Subject: Thanks, Cicada! ^-^
Author:
Posted on: 2020-01-16 16:25:25 UTC
Despite how infuriating this book gets sometimes, I'm actually having fun analyzing it too - I've been wanting to do it for years. This first chapter was actually quite horrible, but there are plenty of hilaribad scenes down the line. Just you wait.
Well, here I am, taking a crack at sporking/recapping a published novel for the first time. I usually prefer reading sporkings to writing them, but this book - Raze by Tillie Cole - made me so angry the first time I'd read it that it was just a matter of time for me to grab a spork and go to town on it.
Sporkings of this book will be available at my Dreamwidth under the tag "raze". Here's the intro to the sporking project, explaining what you can expect from this novel, and here is my take on the prologue. Content warnings for squick and swearing, but I'll be adding a lot more and a lot darker warnings for later chapters; trust me, this is a very bad book. I hope I can make the sporking a fun read, though.
And holy moly, is it bad. On the flipside, it has much less abuse and much more stupidity than the first chapter, so it gets pretty hilaribad sometimes. Content warnings: domestic abuse mention, skin-crawling creepiness, phrasing-induced body horror (you'll see) and so much swearing.
Uuuugh, those action scenes are so bad. Action is by no means my strongest suit, but for precisely that reason, I've read some advice on how to write them, and that? That is not how you do it.
I wanna try to fix the biggest passage you quoted, just cuz. Here's what we're starting with:
My attacker was pinned against the wall as a huge hooded man pounded his face and stomach with clenched fists. I couldn't take my eyes away. The hooded man was relentless, each punch delivered with precision, his chest heaving in excitement and his feet rocking from side to side as he relished the outlet for his aggression.
First problem: Passive voice. You don't want passive voice in your action scene. This is pretty self-explanatory!
Second problem: We're in first person. Don't waste time telling us that the POV character is looking at the thing you just described. We already know that. Instead, show us what about it—or what about her—makes her fixate on it.
Third problem: In addition to the mind-reading Mirage already covered, that's a long sentence for an action sequence, and oh, look, more passive voice. So very tedious.
Three sentences, three problems. How 'bout that. So, what do we do? First, we change from passive voice to active, being sure to choose verbs that give us maximum visceral impact and minimum word count. Second, we cut the filler, and we take advantage of the first person perspective to use our POV character's unique voice to tell the readers something they don't already know. Third, we use shorter, more direct sentence structure to cultivate a sense of urgency, and we also vary it so it doesn't become monotonous. We avoid ases and -ings like the plague.
Point two will be difficult, since Kisa has the personality of dried-out leftover rice, but we know her frame of reference includes cage fighting. We can use that to add some flavor. Mind you, I personally know nothing about cage fighting, and if I were doing this properly I'd want to research it first, but I think I can BS my way through one paragraph. Here's what I came up with:
My attacker's back slammed against the wall. A huge man pounded his face and stomach with fists like meat tenderizers. My savior's eyes were hidden under a hood, but I could just make out the glint of his teeth, bared in a savage smile. Like a cage fighter going for the prize, he drove punch after punch right where it would hurt the other bastard the most.
A quick word count tells me my passage is longer than the original, but I think it reads faster and gives a clearer, more immediate sense of what's happening in the scene. "Fists like meat tenderizers" might be a bit of a cliche, but OTOH, it instantly conjures an image of a clenched fist and what it's doing to the other guy. What do you think, is it a good trade-off?
~Neshomeh stayed up too late having fun with this.
Aside from sounding a lot more exciting, a simple change like making Raze smile as he beats up the guy conveys the idea that he's enjoying this much better, and without turning Kisa into Charles Xavier.
Also, I laughed so hard at your remark about Kisa's personality. I was actually going to discuss this in later chapters where I would analyze the main characters and the way they come across as opposed to what they were intended to be like, but honestly? You summed her up perfectly.
Except no one's immortal.
Just their 'perfect souls'.
But I don't think it's because the book is stealing from Twilight. I'm more inclined to think that it's because a lot of Suethor writing has the same types of mistakes (urple prose, mangled metaphors, lack of editing, characters making dumb decisions because the plot demands it), and a lot of bad romance has the same unhealthy themes (soulmates who have no reason to love each other except that it's Meant To Be, idealization of romantic love above everything, fixing an abusive or just plain terrible man with the power of Twu Wuw). I've seen a lot of these in other terrible romance novels as well.
Narm is something that Cole is showing a lot of Meyeresque talent in, though. : D
Read the first two parts. This sure looks Fun! {= D
Does the pre-prologue really say "two hearts split into two," or is that a transcription error? I'm sort of hoping it's the latter, because if not, damn, it's even worse than you realized. {X D
I seriously expected to get an introduction of Young Kisa where she was just called Girl. Slightly disappointed this was not the case.
Adding my agreement that "born for the sole purpose of loving [a guy]" is gross. Just, bleh. I want a bucket, too.
I'll be following this as it develops!
~Neshomeh
I checked, but nope, "two hearts split into two" is not a transcription error. That's just how this book is, I'm afraid. Trust me, this is the least of the editing errors to come.
I've thought about it a bit, and maybe it was meant to be read as "two hearts which were both split in half by the separation", but that is just... such a clumsy way to phrase it.
And don't worry, even if this one was intentional, I meant what I said about plenty of mistakes down the line. This book is a sporker's goldmine. : D
It's bad. Holy fuvg, it's so bad. Content warnings for swearing and abuse.
https://rc746.dreamwidth.org/2566.html
Honestly, I found both the sporking material and your lines quite hilarious. Looking forward to more!
Despite how infuriating this book gets sometimes, I'm actually having fun analyzing it too - I've been wanting to do it for years. This first chapter was actually quite horrible, but there are plenty of hilaribad scenes down the line. Just you wait.
/salutes, sends Fortifying Vibes
/salutes back