posted
[REVISED on Monday afternoon, Oct 14. Latest revision at bottom of post] Haven't done much actual writing in the past few months, due to stuff happening in my family, and the fact that I've been studying a series of popular authors looking for things I could copy.
George R.R. Martin has taken up more than his share of my time. It's been well over a month now, and I've still not come to a good stopping place in Song of Ice and Fire. So I thought I'd try my hand at some of the exotic scene painting Martin does, but writing about buckets of guts and sadistic sex doesn't appeal to me.
Instead, I'm considering an attempt at something MG, along the lines of Andre Norton's juvenile science fiction. I'm thinking 50-60K words of squeaky-clean G-rated adventure, with a young, wide-eyed protagonist; a straightforward, uncomplicated plot; and exotic locales aplenty. Pirates, certainly. Wild native tribes very likely. I'm setting the story in the same universe as THE KEYSTONE, and some of the same characters may appear in supporting roles.
Here is the start of the opening chapter, in which the protagonist's father has taken a job in space and is moving his family off an impoverished, overpopulated world. [Note: First revision; subsequent revisions below.]
quote:Digby was twelve, but he'd never ridden in a hover taxi before. They were skimming on ground effect so there wasn't much to see. It was early; the sun had washed the summits of the buildings flanking the street with gold, but here near ground level a purplish murk still hung in the air.
They passed the Consolidated Mills food plant. Digby twisted in his seat to see the null-g trucks being loaded in the courtyard, the dock men's breath steaming in the cool morning. Only yesterday he'd played after school snickball there with his friends, using the factory's windowless concrete wall as a backstop. The watchman didn't mind kids running around when the trucks were out.
Digby's Mom put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you'll come back someday. To visit.”
Questions: Too over the top? Is vocabulary and prose too fancy?
What about the age of the protagonist? What are the pros and cons of making him 12 or 13 vs. 17 (as in Norton's *Sargasso of Space*)?
[First Revision/Thursday Morning. You've given me plenty feedback to work with, but I'd like to try with something different for a start, a completely different narrative voice; first person and more opinionated]
quote:I was twelve when Dad got a job at Nalix spaceport and moved us off-planet. Up to then we was the biggest pack of surface-rats and ground grippers you'd ever seen. First time my feet ever left the ground was that hover-taxi ride to the space field, believe it or not.
It was just after sun-up when Dad and Mom and me took the stairs down from the room we shared with the Huddlestons. We was carrying everything we owned in spun polymer bags, having given away most of our stuff to avoid the weight tariff. Mostly we had foil packs of food so we wouldn't have to pay to eat in the jump ship's commissary. I had my precious triplex slide-rule wrapped up snug in my spare underwear. Mom had a sealed plastic pouch with my older brother Dan's ashes, and another with my twin sisters who passed away before she could name 'em. People say it's bad luck to name a baby who's passed away, you know. Anyhow, Ma wouldn't part with them, so that meant a few more meals in the commissary for me.
[SECOND REVISION, FRIDAY AFTERNOON: I'm returning to third person, but more detached. As the chapter progresses we'll gradually move into Digby's head. The narrator is giving us the skinny on Digby's situation, and as the scene progresses he draws upon my personal experience of growing up in a working class urban neighborhood. "Rocket boat" is a bit of sci-fi jargon license. Later we'll learn the technical distinction between a "ship" and a "boat".]
quote:Chapter 1 -- Veskilos
The planet Veskilos was infamous throughout the galaxy. People knew it as Veskilos the crowded. Veskilos the dirty. Veskilos the child killer, where one in three perish before reaching adulthood.
They claimed you stood a better chance of escaping from a prison asteroid than getting off Veskilos, although that was probably an exaggeration. You could walk into a ticket agent and buy passage off world just like on any other planet – if you had the cash. But Veskilos was also Veskilos the poor. Some people said that nobody on Veskilos ever got a lucky break, but that was definitely an exaggeration. When Digby Collier was twelve he and his parents received three free tickets on a rocket boat to space.
[CURRENT REVISION, MONDAY AFTERNOON: Another third person omniscient opening, but this one uses closer narration. It's not quite in the character's head, but the narrator is now keeping his opinions to himself and guiding the reader more with subtext.]
quote:When they told Digby his father had a job offer on Nalixport, his parents didn't add that he shouldn't spread that around. Digby was twelve; he knew what would happen if certain people knew his family had tickets off planet on them. They had to act normal.
