Here's the gist of it:
It's set in the same world as my other story posts (the whole story about Daniel and all that) but a couple years into the future. The first war is over, and another one has started not too long after that one ended, this time against a rebellious faction of the United Clan Empire who call themselves "Phoenicans" (I think I spelled that right...). The war has kind of deadlocked, with each faction, Empire and rebels, holding their own planets, refusing to give ground. Then this one planet, simply called "The Forest" is discovered. It's quite literally, one ginormous forest, thus the name. In a time of peace, this planet would be merely considered a curiousity, but in this war, it's valuable beyone comprehension. Why? because it's loaded with natural resources. So, both sides want it, but the Empire got there first. The story is set from the perspective of a one Lieutenant Cromwell with his elite squad (maybe considering the number of soldiers I might want to change it though...) out on a recon patrol. Two days out on the patrol, the Phoenicans land a primary landing force, right between Cromwell and base. And well...I'll let any volunteers find out what happens then .
By the way, my apologies if it seems like it's kind of rushed - it was. I only had like 4 days to plan and write the whole thing.

Here's the first two paragraphs:
The planet had no name. It was just called “The Forest” because that’s all it was on the surface, just one, big, enormous forest. The only saving quality about it was its vast store of natural resources. Unfortunately, this made the planet valuable…very valuable. And so, that’s why Lieutenant Jonathan Cromwell and his elite squad ended up there.
A rather unique squad it was, having 20 members rather than the standard ten or less. But all twenty soldiers were the best of the best. To name a few, there was Johnson, the sniper who could shave a rabbit’s cohones with a gauss round from at least 400 yards away, Chavez, the point man who could step on someone’s toes without being seen by them, Smith, the bear who lugged the machine gun around, and then there was Wright, the small,

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 11, 2006).]
 

Minor grammar problem: you use "they" and "them" to match "someone" and "a person," as in "step on someone's toes without them seeing." Not standard.

I'm not saying put this in paragraph 1, but I wonder if you've fully imagined the world. You said it has vast natural resources. Whether you tell us or not, I hope you know what those resources are!

--

I just looked back and saw this wasn't waht you asked for: you wanted to know if it was good as the teacher said.

Compared to others in your class, almost certainly yes. Compared to published writers who get paid for it, almost certainly no. We're not much here on building (or, I hope, unbuilding!) ego; just about making things better, until we can finally say, great, send it to a publisher!
 

To answer your question: Yes (in terms of a class room paper) and No (in terms of something that is "publishable" right now).

I liked the first paragraph even though it was a bit heavy on exposition. I thought was about to get into Lt. Cromwell's head in the next line. But then I didn't and I start wondering why I was reading this.

The second paragraph was pure info dump and you lost me as a reader. Tell us about the squad as we meet them.

Technically, it's good writing other than not properly punctuating your list of soldiers and what WBriggs has pointed out. I suspect that is what got the high marks. It has potential. But the story telling doesn't take off in a way that makes it interesting to me.

I need to know the POV and MC who may not be the same. I need to know what the squad is doing or about to do. You've told me that the squad is elite so you don't IMHO need to tell me in the next line that they are "unique" and why they are.

Get me to the plot sooner. Hope it helps.

 

Ditto what Will said. Start in someone's head and keep us there. Then pretend like you're in the action as that character and make us go with you. It's the most effective way to grab your read.

Looks like you've got an interesting story. Now show it to us instead of telling us about it.
 

And that's the next two paragraphs. So, if I was, in theory, planning on having this potentially published in some whatever thing publishes short stories, I should make the edits noted in parenthesis above and...what else?

By the way, how would I go about potentially getting this out to the general public...as in like published type of thing. Any advice on that? I've never done anything like it before so I'd have no idea about what to do or how to go about it.

Thanks all for all the help!

- starsin

<spelling and minor grammar edit>

[This message has been edited by starsin (edited December 12, 2006).]
 

One common exception is a paragraph at the start to say what the story's about.

quote:

---

It was raining the day my dad turned into a crookneck squash.

The driveway was all muddy...

---

Here's a few basic rules a lot of new writers make:

1. early flashbacks (starting in the wrong place)
2. They don't name their characters (trying to be mysterious and just ending up being annoying)
3. passive voice (have been, had been)
4. bad use of point of view (this will kill a story stone dead)

So use this story to learn how not to make these mistakes. Personally, I think grasping how to use POV is probably the most important. Then plotting (flashback minimized). The rest comes in time and practice--well except the name thing (just don't do that).

