posted
Hi all, just trying out a story line I've been working a bit on. Anyone who'd like to comment, please do. So, here goes, first 13 lines of the prologue:
The darkness was his friend, this much he knew. As long as they couldn’t see him, they couldn’t hurt him either. As he ran, he looked down on the bundle in his arms, silently thanking the gods that the infant had decided to go to sleep.
Turning a corner, the intense heat from the burning citadel behind him faded. He had to get to the stables, find a mount and head for the relative security of the tribes. He knew they’d be accepted as refugees. Perhaps not welcomed, but accepted would have to do for now.
Nearing the stables, he heard an unwelcome sound behind him. A shrill shriek in the distance was answered by another one, much closer, to his right.
He cursed silently, and knew he had run out of luck. Looking
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited September 29, 2006).]
posted
I like the action, I'd keep reading it based on these 13. One thing that flagged as I was finishing the passage though was the repeated use of 'behind.'
Obviously he's being chased so a lot is happening behind him, but as a small nitpick I think the imagery could be improved by mixing up some of the behinds and using stronger actions.
For example in the line just before you describe the shrill shrieking thingies (actually a sidenote is that I guess I'm not really clear what those are, some kind of persuer I assume), you might be able to give a sense of urgency by subbing in something more descriptive in place of 'behind him,' say maybe "on his heels" or "breathing down his back", or whatever floats your boat. The important thing I think is just to make those "behind him","behind them"s a bit stronger.
[This message has been edited by Chris V (edited September 28, 2006).]
posted
I generally liked it but you withhold from us a bit.
Specifically,
quote: Nearing the stables, he heard an unwelcome sound behind him. A shrill shriek in the distance was answered by another one, much closer, to his right.
He knows what the sound is from so tell me. Ex: Nearing the stables, he heard an unwelcome sound behind him. The evil monkey robots were on his trail. The shrill shriek was answered by another one, much closer, to his right.
edit - Making the monkey robots and not "money" robots
[This message has been edited by kings_falcon (edited September 28, 2006).]
posted
okay, well there are a number of things...the man's leaving a baby behind a bunch of barrels, why not tell us that first, and then explain it later? there's the drama i find, the more so because it's understated.
i know, i know sf/f is supposed to start out with one mc in desperate peril surrounded by ray-wielding aliens, or nefarious government agencies, or rampaging orcs, or other things shrieking and wailing in the night, but that doesn't mean anything to me unless it's grounded in human reality. people leave babies all the time, and it's horrible each time, and implies desperate circumstance.
it's a mystery to get to the bottom of, more than a narrative result.
the language you use..."darkness was his friend," and "an unwelcome sound behind him" and the general "they" did not help me get into the story. i would name the "they". i would let us assume that darkness is his friend, if he is hiding in it. i would describe the sound and let us hear whether or not it is welcome. shrieking generally is not. i would show him going to the stables, and since he just left a baby behind, let us assume that he had to find them. ditto with going to the tribes.
but perhaps i am just in a grumpy mood. i get those sometimes. perhaps someone else will come along and say better things.
posted
I had the same reaction as King's Falcon, both where he mentioned it and here: "As long as they couldn’t see him, they couldn’t hurt him either." It doesn't need to be much -- you can unfold bits as you go along, with clues like the burning citadel -- but if he's being chased and _he_ knows what he's being chased by, then _I_ want to know what he's being chased by. Consider how different "they couldn't hurt him either" is if you replace "they" with each of these:
* the enemy soldiers: the default idea, for me * the Mickjaggerians: probably an external threat from Mickjaggerland * the aliens: I know I'm in sci-fi, not old-time fantasy * the castle guards: our MC is probably not supposed to be where he is -- maybe he's stealing the baby? * the rebels: the place is being overrun, and the MC is part of the establishment * the peasantry: total civil chaos * the rebelling guards: a coup attempt
The writing style was good, I think you just need to be a little more up front -- not info-dumpy, just giving as much information as you naturally can.
posted
First, I like this scene. Obviously something has gone wrong, and this character is desperate, and this baby is IMPORTANT. I'm intrigued.
That said, I second what others have said. You are withholding information that would help us better understand what's going on here. A general rule of thumb is that if we are in a character's point of view, we should know everything that they know (that is relevant to the scene).
Who is 'he'? Does he have a name? We should get it right away: "Big Bird knew this much: the darkness was his friend."
Same thing with 'they'. He knows who they are, so we should too, from the time they are first mentioned: "As long as the evil robot monkeys couldn't see him, they couldn't hurt him either."
