Queen To Pawn / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Queen To Pawn.

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Tirantal 21 Dec 2011 15:30

Well that is a fantastic start to my morning. Fed a man his retina indeed. I'm glad I skipped breakfast.

The only thing that caught me as out of place was "Did I fucking stutter…", because it made me think Pulp Fiction. When I'm reading and get pulled out of the story wondering if the speaker is making a pop culture reference, it degrades the impact of her threat. I'd consider changing it just so the reader can stay focused on the progression.

But that is an incredibly minor quibble over a great story. :)

Dr Gears 21 Dec 2011 17:09

I'll keep that in mind…actually, I'd forgotten the pulp fiction bit…was actually rehasing a line i used a great deal while working a haunted house one year. Still, if it becomes a issue, it's a easy tweak to make.

Tirantal 21 Dec 2011 18:40

Like I said, it's a very minor thing, but I think it would help in immersion. What it comes down to is do you want your readers to smile at that moment? Since the Queen hasn't had character development yet, anything that we hear from her is going to influence the perception we make. I would expect Vector (just as a random example) to be spouting lines from cool movies, so it wouldn't break immersion for her. If that is also what you want to develop as the Queen's schtick, then it should be kept in and maybe enhanced in the further stories.

Dr Gears 21 Dec 2011 20:23

With the little freak out she undergoes…the issue is, the Black Queen is a twisted genius on par with any over-elaborate bond villan…at the same time, she's also unstable, violent, homicidal and sadistic. She's spent a massive chunk of her life preparing for her revenge…and it's eaten away at her, even as it's refined her in to something very keen and bright.

Ideally, what i get across is someone who could be a wicked mastermind villein…were it not for the serial killer undertones. Because she's doing it to the various Foundation universe groups, it's more accepted…but if she wasn't, she'd be on the news nightly. What's more…it's not clear if she can just suddenly "stop" now, or slow down…she may have crossed a mental rubicon that there's no crossing back from.

The studder bit might be better re-tweaked…i'll see if i can find a better outburst…

Tirantal 21 Dec 2011 18:49

I was just rereading, and came across one other bit. "There's no audio in this version…" but then the presenter talked about what questions were being asked of Penbry. After thinking about it for a bit, I realized that this version meant the copy that was being shown, but the need to think it over may be a weakness. Perhaps have the presenter say something like "I've turned down the audio, if you don't mind sir. I don't think hearing Penbry scream is that useful to the brief". It would also play up the unsettling nature of the tape, if a Foundation agent is disturbed enough to need it off.

Dr Gears 21 Dec 2011 20:16

I think I may do just that, didn't even think of that acutally. This was one of my stream-of-consciousness stories that just grab me sometimes…feedback is actually helping a lot.

(account deleted) 21 Dec 2011 17:42

239?

Lugh Lamhfhada 21 Dec 2011 18:59

Awesome. An upvote and much apprehension for the next story.

Rejekyll 21 Dec 2011 21:23

Keep it up, Gears. Great work. Also, if you're going to name every tale in this story with a chess move, it's be interesting to actually map it out on a chessboard and see how it would play out.

RhettSarlin 21 Dec 2011 23:09

that'd be a bit difficult, seeing as this is the first stated move :P the pawns wouldnt have let the queen out yet!

Kickassfrog 22 Dec 2011 11:14

It could just be the various captures and pieces entering traps, I suppose.
No way could you write out an entire chess game with a story for every move. Or you'd just have a load of 'pawn moves forward, B6-C6' and so forth.

Rejekyll 22 Dec 2011 20:58

Well, that's assuming that the black side has a full chessboard. I can see nobody, including Gears, that could be used as another piece of value to her. Killing Gears would only make her angrier… so supposedly, she could be the only black piece. Then taking a pawn first would be easy.

thedeadlymoose 22 Dec 2011 00:58

This is really good.

Minor nitpick: The gore is a bit over the top for me, in the sense that it starts to seem funny as opposed to serious. But it doesn't detract enough to make this not good. (And others may disagree!)

As long as that's not her only shtick, I think it's fine.

Last edited on 22 Dec 2011 00:59 by thedeadlymoose Show more

Dr Gears 22 Dec 2011 12:16

Huh, i didn't think it was all that gory….then again, i don't think "Influenza" is all that gory a story, so maybe I'm a little skewed. She'll have other shtick, no worries.

Tirantal 22 Dec 2011 16:05

I actually think the amount of gore is perfect for the story, that is to say being one remove away from witnessing it.

