Fractal Noise Spork: Part 4, Chapter I: Breaking Point

[snarkbotanya]

 

All right. Let’s do this.

This chapter marks the beginning of Part 4, “CONSUMMATION.” It occurs to me that a lot of terms that could be used to describe a story’s climax, including “climax,” are weirdly sexual. I’m not sure how to feel about that.

Anyway, we have an opening quote. It’s a continuation of the Chaim Stern quote we got all the way back at the beginning, which, hey, full circle I guess? Whatever. I’m so done with these opening quotes; they’re just here so Paolini can wave his arms and yell, “Look at my learnings!”

I’m not interested in seeing your learnings through regurgitated quotes, Paolini. I’m interested in seeing them through actual application in your writing. Give me some synthesis.

The chapter begins, predictably enough, with everyone getting up. At this point, everyone is completely fucked and looks it. Alex is all dazed because of the melatonin and confused by Talia and Chen acting like last night’s exorcism, if that’s even what that was, didn’t happen or at least wasn’t a big deal. In a rare moment of caring about another human being, Alex asks Chen if he’s okay, and Chen pretty much gray-rocks him.

Pushkin, meanwhile, is clearly doing very poorly.

Pushkin leaned against the wall by his alcove, coughing. And coughing. His shoulders shook as if he were having a seizure. Then he hacked and spit, and Alex saw a gob of something purple hit the inside of his helmet.

Though there is some disagreement about this, it’s generally better to use “spat” for the past tense of spit. And that’s not even getting into all the other issues with that paragraph. You know what? Let’s give this bit a rewrite.

Pushkin leaned against the wall by his alcove, shaking as if he were having a seizure. As Alex watched, the Zarian’s whole upper body convulsed, and something purple and viscous splattered against the inside of his helmet.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

The added ambiguity here makes sense with Alex’s drugged, exhausted state. It also makes for a good potential death fake-out, which could spur our protagonist to action if he wasn’t such a passive wad of wet tissue paper.

Unfortunately, Paolini does not capitalize on the opportunities his characters’ states offer. Instead, he just has Pushkin wave Alex off when he tries to come check on him. Alex shrugs this off and goes to take some wakey-wakey meds and even more opiates. His shoulder is bothering him and the thuds are giving him really bad nausea.

I have a question: if their suits can give them fucking opioids, why couldn’t Alex request, I don’t know… an anti-emetic?

The section ends there, by the way. It had four THUDs in about one page of mostly useless filler. Our next section, which will comprise the entire rest of the chapter, begins like this:

Outside, a pack of turtles was milling about the shelter. Two to the north. Five to the southeast. One glided past no more than six meters away: a rocky dreadnought that gleamed red and yellow in the banded rays of the rising sun.

I really don’t like a lot of the word choices here, and the sentence fragments stand out in a bad way. You know what? Let’s fix this one too.

A group of turtles had gathered around the shelter in the night. One glided past no more than six meters away, its rocky shell gleaming red and yellow in the rising sun.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

Well, partially. I would also combine it with the next paragraph, which is a single sentence of Alex tagging the tortoises on his overlays.

Alex thinks that he should be able to see the hole, since it’s “only four klicks away.” Assuming that the curvature of Talos VII is about the same as that of Earth, an average human should be able to see about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) on a flat plane, so that is sort of accurate. However, given the weather conditions we’ve seen so far, Alex should not be at all surprised that the dust is blocking his view. I think Paolini just wanted to describe the glimpses Alex does get of “something long and dark streaked across the horizon.” That doesn’t really put me in mind of a hole so much as several long black lines.

We then get a way-too-exhaustive description of Alex untethering the sledges and pulling bolts out of the ground. It’s boring. Then the bolt excavator won’t fit in Talia’s sledge. That’s also boring.

Finally, something looks like it’s going to happen when Alex gets a garbled overlay message from Chen. Unfortunately for us, Paolini decides that he wants to draw things out, so he has Alex look at the shelter, note that he doesn’t see anyone, and go back to trying to fit the equipment into the sledge before getting another garbled message, noticing the same thing, and deciding to actually investigate this time.

If you think that’s repetitive, then oh boy, buckle up.

