Hatrack River Writers Workshop: "Snow White Succubus"(God'sGame:book1)[prologue-edit]

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Posted by SimonSays (Member # 3307) on :

How's this Ico,Archon? Clearer?
"The Snow White Succubus" ("God's Game":book1)
[quote] "God does not play dice"[Albert Einstein]
[quote]..."But he sure plays a mean game of chess"[Steve Simon]

"A piece moved!"

"Show me,Father."

"See,Sister.I'm old,not senile"

"A pawn...that's all?"

"He,was once a pawn too you know,"he said,gesturing to a crucifix on a nearby wall.

"The board is your responsibility,Father....what do you see?"

"The pawn...it's grown! It's larger than the other pawns.The silver.It's cleaner,less corrupted...and she's moving.Here.Soon."

"She? How does it,become she?", the sister asked,pointing to the pawn.

[This message has been edited by SimonSays (edited March 21, 2006).]

Posted by Omakase (Member # 2915) on :

Starting off a story with untagged dialogue is a difficult way to introduce it. You can weave the dialogue in with character introductions, but without that it is difficult to hold a reader's attention with no setting or character, both of which are easily fixed.

A few lines of exposition mixed in here will go a long way toward making this palatable.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

Yes. And you'd get all the punch of the dialog, still, if you tell us who's talking, where they are, and whatever else we need to know.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

Starting with dialog is always difficult. You need to anchor the dialog more so that the reader knows who is talking and the characters' relationships. There is no sense of your POV or MC in this yet.

All we know is there seems to be a family talking about how a chess peice is changing that that Jesus was a chess peice too. I need a little more connection to what's happening before I'd read much beyond those first few lines. A bit more information about what is happening would probably make the dialog very compelling though.

Posted by Ico (Member # 3303) on :

It is easier to follow now, since I can tell who is speaking. I agree with what everyone else is saying. Some exposition mixed in with it would make it much more effective.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

If you're opening with a dialog vignette, then you have to let the dialog carry the whole show. Also, a dialog vignette doesn't really tell a story, it shows an abstract conceptual turning point. The characters aren't important, and are best played by stereotypes that we can easily recognize.

The opening to Ender's Game is a good example of this. It's all spoken dialog, it shows a decision being made, one which brings about the rest of the story, and the characters are a couple of military officers deciding whether to draft a kid.

This opening isn't so good. You're describing action, you're also having the characters describe action, but we're not sure which actions are real and which aren't. It also seems that the action matters more than the dialog, in which case I'd rather you showed the action rather than letting the characters narrate it. Leaving aside the fact that I don't know how reliable either character is.

Posted by Archon (Member # 3273) on :

I forgot to point this out, but when I read your first draft of this last night, it was like you were going for something similar to the chapter beginnings in OSC's Xenocide and Children of the Mind. However, if you can put in something like "he said, gesturing to a crucifix on a nearby wall" or "the sister said," I don't see why you can't give us a name or more detail to what is going on outside the dialogue, as it breaks away from OSC's trend. If, for some reason, you don't want to name the characters just yet, at least give a description of them for the reader's sake.

The dialogue is a bit choppy, and without cushioning, it's more blatantly so. Father says he saw a piece move, Sister asks him to show her, and then he claims how he's old, not senile... but Sister had never said anything that would hint to her thinking that. I know that these characters have a story-life before the story actually begins, but since we don't know anything about these characters (you're keeping all information about them a secret) a line like "I'm old, not senile" seems out of place.

Punctuation is still a problem:

"A piece moved!"

"Show me,Father."
[Should be "Show me, Father."]

"See,Sister.I'm old,not senile"
["See, Sister. I'm old, not senile."]

"A pawn...that's all?"
["A pawn... that's all?"]

"He,was once a pawn too you know,"he said,gesturing to a crucifix on a nearby wall.
["He was once a pawn, too, you know," he said, gesturing to a crucifix on a nearby wall.]

"The board is your responsibility,Father....what do you see?"
["The board is your responsibility, Father... what do you see?"]

"The pawn...it's grown! It's larger than the other pawns.The silver.It's cleaner,less corrupted...and she's moving.Here.Soon."
["The pawn... it's grown! It's larger than the other pawns. The silver. It's cleaner, less corrupted... and she's moving. Here. Soon."]

"She? How does it,become she?", the sister asked,pointing to the pawn.
["She? How does it become (a) she?" the sister asked, pointing to the pawn.]

Commas and periods do not replace spaces. Ellipses (...) come in sets of three.

Cheers,
Cassie

Posted by sholar (Member # 3280) on :

While I agree that the dialogue is a bit confusing, I am hooked. I very much want to know where the story is going and how everything relates. I can see a lot of different paths this could take. It reminds me vaguely of a play I read in high school (can't remember the name) where the story is interrupted by two people (A and B I think- represent God and devil) discussing what goes on. So, I wonder if these people will be main characters or just occassional breaks in the action. Either way I am interested enough to read and find out.