Okay, here's a 2nd go at an excerpt from a scene where the protagonist reconnects with his love interest. It's shortened a bit from before because as I added in prose along with the dialogue... well the word count increased.
As before, want feedback on how readable the dialogue is, and whether or not the characters' interaction pulls you in. This is half of a scene that updates a couple of plotlines and paints a picture for what life is like on the ship. Got it that not having read the previous 25K words you won't recognize those plotlines, I'm not really too concerned with that here, just want to know if the writing is engaging. Plot bits that will help reading:
- They met 5 years before, had quite a bit of lust. She was heavy into a hippy/rock&roll/drug use/cult kind of society that he didn't want to be a part of.
- The crew and the passengers have a sort of brewing resentment which over the course of the voyage is going to end up erupting. This scene should do a bit of foreshadowing.
-----------
Babalou’s, formerly known as Recreation Facility 11B, was now one of the most popular restaurants in the Fishbowl. “This place is really nice,” Adam commented as he sat down at a table across from Cindy. It was exhilarating to be there sitting across from the girl who had haunted his dreams for the past five years.
She was dressed in a short black skirt and blue blouse that matched her eyes. Her clothes showed her figure, but still seemed conservative. Every look from her made his skin tingle with excitement, but he told himself to be patient. “You’ve never been here before?” she asked. He found himself noticing the way her head tilted just a bit when she asked him the question. It’s cute, he thought. I never thought of her as cute. Sexy. Heart-racing. Terrifying. Never cute.
“No, I usually cook, or just eat in the crew dining facility near my quarters,” he answered. It had been a long time since he had gone anywhere ‘popular’, and he was impressed by what he saw. The local community organizers had completely transformed the recreation facility into a restaurant bustling with customers and white-coated waiters moving between the tables. The décor on the walls reminded him of a classy restaurant back on earth. “They’ve put a lot of work into this place.”
“Greed is a good motivator,” she said, and he caught a touch of annoyance in her voice. Charley Abel’s crowd had always complained about materialism. Maybe she hasn’t changed so much, after all, he thought.
“So much for the whole love-based economy.” He tried hard to make it sound like an off-hand comment, but he was probing. Is she still one of them? he wondered. Does she still live that life?
“Yeah, I don’t know,” she sighed. She looked away from her date and settled her attention tiredly on the throng of customers waiting to get in the door. “I don’t really want to talk politics.”
He sensed that he was on the edge of ruining what was supposed to be a romantic dinner, so he dropped it. “So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve almost finished my degree, and I was thinking about starting grad school.”
“Really?” This is a pleasant surprise. “In what?” he asked, trying to stay cool, but he needed to know.
“Civil Engineering. I took a couple of trade classes on plastiforming and metalworking and that got me interested in it.”
Has she been like this the entire time? he wondered. “That’s great. I mean, really great. I never thought… well I didn’t really know you that well, but still I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Yeah,” she let the word trail off as though it was a conversation all to itself. “Well, you know that was like five years ago. A lot has changed.”
“Such as?” He knew as he said it that he was pressing too eagerly.
“What’s with the interrogation?” She was clearly growing annoyed. “We just sat down. How about starting with, ‘You look nice tonight, Cindy’?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing that he was acting ridiculously. He was letting years of pent up pining make him sound like some kind of weirdo. Laughing at himself he said, “You don’t look nice, Cindy. You look amazing.”
She smiled, and her cheeks blushed slightly. The image in his mind of the sexual animal that he had met years ago clashed with the girl sitting across the table from him. “Very smooth recovery,” she said as she lifted a glass of water in salute before taking a sip. “You look good, too, by the way. It looks like you’ve really been… taking care of yourself.”
“No girlfriend means I have a lot of time to work out.” He shrugged off the compliment with a smirk.
A waiter in a white coat and black slacks cut into their conversation, “Would Madame or Monsieur care for a drink, or perhaps an appetizer?”
“A bottle of wine would be great,” Cindy answered for them.
“Madame or Monsieur?” Adam asked after the white-coated waiter had swept away towards the kitchens. “What’s going on here?”