I would also be severely neglecting my duties if I failed to report a pair of unnecessary em-dashes and the sentence, “A dull sense of worry percolated through him.”

Alex rounds the shelter, switches his display to infrared, and sees… oh god, what the hell is this sentence?

The dust sparkled with a dark brilliance, alternating eddies and folds of soft effulgence with yawning voids that collapsed and expanded at irregular intervals.

I’m not even going to try to fix that. I’m just going to let it speak for itself.

Anyway, more plot-relevantly, Alex sees this:

Through the racing dust, he saw three figures, bright and glowing. Talia and Pushkin, standing with their arms wrapped around each other, close to the side of the shelter, swaying back and forth in the rushing wind. A few meters away, Chen lay on the ground, his injured leg stretched out behind him.

Right… before I get into the analysis, here’s my edit:

Three glowing figures stood out amid the swirling dust. Talia and Pushkin stood close to the shelter, arms locked as they struggled against the wind and each other. A few meters away, Chen lay on the ground, his injured leg twisted behind him.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

With that done, let’s break down why this is shit on a meta level.

This is the final altercation of this book, folks. The big fight that every argument between Talia and Pushkin up to this point has been building to, the breaking point referenced in the chapter title.

And we didn’t get to see what finally set it off.

In the interest of fairness, I will concede that there is one legitimate reason why an author might choose to do this: to deliberately leave it ambiguous as to who attacked whom. Considering the context of the characters’ preceding debates, having one of them attack the other could be seen as a subtle condemnation of their view and endorsement of the other’s, since it casts them as the aggressor and the other as their victim. However, even if this was Paolini’s intention, I don’t think it holds water here for two reasons. One is that the last time Pushkin and Talia had a physical altercation, we did see it from the start. The other is a problem that has cropped up several times throughout the book: Alex is just so rarely involved in the action.

Last chapter, Sandra and Cheetah pointed out how irritating it was that Talia and Pushkin focused solely on proselytizing to Chen, with none of their points actively shown to the reader, instead being recapped with vague, hand-holding description of how “wrong” or “unhinged” they were. That problem, while pretty big on its own, is also symptomatic of the greater issue that Alex is a remarkably uninvolved protagonist. The proselytization should be directed at him so that he can grapple with the big questions, but it's not. When there’s a conflict within the group, Alex rarely has or even tries to have any say in it. He’s too busy throwing himself a goddamned pity party. Even on the rare occasions that he does act, it’s always with the justification of “that’s what Layla would do,” a trend which even further diminishes his agency.

With that pattern established, it is virtually impossible for me to see the offscreen beginning of this fight as anything other than yet another example of Alex's failures as a viewpoint character, let alone a protagonist. It’s also very hard for me to not see how it likely happened in the worst possible light: Paolini was just being lazy.

I’m not saying that’s 100% what happened, but given the weak entry-level strawman arguments Talia and Pushkin have been giving when we do get to see them argue, I get the impression that Paolini just ran out of material and refused to think up any more even as the story called for the debate to escalate. And when it comes to this final confrontation, I have the sneaking suspicion that rather than wanting to leave the aggressor ambiguous, he struggled to come up with a good trigger to get the fight going, and instead of trying harder just threw his hands up and said, “fuck it, I’ll do it offscreen.”

Anyway, now that I’ve spent a page ranting about something happening offscreen, it’s time to focus on what’s happening onscreen.

Alarm shot through Alex, clearing his mind to a degree. Where was the bolt gun?

He hurried toward them, keeping one hand against the shelter to support himself.

THUD

Talia twisted in Pushkin’s arms. Then she wormed an arm free and dug her thumb into the geologist’s injured shoulder. He jerked and tossed her aside like a rag doll.

She rolled across the ground—the wind pushing her along—and slid to a stop on all fours.

The paragraphs have suddenly gotten noticeably smaller. That’s not necessarily a bad thing when it comes to an action scene. Shorter sentences and paragraphs can lend tension to the writing by making everything feel more immediate. Here, though, that’s not really what I’m getting. This just feels clumsy and first-draft-ish.

Let’s give it a rewrite.

