Discussion of "TSNK 10: The End of the Day" by wolfram

Wow! That's incredible! This seems to be tying everything together beautifully. Can't wait to see the end!

Would like to see the end myself.

Thanks, guys. It's coming along. :)

This is really great. Bringing about armageddon - definitely a unique, creative twist on the story! Keep it up! ;)

Well I'm a dummy...first of all- I didn't know how or where to find 'drafts'...I didn't have a draft option (at least I didn't see one) when I submitted. I found your draft by re-reading agg's chapter 9.
so here are my thoughts: I am really impressed with the clear direction you walk in the story-you are methodically tying in loose ends and that is essential for the last chapter. I plotted my story in that step-by-step manner, as well. It keeps things orderly. For the record, no one, I think will be able to tie every loose end in a bow. There are too many and not enough time and character space...lol.
I love that you saw the perfect connection of the eleven transferred patient files to that of the killers victims. It was too obvious...But you don't give me a motive for why he chose the 11 patients-other than they were sinners and it was laziness to use the doctor to find his victims. There is a thread missing there. (I think the thread is that the victims MUST be Gifted-that was my take on it.)
I don't like the scene with Paige, Methra and Franco coming to Adara's office...the big hugs and hokey feeling are too much. What propels a story (even in the end) is the unknown..the reader's clinging on the edge of his seat because he AND the protagonist don't know what is going to happen. And Paige's life hanging in the balance is one of the biggest nail biters in the story. It's the motivation for whatever Adara does from that point on...You sort of strip that away too fast and too neatly.
Why are they going to a resteraunt to eat...? That seems very anti-climatic. Like a character taking a bathroom break in the middle of a battle. (lol)
I LOVE LOVE LOVE the tie in with F.Preston, the scroll, the details of the order and it's initiates etc. Very Dan Brown-ish. It's a way to advance plot AND wrap up questions simultaneously.
What I don't love? The line "Let's go kick some comm killer ****." Sorry, but that has got to hit the choppin' block. No need to explain-it's obvious why. ;)
All in all, you really are working up to something pretty good here, Wolf. Can't wait to see where you take it.

Forgive my poor grammer in the above...haven't had enough coffee yet. ;)

The restreraunt scene bugged me too, but I thought the rest was good. What did bug me is the name you gave Father Preston - I could have sworn that he was called Vincent somewhere else in the book. (my brother's name was Vincent Preston, so the name stuck in my head.) I just skimmed through the story and can't find it anywhere, so maybe they used the name in an alternate chapter or something. So I do apologize if I'm giving you miss information, but thought you might want to double check that.

No, he never had a first name, but I named him Vincent in my chapter 10 submission. lol

Yeah - I saw that, and I saw it after I read this and thought "Hey, I thought it was Vincent..." So it kinda cemented the name in my mind. Oh well. What are the chances - that's an unusual name!

What an awesome ending! I really like the direction you took! I had a little trouble swallowing all the grinning and giggling and joking in the midst of the intense re-union/training scenes, but I suppose they could be summed up to the stress of the moment getting to the characters? Anyway, excellent writing, and best of luck to you!

ALL, IF YOU READ AND COMMENTED DURING THE DRAFTING PROCESS, PLEASE RE-READ. I MADE SUBSTANTIAL CHANGES TO EVERY SECTION, WITHOUT EXCEPTION, BEFORE PUBLISHING.

Thanks for all the comments guys. Foo, you hit on lots of the things I didn't like in my draft, thanks for pointing stuff out. That Com Killer line - I hated it too. :) It was more of a placeholder in the draft for something better.

It was exhausting to put this story to bed, and if I had more time and more character space, I wish I could have pumped up some things more, especially the ending, but alas...we all had the same limitations. Hope you enjoy my direction, and good luck to all the other entrants. -W

Wolfram - great completion of the story. I definetly love Jimmy's use of the cop to inconspicuously carry out his plan. And I still smile at the 'Initial... initiative...' line. The teleportation was certainly a unique element you brought in, and it really added to the story. Good work and good luck!

Good story wolfram~ though I'm surprised you didn't take the battle to a more haunting, religious field. You were setting a really nice tone with the recounting of F.Preston and the scroll. I was expecting more of that candlelit, ominous feeling; maybe an underground occult meeting room, or an abandoned church on the edge of town. I did enjoy that you brought Bohac back, to do do some dirty work for Jimmy. Overall, nice job and good luck! Foo

I liked the restaurant because once they left the cave (which was where the ritual was originally intended), it seemed fitting to use a non-traditional setting. I also love mixing fantasy with the mundane. But I wanted the ending to be BIGGER. Argh, If only I had more space!!!
I can't tell you how frustrated I got at the end when I ran out of characters. :) I literally had to erase the double-spacing between sentences to squeeze in the final coda. I kid you not. I went back and edited each. frikkin'. sentence.
In hindsight, maybe I should have just cut some scenes or two, but I lacked the courage. :)

