posted
The music swelled with a hundred voices raising the hymn to Peace. The choir came from St. Opus’s school just a little outside Marsport. They had sung in the park every year at this time, even during the war years. A dusting of artificial snow started falling gently there inside the Marsport main dome. Measured by Earth time, it was Christmas, after all, and Mars did keep an Earth calendar. Always had, even before the war. Shoppers hurried about in the underground tunnels leaving the snowy park aboveground to the St. Opus orphans and those citizens brave enough to show interest in them. After all, St. Opus was the patron saint for mutations. Which one is it, Lieutenant? The boy in front. The mutie singing the solo.
minor correction
The music swelled with a hundred voices raising the hymn to Peace. The choir came from St. Opus’s school just a little outside Marsport. They had sung in the park every year at this time, even during the war years. Artificial snow fell gently there inside the Marsport main dome. Measured by Earth time, it was Christmas, after all, and Mars did keep an Earth calendar. Always had, even before the war. Shoppers hurried about in the underground tunnels leaving the snowy park aboveground to the St. Opus orphans and those citizens brave enough to show interest in them. After all, St. Opus was the patron saint for mutations. Which one is it, Lieutenant? The boy in front. The mutie singing the solo.
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited January 09, 2010).]
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited January 10, 2010).]
The music swelled with a hundred voices raising the hymn to Peace. The choir came from St. Opus’s school just a little outside Marsport. They had sung in the park every year at this time, even during the War Years. Artificial snow started falling gently there inside the Marsport main dome. On Earth it was Christmas, and Mars did keep the same calendar. Always had, even before the War with Earth. Shoppers hurried about in the underground tunnels, leaving the snowy park aboveground to the St. Opus orphans and those citizens brave enough to show interest in them. After all, St. Opus was the patron saint for mutations. Behind the park fir trees, a group of Earth Marines formed up. “Which one’s the telepath, Lieutenant?” “Sh-sh. It’s the boy in front. That mutie singing the solo.”
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited January 12, 2010).]
quote:A dusting of artificial snow started falling gently
I think perhaps "fell gently" might sound better
quote:ll, St. Opus was the patron saint for mutations.
Usually the phrase is "patron saint of" not for. A very small thing, but in this context it stopped me for a moment.
Are the mutants mutated by too much radiation due to the thin atmosphere, as in "Total Recall?"
Also I applaud you for using "mutie," despite its heavy use in the X-men franchise because come on, if we ever have to deal with real mutants, thats what people will call them.
posted
I thought "dusting" referred to snow that has already fallen, as in, "a dusting of snow covered the hot dog bun"
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Apart from the direct thoughts at the end (that belong to someone yet unnamed) the POV is loose. You talk about people underground and overground in the same sentence, suggesting an omniscient POV, but it doesn't feel established. If you'd already established a 3rd person POV then that sentence could be interpreted as him 'knowing but not seeing' people underground.
A suggestion:
Jack watched them singing; the music swelled as...
Then we know Jack is the POV--if you want omniscient you would need to establish that very definitely--there are techniques for immediately establishing omniscient. You seem to have done neither.
posted
What do you consider the techniques for establishing omniscience to be? The actual pov character appears in the next scene. The boy in this one is an important character, though.
I think of these two paragraphs, which really are one idea, as OSC's first paragraph where you can do anything. I guess what I've got here is a prelude.
Didn't realize the X-MEN used mutie. It seems the obvious choice, after all.
[This message has been edited by arriki (edited January 10, 2010).]
posted
It is, that was my point. I figure some folks around here would try to come up with something else so as not to sound "cliche" but its obviously what people would actually use.
I didn't have any POV issues, of course I think it like all other things should be manipulated in whatever way serves the story.
quote: Neither Jack nor Jill knew what would be waiting for them at the top of the hill, nor did they realise that one of them would fall to their death, so it was with laughter they climbed the steep slope.
The first sentence establishes that the narrator has a window into both Jack and Jill's heads, and can also see the future, thereby establishing an omniscient viewpoint.
I have to say I have never written a story in omniscient, but establishing it is outlined in Characters and Viewpoints.
posted
I wouldn't call them 'muties', unless everyone else did--the name 'muties' wouldn't occur to me--not that I am against it, I just wouldn't think of it.
So I'd fall in the camp of coming up with something different.
posted
In this story, everyone does call them muties.
It just won't work, what you said -- naming a pov for this first brief scene. It sounds very crass and forced that way. I guess you consider it as the pov of the men about to disrupt that peaceful setting. Naming one of them, however, would send a false message to the reader. I think, if you go through the literature, you'll find this form of opening many times.
posted
Of all the features that an opening essentially needs, foremost among them is intitiating reader engagement. An aspect or aspects to align readers in resonance and sympathy/empathy with a story can come from a milieu, idea, character, and/or event, and/or a narrator. Reportorial omniscient, for example, where readers' intitial alignment access to a story is through a narrator's perspective. A narrator's voice, the narrative voice of a story, the narrative point of view, takes a stand, makes a point, and supports it.
