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possible opening(please be gentle with me)

Dream chaser

New Member
this is a possible opening for a novel that i am going to atempt to write.All input is greatfully excepted all coments & advice will be taken full on board. This is being writen in the libary so it's going to be done in bursts (please be gentle with me as this is the first time i have done anything like this.)


The bay door's of the United Systems millitary transport "The Star Pheonix" opend with no sound, white crystals of frozen unvented air spewed forth with their opening of the doors sparkeling like many small stars in the systems primary suns glow, from the depths of the cavernous bay small atmospheric drops ships begain their planetery decent as their restraints were released and the planet belows gravity pulled at them.
On board one of these small tempory free falling objects was marine sharp shooter Jake McQueen for him the impending battle had already begun but at the moment he was losing and losing badly as his stomach wanted to eject its contents, Jake began to deep breath hard as he had been taught when he first boarded a deep space transport vesel when he had joind the U.S.M.M.C this was only the second time he had sufferd a bout of S.A.S or space adaptive sickness he Knew that this would last untill they hit the planets upper atmosphere and partial gravity would be restored.
Even then jake would still suffer as it tried to throw off the effects S.A.S despite the shots for it he had taken back aboard the Pheonix, for jake this would be his first combat drop on a planet.
Jake was twenty four years old, he was about six foot one tall and wiry his legs had a slight bow in them which he had got from his mothers side of the family, his quietnes seemed to disarm all those around him and made him a naturaly likable charachter but even that and his brown eyes and handsom looks had got him out of trouble he had been caught poaching pheasant by the local game keeper and had been brought up in front of the local magistrate who after several charachter witnesses and the intervention of Jakes uncle had gotten him sentenced to two years in the united system's marine corps instead of a custodial sentance.
Since he had graduated from the Marine corps training depot on Earth six months ago he had only done training drops on a few worlds of various atmospheric types he counted his blessings that at least this was an earth standard atmosphere and he would not have to ware the bulky enviroment suits which would have made him a lot worst.
Oh god im going to throw up i know it Jake thought,
hey it could be worse piped another voice in the back of his mind we could be doing really hard avoidance manovers
shut the hell up, just shut the hell up Jake Mentally screamed at the other voice at the back of his mind, without warning the drop ship hit the planets thin upper atmosphere causing some bounce losening some badly stowed equipment which started to fly around the ship with very little regard for the marines on board.
On the planets surface the drop ships entry in to the atmosphere had not gone un noticed they looked like tiny meteors trailing small flames as they burned up on entery but they were falling to slowly and with to much grace to be any thing but drop ships the planets defences opened up missile's streaked from their launchers leaving dirty grey contrails behind them as they began to track the falling craft, antiship energy wepons left D.E.W lines behind them marking their positions with ionised trails.
Jake finally lost his battle with his stomach as the drop ship began to vilolently maneouver to avoid some unseen and unanounced threat, he wretched hard some of the vomit hit his black and green body armour and webbing a little hit his boots the rest seemed to float in front of his face for a few seconds before acelerating towards the aft of the ship Jake hoped that it hit no one, the marine next to him looked at jake nodded in sympathy he was about Jakes age but he was shorter jake gussed about five six tall and stocky with blue piercing eyes he smiled at Jake again and vomited himself the marine wiped the back of his mouth with his hand as soon as he finaly stopped heaving 'Names John hickman im a support specialist' he croaked, this was the first time that Jake had seen him to speak to since he had joined Jakes platoon,he had joined them a few weeks before they had embarked on the "pheonix", Jake smiled 'Jake McQueen im a sharp shooter' he said drylie offering his hand, Hickman took it jake tried to keep the grimace off of his face as felt the warm slimy lumpy vomit that was on the palm.
 
Dream chaser said:
"The Star Pheonix"

I'm completely unqualified to give a crit on anything 'spacey' because I don't read sci-fi. But I can 'do' feelings, and you certainly made me feel I was standing in Jake's shoes, suffering his nausea, and fighting with the thoughts bouncing in his brain. And that's good. ;)

Others may disagree, but I would have liked to get an idea of the person's description at the start. Maybe hair colour or age or height. Otherwise I grab the name and do it myself. e.g. 'Jake', to me, means: short, wiry, black hair, defensive, edgy, loyal . . . ( I have a 'Jake' in my head, and he's cool :cool: )

You wrote all this in the library today? That's great. Keep at it. And you say 'it's going to be written in bursts'. That's fine too. Make that your 'style'.

