posted
I'm still working on rewriting my previous piece, but in the mean time, I've started another story. At this point I would like to gauge your reaction to two openings I've written. Which do you think works best? Does either one grab you? Any awkwardness?
This will be sci-fi.
Number One: ________________________________________
Amanda knew he wasn’t God. For one thing, his name was Peter--not Zues, or Thor, or Jesus--just Peter. Still, she made her way to his temple. She had seen his birth certificate at the Pinacotica di Brera museum in Milan.
“That was a stupid thing to include with the rest of the exhibit,” she said to herself. A birth certificate, after all, was a very human thing to have. True, the date on his certificate was stamped over five centuries ago, but that proved nothing.
Besides, she had no need for superficial arguments to discredit his holiness, she had a real reason. She buried her fourth and last daughter eight months ago. Either there was no god, or god simply hated her. The former was easier to believe. __________________________________________
Number Two: ___________________________________________
Amanda knew he wasn’t God, but she needed an answer and she was willing to abandon atheism just long enough to gain a measure of peace. He wasn’t God because there could be no God, not after she buried her forth and last child. Still, people worshiped him and a part of her feared that after this encounter, she too might come to worship at his feet.
He was old, over five centuries, and still his face was plush with youth and vigor -- at least that’s the image they displayed on the television screen, but now she would find out for herself. Even if he wasn’t God, he was certainly more than human. And he was the only one that could answer her question; it is the same question that everyone asks him, “will I ever be happy again?” ____________________________________________
posted
Neither one really grabs me. The first one makes your character seem sort of...purile. In the second one she's just irritatingly naive.
You could try giving her a rational reason to want to confront this guy, or you could let her admit that she wants to be comforted right now. But as she is now, she seems a bit untrustworthy to be the POV character.
posted
The first appeals more to me because I start wondering who this Peter guy is. Why do people worship him? If he is a fake, why is she going to the temple? Lots of questions start to form. 4th sentence seems a little out of place though.
The second one is more like someone's "why did this happen to me" complaint about a god that is not specified. I guess I have personally heard so many people make similar complaints in "real life" it does not interest me.
posted
I liked the first one much better. It seems much more alive, and it raises questions that are immediately interesting. I share some concern about the whole "why does god let bad things happen" angle, but the fact that God is named Peter in this situation is enough to get me to hold off on my skepticism and keep reading.
The second example, I am sorry, fell completely flat. It had no life and didn't really raise any questions that I would be interested in seeing answered.
posted
I like the first one better. It flows nicer and it's more intriguing. Like NewsBys said, I wonder who Peter is and why he's got a set of worshippers. Is this the same Peter from the New Testament? Or what? It makes me want to read more. The second one, on the other hand, seems a tad bit like an info dump and I don't find it as intriguing.
Posts: 202 | Registered: Mar 2005
|
posted
I liked the first paragraph in the 1st version and the second paragraph in the 2nd version. Maybe throw them together and get into the dead kids a little later.
Posts: 266 | Registered: Mar 2004
|
posted
Definitely prefer the first one. I was much more interested by Peter than I was by Amanda... which might be a bad thing if your main character isn't going to either be Peter or spend a heck of a lot of time with him. I don't care for the bit about the birth certificate, though. It seems out of place.
I agree with Dude. Maybe you could combine the two beginnings?
Yeah, I see how the birth certificate thing is out of place... But I didn't just want to state his age outright. It's awkward as it is, so I'll have to revisit that aspect.
Peter is the main character, but I wanted to introduce him through Amanda because he is supposedly a god, and thus somewhat unaproachable, I needed a way into his world.
No, this isn't the Peter from the New Testiment... the same thought did occur to me, maybe I should change his name...
Survivor, I'm not sure what you mean by "untrustworthy"... Do you mean that you don't expect her to stick around for the whole story? She won't, she's in the first few scenes. Or did you mean that the reader won't trust that Amanda's character will answer his/her questions?
posted
In each of these sections, where are we (physically), and what's happening? I can't tell in the 2nd, and in the 1st, I just get a hint in the middle paragraph that she's looking at a birth certificate.
Another problem: When you said "Amanda knew he wasn't God," since I had no referent for "he," I thought maybe Amanda was a man with a very unusual name.
The 2nd interested me more because we get a suggestion of tragedy and struggle then and there. In the 1st, it's buried a bit and doesn't seem to matter much to Amanda.
posted
Well, if Amanda isn't going to be around that much, and the story isn't really about her at all, then delete her (or this version of her, at any rate).
My problem was that her reasoning in the first version is just silly. She's an idiot, either intentionally or not. If we already had independent knowledge about this "Peter" she's considering, it might be revelatory. But we don't, so it's just a bunch of non-informative statements of questionable veracity.
In the second version she's more aware that she's being a fool, but that doesn't stop her from being a fool.
Anyway, if she's not going to be an important character, then lose her in favor of someone that makes a bit of sense. The best thing would be to start with an important character that has a rational thinking process in place, but that's not always possible. Sometimes you have to choose between understandable and important, with POV characters as with many other things. But don't go with something that is neither.
posted
I agree with alot of what Survivor said. The POV character seems extremely week and her motivation played out.
I think much of it has to do with the fact that you have stated Amanda is not the main character but a foot-in-the-door to the main character. Amanda is a tool for your story to progress and she comes across as one.
I would replace her with someone more permenent. I read a series of novels by Stephen Lawhead: "The Celtic Knot" trilogy. I found it interesting not necessarily because of the story, but because Lawhead took a risk by changing his POV between books. The first book was written in the 3rd limited of the main character. The second book was written in the 1st person of the main character's best friend.
The reason I bring this up is because by the end of the second book the main character becomes a messianic character.
Since the main character (by main character I mean the one with the largest problem who has the opportunity for the most development)in your story is a god, perhaps making the narrator a person going to serve the main character or become a priest or something along those lines. Religion is one of the strongest human motivations around and you already give the story a religious feel by introducing a God Character in the beginning, so go with it.
[This message has been edited by Ryan Brotman (edited March 10, 2005).]
Printer-friendly view of this topic
