Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Kentraal's Song

This is topic Kentraal's Song in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Tanglier (Member # 1313) on :

This is a story I wrote a few years ago. I'm thinking about cleaning it up and sending it off. It's 9,000 word cyber-punk.

"Thirty-five minutes," Kentraal said, scowling at the message on his screen. "A half-hour of face time with the Westech Board of Directors."
"It's Westech. I'd trade in my brother for a half-hour, and I love my brother." Tanzarian said, sitting down on Kentraal's couch, " In thirty-five minutes, those executives earn more money than you do all year."
"No, they may take home more money, but don't tell me they earn it."
"Ronnie, they don't want you to solve their problems. If they cared about results, they'd triple Cyril's budget, and let him upgrade the system. They want you to make them feel comfortable- wheel in and say everything is under control."

[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited June 14, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited June 15, 2006).]

Posted by Omakase (Member # 2915) on :

My first thought upon reading this is that you are starting off in the wrong place.
For an opening this lacks interest; it's a fairly pedantic discussion about someone going to a meeting with a big corp.
Not much of a hook to the story.

The names are a bit cumbersome. If a character is referred to by other characters as "Ronnie" then I would use this in the narrative instead of Kentraal.

The writing appears competent, but again I would rethink the opening scene.

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I was confused and uninterested until the last paragraph. That told me what was going on, and in a way to make me care.

I'm not saying never start with dialog, but I do think that if you're trying to inform the reader, it's best done with exposition (as you did here) -- and until the reader understands the dialog, there's no point. (I'll also echo O. in that the topic of the dialog -- that corporate boards are rich and bad -- didn't interest me.)

Posted by Ray (Member # 2415) on :

Genre, word count, and do you want a crit on the lines or the whole thing.

As for the piece, I don't know what's happening. I get the impression that Westech is bad, but I have no reason to think so. Did they do something wrong, or are the characters biased? Who is Kentraal anyway? Too much confusion and I doubt it'll be cleared soon enough to my liking.

Posted by Tanglier (Member # 1313) on :

Briggs, et al, does it work better if I flip it around like this:

The Westech Group hired "Rhyming" Ronnie Kentraal to wheel into their office suite and lie. They wanted Kentraal to take off his hat, look the chairman in the eye, scowl and say, "I just lynched ten hackers; the system is secure," then spit on the floor, nod, and ride off into the virtual frontier to slay some more outlaws.
"Thirty-five minutes," Kentraal said, scowling at the message on his screen. "A half-hour of face time with the Westech Board of Directors."
"It's Westech. I'd trade in my brother for a half-hour, and I love my brother." Tanzarian said, sitting down on Kentraal's couch, " In thirty-five minutes, those executives earn more money than you do all year."

[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited June 14, 2006).]

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited June 15, 2006).]

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

For me, Tanglier, that does work better. Further comments:

* Since paragraph 1 is opinion, well, it's unclear at that point whether it's the narrator's or Kentraal's. I think it should be Kentraal's. A "he thought" or "he was sure" or such woudl establish that.

* My eyes still wanted to skip in the dialog. I understood it, but it didn't seem to add anything. Is this talk with Tanzarian important? If so, what's the important part? Start there, maybe.

Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :

IMHO, I would keep the revised first line and scrap the dialog. I want to be more connected with why the wanted Ronnie to lie and how he feels about it before a rather predictable discussion with someone who is presumably a co-worker. I still don't know who Westech is and why they are important.

If you want to keep part of the dialog, I'd pick up with:

quote:

"Ronnie, they don't want you to solve their problems. If they cared about results, they'd triple Cyril's budget, and let him upgrade the system. They want you to make them feel comfortable- wheel in and say everything is under control," his business partner (and evil robot monkey), Tanzarian said.
"It's not under control. Westech is at risk."
"You think they don't know that?"

Now you can introduce me to Tanzarian (I'd very quickly give him (?) a shorter nickname too), what Cyril is and why Westech is at risk. Since the last two items seem to be your main plot line.

Posted by Sara Genge (Member # 3468) on :

I liked the second version better.
I wouldn't cut the dialogue: it builds character well, tells more about the setting and fast forwards into the plot.
I would clean it up, of course. Sometimes I had trouble figuring out who was talking. The names were confusing. The plot is difficult to grasp.
Again, I have read many great published sf novels in which I'm lost for the fist four pages. What matters to me is if I am confused about lack of setting (which I trust the writer to give me soon) or mistakes with the way the story is being told (which I know the writer will continue making)
In this case, I wanted to read on. I think this beginning does its job.

Posted by TL 601 (Member # 2730) on :

I liked the first version better.

No matter which version anybody prefers, this is strong dialogue and good writing with an interesting conflict being set up.

I'd keep reading either way.

