Prompt Post No. 17
Welcome to Round 17 of the Inception Kink Meme.
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Mostly people were pissed because whoever it was, they seemed to be getting rich. There was a betting pool about who Anthony Ruske might be. Eames had it on good authority that there was at least five hundred U.S. dollars, one thousand Euros, seven hundred pounds, and ten thousand rupees on it being him. But copies of the book were hard to come by, because no one wanted to support the author by actually buying one, so Eames had to wait until he got home to actually read it.
He had been feeling rather smug about being suspected by so many until he actually read the book, and then he called Ariadne--Ignition’s most ardent advocate--immediately.
“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me it was about me?” he hissed when she answered the phone with her own name, groggy.
“What?” she said.
“Ignition,” he said. “British kid, from Oxford, professor mum, librarian dad--what the fuck.”
“Eames?” she said. “I didn’t know your mom was a professor. And, incidental piece of information here, but it’s two in the morning.”
Eames was actually aware of that. Ariadne was in Paris, he was in London, there was something dripping from his ceiling and his copy of Ignition was splayed open at the foot of his bed. His father would’ve told him to use a bookmark.
“Who the fuck is Anthony Ruske?” he asked, because although he could apologize, that didn’t mean he wanted to. Or would. Or any of that shit.
“I think I only answered my phone because I was sleeping,” Ariadne continued. “And vulnerable.”
“You can’t be a vulnerable sleeper in this business,” Eames said idly “But that’s not the matter at hand.”
“Right,” Ariadne said. “Anthony Ruske. How about we discuss that in the morning.”
“I don’t want--” Eames started, but by then Ariadne had already hung up.
He spent the rest of the evening reading the Wikipedia article about Anthony Ruske over and over, and then fell asleep knowing precisely the same amount of information has he had when he started. Namely, that there was no useful information about Anthony Ruske available. Ignition was his first book. He lived in New York City. All of that was probably bullshit, but even lies could reveal something of the truth, if they were told in any volume. Anthony Ruske apparently knew that.
In Transformation, published in late 2011, Grey learned to change shape in dreams and joined forces with the mysterious American Oliver Lawrence, who had been introduced passingly in the first novel. Together with Lizbet Godoy they began to uncover a plot by World Corps to use dreamwalking to influence consumer habits and bring about a new world order.
In Extraction, 2012, Oliver and Grey stole information from the dreams of the president of World Corps, only for Grey to discover that said president was Oliver’s father. This information was revealed in the frantic aftermath the extraction, when Oliver and Grey are clearly about to kiss out of desperation and joy. At the end of the novel it looked like Grey and Lizbet were going to continue their mission alone. The Greybet shippers let out a roar of joy, but Eames refuses to read their improbably manifestos. Even when they pop up on his Google alert.
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-anonthor
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Well this is a great story, but you switched tenses right there at the end of this and then you (as far as I've read) haven't switched back. I'd love to see this all in one tense and posted as one installment somewhere when you are finished. :)
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Though, on further thought, and because I didn't mean to discount your comments...do people have suggestions for writing events in the past without jarring tense changes? Concrit anon--do you have any suggestions? Is there a way I could've made it clearer that bit was supposed to be in the past?
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Well, hmm. It is really nice for an author to be open to concrit. It is a little sudden and confusing, I'll try to show what I mean. It happens here.
This information was revealed in the frantic aftermath the extraction, when Oliver and Grey are clearly about to kiss out of desperation and joy. At the end of the novel it looked like Grey and Lizbet were going to continue their mission alone. The Greybet shippers let out a roar of joy, but Eames refuses to read their improbably manifestos. Even when they pop up on his Google alert.
Etc. So for the stuff that happened in the past, even if you broke it up into separate chapters or divided it in some way, that might make it less confusing. Because the rest of the tale is told in the past tense before this. It seems like an accident when read this way. The switch comes in the middle of the paragraph with no indication that time has "changed."
So if you break the two sections up and make some indicator like, "and these days" or something along those lines, that might clear it up somewhat.
HTH because like other anon said, this is a great story.
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If I changed that bit to past tense, would this (the beginning of the next part) be less jarring as a transition to present?
And now, Inception. Eames looks at the exclamation marks dashing across the subject line of Ariadne’s e-mail, and dials her number.
The rest of the fic isn't actually in past tense--first 5 paragraphs are also in present. The first transition is here:
That might be getting ahead of the story, though. Eames is not Anthony Ruske; neither is he a writer, nor a historian. Ergo no one should expect him to get the pacing or even the chronology quite right.
The first book in the Dreamers series was published by Viking, released in America in July of 2010.
Thank you, both anons, for your help. That sentence was legit sloppy; I'll fix it in revisions. And no worries if you're busy--this (tense changes indicating past tense) is just something I've been wanting to dialogue about, so I grabbed the chance when I saw it.
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Yeah I think that could be a simple fix just like you said. That could work. And maybe start a new section or at least a new paragraph. Anyway it's still a great fic, can't wait to read the rest!
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