A jolt of adrenaline pulled Alex half to his senses, and he hurried toward them, pulling himself along the side of the shelter. Where was the bolt gun?

His teeth resonated with another concussive blast. As the noise faded, Talia wrenched one arm free from Pushkin’s grasp and dug her thumb into his injured shoulder. He jerked robotically, tossing her aside like a ragdoll. She hit the ground and rolled, the wind carrying her several yards before she slid to a stop on all fours.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

Alex gives an impotent yet dramatic shout of “stop it,” then after another thud he sees the bolt gun. It’s close to Chen, who is crawling toward it and actually manages to grab it, only to be stuck between Talia and Pushkin, each urging him to throw it to them. 

This is probably the most effective part of the chapter. It’s still bogged down by some clumsy paragraphs, but when Chen is holding the gun while both Pushkin and Talia menace him, I actually feel some real tension. The fact that Chen is the only character here I don’t hate with the burning intensity of a Carolina Reaper’s 2.2 million Scoville Heat Units probably has something to do with it, but hey, credit where credit is due.

Both Pushkin and Talia advance on Chen, who points the gun at each of them in turn, and then turns and throws the gun to Alex. Alex’s response?

Startled, Alex caught the gun, fumbled, dropped it by his feet. He threw himself down and pinned the gun against the ground before the wind could tear it away.

The dirt vibrated as Pushkin and Talia charged him.

I actually like this. I would probably reword that second sentence, but the departure from grammar in the first actually feeds well into the tension Paolini is going for, and the “oh shit, now I have the gun” reaction is completely understandable. Plus, Pushkin and Talia both charging at Alex has some legitimate menace. Yeah, this is actually pretty decent.

Alex rolls over and tries to point the gun, but his fingers aren’t responding well, probably because of the combination of adrenaline and all the drugs in his system. He doesn’t get to do anything with the gun, though, because at the last minute Talia turns and takes Pushkin’s legs out from under him, causing them to both fall on top of Alex.

The weight of their bodies knocked the breath out of Alex, and he felt a lightning pain in his left knee as something popped and gave way. His diaphragm locked up, making it impossible to get air as he struggled to move. Alarms flashed inside his helmet. He couldn’t see anything; bodies obscured his view.

Dammit, Paolini, you started off so strong there, and then you blew it. I like that first sentence; that can get by with no changes, but the second gets too clinical. The third is good, but the fourth is completely unnecessary. Here, let me have a go:

The weight of their bodies knocked the breath out of Alex, and he felt a lightning pain in his left knee as something popped and gave way. He tried to struggle, tried to breathe, but his diaphragm locked up and he could barely feel his limbs. Alarms flashed inside his helmet.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

Alex gets an arm free, then Pushkin rolls off him and he…

Alex gasped, about to pass out from lack of oxygen. Sparklers and tracers and glowing lines obscured his vision. Where was the gun? The gun!

*cracks knuckles*

Alex gasped, head spinning, sparklers bursting in front of his eyes as his vision slowly returned. Where was the gun? The gun!

THERE, I FIXED IT.

That is my sixth one of those this chapter. I think I need to pace myself a bit. Speaking of counting things, let’s try to keep track of how many times in this fight scene Alex ends up jumping, reaching, or scrabbling for that bolt gun.

Get That Gun: 2

One for the initial fumble and tackle, one for the search post-crushing. I’m being generous with the earlier instances because I know these are about to come on hard and fast.

Pushkin has apparently managed to pin Talia and is holding her down by her throat. Considering her backstory, I am very uncomfortable with this. Chen, in a startling and honestly kind of awesome display of backbone, actually grabs Pushkin and tries to physically pull him off, but he is unfortunately no match for the heavy-worlder, who offhand-backhands him to the ground. While Pushkin grabs a rock, Alex manages to find the bolt gun, but he can’t figure out where the safety is before Pushkin raises the rock over his head and brings it down on Talia’s helmet.

Talia’s visor shattered. Frosted blood sprayed in every direction, along with jets of escaping air. Shards of the visor tumbled across the ground, like tiny sparkling pinwheels.

Pushkin lifted the rock over his head and smashed it into Talia’s helmet again.

And again.