Third Man Girl
 
Dream chaser said:
Oh god im going to throw up i know it Jake thought,
hey it could be worse piped another voice in the back of his mind we could be doing really hard avoidance manovers
shut the hell up, just shut the hell up Jake Mentally screamed at the other voice at the back of his mind

I'd say that your story starts here. All the info in front of that is stuff that should probably come out gradually throughout Jake's story, a bit at a time.

The big thing that you'll hear in every creative writing class is this:

Show, don't tell.

So, don't tell me Jake feels sick, show me his pale face, show me him having a good colorful vomit. Don't tell me he's a likeable guy, show me other people liking him. It's much harder than it sounds, which is why everyone in a creative writing class has to hear it so often. You did a great job of that in the 2nd half of this. Don't get bogged down in too much description all at once, especially not at the beginning. It's like meeting a new person, you don't hear their life history right off the bat, they tell you things after you've known them awhile.

Can't wait to see more. Jake's a good guy. You should definitely hang with him for awhile. He has a lot of potential. :)
 
Congrats on making a start - seems to me you have a lot of good ideas and you have certainly given a good picture of the atmosphere and the world you are describing.

I would agree with Ashlea though. I found the first couple of sentences quite long and, although there are lots of different ways of starting a novel, short and punchy and straight into the action usually does it for me.



:)
 
nicely written especially as it was written without deliberation. it looks a little abrupt but i think that is because you wrote it in a burst. jake's emotions were aptly explained

you seem to know what you are writing about which is good. since you have begun writing go through with it whatever happens.

we would like to read your whole story soon :)
 
Thanks guys this is a help considering i have never taken any creative classes and my grades for english & english litrature were D if i could dictate this thing i would do well as i scored a B for english speaking, The highest praise i ever got for any of my creative piece's for work were you have an "extremly active imagination mr Long but you are to brutaly gung ho" what that meant i never found out & my teacher never cared to explain it
ok a little help re-aranging my start would be extremly helpfull please :D
 
A minimal critique

this is a possible opening for a novel that i am going to atempt to write.

Bring a spellchecker. ;)

(please be gentle with me as this is the first time i have done anything like this.)

I find that being gentle with anyone over something they really want (and I see you want to write based on what's written in your profile) to do is a way of encouraging them to produce crap. If you want to be a writer then you are going to have to learn how to write, and I don't mind running my eye over this (I've not read it yet) and listing all impressions made, mistakes found, and contradictions/repetitions should there be any.

If you think I'm being harsh as you read through my little comments, then don't despair: I'm probably nit-picking. I'll provide an overall verdict and suggestions at the end. :)

I'm going to be cold and nasty and pick up on everything no matter how trivial. :D

If there's a spelling mistake, I'll point out the word once and ignore other instances. If there's repeated misuse of punctuation I'll comment and then refrain. If there's any grammatical construct problems, I'll comment, and then refrain. On everything else, I'm ruthless. :cool:

Ready? Okay, here goes...

The bay door's

It should be a plural; not a possessive. doors, not door's.

United Systems

possessive

millitary

military

"The Star Pheonix"

italicise, not inverted commas

the correct spelling is Phoenix (I'll ignore any further spelling errors of this word)


opened

white crystals of frozen unvented air spewed forth

that's telling

with their opening of the doors

repetition, you've already stated the doors have opened

sparkeling

sparkling

systems primary suns glow

possessive for system's and sun's

from the depths of the cavernous bay

New sentence...

begain their planetery decent

began their planetary descent

the planet belows gravity pulled at them.

the planet below's gravity

You make it sound here as if the planet is singling them out; I assume this is not so.


temporary

On board one of these small tempory free falling objects

I thought you just said the planet was pulling them; hardly falling of their own free will.

marine sharp shooter Jake McQueen

marine sharp shooter, Jake McQueen

shooter Jake McQueen for him the impending battle had already begun

McQuenn. For him the battle.... (new sentence)

but at the moment he was losing and losing badly as his stomach wanted to eject its contents, Jake began to deep breath hard as he had been taught when he first boarded a deep space transport vesel when he had joind the U.S.M.M.C this was only the second time he had sufferd a bout of S.A.S or space adaptive sickness he Knew that this would last untill they hit the planets upper atmosphere and partial gravity would be restored.

