Originally Posted by Richard G
Hi Jim.
[Hi Richard,
Some of your faults with the narrative surprised me. The fiction board does not get much attention here, and I may not get enough responses to see if my details throw other readers off the narrative. There is little room in flash fiction for extensive characterization and developing a sense of place, tension, conflict, transformation and resolution. I tried to get some of these elements in subtly, one word here or there. Your careful analysis is appreciated. I will continue to think about all of it, even though I offer some explicative detail to support some of my choices below. ]
I won't say I enjoyed the story, but it did hold my attention to the end.
[I wanted to post something besides light verse. Maybe I over-succeeded. Can pathos be enjoyable? Can a badly told story hold someone's attention simply by being bad?]
Given the title I didn't think it 'fair' to leave the introduction of the girl until the final sentence. Also some of the details there make me revise my age estimate of the boy from the opening, how much of a 'child' was he? And if he's a bit older, and she's older than him, and attractive, then why isn't she put in a truck along with the servant girl?
[The title was changed when I decided this piece is exploring the modern fascination with sex and violence. My true protagonist, the girl, comes in at the end. She receives the only particular description in the piece. I think I say she is the oldest girl, not the oldest child. The curious children from the village are meant to have a range of ages, since one girl is described as the oldest. For me she holds the key to where the boy will go from here, being a self-serving accomplice to a totalitarian regime, or a resister as she is. Since they are described as children but are sexually aware, I mean to place the boy and the girl at the age of puberty, a very conflictive age for children whom I do not yet consider to be young adults. Maybe I don't know when children are no longer children. In the USA, the usual legal age of entering adulthood is 18 but is 16 in some states. The girl is not a known adversary of the soldiers. Therefore she is not in the "spoils of war" category that the servant woman is, who had been sentenced to execution.]
Similarly, that one of the executed was the boy's uncle is revealed when it doesn't really have much (emotional) impact. (And why are the other victims anonymous? Surely they'd be know to the children? How big is the village?)
[The boy is supposed to have fairly obviously betrayed the uncle and provided information to the soldiers that leads to the uncle's execution. This is shown by the motives provided for the boy to seek revenge against the uncle. The beatings, the uncle now sleeping with the boy's mother, the indoctrination by the regime that turns children against their parents. It is also shown by the uncle's knowing look right before the executions. I don't think I have room to get beyond the story of the boy and girl, which is small anyway, and talk about others in depth. Besides the uncle, there is the missionary, his servant woman, and one generic man. I mean for them all to appear to have been sentenced officially. We may speculate on the execution of the elders, who are identified as official observers from the village council. Was their execution sanctioned in any way by the officers who have left the scene, perhaps conveniently have left the scene? Or are the soldiers taking advantage of circumstances confident they will be protected and are impervious to either official or citizen retaliation with their highly repressive regime in charge.]
There's also the mystery of who returned the children to the village (or did I miss something?)
[It's a village. To me that means it's located in a more a less rural area. It's in the middle of a jungle that's so thick no one can see into it. There are fields where the land has been cleared so that people can farm and ostensibly have something to eat. Isn't that how it's been happening since the first agrarian cultures arose thousands of years ago. There is a road. People can walk. The village and the execution site are in different locations. The jungle hides the view at even a slight turn in the road, which may be wheel tracks for the most part. Children in this kind of setting are not chauffeured around in mini-vans. Some of this info is in the story. Some is easily inferred.]
I think it might benefit from some vigorous pruning. Two examples,
The woman tied to the fourth post was still standing physically unscathed. She began weeping and shaking even though she was blindfolded and unable to see her fallen companions.
Does 'blindfolded' really need to be explained? And if, earlier in the paragraph, it was established that all were tied to posts that wouldn't be a detail that needed repeating.
[Will look at this ]
I also think starting with the uncle refusing the blindfold and the boy watching him do so might be stronger opening.
[Maybe]
Second,
The soldiers scanned the road to doublecheck that the officers who approved the final order had driven away.
What does this detail have to the with the boy (assuming he's the focus of the narrative?)
[This detail has a lot to do with the ambiguity of theme. Is institutionalized oppression or human nature to blame for this atrocity?]
Perhaps consider swapping some of 'the soldiers' for a single NCO? Would all the soldiers really be 'scanning the road' at the start of P2 (who's watching the villagers/prisoners?)
[I assume soldiers who are committing an atrocity, whether sanctioned or not, would each and all be looking over their shoulders in all directions for potential witnesses.]
Given how little reaction the children seem to show, why would the soldiers think they'd want to watch from the jungle?
[We automatically think most children would find the situation abhorrent and scary. These children are used to this scene. The soldiers expect them to be there. Think of public executions in the days not that long ago, at least in the way portrayed in movies, with crowds gathering for the entertainment.]
That 'did not want to be witnesses' is interesting.
[a hint that the children know an atrocity is coming, beyond the official event]
Lastly, I think you could cut P5 entirely. It doesn't add anything (is probably inaccurate about macaque alarm calls being all the same) and the ironic ending, the protective soldiers, feels laboured.
[will carefully consider]
'Selling Fish' might make a good title.
[maybe]
RG.
|