posted
I haven't posted anything up in a long while, so I thought I'd have some fun by letting y'all have at this, perhaps as payback for my crits should anyone desire it.
I suppose this qualifies as humorous spec fic (well, I hope it's funny). Feedback on the intro only for now. I will not argue if anyone complains about the fourth sentence. Thanks in advance.
*
Catcher of Ghosts
Martin Knollweare believed. He believed in government conspiracies, Bigfoot, and in all things paranormal. He believed there were UFO’s as well--who didn’t? But after years of failing to spot even one spacecraft, the single, thirty-eight-year-old physical therapist became weary of gathering with like-minded sky watchers on a chilly mountainside in New Hampshire, when the only unusual sighting for most evenings was Gloria, the transvestite waitress at Denny’s restaurant in Nashua. Compared to those in his UFO group who wished to be abducted (and probed!), a transvestite hardly qualified as unusual.
Unhappy, Knollweare longed for something special to happen in his life. A girlfriend would be nice, too.
Everything. You name it and I believed it. ... I believed I could hitchhike to California with thirty-five cents and people would be glad to feed me. ... I believed Yoko Ono was an artist. I believed Bob Dylan was a musician. ... With the exception of anything my mom and dad said, I believed everything.
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited May 13, 2006).]
posted
I liked it so far. I would have liked to see the MC's impression of the other UFO watchers and the transvestite. Either their descriptions, or at least his gut reaction. I think that would tell us a lot about the character, and add a great opportunity for humor.
Posts: 86 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
Great start. I had no problem at all with the fourth sentence. It was long, but I followed it just fine. It was the fifth sentence that throw me. You tell me in the fourth that Gloria is the most unusal, and then in the fifth that she isn't unual at all--maybe that's your point, but it tripped me up. I lost the happy flowing feeling.
Posts: 88 | Registered: Apr 2006
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posted
While the fourth sentence is comprehensible, there is a nuance that I didn't follow... you say he's "gathering with like-minded sky watchers on a chilly mountainside."
I'm not knowing whether to think this is a one-time event, or a regular gathering. I'd also like to know whether this gathering IS his UFO group, or if this is a "Close Encounters" style random gathering of strangers, and he's merely thinking about his friends in the UFO group. I'm suspecting the former, but I'd like a little stronger clarity. Perhaps the subsequent paragraph makes that clear.
Overall, very clever. Nearly as funny as using cats to clean your toilet. I give your hook high marks.
PS: It brings up memories for me of the time I had a chance to see Dr J. Allen Hynek lecture in person about Project Blue Book. He was an amusing and captivating speaker.
This appears to be a matter of style. In Elements of Style, Strunk & White recommend using an apostrophe, ie: UFO's, for this type of thing. However, The Washington Post Deskbook on Style says to leave the apostrophe out and use the form as UFOs.
My intent with this intro was to develop Knollweare quickly by cramming in the basics of personality and the futility of his life in that first paragraph. Following this, the UFO group, which Knollweare has been a member of for years, is established within Denny's. And of course the catalyst for change in Knollweare's life happens there (though he doesn't recognize it as such at first -- there is a rivalry between the ghost hunters and the sky-watchers, with each group taunting and despising the other, and so on).
No, this isn't to be taken seriously, but it should be believable and engaging, if not a little silly in presentation at times.
And that fourth sentence had been a little longer before I edited it down. I hoped to get away with it as is...
posted
On the apostrophe thing (UFO's vs UFOs), it appears that standard usage is to not use an apostrophe. So UFOs is correct. And apparently this is true of all acronyms, with an exception to acronyms ending in the letter S, such as SOS's (could also be SOSes; in the former case the apostrophe is substituting for the omitted e).
posted
I didn't realize the 4th sentence was that long until re-reading it after seeing the objections. Worked for me.
Posts: 160 | Registered: Feb 2006
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posted
I was definitely playing off a stereotype, which isn't necessarily cliché (X-Files characters notwithstanding -- what are they called again, The Lone Gunmen? Why can't I remember this? I'm just as geeky as they.) I wonder how things might be different if Knollweare were a Cassanova/player type, someone able to get babes at will, who also happened to believe strongly in all these things...
Do such creatures exist? Hmm... You know, that might be funnier.
posted
Hey, after reading that last post, you could make him a single Cassanova who believes firmly in these things and is still lonely because he's sick of of the type of women who seem drawn to him or something along the same lines. I mean, if your planning a lonely guy approach when you introduce his love interest (is there a specific female for him?) of the story, you could sculpt him any way you wanted to. It's extremely possible to avoid hitting stereotypes, hitting them directly on the head, or combining them, to create whatever character you need to fulfill the role that you're working out for him. Everyone I've ever met has been extremely different from everyone else so there are no set rules. You probably already realize all of this, but I wanted to post in the first place to say I really enjoy your style of writing (it -was- engaging) and then I continued to read and that's the thought I got from it. Keep it up, though, most definitely.
Posts: 16 | Registered: May 2006
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posted
I think that having a male physical therapist who is unable to get a girlfriend is rather an interesting idea, but one that needs a bit of justification. The reason UFO chasers tend to be "pathetic losers" when it comes to women is because, in the final analysis, it just isn't that important to them. Mulder was just as pathetic a loser as the Lone Gunmen (far more so than Frohike or Byers), albeit a handsome law enforcement agent who often saved beautiful (and occasionally grateful) women in peril.
A guy with training in physical therapy and the ability to hold down a job in that field isn't going to have trouble picking up women, even if he limits himself to those who share his beliefs about UFOs (my belief is that they are unidentified, appear to fly, and are percieved as physically discrete entities...termed "objects"). As PennyLane suggested, he might have trouble keeping them for various reasons.
