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He was without ears, without eyes, without a sense of time, floating and empty. It was the most restful thing to happen to Isaac in weeks.

What are they doing to me?

The thought was a distant one; he couldn't really bring himself to care. It disturbed him. Isaac was - he would say - a happy man. He had a wife and two children, all beloved. He had just turned fifty, and his doctor thought he might live another century easily, with the new life-extending techology coming in. Just that morning he had been scanning the news headlines and thinking how different they would have been twenty, thirty years ago, in his youth: starvation, poverty, war... how lucky we are. How blessed now, compared to the way the world was going when I was young. We should be thankful.

And yet, he was pathetically grateful for the whim of scientists that removed him, however briefly, from that world. It was, Isaac decided, a perversity of his that should not be encouraged.

He drifted, letting thoughts come and go as they would. It was a moment of peace. It would leave him, as all peace eventually did.

But enough of that. This opening seems competent, but you might be over gaming things (or that could just be the way you prefaced things) by withholding information for just long enough to irritate the reader. I'll use the first sentance as an illustration.

quote:

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He was without ears, without eyes, without a sense of time, floating and empty. It was the most restful thing to happen to Isaac in weeks.

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Isaac floated in a tranquil void, beyond sight, sound, time, and anxieties. So why is your version so much longer? I think it is because you're starting off by withholding his name and his feelings. And you're not doing it for any reason I can see, since those are both revealed in the second sentence.

The same feeling pervades much of this opening. The writing is very competent, but it feels as if you are deliberately keeping the reader in the dark about what you're describing. Isaac knows information that you are refusing to reveal. It's a turnoff, because we have to wait until that information is known before we can understand what is happening. It makes me skim ahead to get information and then go back to read the description.

Never make a reader skim (otherwise known as "leave out the bits that readers tend to skip"). You might think that you're building up anticipation, but really you're just making us tired of reading.

As for me, I didn't have the feeling that this was a bad entry point (though it was obvious from the text that there are several others available). Most stories have a number of valid entry points, I'm fairly indifferent to which one is used, as long as that choice reflects and forwards the dramatic structure.

In the sense you use it here, I start all of my stories in medias res because I don't write contemporary fiction, which is the only fiction that can be written without either having a lenthy prologue explaining all the important deviations from known reality or just plunging in and filling in some of the blanks as you go.

But when you start a story this way, it is even more vital that you do introduce things the moment they become relevent and available in the narrative. Readers of this kind of story are looking for those clues, and they can easily spot where information should be delivered, particularly when it is withheld.

One way in which this may not be the best entry point is that the POV character is experiencing rather total relaxation and you're trying to make the reader feel something quite different. Part of that is the teasing with information that you're going to have to reveal eventually, part of that is some of the phrasing. You don't qualify "It disturbed him." Nor is there anything in the segment to soften the self-judgement that Isaac is pathetic and perverse. The harsh assertions (which aren't qualified or even justified) keep us out of the languorous serenity that is supposed to surround the POV at this point.

Second, excellent first lines. I'm drawn right in up to: "The thought was a distant one;" I have immediate tension here (thought my mind went right to thinking "Alien abduction story.") I would consider removing the question, "What are they doing to me?" and replacing it with something that shows Isaac is doing this of his own free will. The first two sentences are bothersome, because you start with not one, but two passive sentences. The double use of the passive voice at the beginning of the story screams at me that the whole thing is going to be full of 'was' and 'had'. Also, give the guy a name right off. Since we are in his mind immediately, we should also know his name immediately.

Third, I'm getting conflicting messages of his mood. I feel like he's enjoyably relaxed, then that he's disturbed, then that he's blessed and grateful, then he's calling what's happening 'a perversity that should not be encouraged,' then he's having a moment of peace. So, which is it? Pick one and stick to it or clarify why the opposing feelings.

Fourth, the third paragraph has an awful lot of information--too much. And presented too abruptly. We're back to the old 'show vs. tell' argument. But most of this could be shown--such as describing the physical state of his body to show his age.

Fifth, the fourth paragraph presents this rather nice little phrase: 'he was pathetically grateful for the whim of scientists that removed him, however briefly, from that world.' The trouble is, that you hav given power to the scientistic community without then qualifying it. Why is Isaac at the mercy of their whim? Why is he pathetically grateful? And by this point it seems clear that he has at least some understanding of what they are doing to him and why. So a) why the question (above), and b) why not show us?

Sixth, I get the feeling that you want us to consider Isaac as kind of an old guy, a has been, a guy who is being given a breath of life to sustain him. If that's the case, he ought to be older that fifty. Looking down the throat of forty (with it's awful teeth and raspy tongue), fifty doesn't seem all that old to me.

That was the first thought that came to mind when I read this story. Hmmm... he's in some kind of computer-stasis, bereft of a mouth and thinking about the mundane. "The Saturday Evening Post" meets Infocom's "Suspended."

I find it curious that you'd want to get ideas what's going on so you can steal from them, even if it was meant as a joke. Do _you_ know what's going on? If you don't, then I heartily suggest you rewrite the story from the beginning and not do anything at all until you know for sure.

Many writers come up with the "details" as they go along, but only the worst (IMO) do the age-old game of making up mysteries without solutions with a mind toward "solving them later but providing ample clues to... nothing."

The result is ALWAYS the same. You get "Twin Peaks." Sure, the mystery all fits into the big picture intact at the end, but by the time all the machinations have been worked out, nobody cares and nobody's watching (or reading).

Get an answer into your head, and write your heart out about it. Many here have said the writing is "competent," but I don't think it can be called that unless you know what you're doing and where you're going. The ability to string words together is not writing. The ability to string words together with a POINT, that's writing (and also why I dislike latter Joyce with such a vehement passion).

First of all, I think most of the third paragraph can be cut. Until I know what's happeniung to Isaac, I don't care about his wife and kids and I particularly don't care about his philosophizing.