Mirror

“You’re bringing me to a bar in the middle of the night?” I hissed as I followed close in suit behind her. Shoe turned back to me and smiled shrugging her shoulder.

“You stay up late anyway don’t you? Might as well bring you out.” The devilish grin across the hybrids face wasn’t exactly comforting to me. As Sonnie trailed close behind us, his eyes darting around obviously looking worried. It seemed like Shoe did this often now.

“Do you know how many people are looking for you Shoe. You can’t just show up out of random, what is Pidge finds you?!” I recalled, I might have been a bit lenient but there was only so much you could do when you saw someone tearing into your lovers face and neck in a blind rage. While Shoe seemed pretty stable now… I really didn’t want anything to do with her. Being around someone with such a reputation just made it uncomfortable.

Shoe only gave a scoff to my answer, I stopped and looked at Sonnie. He looked at me and let out a whine nuzzling my elbow the five foot tall beast soon followed after his counterpart. I scoffed for a moment as well and pressed a hand towards my head. I really didn’t want to be dealing with this at the moment. I blamed my ability to say no to this woman for some odd reason. She seemed like she needed some serious help.

I followed Shoe to the bar as she sat down and ordered us a pair of drinks. I looked around at the sad rag tag group of species that had clustered here today. I could see some mages in the corner - along with a tamer with its hellhound drinking. I had half a temptation to call Lyre. Maybe he’d understand and bail me out - but no he still didn’t know that Shoe was here. Nobody did.

“Where’s your girlfriend?” I asked suddenly. Nervously looking around for the Succubus. Shoe shrugged her shoulders.

“Probably doing some scouting.” I slammed my hand against the table. My mouth opened for a moment and then made sure my voice was lowered.

“You’re still killing world leaders. What the hell didn’t I tell you, you’re digging a deep grave Shoe.” I tried to relax but I felt like a cat with their hair raised. Shoe was nonchalant as she got our shots of vodka. A small smile on her face as if she was some sort of smug entertainer.

“What does it matter to you? Don’t you know not to mess with things that don’t concern you hmmmm? You aren’t immortal.” I growled a little and took the shot. Welcoming the burning sensation as I ordered another shot from the bartender.

“Oh and I suppose you’re using that as an excuse to kill willy nilly because your girlfriend gets turned on by it.” I was filled with a nervous anger. One I tried to not act upon as I impatiently tapped my finger against the table in front of us as Shoe took her shot. Looking at me.

“I am, I don’t abide by any rules. I just do what I want.” she shrugged her shoulders and I sighed. Pressing my hand against my face. “Do you know what Mark says about you?” Shoe started as I looked at her.

“Universe?” I spar out for a moment.

“Yeah, you know, father to us all. The guy who can create and wipe out our planet's without another word. Before you even know you don’t exist anymore and no one remembers you.” What a way to represent one of her boyfriends. I raised an eyebrow towards her.

“What then?” I asked. The bartender brought me a bottle of vodka this time, I recognized him from last I came here with Lyre. Memories rose and I tried to suppress them.

“That we’re one in the same, just somewhere along our timelines something went wrong. Like a mirror.” Shoe asked for a bloody mary then. I took my bottle and started to down it. My favorite poison. I enjoyed the burn.

“Right, and I don’t want to compare myself to you ever. What does this matter to me. Why did you drag me her?” I hissed.

“Don’t you get it, with Sonnie missing from my body. I sometimes ache for you, so hanging out is like a fix. It’s as if we were meant to have the same soul but that never happened. So whatever.” she shrugged her shoulders and I pouted watching her carefully. If I didn’t know any better I would say it was a trap and that she was trying to get me drunk to do something funny. I mulled the thought over.

“I don’t want anything to do with you.” I muttered.

“Well you do, so drink up. I’m not going to hurt you jeez.” Shoe said as I growled in the back of my throat. More of a hiss than anything stemming from my feline part of me. Sonnie then whined and pressed his head against my hand. A little bit of comfort fell over me as I sighed and pet him across the top of his head. That white mane pulling into purple. I did as Shoe said quickly finishing my bottle. Where my head went numb - like how it was supposed to I did suppose.

Author's Note

I just did some personal writing between shoe and kurt ^^

Reviews

[barleygirl]

I'll tell you the truth, sometimes I'm not following every detail of your stories becuz your characters are unusual & not easily recognizable as typical people -- yet this is also the reason I enjoy reading you. Some try to do outlandishness & it comes out sounding too bizarre. But you manage to craft your unusual characters into believable personalities with unexpected responses, but also being understandable. I also like the way you show your characters thru mostly dialogue that doesn't sound like the typical predictable stuff that so many writers use. You also include many realistic sensory descriptions, such as the burn of downing a shot of vodka.

[T.S. Sky]

I like the characters and the story. It needs some editing but otherwise great story. I would like to read more.

[JayG]

• The devilish grin across the hybrids face wasn’t exactly comforting to me.

What purpose do the last two words serve? It’s first person, so who else could the speaker mean? Trim, trim trim. Every unnecessary word removed speeds the read and raises the impact of the remaining words.

• As Sonnie trailed close behind us, his eyes darting around obviously looking worried.

Forgetting that this is a sentence fragment, your narrator can’t know this because he or she focused on the “devilish grin.” So this can only come from the author. And of course whilke you know who/what Sonnie is, the reader, who just got there, assumes it’s human—which is wrong.

• It seemed like Shoe did this often now.

At this point we know none of the characters. We don’t know where we are in time and space. We don’t know what’s going on. So while we know what the character said, it has no context. She does “this?” Brings this un-gendered person to a bar in the middle of the night? Grins devilishly? No way to tell. Perhaps I missed it, but by the end we still don’t know our avatar’s gender, or the smallest thing about her/him. How can we care about someone we know nothing about?

In short, you, the author, are telling this story TO the reader. Changing the protagonist’s personal pronouns to first person changes that not at all. Our job isn’t to make the reader know what happens. That’s a report, and can ONLY come from the author. Our job is to toss things at the characters to MAKE them do and say what we want, as THEIR decision. That’s interesting. A report on what happened is exactly as interesting as a history book.

• “Do you know how many people are looking for you Shoe. You can’t just show up out of random, what is Pidge finds you?!”

Did you even edit this before posting? In the first sentence you forgot the question mark. The second makes no sense as written. And, you cannot use multiple punctuation marks. The emotion belongs in the writing, not the punctuation.

In general, you, the author, are explaining the story events to the reader, rather than presenting it in the viewpoint of the protagonist. And because you can tell the reader how a character delivers a line, but cannot tell the reader how the narrator does, it’s delivered in an emotion free voice. Have the computer read it to you and you’ll hear the problem.

The craft of the fiction writer is necessitated by the constraints our medium places on us. And the single most important difference between fiction and nonfiction is placing the reader into the viewpoint of the protagonist, not the narrator. It matters not a bit if the narrator is supposed to be the protagonist at some unknown date after the events take place. That narrator cannot be on stage with the protagonist because they live at different times. In practical terms, that means that if you “tell” the story, it’s delivered in the viewpoint of an outside observer, in an emotion free voice. In other words, told to us by someone who’s blocking our view of the action.

I wish I had better news, but you did ask, and I thought you would want to know.

Jay Greenstein
https://jaygreenstein.wordpress.com/category/the-craft-of-writing/

[Centipedle]

All good things xD and no I didn't edit it, this was a personal one shot. I sent out read requests because sometimes I know I like to read random stuff. Thank you for the advice though! I can't wait to hear more of it on my more series and future projects.

[Wol Bol Deing]

I got carried away with the vivid colors which you've perfectly painted, thank you for sharing