[American Magic] How to Destroy the World in Seven Days

[Arakawa]

_{(this should be my 1000th post on these forums, if I'm getting the numbering right...)}

This is an old story draft based on my 'American Magic' drabbles, which I found myself revisiting this year as my dissatisfaction with the current direction of humanity reached some vague overflowing point and my mindset changed from I'd like to share this if I can write it well to I want to publish this, I don't care if it's bad or even awful and possibly offensive.

I originally envisioned three parts for this, but I'm only really confident of being able to finish part 1 for this Christmas. There's just one potential-writers-block iceberg remaining for me to barrel through in chapter 11 (of 13). The deadline is relevant because this is a Christmas story. As a minor warning that means the J-word and the C-word will be involved, although the cosmology seen in the story will be highly ambiguous. When I post it 'officially' (most likely to Spacebattles and/or SufficientVelocity; I welcome recommendations for other/better venues), I expect to tag it as [Christmas / Cosmic Horror / CS Lewis esque] and let people make of it what they will.

I welcome feedback or C&C but I'm not necessarily looking for it, just sharing for old time's sake.

With that out of the way, I present....



How to Destroy the World in Seven Days

a carol and offering for the sake of Christmas in the Twenty-First Century

• 1.01 - "How to Destroy the World in Seven Days"
• 1.02 - The best magician in North America
• 1.03 - Christmas Dinner at the Lost Property Office
• 1.04 - "There are more important concerns for us than celebrating Christmas..."

[Dracos]

*shall take a look*

Think you were considering posting locations.  I wander by Royal Road occassionally that seems to work at doing some level of original writing promotion.

[Dracos]

Read a bit of this.  The first chapter and a half really.  Mmm, not a fan.  Can provide some feedback if desired? 

Definitely it doesn't quite get it's footing with the first two characters introduced.  Both informed as very special off the bat, with such descriptions far outweighting them actually interacting with others or doing anything.  While super-powered/special protags have their place (All-might), interactions with setting or characters has to take point.

[Arakawa]

Read a bit of this.  The first chapter and a half really.  Mmm, not a fan.  Can provide some feedback if desired? 

Definitely it doesn't quite get it's footing with the first two characters introduced.  Both informed as very special off the bat, with such descriptions far outweighting them actually interacting with others or doing anything.  While super-powered/special protags have their place (All-might), interactions with setting or characters has to take point.

Yeah, there are reasons why 'not a fan' is to be expected >_>;;

I'm interested in honest feedback, but if you're going to that level of effort I have to be honest about the extent to which I would do (or not do) major restructuring. It's only going to happen after I have a more complete version of the story. At that point I would be more confident to do some surgery on it to make it more approachable/readable. If feasible.

This has a lot to do with my motivations for writing this particular story at this particular point in time. I had the idea a long while ago, took an early stab at writing it in 2019, and it was only 1.5years of accumulated pandemic frustration that pushed it over the edge into 'want to write this now'. Seeing that I'm writing it, figured I may as well share it....

Thanks for taking a look, though.

[Arakawa]

And these are two more chapters:

• 1.05 - "You wanted Powell to do something"
• 1.06 - The strange old man first caught my attention

[Arakawa]

*shall take a look*

Think you were considering posting locations.  I wander by Royal Road occassionally that seems to work at doing some level of original writing promotion.

Hmm, I took a look. My thoughts are that Royal Road seems nice, if I have something more polished?

Thus far my totally scientific reception test has been a closed forum of ~7 people, where one person read and stuck with it. If I do stick with my intent to publish, so far a more downscale site like SB/SV seems more reasonable for getting that ~1/7 interested reader. If I decide to finish the story but sit on it for surgery and polishing, somewhere like Royal Road seems like a good destination.

Edit: and publishing an unpolished draft on forums leaves the option to publish a heavily rewritten version elsewhere, without too much incongruity.

[Anastasia]

Yeah, I've seen other people do it like that with SB/SV and then another forum.

Story looks okay, it's not to my personal tastes but I'll sit down and do a deeper read when I have some RL time. I did really like those footnotes for the style and insights they give. In more scholarly works, there are some books where I enjoy the footnotes a heck of a lot more than the actual text. (Not a knock on your story, just that I like the footnotes.)

[Arakawa]

In more scholarly works, there are some books where I enjoy the footnotes a heck of a lot more than the actual text. (Not a knock on your story, just that I like the footnotes.)

Heh, I totally get the feeling of liking the footnotes more than the story.

The writers I've seen use footnotes very effectively are Susanna Clarke (Strange and Norrell) and Douglas Adams. Clarke writes actual scholarly style footnotes to give the impression of background research from a wider world with more historical figures; Adams is more "here is a random/funny/interesting backstory thought that would break up the flow of the story but it's too good not to share".

[Jason_Miao]

Just noticed this today.

The writers I've seen use footnotes very effectively are Susanna Clarke (Strange and Norrell) and Douglas Adams. Clarke writes actual scholarly style footnotes to give the impression of background research from a wider world with more historical figures; Adams is more "here is a random/funny/interesting backstory thought that would break up the flow of the story but it's too good not to share".

