Anyway, here's a little story I started on yesterday. I don't know what size it would be as a Word file, since I use OpenOffice.org, but right now I have a page written out, and the file weighs in at about 15kb.

I'm trying to sum up the speculative basis for this story without being too info-loaded. Did I succeed? With the information you have so far, is this a concept that you would be able to suspend your disbelief for?

I'd also like some critiques on the first fifteen lines, and perhaps a few people that would like to critique the whole thing once I finally finish a draft.
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In the 20th and 21st centuries, there were several strong and ultimately successful movements to give equal rights and treatment to all genders, races, religions, and sexual orientations. At the Earth Universal School, we are have extended equal treatment and rights to the two new sentient species, commonly known as wolves and walruses, that have evolved from humans in the thousand years since then. It is our belief that, by treating all members of our student body equally, our students will work toward equal treatment of everyone in the outside universe.

Cassie turned off the display projected in front of her and rubbed her temples. She had reread the universal school's pamphlet three times since the Luna-Earth shuttle began its descent toward Earth.

quote:

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Cassie turned off the display projected in front of her and rubbed her temples. She had reread the universal school's pamphlet three times since the Luna-Earth shuttle began its descent toward Earth.

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I think this should be the first line. It is an inciting moment, it seems, in which the MC comes into the plot. The rest of this seemed like an info dump. Even more so than a prologue. All of that information can be woven into the exposition, and at 15k, it probably already has, even if you weren't conciously aware of it.

(The relationship between file size and word count isn't linear: a story of just one word is 8kb, 2800 words is 18kb and if you double the word count to 4700 words it increases only to 20kb.)

Here's a piece on counting words you might find helpful:
http://www.thescriptorium.net/words.html

By the way, the rule is up to thirteen lines, not fifteen.

Too info-loaded? It's almost entirely an infodump. Even if the first para is from the pamphlet, it's still an infodump.

Suspend disbelief? I seriously doubt that Earth will get equal rights for all races, genders, religions and sexual orientations in the 21st century so I'm afraid I baulk at the first sentence.

For me there's no hook, no sense of the challenge Cassie might face.

quote:

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Suspend disbelief? I seriously doubt that Earth will get equal rights for all races, genders, religions and sexual orientations in the 21st century

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I regrettably agree with this.

However, if racial / religious / class / etc. harmony are in fact a reality in your story, I'd be curious to know how it was achieved. Suffice it to say (in the context of how I perceive your world's sociological condition to exist), our descendants did a much better job of achieving it than we've managed. Yet, considering our hideous lack of success with such a task, I would think that your "equal rights" condition most definitely came at a price to somebody...tasked by law (and backed by police and/or military muscle) to cease their god-granted persecution of the non-believers, or to accept those who were once legally deemed a lower class of human as equals...you get the idea.

Of course, with the flaw in their "equal rights" doctrine being covered quite literally by force, this could open up a lot of fun in how we interact with other species.

Good potential to your story, nonetheless. Success with it.

S!
S!...C!