Aaron C. Bennett's Writing Journal

The Bearwalker vanishes

The ending was rather disappointing. The plot moved along in its same jerky pattern. This made the final fight with the bearwalker rather odd. How would a person know to grab the medicine pouch off the bearwalker's neck if they hadn't been told? Why would any person jump on a black bear and try to throttle it if they didn't know how to kill a bearwalker? I think the scene of explanation should have come before. That way Richard would have known what he had to do. It just seemed odd, like everything just fell into place. The lead up to the scene didn't really fit either. Richard went through his vision quest. He didn't see the way to defeat the bearwalker. After the vision quest, he knew his life was elsewhere. He was happy and ready to leave his life as an Indian behind. How does that lead into the ending? The framing device of the shaman's burial did not do much for the story. I provided a way to explain Richard's new take on life, but that wasn't what the story should have been about. Who cares about this guy's new happiness with life? An evil force killed his wife, child, unborn child, parents, etc. I think the ending of the story should be more interested in vanquishing this force. The event of the vanquishing should be an intense scene. As it was written, we didn't even know that's what happened until the medicine man explained it after the fact. It falls flat and leaves the reader with an empty feeling. The framing also presents an interesting problem of what happened when. If this whole story is flashback, how come it doesn't have that feel? I think the entire frame could be removed and have made the story much stronger.
The book was not a total waste though. It was very well researched. I bookmarked a few pages to reference. It seemed much more 1st hand than the research that was doen for Climer's Bearwalker book. I got a real sense of how the legends work into the mythos of the bearwalk. I'm glad I read the book for this reason. It was the first book that actually presented the legend in a manner in keeping with the actual traditions. I was glad for that.
I think I'm going to start Thor next. It is a werewolf story told through the point of view of a German Shepard. I want to be able to get the animal parts of my novel down. I enjoy those parts that are through the point of view of the wolf spirit. I want to see how Wayne Smith did it. I also have Howling Mad by Peter David after that. That novel tells the tale of a wolf that was bitten by a werewolf and is forced to live as a human in New York.