[keatskeatskeats]

:eek:

there are a lot of things that make it cumbersome to read at the moment, but I am mainly looking to make sure that the passage is not too excessive. Though I suppose its largely a subjective issue, I would think there is some sort of agreement when it comes to excess. What say you? I edited the names out.

***

He bellowed and lunged at me, but I skipped to the side of the thrust, then skipped back in front of him. Someone crashed into my back and two thick arms wrapped around me, locking together under my chest, pining my arms down to my sides, and standing me up nice and straight. I saw the dwarf come again, and I stared right at the sword as he drove it through my face. I never shut my eyes.

My body locked and every muscle tightened as I felt the sword pierce through my cheek, crash through my gums and slide across my tongue. I bit down in agony and my teeth grated across the cold hard blade, then began spasming and stumbling around. Something long and slimy was rolling around in my mouth and gagging me, so I desperately inhaled through my nostrils, threw my head forward, and tried to spit. My wet tongue went tumbling out over my lips, wrapped in a thick wad of crimson saliva along with the spray of my shattered gums and jaw bone. Weeping and coughing, I shook my head back and forth as long strands of spit ran off my jaw and got smeared on my face and fur. Then I jerked my head back, stumbled backwards, and wiped my face and shivered as I swallowed a few teeth and a thick pile of rolling mucus. A cold sweat burst onto my skin and through my fur and as I folded over and winced and grabbed my sides, I blew a tooth out of my nose.

“Maybe you care to know now, that my name is Justin Bieber, and that this sword—” he tapped the side of my face with the blade, “was forged by the first dwarven blacksmith of our race,” he said arrogantly as he grabbed me and shoved me into an upended table. Both warriors came at me again and slid their swords between my ribs and pinned me to the table with such force that my feet lifted up off the floor and my back arched up and thrust my chest out, bending the blades. They slid them out quickly then thrust them across each other so that the one on the right sliced into my left side and the one of the left sliced into my right side. They drew away again, and I sank to my knees and knuckles, bleeding and all nothingy, staring into the floor, lost and listening for the cold lyrics of the speeding raven, yearning for the sweet muteness of annihilation and the eternal breeze that blows through the shady pines on the other side of finitude. For whom does the raven fly to? Does his wing-beat keep pace with your heart beat? But lo, my heart beats faster than the raven’s wings and carries me away from where I long to be, the infinite meadow, it carried me back to the confines of life.

“Still alive?” the dwarf said, peering down with light confusion at me. “You must have some pretty magic spell on huh?”
“That’s just as well, he will have to answer for his crimes.”
“Any survivors from the hobbits?”
“Just one, like they have been leaving so far. But we have Secrest now; the minotaur won’t last long without him.”
“Has anyone seen the unlearned cow?”
“No.”
“Grey fur and a midnight blue death shroud right?” The other nodded.
“Ok, I’ll tie him up, then help finish taming Charlie Sheen.”
When I raised my eye I could see the dwarf standing over me, wiping the flat of his blade on my robe. I threw my hand across the sharp edges, sprang up, and drove my shoulder into his chest, sending him hurdling back onto the floor. Again my blood ran down his blade, but this time I held the sword.

He was quick to his feet, but I loomed over him trembling and hysterical, and as my chest heaved and eyes bulged I pulled the white tablecloth off the table and threw it over his face and pulled it back behind him, catching the cloth in a bunch behind his head. He began sucking in cloth, frantically swatting at my hands and aimlessly over and behind his head as he stumbled backwards into me. He looked like a ghost trapped in its sheet and as his breathing grew desperate he flailed his arms wildly.

“There are few things one can be certain of in this life; but know this: it is Emotikon that kills you.”

Then I struck him with the pommel of his own sword. I hit like a god who swings all the way from the end of eternity, who swings back through the future across eons, epochs, and millennia, and collided with his face in the present, shattering it and sending him stumbling back into the past. As a large crimson circle spread over the cloth, breathing turned to choking, and I ground my molars as I battered his face with the pommel of his blade, driving it again and again into mush below the cloth. I flung him to the ground and then fell to my knees and began pounding again. In a primal mania I stretched my fist as high as I could over my head, almost falling over, then drilled it down on his face, then stretched my right hand as high as I could over my head and hammered his face with the thick pommel. Again and again and again I punched, pounded, and pummeled the covered face long after the choking had ceased.

