The White Rabbit

Edoc'sil

One day I'll find the words.
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Hey chronners, I've been trying to work on my omnipresent narrator over the last few days. This is the opening for a story I started writing and I would like to know:

Does the narrator work?
Is the protagonist too silent?
What is the (little though it is) dialogue between characters like? Does it seem real or forced or cliche?

Again what I'm mostly interested in is if you like or don't like it though. So, here is:

The White Rabbit

“Order! ORDER!” BangBangBang! The gavel attacked the block with such ferocity that it stunned the crowd into silence. “Let me get this straight. You, the accused, stand before us today with the audacity to say that what transpired was not your fault, at all?”


Standing in front of the judge, his hands raised in supplication, the clinking of chains accompanying every beseeching word, was a man utterly defeated. Dressed in the standard prisoner’s outfit of black and white horizontal stripes, he knew that his story was hard, difficult, maybe even impossible to believe but still, the prisoner pleaded.

“That’s right yur honour, I didn’t do nuffin’! It was that bloody rabbit!” The supposed criminal looked up at the judge from his place in the box with a look of pure despair, eyes brimming with tears.


Shaking his head hard enough to make his jowls quiver the judge retorted “I find that extremely difficult to believe. We don’t live in some fantasy novel!” After this outburst the judge sighed, resting his oversized chin in his palm. Rolling his eyes the judge then thought that he had become tired with this man’s clearly drink-addled brain. “I think I’ve heard all I need to make a deliberation on this ludicrous case. Take him away.” And with that the judge waved a podgy hand at the bailiffs, who grabbed the protesting criminal under the arms.


“No! Wait! Yur WRONG!” Cried the man, his voice straining to hysteria as his boots squeaked along the parquetted lino flooring. His shouts ignored by the two burly bailiffs dragging him to his fate.


Just outside the window of the courtroom; a tiny pink whiskered nose was twitching, behind this cute little nose were two beady black eyes, behind these eyes were two long white furry ears, they were pricked up listening to the shouts of the condemned man.


After the yells of the objecting convict had been lessened by the slam of his cell door. The fluffy white bunny dropped forwards from its hind legs, and began hopping its way across the grass surrounding the courthouse. Reaching the road, it gave a quick look either way, and jumped down the curb. Quickly scurrying across to the awaiting bushes. It kicked dust into the air trying to squeeze through a small hole in the brambles. Finally managing it he shot through the hole into the twilight under the bushes, the rabbit found himself at a brick wall. It followed this wall it until it came to the edge of a wide gravel driveway.


Peaking that pink nose out from under the bush, it swivelled its head left, then right. Satisfied, the rabbit dashed down the driveway towards the house. The house was one of those modern mock Tudor houses, whose heritage was only given away by the lack of any kind of dirt, and the solar panels on the roof. The rabbit ran down the side of the house and jumped through the bars of the ornate metal fencing, hurrying through to the garden.


“Hoppy! Hoppy where are youuu!?” Came a little girl’s sing-songy voice from the garden. sh*t. Thought the cute little bunny. “Muuuuum, I think hoppy got out of his cage again! Hoppyyy!” Came the voice, a little more desperate this time. The white rabbit froze when he rounded the corner and saw the little girl.


She was still of the age to carry around her puppy fat and was wearing a white dress with pink and yellow embroidered flowers. Her shoulder length blonde hair tied by two pink scrunchies, into pigtails at the sides of her head.


“There you are Hoppy! Bad bunny!” Chastised the girl, scooping the struggling white bundle into her arms. She gave him a light squeeze and kissed his soft fur, burying her face into it. When the rabbit had calmed, she walked over to his hutch up against the wall of the house and placed him gently inside, flicking the catch back into place.


“I have no idea how you keep getting out little Hoppy woppy.” She said, hands on her hips. The small rabbit peered out at her from behind the metal grille, almost reproachfully, although it’s often hard to tell with animals.


