DISCLAIMER:
I plan to develop this into a full and awesome story. Please do not copy large portions of it and display them elsewhere; link to this webpage instead. Updates should occur approximately once daily. Editions may take place even weeks or months after material is presented. This literature is officially copyright by the author, David Kirschner, 2010.
Escalation
3/23/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor I
He was running. From what, he was unsure. He stumbled over every stone as he worked his way down. He slowed at a fork. The luminescent yellow sign suggested to him left. He went.
He was breathing. But just barely. He flew through a sharp turn right, then another left. The ground fell steep there, and the walls glowed with an eerie violet hue.
He was sliding. Then he heard another shriek. The pursuer was not far behind. He stopped at the bottom of the incline and looked hastily around. A hill behind him, a black passage ahead. Nothing closeby except debris.
He was digging. He huffed and grunted his way through the earth beneath him. A hole resulted. He covered all save his right eye with the rubble where he laid in the depression. Seconds after the dust settled finally, another shriek sounded. This time it was here.
He was panicking. The violet hum showed him the pursuer. Not the face, but all four meters of its legs and torso were enough to incite a paralyzing fear. Then the pursuer bent down. Its face was all the right eye could see now. A stream of drool blinded the right, momentarily.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor II
“Where’s he at?” The man stared furiously at his wrist cuff. The man snarled. The cuff read thirty-three for the time. “He’s an entire click late!” Sixty-four clicks in a day. “I’m going to fire that sloth!”
Shriek.
The man’s face turned ghastly white. The man scrambled back into the railcar and set it to go down to the station. The man’s eyes shifted nervously.
Shriek. Louder.
The man brushed his forehead with his sleeve. “I hope he didn’t cross paths with that thing,” the man panted. No one survived an encounter with that thing. The railcar rattled as it passed a rut in the tracks.
Shriek. Earsplitting.
The man looked up instinctively. Towards the sound. Abruptly, the railcar’s roof opened like the lid of a tin sardine can. The man quickly perished at the thing’s hands.
Shriek. Victorious.
The thing leaped off the speeding railcar, corpse in hand. Nobody was there to see what followed. The destroyed railcar continued its automatic course. Later, the guards at the station’s gate shook their heads gravely at the sight of the red-spattered interior and the terribly demolished roof of the arrived railcar.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor III
The guards, the five of them, argued over the best course of action. Three heartbeat indicators had already sent their deceased signals to the station from scientists located in the upper levels. The Shrieker, as it had come to be called, was on a spree for reasons no man knew. It was only a matter of time before the monster discovered and invaded the station, which housed all that remained of humanity after the sky turned black. The denizens of the station acknowledged that there was a possibility of other life, but their wave scanners never picked up anything but bats, and more recently, the Shrieker.
The guards, the five of them, decided on their course of action. Three stayed to enforce the gate, and two took a railcar from the reserve slots to go to inform the High Minister, general overseer of the station, and son of the woman who lead the people underground as the sky began to turn and ruled the survivors with wisdom and grace. The High Minister, in the opinions of many, did not share his mother’s positive qualities.
As the guards, the two of them, departed in the railcar, they heard shrieks. They feared the worst for their three companions.
And the guards, the three of them, found swift deaths at the hands of the beast.
The whole "ORIGINAL **** COPYRIGHT BOB MCGEE 2010 DO NOT STEAL" bit seems kind of pretentious for something that's probably not going to last more than a week or two. If someone does try to steal it for some reason, you have proof that you did it first anyway.
gah, the most deceptive sentence starter in history.
I know what you're thinking; I've thought it before. "This character is mysterious and ominous, he doesn't have a name!" Once you run out of verbs, though, it's gonna be weird when you start using more traditional starters amidst "he." This also goes against the normal idea of not using "he X and Y" to start a sentence.
You could start with a detailed description each sentence. It adds SO much more to the text.
I'm too lazy to type it up and edit it right now though (Ugh, worst day I've had in months, if not years. Don't want to talk about it.), so I'll get it up probably later tonight.
But you do get an excerpt.
The denizens of the station acknowledged that there was a possiblity of other life, but their wave scanners had never picked up anything but bats, and more recently, the Shrieker.