Glad you didn't cut too much - when I first read your draft, I was sure I was reading the winning chapter.

ha ha! me too, wolf. I went thru and deleted the double spacing between sentences too! All of that editing for space completely ruined the format of my chapter; I now have entire passages in itallics and some sentences mashed together. You know, I was told that editors/publishers/agents prefer now that writers submit work without the double space after punctuation. It, apparently, itn't necessary anymore. It was done because of the font of typewriters but word programs and processors have so many fonts that the letters allocate themselves after puncuation to fit properly. Seriously. And yet, I still do it...lol Foo

Oh, my word, YES!!! I was deleting spaces, adjusting spacing between paragraphs, eliminating indentations (and all of those required going through pretty much every single sentence - though I'll let you know that Word has a beautiful function called 'replace' where you can type in a double space in the 'find' box, and a single space in the 'replace' box, and it'll automatically correct it all - I know, I know, NOW I tell you!). I was even replacing ellipses with dashes where I could. So crazy, that character limit!

Hey, Wolf....very nicely done! I did not for one moment thinl that the reunion scene was not neccessary. Much of the story involved Adara finding Paige, so I think this was needed. I liked getting Paige's pov on the whole thing...her learning about what was going on, taking it all in and being willing to work with it. I really enjoyed the dream sequence with Preston, too. It gave us a reason for Jimmy killing everyone...which I don't think we really had before....him being ostresized from "the order" was a perfect reason for him turning to the "dark side". I think that I would have rather seen the 4 escape from the office in a way other than teleportation for added drama...but all in all a very good ending! thanks!

great story!

Fantastic work, Wolfram!! You not only brought about a realistic and abrupt end to the story, you did so while throwing in new twists enroute!! Really awesome writing. Everything that I liked about this chapter has been mentioned, so I won't beat the dead horse any longer; only to repeat....Fantastic job!!

Think my biggest problem, or maybe more accurately, question with your chapter is why Jimmy finally has to get out of jail now. It just called attention to the fact that he could have done this all along — and frankly, I wonder why he didn't. You had some clever scenes and your writing is strong, but there are times when the jokey nature of some of the dialogue and the restaurant scene were distracting and even off putting. Overall, I think it's solid work, though.

Thanks for the comments, guys. Perse, I totally agree that the teleportation was not too dramatic. It just felt like a reasonable direction for the story to go - the Order needed her Gift, she needed to beat Jimmy using her Gift, he'd had years to master the mental control, and a mental tug-of-war was where I figured most of the chapters would go. I wanted a slightly different direction. With more space, I wanted Adara to struggle with Jimmy over the mental control of Bohac, with Jimmy's grip stronger, but Adara's strong enough to keep Bohac from shooting her or Paige or Methra. Then I was going to have Franco kill Bohac. It would have been a gloriously twisted thing for Franco to do, since Bohac was innocent, but it's the way the Order functions. They kill innocents when they have to. Alas, no space for that, so I had Franco simply dispatch Jimmy without hesitation or trial. Not as morally grey, but not perfectly white either.
Ah, so many other things I wish I had space for...

holly, when I wrote this chapter, I tried to cover as many plot holes as I could. I reasoned that Jimmy never sought to break out before for 3 reasons (that I thought were clear from the text but if not, my bad):
1) He didn't want to. Jail was great and comfortable for him, and like I said in the chapter, he traveled more than most people did in a lifetime.
2) He didn't need to. Until the last stage of the ritual, that is. He was motivated by what he stood to gain by doing the final sacrifice himself (being Lucifer's right-hand man or something), which was more than he enjoyed just staying in jail.
3) It made him vulnerable. Which was punctuated by his rather pedestrian death by bullet in the head. (Also paralleled by his final sacrifice - death by bullet in the head.) Staying in jail protected his physical body, while his psychic essence could murder and rampage to his heart's content.
While on the subject of plotholes, I thought I'd list some of the other ones I tried to avoid, and threads I tried to close:
1) Why didn't Jimmy possess Paige again, or Methra or Franco? He couldn't, Methra and Franco were trained to block him out, and they trained Paige to do the same.
2) Why didn't Adara pick up the message Franco left her, and why don't they just call each other on their cell phones? She did, and they do. (This is a very modern plotting problem - with characters having cell phones they need a good reason not to call each other when it would be logical for them to do so.)
3) Why did Lipscomb's office send Adara the files? Methra pushed his secretary to do so when tipped off that they'd be significant by the Order's clairvoyants. Methra couldn't tip Adara off without breaking her cover. (This was a weak point in the story, I admit.)
4) Why did Jimmy focus on Adara? Adara/Paige/Methra was the right combination to close out the ritual, corresponding to Mother/Virgin/Priestess. (All arguably aspects of the Mary Magdelene, but I left that to the reader to deduce). Another (more tenuous) connection was Jimmy's need to get revenge on Franco for his expulsion from the Order. There's a history there with them being roommates, and Amelia, and the play she made to be Guardian, but there was no space for that here. It is also why her sign read Thou Shalt Not Covet.
5) Methra/Mithra/Sun god? Well I changed Mithra to Mithrael (fiery sun angel of God) - and made the Order Mithraic. (Also related the fiery man and the 3 golden keys from the prior dream.)
6) Why did Franco and Paige leave Methra and Adara when they'd just reunited? It made sense that Adara would be super-pissed at Franco (and Methra), if you just consider how she hated her powers sometimes, and how she blamed herself for Amelia's death and how he could have helped her deal with all these things years ago. So she snaps at Paige, and Franco rushes Paige out of the room so Methra can break the horrific news about what Jimmy did to Paige, and so Methra can start the training that leads to their escape at the end (also tipped off by the clairvoyants who clearly only have a hazy idea of the way some things need to be.)
7) Why didn't the Order suspect/counteract Jimmmy? His powers were weak, until Lucifer strengthened his Gift (a counter-force to Mithrael) with each killing.
8) Why the Commandments? Prophecy/Ritual, and Jimmy gets them all (including Charlie and Lipscomb) until Thou Shalt Not Kill, which he is supposed to do himself. (I also did a piss poor job of laying this plot point out, I admit.)
Anyway,
9) How did Preston ignite the Commandment killings as shown in Chapter 6? Prophecy taken from his head.
Maybe I was a bit obsessive, but I really wanted to try and close everything out as plausibly as I could.

