In September of 2007, I started this blog
with a bit of writing advice. A little over a year later, I discovered how
little I knew about writing after hearing children’s writer, In April of 2014,
I figured I’d gotten enough publications that I could share some of the things
I did “right”. I’ll keep that up, but I’m running out of pro-published stories.
I don’t write full-time, nor do I make enough money with my writing to live off
of it, but someone pays for and publishes ten percent of what I write.
Hemingway’s quote above will remain unchanged as I work to increase my writing
output and sales, but I’m adding this new series of posts because I want to
carefully look at what I’ve done WRONG and see if I can fix it. As always, your
comments are welcome!
ANALOG Tag Line:
Extreme climates evolve extreme aliens – who need extreme measures to
make a successful First Contact.
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
Sacrifice is
necessary to get what you want.
Opening Line:
“After watching the
live, streaming reports of the Heinlein Dome disaster on the Moon, Zahar
Qasoori was certain that dying to save someone’s life would be less painful
than living as the bastard son of a rich interplanetary business man and playboy.”
Onward:
A couple of kids –
who were captured as they were about to die – are used as a First Contact team
with a bizarre society of intelligent beings descended from an Hallucigenian-like
predecessor. Human adults in wheelchairs were insulting to the Ho*fart* and the
Contact nearly caused Humanity to be FINED instead of gaining credit in the
Unity toward the purchase of mathematical techniques leading to equations
leading to a Human theory of faster-than-light space travel.
What Was I Trying
To Say?
I was trying to
counter the meme that seems to have swallowed the idea that sacrifice is
sometimes required to advance either our personal goals – or the goals of
society at large. That’s why the main character, Zahar, willingly gives his
life in pursuit of a greater goal: to make sure First Contact with a weird
alien intelligence is successful.
I believe that we’ve
pushed such an absurd idea aside in favor of…well, lots of things: personal
aggrandizement, the sense that we DESERVE to have whatever we want, that other
people should give it to us, and that we deserve it NOW. [Personally, I believe that’s
why Hillary Clinton has (as they say in several of the Jane Austen movies) “disappeared
from all good society”. She felt she deserved the presidency (as do her
followers, who continue to tell me that “Trump is not my president!”…though,
I’ll point out that I refused to vote for either one of them. BOTH were bad
choices for America. I was, at one time, very interested in Bernie Sanders.]
The attitude I get
more often than I like in my line of work, is this profound sense of
entitlement; that the person “deserves”…well, to get whatever we want; good
grades without working for it, be it education, advancement, wealth, position,
or authority.
The Rest of the
Story:
The main character
sacrifices his life in the end to save the life of his First Contact partners –
an older man who is really wheelchair bound – and another teen like himself.
Together, the survivors can negotiate with the Ho*fart*, but only because the
aliens are impressed by the sacrifice .
End Analysis:
On rereading the
story, I found that the thing was more a vignette with all kinds of details
describing the world and the Ho*fart*, both of which were cool, but the story
itself was extremely weak, being more or less a thinly veiled excuse for me to
show the place off.
That’s a Novice
Mistake if ever I saw one. Oops.
Can This Story Be
Saved?
The first question
to ask is if it is, indeed, a story.
I’ve long believed
that it is, until I just reread it and discovered that it’s not. So now what do
I do? I may have to abandon THIS story, though I think the concept is fine. It’s
just that I go totally lost in the world itself. If I can sideline some of the
world building wonder and focus on character (which is a weakness of mine), I
might be able to shave it down to only 4000 words if I cut out all the
coolness. However, the complexity of the aliens and their world are integral to
the actual story. Perhaps I could study Dr. Robert L. Forward’s world-building
wonder DRAGON’S EGG or even Hal Clement’s short story, “Under” (ANALOG 2000) and
MISSION OF GRAVITY (ASTOUNDING SF April, May, June, July 1953) to get a better
idea of what to do with this place…
So, the answer is a
definite, “maybe”…
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