...but first, synopsis. Fever Story is a very odd story. Its plot traverses through time and it has a lot of seemingly unrelated characters. No, really: it either has six main characters or ten main characters, depending on how you look at it (I say ten), and then three more point-of-view supporting characters. Most of these characters hardly interact with each other.
With the ensemble cast and multiple plot lines (and time lines) it's pretty much impossible to write a coherent synopsis of the story. It also doesn't help that I'm terrible at writing synopses, but here goes:
At the age of seven, Mercedes Brown wished her two-year-old brother would just vanish... and
then he did. The kicker? Nobody in the world besides her can remember his existence.
Unknown to her, there is a journal being kept on the opposite coast. On the outside, this journal is nothing more remarkable than a seventeen-cent Wal-Mart notebook, but inside it holds unbelievable stories; including that of Mercedes Brown. The kicker here? It's written in minute detail in Mercedes' own handwriting.
So, there we have it. It really isn't a very good synopsis, but let's dive into the first chapter anyways...
Alright, so. Aqua blue is stuff that maybe doesn't make sense, pink is character stuff that might not add up, red is dialogue, and sky blue is all the other stuff that just isn't quite right.
As you can see, there is not much white (and what little I didn't highlight is pretty boring).
Ugh.
First, let's see the characters.
Mercedes Grace Brown is introduced first-- what do we know about her?
- she has a kind of wacky but also kind of boring name
- she's seven years old
- she throws temper tantrums several times a day (sheesh.)
- she dislikes her brother
- disobedient
- rarely uses her doll house
- likes spaceships and is content to use a pillow as a space dock
- grew out of being picky??
- calms down quickly after an apparent temper tantrum
- appearance: big brown eyes
- she's seven years old BUT...
- ...she throws temper tantrums several times a day. This is probably due to her being spoiled, but she probably also has issues expressing herself. Mostly it's being spoiled, though.
- She dislikes her brother, and much preferred being an only child. She enjoys soaking up all her parents attention and misses the attention she got before he was born.
- Disobedient, but it's probably less because she intellectually disagrees and more because she wants to have her own way and has found that being disobedient usually ends in gratification. She doesn't strike me as being particularly intelligent, so it isn't rebellion against something. She just wants what she wants, and she doesn't want to sit on the carpet with her loathsome brother.
- Rarely uses her doll house? I actually think this was a mistake on my part. I think she would enjoy the use of a doll house. Even if she wasn't playing with dolls, she seems like the type who would ignore its intended use and figure out ways to break stuff with it.
- She likes Lego spaceships and is content to use a pillow as a space dock, which suggests she doesn't really care about accuracy of the facts in her games.
- She grew out of being picky?? Again, I think this is, if not a character failure, at least a poor use of words. Her parents are spoiling types, but they're also minimalists. Perhaps she was not spoiled with toys, but with other gratifications-- food or attention or permission slips. And perhaps she isn't the toy type.
- She calms down weirdly quickly after her rage with her brother. I would like to suggest she doesn't calm down this quickly usually, but since her brother literally vanished from her memory, she's actually just had something very traumatic happen to her which totally knocked the anger out of her head. She's probably very very bewildered, even if she doesn't completely realize it.
Okay, enough about her. Let's move on to Travis Brown:
- two years old
- his sister is mean to him
- eats strawberries and pancakes despite being two
- doesn't really do much, seems pretty quiet
- appearance: roly-poly, with fat hands and a stuffed rabbit. drools on everything.
- Eats strawberries and pancakes despite being two... might be a slight error, as he is said to have possibly been fed more than his sister. Then again, it is entirely conceivable that her jealous and bitter heart contrived up reasons to make her even more jealous and bitter.
- He doesn't really do much, and seems pretty quiet. It kind of makes it hard to tell when he's there and when he's not there. Overall seems to be pretty laid back-- he doesn't seem to bother his sister too much while she's attempting to build an armada of spaceships.
- appearance: he's a typical baby. He has a disgusting stuffed animal he loves, which still sticks around after he's gone.
And final characters who are pretty much just there: Mother and Father Brown!
- end up with a spoiled brat of a daughter
- keep the Legos on the top shelf of the pantry where it is hard for little kids to get them. Maybe they only take them out when they want the kids to be quiet and out of the way?
- neat freaks
- minimalist furniture
- Mother cooks, Father sets the table.
- Mother does not seem to be too terribly concerned when Mercedes throws a fit, mostly just angry. She also isn't very surprised when Mercedes calms down immediately and can't remember what she was screaming about. Possibly she's suffering from the "wow something just happened" effect, too.
