Thursday, May 7, 2009
Workshop: Revision Requests
We've reached the final step of the workshop! Participants, look in the comments area; in the next day or so I'll be posting your original excerpts with comments on how you might approach rewriting them. I hope you can all run with the ideas we've discussed here, and try either revising or rewriting your short excerpt. I know some of you have already started. If possible, I'd like to see those by Monday, May 11th. I'll respond to those, and that will be the end of our workshop. Thank you all for your hard work and patience.
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Looking forward to seeing what you come up with, Juliette.
ReplyDeleteCatreona,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see the scene you showed me a paragraph of, in which Cindy witnesses the attack. Please as you work try to keep in mind what I've said about the scale of details, so that you can be specific in a few key places and ground the reader. For example, instead of saying that Cindy doesn't feel at home away from "their prosperous little farm," try for example saying something like "the smell of the earth had been alien at first, like the [alien name for food crops] they grew, but now it was home; she hated to leave it for the flat dust of the town." Give Cindy more of an opportunity to come through in her personality and character, because this is what will get her through the experience. How might her ability to adapt to alien farming relate to her ability to survive the attack?
Just some thoughts. Ask any questions you'd like, and I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Colin,
ReplyDeleteI'd like to see a rewrite of the scene you sent, but beginning a little earlier when Lanuz wakes up to discover he's suddenly got a bionic arm. I want to share his confusion, and understand how it is that he decides to go to an inn/a pub to get help, and what he wants them to do (remove the arm? Make it stop hurting? Tell him where/when he is?) Put the focus closer in on Lanuz as he tries to make sense of the weird stuff that is happening in terms of what he knows. Surely he's been attacked and wounded before - maybe even knocked out. It may be the experience you and I spoke about where squabbling went wrong. So he might use that experience as a resource to help him know what to do when he wakes up confused and seeing unfamiliar technological things that also have "come home" to him in a very unexpected way. The sword should be mentioned, since that's what the whole story is about - along with whatever parts of the bad guy situation he understands, as he remembers them. Once he's in the pub, if the young mechanic is going to ask to go with him, then try to give some context for that. Don't worry as much about length as you did when submitting the first one.
Ask any questions you'd like. I didn't feel it was critical to go through and annotate the text you gave me, in part because I'm asking you to recast the scene somewhat. Do let me know, though, if you feel you need me to, because I'm happy to do it.
I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with.
Juliette,
ReplyDeleteIn fact, the real sailor's necklaces are produced by the ships themselves before adulthood and are picked by their first sailors. The jewelers only make fakes. In both cases, the necklaces are valuable (but the real one are much more valuable obviously) and my characters will want to look for the owner. As fakes are much more frequent and as they didn't hear about somebody looking for a real one (yet), they're going to believe and test the 'fake' hypothesis first.
I might also want to consider writing the piece from a different point of view, it's not definitive yet.
Okay, Colin, here are my thoughts (annotations may come later).
ReplyDeleteYou're telling me this isn't the opening scene of your piece. That's fine, but it is the one you chose for the workshop; so work with me here. I had a friend tell me today that the object is to try to start as close to the end of your story as possible. Why can't you reorder it and compress it, just for kicks, and an experiment? Even if his alterers are going to show up later, you could have them keep him sedated and then turn him loose, where he wakes up just with the results of their labors. What if you start there, have him attacked (briefly, not a full-on fight scene but just a chance to show that he's under threat) and then have Allen (maybe with a new name) take him to the pub? I think what you're seeing as three scenes could actually be rendered as one and a half, with the result that the pacing would go way up, as would the sense of stakes.
What do you think?
That... sounds great! I never thought of having Lanuz be sedated and waking up unaware of who gave him the arm. You're also right that putting him directly in the mix of action would get things moving faster.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Allen needs a new name. A lot of things need names in my story at this point. There's a lot of placeholders that need to be replaced.
Thanks again Juliette!
Khajidu,
ReplyDeleteSo what you're telling me is that these two guys find a necklace and they want to be good citizens and return it to its owner. My immediate reaction is that that motivation is not going to provide enough drive to keep people reading your story. If they truly think it's a fake, just a nice necklace someone lost, I don't see how they'd be in any rush to go around looking for its owner; they'd file a report maybe with the police and leave it at that. What you told me is that the necklace, and the ship it belongs to, are going to have a profound effect on Tsumw's life. So you need to get that momentum started as soon as possible. So for the purposes of this workshop, please try approaching the piece from the point of view of Tsumw, and using the suggestions that I've made. If you do that, and it still doesn't work for you, then you can approach the story from a different angle later. I hope that makes sense.