As it is now obvious you don't know when to start and stop a sentence I shall pass no further comment on that area.

Jake began to deep breath hard

does not make sense - and surely you mean breathe, not breath


vessel


suffered


knew


until

planets upper atmosphere

planet's upper atmosphere

As it's now obvious that you can't tell a plural from a possessive, I'll refrain from commenting on that area.


Names are capitalised :rolleyes: (i'll ignore any other references to named nouns in lowercase)


quietness

naturaly likable charachter

naturally likeable character


handsome


sentence


wear

would have made him a lot worst.

worse


manoeuvres


loosening

un noticed

unnoticed


entry

they were falling to slowly and with to much grace

too and not to (in both instances)


weapons

vilolently maneouver to avoid some unseen and unanounced threat

violently manoeuvre to avoid some unseen and unannounced threat

acelerating

accelerating

it hit no one

noone (or nobody)


guessed


finally

he said drylie

dryly

jake tried to keep the grimace off of his face as felt the warm slimy lumpy vomit

...off his face as he felt the warm...


Verdict

I understand that it's only an introduction to a novel and such a work should provide the reader with the answers to five of the journalistic questions (who? where? why? what? when?) within the first few paragraphs; short stories in the first paragraph, preferably. You have managed this:

  • who? - Jake McQueen
  • where? - onboard a military transport
  • why? - he's a soldier
  • what? - he's going to war
  • when? - sometime in the future

The problem is that you are intending to write a novel but, because of your writing style, you are in danger of drying up early as you plummet (like the Star Phoenix). The reason? You are telling everything. For a story to be effective, you need to learn how to show everything, as Ashlea has said. I also agree as to Ashlea's comments regarding the starting point of the story.

In those paragraphs we learned to much of what Jake was thinking. I, as a reader, don't want to know about his height, his hair, his eyes, or how 'likeable' he is - I would like to see him duck under something because of his height, run his hands through his hair, look at his eyes reflected in his helmet, or see him doing stuff that makes me think he's likable. Saying he's likeable is a false statement as, due to his lack of action or character, I don't like him.

Also - with respect to U.S.M.M.C and D.E.W. - state, at least, once what it's an acronym for, we readers don't want to be lifted out of the story to figure it out.

I don't where the story is going to go from here, but it (on a base level) has intrigued - that's testament to you.

I understand your passion to be a writer, since I was 11 I was encouraged to write, write, write! by my teachers and I still write now, fourteen years later. That's the good thing about breaking through as a novellist, there's no age requirement so we can keep honing our skills until we're published. :cool: If, however, you are serious about it then can I suggest that you try your hand at a few short stories first.

With short stories you have the opportunity to work with one idea. If you've never written a novel before then you'll, most likely, find it overwhelming working with numerous ideas, themes, and subplots. Try the occasional bit of poetry, too. If you try poetry then stick to a specific form (possibly a sonnet) as it allows you to gather, relate, and conclude your ideas within a restricted amount of lines and syllables. And, don't just write "fits and bursts" in a library; schedule time (even if it's just one or two hours) each day to work on your writing. Only with regular practice and regular critique - from others and by yourself - will you eventually begin to master the form.

Keep up the good work...
 
Mile-O-Phile said:
. . . such a work should provide the reader with the answer's to five of the journalistic questions

"answer's" "answer's"

What is this apostrophe doing here? Is it a small dirk nestling in your garter, Mile-O? :confused:

Third Man Girl
 
third man girl said:
"answer's" "answer's"

What is this apostrophe doing here? Is it a small dirk nestling in your garter, Mile-O? :confused:

:eek:

lol, when I type fast I do make mistakes - I'm not the one looking for critique though. :)

He he, caught! :mad: fixed it, now nobody will ever know :cool:
 
Correct spelling is the sort of thing that comes easy for some, others never get it, no one knows why. I guess it comes down to whether you memorize things visually. Usually, the more you read, the better you are at it. You can always have someone go through it with you though, the important thing is that you have the desire to write and a story to tell.
 
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