We are over halfway through the book, so it’s time for some thoughts about how the story can be improved.
The thing is, the book isn’t bad. It’s by no means a masterpiece, it mostly avoids dealing with heavy matters and focuses mostly on fun exploration of an alien world, but, hey, it’s a fun read all the same. So, it doesn’t really need an extensive rewrite like Hunger Games, just a few tweaks. First, I would probably expand the Midnighters sections at the beginning. Specifically, I would show them dealing with the rest of the student body and being rejected by it. Showing them being bullied and actively ostracized would go a long way in explaining their attitude and making them more sympathetic characters. As it is, we’ve seen Rex being pushed once and some girls briefly giggling about Dess being weird. While I can believe their problems are more severe than that and we just see the tip of an iceberg… Well, it still would help to show it more decisively. Maybe start the book with Rex being actively bullied by the boys instead of complaining about the school.
Jonathan practically requires flashing out. As it is, he comes across as a dumbass willing to put Jessica in danger for the sake of fooling around. Showing his feeling about the matter earlier, showing him feeling trapped in normal time and liberated to the point of intoxication during midnight would help with it. While his decision would still be dumb, it would be the good kind of dumb that comes from character’s established traits. I suspect he didn’t have his own sections due to the book wanting to keep him being a Midnighter a surprise, but come on, the moment he started talking about weird dreams it was obvious he’s at least in the know, and when Rex mentioned an acrobat, well, it was as good as a reveal.
Melissa is fine so far. Her life sucks, she mostly folds into herself because she couldn’t even think straight around crowds, then she snarks or lashes out once she can, unleashing her frustrations of the day.
Jessica is mostly fine. She does need some streamlining, though. I would tweak the timeline, so her first experience with the midnight comes at Friday night. This way, the second cryptic conversation is skipped, and Jessica wouldn’t need to think it’s a dream for the plot to work. She simply experience something mythical, doesn’t know what it is and what to do and spends a day in a haze. But, hey, it was amazing, so she isn’t afraid. Then the second midnight comes, and everything proceeds as in the book, only instead of thinking it’s a weird nightmare, she is terrified over the dark reality surrounding her. She still follows the slither because she is desperate and doesn’t know what to do, and it’s the only other living thing around.
Then, she doesn’t lie to her parents and says she is due to meet a group of kids from school since they agreed to go to a museum. Because, seriously, there is no reason to lie, and it bothers me. The way it’s framed, it’s supposed to be a sign of her being dragged into this new supernatural world, causing conflicts with her family, but, well, it’s not well-executed.
She can still angst about keeping secrets over not telling her parents about the secret hour. The reason why she wouldn’t tell them is that she’s afraid to lose the favor of Rex’s group (who did ask her to keep it secret since Midnighters like their little secret club). Midnighters know about this stuff more than adults, after all, so going with what they say makes sense, even if it’s actually not the best decision.
As for her decision of not running away while she’s grounded, I think it’s time for a breakdown. She is willing to go because she wants to be safe, but she also hate to worry her parents, especially after being delivered to them by the police with bruises all over her body, and she hates that she needs to go since darklings are after her, and she unreasonably blames Midnighters for being part of that world and sucking her in, etc. So, the next chapter still happens, just not so much out of necessity as out of concern for Jessica. Perhaps Rex is afraid of losing her from his group to Jonathan.
Now, to world-building. For all I harp on it, it does establish a set of easy to understand rules, and the setting is cool enough. It needs more consistency regarding how things unfreeze on touch with that car, and an admission from Midnighters that they have no idea how it works. It’s one of those rare moments where lampshading the problem actually can fix it: by pointing out the problem with the air movements and the sound, the book would establish it’s weird, and then Midnighters can say that yeah, the rules of the midnight contradict the rules of the world, and they don’t really know how to explain it. I mean, they are a bunch of teenagers, not a scientific team, so them not knowing all the answers is not a problem. Rex can perhaps mention there is some stuff in the lore, with previous generations of Midnighters doing some experiments and research of the phenomenon, but he understands little, and there are typically more pressing concerns.
