Discussion of "The Unknown- Clones" by I_Ninja_Rye

An interesting entry, ninja rye, and I think your direction was creative. Unfortunately, I had some problems with your execution.
Maribel behaves unnaturally throughout, following Lockley and Robert without even understanding why. She reacts after seeing a disfigured clone of her dead daughter, with "Sorry, what?" Very strange.
Lockley's reason for cloning Maribel's family: boredom? Seemed like the right thing to do? You don't even provide a science background for him, he just ups and builds an lab, and starts cloning away. The whole scene was less eerie and more campy.
I did like the idea of making Robert into a clone - wish I'd thought of that. It brings up interesting moral and emotional dilemmas for Mirabel which you only hint at, but do little to explore. That would have made this story really pop.

Yeah, I know I could've done better, wolfram. I was in a hurry and didn't spend much time editing. You propose a good point on Lockley and him being just bored, I tried going for the urge to do it, but there wasn't anything to tell him to make the clones. If I could've entered more than one chapter I think I would've done better. Well,. thnx for the comment. Thank you for the comment, I've been waiting to get someone's opinion who is not my friend or related to me. It helps to get a view with both the bad and the good things about it.

Maribel was exhausted from trudging a flight of stairs? Apparently she forgot that agency life is a marathon, not a sprint? I mention this because she doesn’t sound like herself. She follows him because she feels she owes him? "What does that do?" I’m more in accordance with her "I was sure I looked like an idiot," which again, doesn’t remind me of Ms. B.

Her questions are OTM. "What are these bodies? Why are they here?" She's a clever woman. Her mind should be racing to beat Robert to the answer to that question. Simultaneously, she should absorb every piece of information, especially what Robert provides as the answers. She somehow forgot her training?

Inventive explanation of why it’s harder to clone kids. I like it.

Why/How did Lockley become the Mayor of a city in Oregon? That feels like a big setup to a punchline about mad scientists in politics, but I’m missing it. His approach is so casual, even flippant. Doesn’t sound like the corrupt televangelist smile introduced in chapter 2.

Confused: "[Maribel] was so entranced by [Lockley’s] story." Why? Isn’t he recanting her experience?

Whoa! BIG LINE: "I was the least loyal wife ever to exist on the planet, maybe more than the planet." Where did that come from? That’s hyperhyperbole! When/how/where did the least loyal wife come from? Vows almost always end with "Until death do us part." He died. Marriage parted. What a huge elephant to stock the room with as your hanger!

I appreciate the avenues you’ve freed up with whether Robert/Danya are the real them – heck, it opens a door that Maribel may not be herself either. Although Robert knows he’s a clone and the original died. Seems to conflict his earlier explanation.

Big points for boldness. But I’m missing the consistency. It feels like a different story, detached from the first three chapters, bordering on evil Dr. Jekyll camp. (Dr. Horrible, perhaps?)

(2.5)

Hm… my brows are furrowed. There wasn’t much I could sink my teeth into here. It’s a cool idea- a mad scientist/good Samaritan randomly decides to change Maribel’s life forever. But the execution fell short. From the beginning I was left wondering why they suddenly trusted her and didn’t keep her at gunpoint. I can understand Maribel being confused, but she completely lost her former fire and determination. Just felt out of character for me. There were some important plot points dropped too. Mainly the disappearing and reappearing children and the “you’ll be dead by Monday” threat. Flow was choppy and hard to follow in some spots also. So overall, I really liked the idea, but I thought the execution fell short.

These are the notes I took as I read your entry:
A husband is reunited with his wife after years of being separated, and all he can say is, “Are ya’ comin?” The reunion felt a bit stilted – Maribel seemed, from previous chapters, like a much stronger woman than someone who would just walk around in a silent, obedient shell and, instead of any expressions of anger or joy, she seems to just feel obligated to obey his directions. It doesn’t quite fit her.
You have a good voice and style. Some of the sentences were a bit awkward to read, like “He stalked up behind me, with my knowing,” and “…not anybody could even enter the building…” Also, the pacing was a bit slow toward the beginning (the lever scene in particular stood out to me as slower than necessary).
Lots of great imagery, like Robert ‘dancing’ over to the bodies.
A few minor comma issues, including one sentence that needed either a conjunction or a semicolon (“Lockley has been working on this for years…”) instead of just a comma.
The idea that Jake was just a pawn doesn’t seem to mesh with the rest of the story. What was Lockley’s purpose in letting Jake tell Maribel that she would die, as this implies? It seems to me that her compliance would’ve been much easier to gain without putting her on the edge, fearing for her life and afraid her cover was blown.
Lockley’s explanation of why he decided to clone her family was not very strong. Some parts were unnecessary (mentioning that she didn’t have a basement didn’t seem natural, even for an explanation). Other things feel like way too big of jumps for me – that Lockley researched a burnt-out building thoroughly enough to realize that Maribel wasn’t in the newspapers; he thought the best explanation would come from conspiracy theorists; he decided that the lack of information about Maribel meant that she had to be one of these government-placed people; and the decision to clone her family was because he felt like it. But perhaps you intended that, to make him seem unstable. His apparent obsession with her is certainly creepy, and could be a sign of instability.
“I was so entranced by his story.” This sentence gives me the image of her sitting cross-legged at his feet, staring up in rapt adoration. It feels out of character for her – this is the guy whose nuts she crushed in the previous chapter.
The idea, overall, is a great one. Clones are always fun. But it doesn’t quite match up to the previous chapters – both in how the characters behave and in general plotline. What did all those other children have to do with Mayor Lockley cloning Robert and Danya? If there was no real threat against Maribel, then why make her freaked out by making it look like there was? Robert’s last statement in the previous chapter was, “We’re doing it for the children.” That doesn’t quite relate in this chapter – it seems, from what’s written, that Danya is the only child involved.
I gave it a 3.0.

I got thrown off within the first two paragraphs – She’s staring at the two men, Robert’s giving her his full attention, and then he’s walking away, and calling over his shoulder; “Are ya’ coming…” And she follows – in silence??? I just don’t buy it from her character so far. I had a hard time buying the whole chapter. The fact that Robert was up in the loft within seconds, while it exhausted her to climb up there. Are we exploring teleportation? The fact that she felt she owed it to him??? The fact that Robert gives no explanation whatsoever until they’re in the lab. And the whole thing with Lockley – wow. I may have missed something, but from what it looked like, he decided to start making clones because he was bored. Maybe a little more history showing that he was some sort of biological genius would be in order to pull that off. And this massive obsession of his is linked to someone he’s never met. Odds are slim. But that’s nothing compared to the astronomical odds of him deciding to become mayor in hopes that she’ll be relocated to his town.

On a positive note, I think it’s a rather fascinating angle that Robert is a clone. The writing was good, and clean – I appreciated the lack of typos and minimal punctuation errors. I would have scored it higher if you could have portrayed this idea in a more believable fashion.

shandinah,

Yeah, I realize that Maribel was very out of caracter, now that I've published it. I know a that if I would've changed just a few details, it would have been better. I hate reading a bunch of typos and bad punctuation errors, so I usually try a lot harder than necessary to prevent. I'm glad you noticed that.