Charlie's First Submission: TINDALOS INC

[Charlie Allison]

Hey Guys! (Yes, I know I'm early!)

Here is my first draft of a story for this Contest:
pickmanspress.com/sub-corpCthulhu.php

I'm trying to do a lot with a little--since the goal of the contest is to work with recognizable mythos creatures and not my own, I feel weird about this.
Things I'm worried about:
-Augusta: not a strong character or compelling--can the audience feel for her or is she too robotic? Her name is a reference to the lovecraftian writer, August Derleth.
-The Hounds (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos). Are they kept off screen too long? Am I too vague? Are they simply not scary?
-Corporate model. It was meant to collect and distribute all the time-travellers in this verse to the hounds--in effect feeding them. Is that not clear? I wanted to keep an atmosphere of focedd ignorance as to what most people do from day to day, like how many people in offices are often blind to the effects of their work on the outside world.
-Atmosphere. Another stab at minimalism--meant to highlight the eerieness of the hounds and Augusta's mental deterioation.

Thanks guys! I wrote this just before running to graduation so I'm sure that there are a fuck ton of errors, forced and unforced in the structure of this story.

Charlie

TINDALOS INC.pdf (68.87 KB)

[eldercheese]

Oh whats all this now? is this the thing you told me about that time what we were doing the talkings?

[Charlie Allison]

May 19, 2017 5:17:58 GMT eldercheese said:

Oh whats all this now? is this the thing you told me about that time what we were doing the talkings?

Yep! This is the thing that does the stuff! Its largely modeled in format after my MFA program--with a dedicated focus on weekly feedback and detailed line notes, not to mention focused discussions of theme, mechanics and possible improvements--many of my cohort will be here. The idea is to have something to say to help one another or post something you've been working on--creating focus through routine.

Shall I add you to the schedule?

[justin1023]

May 18, 2017 18:09:51 GMT Charlie Allison said:

Hey Guys! (Yes, I know I'm early!)

Here is my first draft of a story for this Contest:
pickmanspress.com/sub-corpCthulhu.php

I'm trying to do a lot with a little--since the goal of the contest is to work with recognizable mythos creatures and not my own, I feel weird about this.
Things I'm worried about:
-Augusta: not a strong character or compelling--can the audience feel for her or is she too robotic? Her name is a reference to the lovecraftian writer, August Derleth.
-The Hounds (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos). Are they kept off screen too long? Am I too vague? Are they simply not scary?
-Corporate model. It was meant to collect and distribute all the time-travellers in this verse to the hounds--in effect feeding them. Is that not clear? I wanted to keep an atmosphere of focedd ignorance as to what most people do from day to day, like how many people in offices are often blind to the effects of their work on the outside world.
-Atmosphere. Another stab at minimalism--meant to highlight the eerieness of the hounds and Augusta's mental deterioation.

Thanks guys! I wrote this just before running to graduation so I'm sure that there are a fuck ton of errors, forced and unforced in the structure of this story.

Charlie

This feels right. I hope we can keep this up, because a world without the weekly reading and feedback we've learned to enjoy over the last couple years feels...weird. 

Anyway, onto Charlie's first submission. First note: It should be Tindalos, Inc. both in the title and throughout the story. Don't ask me why, but there is always a comma after a company name and before the incorporated part. And the abbreviation for incorporated is always uppercase "I" and lower case "nc."

Before I get to Charlie's concerns, I want to point out this reminds me of his very first residency submission for the MFA program, which is only fitting. For those that don't remember, I think the story was called coding, and the hacker in that story was overcome by numbers and characters that came out of the computer, to life, and killed her. 

-Augusta: not a strong character or compelling--can the audience feel for her or is she too robotic? Her name is a reference to the lovecraftian writer, August Derleth.

My take here is going to be a controversial one, but I don't think Augusta is the main character. I think the company is, or the strange characters on the screen, or the blue slime. Thus, Augusta does not need additional depth as she s the vehicle through which the main character arrives.

That being said, I think Charlie relies too much on an assumption that the audience knows anything about Tindalos or the Hounds of Tindalos as mentioned in his next question. THAT is where the additional development should be focused. Why do we care about this strange company? Why is it shocking that Phillips has that paper? What role does Augusta have in this? And is this really an ending or is it a continuation of something that has been going on forever. 

-The Hounds (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos). Are they kept off screen too long? Am I too vague? Are they simply not scary?