I would also be more decisive with “perception/reality” thing. As it is, the setting is stuck between the two. Midnight must be “true” to have an effect, but monsters are scared of new concepts, which is a product of human mind.
So, let’s divorce the supernatural stuff from the rules of physics. Midnight matters because humans think it matters, it’s the divide between night and day, between familiar and scary, and that is why monsters hide in it. You must be born at midnight to enter their world, but it doesn’t need to be “true” midnight. As long as people accept you were born at that time, you are.
Math matter because it’s the language of science, and science is the key to understanding and ultimately controlling the world. It’s what allowed us to move away from the death trap that was nature and build civilization. If monsters represent the fear of the unknown, the irrational suspicion that the world doesn’t work the way we think it works and something lurks just behind you, then math equations are the words of power illuminating the truth of the world and making shadows scatter.
New materials go there, too. They represent human mastery over nature, positive traits of the progress allowing us to live in comfort and warmth even in naturally hellish environments.
I would also replace panthers with something more humanoid, Silent Hill-esque. As I said before, I think it would be more creepy and cool. Slithers are fine for swarm monsters, though.
Now, to the plot… Honestly, there isn’t much of it. The book mostly focuses on exploration of the setting and character interaction. I mean, yes, the darklings are after Jessica and she needs to find out what’s up with that, but, well, that’s pretty much it. I am actually not sure if it should be changed. The plot isn’t even that slow, the book is just short, and the focus on characters is not bad. I would probably add a bit more tension between Jessica and Midnighters, have her interact more with each of them and come to blows with some, but other than that, well, it’s mostly fine. It could be better, but that would require some massive restructuring of the book. Probably combining it with materials from the rest of the trilogy. Moving the conclusion to Jessica’s plotline at an earlier stage, so she’s in the clear to deal with the villains.
Yeah, suggestions would be welcome on that front.
Well, those are my thoughts on the book so far. Tune in next time for some telepathy shenanigans.
Specifically, I would show them dealing with the rest of the student body and being rejected by it. Showing them being bullied and actively ostracized would go a long way in explaining their attitude and making them more sympathetic characters.
I worry that this might turn them into misery sues, though? The weird kid who gets bullied but is secretly awesome is extremely cliche and at least somewhat problematic. I suppose you could make it work if the book makes it clear that this isn’t positive behavior to be emulated; maybe Jessica could provide that.
It’s one of those rare moments where lampshading the problem actually can fix it: by pointing out the problem with the air movements and the sound, the book would establish it’s weird, and then Midnighters can say that yeah, the rules of the midnight contradict the rules of the world, and they don’t really know how to explain it.
Yesss. Why do so few authors understand this? It’s so easy!
“I worry that this might turn them into misery sues, though?”
Yeah, there needs to be a balance between sodomy and dinosaurs. That is to say, it would help to show why Midnighters behave the way they do, but their behavior shouldn’t be excused.
The book is actually mostly good at it so far: the dynamic in the group is pretty toxic, and is going to be revealed to be even more toxic in the next three chapters. And Jessica provides a good counterpoint to their position by being well-adjusted and having a positive relationship with Constanza.
Basically, the secret hour is an escape for Midnighters, and I want to see more clearly what they escape from.
[Yeah, there needs to be a balance between sodomy and dinosaurs. ]
out of context DQ comments ftw
It’s actually a metaphor used by some writer in his Creative Writing workshop. Sodomy refers to angst, deep character interaction, exploration of heavy themes and all that jazz that makes you think about the book, while dinosaurs are “awesome” stuff like cool fights, superpowers, gun porn and everything catchy about the work.
(He didn’t actually explain the metaphor to his students, simply saying “not enough sodomy” or “not enough dinosaurs,” which resulted in some curious revelations once another writer took over the workshop.)
I kinda misused the metaphor, actually, but I like it, context be damned, and think it should be used at every semi-appropriate opportunity.