“Do you know how cute it is when you make that face?” Cindy ignored his question. Whatever face he was making, it was obvious to him that she found it amusing. Her eyes sparkled and she was smirking at his confusion. Finally answering his question she said, “They all taught themselves French off the ship’s database.”
“Just so they could sound snooty?”
“That’s it.” She made an expansive gesture with her hand that took in the whole restaurant. “You just summed up this entire place.”
“That’s…” he wanted to say Amazing, but it really wasn’t, “Interesting.”
“Yes it is. It seems to keep this place packed.” Adam thought she looked mischievous, she had a smirk that was pretty and infectious. He felt like he was being let in on an inside joke. “That’s your capitalism at work,” she added, her look challenged him.
“Hey, hey, now. None of that ‘your’ capitalism stuff.” He kept his tone light. He liked being on the inside of her jokes, and he intended to stay there.
“Ha, okay,” she laughed it off. “So, how come you don’t have a girlfriend? You don’t work in fabrications, do you?”
“No,” he laughed, surprised at just how wide-spread the reputation of the almost all-gay fabrications department had become. “Although sometimes I think that might be easier. I don’t know, I meet a lot of girls in class, but it just never works out.”
“Why not?” She leaned forward, engaging him with her deep blue eyes while her head tilted in the same cute way it had earlier. He was caught for a second by that look, and it made his heart shift gears. The knowing smirk still lingered on his date, and he suspected that she knew exactly what effect she was having on him.
He smiled at his own predicament, and shook himself free before answering, “I don’t know, everyone’s always really focused on the academics, and I never seem to have anything in common with the girls. They’re just…”
“Passengers?” there was that smirk again, but this time it didn’t look as cute as before. The divide between the passengers and crew widened with every year, and he knew people from both groups that resented the other. She was testing him now, he realized, trying to find out if he was one of those who looked down on their civilian neighbors.
“That’s not true,” he answered quickly. He resolved to play it off as though he was oblivious to the implications of what she had asked. “There’s a female technician from the Agricultural department that I’ve had several classes with.”
“Is she pretty?” She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. She looked skeptical, but she was obviously enjoying watching him dig himself into a hole.
He made a show of pretending to weigh the merits of the other girl in his head. He knew he could be charming, and he was started his counterattack against Cindy’s mischievous smirk. “Maybe not in a… conventional sense, but she has many redeeming qualities.”
“Such as?” she laughed.
Cindy’s smirk, though cute, didn’t compare to the way she smiled when she laughed. Adam drove full-speed forward with his offensive. “Well, she has a steady hand. Good posture. She always seems… punctual.”
“Punctual… well, I’ll have to get there a little early to tell her to keep her steady hands off of my man.”
“Your man?” Let’s see how you deal with a bit of smirking? Adam did his best to affect the same posture as her, leaning back in his chair with arms crossed.
As before, want feedback on how readable the dialogue is, and whether or not the characters' interaction pulls you in. This is half of a scene that updates a couple of plotlines and paints a picture for what life is like on the ship. Got it that not having read the previous 25K words you won't recognize those plotlines, I'm not really too concerned with that here, just want to know if the writing is engaging. Plot bits that will help reading:
- They met 5 years before, had quite a bit of lust. She was heavy into a hippy/rock&roll/drug use/cult kind of society that he didn't want to be a part of.
- The crew and the passengers have a sort of brewing resentment which over the course of the voyage is going to end up erupting. This scene should do a bit of foreshadowing.
-----------
Babalou’s, formerly known as Recreation Facility 11B, was now one of the most popular restaurants in the Fishbowl. “This place is really nice,” Adam commented as he sat down at a table across from Cindy. It was exhilarating to be there sitting across from the girl who had haunted his dreams for the past five years.
She was dressed in a short black skirt and blue blouse that matched her eyes. Her clothes showed her figure, but still seemed conservative. Every look from her made his skin tingle with excitement, but he told himself to be patient. “You’ve never been here before?” she asked. He found himself noticing the way her head tilted just a bit when she asked him the question. It’s cute, he thought. I never thought of her as cute. Sexy. Heart-racing. Terrifying. Never cute.