So Digby did what he did every afternoon. He wheedled Mom into letting him take an early dinner, stashed extra food bricks in his jacket when she wasn't looking, then went to hang out. He took the elevator to the top floor because he was going the back way. The cops had been doing a lot of community policing and Digby had stuff in his pockets besides food bricks he didn't want to be caught with.
He climbed the rusty iron maintenance ladder to the roof hatch, slipped a sliver of steel under the alarm reed switch and clipped a magnet to it. Then he pushed the hatch open, coughing as smog spilled through the opening.
posted
Sounds interesting! Let me know when you want a reader.
I think it's fine for upper MG (which is what you're talking about).
IMO, go for age 12. I know of exceptions, but 13 starts getting into a no-man's-land between MG and YA.
17 is now solidly YA, not MG, which changes the kinds of problems and conflicts expected. (To over-simplify, an MG protagonist is trying to figure out how he fits into his world. A YA protagonist is trying to figure out how to stand out in his.) It also probably introduces at least a bit of (most likely clean) romance.
Light science fiction is really hot right now in YA and MG.
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posted
I like the descriptive voice, though I don't think the voice suits the middle-grade genre.
Why does Digby ride in a hover taxi that might express a dramatic complication and start the plot moving? Consider depicting how he feels about moving offworld through using the descriptive observations to express his attitude and reveal his personal complication.
A few minor diction and syntax glitches that keep me from immersing in this opening from being bouncy speed bumps: uses of conjunctions like "but," prepositions like "so," syntactical expletive like pronoun "it" starting a sentence without a clear subject antecedent, passive voice "null-g trucks being loaded."
For one example, I don't know of a twelve-year-old boy who doesn't think "butt" or "but" is a funny word and can't help calling attention to it.
"So there wasn't much to see" I think has several issues: it's a narrator explanation tell; a twelve-year-old boy leaving a place he loves or hates is going to see at all costs; Digby does see though, or the narrator sees for Digby what Digby cannot, and the opportunity for character, setting, and complication development through Digby's visual and emotional attitude description is overlooked.
Since the narrator poetically describes atmospheric colors, it's narrator description; it's adult description rather than child description. I don't think the prose voice is too fancy so much as targeted to adult sensibilities.
This is also narrator--adult--explanation: "The watchman didn't mind kids running around when the trucks were out." If that was in Digby's voice, or a juvenile narrator's, it would be more appealing to the target audience I think. And if the telling details were more child-like perspective. "The watchman" for example, how does Digby perceive the watchman? The watchman is obviously someone Digby is somewhat familiar with, from regularly playing in the factory courtyard. Is the watchman old and crochety? Middle aged and rigid but tolerant and kind? Young and difficult? A stronger name and a descriptive term for the watchman might do wonders with a few words. //Old Larry, the mumbling gimp watchman,//. Digby's attitude in Digby's voice toward the watchman, in other words.
"Didn't mind" is a negation statement and an adult idiom. Negation statements take a mite more thought to decode than positive statements, creating minor hiccups for openings that slow or stall reading for adults and juveniles. A child idiom in positive expression would be more like //Old Larry, the mumbling gimp watchman, let kids hang out when the trucks were off delivering.//
Food trucks loaded in the factory courtyard instead of a loading dock? Snickball played against a windowless wall where trucks are loaded? "Windowless? Are they hiding something? Or is the narrator taking a "white room" wall shortcut? I can't visualize the performance space as it's not a conventional, practical truck-loading arrangement.
One minor mechanical style glitch; "after[-]school snickball" takes a hyphen. Which points out a possible voice glitch too. Hyphenated speech and thought, and narration, are uncommon in juvenile literature because young people haven't yet fully developed that reading and writing--expression--skill.
If this novel were targeted to adult audiences, I'd say this opening is a strong rough draft that has minor attitude, character, setting, and complication development shortcomings. If the voice were more child-like though, it would target its middle-grade audience.
quote:Originally posted by Meredith: (To over-simplify, an MG protagonist is trying to figure out how he fits into his world. A YA protagonist is trying to figure out how to stand out in his.)
That's an astute and acute observation.