Idle thought 1.02 footnote 1: The footnote seems pretty much spot on with how Douglas Adams would have written it.  That said, starting a comment saying one thing ("Very Important") and ending it to mean the exact opposite thing was one of the hallmarks of his writing style.  Is that writing style something you're aiming for?   I didn't really notice it in the rest of what you've posted so far.

[Arakawa]

  That said, starting a comment saying one thing ("Very Important") and ending it to mean the exact opposite thing was one of the hallmarks of his writing style.  Is that writing style something you're aiming for?   I didn't really notice it in the rest of what you've posted so far.

In that particular instance, I wanted to add a note that 'yes I know this is not actually considered safe or legal' but not be boring about it. Otherwise, I wasn't thinking to imitate Adams' style in particular.

That said, the Silicon Valley elements in 1.01/1.04 are written with a very sarcastic slant. Between Drac's comment and yours I'm starting to wonder if rather than worrying it would come across as Anvilicious I should be worrying about people taking it at face value....

[Arakawa]

Hmm. Had the idea to see how Chapter 2 of my thing would read if I removed too direct mention of Powell's immortality. Flow was hard to fix without different events, so I ended up filing it under 'things to do properly in case of rewrite'. Will post alternate version of the chapter if I manage to do it.

Two more chapters.

• 1.07 - the man who pondered his death at Christmas
• 1.08 - the girl who had some time ago ceased to be a girl

[Muphrid]

Well! Tap, tap. Is this thing on?

I think there's a question here about whether this should be someone's first introduction to this universe and these characters. If so, I think they may get lost fast. Simon's narrative style can be hard to adjust to at first (without knowing this is how he compensates for his issues with the spoken word). And I think there's a general question of what you would use to pull people into this story and make is stand apart from other urban fantasy stories. I don't recall if the other story was any better or worse in that respect (though being an origin story for Simon coming into Powell's care, it might be).

If this is conceived more as a second (or in any case, following) story, then I think you've done a good job not wasting time to get to the action, and we touch base long enough with Simon and Forbis to get a feel for how things are in the present.

Admittedly, I still have reservations about swapping between third and first person in the same narrative, but that hasn't changed, so it seems not worth harping on. I do think that Simon's eloquent style is hard to distinguish from the 3rd person narrator at a glance, so it might benefit you to find some more characteristic differences to emphasize (aside from the obvious grammatical ones, like the use of "I").

[Arakawa]

Well! Tap, tap. Is this thing on?

Hello Muphrid :D It has been a while. And what an honour to hear from you on Christmas Eve!

I think there's a question here about whether this should be someone's first introduction to this universe and these characters. If so, I think they may get lost fast. Simon's narrative style can be hard to adjust to at first (without knowing this is how he compensates for his issues with the spoken word). And I think there's a general question of what you would use to pull people into this story and make it stand apart from other urban fantasy stories. I don't recall if the other story was any better or worse in that respect (though being an origin story for Simon coming into Powell's care, it might be).

Yes, this isn't the story I would have started with originally and it's not even the second story in the list. It was envisioned as a relatively light 'Christmas Special' that would sit outside the main story sequence. Then the plans, and this story's relative prominence in the grand scheme of things and amount of grimdark in it, got flipped upside down. The emotional importance of finishing it also rose significantly in the past year, due to obvious frustrating events in the broader world of mankind. My determination also causes a certain reluctance to redesign the airplane while it's in flight, so to speak, but I am certainly noting carefully all reactions both positive and negative to focus later editing efforts.

So far the results on giving it to pre-readers are 50/50. I had a reader who was lost quickly, exactly as you said, and a reader who was perfectly fine with learning about these things in this order. As an introduction, this probably requires the same part of the brain you use to jump into a fanfic for a series you haven't watched. You can see in Ch6 a hint at how much we have skipped over.

The weirdest part of seeing people read the first two chapters is seeing people read ch1.1 and assume Menzies as a positive character and then read ch1.2 and assume Powell will help him save the world from nuclear things exploding. Then the interaction in ch1.4 does not go exactly as expected. Which is interesting, but as Dracos already reacted to, Powell+Menzies as introduced in the first two chapters would make a very weaksauce combination of protagonists. I'm still mulling over how and to what extent to remedy this.

The one background story element for which my 'jump in at the middle' stratagem remains in flux is how to introduce Beatrice (the war oracle) as she steps in during Ch11. There are aspects to Beatrice's character which Simon would already know but ought to be left out of this story. It's also weird to introduce her in an incidental part when the planned-original introduction had her invariably appear as a derailing threat. Hmm, I may have a solution.

If this is conceived more as a second (or in any case, following) story, then I think you've done a good job not wasting time to get to the action, and we touch base long enough with Simon and Forbis to get a feel for how things are in the present.

Yes, in the ideal-world-from-here-on the "this is the first & only entry point available to this universe" wouldn't be a permanent state of affairs.

