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"It's What I Would Do"

Posted: Mar 14, 08 8:39am

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and next I'll be burnishing the theme and tweaking the plot (not much, just some tucking and clipping. I never knew writing was so much like tailoring!)

I've included just the first two pages since I intend this for publication.

Does the story pull you along and make you want to keep reading? Can you see the environment in your mind's eye?

It's What I Would Do

When I saw the boot print, I knew something was wrong.

The huge red sun hammered down, heat working through my body despite the battered, armored cooling suit I wore. A searing wind gusted through the rocks.

I knelt down in the purplish-gray sand, unlike anything I’d seen before, but I was focused on the smudge of boot print, as though someone had stepped from rock to rock and had barely grazed the sand.

A trail of barely-there sign from the dull blue and purple jungle of the valley behind me led me here. Each sign piece held pointed to the next, none of them obvious, all of them apparently coincidental, the mistakes a man makes when he’s running away from pursuers and trying to hide his trail. A snapped twig, crushed grass, an overturned stone. I should have noticed they were all difficult to spot. I was getting overconfident. Every walker leaves occasional obvious sign by accident. Now I knew the sign was bait.

I smiled. Finally. This one wasn’t easy like the others. He was smart. Good. I would enjoy finding him.

I felt him watching me. You don’t rig a backtrail with false sign and not keep on eye on your pursuer--just in case he discovers what you’ve done or he’s not as good as you thought and needs some encouragement, like letting him see movement.

I looked ahead. The sandy purple-gray lava field piled with black, naked rock stretched out around me for miles and the twin peaks of what was left of the long-ago exploded caldera swelled and poked up hundreds of feet into the superheated air. He’d be up there somewhere. It’s what I would do.

If I retreated, he’d know I’d discovered his ruse. We’d race back to the Pyramid. He’d try to kill me before I could enter it.

If I went forward, I’d run into whatever trap or killing field he’d set up.

The hell with him. I had a mission I would see it through, no matter what. I’d been on this pisshole planet for almost a year and hadn’t had a decent hunt since the beginning, just after that first night I found the Pyramid and climbed inside. The night everything changed.

My comm beeped in my ear. I yanked the bud out onto a rock and smashed it. I was on the hunt. Screw their rules.

Something moved.

I toggled off the rifle’s safety, squatted down, and crawled several meters to another rock, a larger one offering more cover, making sure to keep rock between me and the caldera. This new rock was the best--no, wait.

Again, this was too easy. I pulled an epty ammo pouch from my belt and dropped it onto the point of a rock shard and slowly, slowly poked it up into a natural cleft in the rock that offered an excellent viewpoint.

The pouch and the top of the shard exploded out of my hand!

Bastard had ranged it in already. I was willing to bet he had all the other likely sites, too. It’s what I would do.

I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t go to either side for more than several meters, I couldn’t go forward. I was trapped, waiting to die.

He’d like to think so. This one was smarter than the others, how had he become different? Something went wrong.

The only thing I could control was my movement, that was his trap but also my freedom. As long as I was still alive here, he couldn’t leave.

Since I couldn’t move, I would stay. But not here.

I edged back, back until I was partially under a small overhang a few arm’s lengths from where I’d been shot at. There was nothing else nearby. Even though I was in the shade, the suit’s cooling unit whined as it strained to keep me from braising in my own blood.

The long afternoon passed into frigid night, black above me, black around me, all puctuated by pinpoits of brilliance: Stars overhead and crystal in the rock reflecting starlight.

I catnapped, waking only to sip tepid water and electrolytes occasionally from my inner-suit canteen, then napping again.

Then a click, as if two stones momentarily touched, and I woke and he was here.

Tags:

science fiction, kenwritez, story, writing, tier II, tier 2, T2

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14 Comments // 8 Members

TeeBubbaDee

Posted: Mar 14, 08 9:27am

KenWritez wrote:

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and...

Yes! Yes! and Yes!

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Otter

Posted: Mar 14, 08 9:40am

KenWritez wrote:

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and...

Morning, Ken,

To your questions.

1) I've read a lot of sci fi in the past and yes, this pulled me along. The hints at the back story are intriguing.

2) I can visualize the environment. Two observations - "purplish-blue" is evocative, but is used a lot and feels repetitive. Violet or other shading descriptions would break it up. Also, I am a rapid reader and missed on my first two readings the transition from the valley into the rocky fields, so I was a bit confused about the snapped twigs at first. This again may have been caused by everything being purple-blue.

Hope this is useful and thank you for sharing your writing.

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nebrad

Posted: Mar 14, 08 1:55pm

KenWritez wrote:

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and...

I too have read my fair share of science fiction and can relate to what's going on here. My own feeling is that, as an action sequence, the piece flows well. It's easy to comprehend that a society of values has grown up on this planet very different from our own - although we don't yet know if the narrator is hero or villain. My gripe at this point is that the environmental descriptions and the narrator's water-providing cooling suit are straight out of the SF writer's handbook. Anyone who's played a Halo game or read some Frank Herbert will find their minds wandering to previously imagined landscapes. This, of course, is a problem with the genre, but I reckon a writer of your skill can give the SF fan something new to play with. Jump to it, soldier.

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Milt T

Posted: Mar 14, 08 4:02pm

KenWritez wrote:

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and...

You are doing exactly what you asserted you would do. You create an environment and you draw the reader into it.

My only issue is with what you call tailoring and it is a great word. I found that you rarely changed sentence style and structure which made the read too predictable and allowed the reader to march in a straight line.

Here is a sample:

"The huge red sun hammered down, heat working through my body despite the battered, armored cooling suit I wore. A searing wind gusted through the rocks."

