An Introductory Scene (1000+ words) Warning no dialog.

[MstrTal]

Ok for your perusal this is one of the introductory scenes for my current WIP. As I read it over a few times it doesn't sit that well with me but I can not lay a finger on to just what is wrong with it. It is intended to be from the characters POV. Something new for me and I am sure I have issues. Any and all help is welcome and greatly appreciated.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _



My fingers virtually flew across the cheap keyboard as I fought the urge to reach up and scratch at the cheap black wig I was using to conceal my own distinctive reddish gold hair. It had barely taken me two months to fully scout out the campus’s security routines, surveillance systems, not to mention the general habits of the staff and students after enrolling here at Artemis Academy. After that it had taken me a mere two weeks of stealing upper-classmen’s ID’s to crack the schools encryption and begin data mining for my client. A year later and phase one was nearly complete.

Just a few more keystrokes and I will have finished coding and inserting my own hidden program into the schools servers. It’s more accessible servers anyway. After a year I was surer than ever that my clients fears where valid. Artemis Academy was more than just a private college for the rich entitled human youth with a reputation for its anti-Cryptid bias and depth of Historic knowledge unequaled anywhere in the world. It was a training ground for a clandestine global organization devoted to either the eradication or subversion of Cryptids. At the moment the only thing I was sure of is that between the 1st and 2nd Ghost Waves an unknown organization had purchased Central State Mental Hospital in Indianapolis and converted it into Artemis Academy. Given my long personal history with asylums I tried not to dwell on that aspect of the colleges past too long.

With a final sequence of keystrokes I executed my program and set it loose into the wilds of the schools server system. Built around the linux kernel it was in essence a highly modified self propagating secondary operating system with a few highly specialized key elements. First the program would embed itself invisibly in every hard-drive on the network and unpack itself. After that it would monitor everything from behind a layered partition, every keystroke, program accessed, website visited, instant message, e-mail and most importantly every connection sent and received. As soon as someone uses any computer in the school to connect to the other mainframes I am sure are hidden somewhere on campus my program would also connect and install itself there. Once that happens I will be able to backdoor any system in the Academy at anytime from anywhere in the world at my leisure. Not bad for a young girl pushing a hundred or so if I do say so myself.

With a groan I stretched and cracked my back making sure to keep myself turned away from the cameras in the computer lab. After checking to ensure my program was working properly I switched over to the schools preferred web browser and mindlessly clicked around for a bit before logging off. Standing and gathering up my props which consisted of a couple of notebooks with scribbles and a mechanical pencil which I tossed haphazardly into a plain pink drawstring backpack before heading out of the lab and building. Once outside it was just a matter of calmly strolling across campus and scanning my stolen ID as I exited the main gate. I even managed a bit of a wave to the bored campus cop behind the bullet proof glass in the gate house. One thing I can say about Artemis Academy they took paranoid security to a whole new level. Private security armed with the latest automatic weapons and anti-Cryptid gear, 220 foot high stone walls and more digital cameras than the Federal Reserve.

In part this was because of how low the neighborhood had sunk. Artemis Academy was surrounded by one of the worst ghettos in Indianapolis. What had once been a well to-do neighborhood was now gangland. The other reasons were “Tradition” of course. The Academy had been established long before the lowlifes had moved into the area and the elites attended the school would be damned if they were going to be run off by low class plebes and Cryptid scum. I couldn’t help but snort in derision even if technically by birth I was one of the “elite” I made my living among the shadows of the Cryptid world.

Out of the lights of the Academies walls in the shadows of an alley I dropped my little pink backpack and quickly stripped out of my trendy pink sweat suit. Revealing a pair of black skinny jeans and a shimmering silk low cut half top in gold, it was such a relief to ditch the saggy cotton, pink was not my color. Sweat suit and matching mary-janes went into the bag as sequined strappy heels went on my feet and my smart phone nestled itself between my somewhat ample breasts on a silver chain. Shaking out my reddish gold mane of sweaty hair and shoving my real school ID into a tight back pocket completed my transformation. Gone was the somewhat ambiguous any college girl with the drab black hair and shy demeanor who could be one of any hundred girls in her matching chain store jogging suit. In her place stood Cassie O’Connor a feisty strawberry blonde, heiress to a huge fortune who liked to party more than she liked to study and was just barely avoiding being kicked out of one of the most prestigious human only private academies in the US.

Satisfied that I was good to go I tossed the bag into a rusty old barrel used by bangers and bums in the winter to stay warm. It was just the matter of a moment to light a fire with a flare from one of my supply caches secreted behind a nearby garage and I headed back to school. As the security gates came into sight I assumed an airy, flippant attitude and a breezy gait that people had become accustomed to seeing from me over the past year. Just as I was scanning my ID to re-enter the campus my cell phone began to ring. I knew right away from the custom ring tone that it was an emergency. My partner never calls me direct unless there’s trouble!

