Opening of a 3500 word Space Opera story.
ŇDamn, where did that come from?Ó
Lieutenant Jim Hammer jinked his starfighter to one side. A nanosecond later a powerless kinetic missile shot through his original position. Jim sighted on the ship the ŇkinÓ originated from.
His mouth dropped open as he found the ship. The palms of his hands started to feel clammy. Instead of a smaller anti-fighter gunship, a Grecian battlecruiser filled his screen. The Grecians, a humanoid race whose culture is based on a concept similar to the ancient Greek empire wanted to conquer Earth and all its colonies.
The thing looked like a huge stylized spearhead. A small burst of light caught his attention. A glance at the sidebar graphics...
The next is... don't be telling us so baldly about the Grecians, especially right up front. Give us more insight into why the POV dude is afraid, not just a flat statement about opposition.
Third, unless "Grecians" is a label hung on 'em by humans, who don't know or can't pronounce what they call themselves, that needs to be changed. Unless the object is very 1950s style, where all aliens are just foreign humans in disguise.
But how do you not copy and paste from a text in this context? Second it seems to depend on which computer someone has. Some people get the odd characters and some don't. I get them some times here. Used to get them every so often in E-mails but that seems to have been fixed.
I have read published stories where the enemy is listed right at the beginning of course that doesn't mean I can do it right.
And I tried to imply that the term was made up by the description of the aliens but more than likely that isn't enough.
[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited April 03, 2011).]
That aside, even though the first scene appears to be a space battle, I found it lacking tension. The enemy doesn't seem particularly threatening, especially since their weapon fires a "powerless kinetic missile." Why is the missile powerless? Was that a typo?
The odd codes are probably because you've got curly quotes turned on, given that they replace what I'd take to be quote marks otherwise. Some programs, notably Word, don't do a clean strip of special characters, and you get printer control codes instead.
quote:
His mouth dropped open as he found the ship. The palms of his hands started to feel clammy. A Grecian battlecruiser filled his screen. The thing looked like a huge stylized spearhead. A small burst of light caught his attention. A glance at the sidebar graphics...
[This message has been edited by NoTimeToThink (edited April 03, 2011).]
Thanks for the efforts. I'll see what I can do about the gatecrashing characters.
And Reziac is basically correct about the Kinetic missiles. They are a fairly new weapon used by Space Opera writers but they may have been around even longer than "fairly new". In one book they are junk metal. Can't be used so they either recycle them or shot them at enemy installations. In one case they were objects made to be "shot" at the enemy. No drives or rockets, no electronics, no extra radiation, nothing to detect. The object might be able to be detected but its so small that it's only "seen" at the last moment. In one story just aim the fighter at the target, open the doors and slow the fighter. The Kin keeps going at the originally speed.
Of course you have to aim them just right or launch bunch of them, if the target avoids one it moves into the path of another.
With my MC"s full title and name..again I was using what I have seen in published stories. Which might not fit every reader or as usual I'm not doing right.
Crits aside, I liked your opening and would have kept on going.
And given that the flinging ship is still detectable, wouldn't that rather telegraph the trajectory? The fact that the flinger slows down would tell ya... yep, rock on the way.
quote:
“Damn, where did that come from?”
Lieutenant Jim Hammer jinked his starfighter to one side. A nanosecond later several small kinetic missiles shot through his original position. Jim sighted on the ship the “kin” originated from.
His mouth dropped open as he found the ship. His palms went clammy. A Grecian battlecruiser filled his screen. The thing looked like a huge stylized spearhead. A small burst of light caught his attention. A glance at the sidebar graphics...
Tighter, IMO better, and gives you more room in your 13. Still, interesting. I like the “Lieutenant Jim Hammer”; it seems to fit the style.
Some of that was to try to Show his fear without Telling it.
The slang term is kin which I use after the first comment about what they are. The phrase powerless kinetic missile is redundant but I added the powerless for those who may not know what a kinetic missile is.
Looks like I was wrong about the Grecians, I tried to keep as short as possible but not short enough, it looks like.
And looks like I got the name right at least that was one thing I did right.
[This message has been edited by LDWriter2 (edited April 04, 2011).]