I rose up, still heaving and hysteria-filled, whipped the bloody sheet off his face and kneeled down, entwining his foresty beard around my fingers, between my knuckles, and under my fingernails. Then I planted my foot on his face and snapped up with a gutty groan. The face stretched and then the long beard ripped off. I screamed and shivered as I spiked the tangled skin and thick beard into the marble floor.

[kmtolan]

You have to know your audience. The standard Fantasy bunch probably would gag a tad at this - and as a writer I wouldn't feel the need for such detail unless this single moment was the kind of wreckage that would bend and twist the character throughout the rest of the story. In other words, I wouldn't have this kind of gore more than once - and only if it really really had to be there.

Again, however, you have to know the expectations of your audience. Your first red flag is the one you yourself sent up when you had to even ask if this was acceptable.

Kerry

[tmso]

Eeew, yuck.

I think it has to do with what Kerry said, in what context is this piece? Is the whole story like this? If so, then too much. If not, and it is meant to show him going over th edge, then it's fine.

I thought Hobbs kind of went overboard when she beat poor Fitz to death and then buried him, but it was an essential part of the story. It worked for me.

Yours could work in your story if done right. (Don't ask me what that is. :o )

[keatskeatskeats]

thanks for the replies guys. It is a radical break in tone with the book, it happens 3 times over the course of 60k words, and will occur 3 more times over another 60k.

I personally dont think its conveying the vividness of the struggle, his agony, and then the character snapping and saving his own life, so as it is right now, it is probably excessive because I dont think the passage is working, and so I'm over writing.

Let me ask another question in a more acute manner: Is there a vivid picture in your mind, or does it seem incoherent and confused, and you are really only reacting to what you know to be a savage act, and not the picture of the savage act?

[tmso]

Let me ask another question in a more acute manner: Is there a vivid picture in your mind,

Yes. You're good there.

or does it seem incoherent and confused,

The only confusing part is the dialogue. And why did you change the names? I like the stand-ins (made it kind of funny), but why change the names?

and you are really only reacting to what you know to be a savage act, and not the picture of the savage act?

I get a picture. The whole teeth thing grossed me out. I'm wondering what/who (s)he is that (s)he could take and do all that and still be alive... :eek:

[Holbrook]

This is just my opinion, take it with a pinch of salt...

The violence is actually boring in the way that it gives too much description. It does not let the reader 'imagine'.

Lot of "purple prose," as well; "In a primal mania I stretched my fist as high"

Also over kill as in; "Again and again and again I punched, pounded, and pummeled."

Less in more if you get my meaning.

Also watch out for the wandering eyes is in, "When I raised my eye," As in did he pick it up? Something to watch out for various limbs and other things wandering about.;) We all do it. There is nothing wrong with looked and gazed, or I could see or saw...

Without dialogue tags or a hint or who is speaking the dialogue feels very false.

Why remove the names, unless you are writing fan fic, then it was wise to do so...

[hippokrene]

No, not really.

A gory scene is no more 'gore porn' than an explicit sex scene is porn. In order to qualify for the porn label, a work needs to center itself around whatever it's porning.

So, I call some science fiction novels 'tech porn' because the author seems more interested in telling me how their spaceships fly and how nanoaugmentation works than the characters and the plot. Not because they sometimes give me a detailed breakdown of spaceships flying.

I do think it's overwritten in parts. In a visceral scene like this, your sentences need more snap, crackle, and pop. The language you use actually serves to distance the reader.

I'd suggest picking up a copy of Best Served Cold and reading through the gory bits. Though Abercrombie tends to inject his scenes with black humor, which might not be the tone you want.

Slaughter-House Five also has a few gory scenes that tend to linger in the mind.

Alternatively, I'd stay away from horror.