 

[The Judge]

MstrTal, just to let you know, I've edited your post -- the software had chewed up a couple of your paragraph breaks, so they appeared as complete blocks. Since the paras themselves are a bit long and dense, anyway, I thought it would help everyone reading it.

I don't have time for a proper critique now, but on a very quick skim-read if felt to me very info-dump heavy, particularly for an opening. I think you might be better to break all of this up, give us the action only at this stage and drip-feed the background and who she is etc into other scenes.

 

[J Riff]

'Tis a tad info heavy off the top, praps try the usual shortening of sentences, especially near the beginning... so that it's more like action.
There's nothing wrong with distinctive reddish gold, or other adjectives you use, it just slows reading it down a bit.

My fingers flew about the cheap keyboard. I fought the urge to reach up and scratch at the cheap black wig I was wearing to conceal my reddish gold hair.(is the wig/hair relevant enough to be in the first sentence? )
It had taken me two months to learn the campus’s security routines. I had cracked its surveillance systems and studied the habits of staff and students.
After enrolling at Artemis Academy it had taken me a mere two weeks to crack the schools encryption using ID stolen from etc, and begin data mining for my client.
A year later, and phase one was nearly complete. Just a few more keystrokes and I'd finish inserting my hidden program into the school servers, the more accessible ones, anyway. After a year I was sure that my clients' fears were valid.

 

[alchemist]

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[RJM Corbet]

I think the story's there but really needs tightening?
Here's your first paragraph:

My fingers virtually flew across the cheap keyboard as I fought the urge to reach up and scratch at the cheap black wig I was using to conceal my own distinctive reddish gold hair. It had barely taken me two months to fully scout out the campus’s security routines, surveillance systems, not to mention the general habits of the staff and students after enrolling here at Artemis Academy. After that it had taken me a mere two weeks of stealing upper-classmen’s ID’s to crack the schools encryption and begin data mining for my client. A year later and phase one was nearly complete.

And here's what an editor will definitely do:

My fingers flew across the keyboard as I fought the urge to scratch at the black wig I was using to conceal my own reddish hair. In the first two months after my own enrollment at the Artemis Academy I had already scouted out the campus security systems and the habits of the staff and students. After that, a mere two weeks of stealing upper-classmens' IDs, and I had cracked the school's encrypion and begun data-mining for my client. A year later and phase one was nearly complete.

Well, something like that anyway. I know you're trying to write like a woman, but it's too flowery, mate. The written word is struggling to survive against electronic media, so its a brutal business. You have what sounds like a good story, but it really does need pruning. There is no need to try to fit that much information into every paragraph? You can sketch it first then colour in later, so to speak?

Fortunately, that's the easy part.
Oh, and good first line. It does work

 

[Grimbear]

Just a few more keystrokes and I will have finished coding and inserting my own hidden program into the schools servers. It’s more accessible servers anyway. After a year I was surer than ever that my clients fears where valid.

There's a tense change here. Needs altering. 'I will have' then 'I was surer'.

I'll come back and do a more indepth line by line if you want, but have no time now, sorry.

Some good stuff though

Grim

 

[MstrTal]

Thank You all very much for the input thus far!

I was very worried about being overly descriptive. I hadn't considered the "writing like a woman" part. Sadly this is how I write, um overly flowery. One thing I did try to keep in mind with the character is the fact that she is over a 100 years old and at times struggles with modern mindsets and what has come before, but that is not really important to the scene I guess.

I was concerned about info-dumping and the like and I am still trying to figure out how to convey relevant information without just force feeding the reader.

 

[Boneman]

Hi MstrTal (can I call you Ms T?)

Personal opinion, here we come: you are trying to get a lot in, and it's good writing, perhaps just too much detail. The premise of your story is intriguing, the execution not quite so... A world-famous author once said to me: 'Never reveal anything the reader's not already curious about' and I still am not sure it's totally true. However since he's been number one on the New York Times besteller list, I bow to his wisdom (even if he's broken that rule himself, in his own books...).

I think that by telling us everything, there's nothing left to our imagination, that we can visualise. There's nothing wrong with that, and many best-selling authors thrive on it, but it does give a wall of text that many readers will skim. and may miss important clues (Thanks TJ, for doing the paragraph bit, or it would have been unbroken and even more off-putting...)

I think, for me, I want to be intrigued, to be hooked, and there's certainly enough within what you've given us to do that, but too much detail has diluted it somewhat.

See what you think of my suggestions - I'm exactly like you, a writer struggling to improve, so please ignore any that do not gel with you.

1st exercise - remove all adjectives. So for the first para it would look like this:

My fingers flew across the keyboard as I fought the urge to reach up and scratch at the wig I was using to conceal my own(allowed!) hair. It had taken me two(allowed!) months to scout the campus’s systems, after enrolling here. After that it had taken me weeks of stealing ID’s to crack the schools encryption and begin data mining for my client. A year later and phase one was nearly complete.

Okay, I cheated and took out some excess wordage as well... once you've said the campus's systems, leave it to our imagination/intelligence that we know you've covered everything. And you'll mention the name of the academy later, there's no need for the repetition of 'here' and the 'Artemis Academy'. (You might want to reconsider the name in view of the Artemis Fowl books...?) It's shorter and I don't think it's lost anything. Just by bringing in the wig, we know something's being hidden - you could lose 'I was using to conceal my own hair' because we know that's what wigs do, you don't need to tell us. I'm sure we'll find out the colour later, it's not actually relevant to this section.

Now the next para is an awful lot of infodumping, and I'm a little worried about the change of tense to the present. She's told what happened and now she's telling what happens. But in the next para you go back to the (more accepted) past tense (With a final sequence of keystrokes I executed my program... etc etc), so I feel it would read better if you stay with one or the other, and not mix up.

I do actually think you could lose the whole para (!) and actually gain more mystery. Each time you give us info, you detract from the action in hand. Which is more relevant? If it were what she was achieving for the client, then I'd start the book with a meeting between them, where she brags about what she can do,a nd then voila, she does it. If it's the execution of it, then start here and leave out most of it, just give us enough to understand, and let our minds fill in the rest.

And I'm afraid you've thrown in information which isn't explained (the cryptids, the 1st and 2nd Ghost waves) which should be, or be left out until we discover them in the process of time/plot.

I finished coding, and inserted my program into the servers. After a year I knew my client's fears were valid:an unknown organization had purchased Central State Mental Hospital in Indianapolis and converted it into Artemis Academy. Given my hundred-year history with asylums I tried not to dwell on that aspect of the college.

Now we want to read on, because there's two mysteries here: the unknown organisation and the hero's association with Asylums... dah dah dah daaahhhh! Just telling us it's an 'unknown' organisation, sparks our interest, and you don't need to say more. And bringing in the age bit here is better than the jokey bit later, no? Infodumping the rest of it detracts from the action, and I know it will all come out elsewhere. Unless this is just a short story. It isn't, is it?

And you definitely don't need to tell us about the linux kernel and the self-propagating dubri-ferkin... It's a computer; we know the hero is up to no good, and inserted a program, that's enough for us, honest... She could brag a little if it adds to the story about how she cracked the best system they had to offer, but this attention to detail isn't necessary, it could be distracting. So I'd (radically, I know) go back to the previous para and insert a sentence that did the job for us.

I finished coding, and inserted my program into the servers. I could access everything now. After a year I knew my client's fears were valid:an unknown organization had purchased Central State Mental Hospital in Indianapolis and converted it into Artemis Academy. Given my long personal history with asylums I tried not to dwell on that aspect of the college.

Which means that whole para went out the window... oops. But boy, is it tighter now. I really feel we need to see and hear more about the hero, as you do later, rather than the detail of what sort of computer and how she's getting past all sorts of bits and pieces. I could be wrong...

So, in view of that, how about this?

My fingers flew across the keyboard as I fought the urge to reach up and scratch at the wig I was using to conceal my own(allowed!) hair. It had taken me two(allowed!) months to scout the campus’s systems, after enrolling here. After that it had taken me weeks of stealing ID’s to crack the schools encryption and begin data mining for my client. A year later and phase one was nearly complete.

I finished coding, and inserted my program into the servers. I could access everything now. After a year I knew my client's fears were valid:an unknown organization had purchased Central State Mental Hospital in Indianapolis and converted it into Artemis Academy. Given my hundred-year history with asylums I tried not to dwell on that aspect of the college.

I left the computer lab, avoiding the cameras. One thing I can say about Artemis Academy, they took paranoid security to a whole new level. Private security armed with the latest automatic weapons and anti-Cryptid gear, 220 foot high stone walls and more digital cameras than the Federal Reserve. (See, now we've mentioned its name twice and it seems more natural; and we've introduced the cryptids - just a mention, but we're intrigued again - who are these cryptids that they need all this protection???) Once outside I strolled calmly across campus, scanned my stolen ID and exited the main gate.

But the security wasn't all for the Cryptids.The Elite Academy was surrounded by one of the worst ghettos in Indianapolis. Although I was one of the “elite” I made my living among the shadows of the Cryptid world, and felt at home in either.