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posted
My concern with the opening is more pedantic. The main character doesn't seem to want anything. Even in your explanation of what you're going for, the character's want is missing.
I just started reading a book that's been quite interesting so far, and it's first line is, 'This is the story of a man who went far away for a long time, just to play a game'. To me, great opening sentence, as it immediately sets up the plot, and an intriguing one at that.
Having some idea of a what a character wants can't be understated in the deveopment of the narrative.
In your opening, we get descriptions. The descriptions aren't bad, but whenver I see an opening of descriptions, I think 'warmup writing'. Stuff that can probably be moved to later in the narrative, if not cut altogether.
I think you were going for something like that when you added:
quote:Digby's Mom put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you'll come back someday. To visit.”
This is a bit passive, though. It would be one thing if Digby had made up his own mind to go back and visit a place of childhood memories, even if it's something he can't accomplish or eventually doesn't even want to. But to have his mom intuit it kind of ruins a possiblity of narrative tension.
Basically, Digby seems a bit too much like a blank slate in this opening, which, for me at least, doesn't do much to generate interest.
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quote:Digby was twelve, but he'd never ridden in a hover taxi before.
Not sure if it's the taxi part, the hover part, or both that qualifies this as a first time. If it is his first time, what's making it notable?
quote:They were skimming on ground effect so there wasn't much to see.
The second sentence is telling me that there's nothing here. That's not a good sign!
quote:It was early; the sun had washed the summits of the buildings flanking the street with gold, but here near ground level a purplish murk still hung in the air.
Well, I just got told there was nothing to see, then I have this scene with its vibrant colors described. I'm happy that the second sentence lied, but there's a disconnect.
quote:They passed the Consolidated Mills food plant. Digby twisted in his seat to see the null-g trucks being loaded in the courtyard, the dock men's breath steaming in the cool morning.
I generally dislike the future-by-adjective method. Unless null-g trucks are operating alongside regular-g trucks, they're just trucks. Describing how they hang in the air and wobble under load gets the idea across in a more immersive manner. (This applies to the hover taxi as well; if most taxis hover, then they're just taxis)
quote:Digby's Mom put a hand on his shoulder. “Maybe you'll come back someday. To visit.”
And there's the conflict. I think bringing this forward would help with the emotional impact of a child's parting glances of his life up to that point.
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quote:Originally posted by Meredith: (To over-simplify, an MG protagonist is trying to figure out how he fits into his world. A YA protagonist is trying to figure out how to stand out in his.)
That's an astute and acute observation.
Nice of you to say, extrinsic, but I can't claim the credit. I've picked this up in several different places where middle grade and young adult stories are discussed.
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Thanks for the feedback all, especially extrinsic's highly detailed response. You've given me plenty to work on.
What I'd like to float is a totally different narrative voice. This is an older Digby telling his story. He's maybe twenty years old, but he affects the speech of an old spacehound -- what we'd think of as an "old salt".
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posted
May be just me, but I prefer the the original MG voice for the demographic you state you are targetting. It has an immediacy that the retrospective voice of the new revision lacks.
Respectfully, Dr. Bob
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quote:Originally posted by History: May be just me, but I prefer the the original MG voice for the demographic you state you are targetting. It has an immediacy that the retrospective voice of the new revision lacks.
Well, I think either voice has a different kind of immediacy. I feel that in third person it's easier to deploy your full descriptive powers, but in first person you're limited to how the protagonist would choose to describe things. On the other hand the choices a first person narrator makes tells you something about him. Digby is relating his rags-to-riches story, so he's playing up how poor he was.
12-year-old Digby is not aware of being poor. However I draw upon my experience growing up in a blue collar urban neighborhood to suggest his poverty. We didn't have many playgrounds, and what we had were infested with tough older kids who'd beat us up and steal from us. So waste places like the trash dump were our playgrounds. We had no adult supervision, we ran wild like savages with no respect for property lines at all. For a kid that's a kind of paradise.
posted
I feel the second version's voice is both stronger and a compromise that diminishes its narrative distance potency.
The second version has an ephemeral hint of glee about moving offworld. That's promising. I think, though, that emotional attitude could benefit from strengthening and more clarity.