Perhaps this will sound contradictory to my last comment, but no, no, and no. The Hounds are in the right place. They are not too vague in the sense that Charlie needs to explain their cannon in Lovecraftian literature, and they are not not scary. BUT, but, but, that letter confused the shit out of me. And that's because I don't have the inherent background in this stuff. So, that's Charlie's opportunity. In that letter, pretend Frank Long never created the hounds, pretend H.P. Lovecraft never existed, and expose us to what they are and why they are important to the story. 

Oh, and also, who the heck is the person who wrote the letter. I feel like that needs to be important and can't just be the last sad sack who was killed. 

-Corporate model. It was meant to collect and distribute all the time-travellers in this verse to the hounds--in effect feeding them. Is that not clear? I wanted to keep an atmosphere of focedd ignorance as to what most people do from day to day, like how many people in offices are often blind to the effects of their work on the outside world.

Not clear. Sorry, Charlie. I did not understand what they were collecting, and had no indication that there was a time-traveling mechanism to this story at all. I'm looking back at it, and I still don't get that from the text. Here's my suggestion: 

The meeting with the boss man (who I assume is Frank because you are paying homage to Frank Belknap Long) is where Augusta needs to—unwittingly or not—discover what her job really is and how insignificant she is in the grand scheme of things. She could stop doing it, but someone else would come along to feed the Hounds. She would be fed to the Hounds. And in the end, she is. 

-Atmosphere. Another stab at minimalism--meant to highlight the eerieness of the hounds and Augusta's mental deterioration.

The atmosphere is great. I feel like I am in a bleak office building with soul-sucking cubicles all around. I think that's perfect for the story you wrote and acts as a setting-metaphor for the Hounds. They consume, suck the life from, things. And in Charlie's setting, the atmosphere does the same. 

Other Thoughts: 

This is a really interesting story. I think it has a ton of potential and it doesn't fall victim to some of the things Charlie has struggled with in the past (i.e. too much worldbuilding, slow developing plot, etc.). So, I want to make sure Charlie understands that even with the feedback included here, I don't think this is far off. I just simply think Charlie needs to approach this story (and all stories) from outside his own mind. For someone who has never heard of H.P. Lovecraft, how do you convey the same feelings and concepts? Answer that, and Charlie has a winning story!

Good job, man!

Attachments:

TINDALOS INC.pdf (138.35 KB)

[eldercheese]

I will add this to the stack of things I have to read I am just completely consumed by Rain Scars atm. I hardly seem to have the head space for anything else and I hate it. I have not even done my own edits yet (Good lord I'm a hot mess right now). Great to see this site with some life in it again

[abi]

May 18, 2017 18:09:51 GMT Charlie Allison said:

Hey Guys! (Yes, I know I'm early!)

Here is my first draft of a story for this Contest:
pickmanspress.com/sub-corpCthulhu.php

I'm trying to do a lot with a little--since the goal of the contest is to work with recognizable mythos creatures and not my own, I feel weird about this.
Things I'm worried about:
-Augusta: not a strong character or compelling--can the audience feel for her or is she too robotic? Her name is a reference to the lovecraftian writer, August Derleth.
-The Hounds (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hounds_of_Tindalos). Are they kept off screen too long? Am I too vague? Are they simply not scary?
-Corporate model. It was meant to collect and distribute all the time-travellers in this verse to the hounds--in effect feeding them. Is that not clear? I wanted to keep an atmosphere of focedd ignorance as to what most people do from day to day, like how many people in offices are often blind to the effects of their work on the outside world.
-Atmosphere. Another stab at minimalism--meant to highlight the eerieness of the hounds and Augusta's mental deterioation.

Thanks guys! I wrote this just before running to graduation so I'm sure that there are a fuck ton of errors, forced and unforced in the structure of this story.

Charlie

    Ah, there’s so much to like about this piece. Where to start? I think I’m in love with how you describe the recurring details of circular things. That’s really cool. I also like the description of the office building, 

“The foyer of the Tindalos Inc. was mathematically crisp.”

 Such good stuff. I’m wondering if the theme of the circles has anything to do with the addition of that weird separate paragraph at the end of the story. Was that just a mistake? Or does Augusta really end up back where she started? I hope it’s the latter. I really do, because that would continue the whole idea of circles. 

