Nov 26, 2022·edited Nov 26, 2022Liked by J.E. Petersen
That last line hit me like a sledge hammer.
I'd kept thinking, "maybe...?" But no, of course not. You've lived in that heat and with Andre's weakened condition...to have him survive would've been a cheap lie, not unlike idiotic movie scenes where humans manage to outrun attack dogs.
This chapter is riveting and screams that your Arizona origins and brief encounters with WV's rural youth's hospitality wasn't wasted.
I thought the “cussing” was a thing to set Andre and Jackson apart, yet it seems he still uses some colorful language in this thoughts. I don’t mind, just didn’t know if that was intentional.
Good ol’ Sean Claw. What a cool name.
Also how fun to be accurate about the snake poison thing - literally thought for like 3 decades you are supposed to suck it out, only to discover later that is not a real thing.
Also holy crap what a sad ending. My frustration for not meeting Rita yet was heavily overshadowed by the unfortunate circumstances in this chapter and poor Andre. What a strong, core memory like experience that would change the rest of someone’s life.
Sad it happened it all, and that Andre was out there just to be a good friend.
Sad the bullies (my namesake) put them in a precarious position
Sad Jackson had to leave Andre in what were ostensibly his final hours
Sad Andre had to be alone and so scared
Sad for the parents
Sad he couldn’t go to the funeral
So many sad things. But excited for the payoffs/consequences/lessons learned/character arc that will come from it.
Picky-picky: "Go go go" could stand some dashes maybe?
Depending on where/how you want to publish this, most of the time in fiction I don't see a lot of CAPS for stress. Usually I see it in italics, but that could just be what I read. Sound effects are usually italics too, but that THAP I do not mind in caps because of what it is. Just to differentiate it as absolutely not an acronym, perhaps both? I dunno. Like I said, super picky.
"Flight's answer to the fight" pulled me out for just a second to ask if an 11 yo boy would think of it that way in such a dire moment. Of course, he is a science geek, so maybe that would be a highly accurate thought for him. Or is that is the adult-Jack commentary of the memory? If the latter, I wouldn't pull us out of the heart-racing, dusty foot pounding moment because I was totally in kid-Jack's body until then.
The fact that he capitalizes Sun...such an astro-nerd. 😻 That whole paragraph about wandering out there in the heat... I FEEL that so hard! That's some word-gold right there.
OH NO.
Oh no no no no shit FUCK! (Sorry, Jack.) Now you've done it. The first choke-up. I am SO MAD. And sad. Start to finish, this whole chapter was just flip-flip-flip if I'd had pages. I know those kids. I hated those kids.
OK so there is no question of complete and utter hooking here. I knew we would need to know about Nali and her life-saving measures...we do need that information early so that we have that shred of (cursed, infernal) hope that if he can just get home... And so that they will be sent with what should have saved Andre if not for conscienceless fuckers. I am trying to think of the best way to deliver the situation of the town, the importance of who Nali and Grandpa are in the scheme...without backstory info dump in Chapter 1. If there's a way to make it more immediate, that would help. Or perhaps weave it into the bit about waking up with a snake on his chest? Move it to a little later? (It really is a great end of chapter hook though) I'm just spitballing here while I'm also all worked up over the boys. If it wasn't The Almighty Chapter One it wouldn't be such a big deal.
Because we neeeeeed to get to this, and not lose anybody on the way. But this chapter wouldn't have quite such a page-flipping impact if we didn't already know about the town and the anti...can't remember the other word. Venom. Non desert-dweller here. Eh. If you feel that it needs a change, I'm sure you'll make it just as dynamic as the intro to Jack. Actually...it could possibly be as simple as adding in a little more of his personality and his drumroll-drama commentary to that later section, especially because he's talking about someone else. Just something to tie it more to him, even though his mom wasn't even born yet, to keep the immediacy of hooking us into the person you really want to hook us into in your opening chapter.
Well, frick and frack. I need a break now. Which is a very good thing. I need to go have a moment. Didn't even get to go to the funeral. Of course he didn't. Le-huff-of-siiiiiiigh... Just fabulous. Awful! Awesome chapter. Thanks!!!!
Great notes. I'm giving myself permission not to reply to all of them, but please be assured they are all well-received. A quick word, though, on my approach to formatting -- most of the time, all my decisions are very deliberate. I come from a screenwriting background, so I learned paint with punctuation and capitalization to achieve lots of different effects. Where to drop a comma, for instance, to let a line come out all in one breath. And where to use CAPS for stress instead of italics, and vice versa.
This isn't me complaining that you hitched on that stuff, but rather taking this opportunity to nerd out about aspect of the craft I love.