"Mars Born" suggests a character, perhaps a milieu or idea or event. No resonance joy there yet. The story opens in a noncommittal narrator's perspective, prelude-like before the italicized seemingly telepathic dialogue in the thirteen's last lines. No resonance joy there yet, but a possibility in there if that is, indeed, telepathic communication. But then for logical consistency's sake, the prelude ought to introduce and move toward that direction.
The opening is also vague from limited specificity and underdeveloped contexts and rushing through to several disparate tangents without fully intitiating an introductory context or reader engagement. One of the many sound advices I've gotten is to slow down, develop a dramatic unit's purpose before going on to other tangents.
"The music swelled with a hundred voices raising the hymn to Peace." Is the music an instrumental accompaniment or the song of the hymn? //The song swelled from a hundred voices raising the hymn to Peace.//
"The hymn to Peace," what song is that? Seeing as how there's orphans involved, "The Little Drummer Boy," unfortunately under copyright, comes to mind after reflection and trying to place the hymn in context. Citing lyrics is problematic, but naming and describing its performance, perhaps remarking on the refrain, pah-rum-pah-pum-pum, an alternative spelling different from the copyrighted version, would encompass the song. If that hymn-like song's theme parallels the story's theme, all to the good. The main lyrics of the song are often performed in solo with the refrain sung by the chorus. The song's opening line, "Come they told me" all but asks to be in a solo for the first person voice.
"Even during the war years." Only one war? Dropped in out of nowhere with little context to appreciate that war's privations. Naming the war could go a long way toward characterizing the war.
"A dusting of artificial snow," several conflicting imageries, Artificial ski slope snow? Artificial spray can snow? Artificial cinematic snow?
"Marsport main dome," "the park," nonspecific. Recasting with names for the nonspecific items would then illustrate how much is going on in the opening that rushes through the introductions.
The one specific, St. Opus, is a possible other avenue for aligning readers with the story's opening, but opus' context doesn't quite come forward for its several connotative senses. "Hoc opus, hic labor est, this is the hard work, this is the toil." Webster's 11th.
Orphans contrasted with mutations, lots of potential sympathy/empathy there for reader engagement.
"After all" occurs twice in the thirteen. Attempt at conversational narrative voice? Its three discourse marker denotations cause a disharmonious clash of meanings. Meaning in the final analysis? Or all things considered? Or nevertheless?
In short, the only suspense question I see artfully raised is whether or not the thinkers of the italicized lines are telepaths. Potential resonance there too.
[This message has been edited by extrinsic (edited January 10, 2010).]
posted
crass |kras|: adjective: lacking sensitivity, refinement, or intelligence : the crass assumptions that men make about women.
Really?
quote:I guess you (could?) consider it as the POV of the men...
Lack of clarity over POV often results in poor reader engagement. I interpret the freedom of the first paragraph (as per OSC) more like the cinematic panning of a camera at the beginning of the film (the feather of Forest Gump, for ex.). However you introduce two telepaths and then say the POV boy is introduced in the next paragraph.
posted
The Omni viewpoint was somewhat disorienting, but not detrimental. I had an idea that if you rearranged the last two lines, the conversation to the beginning, that it would help anchor this since their would be no attributions it would more or less let the reader know immediately what he or she was getting into.
Muties seems likely and I wouldn't be concerned with the affiliation to the X-men. There are many such terms shared throughout fiction communities.
Also the line:
quote: They had sung in the park every year at this time, even during the war years.
rattled me a bit. Perhaps; "They had sung every year, even during times of war."
Otherwise this seemed interesting and I would probably give it a shot even though it was reminiscent of "Total Recall"
posted
Since your last two sentences are italicised--like thoughts often are--and there is nothing in how you've written it to suggest the words are spoken, I assumed they were telepaths.
"Usually spoken words have the appropriate punctuation, so the reader knows it is spoken," he said. Doesn't everyone do that? He frowned as he walked away.
Underlined? Where? I see no underlines.
My mistake.
[This message has been edited by skadder (edited January 10, 2010).]
posted
Underlining means italicized. Since this isn't manuscript. I went ahead and used underlining. I know how to do italics and bold not underlining. Besides, in a published version, it would be italicized.
I've seen telepathy signaled more often by <<It's time.>>
posted
I liked the second way (minor correction) better. I completely understood the reference to the war was a war with Earth simply by the context. I don't think there is any reason to change it. Even if someone doesn't get that it was a war with Earth, I don't see how that takes anything away from the passage. The choir sang there, even in the time of war. who the war was with, unless it becomes a main focus of the story, is immaterial. Also, the italicized words at the end, I took that to be over a radio. One with earpieces and small lapel/neck microphones so no one else could hear. The POV didn't bother me. I would expect the POV to settle in a 3rd person limited pretty soon, but for the opening of a story, I had no problem with the more omniscient viewpoint. The main reason I liked the second version over the first version was changing "..artificial snow started falling gently..." a little awkward to me, to "Artificial snow fell gently..."
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posted
Even if the dialogue is over a mic then it's dialaogue and should be indicated to the reader as such with appropriate punctuation. Normally italicised text means thoughts--if tow people appear to respond and italicised text is used it means some form of telepathy (could be technical--implant to implant), but if your lips move, you usually use speech marks.
Could be me, but that is the convention I expect to see.
posted
I still say this would read better if the dialog preceeded the info. At least the two lines you shown us.
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