December, 2009

Part Three: Beheading, Necksnapping

And now, the conclusion because I know you’re all wanting to know how I could redeem this situation. 🙂

To recap, Aiyu is one of my secondary characters. He’s a thirteen-year-old orphan who serves in a battle for his kingdom. He started this novel as an innocent. Lets see how far he’s come by the end of this scene, which is 3/4 of the way through the book.

Outside the tunnel’s claustrophobic embrace, the smell of blood filled Aiyu’s nostrils. Haga’s life pooled and Aiyu blindly slipped in it. He clutched the bloody, damp earth at his feet.
The stench of blood hung on him. His vision adjusted to see Haga’s sightless eyes staring into his. Aiyu recoiled. Haga’s expression was too empty to bear.
Aiyu turned and threw up in a bush. He trembled, shaking his head at the thought that he had killed with his bare hands.
His mind whirled, confused. The traitor was dead and that was good. But what had happened to Hong Aiyu? Was he a murderer now? He gagged once more and crawled to his friend’s corpse.
He arranged poor Haga’s body in an appropriate posture for the funeral pyre of Xien Ye.
“I’m sorry,” Aiyu whispered. He dug in his girdle until he found what he wanted. Six wooden dice with red and black painted dots. He placed them on Haga’s chest.
I’m not a murderer. Not a mourner. I’m another victim.
He ran to escape the memory of Haga’s simple grin and trusting expression, his empty eyes and cooling fingers.
Aiyu would play sixes no more.

End of Chapter

Yes, it’s horrific, (war is like that) but I didn’t end the chapter with the butcher’s death. That would have left the reader with a flat, unfinished taste in his mouth. Aiyu has gone from an innocent who refused to kill the enemy in battle, to killing in his master’s defense (an earlier scene) to a vengeance murder, although he also defends an entire city in killing the butcher here. I use these situations to show:
1. The horror of battle, thereby grounding the reader in my book’s reality
2. What battle/killing does to a soul – the emotional growth quotient, which further grounds the reader. (If your character doesn’t grow and change with AT LEAST every major event in your book, you’ve missed a great opportunity and your reader will cease to believe in your characters.)
3. The advancing plot

Now you can rail on me for my sense of violence and inpropriety in having a thirteen-year-old boy in such situations. LOL Seriously, if there’s anything you feel would improve this scene, please let me know.

New Market

Thanks to reader ClothDragon for this tip: The magazine crossedgenres.com has announced an upcoming issue around Science Fiction/Fantasy and Eastern settings. If you’re interested, submit after March 2010. Publication is in May 2010. Their submission rules clearly ask writers and illustrators not to submit before March.

How to Behead Etc. Your Characters Cont’d

So, you’ve found who you want to kill. Whether your character beheads them, snaps their neck or wooses out and only maims, please be sure to inform the reader what’s happened. Leave no room for doubt. Is there blood, tissue, etc? What does your character see, smell, taste and touch during this scene? They must be hypersensitive to their surroundings in order for your reader to feel anything at all.

“Open!” The door rattled. “Damn door.”
Aiyu risked another step. The traitor kicked the locked door. Aiyu edged closer. He couldn’t believe one of Xien Ye’s citizens would do this. The familiar odor of pig wafted toward him.
Voice and smell locked into place and Aiyu knew this man. This was a butcher from Xien Ye’s marketplace. When Aiyu and Zhang picked up their supplies, this man had sneered at and then insulted Zhang.
Zhang had hoisted up the little man by his lapels and shook him like a captured rodent until Aiyu had thought the man’s neck might break. The butcher had stammered an apology and Zhang released him.
The traitor was part of Zhang’s guild.
“Why won’t you open?” The merchant rattled the door. “Six strings of cash-“
In Aiyu’s mind, Liu Yoh’s white face, and Haga’s lifeless eyes flashed. Those men died for the people of Xien Ye – for this traitor.
“Grrraa!” Aiyu launched. He wished he hadn’t shouted. Too late.
The enemy whirled and blew tallow in Aiyu’s face. The flash of light let Aiyu glimpse the butcher’s thin, corded arms. One of them flailed and Aiyu’s knife clattered to the floor.
The boy ducked as the candle guttered out. Aiyu crouched on the floor until he found the traitor’s feet. Aiyu kicked up and smashed his foot into the man’s crotch.
The butcher collapsed with a grunt.
In a fury of searching fingers, Aiyu grasped the traitor’s head. He twisted hard. The neck cracked, and Aiyu leg go of the wobbly, detached head in his hands. The butcher slumped.
Aiyu struck the tunnel wall. Again. Again. He’d split his knuckles. His sobs of pain sounded distant — disconnected from himself. Rage surged again and he screamed. He took aim where he thought his victim lay and spat.
Aiyu thought he heard the spittle smack the butcher’s flesh. He stumbled the way he had come in.