But for me, the problem is just that the voice isn't quite enough to pull me in all by itself. Since you don't open with a scene, it has that burden.
posted
"Martin Knollweare believed. He believed in government conspiracies, Bigfoot, and in all things paranormal. He believed there were UFO’s as well--who didn’t? But after years of failing to spot even one spacecraft, the single, thirty-eight-year-old physical therapist became weary of gathering with like-minded sky watchers on a chilly mountainside in New Hampshire, when the only unusual sighting for most evenings was Gloria, the transvestite waitress at Denny’s restaurant in Nashua. Compared to those in his UFO group who wished to be abducted (and probed!), a transvestite hardly qualified as unusual.
Unhappy, Knollweare longed for something special to happen in his life. A girlfriend would be nice, too."
If you changed the last paragraph to:
"Knollweare longed for something special to happen in his life."
it might hook me more. You can talk about his lack of girlfriend later, as I'm assuming that this is part of the special something he lacks. (otherwise why be up there on the mountain all the time?) I would tone down the bit about the transvestite too, I don't care that he/she works in Nashua ... but that might be funny if I knew anything about New Hampshire. Which I don't.
But I kind of like Martin Knollweare. I want to know more about him. So I think this hook is pretty successful.
quote:Since you don't open with a scene, it has that burden.
I know. Which is why I posted this up, to discover if starting with only character development is valid in modern fiction... er, valid for modern readers rather. It probably is perfectly valid, but I may not have handled it effectively. Which happens regularly.
Before editing the fourth sentence down, I had established that Knollweare was in Denny's with his group. Instead, I moved it to paragraph three. The original unedited sentence was [edits in square brackets]:
But[Yet] after years of failing to spot even one spacecraft, the single, thirty-eight-year-old physical therapist became weary of [weekly] gathering[s] with like-minded sky-watchers on a chilly mountainside in New Hampshire, when the only unusual sighting for most evenings was Gloria, the transvestite waitress at Denny’s restaurant in Nashua[, where the EARs -- Extraterrestrials Are Real (The Granite State Charter)-- presently sat waiting for their breakfasts at three o'clock in the morning].
Clearly, the fourth sentence needed a chopping and for some of its contents to be developed later. But that was the original, if anyone wants a laugh...
posted
And therefore, it's funnier for the transvestite to live there.
Voice alone can carry a narrative intro, but it has to be exceptional. The voice itself has to have bite, attitude, a surprising twist of perception. wbriggs' O'Rourke quote illustrates that quality amply, despite the fact that it is rather heavily edited. Douglas Adams was a master of maintaining that kind of voice, one that demanded attention because it had such a unique take on things.
You come close...you're trying to achieve it. But you aren't quite there. Partly, I think that your voice is too real, too normal. Martin isn't ferocious about anything, so we're more likely to be interested in him as a person in an identifiable situation (waiting for breakfast with his kook friends is good).
Let this segment take place later, after you've established the immediate and general situation, let Martin have a crisis of identity. When he's grappling with whether he wants to be part of this group anymore, let him really hash it out with himself. It'll be fun. But the voice isn't strong enough to use for the opening.
posted
I disagree with Survivor. I find the tone amusing, and the fact that it's a cliched sort of character doesn't bother me. UFO fanatics promise some zany antics, particularly any group that meets on a weekly basis. I have just enough experience with rabid Star Trek fans (having been one myself at one point... before the deep, dark, disappointing spiral downward that began with Voyager) that I'd read this story just to see what the heck these people might do.
So here's a Star Trek story... I have a friend who speaks Klingon. She's Jewish, and claims that since Klingon is a "gutteral, spitting language" that it's quite similar to Hebrew, and thus a natural for her. A local Portland espresso shop offered a free cup of coffee to anyone that day who came in with some Star Trek momento. She asked for the coffee in Klingon, and got her freebie.
Lest you think THAT is odd, the Portland area county mental health department had a newspaper article telling how they were seeking an interpreter who spoke Klingon. Seems occasionally they get mental health cases and the person won't speak anything else but....
So by contrast, HSO's character is fairly mild, but I have great hopes that the character will develop into something equally amusing.
posted
Thanks again for your comments. Emulating Douglas Adams's voice would be (and usually is when I try) great fun. I usually have to consciously steer away from doing so...
And in that vein, the appropriate DA insertion would be (roughly):
He believed in UFOs as well. Aside from Knollweare's tendency to buy expensive but worthless gadgets from the Home Shopping Network, his belief in aliens piloting UFOs across the galaxy to visit and study Earth was perhaps his greatest flaw. The truth is that humans are completely alone in the universe (well, there are highly intelligent slime molds on Rakagiggeltek, but since they can only communicate by jiggling and the occasional excited burp, humans could never understand them anyway and would likely only discover that the slime molds made for a wonderful industrial lubricant -- so the slime molds shouldn't be counted). Unfortunately, Knollweare didn't believe that it really was a weather balloon that crashed at Area 51, which it was, so he joined EARs...
[This message has been edited by HSO (edited May 16, 2006).]
(And I want to add that whenever I hear the term UFO I think of the time a bird flew into the window of my shop class. It made a huge thump and my instructor looked up and said, "What was that?" At that moment it was a UFO. I'd rather you use flying saucers, or aliens or life up there or even horrible squidlike creatures. okay so now I'm just having fun.)
posted
HSO, if you get this draft to a point you are looking for readers, put me on your list for critique. You can email me at buce@charter.net.
Posts: 2026 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
HSO, I like the opening to this story., though I'll agree that the fourth sentence did start to lose me. Not enough to keep me from wanting to read the rest, though.
I second Elan. If you want a reader within the next month or two, just email me. I should have the time.
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I give your hook high marks.