    Something else I’d like to bring up, because you handled the recurring details of circles so nicely. There’s a lot of Augusta “thinking” she sees something that she’s not sure is really there. At first, it made me think she was just on drugs because she seems to be questioning herself a lot. Also, it makes these details stand out a little more than they should. It’s like shouting at the readers, “hey, I’m an important plot point. Remember me for later.” But I think it’s an easy fix. Just take out the fact that she’s not sure she sees them. Either she does or she doesn’t. If you want to make it less certain, just be like, “the patterns on the door twisted beneath her gaze, but she blinked, they were normal again.” Or, “there were sometimes random number on the computer, but Philip thought they were just apart of her malfunctioning computer.” I think the less attention you draw to it the better. Your readers are smart, and they will connect the clues you’ve laid out later on when they get to the letter.

    There’s also the matter of the fact that she notices Philips’ weird blue skin before she notices his is separated from his body. Pretty sure she would notice his lack of a head before she noticed anything about his skin. I mean, maybe she’d see a glow or something in the car, but come on. A headless corpse is pretty noticeable. Like, really noticeable

    As for your questions, I think Augusta is a fine character. It’s true, we don’t get a lot of her back story, or her motivations, quite frankly. But I don’t think this type of story is one that would particularly benefit from that. And it kind of makes sense, really, because she’s the type of character who is trying not to get involved with her coworkers. So, it makes sense that she keeps to herself and doesn’t advertize her wants. And I loved the hounds and don’t think they were off stage too much. Do the locked offices belong to them? Just curious.

    I’m not really sure I understood what was going on with the time-travelers and how that related to their office work. Were they just funneling them somehow to the hounds? Maybe they were just like covering the paperwork for that? There’s got to be some sort of cover business for that, I think. Otherwise, they would probably know. Especially since they’re conversing with these people on the phone. And that could even be handled with some humor if you wanted to leave it that way. Like, “yes, ma’am, do you understand that—” *Person screams and the phone goes dead. “That’s weird! The fifth call today where someone was screaming and then hung up.” I don’t know. But maybe the letter could be more specific about it.

    Finally, the atmosphere was great! No problems there, that’s for sure. I think it all came together pretty well. Anyway, good story, Charlie. I hope this one wins that contest. Also, it reminded me a bit of my Bugget story. Weird unexplainable substances? People going missing? Our stories are cousins, I think.

Abis Line Notes for Charlies TINDALOS INC.pdf (126.75 KB)

[abi]

May 19, 2017 20:13:49 GMT justin1023 said:

-Corporate model. It was meant to collect and distribute all the time-travellers in this verse to the hounds--in effect feeding them. Is that not clear? I wanted to keep an atmosphere of focedd ignorance as to what most people do from day to day, like how many people in offices are often blind to the effects of their work on the outside world.

Not clear. Sorry, Charlie. I did not understand what they were collecting, and had no indication that there was a time-traveling mechanism to this story at all. I'm looking back at it, and I still don't get that from the text. Here's my suggestion: 

The meeting with the boss man (who I assume is Frank because you are paying homage to Frank Belknap Long) is where Augusta needs to—unwittingly or not—discover what her job really is and how insignificant she is in the grand scheme of things. She could stop doing it, but someone else would come along to feed the Hounds. She would be fed to the Hounds. And in the end, she is. 

I don't know if it's so much she needs to know what the job is, because she could very well not know what it is. Like your story, Justin, with the Dissociative Property. Like, she knows what she's doing. Organizing spreadsheets and crunching numbers. But she doesn't know what the company is doing. Still, if they're actually talking to the people on the phones, that might be a bit more complicated. 

[justin1023]

May 24, 2017 5:18:15 GMT abi said:

May 19, 2017 20:13:49 GMT justin1023 said:

[I don't know if it's so much she needs to know what the job is, because she could very well not know what it is. Like your story, Justin, with the Dissociative Property. Like, she knows what she's doing. Organizing spreadsheets and crunching numbers. But she doesn't know what the company is doing. Still, if they're actually talking to the people on the phones, that might be a bit more complicated. 

That's a fair point. I think the job seemed to be heavily tied to the underlying plot, though. But you're right, maybe not. Maybe it's just a matter of Charlie not needed an explanation. I thought about it more because of his specific question about the corporate model. But like with most of Charlie's stories, I probably would have just accepted that I, like the character, didn't understand what was going on. That works well, actually. 

