• Here Thar Be Sarpents, Main Page
 • Here Thar Be Sarpents, Part One
 • Here Thar Be Sarpents, Part Two

Reading this again, nine years after I last updated it, was odd.  I enjoyed lots of it, much more than I'd expected to.  Some of the clever writing stuff, the similes and metaphors, were very good, and I liked the events.

The story was called "Ajar" as a working title, for obvious reasons.  I don't recall where the basic idea of it came from, since I wrote it over ten years ago, back when I was doing a short story a month or more, so no idea where I got so many different ideas.  In some ways, the more you write the more ideas you have for writing, since you think of things and want to work them into other stories.  Like you are in a place of concentration about writing, and as you write you stay in that place more often; when you aren't writing you are thinking about what you've been writing, and everything you see in the world becomes something cool to stick into a story as an element of it.

There are a lot of elements in this tale.

Mirror Tunnels

I've always been fascinated with the tunnel vision you get with two mirrors lined up, and how far you can see.  The way it appears to curve.  Ideally you have a big mirror, and another one on a door, so you can open or close the door and change the angle of the reflection, thus bending the tunnel to the left or right.  You can usually see farther that way, without your head in the middle of the view. As to whether or not something would come up from the depths of the tunnel...

I think originally I thought of monsters or little demons or something coming up from the back, killing the reflection in each one.  Or the reflection fighting them, trying to escape, but dying.  However writing and then modern day rewriting this, it seemed better to just have some weird darkness.  If the reflections had been alive and fighting the darkness it would have implied that there were multiple versions of you in the mirrors, with consciousness of their own.

Not that it makes any sense as it is, but oh well.

Puzzles

The puzzles are not really used for much, and the metaphor of Robert working them to help him understand himself isn't really developed much.  So it's more of a nervous habit?  But he's clearly a genius at them, so he has some higher level of perception on things. But if he's been possessed or taken over or whatever by the black things from the mirror, why do they still do the puzzles?  And why do they try to have sex with Julie, rather than just tossing her into the closet in the first place?  Like they wanted to see if they could?

The puzzles are probably from another short story I read long ago.  I don't remember who it was by, or what collection I saw it in, but I do remember reading about a guy who collected mystery objects, trying to figure out what they did.  It wasn't puzzles or Rubik's Cubes though, it was like old office machines or carved eggs, but he ended up with weird, apparently extraterrestrial objects, and I might have been somewhat inspired by that.  I know I read a story with that, but I'm not positive I didn't write or have the idea for this one first.  It's a pretty minor part of the story anyway.

Bad Sex

I can recall having some bruises from heavy bumping in sex, and everyone has had times where it doesn't seem a real good rhythm is easily-established, or there is some fumbling at the threshold, so to speak.  Hopefully not as bad as in this story though.

The sex was a bit vaguer in the old college version.  Rewriting it some now, I added a paragraph and made it more graphic.  Not "graphic" in terms of erotic or sexual, just in terms of describing their physical actions a bit more clearly.  Perhaps it would work better if I just left it metaphorical; there were mentions of "it was like trying to put a square peg into a round hold" in the story previously, and while that's sort of a humorous pun, I thought it would be easier for the reader to follow if I made it more descriptive.

Ending

As with many of my stories, I don't think I knew how this was going to end before it got there.  I had the idea for the mirrors, and the reflection thing, and the mirrored closet, but I wasn't sure how Robert was going to be, and made up him vanishing into the mirror when I got there. 

I had always planned for Julie to escape, rescued at the last second.  Initially it was by cops some neighbor had called, but rewriting it now in March 2002, I changed it to the super and rent-a-cop, due to having lived in apartments and knowing how things work in them now (which I hadn't at the time I wrote the story), and also knowing just how fast police respond to calls for anything less than a body in the street. 

The whole scene in the closet I rewrote almost completely now.  None of the details really changed; she was locked in, she threw herself at the walls, the blackness started coming up, etc.  But she was a lot more introspective, and more self-obsessed.  At the time I wrote this long ago I was new to writing female characters, and still thought too much like a man (I still might, but I'm better at it.) so my females would always be thinking about their bodily processes or appearance in somewhat observational terms.  Like describing their nipples feeling or appearance, or shape of their pubic hair, etc.