Look how you structure every sentence. Each begins with a subject, described by a string of adjectives. Using that form some of the time is valid but when you are doing it consistently, it leaves the reader feeling like he almost knows what is coming next.

By altering the way you structure the same information from sentence to sentence, it keeps the reader more on edge - not knowing what is coming next. Creating a smooth wording may work at some points in the story but the beginning needs to be, in my opinion, more varied to keep the reader guessing and emotionally uncomfortable.

If in one, you use a straight subject ----> predicate, make the next one more verbs and nouns and less adjectives. Or place the descriptors after the nouns sometimes like: The sun, huge and crimson made me feel as if I was under a broiler (or some such so that every sentence isn't Dadadadadada. Dadadadadada. Some need to be daDA, dadadada, DADAdada.

Also, the injection of more similes, metaphors and paradoxes to replace reportage in straight descriptive language will give the reader the ability to engage more than the intellect and sight into the reading equation.

As you say, what I am suggesting is tailoring. You have the basis for a solid story happening here.

Keep moving and then go back with a rake and scissors. Its got the direction and the voice set and solid.

You might want to take some of the narrators statements about the protagonists thoughts and personalize them by saying ... I thought ........... Since you can't yet use dialogue, because he is alone, you can use monologue and put it in the character rather than having his narration tell you about it.

Hope this is helpful.

You are doing exactly what you asserted you would do. You create an environment and you draw the reader into it. My only issue is with what you call tailoring and it is a great word. I found that you rarely changed sentence style and structure which made the read too predictable and allowed the reader to march in a straight line. Here is a sample: "The huge red sun hammered down, heat working through my body despite the battered, armored cooling suit I wore. A searing wind gusted through the rocks." Look how you structure every sentence. Each begins with a subject, described by a string of adjectives. Using that form some of the time is valid but when you are doing it consistently, it leaves the reader feeling like he almost knows what is coming next. By altering the way you structure the same information from sentence to sentence, it keeps the reader more on edge - not knowing what is coming next. Creating a smooth wording may work at some points in the story but the beginning needs to be, in my opinion, more varied to keep the reader guessing and emotionally uncomfortable. If in one, you use a straight subject ----> predicate, make the next one more verbs and nouns and less adjectives. Or place the descriptors after the nouns sometimes like: The sun, huge and crimson made me feel as if I was under a broiler (or some such so that every sentence isn't Dadadadadada. Dadadadadada. Some need to be daDA, dadadada, DADAdada. Also, the injection of more similes, metaphors and paradoxes to replace reportage in straight descriptive language will give the reader the ability to engage more than the intellect and sight into the reading equation. As you say, what I am suggesting is tailoring. You have the basis for a solid story happening here. Keep moving and then go back with a rake and scissors. Its got the direction and the voice set and solid. You might want to take some of the narrators statements about the protagonists thoughts and personalize them by saying ... I thought ........... Since you can't yet use dialogue, because he is alone, you can use monologue and put it in the character rather than having his narration tell you about it. Hope this is helpful.

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Posted: Mar 14, 08 4:02pm

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You are doing exactly what you asserted you would do.  You create an environment and you draw the reader into it.

My only issue is with what you call tailoring and it is a great word.  I found that you rarely changed sentence style and structure which made the read too predictable and allowed the reader to march in a straight line.

Here is a sample:

"The huge red sun hammered down, heat working through my body despite the battered, armored cooling suit I wore. A searing wind gusted through the rocks."

Look how you structure every sentence.  Each begins with a subject, described by a string of adjectives.  Using that form some of the time is valid but when you are doing it consistently, it leaves the reader feeling like he almost knows what is coming next.

By altering the way you structure the same information from sentence to sentence, it keeps the reader more on edge - not knowing what is coming next.  Creating a smooth wording may work at some points in the story but the beginning needs to be, in my opinion, more varied to keep the reader guessing and emotionally uncomfortable.

If in one, you use a straight subject ----> predicate, make the next one more verbs and nouns and less adjectives.  Or place the descriptors after the nouns sometimes like:  The sun, huge and crimson made me feel as if I was under a broiler (or some such so that every sentence isn't Dadadadadada.  Dadadadadada.  Some need to be daDA, dadadada, DADAdada.

Also, the injection of more similes, metaphors and paradoxes to replace reportage in straight descriptive language will give the reader the ability to engage more than the intellect and sight into the reading equation.

As you say, what I am suggesting is tailoring.  You have the basis for a solid story happening here.

Keep moving and then go back with a rake and scissors.  Its got the direction and the voice set and solid.

You might want to take some of the narrators statements about the protagonists thoughts and personalize them by saying ... I thought ...........  Since you can't yet use dialogue, because he is alone, you can use monologue and put it in the character rather than having his narration tell you about it.

Hope this is helpful.

Alert me when someone comments on this discussion.

DeeCross

Posted: Mar 14, 08 7:14pm

KenWritez wrote:

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and...

The story is doing what it needs to do as far as pulling the reader along.

Good hook. Overall I like the style and find it refreshing for the genre. I would like to read more.

Like most stories it has its own set of problems and basically you did a good job with the environment without going in to what I call "Steinbeck Mode."

At this point the title seems a bit lame.

The slowdown in action at the end as posted here comes too soon. Forget the nap and make it a page turner the rest of the way.

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KenWritez

Posted: Mar 14, 08 7:44pm

nebrad wrote:

I too have read my fair share of science fiction and can relate to what's going on here. My own feeling is that, as an a...

Sir yes sir!

Sir, new environmental description now undergoing implentation sir!

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KenWritez

Posted: Mar 14, 08 7:48pm

KenWritez wrote:

This is a work-in-progress science fiction story. I've laid down the story, the essential structure as you see here, and...

Yes! So far everyone's given me the level of feedback I need, especially you, Milt. :)>

Thanks to all of you.

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