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Author Topic: With Clipped Wings We Cannot Fly (1000 words) - first 13
dezmai
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"Everyone used to make a fuss about aliens," said Gramma, sitting in the slanting light of the late afternoon sun. "Didn't they just? Debating whether they might exist. Searching for ETs and beaming radio signals into space. When they finally showed up at our door and asked for permission to land, the whole world stood still."

She paused, holding the potato she had peeled, turning it over and over again as if it had answers, if only she could figure out the question. The air was filled with the starchy scent of so many peeled potatoes.

"They had so much technology we couldn't fathom," she started again, long after I thought she had forgotten what we were talking about. "You know, they used to say any science


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babooher
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I liked the second paragraph. The action and description seemed spot on.

But...you have someone reflecting instead of doing much. I really don't care about granny peeling the spuds. You've mentioned the aliens, and that's kinda cool, but overall this is someone thinking and not doing. Seems a bit ho-hum.


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dezmai
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Yeah, it's more of a reflection story than an action story, a grandmother telling her granddaughter what happened back in the day. I think if I livened the first couple paragraphs up too much, it might be a bait & switch, you know?

Thanks for your input, and I'll spend some time thinking of ways the story could possibly be served better with more action.

It was written for the prompt "Last Contact".


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melindabrasher
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I personally find it annoying when the story is basically some character telling a story. It strikes me as unrealistic, mainly because the writing is too good for someone to have said it all. Speech is first draft. Good writing is at least fourth draft. I may be unique in this, but I have a hard time supsending my disbelief when some upstart non-writer character can put together such a carefully planned and executed story.

Some people, however, love this type of thing, as proven by the many published books in which a character is supposedly telling or writing a story (usually over the course of one night, which is another thing that bugs me).

As for yours in particular, the dialogue sounds a little forced. I think it would be fine in narration, because it's interesting and insightful, but it's a bit awkward.

Interesting subject matter of course. And I do want to know what happened when the aliens landed.

Is there any reason you couldn't tell the story straight, instead of us getting it second hand from the grandma?


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dezmai
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I originally had it as just a sort of ... almost journal entry where someone recapped what had happened to bring the world to where it is in the story. I thought it would have more impact if I could contrast the "present" world in the story with the past that's being told. I show an agrarian world that has fallen apart somewhat while the Grandma talks about what happened. I've had a few people tell me it was quite effective as it made them keep reading to find out exactly what happened.
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EVOC
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I read a story in the latest issue of Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine (Jan/Feb 2011) that was told as if someone was telling the story. Like Melinda said, I usually get annoyed with this for the same reasons mentioned.

This author (I don't have the issue with me to reference) typed like a story would be told. That is to say that the MC would do things you or I would do in a verbal story telling. "Did I mention this?" "Oh I forgot to tell you..." ect.

I found it believable, but I can imagine it is difficult to write that way.

[This message has been edited by EVOC (edited January 30, 2011).]


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NoTimeToThink
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Hard to tell in the first 13 where you're going with this, but the presentation unfortunately seems like one of those info dumps we try to avoid. I have a feeling that Gramma is eventually going to tell us everything that happened over the last ??? years; maybe this is even just a setup so you can tell your real story? Think about a story that happens IN the world you've created after the aliens come, rather than just relating that they came.
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