Halfway through my commitment to write 12 stories in 12 weeks.
How is this for an opening?
The world below looked like the pictures of Earth in the vids: blue oceans, green land masses streaked with white clouds. John had an old printed paper photograph of his great grandparents standing among wildflowers under the same type of fluffy clouds. The robot lander showed a similar meadow with trees. But the lander’s live feed sent chills up John’s spine. “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Angela Tarsin’s voice at his ear. “Two hundred years of waiting about to climax.” “Yeah.” John switched to the feed from the Gathering Hall with a sense of relief. The Celebration was in progress. "Two hundred and fourteen years, six months, three days, two hours, seventeen minutes and –" Captain Paulsley waited dramatically, then – "thirty seconds ago!...our ancestors set
So, I changed it up to try and emphasize John's discomfort about the planet they're orbiting.
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited March 31, 2008).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited March 31, 2008).]
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited April 03, 2008).]
posted
Not a bad description - minus a few cliches = "...chills up John's spine." - "...fluffy clouds."
But - where's the beef? I would like to have seen them landing because of some trouble or tragedy on the planet or perhaps on the ship itself which forces a landing - or at least some hints as to what is to come that would make me want to read further. As it is, it read like an ordinary account of a landing on a distant planet - it needs a hook.
posted
Sigh. The story is not about landing on a hostile world. Nor is it about a ship breaking down. The hint, the only hint I can see at the moment is showing how scared our pov, John, is. It's not coming across, is it?
Posts: 1580 | Registered: Dec 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Naw, at least for me it did not. It would have if there were some tense/anxious moments in it - but mention of a celebration going on gave the impression of a festive feeling to it all - and if you are trying to convey a sense of fear in the same scene mentioning a festive gathering - I think you are working against yourself - IMO. Also, it is not enough to know that John is scared, let us in on just why he is scared and that will draw us in.
Posts: 409 | Registered: Feb 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Maybe I can concentrate the fear in one paragraph for John so there is an obvious contrast between this beautiful world and a celebration about arriving there and John's fear.
Hmmm..this is interesting. Can't be too subtle, it seems. Gotta get out the heavy duty markers to make my point.
quote:Hmmm..this is interesting. Can't be too subtle, it seems. Gotta get out the heavy duty markers to make my point.
I'd disagree here, but I do feel your pain. There are times when I think I've gone overboard making things unsubtle, only to have people still completely miss the point I'm trying to make.
To your revised 13...
quote:The world below looked like the pictures of Earth in the vids: blue oceans, green land masses streaked with white clouds. John had an old printed paper photograph of his great grandparents standing among wildflowers under the same type of fluffy clouds. The robot lander showed a similar meadow with trees. But the lander’s live feed sent chills up John’s spine.(1) “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Angela Tarsin’s voice at his ear. “Two hundred years of waiting about to climax.” (2) “Yeah.” John switched to the feed from the Gathering Hall with a sense of relief. The Celebration (3) was in progress. "Two hundred and fourteen years, six months, three days, two hours, seventeen minutes and –" Captain Paulsley waited dramatically, then – "thirty seconds ago!...our ancestors set off for a new world. There were those who said this ship would never finish that journey. Well, it did!”(4)
1. You're hiding information from us. John knows why the view gave him chills. We should too.
2. I don't know that climax is entirely the correct word here. Maybe rewrite the line to something like "The culmination of two hundred years of waiting." I dunno. Climax just sounds kind of odd to my ear.
3. Capitalizing the word Celebration turns what would be a spontaneous event to celebrate the culmination of a two hundred year journey into a ritual reenacted often enough to become not just a celebration, but The Celebration. To me, it sounds like it should just be a celebration.
4. This line sounds too much like a scripted speech being given, something akin to Armstrong's speech as he stepped onto the moon. Maybe it's just my taste, but the dramatic speech takes away a bit of the reality of the scene, reminds me I'm reading or watching tv.
All in all, not terribly bad. A little puffy, like nitewriter mentioned, and there is no real sense of urgency here. It's not that John's fear isn't noticeable, but it isn't really warranted. We don't know why he is afraid, not in the slightest. Does he have a phobia of wide-open spaces, after a lifetime spend onboard a colony ship? Has he been traumatized by rumors of demons dropping down out of the blue sky overhead? Does he think he'll fall off the earth without a roof just up out of reach?
There's also no urgency here. We don't know how long until John's fears are (piotentially) realized. Does the ship land in a days time? Is John scheduled to lead a recon party to the surface within the hour? Again, these are tied to the question, why is John afraid of the planet? Until you answer that, there's not a whole lot going on here. And it is something you should be able to hint at in these first 13 without going into obscene levels of detail.
posted
I keep wondering why John's chills down his spine are mentioned when its obviously so insignificant. I think it's insignificant because he moves off that thought so quickly. If you spent some time with why John's uncomfortable, I could be hooked.
Or maybe if you flipped the order you give us the information - start with the celebration, John remembering the picture and then end the 13 with the chills. THEN I'd wonder why he's reacting in such an opposite manner and probably be hooked.
posted
I think you need you be clear about what he fears, so that he sees what he sees through the lens of that fear.
e.g. He is ship-borne, he fears the open space, the roofless world, he likes the warren-like ship. The fluffy clouds will look wrong to him--they shouldn't be there. Obviously he knows about rain etc, they all know about that stuff they learned about during acclimatisation training--but the thought of not having a roof keeping the atmosphere in just makes him panic.
Or perhaps he fears all the microscopic viruses and bacteria that could infect him. Or maybe he fears gravity.
I think it would come across better if Angela notices his fear/reaction. He could dismiss it an laugh, but we the readers would know by his conflicted internal reaction. I would imagine he wouldn't be the only one with fears associated with going planet-side; people would be looking out for planet-phobes as they could compromise the mission...
posted
The world below looked a lot like the pictures of Earth in the vids: blue oceans, green land masses streaked with clouds. John had an old printed paper photograph of his great grandparents standing among wildflowers under a similar blue sky. Signals from the robot lander showed a kind of meadow with trees in the background. The sight sent chills up John’s spine. “Pretty, isn’t it?” said Angela’s voice at his ear. “Yeah,” John muttered. Pretty deadly. There were bound to be animals down there and rain and biting insects and uncontrolled temperature changes: winter. He shivered. Why couldn’t the ship go on to some other solar system and let the next generation aboard deal with colonizing a world?
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited April 03, 2008).]
[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited April 03, 2008).]
posted
This is becoming clearer, but I think you could give it more punch. You could omit the image of the world (unless it's relevant to his phobia, as in, "It all looks so Earthlike, but there's not a city or a power hookup or a Taco Bell on the whole planet" or something.)
quote:Signals from the robot lander ON THE WORLD BELOW JOHN'S SHIP showed a kind of meadow with trees in the background.
The sight sent chills up John’s spine.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” said Angela’s voice at his ear.
“Yeah,” John muttered. Pretty deadly. ...
I think you've cleared up the "why should I read?" question. I'm now a little curious as to what's wrong with John.
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited April 04, 2008).]
Printer-friendly view of this topic
