My Blood Runs Cold, Part One: Lost Souls

Here ya go.

Or here, if you prefer Kindle.

Aaaaand now it's headed to iBooks. (Along with a few over a dozen other distribution channels.)

And now it's on iBooks.

41 pages? Is it a short story now?

Serialized novel. This is Part One.

I'm not sure whether to add this now or save it for the full length release, but here, you can have a preview:

A Note From Rock

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Hi there. This… this thing on? Okay. My name is Rock Dylan. I’m the fella who’s tellin’ this story. If you’re listenin’ to it, or readin’ the transcript, you’re like to notice a couple things.

First off, the way I talk maybe sounds funny to you. Maybe that’s a bit of geography, or culture. Maybe it’s a difference of time.

Hell if I know how long this tape will last, so maybe you’re the kids, or the grandkids. Maybe you’re even the great-great-great grandkids away on down the line. But the way people talk changes. I’d lay down money you’d sound funny to me, too if I was around to hear you.

Just sit in as best you can ’til you get the rhythm and flow of it, and you will. It’s important. You need to hear this story I’m about to tell.

As I record this, the year is 2148, and I’m a rickety ol’ geezer. The Missus has done passed on, I don’t rightly know how much time I got left my own self. Conjure I’ll be with her lovin’ self again before too long.

Had to pause it there for a split. She ain’t been gone so long but I get a little damp eyed and tight in the chest and the throat thinkin’ on her. I do miss her somethin’ fierce. Think I’m all right again, though.

The reason this is important, what you’re about to listen to or maybe read, is it’s history. This tale all happened when I was a much younger fella, before the turn of the century, would’ve been ohhhhh, ‘round about ’95.

Now I’m sure some of it’s bound to be in your school books. Yes, your old grand dad, or great-great, was part of some big things.

But your schoolin’ is going to give you the sanitized and cleaned up story, the it’s-got-nothin’-to-do-with-you story. But unless this gets out beyond my family, this story has got a lot to do with you. Hell’s bells, this story is how you all came to be.

And then on the other hand, if this is strangers listening in, I bid you just as warm a welcome. Whether you’re kin to me or not, this is a story I welcome you to sit a span and listen close to. So welcome. Welcome.

Do southerners say geezer??

Yes.

I say "geezer" in the right circumstances.

Still a bit too heavy on the colloquialisms IMO.

Possibly true. I'll give it a re-read in a couple days, then trim it. But now at least what colloquialisms there are will have an in-story rationale, along with the time frame. The narration can now be understood to be spoken narration rather than "found manuscript" style.

Based upon this addition, I think it's clear that you now also see a problem with the narrative style. I'm going to suggest that a narrator having to explain that or justify it is a bit too heavy handed. If it requires the justification, it might mean that there is too much of it. Going back to Twain, he didn't need to explain the way Huck spoke.

Perhaps the problem lies in the narration. The the stylised dialogue bmight easier to swallow in small increments rather than as a more constant barrage. Perhaps the first person narration doesn't help.

Just a thought.

I don't feel the need, either. But if the feedback I'm getting on it is genuine and honest, maybe it's a difference of the times. It's been noted that it sounds Firefly-like, and presumably anyone who detects a similarity between the two styles has heard the spoken relative of the written narration style here.

People who don't need Huck Finn's or Jim's dialogue explained shouldn't reasonably need Rock's explained, either, since his is actually a lot less foreign to the modern mind's ear.

I didn't really find the narrative style to be a problem.

I don't know if you see it, Lanz man, but this is one of the reasons why I react the way I do. A lot of this "constructive criticism" looks to me like nothing more than picking nits for the sake of picking nits, and I really do wish they'd just knock it off.

I figured it out, now. When I read Rock Dillon, I expect to hear him finish with "hold on to your hats and glasses, cuz this here's the wildest ride in the West!" People who've been to a Disney park know what I mean by that.

Y'know a trend I've been noticing the last few years? People have no patience for a story to develop and reveal itself. They want it all up front, or they want to be spoon-fed little bite sized chunks that they can immediately understand. Like when Agents of SHIELD started up. If you were paying attention you could see groundwork being laid, things being put into place. But there were so many complaints . . . nothing was happening, it was too slow, there was no whizbang. People have got used to the Michael Bey style of storytelling, where it's all big splodey things and loud noises and rush-rush-rush. Not much tolerance for something that builds slowly.

Kind of sad, in a way. I mean, I like confections as much as the next person, but sometimes you want to savor a steak, y'know?

You're right. And that's got to be undone. Readers deserve steak.

Part Two is on track for a mid-March release.

Are you writing as you are going along, or is the whole thing finished?

The story is finished, beat to beat to beat. The composition is what continues.

Let us know how that turns out.

It probably sucked anyway.

Classy.

And not the forum for it, either.

Since the thread starter isn't a member here any more, I'm gonna close this.