And then he slammed the rock into the center of her sternum. Her chest caved in, lungs collapsing, ribs breaking. A gout of teeth and blood erupted from Talia’s ruined face and splattered Pushkin with gore.

Her legs twitched, and she went limp.

Right. I am of two minds on that. On the one hand, he’s actually managing to stick to a fast pace, which we know he’s had a tendency not to do in previous action scenes. I’m all for that. I’m much less for the sparkling pinwheels. That’s really out of place in the same scene as the phrase, “ruined face.”

Speaking of which, I’m not sure how to feel about that particular phrasing. It’s clearly meant to make the reader uncomfortable, and it is indeed making me uncomfortable, but I don’t know if it’s making me uncomfortable in the way it was supposed to. Talia’s backstory is really not doing Paolini any favors here. With her being a survivor of horrific trauma that probably included sexual assault, actions like pinning and choking and descriptions like “ruined,” all of which are already pretty charged, gain a really nasty edge, and I do not like it.

On top of that, the description of the gore is really kind of… off. The shift from clinical descriptions to an “eruption” of blood is jarring in a way that takes me out of the scene.

All right. Let’s apply the editing knife.

Talia’s visor shattered. Frosted blood and glittering shards flew in every direction, propelled by jets of escaping air until the wind caught them and they joined the endless stream of sand.

Pushkin lifted the rock over his head and smashed it into Talia’s helmet again.

And again.

Then, on the fourth blow, he slammed the rock into her chest. The crack of her sternum pierced through the roaring wind as a gout of blood and splintered teeth sprayed from what was left of her mouth. Her legs twitched, and she went limp.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

Alex, understandably shaken by what just happened, aims the bolt gun too late, and Pushkin slaps it out of his hand. This breaks Alex’s middle finger. Not sure why it broke the middle finger and not the trigger finger, but okay.

The geologist lifted the rock over him—

Layla.

In a vacuum, that could be effective. A character who thinks he’s about to die has what could be his last thought go out to someone he loves. In context, with all of Alex’s whining leading up to this point, it just comes across as Narm. The fix for this isn’t to delete it, but to improve the preceding writing so that when it happens, we’ll buy it.

Chen comes to the rescue much more effectively this time, driving his shoulder into Pushkin’s knee. Pushkin drops the rock, which lands right next to Alex’s head; Alex immediately starts looking for the gun, spots it, and makes a jump for it.

Get That Gun: 3

Naturally, his completely fucked up knee does not support this plan, and he goes flying. He lands on a rock which “digs into his spine” enough to elicit a yell, but somehow manages to not die. In fact, in the very next sentence, he manages to stagger to his feet. Of course, Alex has already survived what should have been a fatal infection, fatal blood loss, and multiple fatal drug overdoses at this point, so I guess we can’t really be too surprised that his Paotagonist Durability is still active.

Pushkin is walking menacingly towards Alex, with Chen prone and motionless behind him. Alex tries to talk to him, but receives absolutely no response.

Alex knew he couldn’t fight him. Pushkin was too strong. Too fast. There was no outrunning him, not on a destroyed knee.

There should be no standing on that destroyed knee either.

Alex also can’t hide, so what does he do? Go for the gun!

Get That Gun: 4

Pushkin jumps at Alex. Alex manages to dodge, but Pushkin grabs him by the ankle. Alex kicks at his hand a couple times, manages to get free, somehow gets to his feet again, and goes for the gun.

Get That Gun: 5

He immediately trips in one of the gallium channels, injuring his shin. He keeps going for the gun, and we get a little countdown of how close he is that could have been effective if the sheer number of times he’s gone for the gun weren’t becoming tiresome.

Get That Gun: 6

Just as Alex grabs the gun, Pushkin catches up to him and bodyslams him into Talia’s sledge. I was unaware that we had traveled all the way back to the sledges, as Paolini has neglected to give us reference points to the hab dome and sledges since basically the start of this fight, but I guess we’re back at the sledges now.

Alex felt his right shoulder pop and dislocate as Pushkin’s weight crushed him against the fairing, and his delt tore open for a third time, flooding the inside of his suit with blood.

Alex should be so dead right now that at this point it’s honestly just funny.