Nobody wants to read a book where the only character with a personality of any sort is totally despicable.
So now, let's look at the Mercedes Brown who's been hanging out in my head for like twenty seven years*.
.JPG) |
| (bad phone picture of a sketch of seven-year-old Mercedes) |
Who is Mercedes? Is she an impossibly unpleasant person who should never have graced paper?
Yeah, probably.
Spoiler alert: This is the only time we will see her at age seven. Most of the chapters don't even have her in it. As such, I will not be writing stuff about her personality at the age of seven, but rather at the age which she spends most of her time in the spotlight.
Most important part of figuring out who she is: what role does she play in the story?
Probably my favorite piece of character advice is that to every character, they are their own protagonists. The story revolves around each character separately, and if you can figure out how each character sees the world, you have a multi layered story. This also means that each character has lots of different aspects and can play different roles, depending on through who's eyes you look at the story. I mean, if you see the world through Lex Luthor's eyes, Superman is just plain awful.
Mercedes' role in this story is a little bit odd. From her point of view, she is a heroine. She always does the right thing in her situation, and always stays on the good side (which is more than can be said for half the other protagonists). But to all the other characters, whom she is allies with, she is an antagonist. Nobody likes her because yes, she is a rather unpleasant person. I have to write it so you can see why she likes herself and why everybody else dislikes her.
Another problem with writing a character like this is that you don't want your readers to hate her. Readers aren't supposed to truly hate any character, especially not a protagonist. (I mean, the only character I can think of that everybody truly hated was Umbridge from Harry Potter. Nobody, and I mean nobody, was sad when she left. I'm pretty sure everybody in the entire world was frustrated when she returned to the books.)
So. Huh.
Um.
I'll try to figure out what to do about this later. For now, here's Mercedes' character description.
She grew up in a house where she was given everything she wanted. She's not used to not getting her own way immediately, and tends to be impatient and a bit entitled. She's stubborn and it's very hard to persuade her to change her ideas because she's also pretty dumb. She often has a hard time respecting other people and tends to be kind of mean.
On the other hand, she's very funny, usually without meaning to be. She knows full well that she is an idiot, and she doesn't mind when people laugh at her or try to belittle her. She's very protective of other people and she works towards good goals. She gets very focused on her projects and she gets them done very well. Her values are very black and white, and she always does the very best that she is capable of doing. When she loves somebody, she loves them a lot and she makes sure they know it. She can laugh at herself and so she does, often.
Sigh.
Eternal sighing.
There is a much better way to describe her, but I have not found it as of yet.
Okay, enough with the character-y stuff for now. Onto the real mess... the plot.
"This has a plot?" you say with a high pitched squeal. I say nothing, and merely stare at you in terror and confusion. Was this supposed to have a plot? Oh man, this was supposed to have a plot. I forgot. I'm a disaster.
All weeping and gnashing of teeth aside, chapter 1 actually has a very simple and easily understandable plot. Ready for it? Here it is.
TOO BAD I CAN'T WRITE IT COHESIVELY.
Seriously, my telling of this simple plot is terrible! It makes very little sense, and it's hard to follow the narrative! When you realize it has the simplest plot in the entire universe, it's really frustrating because it does not read well or simply at all.
That's all I'm going to say about that for now, because that is all that matters.
So. Here we have, at the end of this long critique, a list of the stuff that needs to be fixed:
- opening scene is dull
- main character is completely unlikable
- all supporting characters are lifeless
- poorly worded sentences
- poorly laid out and foreshadowed plot
- confusing
Draft Two, which hopefully combats some of these issues:
Seattle, Washington (Year: 2005)
Mercedes was in a foul mood. It wasn't particularly uncommon for her, perhaps-- at seven years old she remained undignified to the degree that she continued to throw temper tantrums regularly.
This had been an unpleasant Monday. The little terror had decided at breakfast that her brother had been given the choicest pancakes at breakfast. As the day went on, she also realized that he'd been given extra strawberries and whipped cream as well. She moped about the house, snapping at the slightest provocations as her temper grew more and more rotten.
Travis, age two, was a very fat baby, and possessed an impressive ability to eat whatever was put in front of him. Still, this accusation was no doubt nothing more than Mercedes' jealous heart inventing new excuses to further injure itself. The baby had been an unwelcome addition to Mercedes' home and she treated him accordingly. She'd had a mere five years to soak up her parent's limited affections before he'd arrived, and she resented his dual status as an adorable newcomer and the first-born son. What little she knew about compromising had been tossed out the window. She was a spoiled brat.
