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They say that people go there when they’re ready to die. They say Death himself is a patron. That’s where the tavern gets its name. Azrael’s Stop. Watering hole for the Angel of Death. But that’s just rumour. Ceph doesn’t trade in rumour. He just serves drinks. Except, of course, that every couple of weeks, someone dies at Azrael’s Stop. ~ This is the story of the Stop and the people drawn to a tavern surrounded in death. The seventeen-year-old bartender who has seen all his loved ones die. The depressed old man, whom death will not take. The boy who visits every day—though he died a year ago. The blind minstrel who saw war too young. And the hooded crow who watches over all, and caws only when someone dies in Azrael’s Stop. Each with a past that haunts them, a story to tell, and a need to find something to live for or something to die for.
Azrael's Stop is an experimental fiction project that I'm producing under my transmedia storytelling business Silverstring Media. It's primarily a serial microfiction story -- daily real-time entries of only a few sentences -- augmented with music, short stories, art, audio play, games, and more. You can get the whole thing and the bonus material as it's released at http://azraelsstop.com, but as my ultimate goal is to publish the whole, I will be posting the compilations here for critique! It's very experimental, and would love any comments.
got hooked on page 2 and couldn't stop until the end, great piece of work and look forward to reading more. the idea of having diary entries is idea I am playing myself and after reading your work as given me some ideas as to how it can be done.
Ceph is in my opinion the most interesting character, its like riding a rollercoaster. Lona is the most mysterious of all characters.
in my opinion the pacing has worked very well for the story in the form of someone's diary.
Love the premise and concept! Not crazy about the title (What about "Death's Tavern"?). The point of the title is to draw people into the story, and a strange word to kick it off might push people away. The prologue feels long for a prologue.
I like Ceph right away--"looked perpetually tired" even though he's 17, and his apparent lack of belief in his own workplace in spite of evidence to the contrary. Not a fan of "dwarves" etc. in a story. My instant reaction is "ugh"--but I like Tom. I was surprised he had only been going to the tavern for a few months, since the back cover copy suggested he had been going a long time. It makes his story less hopeless than I expected. I wish he had already been there longer for a more compelling story (I've watched family members take years to die, so I relate with the frustration of his NOT dying). Not a fan of Floerian--not sure if he's too stereotypical or just kind of ridiculous (Biggles the Chicken??). Nael is truly a better bard, but he shows up much later and before that I'm impatient to stick with Tom and Ceph, not the others.
It feels repetitive, perhaps because I'm reading without all the extra flair on the other site. I hear too much repetition about the strangeness of the kid running the bar and the hooded crow being in charge. I'm thinking, "Okay, and then what?" Chapter two has more movement, specifically in the plot between Ceph and Tom, so I started getting back into it there. I'm beginning to think the form of media and style you've picked creates a need for a much faster pace. You circle back to dwelling, waiting, slowness, when in fact your medium is fast and impatient.
Wow, what an intriguing story! I was completely sucked in. When I found out that Rye was the dead kid still hanging around, I got all upset - he's such a sweetie. I loved the way the crow was such a developed character, with Ceph interacting with him as if he were truly another human coworker. All of the elements in this story weave together so beautifully to create a coherent tale that's just a fun read. I also enjoyed the fact that it was humorous at times and deep at others - at one point I'd be laughing out loud, and at another I would be nodding my head in agreement with the message.One thing that threw me off a little was about 2/3rds of the way through, at "Brenday, 30 Faenym, 1007 KR." The voice changes slightly to comment on Ceph from the outside: "...even he seemed a bit more removed than normal." Everywhere else, any observations about Ceph seemed to come from within him. It would read better to say, "even he felt a bit more removed than normal."It is also a little choppy at "Danday, 5 Drannym, 1007 KR." I think the first "now" should be removed so that the line reads, "Her flirtatious teasing with Tom seemed like a betrayal, now he was gone."The exchange between Ceph and Nael from "Danday, 12 Drannym, 1007 KR" through "Byrday, 15 Drannym, 1007 KR" reads as though it should take place in one conversation rather than across so many days.There are a few places (before finding out the true sex) where the crow has a conflicting pronoun: sometimes a he, and sometimes an it. "He" throughout would make the most sense, since Ceph is thrown by finding out that it's actully a female.What's going to happen with Lona and Rye?? I'm dying to know where this is going!
Beautiful! Each and every character was fleshed out and well-rounded, right down to the crow (at least as far as how other people interacted with him - he makes a fantastic device). I felt some kind of emotion for every character you described at some point in the story, which I think is really a big key in character development.
