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I've been reading several comments about Assassin pertaining to Stan and not feeling the love. Several have said they can't feel empathy toward the boy. I'm sorry to pop that balloon, but Stan is an assassin. I'm sorry that some of my readers think that I'm not going in the right direction, but the story is what it is. A boy led adrift and he kills people. Yes he has many issues he hasn't dealt with and yes he's trying to be a patriotic citizen. The important thing to remember is that he's eighteen. Even if he had never been to Afghanistan he would still be immature. Most importantly, this is fiction. I love the comments, you bet I do, but it doesn't matter what you say, I know where the story is going and I can't change that. The only thing I can say is I think this is the best story I've written, and now that we have the sex thing taken care of I can take the plot where I want it to be, a real mystery, Arecee
Comments
Set up
You did the set up and character development perfectly Arecee. Take one 18 year old, that is used to doing as he is told by his elders. Very naive, being from the back woods area. The Bible Belt is very strongly ingrained. "An eye for an eye" etc......the Old testament God is very different from the New testament. Toss in being a country boy and being used to hunting and familiar with guns, enforced with some military training. Then use some psychology, telling him what a good job he is doing, or that he is the only one that can, tell him you rely on him and trust him,, in other words, "play him" and it's perfect. Add in the injury, treat him like a "son" and you have a kid that will walk thru hell to do what you ask, all for a word of encouragment from you, and a "good job" will keep him going. Then give him a manager he can look down on while looking up to you, and you have the kid forever, or until you get him killed.
edit.....as for being the best story you have written, I'm not sure. While it is very good, you have written some others that I also like a lot. Have to wait and see.
Stick to your guns
I like that you're not just recycling the same themes you've explored. You could write a series about a high school kid finding her way through various social and familial perils to a happy life as a female, call it SHOW ME THE HOMECOMING and I'd bet it'd be immensely popular. But you're trying to do something darker, and one thing I've noticed is that some readers have a profound desire for the protagonists of stories to subscribe to the same set of ethics they do. Wendy shouldn't have drank all that beer and let that boy kiss her- etc; never mind that fiction would be a terribly dull thing if every character acted decently and sensibly at all times. I have two series that I've been trying to move into the savage jungles of dysfunctional behavior, but whenver I try to I keep listening to those who are alarmed at these developments. So don't be like me, Arecee. Stick to your guns. The title is Assassin and this should be enuff warning that it isn't gonna be all sweetness + light...
~~hugs, Laika
And remember...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifLqzLEB3E0
Agree
I wrote a comment about how I saw him as potentially having a psychopathic personality, and therefore to write a conventional "love story" (lke my own meagre offering) would not be the place for the story to go. The attraction of books/flms about Hannibal Lecter, for example, is not as a function of his need for e meaningful relationshp beyond the evisceral (my attempt at a pun). I am another who is not hugely interested n school stories, as I am rather older than that. To me, character is what drves an nteresting story.
Stan is damaged goods. He has obviously got a bad case of PTSD for starters, but for me the narrative tension rests in discoverng whether he has gone completely down the solipsistic road of the psycho/sociopath or whether he can fnd a way to functon socially. Neither of those is tied to physical appearance or sexuality, but on a ste lke this there wll obvously be a groundswell of people whose prority is exactly that.
Keep him interesting; don't make him fluffy.
Stan isn't my type of guy.
Definitely not my sort of person. I gave up shooting things when still a child though I continued target shooting (small bore 25 yd stuff) for a few years. I'm almost a closet pacifist these days and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan seem ill advised to me. I have the feeling that the USA (and to a lesser extent the UK) has a powerful armed force and seems to think all problems can be solved by violence - if all you have is a hammer them every problem looks like a nail. An over simplification, I know but it serves as an illustration.
So you see I'm an aging, wimpish, wet, liberal atheist who should hate your story about a violent young man from the depths of the US bible belt but I don't. He's everything you say he is and I want to know more. He's very reluctantly going down a path many of your readers would follow eagerly. It's forced fem but not as we know it. He's being led down that path by a strong leader of dubious character whose motives we still don't appreciate and may even be counter to Stan's undoubted (and perhaps misplaced) patriotism.
Sure you could write a story about a high school student coming to terms with his/her sexuality but there's no shortage of them. I like this much better even if only because I'm not sure where it's going to end up.
btw where is this promised second part of this episode. That's the important question :)
Robi
Soon
I just got it back from Holly and I'll go through it and make what ever changes I need to do and then post it, Arecee
Not my taste.
For me, most stories hinge on the characters. There's action, drama, and circumstance, but I want to see it from the perspective of a character I'm interested in. That's not necessarily a character I like, but it helps. A lot. I remember reading one book, where the author alternated perspective every chapter, between the protagonists and the antagonists. After the first few chapters, my reaction on starting a new antagonist perspective chapter was to say to myself, "Yeah, I get it. They're EVIL," and skip to the next chapter.
I tried to read Assassin, because I really like some of your earlier work. But there's not a character that I cared what happened to. I've given up.
I'm not saying the writing isn't good, and I'm certainly not suggesting that you change this story, or drop it and write something else. I'm merely explaining why I won't be reading along or caring what happens to stan.
Miranda
May I have some more Please
I really like the story, like you said he is 18 and military. They train you to say Yes Sir and obey first and question later. I have tried the kudo button and get an error message. So KUDO'S
cheech