Forever Dead
Oh this chapter. So much and yet so little. Frustrating and useful and useless and dramatic. Ugh.
Dead
Salvageable. Julia & Ben.
There’s the “You’re dead, Julia!” About time.
“You must have died somewhere between your home and New York” — So what’s the plan with this? I don’t remember what I intended to do, other than make an excuse for them not to have a body. But in the end, Julia just retained her body, right? Because she didn’t die, she just crossed over? There’s got to be a better way to convey this.
“All dead” — Are they? We need a Quarantine brainstorm.
“That’s why she had just disappeared off the face of the Earth.” — Maybe go into how she’s not on CCTV?
Do the worlds really overlap? Inside separate, outside same? I’m not convinced. I remember this problem before though — do the worlds physically stay the same despite the people being in one or the other? Are they parallel? Can one build without the other? Perhaps “devil’s acres” and shit are where things are built in the World of the Dead, but not the World of the Living. Maybe that’s why it’s freaky to go in a half-abandoned building, because it’s active in the World of the Dead. But I need to touch on why Ben’s school was empty. Was it after hours? Dunno.
Also, Ben’s being a total whinebag about telling Julia she’s dead. In the prologue, the guy came right out with it. Ben’s totally ignoring it. Why? Is the buddy system a new thing? Ben, she NEEDS TO KNOW she’s dead. Everyone else gets told right away. WHAT IS GOING ON. IT DOESN’T MATTER IF SHE TRUSTS YOU.
Keep:
“But you are [dead]…or you wouldn’t see me…you wouldn’t be here with me.”
“The girl’s thoughts flashed to the man who had given her a cigarette. A tracheotomy gone bad. She thought of the lack of looks she got at the NYPL. Her picture was all over the news, ordinarily, someone would have taken a second glance. She thought of Ben’s yearbook…” — Good!
Flashback: Soda
Flashback. Julia.
If I do keep this, I need to make it vaguer. Make the reader uncomfortable without spelling it out for them or being intentionally shocking. Drama llama.
Soda Drama
Unnecessary. Julia & Ben.
But I do like that the tension carries over here. Unnecessary to be a separate scene from the next, though.
Back in the Apartment
Salvageable. Julia & Ben.
“Give me a ‘for instance.’” — Eh. Not in love with this. I feel like I knicked this terminology from somewhere, but god knows I didn’t cite my sources.
Ben’s 18, soz Quarantine 2.
Good note with the baby boomers, but no one suspects what doesn’t look suspicious. Influx of babies wouldn’t make people go “you know, I think someone’s making this happen.”
Keep:
Important info from “Not quite,” onward, but holy fuck, quit infodumping.
“No,” Julia forced a laugh, but simply scooted forward, closer to Ben. “No, I don’t understand.” — I mean, why would you?
“It’s not a foolproof system, but it’s the system.”
“System. Someone did this? Created the worlds?”
“Well, I’m sure.” Ben blinked, scooting closer to her. “I mean, someone had to.”