In Which I Read Twilight: Chapter 6 -- Scary Stories · 4:50pm Jan 2nd, 2018
At school, Bella has to endure comments about her fainting during the blood test, even though someone else also had to be taken to the nurse’s office. One of her friends makes fun of her for it and still expects Bella to tell her about what Edward wanted to talk about during lunch. Oh, and the worst part of the day is that Edward isn’t there (he’s going hunting over the weekend and left early). Seriously, she describes gloom engulfing her. How many times have you talked to him again? Three? Four? Did any of those conversations last longer than ten minutes?
Next Saturday, on a thankfully sunny day, Bella and some kids head to the beaches around La Push. And it’s warm, so Bella’s actually enjoying herself. As if in response to that, the writing becomes surprisingly detailed for once. Normally, it just skims lightly over descriptions (unless they’re of Edward to tell you how he’s so frigging hot like whoa), but the description of the beach here is pretty good. The actions of the kids are also given little touches, like when they set up a driftwood fire and Bella’s amazed at how the salt burns blue. However, it’s still hampered by the occasional run-on sentence, like:
The beach had only a thin border of actual sand at the water’s edge, after which it grew into millions of large, smooth stones that looked uniformly gray from a distance, but close up were every shade a stone could be: terra-cotta, sea green, lavender, blue gray, dull gold.
Some good imagery, but dang is that a long sentence.
We slide back to the usual standard of quality when several boys from the Quileute reservation show up. Bella notices one of them named Jacob, and describes him. Then we get this:
Altogether, a very pretty face.
However, my positive opinion of his looks was damaged by the first words out of his mouth.
“You’re Isabella Swan, aren’t you?”
His words change how you think he looks? What? And those words are a mistake made in innocence, considering he’s never met you before and doesn’t know what you like to be called? I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. You’re a whiner, Bella.
Their interactions start off alright. Jacob is the son of the guy Charlie bought the truck from, and they get to talking about cars for a little. Jacob builds cars in his spare time using spare parts. At one point, the conversation turns to the Cullens, and another one of the Quileute boys quickly closes the subject by solidly telling everyone that the Cullens don’t come to La Push. Intrigued, Bella decides to try to get more information out of Jacob. And so she starts flirting with him, making pretty faces to get him to talk.
Yeah, this is pretty blatant manipulation on her part. It’s not even that hard, all things considered. Look at how fast Jacob caves:
“What was he saying about the doctor’s family?” I asked innocently.
“The Cullens? Oh, they’re not supposed to come onto the reservation.” [Jacob] looked away, out toward James Island, as he confirmed what I’d thought I’d heard in Sam’s voice.
“Why not?”
He glanced back at me, biting his lip. “Oops. I’m not supposed to say anything about that.”
“Oh, I won’t tell anyone, I’m just curious.” I tried to make my smile alluring, wondering if I was laying it on too thick.
He smiled back, though, looking allured. (Me, here: minus one point for using variants of “alluring” so close together.) Then he lifted one eyebrow and his voice was even huskier. “Do you like scary stories?” he asked ominously.
Well, that was easy. I’m wondering how this secret stayed a secret for so long if it’s that easy to get out of somebody. Yeah, I know, teenage boy, pretty girl, but teenage boys aren’t that ruled by hormones.
Jacob relates a few stories to Bella about where the Quileutes came from, such as being descended from wolves or the Quileutes using their canoes to survive the Biblical Flood (no, not a Great Flood, Jacob explicitly mentions Noah). That casual merging of two very different mythologies seemed unlikely to me and briefly jarred me out of the story, to the point that I actually did some research on it. It seems like some Quileute legends have a great flood, but nothing related to Noah. Anyway, while telling these stories, it’s clear that Jacob doesn’t believe them. Why not? They’re the history of the culture he grew up in, given to him by people he has no reason to doubt. Yeah, rebellious teenager phase, but still. He feels more like a WASP visiting a Native American reservation than a Native American who grew up there. (As a side note, we don’t know he’s a werewolf yet, so we’re don’t know if he can shapeshift at this point in his life. If he can, I’m pretty sure he should at least take the “descended from wolves” story a bit more seriously.)
This segues into stories about the “cold ones” (aka vampires), enemies of wolves that could turn into men, like the Quileutes’ ancestors, the werewolves (although since werewolves are men than turn into wolves, shouldn’t wolves that turn into men be heoruweargmen? “Heoruwearg” being Old English for “bloodthirsty wolf”, as the “wer” in werewolf is Old English for “man”. Dang, I’m geeky). Jacob’s great-grandfather, one of the tribal elders at the time, made a treaty with a certain group of cold ones that kept them off the Quileutes’ land, as this particular group, unlike others, didn’t try to hunt humans. And these cold ones were the Cullens.
I feel like this reveal would’ve had more weight if it hadn’t been included in the blurb of the book itself.
Oh, and immediately after this, we get another mention that, no, Jacob shouldn’t be mentioning this:
”Pretty crazy stuff, though, isn’t it? No wonder my dad doesn’t want us to talk about it to anyone.”
I couldn’t control my expression enough to look at him yet. “Don’t worry, I won’t give you away.”
“I guess I just violated the treaty,” he laughed.
You shouldn’t be this blase about doing this! You grew up in this culture! These stories should be real to you! And even if they’re not, why are you so quick to betray your father’s trust?
Bella and Jacob are interrupted by… Well, look:
And then the sound of the beach rocks clattering against each other warned us that someone was approaching. Our heads snapped up at the same time to see Mike and Jessica about fifty yards away, walking toward us.
They can hear rocks clattering against each other… from fifty yards away… over the wind and crashing waves. Uh-huh. Sure. This probably seems like nitpicking (and it probably is), but when writers mention specific numbers like that, I immediately start trying to work out if the numbers match up with reality. I’m a mathy sort of person. These numbers don’t match up.
With rain soon approaching, the beach trip wraps up, and Jacob says he’ll visit Bella the next time his father visits Charlie. Apparently, Bella’s really good at flirting.
Not a bad chapter, but, like I said, it would’ve had more of an impact if “Edward is a vampire” hadn’t been spoiled on the back of the book.
I mean, at least something happened in this chapter, right?
shouldn't
Huh. So she's capable of being descriptive of things that aren't boys. Did not know that.
I find specifics, especially concerning exact numbers, to generally be better left out. The audience only needs enough to understand what is happening and to be able to paint a picture. They can and should be allowed to fill in the details in their own mind.
I read some Worm fanfiction and cringe every time I see exact numbers of bugs given.
Another one is fight scenes when authors start specifying about using their left-hand to swing a horizontal hook into the right side of their ribs when they could just as easily and much more succinctly say, "he struck me in the ribs, knocking my breath out."
You mentioning -1 point was probably just for effect but if not I would be interested if you actually use a point system when reading fiction. I haven't found anyone else that does this. It allows me to get a solid rating for work of fiction that can be directly and easily compared to any other work of fiction.
That repetition of 'allure' would have been perfectly fine. If this were a comedy.
So, the rest of the story is about Bella wanting to crack open a cold one? :V
Quick nitpick: that WAS a long, awkward sentence, but it wasn't a run-on. All the necessary nouns, predicates, and -- most importantly -- conjunctions were there.