posted
Hi everyone. I posted the first versions of this in another thread, but am posting this revision in a new thread (the other one was getting long, and I didn’t want poor souls to have to parse the whole thread just to find out the first version they read no longer applied :o) )
Title: Shane’s Pearl Words: 1,600
It is still being revised and worked on, but I would love to send it to anyone who wants to read more. (And feel free to take a look at the previous thread and let me know if I an heading in the right direction, or just making it worse :o) )
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Life and death, day and night, winter and summer, everything has a lifecycle. Even atom particles live in a perpetually rhythm, circling one another like microscopic planets. Nothing escapes this law of life. Even the universe dances to a never ending heartbeat. And the universe was about to beat again, recycling itself, and ending the existence of all that lay within it. Shane knew this, and he was afraid. Shane had grown unaccustomed to fear; fore incalculable eons ago, when he and his kind had discovered how to live outside their corporeal existence, they had escaped disease, injury, and aging. But not death, he told himself as another shiver of fear ran through him. Anything can be destroyed if the conditions are right. And the conditions will soon be right for me, he thought bitterly. But what if there were something that those conditions would not be right for, something that could survive the collapse and rebirth of the universe? If such a thing existed, then anyone who lay inside it would also survive. But how could such a thing be exist? What if – His train of thought was suddenly interrupted, yes, that would work.
Please take my crits with a big block of salt - I'm a newbie to more than this forum...
You have a little problem with "fore incalculable eons ago,...". I think you should just leave off "fore".
The last bit where his train of thought is interrupted is awkward. Perhaps you could use parentheses instead of the dashes for the parenthetical phrase?
What if ... (His train of thought was suddenly interrupted) ... yes, that would work.
[This message has been edited by metalwheaties (edited April 03, 2005).]
posted
I hate to be a stickler, but this sentence bothered me: "Even atom particles live in a perpetually rhythm, circling one another like microscopic planets."
What do you mean by atom particles? Are you talking about the electrons around a nucleus? If so, then electrons don't really behave like planets, but more like a cloud. Atoms don't always "circle" one another, and are much more variable than can be described as rythmic (the vibrations in their bonds are more rythmic than their circular motion, if that is what you want to use). To compare subatomic particles or atoms as planets is really comparing quantam physics with general relativity.
I'm sorry, but as a chemist and physicist, the analogy just doesn't work.
[This message has been edited by RetinoBlastoma (edited April 03, 2005).]
posted
Retino's comment reminded me of another thing that bothered me a bit while reading your bit. The cycles you're talking about are birth, life, death, rebirth, etc. cycles, right? Sub-atomic particles don't get born, live and die - at least not in the way you are talking, if I get it.
I think Retino's comments about electrons being clouds rather than in orbit like planets are a bit hyper-scientific, but they're valid criticisms.
When I was a kid (a long time ago) we learned about atoms as if they were little solar systems. Today they probably talk about clouds and probability functions describing the position of any given subatomic particle. So your analogy will be lost on a younger audience.
posted
It is being picky, but realize that saying electrons are like planets is just a completely false statement.
What SkorPiun is describing is basically the Bohr model of the atom, which we know now to be false. I don't know what they are teaching in schools today, but I its well established that Bohr was wrong. It would be bad for Skor to have this in his story.
[This message has been edited by RetinoBlastoma (edited April 03, 2005).]
posted
Don’t sweat it, I'll find a different analogy. My original drafts had a lot of them I later removed, so I can just revive one of them :o)
Posts: 27 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I'm going to moan about the last few lines. Bear with me.
quote:But how could such a thing be exist? What if – His train of thought was suddenly interrupted, yes, that would work.
Two things: Who or what interrupted his train of thought? And do you explain what the sudden revelation is in the next sentence?
Basically, I'm worried that you are deliberately holding back information from the reader to build false suspense. We are deep in this character's thoughts already. If the character interrupts his own thoughts with a new one -- then it should be closer to:
--all at once the solution presented itself -- Yes, [whatever it is] will work.
This shows us a clear epiphany, a natural progression of someone thinking about a problem and suddenly aware of the solution. Don't hide things that the POV knows. Doing so isn't a good idea, unless you're writing a mystery story, I guess. This doesn't feel like a mystery to me, though.
Other than the above, I think this piece has good promise. It might be a little info-dumpish, but I'd forgive it easily because there is something interesting happening, and because I'm used to SF info-dumps.
quote:Metalwheaties: You have a little problem with "fore incalculable eons ago,...". I think you should just leave off "fore".
Hmmm... ya I played with that "fore" in and out a lot. You may be right there. I may get rid of it.
About the last sentence: Yes, my wife (Hi Wenderella!) also had a problem with that sentence. We agreed to post it as-is and see what everyone else thought. That will teach me to listen to my wife :o) Let me try a few different versions of that line, each with a different feel to it…
What if – His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by an epiphany – yes I could create such a vessel.
What if I created such a vessel? Yes I could do that.
Well, I will just have to create such a vessel myself.
What do y'all think? Posts: 27 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
I think you should choose one that is closest to your original intent. Don't beat yourself up over this line. Your visualization of it the first time around was likely what you really wanted, only probably not worded the way you intended it come off. Stick to what you meant to show the first time -- just choose your words carefully and don't withold info while doing it.
The reason I asked if the next sentence covered the epiphany is because I would have easily forgiven the withold if that were the case. But since I couldn't see the next sentence, and since I'm aware it's a common error for "new" authors to withold to build suspense, I felt there was a good chance that you may not have covered it immediately afterward. That's all.
[This message has been edited by HSO (edited April 03, 2005).]
posted
Onepktjoe, awesome, thanks! I was hoping someone might give it a read. I am revising a paragraph in the middle right now. Once I finish that I will send it on to you.
On the last sentence. What I was trying to do here was provide a sentence that made the paragraph a bit more interesting. The reader just went through a number of sentences and a monolog with a lot if information. I was hoping to format this sentence in a way that was a bit more interesting and broke things up a bit. But in the other side of things, I don’t want to create a sentence that makes the readers mind go BLAH! When it reads it either :o) Yes, I think the next sentence covers the epiphany, in fact the next paragraph covers it.
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