Neat and tidy;) I think you covered every little nook and cranny of the story. Nicely written and nice intensity throughout. And teleportation? How cool is that! One thing bothered me though. If the restaurant was swarming with cops, how did no one notice Bohac dead or see Franco kill Jimmy? And I think you pussed out not having Paige shoot him, but that’s totally my opinion;) I wasn’t as fond of the very last part as I was of the rest of the story. It felt much less deliberate and very rushed. I think some conversation between Franco and Adara was warranted. OVER all I loved what you did. It’s obvious that you put a lot of time and effort into getting the details right- Nice job!

Ah crap, I meant to have Jimmy/Bohac send the officers home. It was supposed to be in that "nobody looked twice" paragraph. Crap.

Sooo, it's not enough I made Paige kill Barton? :)
I wanted that moment to be one where Paige starts to come to terms with the fact that she's suppressing now. You can see she's laughing and joking about the 'cool' training, and 'awesome' powers, and avoiding the whole traumatic experience - which is okay for her to deal, but a total avoidance of what happened earlier. Even Franco teases her a little bit to help her get her mind off things. But I wanted to at least nod to the fact that inside she's a wreck, and she would have shot him had Adara and Franco not been there. Also, it gives Adara a chance to really save her daughter, which she didn't get to do before. And Franco gets to show what a badass he really is. And you're spot-on for the last part, it was rushed.
Thanks for your comments, honeygloom, and I'm glad you liked it.

This chapter started out a little slow. It didn't hook me in right away.

I feel that the dialogue between Methra and Paige needs some work. It feels as though Methra is talking down to Paige. I'm not sure if that's how you intended it, but it struck me as odd.

I LOVE the scene where Jimmy is speaking to Charlie through the cop. The dialogue is FANTASTIC here. I also really like the dialogue between Adara and Methra. This rings true.

Earlier in the chapter, Adara notes that the cop calls her "Doc," and she notes that it's strange. Later on, as he continues to call her "Doc," she doesn't give it a second thought. This threw me off, as I thought that she had a clue that the officer's body was being possessed by Jimmy in the earlier scene.

I have to say that I wasn't stoked about the introduction of the teleportation power. I felt that if it were a power that was essential to the story, it would have been introduced earlier in the story.

Good job giving background info regarding Franco and Jimmy's connection.

I was a little disappointed that Paige grabbed the gun and tried to be the hero. This seems predictable.

I think there would have been more of a struggle at the end. It seemed a little anti-climactic.

You had a hard task to complete when you started this chapter, and you did a good job!

Congrats on your win!!!

Congrats - I had a feeling this was it! :)

I heard on StoryMash radio. You're famous! Congratulations!

Thanks guys, I'm listening to the show right now (and I am stoked!) (Nice to hear your voice, Katrina.)
I did not expect to win this round, and I suspect when we see the scores it's going to have been a really close finish. All you guys wrote phenomenal chapters!
Anyway, the next contest sounds cool too so we can all try and kick each other's asses again. :)

Aw, thanks! And here's a written congrats for you--congratulations!!

Congratulations. Just heard.

Kudos Wolf~great job!

Thank you.

congrats!

Congrats wolfram....I will make sure to listen in on the radio show tonight.

A quality win, especially for someone who spells his name with an "M." Congrats.

Congrats! That was tough tying up all the loose ends and what a tremendous Job!
Chloe

Thanks, all. Looking forward to the next one. :)

Congratulations! Excellent writing and well deserved victory.