The compromise I see is the first version has the immediacy of action unfolding in the now moment, place, and situation History misses from the second version. The second version is basically an oral narration summarizing and explaining a backstory. The backstory is prefatory. Giving it in an oral-type narration opens narrative distance. This is a case where I believe introductorily developing the now moment, place, and situation of the older Digby would lend authenticity to the narrative, close narrative distance, and immerse readers in the participation mystique. So that the backstory recollection is as engaging from immediacy as the present time's scene.
Physical description recollections of Digby's childhood departure from his natal home would focus on a few specifics that capture the essence of his attitude toward them. The list expressing what the family carries is along those lines, though what Digby carries that's most dear to him, the slapstick, could do with a little of his personal regard for it. Sharing a flat with the Huddlestons expresses a kind of specific detail but its personal meaning for Digby could do, I feel, with a mite of development, for example.
Actually, your reply to History's comments contains the kinds of expressions I'm talking about. "We didn't have many playgrounds, and what we had were infested with tough older kids who'd beat us up and steal from us. So waste places like the trash dump were our playgrounds. We had no adult supervision, we ran wild like savages with no respect for property lines at all. For a kid that's a kind of paradise." That's exquisite description, even if kind of nonspecific, due to its expressing strong personal attitude.
The strength for me of the second version is its stronger attitude. The second version reads smoother too.
A few minor craft and mechanical style hiccups, though. The second sentence has no causal foundation. Why are they a pack of surface rats and ground grippers? That's too much mystery for me at the time it's given. Poverty's causes fostering the pack group's behaviors and close-knit, mutual group identity aren't cleary established beforehand nor soon enough thereafter for my sensibilities. If the sentence were given after mentioning living with the Huddlestons and perhaps specifying details that the pack played in marginal places, that would imply the poverty artfully.
I realize the function of that sentence is to express an attitude about living down a gravity well; however, associating through implication that living on a planet's surface is tied to poverty does double- or triple- or more duty.
"Off-planet," surface-rats," and "sun-up" don't take hyphens as noun phrases. Separate words for the first two; compound word for the third.
"Mostly[,]" takes a comma as a prefatory dependent sentence adverb. Same with adverb phrases like "Up to then[,]".
Nonrestrictive dependent clauses following a main clause take a comma: "and another with my twin sisters[,] who passed away before she could name 'em."
Though the unconventional use of "was" is an artful dialect quality, injudicious, frequent use tends to be overbearing. I think also that the past-perfect tense is a little overwrought. Once or twice to establish the time sense of the moment is adequate to signal to readers that this is a recollection of a past time that's over and done. Then simple past tense transformatively brings readers back into the now moment of the recollection along with a viewpoint character. Then a transition word, sentence, or stepped transition brings the moment back to a later past or the now moment of the viewpoint character. "Anyhow" is a word that clearly does precisely that.
Voice strength stands out for me as the strongest improvement of the second opening. As backstory though, just expressing prior actions without connecting them by implication, hint, cue, or direct declaration leaves me wondering why the past matters to the present. Portraying a few circumstances of Digby's now I feel would satisfy that emptiness.
I know, one hundred thirty words is a tough container to shoehorn opening introductions into. The one introductory feature, essential I believe, I'm still left wondering is what's Digby's personal want or problem that wants satisfaction. Riches or rags is a promising dramatic conflict and stakes and motivation, from what's given. Connecting that conflict to a complication in the opening wouldn't take much, especially if it's implied by, say, Digby's excited attitude about going offworld, away from the poverty of planet-bound existence contrasted with his struggling now existence in space. For example, is he still eating from the station commissary?
posted
I like the immediacy of the first-person version, but . . . well, it depends on your intended audience. If this is really going to be middle grade, I'm not sure how well the older voice will work for that age group.
Could it be first person as the twelve-year-old?
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posted
I like the second version better, in a vacuum. However, I share the concerns of the others that the older voice my not be a good fit for your intended market.
Be careful with descriptions that don't really describe anything. For example,. "Spun polymer bag." We have spun polymer bags today and no one calls them that. If they're referred to by material, it's nylon or polyester or rayon etc. This is because "spun polymer" doesn't tell you much at all about what you're getting. There would be massive differences between a coat made of polyester, and one made of spandex, for example, yet "spun polymer coat" would include both. In this instance, one person could envision homemade knit bags made from acrylic fibers, another could think of rugged nylon duffles. Which is more appropriate?
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posted
JSchuler -- think "Tyvek". I could say "flash spun high density polyethlene", but it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue. I think you're right about the first person narrator's age.
Extrinsic, Dr. Bob, & Meredith. I've been turning over the immediacy issue in my mind. More than that, I've been drafting some test scenes from later in the story, and after looking at the results of first person narration it just doesn't feel right for this story.
The purpose of this story is to attempt something I've never tried before. I usually deal in ironic humor, but I thought I'd try my hand at a story which traded on setting; a story which took readers to exotic places full of wonder. My plan is to make the plot and characterization simple; not cardboard by any means, but straightforward and serviceable.
I churned out about a thousand words of first person narration, I looked over them and realized I was trying too hard to infuse the narration with irony and subtext. I was doing the same old thing as I usually do. I normally write in very close third person limited or in first person.
The problem with my initial 3rd person draft was similar. I was trying too hard to show off what I wanted to be the memorable flavor of the manuscript, and that interfered with launching the story.
Damon Knight once wrote that stories start with a situation. So I'm going to try a more detached third person narrator at the opening, who sets out Digby's situation with an independent attitude. As story goes on, I'll gradually move more into the protagonist's head. So immediacy in the opening lines goes out the window, to be replaced by narrator commentary.
The first Harry Potter book follows this same pattern, by the way. It's repeated at the outset of many subsequent chapters, where factual and situational matters are dispensed with by a detached but opinionated narrator, who then moves us into the POV character's head.
I should have a draft of the 3rd person omniscient opening this Friday afternoon.
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posted
I get the types of bags you're talking about now. "Disposable" or "Recyclable" fiber bags might be a better fit.
Your new introduction is gritty with the comparison to an asteroid prison. Not sure if that's what you want. But, with that sentence alone you could do away with the entire first paragraph.
"When Digby Collier was twelve..." This makes me think, as far as the story is concerned, this happened in the past and we will be following Digby at a time when he is older. If we're going to spend any time on this rocket flight, I'd make this more immediate. Just moving the words around solves most of my problems with it: "Digby Collier was twelve when..."
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quote:Originally posted by JSchuler: "When Digby Collier was twelve..." This makes me think, as far as the story is concerned, this happened in the past and we will be following Digby at a time when he is older. If we're going to spend any time on this rocket flight, I'd make this more immediate. Just moving the words around solves most of my problems with it: "Digby Collier was twelve when..."
This version of the opening is an elaborate exercise in rhetoric. For example the narrator endorsing the idea that Veskilos is hard to get off by issuing a weak denial that it's just as hard as a prison asteroid. The sentence "When Digby was twelve..." is an answer to the prior claim that people on Veskilos "never get a break." What he means is "people _say_ folks on Veskilos never get a lucky break, but when Digby was twelve he got a huge one." However he's leaving that conjunction up to you.
As I said, this is a more remote opening in which the narrator attitude is front and center. He intends for you to think Veskilos is gritty, because it's the first magical place we'll visit. It's magic because it's a gritty hell for the adults, but a dirt encrusted paradise for the kids. When Digby leaves Veskilos, he's leaving Eden.
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posted
For me, at least, with each opening, my central concern remains. I don't see what the novel is about, or what the character wants. Even a short term goal gives the reader something to root for, makes them empathize with your character. It doesn't have to be what the novel is about, but some goal, want, or desire is important in engaging your audience.
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quote:Originally posted by Denevius: For me, at least, with each opening, my central concern remains. I don't see what the novel is about, or what the character wants. Even a short term goal gives the reader something to root for, makes them empathize with your character. It doesn't have to be what the novel is about, but some goal, want, or desire is important in engaging your audience.
What Digby wants has little bearing on the course events through most of the story; it's more a question of what Digby has to do. The novel is about things that happen to Digby that are unexpected and for the most part out of his control, and how he learns, grows, and in the end takes control of his future, redefining himself based on his experiences.
His initial situation, I think is clear in all three versions: his parent are moving the family off the planet. The conflicts in that situation are challenging to explain in thirteen lines, but here goes:
quote:Digby is 13 years old and living on a poor, crowded, dirty planet. His father has received a job offer on a better planet and his parents have decided to move.
Digby was not consulted on this decision, but he's OK with it at first. He's learned from the adults around him that leaving is what everyone wants to do. But Digby himself is too parochial to see how bad his life is, or to realize how much worse it will become when he becomes an adult responsible for a family of his own. And only as the departure approaches does he realize that he will be leaving his friends and extended family, who he is very close to.
This is further complicated by his street urchin's code of honor, which demands a kid share any windfalls with his gang. Moving to a wealthy planet because his father got a job there is the biggest stroke of luck anyone he knows has ever had, but it's not something he can share. So Digby is forced to conceal the fact he is leaving from his friends, which makes him feel like a rat. By the day of departure Digby becomes thoroughly conflicted about leaving, but it doesn't matter: his parents have decided for him.
There. That's a summary of first chapter's 1361 words. How do you think I should set this up in 13 lines without resorting to exposition, as I have done here?
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quote:Moving to a wealthy planet because his father got a job there is the biggest stroke of luck anyone he knows has ever had, but it's not something he can share. So Digby is forced to conceal the fact he is leaving from his friends, which makes him feel like a rat.
This is a compelling conflict that, from your description, can establish a strong theme. I suggest exploring it at the beginning, maybe leaving the departure for chapter 2 or 3.
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quote: How do you think I should set this up in 13 lines without resorting to exposition, as I have done here?
Well, this is just suggestions since you asked, and by no means meant to rewrite what you've written.
But okay. In the summary, you have a couple of conflicts you can start off with. First, you could probably change this:
quote:Digby was not consulted on this decision, but he's OK with it at first.
The fact that he's okay with it dampens a potential narrative tension. I don't know if you saw it, but in the beginning of the movie "Spirited Away", we see a little girl in a car with her mom and dad moving to a new town. The parents are trying to get the girl excited about living somewhere new, but she's just lying down in the backseat pouting because she's already missing her old friends and her old school. Then we immediately get a want from her, though small and relatively insignificant in the grand scheme of things: the bouquet of flowers her friends gave her is wilting, so she wants to get somewhere to put them in water.
A character at odds with their situation is a character that draws sympathy from the reader, and a character that wants something gives the reader something to root for, even if in the beginning it's as simple as getting flowers into a vase of water.
quote: But Digby himself is too parochial to see how bad his life is, or to realize how much worse it will become when he becomes an adult responsible for a family of his own.
Again, it feels like you're killing a chance at dramatic tension here. If he's too parochial (a big feeling for a little kid) to see how bad his life is, why is he so okay with moving? So far, the wheels in the plot are too greased in order to get the character from point A to point B as smoothly as possible.
quote:This is further complicated by his street urchin's code of honor
But so far, it's not very complicated.
quote: So Digby is forced to conceal the fact he is leaving from his friends, which makes him feel like a rat.
This, in this very moment, is where the novel begins. We see Digby with his friends in some type of present action. He's thinking one thing but putting on a different act as we see the type of gang activity he's involved in. Maybe he fools the other members, which would be a little boring; maybe they catch on and beat him up because he's leaving. Either way, Digby would have a want: to lie to those who mean something to him; and we get what's at risk: potential ostracizing or even violence from those he thought were his friends.
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posted
Exposition as writers today use the term means summary and explanation, usually of backstory in a narrator's voice, the way fiction was usually expressed traditionally. Odd, the voice that resulted in the term's contemporary meaning is out of fashion and the current definition is vogue. Exposition, though, when that narrator-predominant voice was in fashion, was known as introductions: an exhibition of setup or outset scenes.
Today's audiences want less or no narrator and more or exclusively character voice in the moment, place, and situation of the unfolding action. The summary and explanation given above, to me, reads like pure narrator lecture preliminarily sketching out scenes, or show that would imitate the actual action.
The first paragraph, for example: "Digby is 13 [thirteen] years old and living on a poor, crowded, dirty planet. His father has received a job offer on a better planet and his parents have decided to move." Reads to me like at least two scenes, one Digby's routine up to the moment his father's transfer interrupts it--the other scene.
The first scene could be broken into two or more scenes: the Colliers and the Huddlestons living elbow to backside, irritable in the two-room apartment meant for a single person and Digby anxious to get outside and away to play and roam with his gang. Outside is a second or more scenes. Third scene segment, he comes home to quietly hear from his parents, anxious to not let the Huddlestons know they're moving, he's moving offworld.