It just wasn't very realistic, didn't seem like a person who was talking about themselves.  It was more like a man writing a woman trying to think too much about how she looked, rather than just going with her personality and actions.

So I cut out a few "my tits are too small" thoughts from Julie, and put in more general feelings.  I made the escape a bit closer too, and the mirror smashing.  Initially the cops were rather ogling her naked body, and she wasn't bleeding so much, and they seemed a bit too horn dog.  So I made the two guys here be more businesslike.

Also for some reason I had one cop saying that the manager had told them the apartment was empty, that no one lived in that unit.

Which is sort of *insert Twilight Zone music here*, but seemed sort of dumb in retrospect.  I mean how did Robert, or the mirror creature, or whatever, get all the bookshelves and furniture and stuff in?  And how does he come and go?  And apparently Julie has known him for months, been there before.  How could the apt have been empty for that long unless it was all in her mind, or illusion or something?  And I didn't want to get that magical.

Dissatisfaction

I'm not entirely happy with it now.  But that's true for everything I've ever written.

I think Robert talks a bit too much, w/o interruption.  Yes he's sort of mesmerizing, and certainly talking about interesting and weird things, but it's just speech after speech.  I much prefer that to the normal sort of exposition, "Phil sat down, and thought back to when the trouble had first begun..." which always seems really corny.

I also don't like it when writers cheat on that, describe it all in someone's thoughts, which means they can take different PoVs, or do a fast summary just for the reader, and then say something like, "Robert told Julie all about his dead family." in the actual book.  I'd much rather have it explained to the reader at the same time as another character, since I'm not real into the full omniscient stuff.  That's a total writer's crutch, and is vastly overused by hack novelists.

Many of whom are on the best seller list perpetually. *cough*

Feedback

I did submit this story to my writing class in college at some point, I remember that much, but I have no recollection of anything they said in feedback on it.

Generally on my stories I'd get mostly praise, with some nit picking, and some objections to the explicitness of the sex and/or violence, depending on the tale.  I don't recall a lot of criticism of deeper story elements, the type I'd like to hear other people's opinions on, but it's been 8 or 9 years since those classes, so I really don't remember.

I have all of my old class papers in boxes in a closet at my dad's house, at some point once I get a bunch of stories up on this site I might dig through them and find the actual copies I made and got back from everyone with their notes on stuff.  However I'm rewriting some or a lot of probably every story I post here, depending on how much I feel they need to be improved before posting, so it's quite likely that whatever the other students though were the weaknesses back then I'll agree with now.

Read the horror short story. Gaa. Will not look in mirrors for a long time. *shiver*

Just minor feedback from the mind of a Lit. Crit student. Somehow, I didn't picture Julie as so.. flaky? I mean, it would take a lot for a woman to criticize her body when she's trapped in a sexual pervert's closet, no? The effect it created was great; it felt like she was on the brink of insanity, but still flailing to regain control of herself. The paragraph with her mother in it, I felt, was right on.

IMHO the thing that broke that sort of.. consistency between the transition from insanity to sanity was the Stairmaster comment. The comments about her "belly and butt" getting too large felt out of place.. maybe because they're too vague? For one thing, you have a lot of detail in your work; don't stop now... (Do you hear that from women a lot?) ;) and second, women are a lot harsher with themselves about their bodies. So it's more likely for a character like Julie to notice.. say, the gross expanse of white thighs, the pale, almost waxy skin stretched too finely around the legs.

More than anything, imho, she'd feel exposed. There is something to be said about how naked you feel when someone you care about betrays you. By turning into a psychotic fucknut, for instance. ;) She might feel like uhm.. shadows of light, cast within reflection upon reflection, pursued her, finding her utterly exposed, to writhe upon her body. Or something. /shrug Just thought you could explore that feeling people get when they're exposed, without protection, and someone's watching.. makes skin crawl. Course then you can't say "makes skin crawl" because that'd be a cheesy cliché, and we all know you're so much better than cheesy clichés. ;)

Some good points.

