Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Working title

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Posted by Jonny Woopants (Member # 3004) on :

I'm still trying to re-work my piece on the Gaia hypothesis, length now undetermined. Any comments welcome on first 13 - for those that were interested looking at the whole thing first time round- the 1st chapter of the reworked version is available:

A light grit storm peppered the buffer-fields of the UNS Fortitude as it flickered into existence six hundred thousand kilometres from the rendezvous point. Light as the storm was, proximity alarms squawked insistently throughout the ship, demanding the crew’s undivided attention. The term between a hard place and a rock seemed especially pertinent to Captain George .K Spooner as he barked orders down the intercom and compared their projected position to reality. On one side, a great chunk of iron ore and water ice tumbled past the bow a little too close for comfort, on the other the outer fringes of the Cyst loomed, tugging lightly on the vessels inertia.
On reflection, the Captain would of preferred to smash the cylindrical bulk of his ship into a wall of solid rock than materialise any closer to that sick region of space

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I'm not hooked, because although the Captain doesn't like this region of space, I don't think that he or the author is worried, and therefore I don't think I should be. I'm not sure how to fix this.

BTW despite Star Trek, I have a hard time believing in "storms" in space; but I could believe in dust clouds.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

The story is told too distant from any character to draw someone in.
I'd lose the rock and a hard place cliche. Its too early in the story to use a cliche.
Rather than describe the ship popping back in from an external view, describe the phenomenon from the view point of the captain.

You are thinking 2-d in 3-d space. You have left and right covered, but what about up and down? four out of six options are open.

six hundred thousand kilometers is unbelievably inaccurate for a hyper-warp drive. That kind of inaccuracy would land too many people inside stars or planets if they were travelling to a solar system. (Earth is what? 19 thousand kilometers across. Six hundred thousand is bigger than the distance to the moon.) Without using another warp type jump I doubt any ship or the people on board could handle the acceleration effects of making it to the rendevous in a timely manner from there.

Why is the . before the middle initial?

"One one side a chunk passed the bow"

If it moved past the bow, it wasn't on a side, it was in front. And if it moved past, the danger is already gone.

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

Mostly, I thought this worked well. Pantros is right about being careful of indicating 2D thought, although if the ship actually has materialised between two things then a Scylla/Charybdis or devil/deep blue sea or rock/hardplace (I've never heard that phrase done with the hard place first) metaphor can be used, cliche or none.

But the thing that, as an editor, would have stopped me reading and put the story on the junkpile is one of my pet peeves (I keep a whole flock of peeves). The Captain "would HAVE preferred", not "would of preferred".

Oh, and it should be "George K. Spooner", not "George .K Spooner", unless something weird has happened to full stops/periods in the future...

Posted by duv2 (Member # 3026) on :

“kilometers” I think is the spelling no mater the country.

Some questions that come to mind:

Why would a crew need to have undivided attention for a dust cloud? What are the buffer fields for if they don’t rebuff grit?

Can a storm be light? If it can, is a light storm typically composed of great chunks of iron ore and ice?

I am unsure when, in relative time, the captain reflexts; is he thinking it right then, or latter on and wishing he had smashed into a meteor rather then have what is about to happen happen?

Posted by Jonny Woopants (Member # 3004) on :

Thanks for all your comments. You've seemed to have exposed a number of gaping holes that should of been obvious to me. I've reworked the piece again in answer to some of your questions. I hope its not to cheeky in asking you to take a look at the new version within the same thread, I would really like someone to take a look at the whole chapter (approx 900 words) if they have time, I'll gladly return the favour.

Some kind of grit storm peppered the buffer-fields of the UNS Fortitude as it flickered into existence a thousand kilometers from the rendezvous point. In Captain George K. Spooner’s experience this usually meant trouble was just around the corner. Confirmation of this came in the form of proximity alarms squawking insistently throughout the ship, demanding the crew’s undivided attention. The cliche between ‘a rock and a hard place’ seemed especially pertinent as he barked orders down the intercom and compared their projected position to reality. A great chunk of iron ore and water ice had just tumbled past the bow a little too close for comfort, and the outer fringes of the Cyst loomed astern, tugging lightly on the vessels inertia.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I still have the same problem: Captain isn't worried and neither am I.

This is something that might help. Excuse my presumption.

Captain George K. Spooner's ship flickered into existence a thousand kilometers from the rendezvous point, and immediately encountered
some kind of grit storm, peppering its buffer-fields. [Why flip it around? Because we get the character immediately, and we see the action before its consequence. Less jarring.]

It wasn't supposed to be there. [Why add this? Because in your version I had no indication that Spooner was surprised, and if he's not, why didn't he go another way?] What went wrong? Why wasn't it on the charts? The questions would have to wait. One micrometeorite penetrating the ship could explosively decompress ... [or whatever. Point is, I dont' know why I should be scared. Tell me.*]

[In Captain George K. Spooner’s experience this usually meant trouble was just around the corner. *I strike this because it sounds like he's been through meteor showers before, and that implies they're not deadly.*]

The rest is summary, which is fine for parts that are dull and we wouldn't want to read about. But that's clearly not your intention here. Give us what Spooner says, does, perceives, and thinks, in the moment, as in:

Joe Blow, the navigator, said, ...

Captain Spooner said or did ...

Posted by Omakase (Member # 2915) on :

I've read both the first and revised versions and honestly the second is not much improved. It's very close to the first one.

A few things which have not been mentioned, but may improve the opening include
- Get rid of <some kind> of grit storm. The grit storm sounds OK, but "some kind" is too vague and it is very noticeable being the opening line
- water ice? If you just say ice, I would say that implies it's water to a reader. If it's methane or something else then you should say that. Chop out the extra word, it seems trivial but it can make a big difference in the feel of the story.
- the Cyst might tug on the vessel, but it makes no sense to say that it tugs on the vessel's (sic) inertia. Inertia is a description of an objects movement (or lack of) and is a property of the object. It's like saying the sun tugged on the earth's gravity.