“Where’s he at?” The man stared furiously at his wrist cuff. The man snarled. The cuff read thirty-three for the time. “He’s an entire click late!” Sixty-four clicks in a day. “I’m going to fire that sloth!”
Shriek.
The man’s face turned ghastly white. The man scrambled back into the railcar and set it to go down to the station. The man’s eyes shifted nervously.
Shriek. Louder.
The man brushed his forehead with his sleeve. “I hope he didn’t cross paths with that thing,” the man panted. No one survived an encounter with that thing. The railcar rattled as it passed a rut in the tracks.
Shriek. Earsplitting.
The man looked up instinctively. Towards the sound. Abruptly, the railcar’s roof opened like the lid of a tin sardine can. The man quickly perished at the ting’s hands/
Shriek. Victorious.
The thing leaped off the speeding railcar, corpse in hand. Nobody was there to see what followed. The destroyed railcar continued its automatic course. Later, the guards at the station’s gate shook their heads gravely at the sight of the red-spattered interior and the terribly demolished roof of the arrived railcar.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor III
The guards, the five of them, argued over the best course of action. Three heartbeat indicators had already sent their deceased signals to the station from scientists located in the upper levels. The Shrieker, as it had come to be called, was on a spree for reasons no man knew. It was only a matter of time before the monster discovered and invaded the station, which housed all that remained of humanity after the sky turned black. The denizens of the station acknowledged that there was a possibility of other life, but their wave scanners never picked up anything but bats, and more recently, the Shrieker.
The guards, the five of them, decided on their course of action. Three stayed to enforce the game, and two took a railcar from the reserve slots to go to inform the High Minister, general overseer of the station, and son of the woman who lead the people underground as the sky began to turn and ruled the survivors with wisdom and grace. The High Minister, in the opinions of many, did not share his mother’s positive qualities.
As the guards, the two of them, departed in the railcar, they heard shrieks. They feared the worst for their three companions.
And the guards, the three of them, found swift deaths at the hands of the beast.
I hate this type of beginning. I know it is meant to be catchy, but it comes off as bad writing. A lot of stories I hate have this type of beginning. For the second part, I hate the short sentences. They might give suspense if it was a book, but reading it online is different. The third part was much better, except for the fact that you gave an entire two sentences for a description.
I don't know what exactly you're saying you don't like. Be a bit more specific. Using quotes are good.
Also, here's how the story goes:
It's sci-fi. This is one book in a series (if ambition counts) about in the middle. Prequels will tell of the events that turned the sky black, and sequels will tell of the continued struggles to recover from said catastrophe.
Planet Earth (but not our Earth, another planet with the same name) is fairly similar to our own. It's governed by the same phyiscal forces and resides in the same universe. It is inhabited by humans who, strandely, seem to speak English. This will be an underlying key concept.
Events not yet thought up but somehow involve the alien civilization who first built Earth cause the atmosphere to become poisoned and subsequently turn black. Many small bands of survivors make it to safety beneath the ground. The station is among them. About 40 years later, the Shrieker, which was before the story takes place little more than a rumor, becomes active. It's on a feeding spree, because it's going to have babies, but the station doesn't know this yet. In a final attempt to survive, they go back to the surface and find out that the atmosphere is actually returning to somewhat-normal, and a sizable civilation has planted its roots about where they resurfaced. And they led the Shrieker right to it. After a huge hunt, they finally find the Shrieker. They find it having babies. They kill the Shrieker and all its babies except for 2 that get away. Celebration ensues.
probable subjects of the stuff:
The Worldbuilders : Worldbuilders - about the aliens who built Earth
They Called it Planet Earth : Rebellion - Earth has a biff against its totalitarian creators but they are finally subdued
And the Sky Turned Black : Nightfall - The aliens turn the sky black
The Shrieker : Escalation - The people of Earth begin their recovery from the black sky
Struggle for Power : Consummation - The societies of Earth collapse under the corruption of their leader
We Touched the Stars : Separation - Earth folk develop space travel, and a team of scouts loses all communication with Earth
Explosions as Grains of Sand : Conflict - Earth people versus the Worldbuilders in a final epic struggle for power
Start simple. Only after the reader's been drawn in will they be willing to learn more. Ideally, you should begin with a witty, interesting introduction that makes us care about your central character or a main story point, then work it into an exciting conflict and tell us your story through that. When you start out with "HE WAS RUNNING AND HE FELL AND GOT BACK UP", the reader has no reason to care.