Same thing with 'the infant'. Does the infant have a name? If the MC knows it, then he probably refers to him/her by name: "...silently thanking the gods that his infant son, Snuffleupagus, had decided to go to sleep." OR "...silently thanking the gods that young prince Elmo had decided to go to sleep.
A small nit there: does a baby decide to go to sleep, or does it just fall asleep? It might be nitpicky enough that you can ignore this comment.
Turning a corner, the intense heat from the burning citadel behind him faded. This sentence is grammatically incorrect. Technically, it is saying that the intense heat turned a corner, not the character. I know that is not your meaning.
...the relative security of the tribes. He knew they’d be accepted as refugees. This sentence is grammatically awkward. In the first sentence, the last plural noun mentioned is 'the tribes', so "they'd" refers to them, and that doesn't make sense. This would be easy to clear up by replacing "they'd" with more direct nouns: "...the relative security of the tribes. Big Bird knew that he and Snuffy [or Elmo] would be accepted as refugees."
...he heard an unwelcome sound behind him. This is unnecessary. We can infer that the sound is unwelcome by the fact that he curses immediately after and knows his luck has run out, and the fact that he is already trying to hide from something.
...and covered it with his cloak. The baby is not an 'it'. The baby is a him or a her, unless this character honestly can't tell and doesn't know the sex of the baby. Also, by using him/her, you give us a clue about the identity of the baby.
Overall, like I said, the scene is intriguing. But it is heavily laden with pronouns (he/him/they/it) that make the action much more vague and confusing. If you qualify those pronouns by giving us names (Big Bird, Elmo) and/or identities (evil robot monkeys, the young prince), then this passage will become more clear and a lot more compelling.
Trying to read it from a neutral point of view, I can see what you all mean by me being too vague when it comes to defining more stuff. Thing is, I sort of have a penchant for letting things be a bit mysterious at first, in order for them to unfold later. Like the shrieking things - they reappear (naturally) later on in the story, and then we find out what they really are.
The 13 lines would have continued like this:
- Fare thee well, my prince, the Sergeant whispered.
The shriek sounded again, now even closer. He rose and began sprinting towards the stables only half a block away. If he could only get on a horse, he knew he had a slim chance of outdistancing the enemy.
Now, when I change the "he" in the first line to "the Sergeant" (or "the bodyguard" or whatever), you are quite right, it gives more to the story (even though the Sergeant is to die horribly in the next sentence
Anyone fancy reading more, I'd be happy to send some stuff.
posted
I would definately keep reading from these thirteen lines. As mentioned above, nice action.
It would even been more enticing if you somehow discrbed the shreek more, like how it made him feel or how it drove him to move faster. Don't necessarily need to discribe how the shriek sounded, if you were to concentrate more on how it felt to him it would be much easier for the reader to imagine the shriek. It is a device that is used to make the reader feel closer to the story and make them want to read more. Speaking of which I would love to read more!
quote:Thing is, I sort of have a penchant for letting things be a bit mysterious at first, in order for them to unfold later.
That is something a lot of writers (myself included) try to do at first. Unfortunately, it doesn't work, because there is a difference between mysterious and confusing. You should check out these helpful threads:
posted
I love the way you write! I'm right there in the situation. Very good, in-the-flesh writing.
However, I feel like you're keeping secrets from me. What is he doing with the baby? What is his purpose, and what is his motive? You probably could not answer these questions in 13 lines, but I'm thoroughly interested in this story. E-mail me the rest (if you have the rest of the story) to the address morningstar95@hotmail.com
posted
thanks for the encouragment, the critizism and the links..
sojoyful - I agree with most of what's written in the links you posted. I'm fully in line with not keeping necessary things from the reader, nor making the reader feel stupid or left out. Some things
I do not, however, really agree with the suggestion to give the reader everything. There is a fine line between giving enough, not enough and too much - and until someone convinces me otherwise, I'll just have to go with my gut feeling of what works and what not.
Still - those first 13 lines were too obscure, I concur.
posted
Simon, I agree that you don't need to tell someone everything -- just what's important. Trying to explain too much up front leads to infodumps, and I hate infodumps more than I hate a small amount of withholding.
If people think you're withholding, you might try to say _less_ rather than tell them more. More than once, I've responded to someone saying "tell me what this means" by quietly saying, "no, I won't tell you about it at all now!". Then the detail came out later -- maybe only a few sentences, but later -- and the whole thing was smoother. The reader diagosed the problem correctly, but the solution was different from the "tell me everything" approach.
That said, if you say something, people will assume it's important, and there should be no surprises about what your character knew and when she knew it... but all this has been written before. What they said.
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I love the way you write! I'm right there in the situation. Very good, in-the-flesh writing.