If you want I can look at more of it and give you direct examples of what I mean through the text. My email is in the little link above my post that looks like an envelope.

So, three questions: one - would anybody want to look at the whole thing and see if I've got it set up right? two - Is anybody hooked...want to read on a little more or something? and three - if not, what could I do to make it better?

by the way, briggs, in response (shame on me...) to your statement, the very first sentence of the next paragraph is "The squad awoke to sub-zero temperatures the morning they came across the three Psionics". Is that a bad way to start off? <open to all though too>

- starsin
 

There is a collection of useful articles for SF writers at SFWA.org. Read the ones under The Basics first, with special attention to The Standard Deviations of Writing by Roger MacBride Allen. That one will serve you well throughout your development as a writer.

Focus on learning to tell a story using a point of view character as the center of the narrative. Almost everything about "style" comes down to this simple principle, using the narrative to build the reader's sympathetic attachment to one or more characters. This is invariably accomplished through what we call "point of view" or "POV". POV is the literary equivalent of how movies use cinematography. Just as the choice of what to film and how to film it has an enormous impact on the finished movie, POV frames nearly every aspect of how your audience relates to your story. Trying to write a story without knowing the basics of how to use your chosen POV is like trying to film a movie without knowing one end (or button) of the camera from the other.

There are three basic POV choices. The most popular today is third person limited omniscient, which means that the audience observes the story by reading the mind of one of the characters. There is a lot of variety in how "deep" that mindreading goes, but most readers like to know everything that the character is consciously thinking, percieving, and feeling--no more and no less. Another important POV choice is first person account. This has one of the characters narrating the story, revealing what that character can and will recount. It's a difficult POV, because the reader has strong reason to suspect that the narrator is "shading the truth" of what really happened. This is unavoidable if readers treat the narrator like a "real" person, and if they do not then you've already lost. The third main option is Full Omniscient, where the author has taken on the task of showing everything that is relevant to the story, whether or not any of the characters is aware of it. It is almost always cast as third person. It requires a great deal of depth in creating and maintaining the milieu and the internal motivations of every important character. Because of the difficulties, most stories told in this POV fail miserably.

When I say that these three choices are "basic", I do not mean that all or even very many possible POV choices can be defined in terms of being one of them. I mean that the vast majority of publishable fiction is written using one of these three POV's. Some very good stories have been written using things like third person objective, where the narrator is not a character in the story and has no knowledge of the feelings and thoughts of any of the characters. There is second person attributive, which almost always fails utterly, partly because the sort of writers who use it usually use it to tell really stupid and pointless stories. There's also the imperative POV, which is generally not used in fiction per se, but can nevertheless be used to tell a pretty good story. And there are a lot of really odd-ball combinations of tense and character focus which have aren't worth the effort of naming because they're so idiosyncratic. You don't need to learn about all the different types of POV. Learning the three basics gives you plenty of lattitude as a writer. Even within those basics there is a lot of variety, and you don't need to master everything that is possible within them.
 

[This message has been edited by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (edited December 14, 2006).]
 

For instance, lets say that the POV is James, the demo/crypto specialist. He notices that Lt. Cromwell has pulled aside several of the squad members while he and the others are setting up their base camp. Johnson's a sniper, Chavez is a point man, Smith is a heavy, and Wright is a whatever. From this information he deduces that the Lt. has decided to do something that would require those skills. Hmm, wonder what it could be? It might have something to do with their overall mission, come to think of it.

James has a reason to think about these sorts of things, perhaps. And, if we find James an interesting fellow, we'll probably find his thoughts on this matter interesting too. But it's not a matter of cutting some things and leaving others alone. It's a matter of completely rewriting what you have into something that has a dramatic structure. Right now, because we don't care about any of the characters, and have no indication that they particularly care about the general situation, we have no investment in the outcome of the story. POV is a way to overcome our lack of interest.
 

So all you need to do is make sure that you can see your whole excerpt in the box. If you have to move the scroll bar, then your excerpt is too long. (Of course, if you've skipped a line to separate your paragraphs, you have less than 13 lines, and I give people credit for that.)

I hope this makes sense.
 

My problem is that MY beginnings are solely for the purpose of setting up some of the plot and future action. In all honesty, it's not the first thirteen lines of things that I write that gets people's attention, it's usually the first couple pages.

I once read God Emperor of Dune. In my opinion, a very dull and boring book. But, I read through over half the book before I decided that.

In all honesty, I don't think that thirteen lines is enough space and time to get an exposition together to get people's attention. If I want to see if anything is interesting, I read the first chapter. If the first chapter sucks, I toss the book. If it's interesting, I keep reading.

