Short Story II: Lancers

[matteus the inbred]

I like it very much. It is very intense.
I do not think that you have a sequence were you tell through the Indian's eyes. It is a bot confusing and interrupts the story. You should have had only one view or two complete streams.
The end is great!

y'know, i thought the ending was a bit crappy, but i ran out of time! maybe i'll keep it then. i guess i had to put the Indian sequence in to describe the last moments of Custer cos i didn't think it was believable that the main character could have been close enough to see that without being immediately killed. this is an experimental version of a longer story that i plan to write involving not just the two characters already involved but also a descendant of the trooper driving to the battlefield to lay a wreath or something.

Your attempt at describing the experience of a battle is well-done. However, you do put a bit too much information in too little space. This is most marked in the part described from the Indian's perspective. Also, the jumping perspective is rather confusing. I really liked the ending, though.

agreed. i guess i wanted it confusing and frenetic, just like it must have been for the troopers involved, but it needed more space and development.
thanks a lot guys, your comments have been very useful!

[Franconicus]

y'know, i thought the ending was a bit crappy, but i ran out of time! maybe i'll keep it then. i guess i had to put the Indian sequence in to describe the last moments of Custer cos i didn't think it was believable that the main character could have been close enough to see that without being immediately killed. this is an experimental version of a longer story that i plan to write involving not just the two characters already involved but also a descendant of the trooper driving to the battlefield to lay a wreath or something.

Maybe you should build a two stream story then. Tell it from the eyes of the trooper and of an indian. In the end the two streams could meet as the descandent meet at the battle field and become friends or something (maybe they work in the same company, or they fought both in Iraq ...).
Another thought I want to add: Your first story was about the reconquista and the knight was very patriotic, brave etc. as you expect it. In the Custer story the fight was all in vane and useless; just as expected.
Maybe you could add something unexpected. That in the beginning the soldier was full of hope. That he believed in his mission, that he loved the general that he wanted to be promoted.
If the story would become longer you could also add why the soldiers are in the army and what the feelings are. As you wrote, most of them were immigrants. What did they feel when they were ordered to kill indians? Was there discimination within the army? Did they understand what this war was about? ...

[matteus the inbred]

these are all good ideas, although the descendants meeting thing is maybe a little cheesier (only in my opinion though, i'm quite cynical) than i'm happy writing about. still, i think the 'brother' plot in Lancers was if anything more contrived than that would be!
i guess Custer (and his immediate 'family') represents the reckless, flamboyant side of the US Army at that time...his troopers had ridden all night on the 24th June and were very tired, and probably hated the job or thought it was going to be easy. there's evidence of quite a few desertions prior to and during the action. your point is correct though, nothing very unexpected...i suppose some must have joined for patriotism, most for money and somewhere to sleep and something to eat. i dunno...i'd just finished reading a book on the battle that went through the reburials and condition of the bodies in great detail, and concluded that it was a nasty, brutal, one-sided and pretty sordid affair in the middle of nowhere for no particularly laudible objective (except on the part of the Indians, who were obviously fighting for their way of life). so that was the mood i wrote it in.
i hope i don't sound ungrateful; you've given me plenty to think about and some excellent suggestions, thanks!

[Franconicus]

these are all good ideas, although the descendants meeting thing is maybe a little cheesier (only in my opinion though, i'm quite cynical) than i'm happy writing about.

You may be right with the cheese. Maybe you find something else. Maybe you point out that the desc from the winner has to live now as the slave of the desc. of the looser. Maybe the Indian kills the white man. Many options.

i hope i don't sound ungrateful; you've given me plenty to think about and some excellent suggestions, thanks!

No, not at all. I hope you do not think my proposals are cocky.

[matteus the inbred]

Maybe the Indian kills the white man.

hey, that's good, Murder at the Little Bighorn Cemetery! maybe i should turn it into a murder mystery involving one or more descendants...

[Franconicus]

Yeah, maybe in the Sam Spade style. Like the Maltese Falcon.

[shifty157]

I think you took on a bit too large of a event for the amount of space you gave it. You should probably limit your number of view points so that you can devote more time and energy into really fleshing out the ones that matter. Perhaps also limit your scope from the entire battle/battlefield (as the battle was a rather long affair) to a small section and time frame (ie: the last few minutes of a doomed soldier rather than trying to cover the entire battle). You moved too quickly and just skimmed over many details that could have been further developed and give a better tone and atmosphere.

What im trying to say is that i think you tried to do too much and ended up with not enough developement. I think it would be much better if you limited yourself more and really focused on developing that small portion.

I do like your idea and its obvious that you know a good amount on the subject. Overall i think its a good attempt to capture the chaos of the battlefield and i think you do it rather well.

I liked the beggining. In specific i like how you mention the blisters caused by the regulation boots. Its a very nice detail and it helps establish a background of what things are like in the army and what condition the soldiers are in. Although now that i think about it would a cavalry regiment get blisters on their feet? I never thought of them as doing alot of walking.

I like your first story better though simply because you took more time describing a smaller event and because of it did a better job of developing the characters and the plot and setting. It also sounds like the knight is actually telling the story.

Something that i think would work much better than saying to the effect of "and all across the battlefield men were being hacked and killed". I know you didnt say this but im just warning against something to avoid. People prefer gritty details rather than unspecific generalizations. Also people already have a preconcieved notion of what battlefields are like. We've all seen war movies. It also seems to describe the whole battlefield when youre writing from the viewpoint of one soldier. Its much more effective i think to really describe a few choice scenes that represent what is going on throughout the battlefield. In this way you can really describe the specific scene and give it tone and atmosphere and describe the battle as a whole at the same time. If you really show a scene or two of US troops really being overrun then people will extrapolate those scenes in their mind as representations of the battle as a whole and get a sense of the bigger picture.

Again i enjoyed reading what you wrote. I hope my suggestions help you at least a bit. Just some things to think about if nothing else.