A project i've been working on and off (mostly off) for half a year. The baisc plot involves a teen who suffers schizophrenia, who not only must get through life with this illness but also to get through the usual torments of teenage life involving school, bullies, family, friends and love. I've based it off many stereotypes of people with mental illnesses, actual facts and also some personal experiences myself. Now I want to know 2...no 3 things, and would be grateful for some useful replies. 1) Judge and comment on the title of the story and also it's 'tag' line. Here it is: A Voice with No Light ''Where the Light does not shine... ...there is only Darkness'' 2) Judge my introduction to the readers and tell em what you think: Welcome, dear reader! It is so satisfying to know your gracing this book, with such wilful hands. For only one with will and strength can read this tale and truly know the fate of a madman. And this madman seeks to set the record straight about common misconceptions. Ha, not all of us are screamers, shrieking our pain into the night hoping that someone will believe us, that we didn’t mean to be born this way. We are legion, for we are many. We are sickos and perverts. I hate this; I don’t want this life, not like this. But still…we grow and multiply, become one and then one more like a damn perfect circle with no end… none at all. It’s not always like this; we aren’t aliens, unless you make us. We just look at things different. None of us choose this path; we were born with this mark of corruption, which sets us apart. It is with this scar, where we should surely dig our own graves. Yet… not all of us do… But, the one thing I do know for certain…I know that every soul, every body, and every person that feels the darkness crawling on their skin like ravenous bugs. Those held up by strings serving the puppet master… and labelled the madmen… they always hurt the ones they care for… 3) And finally if you like anything you've read so far, please tell me and I might put some of it up. Thank you for your time! ^^
I usually like to have more to go on than this but I've got a start of a basic idea to look at. 1) The title is fitting enough for the proposed plot line but I'm not wild about the tagline, it's just not to my taste. 2) The intro is okay, it gives an idea of what will be happening as far as formatting goes but I think it could have used fewer ellipses and retained meaning. 3) I'm interested enough in what you've got to want to read more if for no other reason than to see what you do with it. I hope this was helpful or something.
It's safe to say your the one critic i'd want to please, so I will take everything on board. And yes it was helpful or something! ^^ To clarify, the style of writing is as if the narrator is older than the proposed teen in the story. I've written it as if this man has found his old diary, re-written some parts and published it, so the tense may change from then, now and so on. It seemed like the best way to 'document' the teen life of a mad man, since a diary is a form of unofficial document. I'm going to sound like an ignorant person, but i've forgetten the meaning of ellipses. And what do you mean by 'retain meaning'? Oh and do you by chance have any idead on the tag line? I got the idea when I looked up darkness on wikipedia and its explanation was 'Darkness is an area where light does not shine onto' or something similar, so I didn't expect it to be any good.
Ellipses is the plural of ellipsis which is the ... thing. By retain meaning, I mean that you could remove the ... things and still keep the same effect and feel of the text. This is just my opinion, but I think ellipses are kinda gimmick-y looking. Like you're trying to make it look like you've added substance without adding really substance. Well, I didn't really like the original tag line because it seemed like stating the obvious. I'm not good with being witty or creative or catchy so I'm not exactly the best person to trust on such things.
K, so here's the prologue and a bit of the begining. I know the story may nto flow that grand, it's still a work in process and I have never written anything like this before so, yeah... ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Prologue I can feel it. But not touch it. Hear it. But not speak of it. A voice. It is so sweet. So difficult to resist. My heart is influenced by its whole being. It speaks openly. And I listen patiently. It tells a tale of power, hunger and death. To do its biddings, is to hurt, torture, and murder. It is a beast, something primal, hellish and yet so intelligent and melancholy with its planning. I’ve given it a name…or it has told me its name. I am not sure… In the end, I call it… Kam. I don’t know how I know it, I just do. It lives there, like I’ve known it all my life. But now it’s out, roaming free and wild. In biological terms, you could call it a psychological disorder, in which my mind is unbalanced and conjured up an alternative personality. Spiritually, you could call it a demon or the devil itself, a denizen of malice, wishing me to do its bidding of evil. For the Philosophers, they would deem it another harsh obstacle, a pivotal step forward in my life that I must overcome to better myself. To me, knowing him and feeling him, his cold breath on my neck, claws on my skull, he is all these things. Yet he isn’t. It is more, but less. You’d have to have him by your side, in your soul, to know what he truly is. ------------------------------------------------------------------ 3rd Feb 09 I use to be afraid of the little voice that began, whispering in my ears. At first, I thought it was merely someone across the street, or out of the window, but I learned fast it was not. When I first talked to it on this day, I had fiery anger born from a fear. He…since he must be a man, his voice is echoic and dreadful… He gave me, a vision, a picture, as if my mind was its servant. Guess what it was…? A grin of dark ice blue lips, on a pure jet black face. How cruel. How cruel, he was. It only made me madder; ‘pissed me off’ would be the term. Yet, still intrigued was I because nothing at all was clear. I didn’t see was the future, was that he had a plan for me… A long and unforgettable plan, indeed. 4th Feb 09 How dark this place of my mind is. I have never seen a pure dark night, devoid of streetlights and the stars themselves, but I imagine it would be as black and foreboding as this. I think…I believe that…I’m in Him. Part of 'Him', anyway. Some part of him, I really do not know. I can’t see anything, but what I lack in sight, I make up for with the other senses. The stench of death taints my nostrils, a cold and pure breeze stings my face, ears can hear the murmur of a deep continuous hum. It’s painful here, like my body and mind are being scratched at, like my shadow is watching me. If it was there. I don’t know why, but he has brought me here for a reason, I hope. And not just to torture my senses. 8th Feb 09 Back in again in my mind… or his mind… and this time I saw… I saw…something. Not just anything, though, a horrible sight. A painful memory. Walking in the endless plain darkness, a light shone, just like on a stage, it brightened more and more until I had to use my hands to cover the pained it caused, and when I looked again I was somewhere else. I now stood in a young girl’s bedroom, full of pink stuffed-animals, posters of girl bands, cute boys, even a little frame above the bed showed the name ‘Sophie’. A noise appeared and I saw the frame of a little girl, knelling before her bed, head tilted down as she held her hands together, praying to a pair of angel wings laying on her cotton quilt. A whisper from her delicate mouth rose, as she confessed her tiny life. Her mother died. Cancer. Whom she adored and played with and smiled with and laughed with, even talking about a sunny picnic they went on. A joyful time for Sophie, she loved it. Her father, however, now turned to be a drunk after his wife’s death, and had even turned to beating and forcing poor Sophie into things she didn’t want to do. Even from across the room, I saw a large bruise on her shoulder, fresh as well, on her porcelain body, looking as if she was damaged by an ogre. Finishing the prayer, Sophie rose to her feet cuddling the wings to her breast, walking to the bedroom window, wearing a sad face. Donning the wings to her back, she began to shine with a dim but warm glow. Standing on the small ledge of the window, Sophie let one tear fall. I heard her last few words. “Hold on mummy, I’m coming to see you again, wait, please, don’t go! I love you mummy, stay with me, please!†She jumped out and – in mere moments – in a mere heartbeat. I gazed at her small mangled body lying on the pavement in the street. Nothing moved around her, all was still as if time had stopped. No sounds, smells or sights, mattered to the world as much as her poor figure. The night gown she wore was now covered in dirt and blood; hair running wild in the wind, she still breathed, a wonder in itself. Her last piece of life, which she clung to desperately, was slipping fast. I could hear her cry and speak, for just a second. Calling out. “Pleeease…daddy…just lovvve me…†And still the wings on her back flapped and flapped, trying and trying to fly high to the sky. But it was too late. She stopped. Her breath had faded and her heart was now still. The wind subsided, Sophie’s whole body from head-to-toe no longer moved. The sun set, light vanished from my view, everything disappeared. Back to the dark landscape I was all too familiar with. I… could only stand in silence. For once, I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry so much. Punch a wall, fall to my knees and wail how a man should, how a human should. How I should, how I wanted… But I could not… I tried. But here, in this ‘Sanctum’ of all places, I could only turn around and walk farther and deeper into the darkness before me, all around me, and in me.