NEXER 22 Dec 2011 01:26

uh, wait a minute, wasn't the Black Queen from Fishmonger's stories? sure sounds like her, i hate to question someone as high up as Gears, but is this allowed?

thedeadlymoose 22 Dec 2011 01:34

A) This is a different concept also called the Black Queen. The concept (and the chess motif) has been used in a lot of places, including the Hellfire Club in Marvel Comics (complete with a Black Queen.)

B) We don't use Fishmonger's stuff. As far as our writing goes, Fishmonger's stuff never existed.

Last edited on 22 Dec 2011 06:53 by thedeadlymoose Show more

NEXER 22 Dec 2011 05:40

My apologies,but it's not just the name, the premise of a psychotic woman with no ties to a specific GOI and no supernatural abilites seemed a little similar EDIT: he also had a lot of stories with chess moves as titles.

either way, you've been here longer, so i'll trust your judgement, sorry.

Last edited on 22 Dec 2011 05:52 by NEXER Show more

Dr Gears 22 Dec 2011 12:14

To be fair, apprently Fishmonger's Black Queen was actually his avatar's wife, gone rogue. I never really intended to reboot the black queen…but once i started discussing things, people thought it'd be a great idea, so i kind of ran with it. We'll see how it goes.

Bland 22 Dec 2011 16:43

Look at it this way - THIS Black Queen would never have heard of the other one; she's just using the name. No more relation then any two things that have an obvious name choice.

_{…if you think it's bad when two women show up at a party with the same dress, imagine if two psychotics showed up with the same nom de plume!}

(account deleted) 23 Dec 2011 21:12

Who's fishmonger?

Sorts 23 Dec 2011 21:44

Old member who wrote a bunch of stuff and then got banned for good reason, and responded by demanding everything he ever wrote be removed from the site.

fooloftime 22 Dec 2011 02:12

I… don't like it that much. Not sure how to put it in words. It's not that it is badly written. More that… well the original Splinters tale was really good, so it could be initial expectations set to high, but more than that Splinters felt like an actual series of events that had occured. This meanwhile feels like a James Bond novel. It has so many tropes. The Girl Who Couldn't Get Over Her Father's Disappearance. The Torture Scene. The Villainess, fighting against The Organisation. The Alias. The Chess Metaphor. She's even set up to be Impossible Brilliant, yet Broken.

I really preferred the initial view I had of this. No broken genius, just a realistically competent researcher, following up on her fathers work, unknowingly heading straight for horrific revelations or something equally nasty.

Going beyond just personal preference… if you want to set her up as a mastermind… maybe make things harder for her. Masterminds are generally measured by the opposition they face.

Other than that I think it's good.

Dr Gears 22 Dec 2011 12:23

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of ways to avoid tropes, really. Almost every concept under the sun has been done, somehow, so it's just the nature of the beast, at this point. I may head up another angle…one where she never becomes the Black Queen…and stumbles in to the same event that cracked Gears all those years ago. More of a Lovecraft-y bend to that one, I think, and i love exploring alternate universes anyway.

I plan on giving her some more challenging bits…this initial bit is really just a first move. She didn't even know the name of The Foundation before she got hold of Penbry, and stumbled in to MC&D almost by accident…now that she has more information, she's going to do things a little more forcefully.

Sorry it doesn't quite mesh with you, but i hope it's at least neat in concept.

Eric Adler 27 Dec 2011 02:34

Unfortunately, I don't have a lot of ways to avoid tropes, really. Almost every concept under the sun has been done, somehow, so it's just the nature of the beast, at this point.

That's pretty much the definition of 'trope,' as explained on that other website. And as that website describes, tropes are not inherently bad, just as they are not inherently good, tropes are tools, a shortcut to transmit a complete idea without having to elaborate every detail.

NEXER 22 Dec 2011 06:14

it's worth noting that, comments above aside, i really like this story.

Bland 22 Dec 2011 16:45

Gears, please make sure there is a page somewhere linking all the "Chess Game" pages.

Dr Gears 22 Dec 2011 18:37

Ideally, once i get a few more up, there will be one…but it will have "Splinters" on it, and form there, you can follow two diffrent threads…one where Alison slides downward in to depression and revenge complexes, and emerges as the Black Queen, and the other where she follows the bread crumbs of her father's work…and falls in to much, much more then she intended.

Bland 22 Dec 2011 19:45

Squee!

*cough*

You didn't hear that. No one heard that.

Dr Dead 22 Dec 2011 20:53

Am I the only one that has no damn clue what is going on here?

Bland 22 Dec 2011 22:25

Probably not. It's part of a series of shorts that Gears is writing. More will be revealed.

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