Cycle
The valley is shaped like a cupped hand, as though the very planet is offering the beasts within it as a sacrifice to a demanding god. As if to confirm this, the huddled bodies of the creatures blackly carpeting the ground are prostrate, dark scaly backs presented foremost, foreheads touching the earth. It is an obeisance of statues. The creatures are formidable, hard, armored; full of tooth and fang, yet their immobility is out of fearful expectation, not of strength. Nothing moves in the predawn air, the foreheads of the beasts all facing east.
A shimmer of light creeps up the wall of ridge beyond the valley. The beasts all tremble, as one. Expectation is a tangible object, the air thick with it, cloying, hard to breathe through.
The light grows, the sun teasing the valley with the promise of its coming, heralding the entrance of the dawn. The shivering increases, and now a low moan rises from a thousand thousand throats. They hate the dawn. They love the dawn.

 

Stories are about people (or characters) and that's what I, as a reader, want to know about. If there's no central character(s), what is my motivation for reading your story?

Your intro (and maybe your whole short story?) has a feel of a prologue, in my opinion.

Anyway, there's also a lot of "as" in those first few lines. It weakens the start (again my opinion). If the beasts/creatures have a name, it wouldn't hurt to go ahead and say what they are right from the start.

I do like the last two sentences. Those are interesting and (hey!) I'd even consider starting the story with them if I were writing it. But, that's just me.

[This message has been edited by HSO (edited August 02, 2004).]
 

And from this first 13, it's not sounding very documentary-like. You're not being scientific about the descriptions, you're being artistic. If you truly want to make it be like a nature doc, you have to write it FOR other scientists. It has to give the most, best information in the most efficient way.

Try looking for books Jane Goodall might have written (I'm not sure if she has), or just look for wildlife studies done in the field.

Or just change the style...
 

Using "as if" at the beginning of the second sentence feels wrong. I recommend just going straight to the description of the animals and tie in the sacrificial aspect some other way.

Personally, artistic descriptions of landscapes and animals tend to turn me off. Do the same with emotions or action and I'm hooked. Even looking at a landscape or animal through your character's eyes with this style would yank me in just like you did with that last paragraph. Now I want to know more about why these creatures hate and love the dawn.

I'd like to see the rest of your story, but this week is going to be really busy for me. I won't be able to send you a review until Thursday or Friday. If that's all right, send it over.
 

Also, the creatures themselves think more like a group. Individuality is not as important as the culture as a whole. I want to show their lives as a tapestry, instead of a single thread. Sorry if I'm overjustifying, I'm processing everything.

[This message has been edited by autumnmuse (edited August 02, 2004).]

One more thought: they don't have a name for their species, or any other species. They are the sentient race, and the main predators on their planet. They don't feel a need for names.

[This message has been edited by autumnmuse (edited August 02, 2004).]
 

I think if you feel complelled to say that about your own story, you still have work to do. In my experience, most slush pile readers aren't going to give you that long.

If you want, though, 'll be happy to read the rest. Just give me an idea of what level of crits you're looking for.
 

Those are three big things to ponder at once. You might be making it too hard on yourself. Any one of those points would be interesting in an alien species, but by combining all three you may make this too hard to write. Maybe weigh which details are most important to you and drop the rest, or save them for your next story.
 

Even in the most boring nature documentaries the filmmaker tries to show some point of anti-ordinary conflict and the resolution thereof--some point at which the story deviates from the simple life-cycle of the tse-tse fly. Something has to profoundly and believably change in the lives of these creatures--or one of them. Or their life-cycle has to cause some catastrophic, unexpected change for someone/thing else.
 

How about, can anyone help me with ideas to make this into a story instead of just a theme? For those who did not read the whole thing, I'll summarize what I have so far:
The creatures are all pregnant but have no birth canals. The only way for the young to be born is when the radiation of the sunlight hits their hides, causing them to burn and break open. This kills the adults, but allows the young to be born. The young are not light-sensitive, and absorb memories of their parent's lives when they eat the corpses. At dusk, the new generation mates and changes, becoming light sensitive and scaled to protect their pregnancy, and at the next dawn the cycle starts over.
On my next rewrite I will try to change POV from third to first person, and explain it from in the mind of one of the creatures, but I anticipate that to be challenging.
What I cannot come up with is what has to happen for this to be a story. What conflict should occur? Any brainstorms are appreciated, if I hear some ideas I will probably think of some more and get past this block.
Thanks so much, and please understand that I am not trying to offend anyone with the top part of this post; I am just new to this and taken aback by everyone's reactions. I'll learn.
 

