Hatrack River Writers Workshop: My Very Own Cliche--SF Flash

This is topic My Very Own Cliche--SF Flash in forum Fragments and Feedback for Short Works at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Bent Tree (Member # 7777) on :

I just got out of the hospital from a ten day visit with pancreatitus and saw there there has been alot of hubbub about the old dreaming cliche. I suppose my cantankerous mood has prompted me to tackle a cliche and write a story thats premise is a dream. A simulated dream anyway. I I have never done this before and I am doing it more as a personal challenge than anything else and I am certainly not trying to be a rabble-rouser. I don't want to open a can of polemic but I would like any positive feedback because I would like to give this one a legitimate chance.

quote:
Something was wrong. The spider scurried beneath the closet door. This wasn’t a nanny-bot simulation. There were not spiders and drifting shadows in the children’s hibernation simulations. Dijin stumbled out of his bedroom into the kitchen. He knew enough about hibernation to know something was terribly wrong. He wasn’t like the little kids. Something was hacking them as they hibernated. He had to wake up. He had to find the lock box. He had to swallow the blue pill and get up—he had to wake an adult.
Through the kitchen, he tiptoed. Midway up the stairwell the wooden plank creaked and moaned beneath his foot. Perhaps it was a good thing he hibernated with the children. At least here he noticed.

[This message has been edited by Bent Tree (edited November 25, 2009).]

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

quote:
just got out of the hospital from a ten day visit with pancreatitus

I thought that was part of your first 13 at first. Good to see you are out and about...I was wondering why you hadn't posted on the 2012 movie thread.

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

A little hard to follow as a straight story (found myself re-reading the second mention of hibernation to understand it), but I liked it.

I felt a mix of nightmare on elm street meets alice in wonderland.

My only issue were the rhyming words

quote:
hibernation simulations

next to each other. Made me change my reading pace and also caused a cliched flashback to old INXS and REM songs.

Posted by Bent Tree (Member # 7777) on :

great to be out. Thanks. Now I just feel overwhelmed at all the stuff I have to do to get caught back up. It is difficult to write coherently when you are on I.V. opiates all day

Posted by BenM (Member # 8329) on :

I found this at once both intriguing and a little challenging. I'm still not entirely sure why.

Perhaps it is the clash or contradiction in Dijin acting while asleep, or perhaps it is the statement, made early, that this isn't a simulation. And the reminder, in the second paragraph, that he is hibernating comes across a little odd. Certainly I appreciate that I'm not being misinformed so that the author can pull a "haha he's asleep" trick on me, but I suspect this contrasting reality in the thoughts of the MC - that he's moving, but he's asleep - I just found a little hard to interpret. At least with such a short segment.

There were not spiders and drifting shadows... I found this awkward. I wondered if (and maybe my grammar is off) it really meant There were no..., or if it maybe meant There weren't meant to be.

Something was hacking them as they hibernated It took me a minute to place this, as I kept wanting to put an 'at' after hacking and was visualising an axe. You'd think I'd have picked up the context from nanny-bots and simulation, but I guess I didn't.

stairwell the wooden Why the definite article? A little like There were not spiders, I found this a little confusing, and wondered if I was missing something here.

Posted by Bent Tree (Member # 7777) on :

quote:
My only issue were the rhyming words
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hibernation simulations
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How about 'hibernation simulator'?

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

If I can help you get caught up by doing an extra read or crit, let me know.

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

quote:
that he's moving, but he's asleep

This is why I thought Nightmare on Elmstreet...when they are caught in dreams, but actively thinking and reacting while in that dream state.

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

quote:
How about 'hibernation simulator'?

Maybe, since hibernation is repeated a few times in rapid succession, using another word for that. Stasis or suspension or some other magical word you come up with?

Posted by Bent Tree (Member # 7777) on :

Yes, technically he is dreaming, but the simulations allow some degree of conciousness. They have the safety...the blue pill which allows them to wake from hibernation.

They hibernate frequently because of som strange orbit or planetary rotation which makes the weather miserable for months or years at a time. So this is some tyoe of suspended animation.

Posted by Dark Warrior (Member # 8822) on :

quote:
the blue pill

That was driving me crazy, and I just realized where I recognized it...Total Recall...lol

Posted by tchernabyelo (Member # 2651) on :

I thought it was a Matrix lift, but couldn't remember which of the blue or red pills was the "wake up" one - checking reveals, in fact, that the blue pill was the one that wuld have kept Neo oblivious inside the Matrix (and the "red pill" was apparently a lift FROM Total Recall, in which Edgerton offers Hauser/Quaid a red pill to free him form that supposed simulation). Either way I actually think it should go. Presuming your readership is going to be familiar with your cultural references is always a dangerous thing to do.

Other minor issues - I think ti should be "there were no spiders..." rather than "There were not spiders..."; Dijin is, in some fonts (such as Arial) a very difficult name to read; "Through the kitchen, he tiptoed" is an odd construction that implies he didn't tiptoe anywhere else, and I don't see why it isn't "He tiptoed through the kitchen."

But it's an intriguing enough beginning, and since it does not begin with eaking up, and actually references its own dreamlike state, I have no issues with it other than those specified above.