Story from Inferno, Take 2

[scribblemyname]

“Dowse and Bleed” came in at about 7600 words of first draft. It left me wrung out and ready to kick the whole thing into whatever promised to take it away—which, in this case, turned out to be my email. I sent it to my beta, who promptly told me to dig deeper, do more, let her see it from the inside out, not the outside in.

I’ve made a fine art of the outside in. Here we go again. Scrapped the whole lot, opened a fresh doc and am pulling from the old as needed, and I see her point.

Rachelle waited until the restless aches dancing through her upper body were outright pain before she finally forced herself to quit making endless cups of coffee and fished a mottled green star out of the embossed pink tin she kept on the granite kitchen countertop. She stripped off her overshirt and held the star to her left arm, braced herself, and pressed the needles on its back into her arm and into her main carrier fluid vein. A light twist—which hurt, but she didn’t wince—secured the star. She could feel the space for her carrier fluid expanding, allowing the wash of genetic entries in her system to head for her central nervous system without making her want to scream.

She leaned back against the open dark wood shelves, which she had stuffed with spices, baking supplies, and potted vegetables. Dishes filled the shelves above the counters, and she kept an open cooler by the telephone. She picked up her coffee—the whole apartment smelled of it—and drank the rest slowly, shifting from one bare foot to the other on the heated tile floor.

Three years ago, cycling didn’t hurt. She didn’t want to think about that, didn’t want to think about the fact that the Department never would go away for her or about the look in Sear’s eyes six months ago when she gave her another box of stars, arms covered in blood from doing something they should never had had to do.

Rachelle set the coffee mug in the sink and washed it, ignoring the way the water irritated her skin as she scrubbed harder than was necessary. Over the splash of water and ceramic, she heard the phone ring and glanced up towards where it sat on the higher coffee bar counter. Only a handful of people could keep hold of her revolving number to call. She never answered.

The answering machine clicked on. “Rachelle Winslow. Leave a message.”

Her birth name in her own voice jarred her. It wasn’t her name. She drew the mug out of the sink, turned off the faucet, and set the mug in the sanitizer to dry.

“It’s Ilsa.”

Killinger.

Originally published at Liana Mir. You can comment here or there.

Comments

[in-the-blue.livejournal.com]

That feels like Rachelle.

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

Can I see the completed other version?

I am not sure I can pinpoint exactly what happened between that version and this, but for me, something got lost in the translation. I enjoyed the other one, it drew me in even when I was frustrated by not knowing enough.

This one... does not do that for me.

[scribblemyname]

Thank you. :bows:

[scribblemyname]

A big part of what happened is those snippets all ended up from being smack in the middle of the story, even the one I thought would open it, but ah, well. We'll see what comes out. This is the characterization layer. I'll hit compelling after that.

[scribblemyname]

Forgot to mention: emailed you the file.

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

I got it.

My main complaint with the original would be that there was not enough of Justus in it. He kind of comes almost out of nowhere, though he was hinted at a few times through it. Him coming in at the end works, but me, in my love of flashbacks, I'd have stuck one of them in there along the way. Not that you have to. That's just what I would do.

There is a lot of back story in the kingdoms and core and stuff that I'm not sure I understood... That part was confusing when it came up and left me wondering if I was missing something, or it if was a part of a larger universe that I should know something about...

My brain's not entirely with me at the moment, though, and I could do a more pointed feedback later, when I haven't spent a sleepless night obsessing over nothing again.

If you want, of course. Otherwise, I'll wait for you to finish your revisions and read the new version to see if I have anything useful to say. :)

[scribblemyname]

Thanks. The big issue with the whole mess was figuring out what was the significance of this story to Rachelle. I'd walked through it with her, knew the context of her life, but tried to trim the whole mess down to need to know because once you pick out a thread with Rachelle, it's a whole tapestry and tangle.

I'll be posting the rewrite once its done, so there's that, and yeah, there's a lot of background I'm having to deepen.

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

Well, perhaps she's the sort of character that deserves her own novel, one with the full tapestry and tangle.

I have a minor character (the sister from that one excerpt) that my readers say needs her own story. She just might get it if I can get through the stuff I'm currently in the middle.

Maybe Rachelle won't be done even if Dowse and Bleed is.

[scribblemyname]

The tangle, I'm afraid, is her team. I've got Shift, Kilter, Sear, Defender, Kismet, Protector, Healer, and her (the Database), and their lives are hopelessly tangled together. Part of what I'm having to weave through this story without dragging them all in via exposition/infodump. Ah, well. It's coming together, slowly but surely. I intend to write more stories in this world maybe, but not sure about a novel at this point.

[pygmymuse.livejournal.com]

More stories might help. Maybe one for each of the team members.