I'm looking for feedback around the speed of the opening. I've had some in-person writer's group crits that indicated I'm too slow to start, yet I think it's a genre issue, as the writers who felt that way are mostly mystery/thriller writers (they point out that a mystery almost always opens with a dead body...instahook!) This is also a milieu story (with an idea and character component mixed in, but the story starts and ends on the milieu points ala Orson Scott Card's Characters and Viewpoints MICE explanations.) I wonder if my in-person writer friends aren't as familiar with the idea of a milieu story.

At any rate - your feedback is appreciated!

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The smell assaulted Anya when she stepped off the transport onto the space station Convergence. It was acidic and bit at her nose, antiseptic cleansers, new carpet, a metallic tang. Man-made. Nothing like the rich smells of her backyard. Scratch that. Former backyard. She exhaled a breath, not realizing she had been holding it, and followed her brother Tobias. They shuffled through the arrivals hall with the other hundred or so new Landers in their transport.

I think it's getting to be like a race - I just saw the murder mystery movie Edge of Darkness where three dead bodies showed up 15 secs into the movie! Now that's competition.

Maybe it's getting cliche - not every mystery story can be a Columbo/Law and order/CSI/Mentalist/Monk/Psych/Cold Case/NCIS where a dead body is delivered with in the first 6 pages of the script.

Maybe they want foreboding - little hints that not all is right... Personally i'd be more interested in the scifi while the murder-mystery would more of a plot event - kind of like in a Crichton novel, I don't think many of his books produced a body until much later (rising sun is probably the only exception.) Well, and you have the prologue to Jurassic park...

This is a YA science fiction. It's a milieu story, which means it's about the weird new world the main character finds herself in (she moves with her family from earth to a large 10k person space station.) She has to either decide to suck it up and enjoy life, or be miserable...or so is one of the characteristics of a milieu story. I think my in-person writer's group friends aren't as familiar with this type of story (Clarke's RAMA series is an example of milieu stories. The whole story revolves around the weird location, more than anything else.)

But either way - I appreciate the feedback so far, thanks everyone! Seems like I'm in okay shape.

There are parts of the opening I love and some things you could improve. Here are my suggestions:

The smell assaulted Anya when she stepped off the transport onto the space station Convergence. (Good opening. Suggest combining this with the next sentence so that we get the acidic odor immediately, and shorten it up. Something like: "The antiseptic odor bit Anya's nostrils. New carpet. Metallic tangy walls. That sterile hospital stench." Also, some of the best authors will use fouls smells without ever describing the character's reactions to them. Here is an example: stale broccolli; a belly of sour onions, rotting seaweed, etc. That way your reader places herself in the moment and feels the emotion of the smell without you having to describe what reactions the smells evoke.)

It was acidic and bit at her nose, antiseptic cleansers, new carpet, a metallic tang. (Nice, but see above comments.)

Man-made. Nothing like the rich smells of her backyard. Scratch that. Former backyard.(Suggest hinting where her backyard is. Where is home?)

She exhaled a breath,(breath is obvious from exhale, so delete it.) not realizing she had been holding it, and followed her brother Tobias. They shuffled through the arrivals hall with the other hundred or so new Landers in their transport.

Their parents were off to one side with the adults. Tobias and Anya were crammed in with the kids, about forty. (Combine this with the previous sentence and find a way to weave Anya's emotion into the cramped quarters and the two separated groups).

They’d been quarantined during the transport up, so this was Anya’s first chance to see the other people in their Landing group. She swept her eyes around hungrily, glad to have escaped the tedium of...(Suggest showing, not telling here. Example: "So this is what the others in the Landing group looked like. The new faces wrinkled her mouth with a smile." Also, most agents will quickly dismiss a new author who overuses adverbs in the opening. Is there a verb that can kick "hungrily" in the behind? Something like "her eyes salivated over the crowd.")

(All in all, I would continue reading, and I want to learn more about Anya. Is there a way to tell us up front that she is escaping to, or away from, a better life? If there is, may I suggest you give us one line early on to set the milieu sooner.)

Good luck,
Wum

But why does everyone keep talking about murder mysteries? I think I wasn't clear. My writer's group members are mostly thriller/murder mystery writers. I think *THEY* don't understand genre specifics for sci-fi, particularly for a sci-fi milieu story (where the focus of the story is on the unusual place - in this case it's the girl moving to a very foreign environment - from earth to a space station.) I have gotten the feedback from them that they think I should put the primary story question up closer, in the first chapter if not in this first page. I'm feeling like I have to give the girl a chance to get on board before I introduce the main story question/the problem she spends most of the story trying to solve.

Nits.

quote:

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The smell assaulted Anya when she stepped off the transport onto the space station Convergence. It was acidic and bit at her nose, antiseptic cleansers, new carpet, a metallic tang. (I know this is stylistic, but why a period before Man-made, why not a comma?) Man-made. Nothing like the rich smells of her backyard. Scratch that. (Same here, why a not a comma?) Former backyard. She exhaled a breath, not realizing she had been holding it, and followed her brother Tobias. They shuffled through the arrivals hall with the other hundred or so new Landers in their transport.

Their parents were off to one side with the adults. Tobias and Anya were crammed in with the kids, about forty. They’d been quarantined during the transport up, so this was Anya’s first chance to see the other people in their Landing group. She swept her eyes around hungrily (Hungrily seems a bit strong here, what about curiously or eagerly?, glad to have escaped the tedium of...

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That is all I could find. I always have a hard time finding nits when I am enjoying the story. Nice job.

I've had more than one person laser in on that one stinking adverb, so I think I'll reword the sentence to eliminate it. No sense potentially annoying editors. The idea, though, is she's been cooped up with just her family for the journey/quarantine period. She's seriously HUNGRY for people other than her family, even as she's also busy putting on the morose teenager front for her parents. But it might be that that hungry for others thing is not as important as the other things I'm setting up in the first few paragraphs - where she is, that she's pissy about being there, and then (before the end of the first chapter) that she has this kind of weird way with computers.

Bap - this is the first few lines of a completed novel, but it's in a state of disrepair because I've done one full editing run, but am midway through a second, even while I also know of several changes to make to the early parts of the story. So I'm in the middle of both the second and third editing passes, if that makes any sense, which has me somewhat paralyzed because I know what i need to do but there's a lot and it's kind of complex and I'm just procrastinating! Terrible, I need to get cracking.