I had an idea last night and just finished the first chapter, its SF, length as yet undetermined.
Any comments welcome, just wondering how it grabs you, or not.
Thanks Z
Most evenings, while the other kids congregated at the youth centre deep underground in the village square, Tyla ventured to the surface to witness the storm battering the greenhouse. He found the sound of it soothing somehow. Reassuring even, in its unnatural regularity, the way each successive wave of rain and hail broke over the reinforced glass just as the last was sluicing away down its domed surface. He noticed there was an almost tidal rhythm to it present somewhere in all that howling chaos. And if you closed your eyes and concentrated hard enough you could almost be listening to the sea lapping on the shore somewhere.
posted
Rather compelling, it does make me want to read more. I was left wondering why he alone would surface while other kids stayed below. Also, what is "unnantural regularity"? This seems to contradict a later description of "tidal rhythm". In other words, how can something that has "unnatural regularity" also have rhythm since rhythm implies regularity. The other problem is that the greenhouse is being "battered" by rain and hail. At the end we are told "... could almost be listening to the sea lapping on the shore..." The images don't seem to fit. Wouldn't the loudest noise be that of hail pelting the greenhouse? It's a much different noise than that of waves rolling and breaking on a shore.
nit: "He noticed there was an almost..." How about "He listened..." or "He heard..."
posted
It's interesting, but you have a couple of wording issues. Like "youth centre deep underground in the village square," which should probably be "youth centre in the village square deep underground".
Putting that aside, I have a couple of POV nits. When you say "unnatural regularity," does that mean that Tyla knows the storm to be artificial, or that she has experience of "natural" storms which do not follow such a pattern, or do you mean that we would find such a storm unnatural? If it's either of the first two, you need to clarify, and if it's the last, you've got a POV flaw there.
The same sort of issue applies to comparing it to waves at the seashore. I seriously doubt that Tyla has ever been to the seashore, and I don't think he'd compare the beating of this storm to a recorded noise.
One final point, purely a matter of personal preference. I would rather that you established a particular time and place for this scene, rather than saying it was something that happened most evenings. You could say "Tyla ventured to the surface to witness the storm battering the greenhouse, just as he did most evenings." Actually, there are language problems with that, but that's your fault, not mine
Oh, and Tyla totally sounds like a girl's name.
Anyway, despite all these nits, I found it a rather interesting beginning. Maybe later.
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