to do - and therefore, social empathy and curiosity and suchlike - there is no 'reader engagement'.
Knowledge gaps come in many forms. There's gaps between what the writer knows and the reader knows - meaning 'key questions' which the reader instinctively asks. The most obvious general one being firstly 'what's going on here' and secondly 'what's going to happen'.
Then we can get clever. So there are 'privilege gaps' - this is where the reader knows something the character doesn't. Version one. Version two is 'character A knows something character B doesn't' (but the reader does know - or even more clever, 'thinks they know' - you can do 'twists' with that one - this works really well for mystery stuff of course - I'll be doing this all the time with my Katrina story, because it's largely a conspiracy thriller).
Notice also the human tendency to 'believe what the other person is telling them'. So they just assume that what a narrator, or character, says 'must be true'. So when you have a line like:
"I don't really know Kung-Fu", Katrina lied.
That simple sentence implies a massive amount of information. All based on 'narrative theory'.
You can also have 'writer/narrator CLEARLY knows something the reader doesn't and the reader knows there is something the narrator is withholding (likewise between characters).
Then there's 'character knows something the reader doesn't'.
You can see where I'm going with this. There are always three, not two, people in a story. You have the writer, the character(s), and the reader. Good writers know this instinctively of course. Bad writers - and bad editors - don't know this. Or they forget it, or ignore it or something.
Obviously it's best not to overthink or overplay this sort of thing. A lot of the time it's just organic and natural, and a basic product of the archetypal narrative which is 'a character in a setting who wants something but has trouble getting it'. That basic universal set-up already incorporates knowledge gaps, simply by virtue of the fact that to begin with the reader 1/ doesn't yet know the character or what they want, and 2/ doesn't know whether the character will get it or not (i.e. how the story ends). A lot of the drama, then, comes from what happens along the way.
I've got a funny one for you based on that universal setup. Person needs to take a shit. That's it. In ordinary life, this isn't interesting. But according to the rules of narrative theory, it is a story. 'character who wants something'. It's not interesting because usually it's easy. You just go to the bog and have a dump. No drama there at all. But now start adding stuff. Like, maybe there's someone already in the loo. Key question - 'can he hold it in?' Then, 'what if there's no bogroll?'. Now you have 'drama' - which is essentially 'forces of antagonism vis-a-vis the protagonist'.
Now add setting and another character - this is happening in a curry house. Maybe he's a right-wing arsehole and the Bangladeshis put extra chillies in his Jalfrezi. Or maybe he's an arrogant arsehole who thought he could show off by ordering a phal. And the Bangles put an 'out of order' sign on the loo (because it's a manic Monday).
And so on. See how we've turned a boring everyday thing into a proper story. And all of it is based on narrative theory - key questions, knowledge gaps, natural human empathy which engages with a character. All leading to linear narrative.
And in terms of 'close edits' - it doesn't just 'not matter one jot' to the story what the precise descriptions are, it actually detracts from it. So we leave out those descriptions, we don't show or tell. Everyone knows what a curry house looks like. Let them use their own memories to visualise it. We focus on the story, and let the reader's brain do the work. So my point is that a lot of editors lose sight of all this stuff. They focus on the 'use of words' - not the narrative.
One of my all-time fave stories of yours is the one about the sandwich shop guy who loses his job and starts getting the pigeons involved. That's perfect narrative, that one - for all the reasons I just burbled on about in my customarily irritating way.
This was wicked fun to read, especially with all the edits helping it fire on all cylinders! Definitely want to check out the rest of the story. Might just be because I’ve been binging Tokyo Ghoul lately, but the flow of the action and the imagery of the setting really had everything playing in my mind like panels of an action horror manga. Loved it.