posted
I can't help that I'm different from the majority of other civilians. When I'm in large crowds, I panic and begin looking around frantically for the man who looks suspicious enough to have the bomb. As soon as the crowd disperses, I dive for the ground, waiting for the explosion. It never does come, but that behavior's ingrained within me. It's like when they called me a killer...I mean, you would shoot at scary masked men, too, if they were shooting at you, right? And if you hit some innocents in the process...well, that's the way of war. People can call me whatever they want, giving me those dirty looks as they shuffle their children away from me, probably whispering to them all the horrible things they think I've done. I may not like or be proud of who I've become, but that's the life of the super Soldier.
[This message has been edited by Natosis (edited November 19, 2005).]
posted
This is an interesting concept, and I'd like to see more to find out where it's going. Here's some thoughts:
quote:I can't help that I'm different from other people.
I think you could ditch this sentence because it is redundant with the end of the paragraph.
Can you use a different image than 'disperses' for the crowd? That word conjurs an image of a crowd that breaks up in relaxed, leisurely fashion. A guy diving to the ground in that situation wouldn't look like a startled soldier expecting an explosion. He'd look like a nut. Did you mean to convey that he does this when a crowd shifts suddenly, startling him? If so, 'disperses' is not the word.
quote:I mean, wouldn't YOU shoot at those dark, masked men?
No, I wouldn't. In other words, this didn't do for me what you intended it to do, i.e. convince me that he feels he's acting naturally even though they called him a killer. (If that isn't what you meant to convince me of, then I'm REALLY missing something.)
You can omit the word 'quickly' in regards to people shuffling away their kids.
"the Soldier" Hmm. For me, you didn't succeed in creating a setting in which the world 'soldier' meant something other than what it means for me in 21th century America. Therefore, I wasn't able to believe that this was acceptable behavior or normal experience for a soldier. Capitalizing the word did not help to sell the idea.
A big part of me wants to decry this as exposition, but a small part wants to say it's fine with just some reworking. See what other people think.
Like I said, I am curious about what happens after the first 13, but I'm not sure why. So there are elements in there which have hooked me, but I can't put my finger on them.
posted
I'm both hooked -- because I'm really curious about this guy -- and not hooked, because I lost my belief. "As soon as the crowd disperses, I dive for the ground" -- this made me not so much believe he's a lunatic as stop believing in the story, because I can't picture someone doing this (or if he did, the cops would already have taken him off, probably to an asylum, before he could hurt himself).
I don't like superhero stories, so I lost further interest at hearing he's a "super Soldier."
BTW, when you said, "you would shoot at scary masked men, too, if they were shooting at you, right? And if you hit some innocents in the process..." I got that you (the author) were showing a character's unreasonableness, not trying to convince us he's reasonable.
posted
It's not quite complete yet. It's approximately 3k words at the moment. It's going to be a short story sci-fi. The weird thing about the way the story's coming out is that the main character will narrate and then he'll start telling a specific story of an event. Sometimes the story will be first-person (if he's the POV character in the story), or it'll be third-person (if the POV character is someone else). It's weird, but it's turning out pretty good. When I finish, or get close, I'll send you guys the finished product if you want.
[This message has been edited by Natosis (edited November 19, 2005).]
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Here's some thoughts:
