Hatrack River Writers Workshop: Shooting Birds

This is topic Shooting Birds in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Glasgow (Member # 2668) on :

These are the first thirteen lines of the short story I've just finished. Waiting to hear what you think before I try submitting.

An airship can be hard to spot, and Captain Avventura knew that more than most other pirates of the skies. Land machina can shot you down easily, like shooting birds from the sky, but when you can barely see the target without squinting then you’re pretty much free with the sky. The only bad point with it being the lack of air, so the crew had to stay indoors at all times, which was a damn shame with the beautiful sights from the deck. But they were tough feskers with lungs the size of mountains. They could handle it.
They had gotten news of a rich family, possibly royal, that were flying through this area of sky and they were not expecting visitors. Avventura was going to give them some.
‘How far off are they?’ he asked.
‘Five miles,’ replied Gotoo who was staring at the sensor screen where a large – far larger than the Redfly – airship was blinking at the corner. It was nearly here.

Posted by Elan (Member # 2442) on :

Hmm. I find this... confusing.

An airship can be hard to spot, and Captain Avventura knew that [better] than most other pirates of the skies. Land machina can [shoot] you down easily, like shooting birds from the sky... but when you can barely see the target without squinting then you’re pretty much free with the sky. (this makes no sense to me... what do you mean by being "free with the sky"? Needs to be rephrased for clarity.)

The only bad point with it being the lack of air...(it? what is the "it"? You have to anchor us with what the object is, prior to using 'it' as a descriptor.) so the crew had to stay indoors at all times, which was a damn shame with the beautiful sights from the deck. But they were tough feskers with lungs the size of mountains. They could handle it. (I'm very confused here. Are they on an airship? Are they on a mountain? Are they in space? You've not given us context yet.)

They (they who?) had gotten news of a rich family, possibly royal, that were flying through this area of sky and they were not expecting visitors. (They who again? What does the royal family have to do with expecting visitors? Disconnected concepts are making no sense.

Avventura was going to give them some. (Some WHAT?)
‘How far off are they?’ he asked.

‘Five miles,’ replied Gotoo who was staring at the sensor screen where a large – far larger than the Redfly – airship was blinking at the corner. (At the CORNER? Now are they on a street corner?? How can there be a corner in the sky? If it's in the corner of the sensor screen, you are just confusing us with this detail. It would be sufficient to say a large airship was showing up as a blinking dot on the sensor screen. The fact that it's in the corner is irrelevent.)

It was nearly here. (Again, IT what? I think you are trying to hold back information so you can surprise the reader, but this is not the time or place for surprises. Your first 13 lines need to give us concrete images, to help us understand what is going on. Save the surprises for the end of the book, not the beginning.)

Posted by Glasgow (Member # 2668) on :

I'm working on it.
It does make sense, I hope, after reading it through the next pages but I seem to have the knack of confusing people.
I'm working on it!

Posted by wbriggs (Member # 2267) on :

I didn't find it confusing, except that I don't know why air pirates would suffer from a lack of air! I get very well what you're saying.

However, it didn't hook me. I can't say, because of such-and-such, because there wasn't really anything wrong, it's just that there wasn't a reason to be interested, for me. Some ideas to make it more gripping: make the MC struggle (things seem to be going smoothly for him); make him sympathetic; make him quirky; make the writing not just clear, but stunningly good. Or all of the above.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

Because of the tactic of flying above the cloud deck. I'll agree that could have been presented better, though.

For me, the milieu sounded thin at best, possibly lifted blind from FF (and I'm not even familiar with FF, I have no idea how anyone can play those games for more than five minutes without being bored stiff).

Posted by Elemeno (Member # 2752) on :

I think your main problem here is clarity. I had problems figuring out who "they" was referring to in different sentences, and could only figure it out after rereading several times. A little revision of grammar and sentence structure would do a lot to improve the beginning of your story.

Posted by Exile (Member # 2575) on :

The biggest difficulty I had reading this was with your pronouns. The "you"s, "it"s, and "they"s threw me off a bit, and I'd have to backtrack to figure out what you were referring to.

I'm interested in the setting, but I didn't get enough of it as I'd hoped. Where was Awentura? In an airship? At a base? On the ground? It seemed a bit vague to me.