Another mail, from Boidea:

I read the first 5 or so paragraphs of 'Here Thar Be Sarpents' and thought sex with a partially retarded person was just stupid. I presumed the rest of it was quite dodgy. Your fate would have seemed to end there as I read no more of your writing for many weeks. Yet I got so bored I have a lvl 41 necro now, and I thought to give 'Sarpents' another go.

So I managed the intro again and found the ending quite good. I enjoy stories that turn out with a main char turning around. I didn't expect Robert to be that way at the end. I really enjoyed it. I thought it would be better if there were more depth to Julie. That is, I thought she should have noticed the queer features of the door and the smells on her own, w/o Robert's assistance. Then the closet thing would have completely freaked me out, and it would have been an even bigger shock.

 

Comments from Mr. Punch, April 20, 2003.

I was enjoying the read, having a good time with this strange puzzle-man trying to figure out, what was it that drove him to solve puzzles of all kinds. But then the story hit me in the face and knocked my guts out. I can't remember reading anything that gave me the creeps like that mirror-things. Perhaps it has something to do with me having a lil' phobia of seeing things in mirrors, that shouldn't be there. Read a story about a star who was haunted by his own henchman in his mirrors as a kid and never quite got over it *G*.

Summary:
I got goose-bumbs all over my arms and I don't exaggerate here. This was really f*****g awesome!

I read the discussion afterwards and there was a point in the story that I may have misread or misinterpreted when reading. The way she thinks of herself as being "fat" when she looks at her image gave me another impression as the other reader quoted there. Perhaps you didn't intend to bring it up the way I understood it. I never saw that remark as "a females POV", I saw it as some kind of pregnancy. I could imagine her escaping the blackness in the mirrors, but not the, err let's call it the dark semen she got infected with, when sleeping with her ghostly lover.

Well, maybe it's just me, but it gave the story a nice touch.

October 20, 2003

Okay, just want to check something, to see if I am insane or not. Is your story Here Thar Be Sarpents related in any way to the short story by Stephen King, Here There Be Tygers? I know there is nothing the same with their stories, but, isn't the name related? Is one possibly named after the other? Please tell me, or my head might explode.

one confused puppy

The answer, as best I remember how I titled a story I wrote over a decade ago, is no.  I didn't have any thought of the King story (the plot, characters, events, etc of my story have zero overlap with King's) back when I wrote it, or at least I don't remember any.  I had the story idea in mind for a while before I wrote the story (it was more a case of having a cool story title and wanting to write a story that I could stick it on, and finding a somewhat roundabout way to do so with this story), with it referring to the way old (fictional?) maps marked uncharted areas of ocean "Here thar be sarpents." with the old-fashioned, sailor-esque spelling of "there" and "serpents" used intentionally.

As you know if you've read the story, there is very little connection between the story title and the events in it; no sailors or sarpents or monsters.  I just used the title to relate to the unknown and dangerous undercurrents of one of the characters in the story, and as I admitted a paragraph ago, it was a bit of a stretch.  Since I like the title a lot more than the story, I should probably re-title that old one, and keep that title in mind for some new story that it would be more appropriate for.

The interesting thing about his email is that it got me thinking.  Did I have some influence from the King title?  I had surely read that story before I wrote my story, since I discovered King (and horror fiction in general) in the early 80's, when I was young and impressionable, and read everything King had written up to that time in very short order, and soaked up Koontz and Barker and several other lesser-known authors as well.

However since I'm bad with story titles (I seldom like the ones I think of, and I seldom remember the ones other authors use) there is no way I would have remembered that King had ever written anything with "here there be" as part of the title.  I remembered the story once I read this email, but only because of the mention of tigers, since that is the only King story ever to feature such a creature.

So I don't think I did, but I really have no way to prove that yes or no, this long after the fact.

 • Here Thar Be Sarpents, Main Page
 • Here Thar Be Sarpents, Part One
 • Here Thar Be Sarpents, Part Two
 • Here That Be Sarpents, Notes

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