I don't have a complete story, and it's due tomorrow, so I don't need full readers -- just comments on the opening, I think.
Suicide would change nothing.
To die a loser would leave Officer Tsichem a loser: to go on to the Great Mother not for glory, but to go through her bowels, to rot, like the great foolish Father, whom she dismembered to make the heavens.
This was all that kept Tsichem going, wading through hip-deep water in the flooded city of Southport, past flooded cars and downed power lines. Hurricane storm surge and Mississippi mud swirled with traces of sewage to make a reek like that of the Mother's bowels.
His wife and baby, killed, through Her indifference and the indifference of Her people. . . his mind shied away from it.
[This message has been edited by wbriggs (edited October 12, 2005).]
Not necessarily a bad thing, but we move from what seems to be a fantasy opening (an utterly unfamiliar name and religion) to a sudden collision with very recent reality.
I'd have no idea where it's going; I;d read on to start with. But I am very cautious of fiction directly related to events like Hurricane Katrina.
"To die a loser would leave Officer Tsichem a loser"
That seems to be a taken? It seems repetitive to me. To die a loser would leave him in shame, or something else was what I was expecting.
You also mention the Mother's bowels twice, also becoming repetitive.
The religious references seem analogous to Native American culture in some ways, but the name "Tsichem" makes me think Russian (like Tsar) or an anglocized Asian name; from the name I don't have a clear image of the character and so I don't have anyone with whom to connect.
I agree with TPS about the first line being repetative, but it's an easy fix.
Out of curiosity, what is the assignment? I could hazard a guess, but I was just wondering.
The first lines made me think it was a modern world setting, and then I drifted to a fictional world, then back to a real world. If the first lines gave a stronger sense of the real world, I might not drift so far.
The religion or myth bits work, but you might want to delay them a little if they aren't important to the story. If they are important, even only a little, I think they work fine where they are.
I altered the beginning thus:
quote:I'm hoping OSC (and editors!) really agree with his principle that the first paragraph is free. I had a devil of a time trying to poke all this into the text, as you all seemed to notice.
The first chief of the Cuhokia Empire forced stranded time-travelers to work their technical skills to make his people great, building ships and airplanes and bombs to spread the worship of the Great Mother and subdue the world. Now Europe, Asia and Africa were free; but no one could stop North America from its blood sacrifices. Or from the slaughter of Cherokee and Iroquois rebels. It wasn't because of the Great Mother's help; She helps no one. As the entire city of Southport, destroyed by a Category 5 hurricane, had reason to know.And as for Officer Tsichem . . . he couldn't stop thinking of suicide.
This will probably be critiqued tomorrow (Thus) in class (unless others did their homework too!).
You're trying too hard to put "important" information up front, and it's breaking your opening. We don't need a cosmology or history lesson right in the first paragraph. Give us a Tsichem lesson first.