Posted by TL 601 (Member # 2730) on :

Looks like you have a lot of very different thoughts on this one... You know what that means:

Do whatever you want and forget about us.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Maybe the various relationships could be a bit more clear, maybe the scene needs to be established. But I think that, for me, the main thing is that this is just screwy.

Posted by Nietge (Member # 3474) on :

I concur with my right and honorable friend TL Six-Zero-Uno. Good dialogue. I'm a bit impartial to corp-cyberpunk type offerings (if that is what this is..it may be *conventional* corporate intrigue for all I know) so I'd be duly motivated to read further. I happen to love uses of dialogue...if there's something I want to pass on to the reader that's at least a bit out-of-bounds and eccentric, I just slap it all in a character's mouth and let them have at it.

Posted by Tanglier (Member # 1313) on :

I'm a bit impartial to cyberpunk corporate stories too, but I needed a forum for Kentraal to do his cowboy thing, a scene that showed his pride and irascibility before we get to his insecurities.

The piece begins and ends with Westech and Kentraal's temper, but the main conflict is between Kentraal in himself. Thanks for all of the help. I'm going to restructure the story a bit in virtue of your comments.

[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited June 16, 2006).]

Posted by Verdant (Member # 3498) on :

OK, so the tone seems to come across and very techy - and I presume that's how you wanted it - but the dialog seems misplaced. I don't know who these folks are who are talking, if I'm coming in during the middle of a conversation or what they're talking about. If this is the start of your story give me more meat and less dialog to start with. The dialog is fine, but I have nothing to go on other than what they are saying right now. If it is the middle of the story, that changes thins but I would need to have an understanding of the things I mentioned above and that begs the question - is this the begining.

Happy writing

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

quote:
"Ronnie, they don't want you to solve their problems. If they cared about results, they'd triple Cyril's budget, and let him upgrade the system. They want you to make them feel comfortable- wheel in and say everything is under control."

I should probably clarify that I thought this was screwy. It sounds half plausible to the average guy who doesn't know squat about how high stakes decision making actually ends up working, but it isn't. The easiest interpretation of the statement is that they want Ronnie to be the fall guy for anticipated catastrophic failures, but in that case, what is his motive for playing along?

Posted by Tanglier (Member # 1313) on :

quote:
The easiest interpretation of the statement is that they want Ronnie to be the fall guy for anticipated catastrophic failures, but in that case, what is his motive for playing along?

That's the subject of the next paragraph.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Hmmm...I'm not sure I believe you

No, really, I hear that a lot, and it's almost never true. I'm sure that almost everyone that says it believes it at the time, but it usually turns out to be false.

If the answer turns out to be something lame like "a face to face meeting will enable him to hack into their personal accounts", then you would have started with that, desho?

Posted by Tanglier (Member # 1313) on :

Okay, so the ending is telegraphed. That's more or less exactly what happens. During the 35 minute report, Tanzarian hacks into the company files, then their personal files, and puts embarrassing photos into the end of Kentraal's slides.

"Thirty-five minutes told Kentraal that Westech wanted a quick fix or an easy answer to their faults. Kentraal hated quick fixes. Deep-seated problems were only solved with time and hard work.

I can't do this in one shot during short lunch break. He snarled to himself, thinking about the Board of Director's disrespect. Kentraal stopped looking for easy answers twenty-seven years ago. Quick fixes ended with two shotgun shells to his feet.

Every day, he woke up with pain burning in his legs. He avoided pills that would ease the morning's soreness. Pills had taken his feet in the first place - pills and that same arrogant laziness that resided in Westech's leadership. Westech needed to learn that there were no easy solutions."

Later, we learn that Kentraal was a prodigy who got mixed up with drugs-- a sort of speed that helps programmers, a mix between meth and "the spice" from Dune-- women, and his own public image and insecurity, and his supplier shot him in his feet, and shot Kentraal's friend's hands off.

[This message has been edited by Tanglier (edited June 22, 2006).]

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Oops...I didn't mean "lame" I meant...um, "classic caper"

No, really, in a caper story, you must tell us the objective of the caper up front, so I thought that you weren't doing a caper, that's all. This new opening, opening with more of a feeling that Kentraal would like to do something to Westech, is much closer, though it's not perfectly clear.

I'm still a bit worried that you won't give yourself enough time to develop a good caper, you seem to be giving the characters too much emotional baggage. But that can work well, if you pull it off.

The first line is ambiguous. I wouldn't know what "thirty-five minutes" you were talking about without having read the other opening. Even if I made the connection to "short lunch break", I still would probably not understand that it meant a consultation with the Board. Then you have the sharp turn towards bitterness...it isn't bad, but it didn't attract me either.

Caper, caper...caper stories are hard, aren't they? I know that I've liked a few, but usually I end up hating them. It's a tough one. I'll have to take a pass on this one for now.