Juliette,
ReplyDeleteIt's not so much that they think it's a fake, but they really hope so (that's why they're going to check before they give up their hopes), but they both have stronger doubts than they wish to admit (maybe that's why they don't go straight to the police). I think I may want to add something along the line of "if it's a real one, why didn't we hear about someone looking for his? Is there something up?"
Another thing. During the course of the story, I'm going to use several POV characters, whose lives will ALL be affected. I started to implement the suggestions you made, and the more you tell me, the more insights it gives me for the story and the different perspectives on it. For example, I would never have thought about Tsumw trying to save his reputation, because Xodull has more at stake (I explain in the modified version, and he's going to be one of the POV chars as well).
Good points, Juliette. I’ve been considering a rewrite with a new beginning, one which establishes the central conflict as well as Jasmine’s character. The excerpt I sent you, while occurring very early in the story, was not intended as the first scene.
ReplyDeleteAt this moment I am wrestling with two different possibilities. Which is my own fault, really, since much of the story will be about potential and possibility and alternatives…of reality and history.
One new beginning sees Jasmine sitting in her room, licking her wounds. In an attempt to seek some comfort (and avoid thinking too much about bad stuff that has happened), Jasmine fires up her large holoscreen and tries to phone home.
She doesn’t really expect to make contact - home is on the other side of the veil between realities, after all. She is at least as surprised as her parents when they answer.
“Why haven’t you called” soon becomes “What have you done?” And the story is told in flashback as Jasmine spills her guts about what has gone horribly wrong with reality (at least, as much as she knows about…)
The other possibility (the one I think I’ll go with), has Jasmine waking up to the noise of her alarm clock in her room. She thinks for a moment that she is home, until she remembers the matter-duplicating tech that the VoidWatch has. This is just a replica of her room, her real room is still back in her own timeline.
She hits the snooze button on the alarm. Several times. (Jasmine is not a morning person). Eventually, she realises that she has snoozed once too often, and now she is late. And SHE will be here soon.
No time for breakfast. Hurries to wardrobe, runs program to create embarrassing outfit (sometimes Jasmine has a little trouble with the concept of planning ahead). Hurries to get dressed in embarrassing outfit. A knock on the door. Opens door. Cybergirl says hello, comments on outfit. Jasmine blushes, and then she is in Cybergirl’s mindshadows. Cybergirl forgets Jasmine exists, turns, and heads for the next team member’s room.
An invisible Jasmine follows, knowing that if she lets Cybergirl get too far away, she will remember Jasmine exists. Jasmine thinks about what she has to lose if that happens.
The cute Valhalla/Valkyries comment naturally works much better when I tell the reader that Jasmine is climbing one of two intertwined spiral staircases to the executive level of what was once a biocorporation HQ. The stairs are made from a transparent material that shatters the morning light into rainbows. So it looks like she is walking over a rainbow bridge, hence the Valhalla reference. Sadly, some material is lost in 500 words or less.
Can Jasmine get back what she’s lost? Sometimes she thinks she can, and sometimes she thinks she's lost it all, forever. Time is very fluid in the wrong hands, but the price of change can be way too high. If only she could remember exactly what she did. Or maybe it's better that she doesn't.
Okay. Very much first draft of a new beginning, but hopefully one that establishes Jasmine as a slightly unreliable narrator with a couple of urgent problems (besides her obvious lack of organisational skills).
ReplyDeleteThe saw-toothed scream of the alarm flailed at my skull like the mother of all hangovers, and I went from zero to consciousness in one really nasty second. I answered with a scream of my own, and glared at the time displayed on the screen of my wristcomp. It was something-obscenely-early o’clock.
I punched the snooze button, hard. I swore. I sucked on my bruised knuckle. I planned a hideous revenge upon the evildoer who had set my alarm sooo early.
I wondered who it could have been. I thought for one brief moment that it might have been me, but then common sense made me dismiss that stupid idea. After all, I certainly had nothing important to do so early in the morning.
I rolled over, and went back to sleep.