Connecting all that to an overall dramatic complication could be as simple as Digby and his gang acting out pulp digest space pirate dramas. Digby could come upon the gang already acting out an assault on a gold shipment and join in as though he's a natural, the gang having played the assault many times. Digby could be thrilled because he's come up with a new wrinkle, like an imaginary weapon or tactic he invented the sleepless night before--the Digbys and Huddlestons arguing about rent into the wee dark hours. Though Digby's gang consider him an insider and he feels welcome, they nonetheless balk at his new idea because it didn't emerge from within the group.
In short: scene, imitation, show--the gritty reality of the milieu Digby lives in until he moves offworld. Though until he comes up against the real central dramatic complication, everything before is setup, or exposition--introductions. Whatever puts him in direct clash with the Slavers of Mandorax is who, when, where. what, why, and how the main action begins.
quote:Originally posted by extrinsic: Today's audiences want less or no narrator and more or exclusively character voice in the moment, place, and situation of the unfolding action.
In other words, less narrative distance.
I think you're right: current fashion favors narration from deep in the protagonist's head, even to the point of using the present tense which effectively bars retrospective opinions about the action. Still, my study of story openings tells me that opinionated third person narrators are still quite common, at least if we look back on stories published as recently as a decade ago.
What I am going for here is the feel of 1950s/60s juvenile science fiction, where the reader didn't have to work so hard to prise meaning out of subtext. It's supposed to be an exercise in relying on exotic setting.
But I've got another revision up in which is from middling narrative distance. The narrator, while not quite putting us in Digby's shoes, restricts himself to things Digby knows and opinions that belong to Digby.
This has a couple of important consequences. First, the narrator can't tell you that Veskilos is a horrible place, more horrible than Digby realizes. I have to suggest that through certain details: the smog; the fact that Digby isn't friendly with the police. Also, I can't just tell you that Digby goes around like everything belongs to him, I have to show Digby's casual attitude to other people's property in action. That's bound to strike readers as criminal, which it technically is.
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Well, the last version is the best of them, and it's easy to see why. First, you've given your character a goal: to act normal. You also are showing us Digby's actions instead of telling us the scenario. Food bricks is interesting, and Digby doing an action based on his own personal desire, sneaking away from his mom, helps shape the beinnings of the defining of his character. You also gcreated a risk, Digy potentially getting stopped by cops with what I guess is some type of contraband.
My only issue now is the opening sentence. Starting it off with the 'When they told Digby..." is a bit weak. The goal is there as I mentioned, which is good, but the construction itself can be sharper. The opening sentence is weighed down by telling us instead of showing, and it's also backstory, as its events that happened in the past and off the page. Both of these elements immediately creates a distance that might be ill advised in the opening of a novel.
But other than that, yeah, I think this version is much better.
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Like Meredith and Denevius, I feel the fourth version is stronger, clearer, and more engaging than previous versions.
The first paragraph contains enticing information I feel that is not as well-crafted as might be ideal. Starting with the word "when," for example. Read a few pitches or hundreds at authonomy. Many artlessly begin with the word "when," often with the word "must" soon thereafter. "When they" has the germ of the expression in it but when is a time reference best expressed specifically instead, whether relatively or absolutely. And who "they" are isn't given beforehand, as is a best practice for personal pronouns. For example, //At lunchtime, Mom told Digby they were moving to Nalixport station, . . .// What work does the job entail, though? Related to passenger travel where slavers might prey? //. . . Dad got a travel agency job.// ??
The second clause is a negation statement. A hiccup with negation statements, besides being minor stalls that ask for slightly more interpretation, is maybe being a litotes: a negation statement affirming the positive opposite meaning. A negation statement that's almost but not clearly a litotes can be unsettling from not setting up a punchline; ironically, so to speak. The "shouldn't" is the equivalent of the "must"--must not, actually--I mention above about authonomy pitches. Strengthening the litotes might involve a strong and clear exclamation, for example, from a twelve-year-old's dialect. //Natchally, his parents didn't say he oughta keep the secret.//
Uses of "certain" like this are often anything but certain; in other words, specific. "Certain" is often used to express vague meaning akin to "some," "something," "someone," and similar memes. On the other hand, "certain" can also express a negative attitude about persons. Certain people are troublesome. I think for that sentence the vaguenes is more from Digby "knew what would happen." Maybe something like //knew trouble would happen if certain people found out . . .// would be stronger and clearer.