Her parents were oddly oblivious to their daughter's bitter attitude, as they were oddly oblivious to most of her life. The circumstances that surrounded their son's disappearance would later be indirectly traced back to the Mrs., who on that fateful Monday afternoon forced her children to sit together and play with Legos.
As a general rule, Mercedes refused to play in the vicinity of her brother. However, Legos were a special occasion. The plastic bin they were kept in usually resided on the top shelf of the pantry, far from the floor where they would look messy and get vacuumed up. It was only taken down when company was coming over and Mercedes' mother wanted her to stay quiet and out of the way for a little while. Mercedes loved Legos, and so she grudgingly sat down next to her brother and began building an armada of spaceships. Travis, contented and perfectly quiet as usual, sat next to the box and watched her, drooling on himself.
Her father arrived with a guest, and the house filled with polite chatter instead of the whining of Mercedes' voice. She stayed on the floor, as did Travis, and they both ignored how friendly and engaged their parents were pretending to be.
After building half a dozen little uncreative aircrafts, Mercedes scampered back to her room to find a suitable space dock. Her bedroom, like the rest of the house, was decorated with minimalist style. Her mother had filled the room with princessy playthings (a doll house, a tea table), which Mercedes appreciated but rarely used. Through the years she'd learned to make do with her meager assortment of toys, and had figured out that pretty much anything could fly if you threw it. Returning to the living room with a large fairy-tale anthology (that was just the right size to work as a mother-ship), she was horrified to discover Travis with not one but two of her carefully constructed spaceships stuffed in his mouth. He clenched one more in his hand, and had somehow managed to get a thick layer of saliva on the whole fleet. Of course her monstrosity of a brother had waited for her to leave before striking.
Mercedes went absolutely ballistic. All her anger boiled up inside of her like magma inside a volcano, made hotter by the terrible mood she'd been simmering in all day.
She left the two in his mouth, but she yanked the third out of his fingers. Next, she tore his stuffed rabbit away from him, using it to wipe up the drool. It was futile, as the child only had the rabbit in the first place because he liked to use it as a chew toy.
"What is wrong with you?" Mercedes screamed, her little voice shrill with disgust and frustration. "I hate you! I wish you'd never been born!"
And she really wished it, too. It was a very bad Monday.
"Mercedes Grace Brown! Stop that," her mother said, ducking her head into the room. Her lips were thin, her face beginning to turn slightly red as the conversation slowed in the other room. "Why are you screaming? What's the matter?"
She stared at her mother with big brown eyes, completely baffled. Her mother stared back, her anger slowly melting into a matching expression of confusion. Mercedes felt very odd, like her insides had been taken out and she was hollow on the inside.
"It was nothing," Mercedes said finally, looking down at the rabbit in her hands. She wondered why she was holding such a disgusting thing, which seemed to be covered in some kind of gross sticky liquid. It felt important, but she didn't know why. She looked back up at her mother, who rolled her eyes and turned away.
"Dinner's almost ready. Why don't you take your brother and go wash your hands?" she suggested.
"My brother?" Mercedes asked, glancing around the empty room as if she'd find someone there. There was a pause.
"I don't know why I said that. That was silly of me," her mother said, looking even more baffled. Mercedes really didn't feel quite like herself, and she quietly dropped the rabbit and washed up her hands.
"Hello, Mercedes," the guest said, as the four of them sat around the table. Mercedes said nothing, but the man continued. "Where's Travis? Isn't he around here somewhere?"
"Who?" Mr. and Mrs. Brown said in unison. That same confusion momentarily swept over their guest's face, and then cleared.
"Oh, I'm sorry. I was mixed up." he said, and they continued chatting.
Mercedes just stared at the place set next to her mother's chair. For some reason they had a baby's high chair at that place, with a little bowl of spaghetti. Mercedes couldn't imagine why.
Later into the meal, even the high chair became nothing more than a blurry memory.
If nothing else, I think the plot makes an itsy-bitsy teeny-tiny little bit more sense in this version. Mercedes is still pretty unlikable, but the supporting characters all have a bit more going on. (Which kind of makes them unlikable, too. Oh well.)
Also, I added a lot of words to the word count, which is always nice. (I think it was somewhere around five hundred words-- which, considering the fact that this is still really topographical and not-very-well explored, is pretty impressive.)
*also technically I haven't been thinking about this for twenty seven years since I have only been alive for a mere seventeen years.
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