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:
Given a hopeless life on an alien world, a dark past, and a strange
ally, could Koti trick his way to a better future?
Elevator Pitch (What Did I Think I Was Trying To Say?)
Koti is a company
slave on Enstad’s Planet as his mother and father were. She died, tricked by an
alien into trying to fly again. After her death, the alien works with the boy
to create a fulcrum to leverage the departure of Humanity and gives him the
neural link taken from his mother so that he can fly again and take the rest of
his kind with him.
Opening Line:
“Koti Christofferson breathed deeply of humid brimstone and
rot, then jumped half up the ladder. Bamboo wind chimes warding plague rattled
under his feet as he scrambled up the thin plastic rungs.”
Onward:
“If you don’t stay
up there and keep an eye out for marshsharks, I’ll feed you to them myself,
Monkeyboy!”
Koti laughed, and
called, “You only own my hands and feet, Deck Master! I own my life!” He raced
barefoot past the first flash vessel, mallet on his belt slapping against his
thigh and orange nylon shorts. An instant later, the vessel blew a cloud of
super-heated steam that flowed back along the harvester’s hull. Sliding head
down the other side, Koti dropped onto the walkway sticking out a meter over
the swamp. “I can see the ‘sharks better from here, Deck Master, and only I
know how to scare them away!” he called, leaning over the side, dry reeds
brushing his face.
“No tricks from you
boy!” the man shouted. “You need to be…”
What Was I Trying
To Say?
I wrote the story
for a contest for CICADA. We were supposed to tell a “trickster” story; so I
suppose my intent was to say that “Tricksters can live in any time, on any
world.”
The Rest of the
Story:
Lord-a-livin’ is
this a mess!
The WORLD is the
character of this story and it’s complex both sociologically and ecologically.
I have life cycles, weird creatures, and a society that is made up of Indian
Christians and Haitian and Louisiana voodoo believers…all done on purpose by an
Earth government intent on eliminating faith in anything but Humanity…
I have technology:
starships, neural implants, harvesters that collect organics from the vast
marshlands of Enstad’s Planet – or Murr< as the aliens call their world –
for processing into oil via thermal depolymerization which has had only spotty
success in the US (most likely due to opposition from Big Oil, I’d say…*grin*)
I even have a story.
Simplified: Alien creates tool to get Humans to leave its world, boy
(aforementioned ‘tool’) wants a life off the mud ball he’s grown up on, his
passport is the neural implant (incidentally dug from the skull of his dead
mother…) which Alien uses to engineer the boy’s enemy, thereby getting him off
world…
End Analysis:
Like I said above,
this is a mess.
On the other hand,
it’s a mess because there’s so much here that I tried to cram into the tiny
space of 7000 words.
Fump, the alien Murr< (which “was a purring ‘murr’
followed by a ‘ribbit’.”), killed Koti’s mother in order to get the neural
implant which he gives to the boy. The intent is to persuade him to lead the
exodus of Humans off their world…
As I was writing this article, and while this thing is a
sorry mess, it’s NOT a sorry mess because I don’t have a story here. The story
COULD become a novel about Koti in the same vein as Heinlein’s CITIZEN OF THE
GALAXY (from Amazon.com: “In a distant galaxy, the atrocity of slavery was
alive and well, and young Thorby was just another orphaned boy sold at auction.
But his new owner, Baslim, is not the disabled beggar he appears to be:
adopting Thorby as his son, he fights relentlessly as an abolitionist spy. When
the authorities close in on Baslim, Thorby must ride with the Free Traders -- a
league of merchant princes -- throughout the many worlds of a hostile galaxy,
finding the courage to live by his wits and fight his way from society's lowest
rung. But Thorby's destiny will be forever changed when he discovers the truth
about his own identity....”)
Can This Story Be
Saved?
How about this for
the novel that this story, properly sliced, might be part of: Koti’s parents
fled a pogrom on Mars aimed against Christians. She nearly died in a ship
mutiny and they landed on Enstad’s Planet, where his mother gave up navigating
Interspace “forever”, though she never powered down her computer-brain link.
They made a hard – and anonymous life – together. Then her husband was badly
injured. The company that owned the organics industry on the planet ran a “cash-only”
medical care system. She borrowed to save his life, then he killed himself when
he was to be handicapped on a “working world” forever. She owed a loan shark
who sold her the cash. She tried to get back into space, but when she took the
first step, she died and Koti only escaped the loan shark because he was taken
in by an local alien. What he doesn’t know is that the alien engineered his
mother’s death, created their relationship, then releasing him to take his
mother’s place as a starship navigator. But HE understands aliens and when he
has a chance to help with a Gwelch “invasion” of Enstad’s Planet, he does –
with stunning consequences…
Ah! Now I know how
to FIX the story. But it could be lots of work…I don’t know. The future will
tell.
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