The last part of that sentence feels a little awkward, distancing, too. "knew his family had tickets off planet on them." Repetition of "knew" from earlier on unduly stands out. The sentence's main idea is unclear; whether the main idea is Digby was twelve, knowing what would happen, if certain people knew, or the family having off-planet tickets on them is the main idea.
"They had to act normal." Though the repetition of "had" from the previous sentence is a bit awkward, the sentence's brevity gives it an exlamatory nature, as if Digby thinks it, closing narrative distance a mite and possibly delivering the litotes' punchline.
Four more minor hiccups. "So," meaning therefore, feels out of place to me. Leaving the word out doesn't change the meaning of the sentence, doesn't add anything meaningful either.
"Food bricks" gives me an image of a house construction material. I have difficulty reconciling that image with a twelve-year-old hiding one or more in his jacket.
"Because" also feels out of place and leaving it out doesn't change the meaning.
"A sliver of steel". "of" use in that case is on the sophisticated side, and a word that can be dispensed with and not change meaning in this case. "Of" is more artfully meaningful when part of a possessive or attributive case, "The Slavers of Mandorax."
"Sliver" implies a narrow and thin object, toothpick- or shard-like. A steel shim? Shims are burglary tools. I don't hear burglars use the word "sliver."
This opening does accomplish to a degree several of your stated goals: introducing the omniscient subjective narrator, narrative voice, narrative point of view, and closing narrative distance into Digby's viewpoint. My comments above are intended to strengthen those goals.
posted
As always, thanks for the detailed analysis, extrinsic. I'm chewing on it now.
One of the things I try to do in third person limited narration, which may not be apparent in a 13 line sample, is to give the narrator a hint of the focus character's speaking style. Not full-blown phonetic "eye" dialect, but just hint, so you feel like the character is addressing you even when the narration is cold exposition.
I modeled Digby's speech on the urban dialect I grew up with. For example, we would say "They had to act normal," rather than "They had to act normally." We commonly substituted an adjective for an adverb. The sense of the idiom is "We had to act like normal people," rather than "We had to act in a normal manner."
The speech of the people I grew up with was colorful and expressive, but also very repetitive. If a certain metaphor hit the mark, we wasted no time turning it into a dead metaphor. Elaborate circumlocution was so commonplace it didn't feel evasive at all.
I grew up a few blocks from an auto body shop where Whitey Bulger's gang used to murder people, chop them up, and drop them into a vat of acid -- or so the gruesome local legend went. It was no secret what they were up to, but I think if you were actually mixed up with guys like that, and you were smart, you'd be strategically vague about referring to them.
So "certain people" implies that the narrator has specific people in mind whom he'd rather not name. This differs from "some people", which might refer to people whose identity the narrator hadn't determined yet. If you leave your car locked, "some people" might smash the window to steal your radio. If you start dealing drugs, "*certain* people" won't be happy that you're moving into their territory.
But I realize that "certain people" may simply sound wrong. I think to most people the speech of my youth would sound ignorant, hackneyed and repetitive, but to me it sounds like poetry. Maybe there's a better way to convey that sense of "people I'd rather not name."
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I think you misapprehend what I mean by "certain people" as an idiom. The term used idiomatically is as much to express uncertainty, specifically unknown persons, as to avoid naming them for ulterior reasons. They are who shall not be named so that they are not summoned is an underlying subtext of the idiom. The idiom is superstition in that regard. In another context, it's secretive so that eavesdroppers don't report back to named persons that So-and-so is gossiping about them. In another context, it's so that the people are not snitched on. Or all the above.
If Digby is the persona who'd rather not name who certain people are, not the narrator, developing the context so that he's the one avoiding naming them, but cueing that he knows and hints of who he means, that becomes a dramatic irony. Readers know or strongly suspect who he means but Digby thinks he's kept the secret from prying ears in the now moment of the story. Readers know also that he's not being as clever as he thinks he is. That is the strongest dramatic irony.
I understand the idioms of your childhood. Many are universal in any underworld community. I've probably heard many of them. The ones that are unique to Southies, though, those are ones that would I believe be most enticing, but recast into your future world setting.
A feature of omniscient limited narration that closes narrative distance uses character idioms among narrator voice as free indirect or direct discourse. I think "certain people" is ripe for that use, given artful context development.
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