Pandora was waiting for that. But she knew that if she set off another alarm, I'd just punch her again. So she linked with the room systems, and threw open the curtains instead.
I groaned and tried to bury my head under the pillow as the morning sun invaded my room. And then my brain slowly caught up with reality. Morning sun? But my room faced West. Since when did the whole world get so seriously turned around?
Oh, yeah. Since I was dragged kicking and screaming into the VoidWatch.
This wasn't my room. Not really. It was an exact duplicate of my bedroom back on my Earth. And I mean exact, down to the scratches and dents in the furniture. The Voidwatch has some powerful matter-duplication technology, but they really should have edited out all the damage I'd caused over the years.
That was my job now, whether I liked it or not. Quantum Mechanic to all of the myriad branches of the timestream. Alternate realities repaired while you wait. Paradoxes unparadoxed...or something.
Well, I didn't like it. And I was not gonna do it. Why should I? The only timeline I wanted to repair was the one that I wasn't allowed to touch. The timeline that used to contain Ben.
My eyes snapped open. Ben! What the hell was I doing lying here all warm and snuggled up in bed, while the boy who should be snuggled up with me is busy not existing?
I glared at the time displayed on the screen of my wristcomp.
'Aaah! What time do you call this?' She would be here soon. And I was not ready to start saving Ben. Again. 'Pandora, why didn’t you wake me up earlier?'
I tumbled out of bed. Breakfast? No time. But I’m hungry! No time! The right outfit is sooo much more important.
I powered up my wardrobe, and flicked through the menus. I scrolled down through my Shadows file, and found it in the very last entry. Why did I list them alphabetically?
I hit 'create', and my wardrobe started
kintting raw atoms into an outfit to die for.
There was a knock on the door. I opened it, to find Cybergirl waiting for me. I tried not to stare at her, though she was clearly built for staring at.
Her skin was flawless alabaster. Or porcelain. Some sort of toughened ceramic, anyway. I think. I couldn't be sure just what she was made of, under the slicksilver coating that bathed her surface in my liquid reflection.
She was a 'bot with the shape of a female humaniform. A gyndroid.
She looked me up and down, and gave me a mocking wolf whistle. 'And where do you think you're going, dressed like that?'
I could feel the blood rising in my cheeks. Perfect, just perfect.
And then I was slipping into her mindshadows. Cybergirl's eyes darted around, as if she was sure that she had just misplaced an object of some importance.
With a shrug, she turned away, and went in search of the VoidWatchers who still existed in her memory.
In a time that seems ancient beyond imagining...can it really be a whole two years already?...........
David, this is very cool. I like it a lot, first draft or no. You have setting going in a way you didn't before; you also have a sense of what Jasmine is supposed to be doing, and her main problem. I'm intrigued by the hint that her punishment may enable her to solve personal problem in a way that her punishers didn't expect. If that's true, punch it up. I like the whole two years already thing, and "ancient" doesn't ring quite the same way as it fits now into the preexisting context. The outfit part is quite special, and I like how you have her using her talent straight away. I'd suggest you end that first scenelet with a sentence that indicates what Jasmine plans to do next so that we don't feel an ending there, only propulsion into the next piece. Definitely some exciting differences between this and the first draft I saw; nice job.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Juliette.
ReplyDeleteJust after I posted the revised draft, I found some earlier hand-written notes on what she misses about her family. Maybe a little long to include here, but I'm going to see how it works.
P.S. Also had a very nasty idea about the consequenses of her paradox. How unreliable is a narrator if the past changes shape on them?
David,
ReplyDeleteYes, but be careful not to lose your readers by confusing them too much. I wonder if you've ever read "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde. You might enjoy it and it has a great take on time travel in a totally surreal environment. It will show you how far the boundaries can be pushed, that's for sure.
Juliette,
ReplyDeleteYes, "The Eyre Affair" pushes the boundaries, all right.
I do have Jasmine's take on WHY she is such an unreliable narrator. Just have to decide exactly how early in the story she should reveal that.
My only suggestion as to when would be this: don't make readers think you're keeping secrets from them. If the reason becomes relevant to Jasmine's experience at any point, that is when it should be divulged. Just make sure that she demonstrates her unreliability in a principled way so that when the reason is revealed, people go "aha!" instead of "wha?" :)
ReplyDelete