Notes on The Wake

There's a term in critiquing fiction called "empathic universe"(see Glossary of Terms Useful in Critiquing Science Fiction)--that is, the character's surroundings act in accordance to his/her emotions, such as thunder and lightning in a frightening situation, or rain when the character is grieving. Used excessively, empathic universe can make a story look really fake.

With this in mind, I tried to do an empathic universe that wasn't an empathic universe: The surroundings do change with the protagonist's flow of emotions, but the cause is the flow of time, not the character's feelings. I've always liked the imagery in this story.

I also experimented a bit with point of view here. I wanted to make it an external point of view, where the (invisible, in this case) narrator watches the action, so that the character's inner thoughts and emotions are never written about, only shown through external actions. I failed miserably, however, because there were too many constraints on the narrative, and Seifer's thoughts ended up intruding on the text.

But in a revision(October 8) I found I was better able to work within the limitations of this point of view. I think it's closer now to what I was aiming for. It's always pleasant to know that my writing has improved, if not in leaps and bounds, then at least consistently.

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws