Challah Rajni
Active Member
- Joined
- Nov 28, 2008
- Messages
- 42
This is the opening (yup, another one) to my novella.
I scrapped the original opening, will move it to the end of the book, and am going through a major rewrite (reader complaints: hackneyed dialect, writing too heady and disconnected, no sense of time and place, no recognizable plot and no dramatic pull). I'm sure the same problems remain, but I hope that there are more subdued.
I'd like to know if the piece below is easy(er) to understand and offers a strong enough hook to keep readers going after page one. Thanks again.
****************
Ship?
Yes, Jhaal Ladeeh?
Please prepare a final recording for the pending mission. Begin at your discretion.
Yes, Jhaal Ladeeh. May I ask why?
I have no trust in that area of the great cloud. Their part of the fabric is frayed. I do not trust them, even when they are dying. Is this a satisfactory answer?
Yes, Jhaal Ladeeh.
I will record and transmit what I can of your experiences and mind.
Thank you, Jhaal Ladeeh.
***
Compiling Final Flight Record
Searching Fabric. Threads Found
Soft Transmission.
Recording
Age of Shiva. Year 0436. Day 412. Hour: 0303.55 of 2900
Human System 000. Fourth Planet.
...
Samlal, remember the songs we sang to Mother Sita's Eye. Remember the chime rings you tied around our ancestor's wrists. You taught us how to dance. You taught us all how to dream. Samlal, come home.
The sun's going! Pratiksha, we need you opening the gate, now!
Samlal, lay your fingers upon the threads and listen. Dollum, the red world of red storms and red seas. The threads lead back to Dollum! Your home. Turn from the fabric and see the red lights, our faces. We will find your sisters. The lights of a trillion good souls will carry you back to your mother soils. Jacob knows the way.
Laal Azeem! Laal Azeem!
Samlal, we forgive you. The trillion lights cry, but they forgive you. Do you not remember the prayer Dharsha Shamla taught you and your sisters?
Damnit, Pratiksha. Cut it. Praying into the fabric don't work no matter how many arms you got. Give me the gate. Status?
I... I can't open one. Too many broken voices. The fabric here won't come together to show me a way home. Everything is... wrong.
****, readings are critical. Don't matter if anybody's ain't at point zero yet...
Four hundred ships responded; I will not leave them to die out here. I feel them coming. One thousand miles...
I know, I know... Damn it. Getting messages all over the place: none of those pans can jump. We're blown. Set the field. I'll get our jump drive up.
Ivan, this fabric... I can't expand the field far enough to carry them all.
Take what we can get.
No!
Laal Azeem... The voice of the system has fallen dead. I hear but only little lights burning out. I do not understand.
Praktisha, visual! I knew it... I knew it... The monkey's are firing on themselves. Ship, open the COMM... PRATIKSHA, the **** are you doing? We don't have time to eat their shots. They made their choice. They're done. Let me handle them. Put your arms and the ship's tethers to good work. Close the field, NOW!
COMM link open
You scraps out there, you hear me? Stop wasting power. You ain't in the camps no more. No time for that **** now. It's over. Just get...
Laal Azeem, the COMM, it is... alive. Thousands of voices... Asking why their sun has turned red. Burning... Asking to go home... No... Her.
I... remember...
All is full of love.
Laal Azeem, their star is dead. Shockwave!
Jump! Jump! Why aren't we jumping? CRAP, gravity.. Pratiksha, get off the control threads, the feedback'll eat you alive! Prati...
***
Ship, lights... That's it? Ship? Greatest ship builder on the cloud and she still don't know how to build a decent computer or how to light a room right. Hey, Pratiksha, I got you. You hurt?
Ivan, why did you push me from the threads?
Reflex... HEY! Put me down!
WHY?
Look, tall stuff, I ain't afraid of the Dollum smile, hear me good? You better make good on the promise of those bone strippers in your mouth if you want to keep all four of your arms. Nothing... NOTHING scares a Drop.
Four hundred, ships. Ten thousand souls. One billion more in the inner system. WHY?
Because there was nothing you could do. I hear a couple thousand more voices take the time to watch the sun die. What were the rest of them doing? Dollum gave up on this place. Whole damn great cloud did. There's no point in losing you for less than scraps. Now, PUT ME THE **** DOWN SO I CAN GO AND DO MY JOB.
Ivan, I never gave up.
Laal Azeem, the ship's responses are erratic... She is... crying.