Somehow he’s still on his feet, but as he struggles to stay that way, something, probably Pushkin’s fist, hits his head and he goes tumbling. He tries to get up, but his shoulder gives out.

He looked up.

Pushkin was moving toward him from the sledge, fifteen meters away. Three meters away, lying on the ground, was the bolt gun.

Pushkin spotted the gun at the same time he did.

I don’t think I need to tell you what happens next.

Get That Gun: 7

Pushkin jumps and Alex pulls himself forward with his good arm. There’s a bit of monkey imagery around Pushkin, which is a bit of a weird trend as earlier there was some ape imagery. Neither of them gets to the bolt gun on their first move; on the second move, Alex manages to get to it, but Pushkin overshoots his leap.

Alex grabbed the gun with his left hand and flipped onto his back.

Pushkin’s mounded bulk blotted out the sun as he charged him.

Alex pulled the trigger as fast as he could.

The gun bucked in his hand six times, and Pushkin stumbled and crashed onto him and smothered him under his weight.

THUD

Pushkin’s visor clanked against Alex’s. The geologist stared at him, eyes still wide and crazed. There was red froth at the corners of his mouth, and a strange, purplish crust around his eyes.

Those first four sentences do not all need to be their own paragraphs, and that last one is horrifically mangled. Further, it could easily be merged with the paragraph after the thud if we get rid of the intrusive onomatopoeia. Since the scene is basically wrapping up at this point, I may as well give it a good once-over.

Alex grabbed the gun with his left hand and rolled onto his back. Pushkin’s massive form blotted out the sun as he charged. Acting purely on instinct, Alex pulled the trigger as fast as he could.

The gun bucked six times in his hand. Pushkin shuddered, but barely slowed as he stumbled, then collapsed facedown onto Alex. The beat of the hole reverberated through the air as their visors clanked together. Pushkin’s eyes were wide and edged with a strange, purplish crust. There was red froth at the corners of his mouth.

THERE, I FIXED IT.

Pushkin, of course, still isn’t dead. No, he gets to stick around long enough for Alex to ask him why he flipped out and let him give a motive rant about how he’s INFECTED:

A horrible grin split Pushkin’s mouth, and he laughed in such a ghoulish manner, Alex recoiled within his helmet. “You not understand? None of us get off planet. I’m infected. You’re infected. We all infected. The walls fell, and shadows walk, and we all—” His mouth continued to move, but his voice faded until it was too soft to hear.

*singing* We do it one by one, put your hands up and run, we’re addicted to the panic! And we hate the way this world has become, but there ain’t no cure for it! We’ve been infected, infected!

(Note: This post is not sponsored by STARSET. I’m just a big fan.)

Also, if the shadows are walking, that’s a good sign. It means Arenadd Taranisäii might come in here and stab all these idiots.

Anyway, Pushkin dies and nobody cries, but Alex panics because he’s now stuck under the heavy-worlder’s massive dead weight.

Panic gripped Alex. He had to get free; he couldn’t breathe. He thrashed from side to side and shoved at Pushkin’s shoulder. His body was like a sack of wet cement: heavy and almost impossible to move.

It took all of Alex’s remaining strength, but at last he succeeded in rolling the Zarian off him.

Well that was fast. It’s almost as if Paolini was a lot less interested in writing that than he was in writing seven goddamn races for the gun.

Alex isn’t nearly as fucked up as he should be after the pounding he just took, but he’s still pretty badly off. He’s overheating, he’s short of breath, he’s been crying, and the fact that his suit feels too tight might indicate that there’s some inflammation somewhere.

He orders some space opioids, sucks them down, and somehow gets to his feet. There’s blood everywhere.

Pushkin lay on his back, eyes still open, bright and baleful, as if he could burn a hole in the heavens through sheer willpower. Dead or not, his gaze was so unpleasant, Alex considered removing the geologist’s helmet just to pull down his lids and put an end to whatever dire vision he seemed to see.

But he didn’t.

Because he wasn’t crazy. Not like Pushkin.

Not like him.