1. You could write it from the perspective of one of the creatures. If, as you say, they are sentient, they should have thoughts, feelings, emotions, wants and needs, right? Then we get a viewpoint or a POV to identify with. We get a character who is about to die and bring forth new life. Surely, that's more interesting to most than just listing out events that happen to them.

2. You could implement this short story into a larger story at some later date. Any number of things pop into my head: Humans populate the area and hunt them down, etc, etc. Then you could have names for these beasts. [It really feels like this story is part of a larger work waiting to happen -- you may disagree, but you never know.]

EDIT: I missed the line where you said you would write it in first person. You may not need to do so, just focus on one individual. The conflict could be: Do they want they really want to die? Maybe thoughts of avoiding the sunlight and self-preservation. Individual survival over species survival -- that kind of thing.

[This message has been edited by HSO (edited August 03, 2004).]
 

HSO, when you said this is a larger idea waiting to happen, I think you are right. I just need to get another idea to pair with it and make it more than the sum of the parts.

Edmund, I have already thought of the eclipse concept, or something like that, but I feel like something that catastrophic would wipe them out and I don't like that because I find myself pretty attached to these guys. The other alien race/arriving humans might be interesting, but it is not an Earth type world due to the extreme radiation.

I have a feeling that this is an idea whose time has not yet come. (Which is kind of frustrating because the idea as is has already been floating around for at least three years, it just took me that long to sit down and write it.) But if this has the potential to become a novel someday, I don't want to suffocate it by forcing it into a short story. Though as a novel, it is going to have to wait a while; Outleaf comes first.
 

Susan
 

So many ideas popped up im my head from your fragment. So many questions.

These are all rhetorical questions you might want to pose to yourself. I'm not attacking you. I wouldn't spend so much time writing them down if I thought there was nothing you could do with this premise.

Don't give up on this. There is an audience for your idea, I guarentee it.

First, what is the conflict of the story, and what is the payoff or goal in the end. Point A to Point Z. It's the whole sex and violence thing. What am I (they) risking, and what do I get out of it. The cycle of their life is one big risk, so what do they gain by this existance if they are sentient.

Now, the group mind. German's call it Gestalt. Is this a form of telepathy, or is it empathetic?

Is there any individualism?

Their names, or lack there of. How do they distinguish between each other? Is it by feeling? and if so, is the feeling an individual projects its name?

How do the communicate? Verbally, psychically, pheromonally, or is it something else?

Who do they prey upon? Are the prey sentient?

If so, are they learning to battle back?

What other creatures have evolved, and how do they effect your pack?

Are there males and females in the species, or are they asexual, or do they need a third sex as a catalyst?

How long in Human terms is the gestation of young.

What is their evolution? (Already asked in other posts, but still pertinant.)

What do these creature look like. What is their specific anatomy? How do they move? What is their locomotion? How do they kill? How do they eat? Do they have proprietary protocols within the pack structure?

Where are they on the evolutionary scale in terms of civilization?

What is their biology, and how does it work?

Do they passed on memories build up over time? Do they become smarter and wiser over time? Or do the things passed on become instictual?

Does the offspring retain both parents memories, or just the carrier's? Do they retain all the memories or just some of them?

What is their culture and society? How is it organized? Are there leaders, or bloodlines? Are there fueds? Are there different tribes? If so, what are their differences?

Do they have art, law, writing, building, civilization, etc?

What is their world like? Some worlds, like Mercury for example, one of its days takes two of its years to complete.

What does their world look like?

Thus how is the time measure on this world? What are its seasons.

What is the goal of the gestalt? To survive and to perpetuate?

What is it's solar system like? How many Suns? How many Moons? How many plantets?

Do they have legends? Prophecies? A genetic memory?

What are their secrets?

What are their stengths and weaknesses?

What do they fear?

What do they love? Do the love at all? Do they hate?

Their planet, though hostile to Humans, does it have any resources that would bring Humanity there to brave that environment.

If there was an individual who separated itself from the pack what would it gain, and why? How could it survive?

Can this species and other alien races (humans, etc.) co-exist? If so, how? What would be the impediments in doing so from both sides?

Is this species a spacefaring people, or are they, as of yet, planet bound.

Do they have special abilities? Do they have magics? Do they have science.

Does their bloodlust rule them or do they rule it?

Can they be kind to each other? Can they be kind to other species?

Can they have relationships, both with others of their own species, as well as interspecies.

Blah, blah, blah!

I could go on, but I hope this is suffient fodder for thought.

Don't give up! Write a cohesive story. I, for one, will read it, and give you the best feedback I can.

WP

[This message has been edited by Warrior Poet (edited August 09, 2004).]