My readings are wonked, but what I got's telling me the whole outer skin is gone. Damn miracle we're still here. Amazing thing.
She is not a thing, Laal Zahee.
...
Jhaal Ladeeh... Can you feel if any ships reached the field?
...
Jhaal Ladeeh? Jana...
Wait... Two, Laal Azeem... Wait... Animals, worse than animals. Laal Zahee, speak to them again. No...
No fre... No Jhaal Ladeeh... They're dead. Monkeys. Total waste.
...Laal Zahee.
Ivan, those were your people, your mother soil...
Dead long before we got here. Too busy raping themselves to care. Earth was waiting to die, and Samlal heard. Just like that nut, Captain Jay was telling: Allah's light don't shine far as Earth no more. It's time to go back. Give me two days on the repairs, Pratiksha.
Samlal...
Hey, look at me. Stick your mind to getting us flying so we save all the no-luck scraps we can. The ship and her captain need to be up to running with the light again, Laal Azeem.
That's something Jacob would say.
Picked up his bad habits.
Ivan, She's lost, but we can help Her.
Never knew a captain who could talk down a storm. Don't know even a saint who could forgive someone killing more than a trillion people, either. Flick up the recordings when you're resting. I want to hear one or two with you. You need to start drawing again, too.
You won't see me for two days.
I can handle that. Freshie isn't too bad for company. Hey, keep praying, Pratiksha. We'll find Jacob, we just got to point ourselves to Ma Sita's Eye, open the COMM and listen for a fool on an open path singing against the razz.
***
Ship?
...
Ship?
...
I am sorry, my friend. Your walls are solid, now, even for me. I already miss the stories you tell on every wall. You showed the fabric and the threads we travel. You'd show me the stars between my toes to tell me that you're smiling. Tell me how I can help you with the pain.
Die ready not... I... I... Nothing.
Dhar... Dha... Dharsha... Take... take... take... Before die.
Ship, let us listen to a story. That will help us heal you.
Hand... cold... Pratiksh... will feel everything... my... mine. Cannot allow...
Ship... Override.
Override... Accept. Laal Azeem... a fool.
I will enter. I will lie with you.
Because duty.
No.
You... you... for that... I hate.
Your feelings will choose the right story. Begin, please.
COMM thread select. Accessed. Pre... Prepare... Stream Begin:
I scrapped the original opening, will move it to the end of the book, and am going through a major rewrite (reader complaints: hackneyed dialect, writing too heady and disconnected, no sense of time and place, no recognizable plot and no dramatic pull). I'm sure the same problems remain, but I hope that there are more subdued.
I'd like to know if the piece below is easy(er) to understand and offers a strong enough hook to keep readers going after page one. Thanks again.
****************
Ship?
Yes, Jhaal Ladeeh?
Please prepare a final recording for the pending mission. Begin at your discretion.
Yes, Jhaal Ladeeh. May I ask why?
I have no trust in that area of the great cloud. Their part of the fabric is frayed. I do not trust them, even when they are dying. Is this a satisfactory answer?
Yes, Jhaal Ladeeh.
I will record and transmit what I can of your experiences and mind.
Thank you, Jhaal Ladeeh.
***
Compiling Final Flight Record
Searching Fabric. Threads Found
Soft Transmission.
Recording
Age of Shiva. Year 0436. Day 412. Hour: 0303.55 of 2900
Human System 000. Fourth Planet.
...
Samlal, remember the songs we sang to Mother Sita's Eye. Remember the chime rings you tied around our ancestor's wrists. You taught us how to dance. You taught us all how to dream. Samlal, come home.
The sun's going! Pratiksha, we need you opening the gate, now!
Samlal, lay your fingers upon the threads and listen. Dollum, the red world of red storms and red seas. The threads lead back to Dollum! Your home. Turn from the fabric and see the red lights, our faces. We will find your sisters. The lights of a trillion good souls will carry you back to your mother soils. Jacob knows the way.
Laal Azeem! Laal Azeem!
Samlal, we forgive you. The trillion lights cry, but they forgive you. Do you not remember the prayer Dharsha Shamla taught you and your sisters?
Damnit, Pratiksha. Cut it. Praying into the fabric don't work no matter how many arms you got. Give me the gate. Status?
I... I can't open one. Too many broken voices. The fabric here won't come together to show me a way home. Everything is... wrong.
****, readings are critical. Don't matter if anybody's ain't at point zero yet...
Four hundred ships responded; I will not leave them to die out here. I feel them coming. One thousand miles...
