Another story I've had a little bit of trouble with, especially getting the opening "hook" right. The "_" are meant to indicate italics (underline in submission). Any comments on the opening as well as volunteers to read the whole thing would be appreciated.
Regards and many thanks,
Nick
Dillinger had almost built the second draft of the woman when the stranger knocked on the wall of his house. At first, he did not understand the sound.
_It is someone using their hand to make a sound on our wall,_ his Soul said.
“Why would they do that?” he said.
_For some reason, they don’t wish to contact us directly. It may be because there is a virus infecting Souls in the local area._
“Virus?”
_We did not mention it. It would have disturbed our equilibrium. We were lucky that the virus signal was weak and too far away._
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited June 30, 2008).]
So, send me whole thing if you'd like.
quote:
Dillinger had almost built the second draft of the woman when the stranger knocked on the wall of his house
I really don't know what the second draft of a woman is. Is he making an android or writing a story? I think this needs to be clear. It takes away from the rest of what you wrote.
quote:
Dillinger had almost built the second draft of the woman...
Sounds hot!
I'll read it.
Anthony
Thanks for the feedback on the 1st 13, story sent to those who requested it.
Regards,
Nick
I'm a bit snowed under at work (though I should be working as I type this... :0) so can't offer to read I'm afraid.
I've sent it through critters twice and it's still not quite working...the second version was very different to the first one, it depends which one you've read. I'm hoping to mostly fine-tune the second version, though it depends on how fresh readers react. Nice to see a fellow critter :-) Let me know if you want to see the latest version.
Regards,
Nick
The problem is, they are competing with each other. In the opening line, the knock on the door was secondary (in the mind of the reader) to what he was already doing. But the conversation that follows expands on the secondary issue. In the minds of many readers, this is uninteresting because their curiosity has already been peaked by the "woman draft".
To fix this, either give a bit more information about what he is doing before the knock on the door, or, introduce the woman drafting element some time after the conversation. Which you do should depends on the nature of the story. If it is primarily about making drafts of women, then hone in on that at the start. However, if the story is primarily about the strangeness of the protagonist, even if drafting women remains a central part of the story, leave this until later in the story. That way, his drafting of a woman is just another element of Dillinger's unique character, rather than an overpowering story direction.
I'll send it through, feel free to ignore it if you've read it before.
Regards and thanks,
Nick