posted
Mind Meld is a little under 1500 words long. I am looking for readers and would appreciate any help with the first thirteen lines here. _________ He felt like he was falling. Down, down, down into a pit with tiny little sparkling lights all around him. Strangely, they did not seem to move even as he fell. The drugs slowly pumped life back into him. Then the nausea twisted his stomach and he distinctly heard immense thuds like someone was trying to smash his head in. His vision blurred and the little sparkling lights streaked across his vision. A throbbing pain coursed its way through his body as the stasis ended. The drugs would take some time to pass through his system, but his mind was now active.
“Body check,” Graf said.
The command pulled readings from the diagnostics equipment attached to his body, and he could feel the power of his ship humming through his body. Graf was one with the ship. _________
posted
I like the way this starts. I feel I have all the information required at this point in the story and I'm interested in reading more.
The title is somewhat derivative, however. Mind Meld immediately made me think of Spock. Maybe that's unavoidable so you might try to come up with a different title.
Anybody remember who wrote the story about a person becoming a starship, e.g., the brain thereof? I know I read it, but can't dredge it up.
posted
I’m intrigued… a couple of questions/comments.
Why not start with his name instead of “he”?
I get the idea from the second paragraph that Graf done this before, but the use of the word “strangely” in the beginning made me think that it was a new experience.
posted
I'll second duv about the unreferenced pronoun and the description of the experience as overly novel. Marva's concerns are probably valid, but they didn't bother me at all.
Generally, it looks like an interesting opening, and probably fits the scale of your story (assumption from title and length). If you're still working on it in a month or so I could probably help, but right now I can't.
posted
There's also "Becalmed in Hell," Larry Niven.
I agree, this is gripping. I have some nits, related to paragraphs and grammar.
You're using "like" for "as if"; and you need the subjunctive case (see below).
Paragraph 1 needs a split, because the first part is about his hallucination of a pit, and the second (mostly) isn't.
The second part has something that confuses me for POV. It's about what the drugs are doing. Whose POV is this in? If it's his, it's odd that he would think this, while he's being overwhelmed with hallucination. I'd strike the bits that aren't his perception, or else label them as what he imagines is happening (if he'd really be thinking about that.)
--
He felt AS IF HE WERE falling. Down, down, down into a pit with tiny little sparkling lights all around him. Strangely, they did not seem to move even as he fell.
The drugs slowly pumped life back into him. Then the nausea twisted his stomach and he distinctly heard immense thuds AS IF someone WERE trying to smash his head in. His vision blurred and the little sparkling lights streaked across his vision. A throbbing pain coursed its way through his body as the stasis ended. The drugs would take some time to pass through his system, but his mind was now active.
posted
I think this would need a little more spice in order to keep my attention. You've got a good idea here, but it needs to come across a little more strongly. A couple points:
I'm not particularly grabbed by the first couple of sentences. To me the first and last time that falling down a long tunnel was interesting was in Alice in Wonderland. The image is a bit over-done. Of course, if you state it in another way, then maybe it could be quite compelling. What about trying to rework the first three sentences into a single sentence in which you present all the same information but in a way that is far more subtle? In that case I think as a reader I would be wondering, "What? Falling? Little dots? Hm. I wonder what that's all about."
The image of somebody trying to smash the character's head in isn't all that exciting and is a bit overused. Try to find a more original comparison. In fact, see if you can make all the descriptions in the first paragraph more unique.
I don't think you should use Graf's name at all until that very last sentence. It'll have more power if you wait, and it's a little confusing the way you introduce it right now. At the moment I'm not entirely sure whether Graf is the character that was getting life pumped back into him or another character, but if you wait until the last sentence to name him then I'll be sure it's all the same guy.
Ok, now that I've said all that, here are a few positive things:
Based on this fragment I would guess that you have a pretty interesting story going on. I wanna know more. You've raised a bunch of questions in my mind, and I want to find out the answers.
Being one with a ship sounds kinda fun. I like the idea. I really like that final sentence.
I don't think there's anything about your writing that is *bad*. I just think if you put a little more into this beginning it could be really good.
Printer-friendly view of this topic
