Sci-fi, 2700 words, second draft. Looking for a reader if available and if it grabs your interest. Here it goes... I used to think that life was simple, you work hard, and then you go home. At home, your wife has supper ready and the kids are a source of amusement, not a nuisance. I am dreaming I know, but I am allowed to dream – to hope. Thursday night everything changed, and I am forced to see life from a different angle. Now, more then ever I want to live it, every part. Let me tell you why, it was the aliens- do not laugh, or roll your eyes.
Posted by pixydust (Member # 2311) on :
Okay, this is kind of a first person trap: "I used to think this now I've seen how wrong I was."
This is a personal thing I have, so if you think I'm loony than just toss it. But I think that 1st person POV is better served with a memory that ties us into the story. Something tactile--something real.
And example from Juliet Marillier's "Daughter of the Forest":
quote:Three children lay on the rocks at the water's edge. A dark-haired little girl. Two boys, slightly older. This image is caught forever in my memory, like some fragile creature preserved in amber. Myself, my brothers. I remember the way the water rippled as I trailed my fingers across the shining surface.
Now this only works because it's a foreshadowing of what's to come. How her brothers will be taken from her. How she will no longer be free to be a child.
Give us a vision of your MC through his feelings, but also through a fluid image of his true self.
Does that make sense? Hope it helps a bit...
Posted by TMan1969 (Member # 3552) on :
Yes, it does in fact. It is the very same thing the editor said when he asked me to re-write it and explain how the MC falls from grace - if you had a chance to read the rest, you would understand it. So thats what I am doing right now and then re-send for publication..thanks pixie, it's in the works.
Posted by Rahl22 (Member # 1411) on :
This doesn't really work for me. It is vague and uninteresting. I think Pixie's suggestion is a valid one, not for the memory bit, but because of the specificity. Detail is interesting. General, nebulous ruminations are not.
Start with the aliens, right off the bat. Just because it's first person doesn't mean you can't start with a narrative scene. Or a better hook. Especially for a story that is, admittedly, so short. Should have more punch, in my opinion.
Of course, as you say, the rest of the story may justify this beginning, but I don't think many will make it far enough to realize that.
Posted by kings_falcon (Member # 3261) on :
TMan congrats on having an editor who wanted to see this again. That's very exciting.
IMHO, you could just start with:
Thursday night everything that I'd taken for granted or believed changed when the aliens, please don't laugh or roll your eyes, . . . .
I was . . . (Now you can show me his life the moment before it changes.)
That sets the scene and gets me into the meat of your story, which will show me that life is complicated for him now.
Daughter of the Forest is a great example. Mariller never says "I used to think I had an idyllic childhood until . . ." She shows us a scene from the childhood that was a "Hallmark moment" and sets us up for what the MC loses in the pages to come.
This is why writing first person is so hard to do well. Do you really need to be in First person?
Posted by TMan1969 (Member # 3552) on :
Thanks for the submissions. The poem isn't right for us, being more like social commentary than SF, but the story is interesting. It feels a bit like different genres in one tale, but it ends on a Twilight Zone note, which I think works. What's missing is some Twilight Zone type of feel at the start. There needs to be a bit of strangeness somehow, maybe just in the mood. Might work to have the guy somehow tied into shopping, or department stores, or similar, to give the ending more of a twist. Alternatively, you could emphasize the "model citizen" angle more by some references at the top of the story to him being some kind of pillar of the community. Maybe he goes to a lot of local professional, political, and property-owner meetings and is everyone's best friend and drinking buddy -- but he's never home and is a fraud as a husband and father. The hypocrisy should be emphasized more to justify his fate. Here is what the editor said..