I know, I know... Damn it. Getting messages all over the place: none of those pans can jump. We're blown. Set the field. I'll get our jump drive up.
Ivan, this fabric... I can't expand the field far enough to carry them all.
Take what we can get.
No!
Laal Azeem... The voice of the system has fallen dead. I hear but only little lights burning out. I do not understand.
Praktisha, visual! I knew it... I knew it... The monkey's are firing on themselves. Ship, open the COMM... PRATIKSHA, the **** are you doing? We don't have time to eat their shots. They made their choice. They're done. Let me handle them. Put your arms and the ship's tethers to good work. Close the field, NOW!
COMM link open
You scraps out there, you hear me? Stop wasting power. You ain't in the camps no more. No time for that **** now. It's over. Just get...
Laal Azeem, the COMM, it is... alive. Thousands of voices... Asking why their sun has turned red. Burning... Asking to go home... No... Her.
I... remember...
All is full of love.
Laal Azeem, their star is dead. Shockwave!
Jump! Jump! Why aren't we jumping? CRAP, gravity.. Pratiksha, get off the control threads, the feedback'll eat you alive! Prati...
***
Ship, lights... That's it? Ship? Greatest ship builder on the cloud and she still don't know how to build a decent computer or how to light a room right. Hey, Pratiksha, I got you. You hurt?
Ivan, why did you push me from the threads?
Reflex... HEY! Put me down!
WHY?
Look, tall stuff, I ain't afraid of the Dollum smile, hear me good? You better make good on the promise of those bone strippers in your mouth if you want to keep all four of your arms. Nothing... NOTHING scares a Drop.
Four hundred, ships. Ten thousand souls. One billion more in the inner system. WHY?
Because there was nothing you could do. I hear a couple thousand more voices take the time to watch the sun die. What were the rest of them doing? Dollum gave up on this place. Whole damn great cloud did. There's no point in losing you for less than scraps. Now, PUT ME THE **** DOWN SO I CAN GO AND DO MY JOB.
Ivan, I never gave up.
Laal Azeem, the ship's responses are erratic... She is... crying.
My readings are wonked, but what I got's telling me the whole outer skin is gone. Damn miracle we're still here. Amazing thing.
She is not a thing, Laal Zahee.
...
Jhaal Ladeeh... Can you feel if any ships reached the field?
...
Jhaal Ladeeh? Jana...
Wait... Two, Laal Azeem... Wait... Animals, worse than animals. Laal Zahee, speak to them again. No...
No fre... No Jhaal Ladeeh... They're dead. Monkeys. Total waste.
...Laal Zahee.
Ivan, those were your people, your mother soil...
Dead long before we got here. Too busy raping themselves to care. Earth was waiting to die, and Samlal heard. Just like that nut, Captain Jay was telling: Allah's light don't shine far as Earth no more. It's time to go back. Give me two days on the repairs, Pratiksha.
Samlal...
Hey, look at me. Stick your mind to getting us flying so we save all the no-luck scraps we can. The ship and her captain need to be up to running with the light again, Laal Azeem.
That's something Jacob would say.
Picked up his bad habits.
Ivan, She's lost, but we can help Her.
Never knew a captain who could talk down a storm. Don't know even a saint who could forgive someone killing more than a trillion people, either. Flick up the recordings when you're resting. I want to hear one or two with you. You need to start drawing again, too.
You won't see me for two days.
I can handle that. Freshie isn't too bad for company. Hey, keep praying, Pratiksha. We'll find Jacob, we just got to point ourselves to Ma Sita's Eye, open the COMM and listen for a fool on an open path singing against the razz.
***
Ship?
...
Ship?
...
I am sorry, my friend. Your walls are solid, now, even for me. I already miss the stories you tell on every wall. You showed the fabric and the threads we travel. You'd show me the stars between my toes to tell me that you're smiling. Tell me how I can help you with the pain.
Die ready not... I... I... Nothing.
Dhar... Dha... Dharsha... Take... take... take... Before die.
Ship, let us listen to a story. That will help us heal you.
Hand... cold... Pratiksh... will feel everything... my... mine. Cannot allow...
Ship... Override.
Override... Accept. Laal Azeem... a fool.
I will enter. I will lie with you.
Because duty.
No.
You... you... for that... I hate.
Your feelings will choose the right story. Begin, please.
COMM thread select. Accessed. Pre... Prepare... Stream Begin:
