Again. The familiar tingling, the muscle cramps, the uncertainty. Urwin strained to open his eyes against the arctic glare. As was usual he had no notion of where Iok had sent him, but the wind and bitter cold moved him to not think about it but to seek shelter. Ice spicules tore at his exposed skin as he rose from the time sled and surveyed his surroundings. Pulling his robe around him more tightly he trudged toward the shadow of a structure which loomed darkly in the blowing snow. As he approached the weathered stone of a low wall Urwin slid his sword from its scabbard and stopped to listen for any sound other than the wind. There was no sound from the building but rather the cloying smell of decay. It was not unfamiliar. Urwin was not alone.
Have you been here before? I seem to recognise the name from somewhere.
When you start with 'again' it makes me want to know where and when it happened before, why it is familiar and what is causing it. We don't get that here, unless it is the cold, and in that case it is not clear.
I think we are getting a fair amount of 'again' 'as was usual' 'familiar', 'not unfamiliar' -- that sort of sentiment. It's a little distracting for me.
I would change spicule. It's a great word but here it functions like a speed bump. I was so concerned with that word that I missed the 'time sled' that followed it.
My question is this, in the arctic would something decay? If so, wouldn't the wind you've described whip the smell away?
I hope you enjoy hatrack, and contribute to the discussion, introduce yourself etc.
[This message has been edited by hoptoad (edited September 18, 2006).]
Also, I am having trouble identifying with this character. I don't know anything about him, I'm not in his head. I have a picture of the scene in my mind, but I would like to be introduced to the character himself before going too much further.
posted
Thanks for the great input. I felt a little shaky about "spicule" too. I'll take all the suggestions to heart. As for me, I'm a sixty year old cyber spud who hasn't written anything, other than poetry, for about thirty years. I'm just a tad rusty.
I had a couple of humorous articles published in the seventies in a Detroit fish club magazine, and one news article which went national. I've sold a little poetry, written a lot of rejected submissions, and putzed around with a novel.
I figure it's time to wipe the dust off and polish the skills!
posted
Very mysterious, but I think you need more reality in a hook. You're describing all sorts of weird feelings without telling us what is going on or giving us real details that would make us buy this. I'd start with the character doing something and then move on to tell us what it feels like. Also, what's going on? I need to know in the first thirteen
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posted
i disagree with everything everyone has ever said. well, not actually. it just seems that way. first, we ARE in the character's head- we're seeing with his eyes and feeling with his skin and smelling with hose, filtered through his familiarity with it. i suppose there may be a better way to intimately know a character, or to give us more real details, but if there is, i don't know it.
we're perceiving a tense situation through a character's heightened senses. the way to improve such things is not to run away from them and shoehorn something about rationale into an introduction where that's clearly not the point, but to heighten what you have. hit us with more sensory details, and more varied ones, and you don't need to tell us that there is no sound, so it could be somthing like: "he stopped to listen to the howling wind. The gusts brought only the cloying smell of decay."
sure, we don't know much about his motivation, but if we write everything in the introduction, then there's no reason for the rest. make it more ominous than it already is. have him breathe fast, or some subtler emotional cue. Only introduce the time sled earlier if it's the point of the section, rather than a jumping off point for whatever-dead-smelling-thing he's about to meet inside the building. to me, a time sled isn't neccesarily all that interesting. it's a vehicle for something more than itself. time travel is about the cool things you meet on the other side. at least for you and i.
winds can whip smells to someone; it doesn't neccesarily drive them all away, especially overpowering smells, like death.
i agree with the spicule thing, though! it sounded funny here, being such a medical? word. it fit with the modernism of a time sled, but not the throwback sheathed sword.
i wonder, sure, why he has a time sled AND a sword, but that makes me want to read the rest, and i would if given the chance. i've got your back here. i'm a fan of this. i'd read.
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