Out of the lights of the Academies walls in the shadows of an alley I dropped my little pink backpack and quickly stripped out of my trendy pink sweat suit. Revealing a pair of black skinny jeans and a shimmering silk low cut half top in gold, it was such a relief to ditch the saggy cotton, pink was not my color. Sweat suit and matching mary-janes went into the bag as sequined strappy heels went on my feet and my smart phone nestled itself between my somewhat ample breasts on a silver chain. Shaking out my reddish gold mane of sweaty hair and shoving my real school ID into a tight back pocket completed my transformation. Gone was the somewhat ambiguous any college girl with the drab black hair and shy demeanor who could be one of any hundred girls in her matching chain store jogging suit. In her place stood Cassie O’Connor a feisty strawberry blonde, heiress to a huge fortune who liked to party more than she liked to study and was just barely avoiding being kicked out of one of the most prestigious human only private academies in the US. (Not sure what to do with this fashion show, and I have no idea what 'mary-janes' are either. But it's a lot of detail for someone ditching a disguise...)

I tossed the bag into a rusty old barrel and threw a burning flare in, to destroy the lot. I headed back to school. As the security gates came into sight I assumed an airy, flippant attitude and a breezy gait that people had become accustomed to seeing from me over the past year. Just as I was scanning my ID to re-enter the campus my cell phone began to ring. I knew right away from the custom ring tone that it was an emergency. My partner never calls me direct unless there’s trouble. (I've lost the apostrophe, it's unnecessary emphasis...)

Apart from the fashion show, it now concentrates on the hero (okay heroine) and drip-feeds us information, rather than yelling it at us. It was distracting, having so much to take in, for me, at least. And I've probably gone too far for you, but do take a consensus of opinion. You say it doesn't sit well with you, so there's already an awareness of some difficulty in presenting your story. IMHO, it was the detail, that was overwhelming the action.

Do not take my word for it - hopefully more opinion will be along in a while, to dispute what I've said, or agree or suggest better. Weigh it all up, and then decide what to do. Good luck with it.

 

[Boneman]

Hey MrT,

while I was critiquing, your last post was put up, so I didn't see it. Hopefully, you're leaning in the direction I've discussed, already, so some of what I've posted is irrelevant. Oh well...

ps: I edited the bits in about MsT after... sounded like a female voice to me...

 

[MstrTal]

Boneman Thank you very much!

That makes a ton of sense and gives me a very sensible direction. It helps me with the info-dumping and to tighten things up. Granted I will probably find a middle ground involving the descriptive language just knowing me but I am most assuredly keeping every thing told me in mind.

Oh and I am very much male. That said you can call me by what ever name or title you wish I answer to just about anything though I prefer Tal. Just ask my wife.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Thank You all very much for the input thus far!

I was very worried about being overly descriptive. I hadn't considered the "writing like a woman" part. Sadly this is how I write, um overly flowery. One thing I did try to keep in mind with the character is the fact that she is over a 100 years old and at times struggles with modern mindsets and what has come before, but that is not really important to the scene I guess.

I was concerned about info-dumping and the like and I am still trying to figure out how to convey relevant information without just force feeding the reader.

Sorry MstrTal. I meant that you're trying to write as a woman would, because you have chosen the difficult road of making your main protagonist a member of the opposite sex? (Which I already knew from your profile.) Certainly no offence intended. I think you're doing it well, but maybe going a bit over the top in the process, that's all, ok?

As with Boneman, I'm really not being critical just because I can but because I liked this intro, and if I didn't, I would not comment at all -- and end of the day you weigh up all the comments and decide whether to change or leave something as it is.

I assume that this is the intro of your book? I believe you can fill in some of the information later, that's what I mean. The tough job right now is to grab the reader and persuade him/her to turn the page?

Regards
Roger

 

[MstrTal]

Oh no worries I took no offence in any form. I am grateful for any and all feedback. I simply misunderstood the context involving woman and was trying to clarify my writing style. I was not in anyway defensive. I intend to take everything you and the others have told me and apply them in my rewrite. I fully recognise I have many shortcomings and I am seeking to overcome them with all of this sites fine members help.

In fact the comments about being a bit over flowery are some I personally need to hear. Being a History major I spend a lot of time immersed in very old dusty tomes and a lot of the writing I am subjected to is outdated and influences me. In essence this character is a tribute to my own struggle with modernity. Its nice to have you guys to help rein me back.

 

[RJM Corbet]

Well, this is the value of this site -- that many who come here, do so because they have written at least one book, published or not, and so they all know how damn hard it is to get it right?

 

[carlos]

I agree with the other comments you're trying to squeeze too much information into your sentences. This has the tendency do lengthen sentences beyond what they need to be, you don't want you're reader to run out of breath before reaching the full stop. I also have the same problem as you but I've realized that I prefer reading shorter sentences and I try very hard to create short sentences. But its hard! lol...