“Celia, your dinner’s ready!” Shouted the girl’s mother from inside the house,


“Okay Mum!” Called the girl, turning back to the cage she imitated her mother and wagged a finger at the rabbit, who was now munching on some leftover carrot. Then she said, “Don’t you try and escape Hoppy, you hear me?”


The rabbit continued to ignore the girl, although this didn’t faze her in the slightest and she ran off, inside the house. The sun was beginning to wane, inside the rapidly darkening cage the white rabbit sat, and plotted.


The next day, the morning’s fog only just beginning to lift, the little girl skipped outside with some floppy lettuce, grasped in her small chubby hand. The door to the hutch was wide open, small gusts of wind causing it to swing back and forth with a painful creaking noise.


“Hoppy! HOPPY!” The little girl cried out, but no white bundle hopped out onto the lawn. A window upstairs was thrown open and a familiar portly man thrust his head out of it.


“Celia, please would you keep it down!” Yelled the man, the irony lost on him that he was much louder than the little girl.


“Daddy! Hoppy’s escaped again!” She blubbered, snot beginning to sprint from one nostril.


“I don’t have time for this, I have to be in court in an hour and I haven’t even had a chance to have breakfast!” The judge then slammed the window closed, causing the panes to rattle in their frame.


From under one of the bushes in the garden a small white head and two unblinking eyes stared out at this scene. Within several hops the cute little bunny was back at the gravel driveway leading to the road. After stopping to scratch a particularly bothersome itch, the rabbit jumped out of the entrance way to the driveway and began the journey to his next great heist, breaking into the court to have a little chat with his "friend".
 
@Edoc'sil
Nice piece.
As well written, it flows in terms of scene, exposition, dialogue and description. The Narrator works for me, although it often feels like an intro when narrated to me. I'm not sure I'd be happy with a full novel like that these days, but that's just personal preference only of course, and you may yet prove me wrong in narrating a beautiful piece.
The protagonist is a little silent, yes, but I don't know where the story goes from here, and that may change on the very next page. But as you've explicitly asked I suspect more of the protagonist could be revealed by you.
There is some recognisable dialogue/scene depiction here, but would I call it cliche'? Maybe, maybe not. I find Cliche is often pointed out when a story abuses the time served relevance of those interests (recognisable human traits and human endeavour). When a story owns all in its pages, I will happily wallow in it.
In not knowing where this goes, I'd struggle to comment further.

Do I like it? The answer is a solid yes; I'm intrigued where it goes, and your style invites further reading, with concise description owning that flow.

Thanx for sharing
P
 
I like this. It sets up an interesting premise that encourages the reader to continue. I especially like the first sentence, it serves as a good hook to encourage reading the story. Concerning the questions.

Does the narrator work? I felt there were three occasions where the story fell out of narrator voice and jumped inside character's heads.
Dressed in the standard prisoner’s outfit of black and white horizontal stripes, he knew that his story was hard, difficult, maybe even impossible to believe but still, the prisoner pleaded.
Rolling his eyes the judge then thought that he had become tired with this man’s clearly drink-addled brain.
After stopping to scratch a particularly bothersome itch, the rabbit jumped out of the entrance way to the driveway and began the journey to his next great heist, breaking into the court to have a little chat with his "friend".
I think those excursions could simply be deleted without affecting the story.

Is the protagonist too silent? If protagonist refers to the rabbit, then no. With a narrator pov and a rabbit as a main character, no verbalization seems appropriate.

What is the (little though it is) dialogue between characters like? Does it seem real or forced or cliche? What is there works, but I think the dialog might be enhanced if it was grouped together. In the courtroom, try putting the dialog lines one after the other, then take the remaining descriptive text and include it before or after the dialog block or omit it entirely if it does not truly enhance the story. Just a thought, try this in a scratch area to see how you like it before committing to it in the main story. May also try the same thing with the girl's dialog in the rabbit's return section and then in the rabbit's escape section.