How exactly would closing Pushkin’s eyes be an indicator that Alex is crazy like Pushkin? Closing a dead person’s eyes is generally a respectful thing, not an indicator of craziness. It may be a little superstitious, but that just makes it even less likely to make Alex “like Pushkin,” because as a straw atheist, Pushkin would probably scoff at such things. I would be more inclined to buy Alex refusing to take off Pushkin’s helmet because of quarantine. It’s already been broken, yes, but in this sort of situation, defaulting to procedure could be Alex’s way of trying to make sense of the situation and feel more in control.

And then the tortoises arrive.

When Alex lifted his gaze, he froze. A ring of turtles sat around him and Pushkin. Fourteen of them. Still and silent as megaliths raised about an ancient burial mound.

His heart lurched in his chest.

There was no way to escape.

Paolini seems to be carrying on the obsession with sevens that he had in To Sleep. The hole is surrounded by seven concentric zones, there were seven tortoises milling around at the start of this chapter, and now at the end of this chapter Alex is surrounded by fourteen tortoises, or two sets of seven.

Seven tends to be an arc number in fantasy works more than science fiction. There are a lot of sevens in Harry Potter and A Song of Ice and Fire, and hell, there are quite a few in Tolkien’s legendarium as well. I can’t help but feel that this is yet another example of Paolini being unable to fully depart from his fantasy roots.

On another note, on the topic of the “turtle vs. tortoise” distinction, calling tortoises turtles is, in fact, an Americanism. British English generally separates turtles and tortoises into distinct groups, while in American English, the word “turtle” can refer to any species in the order Testudines, while “tortoise” only refers to terrestrial testudines.

In any case, following that clumsy attempt to beat us over the head with a cliffhanger, the chapter ends on a final thud.

This chapter is frustrating because there are so many places where it gets so very close to being good, and yet every single time this happens, some bad habit of Paolini’s will rear its ugly head and smack it back down to halfway decent at best and laughable at worst. Paolini has clearly made some progress when it comes to how to write action scenes, but even with his adjustments in sentence and paragraph length, he still draws a lot of things out far longer than he needs to. He also has a tendency to get repetitive, as seen in the many, many iterations of the scramble for the gun.

Unfortunately, for all Paolini’s improvement when it comes to action scenes, there is something else that he really hasn’t improved on. It doesn’t happen in this chapter, but it has happened in more than half of the previous ones, and indeed more than half of the chapters total. Can you guess what it is?

Protagonist Unconsciousness.

This book has twelve chapters, and eight of them end with Alex asleep, falling asleep, or trying to fall asleep. That’s two thirds. To put that into perspective, Eragon had 59 chapters, 33 of which ended with Protagonist Unconsciousness. Rounded to the nearest percentage point, that’s a Protagonist Unconsciousness chapter ending saturation of about 60%. Fractal Noise has a chapter ending saturation of 67%.

Yes, you read that right: Fractal Noise has a greater proportion of chapters which end in Protagonist Unconsciousness than Eragon.

I get why syncing the chapter endings with the protagonist’s circadian rhythm is appealing. I really do, especially in a narrative like this. Sleep cycles provide a measure of time, an appropriate spot to jump ahead, all sorts of things. But there is a reason we made fun of this back in Eragon, and it’s the same reason why I’m harping on it here: when this way of concluding chapters gets overused, it becomes repetitive and tiresome.

And no, it does not help if you throw in the character’s dreams a few times. Arguably that makes it worse, because dreams are something you should only add to your novel with a great deal of care and caution.

All right, with that, I think I have reached the end of my thoughts on “Breaking Point.” I might have more once I read some of your comments, but we’ll just see how those shake out.

Next up is Torylltales with the final chapter, Part 4, Chapter II: Apotheosis. I look forward to seeing what words you have in that spork, my friend, because trust me, I am gonna have a lot of words of my own in the comments.

Comments

[torylltales]

Perfect example! And clever worldbuilding, too. That could then be supported by the existence of natural hot springs which could explain how a lush forest can exist so far from any rivers, on the rain-shadow side of a long mountain range that cuts it off from ocean winds, and so far north where winters are long and harsh.

Another example that just came to me:

There is an old joke that "knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are a fruit; wisdom is not putting them in a fruit salad". Information Synthesis would be making a tomato salad.