[justin1023]

May 23, 2017 23:41:19 GMT abi said:

I’m not really sure I understood what was going on with the time-travelers and how that related to their office work. Were they just funneling them somehow to the hounds? Maybe they were just like covering the paperwork for that? There’s got to be some sort of cover business for that, I think. Otherwise, they would probably know. Especially since they’re conversing with these people on the phone. And that could even be handled with some humor if you wanted to leave it that way. Like, “yes, ma’am, do you understand that—” *Person screams and the phone goes dead. “That’s weird! The fifth call today where someone was screaming and then hung up.” I don’t know. But maybe the letter could be more specific about it.

This is really where I thought understanding the job might help understand the time traveling part. But I'm sure Charlie can find a way to make this clearer without necessarily explaining Augusta's specific job duties. I will say that while I was pretty comfortable with my understanding of what was happening in the story, the time travelers threw me pretty hard. I like Abi's suggestions a lot. 

[Julia]

I don’t know anything about Lovecraft, so I’m not the best person to give you advice.  I enjoyed reading it, although I was a bit lost at the end.

-Augusta:

She seemed like a well-rounded character to me. My impression was that she was young person at her first job, eager to do well but independent enough to form her own opinions. That little moment when she keeps quiet about her classical name showed her mindset in a small but realistic way.


-The Hounds

For me, the revelations came a bit too fast at the end, one after another before I had chance to digest each one. The image of Philip with his head in his hands was amazingly disturbing. Augusta pealing out of the parking garage built great tension, but her pulling out the piece of paper seemed anticlimactic. That was probably because I don’t know the mythology and didn’t get the “aha” moment of realizing the corporation was doing this intentionally.

But if your readers are going to know all about the Hounds, I would actually make the letter less “villain explains his evil plan for the benefit of the readers” and more meaningless corporate jargon. Maybe use a real-life mission statement as an inspiration - www.jnj.ch/en/our-values/mission.html

Augusta’s death also seemed less gruesome than Philip’s. I think you needed more time between her reading the paper and her own death, so we get some suspense as she dreads what is coming.
 The first half was well-paced, and the mystery kept me reading.


-Corporate model. It was meant to collect and distribute all the time-travellers in this verse to the hounds--in effect feeding them. Is that not clear?

The time travel aspect went over my head completely. But you really capture the atmosphere of the company: “each breath an offense against geometry.” Little things feel realistic, like Frank opening the meeting with a generic compliment, or Augusta keeping her back to her cubicle mate when she doesn’t want to know something.



-Atmosphere.

Again, I thought this was well done. I work in a cubicle farm, and, even without the supernatural element, you get that weird combination of buildings that are both huge and impersonal but also claustrophobic. The corporation feels like the whole world so the workers are less likely to question the ethics of what they do.

[justin1023]

May 25, 2017 19:29:15 GMT Julia said:

But if your readers are going to know all about the Hounds, I would actually make the letter less “villain explains his evil plan for the benefit of the readers” and more meaningless corporate jargon. Maybe use a real-life mission statement as an inspiration - www.jnj.ch/en/our-values/mission.html

This is such a good suggestion. This would not only help keep the letter from being, as Julia mentions, "villain explains his evil plan for the benefit of the readers” but it will add to the atmosphere that Charlie is going for. A corporate mission statement is the most corporate thing corporate corporations can corporate...or something like that.

[V]

TINDALOS INC 1.pdf (79.66 KB) 

I'm glad Justin pointed out Charlie's first story because I knew this one seemed a little familiar. This also reminded me of Abi's story Buggets Nuggets (sp), working at a job you're not satisfied with just to make it, but you don't...because they kill you. #wompwomp

Augustine does seem robotic but it makes sense considering her job. She works in a cubicle with someone who's probably not her friend outside of work and with managers that she barely see. After years of doing that type of work things get pretty calculated. Sleep by 8pm, breakfast at 7am, work with packed lunch, plenty of eye rolls, and staring at the clock. Augustine is normal too me.

She also seemed genuine when looking for Philip (although he insulted her earlier). I can tell she was concerned about his location and the stuff on his desk.

I think Charlie's buildup was great so leave the hounds were they are. I liked the image of her escaping from the parking lot, and how nonchalant her manager was. It would make me a little suspicious, but at the same time she could've thought her manager had no clue where he was.

I agree with others about time traveling, I missed it completely. Maybe switch up the atmosphere in some scenes to really show the difference. I felt like I was in the same place the whole time (which I didn't mind. The atmosphere and setting was great and really help set the tone for the story).

Good job, Charlie. Can't wait to read more.