posted
This is a piece I haven't worked on in awhile. I tried my hand at a first person narrative but it rambled and didn't really go anywhere. I like the character but I'm waiting for something to put him up against. Anyway, feedback appreciated.
Most fakes come from Morocco, but lately I’ve seen a few from places like Belize. Mostly though, it’s always been Morocco. The people there are underpaid and pressured to come up with Frankenstein-type concoctions. You’ll find a Devonian pygidium connected to a Cambrian cephalon. Or prehistoric cephalopod shells epoxied onto a spineless species to make it look prickly and new. You can make whole new genera if you’re really creative, and I’ve seen a few of my own in major museum collections. A little badge of honor. A dead give away is the color of the matrix. Moroccan rock should be slate gray or black--rarely yellow brown. A crackline should be visible. If the colors don’t match up, it's very likely a fabrication. I’ve done this many times. If you bite down and use the nerves in your front teeth, a real trilobite-encompassing matrix will be much, much harder.
1) Name a few places that are like Belize. I'm not an expert on geography, so dont know where they are, or what its characteristics are.
2) What is a Devonion pydigium or Cambrian cephalon? I haven't the faintest. You may have researched this subject, but I haven't & neither do I want to. Please tell me through the story what they are.
3) Matrix? What is that? I have no idea what you are describing in the last paragrah.
posted
If you just put "trilobyte" in front of "fakes" in the first sentence, or maybe "fake fossils" instead of just "fakes" (if you want to refer to more general kinds of fakes), it would give the reader a better idea of what you're talking about.
Posts: 603 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
I caught on to what you were talking about and was interested in reading more (since I had no idea there was a market for fake fossils and was intrigued), but I agree it would help the reader to introduce the subject earlier in the paragraph. I also think the first two sentences are redundant and could be combined. "Lately, I've come across some fakes in places like Belize, but most of the fakes come from Morocco," or something like that.
Posts: 150 | Registered: Aug 2005
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posted
That isn't what he's trying to say. He's saying that the fakes are from Belize, not that the narrator saw them there.
I think that it's very interesting that this guy admits to having made museum quality fakes, one has to assume that he has since been caught and "turned".
Corky has a good suggestion, signal the reader early that you're talking about fossils, that way people won't stumble over Devonian pygidium and Cambrian cephalon.
Anyway, I think that it's an intersting opening, but it could be a bit more accessable. If you want an antagonist for him, why not another master forger? Or you could have him trying to validate a new discovery that everyone else is absolutely convinced has to be a fake. Or...he's trying to make a new start for himself as a genuine paleontologist, but he needs to get rid of the fakes he's previously sold to various museums without ever letting on that they were fakes.
You could even go with a parallel story, where he has to distinquish between fakes and the real thing in some other area of his life. Lot's of different directions you could take this.
posted
Personally I don’t mind the reference to Devonian pygidium or Cambrian cephalon. Sure, it confused the hell out of me, but it all became clear within a few sentences. The matrix reference is still confusing me though, but I’m hoping that you make that obvious just after the 13 line limit.
For me though, the problem comes in the sentence “You can make whole new genera if you’re really creative, and I’ve seen a few of my own in major museum collections.” The transition between talking about general fakes and the narrator him- (or her-) self seems forced. I think this detail, that the narrator is a forger themselves, could make a nice punch-line to the whole paragraph. He gets more and more into the details of things, and then says something about how the good ones get into museums, all in general terms. And then in the final line you reveal he’s seem some of his in museums. Something like that.
But certainly a great hook. Feels very original. Plus fossils are cool.
posted
"Matrix" means the sedimentary rock surrounding a fossil, and he probably doesn't explain it any more than in the line right after he uses the term.
Posts: 8322 | Registered: Aug 1999
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