I liked the way you started the story making us feel relaxed and swept up in the peacefulness and serenity of the place.
Then, in the last two paragraphs turned it ugly.
The original idea of the story was based your premis of a possible way the myth of Medusa was created. But the moral comes through loud and strong - ignorance creates fear, which can then make something beautiful into something tragic.
I was a little worried about the ending. I kinda didn't know what the people would do. I sorta hoped they wouldn't run after Perseus and fight with him because I wanted the ending to be short, sharp, and ugly. I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief when none of the locals did much more than stunned inaction. Any retaliation would have diluted the impact. I am not sure of the harbormaster... I shied away from watching him too closely at the end.
If this sounds like my characters do what they want in my stories, yes, that is how it goes when I am lucky. Usually I have to work hard to make the characters believable. Rarely the characters take the bit between their teeth and I am like an onlooker, just watching what happens. I just cross my fingers and hope for the best. In this case I think they did well, but I don't feel like I can take any credit for it. I feel much more proud of my efforts in stories like Grace where I had to work very hard to make the characters put across my ideas.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2003-04-27 03:16 pm (UTC)I liked the way you started the story making us feel relaxed and swept up in the peacefulness and serenity of the place.
Then, in the last two paragraphs turned it ugly.
The original idea of the story was based your premis of a possible way the myth of Medusa was created. But the moral comes through loud and strong - ignorance creates fear, which can then make something beautiful into something tragic.
no subject
Date: 2003-04-27 05:10 pm (UTC)I was a little worried about the ending. I kinda didn't know what the people would do. I sorta hoped they wouldn't run after Perseus and fight with him because I wanted the ending to be short, sharp, and ugly. I breathed a bit of a sigh of relief when none of the locals did much more than stunned inaction. Any retaliation would have diluted the impact. I am not sure of the harbormaster... I shied away from watching him too closely at the end.
If this sounds like my characters do what they want in my stories, yes, that is how it goes when I am lucky. Usually I have to work hard to make the characters believable. Rarely the characters take the bit between their teeth and I am like an onlooker, just watching what happens. I just cross my fingers and hope for the best. In this case I think they did well, but I don't feel like I can take any credit for it. I feel much more proud of my efforts in stories like Grace where I had to work very hard to make the characters put across my ideas.