One minor syntax note, the pronouns used for the rabbit alternate between it and he. Either works, probably better to standardize on onw or the other.

All things considered, this seems to set up an interesting story line for readers to follow.
 
I found this interesting and the entire story seems well told.
You declare that you are doing Omniscient POV, which it is; however, you don't say whether you are going for Subjective or Objective.

Objective would be like a camera and audio recording. That means it would only show us the expression of the characters with no thoughts or commentary about what they might be feeling. Where it comes in handy to show what the cameras sees and let the reader deduce the emotional content.

Subjective lets you fly down into thoughts and feelings and I wasn't sure that that was what you were doing until you dipped into the thoughts of the rabbit and then I had to go with subjective. Sure there are other clues from the start however some people might accept some of those even in an objective narrator. Personally as soon as the narrator starts attributing senses to the characters then it is Subjective.

So basically this is just an observation that you might next time be certain that we know that you are gong for Subjective Omniscient.

That said the only improvement would be, now that you are doing subjective, you could utilize the subjective better to enhance the story.

Just as an example for Objective--if that had been your goal.

“Order! ORDER!” The gavel attacked the block with such ferocity that it stunned the crowd into silence.
Even though this works sometimes for both Omni-Objective and Subjective; for objective it would be more concise to perhaps go this route(also I think it would be helpful to let us know the speaker is a judge.).

“Order! ORDER!” The Judge struck the block, the gavel created a rapid succession of bang bang bang and the crowd lapsed to sudden silence.
Next:
The supposed criminal looked up at the judge from his place in the box with a look of pure despair, eyes brimming with tears.
Again this might work for some readers as both objective and subjective; if it were objective.
What does despair look like that the objective narrator know that from exhaustion, doubt or even guilt?
In this instance--accused might work better than supposed criminal.

The accused looked up at the judge from his place in the box rocking, trembling with a pained stare: eyes brimming with tears.

Up until this next paragraph, many readers might accept this as Omni-objective.
Shaking his head hard enough to make his jowls quiver the judge retorted “I find that extremely difficult to believe. We don’t live in some fantasy novel!” After this outburst the judge sighed, resting his oversized chin in his palm. Rolling his eyes the judge then thought that he had become tired with this man’s clearly drink-addled brain. “I think I’ve heard all I need to make a deliberation on this ludicrous case. Take him away.” And with that the judge waved a podgy hand at the bailiffs, who grabbed the protesting criminal under the arms.
However right here--Rolling his eyes the judge then thought that he had become tired with this man’s clearly drink-addled brain.--we have the judges thoughts, so I decided it has to be subjective.
If you were going for Objective.
Rolling his eyes, the judge gave a dismissive wave and cleared his throat.

So, you now are doing Subjective Omniscient.
If that's what you are going for then you might improve things by putting more feeling into the areas that tend to rebound into Objective.

However, if you are going for Objective and more distance, you should take out the thoughts and probably consider reducing feelings to showing what they look like.
 
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@Paul Meccano - thank you for reading! Definitely gives me some good ideas to work on.

@Wayne Mack - That was really in depth and a lot of help. Every sentence you highlighted was edited in the final draft when I wasn't too sure if to expand on or include things. Seems like they don't really sit well, as suspected, and it's back to the drawing board, haha!

@tinkerdan - thanks so much! I was definitely thinking the same things as I was writing but didn't have the ideas to express them in my head. I knew something was off with the narrator in places, but couldn't put my finger on it. With this information I can improve it for next time, thanks! (I think I'm gonna go with objective)
 
I would suggest reading this.

Using Third Person Omniscient POV

Then maybe anything else you can find on the web related to Omniscient POV.
 
For me, and I'm a picky sod, there were a few places I'd make comments regarding the realism, but you haven't asked for a line by line so I didn't.

I found the rabbit's journey odd - Rushed and yet too long somehow.

The villain's claim to be innocent didn't work as whatever he's accused of he must have actually done the deed because the rabbit is clearly not capable of bashing someones head in with an iron bar or whatever so that won't work IMO.