And, for clarification, I do get into the POV very quickly after this "rather meaningless...exposition lump at [my] front". Within the first page, I think that I've got the character rather firmly in Cromwell's head. But you'd have to read the whole thing to see that, and THAT was what I wanted to have people volunteer to do. In my original post I said:
"What I'm wanting though, is to see if it's as good as me teacher was making it sound like."
To see if it was that good, that would involve volunteering to read it as a whole, not just a little "blurb" of it.

I'm sorry if this comes off as rude. I'm coming up on finals and I'm a touch stressed out. My apologies to all this offends or comes off as rude to.

- starsin
 

Readers only care about the setting or backstory if it informs the plot. If it does, it is something your POV character will notice, think about or naturally interact with.

Stealing Will's thunder, please read these threads:

Why the problem with the first 13 isn't that it isn't enough
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002662.html

Just tell me
http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002716.html

If Cromwell is your POV then I should be in his head from the first moment. Is he going to care that the planet has a vast store of resources? Maybe, if it relates to his mission.
As an example:

quote:

---

The squad awoke to sub-zero temperatures the morning they came across the three Psionics.

---

Is an Omni type statement. The POV is outside the characters and tells us something they don't know yet - i.e. that later that day they will find Psionics, whatever that is.

Compare it with something like this, which shows the same information from Lt. Cromwell's POV:

Lt. Cromwell awoke to ice crystals in his mustache. Despite the thermal blanket, he could feel the cold nibbling into his warmth. The snow had started to fall and from the slate grey sky it didn't look like it would slow down. The operation was going to be hindered by it.
"Damn it," he said.

While probably not right for your story shows me that it is cold and snowing and why the Lt. cares from his POV.

Also you have two sentances about the morning and then jump into the action. And then jump away again for a flashback. Many of the people who have given you feedback are suggesting you start wtih the action. We'll learn that they are an elite squad and the planet has important resources as the characters interact with the world.

The story is good as a college writing exercise. Asking this group if it is good means its it good enough for publication. We don't need to read it all and neither will a prospective editor. If you can't sell us in the first 13, it goes into the circular file.

As Survivor said on a different thread:

quote:

---

When I offer to read a story here, it's because the opening impressed me as something that might be the start of an enjoyable story. If I enjoy the story, then I praise it. If I have to force myself just to scan it, then I say why I wasn't interested in reading it. That is the only kind of feedback that can have any meaning.

---

We are telling you we wouldn't read on and why. What you do with it is up to you.

[This message has been edited by kings_falcon (edited December 15, 2006).]
 

quote:

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God Emperor of Dune couldn't get published in this market if it came from a first time author. BTW - I agree that it was boring. But what made it boring? The answer: "the wacking dull and rather meaningless out of POV exposition lump at the front"

---

Don't forget "the wacking dull and rather meaningless out of POV exposition lump" that was strewn throughout the REST of the book, too.
 

Anyway, I don't agree with Herbert's cosmology or religion or atheism or whatever the heck it was, but that isn't the fault of his writing, it's just because it just so happens that human consciousness isn't encoded into your DNA, so all the philosophical speculations based on that particular hypothesis are ultimately silly. Despite that, the book manages to be both interesting in its serious development of speculations that I find merely silly as well as much of it's character development. It also manages to be rather obviously self-indulgent, the sort of book written by a celebrity who no longer worries about being rather obscure and inaccessible to most of the audience. Heck, perhaps Herbert had come to realize the innate stupidity of his founding premise and was deliberately trying to obfuscate.

All of this has precisely nothing to do with your story. If Herbert had posted the first page of Dune here, I would have volunteered to read a chapter, and I'd have probably kept reading. If he'd posted the first page of God Emperor I'd have dissed his POV choice but I might have asked for the rest depending on how I felt. I'd definitely have pointed out, in my critique, that the fundamental philosophical premise was merely absurd (though surprisingly widespread, but that might only be because Herbert's work has had a significant impact on a lot of SF readers). After having read it, I somewhat understand the deeper meaning behind an objective POV opening in a book about the necessary limitations of omniscience, but I would stil have told him to fix it.

If you feel that strongly, you can send me the story. I'll warn you, even if I love the rest I'll still hammer you for the poor opening. There is never a need to have a first page that makes the reader yawn. If you're desperate, you can always open with a vignette. Herbert's were one of the saving graces of his books, Card likes them too. Watership Down just wouldn't be the same without them. I've never really used them much myself, but I do enjoy them when they're well done.