My name is Jededia Whitmore, and none of this is my fault. My friends used to tease me that the reason I got picked for this mission is because I'm the last remaining WASP on earth, and the suits wanted to make sure the strain didn't die out entirely.

There was fear and resentment in their eyes, though, and I didn't blame them. At least, going on the colony ship gave us one more straw to grasp. Everyone who remained on earth knew they were doomed. The people who had been accepted as space pioneers still believed that they had a chance.

I think what is happening is there is a colony ship leaving earth, and the narrator was selected to go on the ship. Those who stay, will die. Those who go, might live.

I had to read it a second time to grasp it. The second paragraph was where I was lost.

I think I got lost because "this mission" made me think more like a special ops kind of mission. Wild assumption on my part, I know, but there it is.

The hook for me was the sense that something was wrong about him or her being picked. I'd keep reading, but think I would be looking for more of a hook along the way.

I would also be looking for an explanation of WASP fairly soon, though I don't think I would need it immediately. I get that its a strain, so I'm thinking some kind of genetic modification.

I also wasn't sure how the psychiatrist fit in, but it was the last bit of the snip, so that's understandable. I'm sure it keeps going from there.

Some nits:

If he's on the mission, hasn't he left earth by now? If so, it would be 'the reason I got picked for this mission is because I was the last remaining WASP on earth ...'

Would he really say 'the strain'? Perhaps, 'the suits wanted to make sure we didn't die out entirely.' Or instead of 'we', perhaps the slang term that WASPs use to refer to themselves? - which, of course, could be a tantalizing one.

'fear and resentment in their eyes' -- who 'their'? Friends, surely not, and the suits don't have feelings, do they? I imagine you mean the population left behind but for me it's not clear.

Wouldn't he identify with the people on the ship by saying something like, 'Those of us who had been accepted as space pioneers still believed that we had a chance.' ?

The last para is part of the hook, clearly. But the second sentence ("I had been seeing ...") bothers me somehow: would he mention the psychatrist so bluntly and so early? Wouldn't he fear that that would put the reader off, and try to justify or minimise it somehow, or lead us into the story a bit more before mentioning it? I can see it's important to the hook but I wondered if he would be quite so clear, so early (and I'm aware this is your area of expertise so of course I could be plain wrong)... Here's a challenge: maybe in these few lines you could hint through the style and content of narration what the problem is that took him to the psychiatrist and show us, instead of telling us, then later admit to visiting said psychiatrist, if it matters to the story. For example, more crudely than your voice but you'll get the idea: "I had a few doubts about that. If they accepted me, something had to be wrong somewhere. After all, during the interviews, I broke out in paranoid sweat every time they mentioned BEEs - stupid, I know, but that's how I am - or rather, was - and they didn't notice!"

I'd love to read it if you'd like,

Hope this helps,
Pat

Since there is some disagreement about my correct assessment :) you might want to untangle it. On the other hand, if you manage to have more than one clear hook to choose from, the reader might feel especially compelled to read on. To coin a phrase, possibly, I'll call that a metahook.

I'm going to be home one more day I think - I am recovering nicely from the bug the 10 year old brought home from school, but the two younger ones have caught it now. I was still in a little bit of a flu haze yesterday when I started writing. So I need to go through everyone's comments and figure out where I'm losing people at.

And, regarding the book a day thing, I grew up in a very blue collar neighborhood. The only thing being a good reader got you there was a butt-kicking. So, its funny to me to be in a group of people that actually think it's cool. It used to be my dirty little secret. I also used to have a hard time giving back books that I liked - it seemed that they were meant to be mine. I actually had a cop show up at the door one day with a warrant for all my overdue library books - i was about 14 at the time. And I was probably the only library book shoplifter in Detroit. Oh, yeah. Those were the days!

It took me two days to read Lisey's story, but on some days (like holidays and vacation days), I read more, so I think it all works out. And no, I don't count Clifford the Big Red Dog in there, although I do usually read the books the kids bring home so that we can talk about them intelligently. At one point I think I had read every Goosebumps book in publication. ARGH!

quote:

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I was looking for an alternative word for "The People in Charge of This Project" and I need to find a better one.

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There are other things people wear (besides suits) or use (like clipboards) that could indicate their power and be slang for those people: badges, particular kinds of hats, particular kinds of instruments or gadgets (you could refer to a nurse as "the blood-pressure cuff" I suppose) or even weapons ("the riding crop" even?), and so on.

1. You have a tendency to write stories with the narrator (in fist person) stating something about the story's hook in a somewhat existential way in the present, and then leap back into the past to tell the details. This isn't a problem, just a stylistic tendency I noticed. Have you tried rewriting this without the first paragraph entirely? I don't know if it'll improve, but it might.

2. Invoking Moby Dick sets the bar pretty high up there. This isn't a bad thing, but elevating the language to meet it mighn't be a terrible idea. Your narrator is pretty personal already, and fairly informal. I don't know if there's a balance to be found between your style and Melville's, but it might be worth looking for it.

