posted
First 13 (my lucky number!) lines from "Homeworld," future-based SF. The complete manuscript of ~93,000 words is finished (actually, it's been "finished" 15 times in as many years). Two prequels (~68,000 and ~97,000 words) are also "finished." Any and all comments welcome and appreciated.
Two comments: One, "flighter" is not a typo. Two, thanks for reading.
----------------------------------- Time was critical. Teil Alexander, unconscious in the flighter's passenger seat, had been missing for days before her older brother, Davis, found her. Her skin was desiccated and brittle, her lips colorless and cracked. She was badly dehydrated, but it wasn't dehydration that would kill her. Davis piloted the craft with one tense hand around the flightstick and the other tapping a call code into his linker. "I've got her, Seline," he said quickly. "She's alive, but I don't know how long she was off her meds." "Where was she?" "Out at the old retreat. We're almost to Kenmai now." "I can be there in a kilosecond." He closed the link as the main tower of the Kenmai Military
[This message has been edited by Homeworld (edited February 17, 2006).]
posted
Hello Homeworld, First off...wow you wrote so much...respect. I like what I read in that sense of urgency you convey, although the first paragraph could be 'switched' e.g
He'd finally found her. She was badly dehydrated... Though his sister, Teil Alexander, was unconscious in the passenger seat, time was critical... Just my opinion, as 13 lines it works - hooked by the scenario Best Wishes John Mc...
Minor nit: "[B]ut it wasn't dehydration that would kill her." I think this detracts from your hook a bit because it effectively tells us Teil's fate. I suggest "it wasn't only dehydration that threatened to kill her." I'd also give some indication of what WAS threatening her life aside from the dehydrated state. It leaves her fate open a bit, which could draw some readers in just wanting to know how she fares.
I don't know if it has anything to do with your story, but "Homeworld" is a pretty popular computer game series.
[This message has been edited by krazykiter (edited February 17, 2006).]
Davis Alexander flew back to the Kenmai Airfield, with the unconscious form of his sister Teil in the flighter's passenger seat. She'd been missing for days before he found her on the glacier. He kept glancing over. Her skin was desiccated and brittle, her lips colorless and cracked. She was badly dehydrated, but it was being off her meds that threatened to kill her.
What I'm suggesting: * Start with MC -- just a little easier on the reader. * Show us Teil from his POV: that is, if he's piloting, how does he know what her skin looks like? He could be glancing over, or remembering how she looked when he picked her up. * Just a little background: how did she come to be in the plane? No reason not to say, I think. * Don't tell us that something other than dehydration that threatened her life unless you tell us what it is. MC knows; so should we. It's an easy fix.
The "kilosecond" thing is a nice clue to what time we're in.
posted
The first few lines are a bit jumbled. That second sentance is confusing enough that I didn't realize that you suggested that Teil was still alive, so when you said her skin was "desiccated and brittle," I assumed we were talking about a corpse. That forced me to backtrack before even finishing the first paragraph, which isn't so good. If you simply rephrased the sentance in the active mode, with Davis as the actor (and is that a first name?), it would help a lot.
I also think that it would be appropriate for Davis to administer (or already have administered) some form of simple first aid for extreme dehydration. Whatever other condition is endangering her life, the dehydration can't be helping. Just mentioning that he'd slapped an emergency IV pack on her arm or whatever would be enough.
About kiloseconds...it's a waste of the readers' time to make them stop and figure out that you mean "under 18 minutes". If the term were telling us something essential, I'd allow it, but I don't think it does. One important thing to consider, base 60 calculation isn't obsolete or anything, we still use it for more than just units of time. So it's not very plausible to the mathmatically literate audience that such terms would come into widespread usage. And unless you want to put that note about "flighter" not being a typo in the published book, consider "flighter" a typo.
Last issue, and the most "writerly", you tell us that something other than the dehydration is threatening her life, but don't specify what it is other than a dialog referrence to her being off her meds. That overloads the reader with things to care about finding out, which means that something will get shortchanged. It's better for the reader to care a lot about one thing than to care a little about several.
posted
First, thanks to everyone who read. There's some helpful, valuable feedback here.
Johnmac1953, I see what you mean -- very clearly, now that you've pointed it out. This particular incarnation of the first page is the "youngest" I've had, but so far the most to the point. I'll juggle the sequence a bit and see if I can smooth out the flow...
Honestly, I've been a bit torn between trying to hook a reader in the first 13 lines and providing a fair amount of background. I do believe there's a better balance than the one I've found so far, but I do have a way to go.
I'm aware of the "Homeworld" video game issue. I don't expect the current title to survive through to publication (boy, does that sound presumptuous), and plan to defer to an agent, editor, or reader for another suggestion.
Actually, in 1989, the story was called "Homecoming"... Then I saw OSC's Homecoming saga sitting on a bookshelf, and switched to "Homeworld"... Then I saw a review of a video game I've never played, and switched again to... something as yet undecided.
At this rate, maybe it'll be published someday as "Home________".
posted
wbriggs, thanks -- I see your point regarding POV. I think I'm still suffering in rewrites from condensing what was once five or six chapters down to one. In fusing different bits that I felt needed to be saved, I've probably made more errors in POV.