I really liked the use of snippets from each day of the week as the year waxed on; it showed clearly the passage of time without feeling heavy or plodding, and just the couple of sentences from each day, interspersed with longer scenes infusing lengthier plot points, were thoughtfully concentrated enough to get a good feel for the characters and the plotline. The use of chapters actually feels unnecessary; I don't know if you divided it up just for the purposes of this website or if your intent was to divide it into chapters, but with the way it's written, I prefer the feeling of a flowing timeline with no chapter breaks.
I was very glad to see that you'd posted another story involving Azrael--and overall, I think it was very good. My biggest dilemma is the ending--I'm slightly confused as to what happened. Initially, I thought Ceph was going to die at the end, but that didn't happen. I've re-read it a few times, and what I'm gathering is that Nael was meant to die and didn't? I think that's wrong. That was really the only highly confusing point for me. The rest of the story made perfect sense and was really good. I especially liked the way you paced the story. It could be seen as slightly jumpy--you go quickly from one idea to the next, but I think you handle it really well. I think it really works, especially since your subject is death. The crow is actually one of my favorite things about this story. He's very menacing and dark but at the same time, he seems to be a good friend to Ceph in his own way. I also liked your insertion of Biggles in here. I think that the connection of all your stories together must be really clever and I was so glad that I'd read that one first. I found myself very sad about Tom dying, though. It definitely needed to happen but I thought he was a really good person to be in Ceph's life. As much as Ceph tries to remain emotionally neutral to death, he is very much affected by it which I think was good. Overall, this was another great story!
I think Ceph was definitely very well-developed. You're getting into his head effectively and you really give the reader a sense of his many confusions about death. He has been confronted by death so often that he seems okay with it, when I don't think he really understands the severity of it. I thought it especially interesting that he wanted to avoid hearing about Tom's life because he was afraid it would cause him to die--I found that so sad because Ceph doesn't really seem to be able to hold any friendships because of how often Death takes people away. I really like this story, and I think Ceph is a very strongly developed character.My only other comment is that I think you could definitely do more with some of the minor characters, like Rye, Nael and Lona. I'm not sure if there's more to this story or if they're going to appear again, but I think they could really be brought into the story more. They seem to function as mostly background characters with a minimal role in Ceph's life--so maybe that's something to think about,
The pacing is really good as well. I like how you only have a few sentences and then you switch to a new day, a new scene--it's kind of a jumbling of the story, but it works because I would imagine that that's how Ceph feels...like all the days blur together because he sees the same types of things everyday. But I think the pacing is perfect--it's a really strong story.
I read through twice, and I still am not 100% certain what exactly to make of this. First - the concept is wonderful and the story - where there is story - has a unique feel to it that makes it an easy read. I feel like you are in a tug-of-war with what you want here, with Skeeve and the Myth books on one end and Rod Serling on the other, and the rope is not moving an inch.However, after my second reading I realized that there is virtually no plot a all here, nothing to compel further reading because the story is not going anywhere. The jagged styler is fine, but the gaps between "scenes" are too large.You do write extremely well, and this does feel like you have spent a lot of time thinking through the few "events" that happen. I also got the impression that the Crow, not Ceph, was the main character here. Nearly every event seems to revolve around that bird. I kept waiting for him to swoop down and caw "Nevermore."I said 4 stars here, and that score is for both the very different type of tale you are trying to tell (I think - see my comments throughout) and the well-developed skills you have which help to make up for the divides between scenes. There is a boat-load of potential here, but your concept needs to be refined.
Hard to say here, since I did not feel that there was any development at all. Ceph seems to learn a little bit, especially after Nael arrives, but he does not really grow. Some of the others - Rye sticks out - seem vastly underdeveloped. A part of that is the disjointed style you chose, which cuts short development as soon as it starts, leaving us with chasms in between each "section." And since Ceph seems limited to reacting to what happens in the bar instead of initiating action, he comes across as impotent and somewhat hazy. This to me is the breaking point. Your main character - the one who appears in every single scene, along with the crow and the Stop itself - takes virtually no initiative and seems content with that. If you want us to buy into that, you have to tell us why sooner rather than later. Otherwise, he just comes across as a jaded, precocious stoned teenager who is running a bar (though he does not exactly how) and watching people die.
Again, tough to tell here. It does read very easily and quickly, but that is because of the format you chose. It almost feels like vignettes, but even more like the blurry flashes of memory after a night of heavy drinking.You need to organize these stories better. The "dates" (I assume that is what those were) are okay, but since you made up a different time system it makes it hard to tell exactly what is going on. Jumping around and telling things out of order is fine - heck it worked on "Lost," at least for the first 3 seasons - but you need to give your reader something familiar to latch onto to help them navigate the maze.
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