Where Angels Fear
Aug 23, 2017 · 2 min read

> (I’m almost afraid to ask.)

Really? Why?

I do hope I’ve not given you cause for concern with anything I‘ve written thus far!

I’m not a psychopath/sociopath myself.

> But why?

Because I value your judgemment, I guess.

Principally because I’m looking for feedback/advice.

It took a while to get what I thought was the correct tone …

  1. unnecessary detail on the minutiae of the character’s life (albeit the tone remains curt): minute-by-minute breakdown, what they ate for breakfast, what they wore, what TV channel they watched … whilst entirely lacking such on the human beings involved —we can make pretty reasonably educated guesses at who Chrissie and Adriana are, but remain uncertain that we are correct, whereas we know with absolute certainty at what time the character ate muesli, strawberries and pancake.
  2. complete lack of emotion regarding an obviously horrific deed (“ will dispose of the body this evening” / “ Kitchen cleaned up”) followed by a display of emotion regarding the trivial matter of the character’s favourite sports team and it first then being a poor start to the day.

But I remain somewhat dissatisfied with the piece.

Should I remove the reference to Chrissie’s destination of Oslo? After all, it concerns the activities of another person … and why would the character care to mention those?

Should go into more detail about the minutiae of the cleaning process? The character bothers to mention the colour of their tie, the TV channel they watched … so, surely, the details of their activities are significant.

Or have I managed to better capture their horrific dispassion by glossing over it and merely mentioning it en passant to their dissapointment at their sports team’s fate?

Should there be more emotion … insofar as such a character actually experiences what you and would I recognise as an emotional response that is more than mere physiological arousal (i.e. it has a cognitive, existential component) … regarding the character’s activities? Should there be more detial on the cleaning up process? Should there be more exposition of the character’s internal state or is the horror of it already sufficiently exemplified by its absence?

I don’t know …

It feels like it’s pretty much there but … rather ironically, perhaps, given the nature of the individual in question … it feels a little lacking in some way that I can’t quite put my finger on.

So I thought I’d ask someone I figured might have more insight than most — i.e. you.

)

    Where Angels Fear

    Written by

    There he goes. One of God's own prototypes. A high-powered mutant of some kind never even considered for mass production. Too weird to live and too rare to die.