Regarding your suggested rewrite, the glacier reference surprised me. Can you put your finger on what gave you that impression? (I actually have them flying back from somewhere very non-glacial.)
posted
Survivor, thanks for the thorough read. I see the points about the first few lines -- they need some rearrangement. And Teil's supposed to be near death, not dead, so I do need to avoid inflicting confusion about her state. (I hate that as a reader.)
Kiloseconds came about fairly recently in the writing. The thing is, this story is set waaaaay off Earth, centuries in the future, and centuries removed from any contact with Earth. In earlier drafts, I did go by minutes and hours... but started wondering why. On a world that doesn't have 24-hour days which fit, 365 at a time, into one year, would our 60-second "minute," 60-minute "hour," etc., have any meaning for that world's inhabitants? I feel they probably wouldn't, but terms like "minutes" and "hours" might (and I figure "days" and "years" would). The dilemma I found in referencing time in this way is that if I do refer to "minutes" and "hours" on a world where the natural day and year are completely different from ours, at some point I'd need to explain that their minute is a different length, their hour is a different length... and so on. I've tried to do this in a few ways, but they all felt too stilted to me. Maybe I should take another stab at that.
Has anyone else here wrestled with expressing timescales in environments that are essentially human but completely removed from Earth?
Your other points are taken, too. Having about 93,000 words left to explain everything, I'm currently trying to hook the reader in these first 13 lines more than I'm trying to paint a full picture... but it's a balancing act in which I'm honestly still trying to get the balance right. Thanks very much for providing a counterweight!
EDIT: I thought about your feedback while walking the dog tonight. It occurred to me that there's really no value in throwing "kilosecond" at the reader in the first lines -- not when he/she already has plenty to assimilate. Besides, Seline wouldn't need to be so precise in such a situation anyway. "...as soon as I can" would be easier on everyone.
I knew this forum was going to be helpful. I underestimated how much so. Many thanks.
[This message has been edited by Homeworld (edited February 18, 2006).]
posted
A good point about differing day lengths and such. But that doesn't affect minutes and hours that much. If the day is 21.87 hours long or something like that, you can introduce that in a single sentance (whenever you need it) without making anybody scratch their head.
The base sixty thing only applies to minutes and hours, not days. In fact, you'll notice that while many scientific measurement units that have a time dimension use seconds, minutes, or hours, none use days, months, or years. I won't say it's for that very reason, but in point of fact scientists do regard an hour as being a pure unit of time while a "day" is just a specific observable physical fact of rotation period measured at 24 hours (and change, depending on precision).
It's partly because hours are an extension of the base 60 system used for certain other units (like measuring angles), and partly because science recognized fairly early that hours (and component units) were something you used to measure days.
In any case, that's all minor SFfy background information, probably any technologically advanced culture descended from our own will use hours as units of time based on minutes and seconds rather than being defined by local conditions. The real point is that saying planetary midnight is 32:56'23" is much easier to understand than constantly converting everything from minutes and hours to kiloseconds.
About the glacier, I also had the impression that she was probably found in artic conditions at a high altitude. It wasn't more than an impression, based on the fact that she was dehydrated (rather than suffering heatstroke) and was being rescued by airlift. I was not put in mind of a glacier as such, but it wasn't just wb who saw it that way. You might want a stronger description of your setting, if she wasn't found on a high mountain.
posted
Of course I just remembered that there are measurements based on a year, like lightyears, duh.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'll see your two cents, Phil, and raise you. I like flighter better than fligher. Flighter makes me think of a flittering, small air craft... fligher just looks like you spelled it wrong. IMHO.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
The background notes I have for my SF milieu (should I ever manage to write anything decent in it) use decimal time, separate from (but based on) earth time, and then any given planet can use local time. So I have dseconds, dminutes, dhours and ddays for the "core" timekeeping system (100 seconds to the minute, 100 minutes to the hour, 10 hours to the day - as there are 86,400 real seconds in an earth day, this puts them about 15% different, which I figure is manageable), but if people are back at home then they'll talk about ehours or edays, and if they're somewhere else it might be lhours or ldays.
Kilosecond sounds an entirely plausible concept to me. For distances (within solar systems) I mustly do things in gigameters or even terameters, though having Word try and tell me that when I type "tm" it's a trademark symbol can get irritating...
posted
I think my one criticism is that it actually moves too fast for me. This is something I have a great deal of trouble with in my own writing. I think you can make the tone urgent without rushing through the action.
To me it seems like in 13 lines you've managed to rescue a character and get her almost back to safety, and nearly all through dialogue.
I think what would be more interesting to me would be for those 13 lines to deal exclusively with the character finding his sister and trying to get her back to the flighter without harming her further.
My own opinion is that there are many cases in which explaining some part of the story through dialogue will work, but that this isn't one of those cases, especially since it's the beginning of the story.
On the other hand, you may have a very good reason for wanting to start with the characters already in the flighter instead of somewhere else, but I just get the feeling that you might have a stronger beginning if you start somewhere else.
One other comment: for some reason the word "meds" just doesn't sit well with me. I think you might do better calling it "medication" or by the name of the medication or by the name plus the word "medication" (her _ medication).
All that said, what you wrote makes me interested in finding out more about your world and your characters.
posted
Homeworld, I just pulled the glacier reference out of the air. I'm not saying that I thought there was a glacier involved; I'm saying that I think it would be good for you to drop some small hint of where he found her.
Posts: 2830 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