Quote from Towel »
enough with the urrrrrrr this sucks before he's even done.
Give your interpretation of madk a clean slate, even if you've already done so before. Everyone is bound to go and make a douche of themselves now and then, some more than others and some less.
(don't post any other trainwrecks after this post, pleeeeease)
Honest critique is to be expected when you release a work of art. Ideally, you should either ignore it or conform to it, but justifying it doesn't fix anything. Critique isn't an insult, it's a suggested change.
It's my personal taste that books start out with something that quickly grabs your attention because you don't know what's happening. A guy is being hunted by a horrific and utterly mysterious monster in a setting that the reader is only starting to get a picture of. For example, take the beginning of the movie "The Matrix", which is unarguably one of the greatest movies ever created. Neo wakes up, sees words on his screen. We learn Neo is selling questionable goods. We learn the words on the computer screen that may or may not have been a dream knew something. We get the whole Morphius on the phone scene and Neo gives himself up. Neo's mouth vanishes and a freak creature goes inside him. He wakes up from the dream. But was it a dream? Only after the first half-hour or so of the movie do things start to explain themselves. This is my favorite way for a movie, and also a book, to begin. So what you're reading now is the vague and sketchy establishing of setting and theme, allowing the mind to fill in a lot of details as things move along. By the third part, you know that the world above is barren and that there are issues happening with the people living underground, and now an unknown creature is on a murderous rampage. It's hardly ten minutes through the movie yet. Give it a chance to flesh itself out.
That said, I understand that not everybody likes this type of beginning, but I find it an absolutely unpleasant chore to write anything that I don't enjoy reading myself. Therefore, I will not write what I personally would not read. Criticism is accepted with consideration, but don't fuss about my style of writing, because that's the one thing that's not going to change. Typos, errors, and inconsistencies in plot and things is what I will really listen to.
Also, apologies for the lack of update today. It was extremely busy. Tomorrow I should have plenty of time to write up at least a couple more sections, though.
Also, I just fixed several typos, but they are only fixed in the first post.
You won't be able to tell your audience about how it's "just like the Matrix". It just doesn't work. A movie can easily communicate things like setting, character design, motivation, and expression without detracting from the action, while even an extremely skilled writer can't accomplish that with ease. It comes off as sloppy, and justifying it to me isn't going to make it look better to a serious reviewer.
You're inexperienced. You're vague in all the wrong ways, you're choppy, and you're trying too hard. You're diving right in to a very difficult task and taking yourself way too seriously, and I've got to say it's really turning me off. Try some dialogue scenes, try to clump your stuff together less, and experiment a little. Don't move a mile a minute, getting characters across is much more important than getting events across. Any old schmuck can put realistic events on paper, but only a thoughtful writer can put realistic people on paper.
Fact of the matter is, it looks bad. If you didn't know me personally, you wouldn't be able to justify it to me, and I'd put it down without a second thought. If you think I'm an isolated incident, that's fine, but know that you can't change others so they'll enjoy your writing, you can only change your own writing to make it more enjoyable.
If you insist on pursuing this sort of intro, I'll see what I can do to help you make your flow and tone a bit more natural. Give me a moment.
Peri express my feeling on the matter. From what you post, along the lines of long term plot, this sound good. Though I don't like the aliens bit too much. Try doing something more creative.
Alright, shitty quick re-write. This is waaay too vague. I mean, I tried to spice it up, but there's only so many ways you can say "he" or "the man" or "the thing", and my specialty isn't language to begin with.
Quote from madk »
Escalation
3/23/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor I
He was running, but from what, he was unsure. He seemed to stumble over every jutting stone as he fled, frantically struggling to center himself. He jerked left at a fork without thinking.
He was breathing, if just barely. He flew through a sharp turn right, then another left. The ground fell steep there, and the walls glowed with an eerie violet hue.
He slid down on the sides of his shoes. A shriek. The pursuer was not far behind. He stopped at the bottom of the incline and looked hastily around. A hill behind him, a black passage ahead. Nothing closeby except debris.
He was digging. He clawed his way through the rubble until he had opened a cavity just large enough for him. He covered himself save a peephole over his eye and sank into the depression. Another shriek. It was nearly here.
He struggled to stifle his breathing as he stared out of the hole. He could see nothing but its legs until it began to bend. It peered into the rubble knowingly, searching every crack and crevice. Eye contact.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor II
Waiting outside a railcar, a man frustratedly stared at his wrist cuff, watching time pass. “Where’s he at?” The cuff read thirty-three. “He’s an entire click late! I’m going to fire that sloth!”
Shriek.
The man’s face turned ghastly white. He scrambled to the controls and tried to start the engine. His hands were already trembling and they were sweaty to begin with. After a bit of fumbling with the lever, the car sputtered and started to head towards the station.
Shriek. Louder.
The man brushed his forehead with his sleeve. “I hope to god it didn't find him,” he panted. No one survived an encounter with it. The railcar rattled as it passed a rut in the tracks. <This is a good-ass detail right here.
Shriek. Earsplitting.
It was above him. He threw himself into the legroom of the controls. His thoughts raced. Something struck the lid of the car. The man lost his composure and began screaming. The thing tore open the ceiling, spraying sparks and shrapnel down into the car. The man soiled himself. The thing reached down and closed its hand around him. The screaming stopped.
Shriek. Victorious.
A beaten and bloodied car would obediently roll into the station the next day, and the conductors would only shake their heads.
fuuuck that's not any better is it
Well, just goes to show, this ****'s hard. I understand that you might want to start your story this way, but it's not going to work without prior writing experience.
I've written stuff before and received good compliments for it, though this is my first real try at anything too lengthy.
I see what you're saying and I'll do some considerable editing tomorrow. I think I know how I can fix the problem without detracting from the "style". Details are not given frequently enough to the point that sometimes the events are too confusing. The thing is, I face the difficulty of introducing the reader to an entirely new world without setting it apart so much that the focus is put on this particular aspect, otherwise the characters will feel less human. The people at the beginning of the story are intentionally foundationless, though, because they're only going to die, and I don't want to give the impression that their lives matter. It sounds morbid, but they don't, and this needs to be established.
Also, the next part is where the characters start to get involved. You actually learn someone's name.
I plan to develop this into a full and awesome story. Please do not copy large portions of it and display them elsewhere; link to this webpage instead. Updates should occur approximately once daily. Editions may take place even weeks or months after material is presented. This literature is officially copyright by the author, David Kirschner, 2010.
Escalation
3/23/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor I
He was running. From what, he was unsure. He stumbled over every stone as he worked his way down. He slowed at a fork. The luminescent yellow sign suggested to him left. He went.
He was breathing. But just barely. He flew through a sharp turn right, then another left. The ground fell steep there, and the walls glowed with an eerie violet hue.
He was sliding. Then he heard another shriek. The pursuer was not far behind. He stopped at the bottom of the incline and looked hastily around. A hill behind him, a black passage ahead. Nothing closeby except debris.
He was digging. He huffed and grunted his way through the earth beneath him. A hole resulted. He covered all save his right eye with the rubble where he laid in the depression. Seconds after the dust settled finally, another shriek sounded. This time it was here.
He was panicking. The violet hum showed him the pursuer. Not the face, but all four meters of its legs and torso were enough to incite a paralyzing fear. Then the pursuer bent down. Its face was all the right eye could see now. A stream of drool blinded the right, momentarily.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor II
“Where’s he at?” The man stared furiously at his wrist cuff. The man snarled. The cuff read thirty-three for the time. “He’s an entire click late!” Sixty-four clicks in a day. “I’m going to fire that sloth!”
Shriek.
The man’s face turned ghastly white. The man scrambled back into the railcar and set it to go down to the station. The man’s eyes shifted nervously.
Shriek. Louder.
The man brushed his forehead with his sleeve. “I hope he didn’t cross paths with that thing,” the man panted. No one survived an encounter with that thing. The railcar rattled as it passed a rut in the tracks.
Shriek. Earsplitting.
The man looked up instinctively. Towards the sound. Abruptly, the railcar’s roof opened like the lid of a tin sardine can. The man quickly perished at the thing’s hands.
Shriek. Victorious.
The thing leaped off the speeding railcar, corpse in hand. Nobody was there to see what followed. The destroyed railcar continued its automatic course. Later, the guards at the station’s gate shook their heads gravely at the sight of the red-spattered interior and the terribly demolished roof of the arrived railcar.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor III
The guards, the five of them, argued over the best course of action. Three heartbeat indicators had already sent their deceased signals to the station from scientists located in the upper levels. The Shrieker, as it had come to be called, was on a spree for reasons no man knew. It was only a matter of time before the monster discovered and invaded the station, which housed all that remained of humanity after the sky turned black. The denizens of the station acknowledged that there was a possibility of other life, but their wave scanners never picked up anything but bats, and more recently, the Shrieker.
The guards, the five of them, decided on their course of action. Three stayed to enforce the gate, and two took a railcar from the reserve slots to go to inform the High Minister, general overseer of the station, and son of the woman who lead the people underground as the sky began to turn and ruled the survivors with wisdom and grace. The High Minister, in the opinions of many, did not share his mother’s positive qualities.
As the guards, the two of them, departed in the railcar, they heard shrieks. They feared the worst for their three companions.
And the guards, the three of them, found swift deaths at the hands of the beast.
lol
What? You dislike my pine-appular attitude?
By the way, this forum needs tabs for proper indenting.
gah, the most deceptive sentence starter in history.
I know what you're thinking; I've thought it before. "This character is mysterious and ominous, he doesn't have a name!" Once you run out of verbs, though, it's gonna be weird when you start using more traditional starters amidst "he." This also goes against the normal idea of not using "he X and Y" to start a sentence.
You could start with a detailed description each sentence. It adds SO much more to the text.
So far, you've got my attention.
Oh darn...
I'm too lazy to type it up and edit it right now though (Ugh, worst day I've had in months, if not years. Don't want to talk about it.), so I'll get it up probably later tonight.
But you do get an excerpt.
The denizens of the station acknowledged that there was a possiblity of other life, but their wave scanners had never picked up anything but bats, and more recently, the Shrieker.
“Where’s he at?” The man stared furiously at his wrist cuff. The man snarled. The cuff read thirty-three for the time. “He’s an entire click late!” Sixty-four clicks in a day. “I’m going to fire that sloth!”
Shriek.
The man’s face turned ghastly white. The man scrambled back into the railcar and set it to go down to the station. The man’s eyes shifted nervously.
Shriek. Louder.
The man brushed his forehead with his sleeve. “I hope he didn’t cross paths with that thing,” the man panted. No one survived an encounter with that thing. The railcar rattled as it passed a rut in the tracks.
Shriek. Earsplitting.
The man looked up instinctively. Towards the sound. Abruptly, the railcar’s roof opened like the lid of a tin sardine can. The man quickly perished at the ting’s hands/
Shriek. Victorious.
The thing leaped off the speeding railcar, corpse in hand. Nobody was there to see what followed. The destroyed railcar continued its automatic course. Later, the guards at the station’s gate shook their heads gravely at the sight of the red-spattered interior and the terribly demolished roof of the arrived railcar.
3/24/10 - ESCALATION - Act I, Factor III
The guards, the five of them, argued over the best course of action. Three heartbeat indicators had already sent their deceased signals to the station from scientists located in the upper levels. The Shrieker, as it had come to be called, was on a spree for reasons no man knew. It was only a matter of time before the monster discovered and invaded the station, which housed all that remained of humanity after the sky turned black. The denizens of the station acknowledged that there was a possibility of other life, but their wave scanners never picked up anything but bats, and more recently, the Shrieker.
The guards, the five of them, decided on their course of action. Three stayed to enforce the game, and two took a railcar from the reserve slots to go to inform the High Minister, general overseer of the station, and son of the woman who lead the people underground as the sky began to turn and ruled the survivors with wisdom and grace. The High Minister, in the opinions of many, did not share his mother’s positive qualities.
As the guards, the two of them, departed in the railcar, they heard shrieks. They feared the worst for their three companions.
And the guards, the three of them, found swift deaths at the hands of the beast.
Also, here's how the story goes:
It's sci-fi. This is one book in a series (if ambition counts) about in the middle. Prequels will tell of the events that turned the sky black, and sequels will tell of the continued struggles to recover from said catastrophe.
Planet Earth (but not our Earth, another planet with the same name) is fairly similar to our own. It's governed by the same phyiscal forces and resides in the same universe. It is inhabited by humans who, strandely, seem to speak English. This will be an underlying key concept.
Events not yet thought up but somehow involve the alien civilization who first built Earth cause the atmosphere to become poisoned and subsequently turn black. Many small bands of survivors make it to safety beneath the ground. The station is among them. About 40 years later, the Shrieker, which was before the story takes place little more than a rumor, becomes active. It's on a feeding spree, because it's going to have babies, but the station doesn't know this yet. In a final attempt to survive, they go back to the surface and find out that the atmosphere is actually returning to somewhat-normal, and a sizable civilation has planted its roots about where they resurfaced. And they led the Shrieker right to it. After a huge hunt, they finally find the Shrieker. They find it having babies. They kill the Shrieker and all its babies except for 2 that get away. Celebration ensues.
probable subjects of the stuff:
The Worldbuilders : Worldbuilders - about the aliens who built Earth
They Called it Planet Earth : Rebellion - Earth has a biff against its totalitarian creators but they are finally subdued
And the Sky Turned Black : Nightfall - The aliens turn the sky black
The Shrieker : Escalation - The people of Earth begin their recovery from the black sky
Struggle for Power : Consummation - The societies of Earth collapse under the corruption of their leader
We Touched the Stars : Separation - Earth folk develop space travel, and a team of scouts loses all communication with Earth
Explosions as Grains of Sand : Conflict - Earth people versus the Worldbuilders in a final epic struggle for power
Yay for ambition!!
Honest critique is to be expected when you release a work of art. Ideally, you should either ignore it or conform to it, but justifying it doesn't fix anything. Critique isn't an insult, it's a suggested change.
I love irony.
That said, I understand that not everybody likes this type of beginning, but I find it an absolutely unpleasant chore to write anything that I don't enjoy reading myself. Therefore, I will not write what I personally would not read. Criticism is accepted with consideration, but don't fuss about my style of writing, because that's the one thing that's not going to change. Typos, errors, and inconsistencies in plot and things is what I will really listen to.
Also, apologies for the lack of update today. It was extremely busy. Tomorrow I should have plenty of time to write up at least a couple more sections, though.
Also, I just fixed several typos, but they are only fixed in the first post.
You're inexperienced. You're vague in all the wrong ways, you're choppy, and you're trying too hard. You're diving right in to a very difficult task and taking yourself way too seriously, and I've got to say it's really turning me off. Try some dialogue scenes, try to clump your stuff together less, and experiment a little. Don't move a mile a minute, getting characters across is much more important than getting events across. Any old schmuck can put realistic events on paper, but only a thoughtful writer can put realistic people on paper.
Fact of the matter is, it looks bad. If you didn't know me personally, you wouldn't be able to justify it to me, and I'd put it down without a second thought. If you think I'm an isolated incident, that's fine, but know that you can't change others so they'll enjoy your writing, you can only change your own writing to make it more enjoyable.
If you insist on pursuing this sort of intro, I'll see what I can do to help you make your flow and tone a bit more natural. Give me a moment.
fuuuck that's not any better is it
Well, just goes to show, this ****'s hard. I understand that you might want to start your story this way, but it's not going to work without prior writing experience.
I see what you're saying and I'll do some considerable editing tomorrow. I think I know how I can fix the problem without detracting from the "style". Details are not given frequently enough to the point that sometimes the events are too confusing. The thing is, I face the difficulty of introducing the reader to an entirely new world without setting it apart so much that the focus is put on this particular aspect, otherwise the characters will feel less human. The people at the beginning of the story are intentionally foundationless, though, because they're only going to die, and I don't want to give the impression that their lives matter. It sounds morbid, but they don't, and this needs to be established.
Also, the next part is where the characters start to get involved. You actually learn someone's name.
Now excuse me while I type it up.