Also, delighted that the chapter packed a punch for you. I went back and skimmed through again for the first time in months after reading your comment, and I'm still a little surprised by how devastating the end is. My gut dictated a lot of Jackson's childhood history, and this sort of piling on of tragedy felt necessary. I'm hoping the reason for that becomes clearer later -- for both the reader and myself.
Oh, you don't even need to give me a reason for hitting us so hard. I trust already that you have many reasons. And heck yeah, no need to respond to all my gobs of blathering. And never worry about responding in any particular time frame either. I'd rather you get to all your projects stress free. (Including the chapters your new binger is eventually going to be breathing down your neck about. Hahahah!)
Okay cool, so in my bloggy/memoir stuff, because it's a dump of my brain and my experience and my personal too-big-for-one-little-body voice, I absolutely use CAPS. Cuz I can, and it's MINE. But any time I've ever dealt with fiction prose for the intention of publishing, everybody jumps on me for things like that. But I'll tell ya...sometimes a good ole CAPS bomb is the only thing that will cut it. I use it all the time in GodSpeak invocations, but that's a world-specific, magical type thing.
So from a screenwriting standpoint, why DO you break this old school rule in your prose? Nerdy minds want to know. 🤓
It’s all aesthetics. I’m trying to gauge as best I can how a reader will emotionally react to a specific formatting choice. It’s not a conscious choice, usually -- I just go with my gut.
PS If you need me to wrangle myself into a more Jack-like vocabulary, I can. The group I'm used to playing with--we're all Andre-mouths but this is not our sandbox. It's yours. Sorry. Got a little worked up there. Hahahah!
I'm gonna catch up to the most recent chapters, but I just thought I'd add here how much I liked this chapter! This whole sequence has been very nostalgic, having had similar friendships and doing similarly dumb things out in the wilderness.
I too have a little trouble distinguishing Andre and Jackson apart. But, seeing that that's really my only issue thus far, I will play the role of Grammar/Spelling Nazi for the past few chapters.
Firstly, (From last chapter) I don't know if this is supposed to date the time period or not, but, back in 1981, the WHO declared "Antivenom" to be the predominate and more correct term over Antivenin. They're interchangeable, apparently, but I think that's an interesting distinction.
Douchebag is also spelled in a very german way in this chapter? And then tormenters instead of tormentors.
That's all I caught so far, but I'm very engaged at this point to be any more picky.
That last line hit me like a sledge hammer.
I'd kept thinking, "maybe...?" But no, of course not. You've lived in that heat and with Andre's weakened condition...to have him survive would've been a cheap lie, not unlike idiotic movie scenes where humans manage to outrun attack dogs.
This chapter is riveting and screams that your Arizona origins and brief encounters with WV's rural youth's hospitality wasn't wasted.
Exxxxactly.
YOU MONSTER 🥲
another great chapter.
Agreed.
Classic BB gun chasing seen - takes me back.
I thought the “cussing” was a thing to set Andre and Jackson apart, yet it seems he still uses some colorful language in this thoughts. I don’t mind, just didn’t know if that was intentional.
Good ol’ Sean Claw. What a cool name.
Also how fun to be accurate about the snake poison thing - literally thought for like 3 decades you are supposed to suck it out, only to discover later that is not a real thing.
Also holy crap what a sad ending. My frustration for not meeting Rita yet was heavily overshadowed by the unfortunate circumstances in this chapter and poor Andre. What a strong, core memory like experience that would change the rest of someone’s life.
Sad it happened it all, and that Andre was out there just to be a good friend.
Sad the bullies (my namesake) put them in a precarious position
Sad Jackson had to leave Andre in what were ostensibly his final hours
Sad Andre had to be alone and so scared
Sad for the parents
Sad he couldn’t go to the funeral
So many sad things. But excited for the payoffs/consequences/lessons learned/character arc that will come from it.
Picky-picky: "Go go go" could stand some dashes maybe?
Depending on where/how you want to publish this, most of the time in fiction I don't see a lot of CAPS for stress. Usually I see it in italics, but that could just be what I read. Sound effects are usually italics too, but that THAP I do not mind in caps because of what it is. Just to differentiate it as absolutely not an acronym, perhaps both? I dunno. Like I said, super picky.
"Flight's answer to the fight" pulled me out for just a second to ask if an 11 yo boy would think of it that way in such a dire moment. Of course, he is a science geek, so maybe that would be a highly accurate thought for him. Or is that is the adult-Jack commentary of the memory? If the latter, I wouldn't pull us out of the heart-racing, dusty foot pounding moment because I was totally in kid-Jack's body until then.
The fact that he capitalizes Sun...such an astro-nerd. 😻 That whole paragraph about wandering out there in the heat... I FEEL that so hard! That's some word-gold right there.
OH NO.