I found the girl annoying and too cliched.

Could the judge be too old for so young a daughter?

Having a chat is not a great heist.

It needs needs the escape method - having gone to such great length to describe the journey how it gets out is a must have IMO.

I found the silence of the rabbit a bit too quiet - Does this ever go first person or could it even be better as rabbit first person? It would get over all those nose twitches that the villain has to somehow interpret: or are we talking mind control - in which case wouldn't there be some interaction in the courtroom?

Hope I helped

Tein
 
@TheEndIsNigh - you definitely helped!

I felt the same way about the journey, I wanted the journey to be relatively short to make it more believable in the plot but maybe I could describe some more running through houses/gardens to give it some bite.

So the criminal in the beginning is not actually the villain, if anything the rabbit is the villain/protagonist. There was no physical hitting of people in his crime, the crime is not described, it was the theft of something. The rabbit is supposed to be "highly" intelligent.

The issue with the silence is something I struggled with. It comes back to if I want to narrate with subjective or objective omniscience. If I use objective omniscient narrator as I am tempted to, I may struggle to give the thoughts of a silent protagonist. I don't know yet is the answer I feel I want to give, more going over this is needed.
 
@Edoc'sil

I suppose it depends on the length of the story. If it's a novel then you can spend a lot more time and give us a an insight into the rabbits thought processes. What concerns him, the dogs, cats and traps on his journey. His real opinion of the other characters in the tale and how they figure in the plot.

The violence was meant to be an extreme possibility and I got the rabbit was the cleverest character in the story. However, there must be something that makes the criminal blame the rabbit, so some form of villain rabbit interaction has happened. I assume there'll be a

"what are you doing you're going to get me in trouble"

scene somewhere in the story else how would he know the rabbit had fitted him up.

I didn't think the acent aspect worked - It was a good attempt, but accents are really difficult to pull of unless you're a natural speaker IMO.

Hope I helped again

Tein
 
I am new to this so sorry if I cant help much.
I laughed at the irony of
We don’t live in some fantasy novel!
The cliff hanger at the end made me want to read on especially when combined with sarcastic
of which also added to the ominous tone.
Although it is not the first time I have seen this idea, I like the bunny who is meant to seem cute and innocent but is ,in this case, much more than that.
I am not sure if this would work, but as this is some strange evil bunny may be he could rant to him self now and again?
 
Good ideas @StrayApostateFromIronAbby, I think I want the rabbit to be silent, he's very clever but doesn't have the vocal cords for speech.

The narrator is kind of distant to him too, to keep suspense I don't want to be dipping into his thoughts too much.

I haven't actually picked this up since I posted it here, been working on other things. I wanted to read the resources that others have given me before I do. My other project is 1st person POV so when I have time I'll get back to this one.

Thanks for reading!
 
So this is interesting! I'm not certain what's happening here, and I'm intrigued enough that I'd keep reading.

There are a few things you can do to clean up the writing, if you wish! Some words are misspelled (In accents, it would be "Yer honor" not "Yur"), and words like "Peaking" instead of "peeking." However, I think the biggest thing for you is an overuse of what's called "passive voice."

This article really cleared it up for me: Active vs. Passive Voice: The Complete Guide

It's the difference between "Beth stubbed her toe" (active) and "A toe was stubbed by Beth" (passive). In one, the subject is DOING something. In the other, the subject isn't actually acting, but being acted against.

It's not always bad to use the passive voice, but it happened a little too much here for the action to move forward. Fortunately, it's not hard to fix! All the bones are there, and the words just need a little rearranging.

Keep writing! I want to know what nefarious bunny plots come next! :)
 
@thisreidwrites - Thanks for reading! And thanks for the resource, I'll look over it when I get a minute. People tell me time and time again about being too passive. I would like to think in the weeks since I wrote this, I have made some strides towards that end. I'll rewrite this soon, and attempt to correct the issues.
 

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