Admittedly, I still have reservations about swapping between third and first person in the same narrative, but that hasn't changed, so it seems not worth harping on. I do think that Simon's eloquent style is hard to distinguish from the 3rd person narrator at a glance, so it might benefit you to find some more characteristic differences to emphasize (aside from the obvious grammatical ones, like the use of "I").

I should probably marinate in some Madeleine L'Engle books before doing copy-editing to fix the third-person parts. Not sure of other fantasy authors who are American and provide examples of the correct type of fantasy. I think between Inklings, Rowling, Susanna Clarke and Dianna Wynne Jones the habit of magic being a British sort of thing that gets talked about in a British English style (which goes much deeper than just spelling conventions) has become very ingrained. At least for me.

Leaning more heavily into Powell as the PoV character in the 3rd person limited narration is another option, though not an ideal one. First, that would alter the discussion of how Powell appears to others significantly. Second, it would lead in the direction of a deeper insight into Powell's thoughts than we're getting right now.

Simon's narration is interesting to play with. My thinking is that he is very well-read in books that happen to contain the life-experiences of those older than him, and can imitate the words used to describe such insights, but that's just not the same as having equivalent life-experience of his own. Chapter 8 is where this concern is most in play thus far.

I don't recall if I use third person omniscient much, or at all, in Lost Twins* and this story is overall an anomaly, since all of my other outlines have the viewpoint more tightly glued to Simon and his movements (or lack thereof) and what other characters tell him. For this one it didn't work because of the opening and a large portion of Part2 which is appropriately titled "Powell and Forbis".

(* I think my original outlines had the odd scene here and there where the narration stays on Powell for a few paragraphs with Simon absent, and this was unusual enough that I was planning to mark such third-person segments in italics.)

A vaguely similar conundrum is seen in a lot of Worm fics that take a story world that was heavily told through one character's PoV (apart from rare interlude chapters), and use it to craft a fic that jumps around that universe a lot, then startles the reader by jumping back into Taylor's head for a relatively small percentage of chapters involving Taylor.

Lots of food for thought, I will sleep on it and hope Santa brings some clarity in the morning....

[Arakawa]

A mild revision to already-posted chapters that I'm contemplating to clarify the underlying structure of events. It's fairly ham-handed lampshade-hanging prompted by one reader startled by the appearance of parallel plot threads. But I think it's worth trying.

"Certainly," I shrugged. The deciding factor for me, as always,
was curiousity, however disdainful the Undertaker might have been of
the idea. Perhaps it was a morbid curiousity today, but this
character-trait of mine had already led me into and out of far more
dubious situations than this. Why not invoke it now?

In the depths of my reckless intuition I couldn't un-see the
significant fact that this strange old man happened to approach us
while Powell happened to be away. If I didn't understand the
connection between his request and Powell's unexpected business with
the technologists, that did not mean a connection wasn't there. At
least, I could investigate this conundrum head-on. Or I could refuse
him and go back to Eggnog and spend the next several days eaten up
with speculation.

The girl followed my cue to read the sign and inspect the globe,
hesitated, and stepped uncertainly over the threshold, for a moment
indeed looking very much like a young girl.

Well. That had been a chaotic but satisfying exercise in magic.  I was
getting the sense that there really were things I could do to help the
Undertaker. Of course, I still didn't understand the connection
between his request to us and Powell's situation – there was
something going on here, because Powell's clients were magnates of the
technology world, and here we'd just so happened to visit a technology
firm doing cutting-edge AI research. The melted dogs had spoken of a
'man down the street' doing similar work, but I'd been too ticked off
by their very existence to think of interrogating them properly....

I turned to find the Undertaker looking at me with a slightly softer
expression. That is, his eyes were stern and hard as per usual, but no
more than that.

I'm not sure where the balance is between glossing over this and over-explaining. The deeper reasoning goes like this: Simon isn't reading the Undertaker as a threat. (Whether that judgment is accurate or not, this would have been his development tendency from past experiences.) In his eyes, the fact that he approaches them when Powell is absent isn't evidence of him being a threat, and it isn't even an indication that the Undertaker thinks Powell would disapprove of him approaching Simon and Forbis. Needless to say, Simon and Forbis can both move freely around the city. It had been amply proven by past events that Powell doesn't keep tabs on everyone Simon meets behind her back. She also doesn't automatically jump in if Simon gets into trouble somewhere out of her sight.

The extra paragraph in 1.6 doesn't explain this, so much as hang a lampshade on a potential connection between Powell's visit to the Cabal and the Undertaker's visit to Simon and Forbis. Then I would add the paragraph to 1.8 where Simon contemplates this question further, and return to this more explicitly in 1.09 and 1.10.

[Arakawa]

Attaching a draft of ch1.9 a bit early. Ideally it goes together with ch1.10 as a unit, but I'm currently reworking 1.10 in light of the revision described in my previous post.

• 1.09 - the man who no longer had anything left to gain or to lost