I think the midnight freeze almost works. You just have to forget the idea of pause/unpause and assume it works similarly to general time freezing. Stuff you push moves, stuff you don’t doesn’t. A big item like a car is going to be very hard to affect in any way, just like shoving a car in the regular world won’t do much. Since it’s magic, you could even just add there’s some weird scaling factor, so that the difficulty in moving an object increases with its size/weight much faster than the actual size/weight in regular time. Air is super easy to move, raindrops so-so, people quite difficult.
I would also be more decisive with “perception/reality” thing. As it is, the setting is stuck between the two. Midnight must be “true” to have an effect, but monsters are scared of new concepts, which is a product of human mind.
This also almost works! What if what’s real is just about perception, but the kids think it’s objective, and then you write the book with them occasionally mentioning the “weird exceptions” that result from this disjoint to show the reader there’s something wrong with their current idea of the rules. So because people think there’s an “actual midnight”, anyone born on the stroke of midnight in any timezone is a midnighter. Standardized time zones served to drastically reduce the number of midnighters, but supercharged the ones left.
I would also replace panthers with something more humanoid, Silent Hill-esque. As I said before, I think it would be more creepy and cool.
Creepier but at odds with the idea our society is anathema to them. What if they were like inverse Silent Hill? Rather than humanoid things warped and moving wrong, they were totally alien things with human disguises layered on?
Imagine she goes out into the blue, still world, looking for anyone else. And there walking down the street are two people, and she goes toward them (while the reader’s thinking it’s the other kids) and they’re the legs of the panther thing – its gait is such that the patterns move exactly like regular people.
And stuff like:
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/63/df/da/63dfdaa254ba9278e09ea4f68e247ffa.jpg
Only the rest of it isn’t as comprehensible as the dragon – a lot of them don’t have a recognizable body layout because why would they?
All their disguises have flaws in them that range from creepy to super-creepy, which is why they did so poorly at hunting humans and also makes for fun descriptions.
“You just have to forget the idea of pause/unpause and assume it works
similarly to general time freezing. Stuff you push moves, stuff you
don’t doesn’t.”
The main problem is molecular level. If stuff doesn’t move unless pushed, that implies it has zero kinetic energy, which translates into absolute zero temperature. Normally even in completely still solid objects there is a rhythmic movement on molecular level.
That, too, can be handwaved by magic, of course, but it needs to be addressed.
Jonathan actually mentions that he’s always warm at midnight, and he’s supposed to be good at physics, so he would be a good source of exposition for it.
“This also almost works! What if what’s real is just about perception,
but the kids think it’s objective, and then you write the book with them
occasionally mentioning the “weird exceptions” that result from this
disjoint to show the reader there’s something wrong with their current
idea of the rules.”
They actually mention that change of time to summer/winter time doesn’t affect “true midnight,” hence why Melissa’s birth certificate says she was born at 1 A.M.
Otherwise, yes, the idea everything works on human perception but the kids don’t understand it works, though requires subtlety to pull off.
“Imagine she goes out into the blue, still world, looking for anyone
else. And there walking down the street are two people, and she goes
toward them (while the reader’s thinking it’s the other kids) and
they’re the legs of the panther thing – its gait is such that the
patterns move exactly like regular people.”
That’s a good idea. So, they have creepy kinda-human parts on their bodies serving to lure victims after them.
And slithers turn into kitties because everyone loves kitties except when they turn into furred snakes.
(The alternative is for them to turn into deformed lolcats, but that would be too cracky.)
That, too, can be handwaved by magic, of course, but it needs to be addressed.
I think that’s overthinking things, myself.
Eh, I am actually willing to tolerate the world not making sense for the sake of a cool setting, but it still bothers me, and I would like to see characters thinking about the same things I think when confronted with something like that.
As I said, I am OK with the answer being, “Yeah, it doesn’t make sense. Hell if we know what’s going on, but good thing whatever it is seems to need heat same as us.”