Oh no no no no shit FUCK! (Sorry, Jack.) Now you've done it. The first choke-up. I am SO MAD. And sad. Start to finish, this whole chapter was just flip-flip-flip if I'd had pages. I know those kids. I hated those kids.
OK so there is no question of complete and utter hooking here. I knew we would need to know about Nali and her life-saving measures...we do need that information early so that we have that shred of (cursed, infernal) hope that if he can just get home... And so that they will be sent with what should have saved Andre if not for conscienceless fuckers. I am trying to think of the best way to deliver the situation of the town, the importance of who Nali and Grandpa are in the scheme...without backstory info dump in Chapter 1. If there's a way to make it more immediate, that would help. Or perhaps weave it into the bit about waking up with a snake on his chest? Move it to a little later? (It really is a great end of chapter hook though) I'm just spitballing here while I'm also all worked up over the boys. If it wasn't The Almighty Chapter One it wouldn't be such a big deal.
Because we neeeeeed to get to this, and not lose anybody on the way. But this chapter wouldn't have quite such a page-flipping impact if we didn't already know about the town and the anti...can't remember the other word. Venom. Non desert-dweller here. Eh. If you feel that it needs a change, I'm sure you'll make it just as dynamic as the intro to Jack. Actually...it could possibly be as simple as adding in a little more of his personality and his drumroll-drama commentary to that later section, especially because he's talking about someone else. Just something to tie it more to him, even though his mom wasn't even born yet, to keep the immediacy of hooking us into the person you really want to hook us into in your opening chapter.
Well, frick and frack. I need a break now. Which is a very good thing. I need to go have a moment. Didn't even get to go to the funeral. Of course he didn't. Le-huff-of-siiiiiiigh... Just fabulous. Awful! Awesome chapter. Thanks!!!!
Great notes. I'm giving myself permission not to reply to all of them, but please be assured they are all well-received. A quick word, though, on my approach to formatting -- most of the time, all my decisions are very deliberate. I come from a screenwriting background, so I learned paint with punctuation and capitalization to achieve lots of different effects. Where to drop a comma, for instance, to let a line come out all in one breath. And where to use CAPS for stress instead of italics, and vice versa.
This isn't me complaining that you hitched on that stuff, but rather taking this opportunity to nerd out about aspect of the craft I love.
Also, delighted that the chapter packed a punch for you. I went back and skimmed through again for the first time in months after reading your comment, and I'm still a little surprised by how devastating the end is. My gut dictated a lot of Jackson's childhood history, and this sort of piling on of tragedy felt necessary. I'm hoping the reason for that becomes clearer later -- for both the reader and myself.
Oh, you don't even need to give me a reason for hitting us so hard. I trust already that you have many reasons. And heck yeah, no need to respond to all my gobs of blathering. And never worry about responding in any particular time frame either. I'd rather you get to all your projects stress free. (Including the chapters your new binger is eventually going to be breathing down your neck about. Hahahah!)
Okay cool, so in my bloggy/memoir stuff, because it's a dump of my brain and my experience and my personal too-big-for-one-little-body voice, I absolutely use CAPS. Cuz I can, and it's MINE. But any time I've ever dealt with fiction prose for the intention of publishing, everybody jumps on me for things like that. But I'll tell ya...sometimes a good ole CAPS bomb is the only thing that will cut it. I use it all the time in GodSpeak invocations, but that's a world-specific, magical type thing.
So from a screenwriting standpoint, why DO you break this old school rule in your prose? Nerdy minds want to know. 🤓
It’s all aesthetics. I’m trying to gauge as best I can how a reader will emotionally react to a specific formatting choice. It’s not a conscious choice, usually -- I just go with my gut.
Right on. I think I know what you mean. Sometimes italics just can't deliver it hard or big enough. 🤓
PS If you need me to wrangle myself into a more Jack-like vocabulary, I can. The group I'm used to playing with--we're all Andre-mouths but this is not our sandbox. It's yours. Sorry. Got a little worked up there. Hahahah!
Don't you dare wrangle.
Well, fuckdamnshit, then I won't. 😜
I'm gonna catch up to the most recent chapters, but I just thought I'd add here how much I liked this chapter! This whole sequence has been very nostalgic, having had similar friendships and doing similarly dumb things out in the wilderness.
I too have a little trouble distinguishing Andre and Jackson apart. But, seeing that that's really my only issue thus far, I will play the role of Grammar/Spelling Nazi for the past few chapters.
Firstly, (From last chapter) I don't know if this is supposed to date the time period or not, but, back in 1981, the WHO declared "Antivenom" to be the predominate and more correct term over Antivenin. They're interchangeable, apparently, but I think that's an interesting distinction.
Douchebag is also spelled in a very german way in this chapter? And then tormenters instead of tormentors.
That's all I caught so far, but I'm very engaged at this point to be any more picky.