3. (This point was made after lunch, and we've shared two bottles of a very nice red wine between the four of us, so I'm not entirely in my right mind) You might do to bring a few more concrete details about the catastrophe a little further up in the book to fit somewhere in these 13. Knowing that something goes wrong is well and fine, but knowing a tidbit of what actually happens could be a deeper hook.

Good work, though. I like this. Send it by if you're looking for readers.

Also, I have a friend named Ishmael (he's Puerto Rican, go figure) so he reminds me of the Moby Dick character a lot. But the reference was not to Melville's writing, it was to the fact that Jedediah thinks of himself as an Ishmael like figure. I can get pretty cocky, but I have no intention of comparing myself to melville, or anybody else for that matter. After you read, maybe you can help me come up with a better title. I'm open to ideas. I actually started out calling this "For want of a crew". or some other variation on that "for want of a nail" thing.

My name is Jedediah Whitmore, and I am surrounded by the dead, and I don't know what to do. It's not my fault – I never intended to murder anyone. This adventure was cursed from the beginning; it was wrong to try to escape our fate. But I was caught up in the idea of my own life completing the circle that my ancestors had started by colonizing America. I let my excitement and sense of destiny get the better of me. When I was first chosen, my friends teased me that the reason I got picked for the colonization project is because I'm the last remaining WASP on earth, and the selection committee wanted to make sure we didn't die out entirely. All I could see was that now I would be the one to go out to that fearful new world and help make a new beginning for the human race.

He says "I'm the last remaining..." isn't he ON the colony ship now, thereby having BEEN the last WASP on earth. I was the last remaining...

From here the rest of the tenses in the subsequent sentences make me go hmm... "All I could see was that now I would be..." there's got to be a simpler way to say that.

I also suggest a paragraph break or two. Maybe right after the first sentence? And again before When I was first chosen...

It just seems like, with the intensity of what you're laying out for the reader, some breaks are warranted.

I, too, owe you a read. So send it along and I'll take a look ;-)

quote:

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WASP is a 20th century slang term - White Anglo Saxon Protestant. So saying that his friends tease him about being the last surviving WASP is a quick way of saying that society has changed and that many different types of people have power now, not just the "good old boys".

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I didn't know what WASP stood for until you told me, and I have the feeling that a good number of your readers won't make that connection. Even once you told me (outside of the story) what it meant, I didn't get that it meant that "different types of people have power now." I was thinking, "Does this mean that he's the last white person? No, genetically that doesn't make sense. A brown-skined couple with the right genes can produce a white-skinned child, so this option seems nearly impossible. Something wiped out the Anglo Saxons? I suppose that might be it--some plague or war or something. Or is he the last Protestant, but there are plenty of Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Atheists, etc? What happened to them? How do they absolutely know that he's the only one left that believes that way?" See the problem?

Also, not every WASP in today's society has power. Unless your protag is one of the old elite (in which case, why not just say, "last surviving of the old elite"?), saying that he's a White Anglo Saxon Protestant doesn't really make the point you're trying to get across. Why not tell us what IS true now. We'll have a better idea of how the world has changed that way. (It's the difference between saying, "the white European men aren't in charge anymore" which leaves open a lot of options as to who IS in power, vs. "Hispanic women are in charge.")

The colonization trip of the Appleseed (Appleseed? - cool) seems like an ordinary space colony as it started out. There's less of the impending doom around this start, so less urgency and less danger to the WASPs of the world.

That all contradicts the first sentence. I understand that all the deaths happened after the Appleseed was under way. It's that the hooking horror of 'surrounded by the dead' and 'never intended to murder anyone' are undone by the rest.

Technical:
I think "This adventure was cursed" could start a new paragraph. That might reset the readers' mental images and preserve the horrifying hook.

"one to go out to that fearful new world" -- What is that world afraid of? Do you mean 'fearsome' = one to be feared?

I am with LordPoochie on this story - I was hooked by the original first 13, but not the rewrite. I thought the original was very good. The questions of what a WASP was and why it was so important yet feared by the populous, were an immediate hook. The fact that the world was doomed was another hook, and said straight up – this story is about race survival.

My criticisms of the original 13 were
– the opening sentence was filler (the bang was in the second sentence)
– the third paragraph felt that you were dragging the back-story too far. I was ready to enter the story proper

For the rewrite, the first two sentences clearly marked it as horror, and I am not into horror, so that was a turn off. (Nitpick - murder implies intent, so the second sentence is an oxymoron.) Additionally, there was no science fiction hook – although I could have interpreted this as follows: an alternative history where the pilgrims had been the only ones to make it to the new world before Europe had been wiped from the map by the bubonic plague (and perhaps the MC had given it to all on the sailing boat that returned to Europe). The things that got me wanting to read the original 13 are absent in the second: WASPs were now a minor gibe among friends and not important to the story, and; there is no sense that this is about space (references to the new world can be considered an alternative reference to America). Most important, the rewrite felt more like an infodump, with little to indicate which bits of information were important and which weren't.

I expect a good book to send me to the dictionary every now and again. Although, I admit it happens a lot less recently. But there's a kind of wonder in discovering a new word.

Adam
xxx

I'll read it again if you'd like.