“No, I usually cook, or just eat in the crew dining facility near my quarters,” he answered. It had been a long time since he had gone anywhere ‘popular’, and he was impressed by what he saw. The local community organizers had completely transformed the recreation facility into a restaurant bustling with customers and white-coated waiters moving between the tables. The décor on the walls reminded him of a classy restaurant back on earth. “They’ve put a lot of work into this place.”
“Greed is a good motivator,” she said, and he caught a touch of annoyance in her voice. Charley Abel’s crowd had always complained about materialism. Maybe she hasn’t changed so much, after all, he thought.
“So much for the whole love-based economy.” He tried hard to make it sound like an off-hand comment, but he was probing. Is she still one of them? he wondered. Does she still live that life?
“Yeah, I don’t know,” she sighed. She looked away from her date and settled her attention tiredly on the throng of customers waiting to get in the door. “I don’t really want to talk politics.”
He sensed that he was on the edge of ruining what was supposed to be a romantic dinner, so he dropped it. “So what have you been up to?”
“I’ve almost finished my degree, and I was thinking about starting grad school.”
“Really?” This is a pleasant surprise. “In what?” he asked, trying to stay cool, but he needed to know.
“Civil Engineering. I took a couple of trade classes on plastiforming and metalworking and that got me interested in it.”
Has she been like this the entire time? he wondered. “That’s great. I mean, really great. I never thought… well I didn’t really know you that well, but still I wouldn’t have guessed that.”
“Yeah,” she let the word trail off as though it was a conversation all to itself. “Well, you know that was like five years ago. A lot has changed.”
“Such as?” He knew as he said it that he was pressing too eagerly.
“What’s with the interrogation?” She was clearly growing annoyed. “We just sat down. How about starting with, ‘You look nice tonight, Cindy’?”
“I’m sorry,” he said, realizing that he was acting ridiculously. He was letting years of pent up pining make him sound like some kind of weirdo. Laughing at himself he said, “You don’t look nice, Cindy. You look amazing.”
She smiled, and her cheeks blushed slightly. The image in his mind of the sexual animal that he had met years ago clashed with the girl sitting across the table from him. “Very smooth recovery,” she said as she lifted a glass of water in salute before taking a sip. “You look good, too, by the way. It looks like you’ve really been… taking care of yourself.”
“No girlfriend means I have a lot of time to work out.” He shrugged off the compliment with a smirk.
A waiter in a white coat and black slacks cut into their conversation, “Would Madame or Monsieur care for a drink, or perhaps an appetizer?”
“A bottle of wine would be great,” Cindy answered for them.
“Madame or Monsieur?” Adam asked after the white-coated waiter had swept away towards the kitchens. “What’s going on here?”
“Do you know how cute it is when you make that face?” Cindy ignored his question. Whatever face he was making, it was obvious to him that she found it amusing. Her eyes sparkled and she was smirking at his confusion. Finally answering his question she said, “They all taught themselves French off the ship’s database.”
“Just so they could sound snooty?”
“That’s it.” She made an expansive gesture with her hand that took in the whole restaurant. “You just summed up this entire place.”
“That’s…” he wanted to say Amazing, but it really wasn’t, “Interesting.”
“Yes it is. It seems to keep this place packed.” Adam thought she looked mischievous, she had a smirk that was pretty and infectious. He felt like he was being let in on an inside joke. “That’s your capitalism at work,” she added, her look challenged him.
“Hey, hey, now. None of that ‘your’ capitalism stuff.” He kept his tone light. He liked being on the inside of her jokes, and he intended to stay there.
“Ha, okay,” she laughed it off. “So, how come you don’t have a girlfriend? You don’t work in fabrications, do you?”
“No,” he laughed, surprised at just how wide-spread the reputation of the almost all-gay fabrications department had become. “Although sometimes I think that might be easier. I don’t know, I meet a lot of girls in class, but it just never works out.”
“Why not?” She leaned forward, engaging him with her deep blue eyes while her head tilted in the same cute way it had earlier. He was caught for a second by that look, and it made his heart shift gears. The knowing smirk still lingered on his date, and he suspected that she knew exactly what effect she was having on him.
He smiled at his own predicament, and shook himself free before answering, “I don’t know, everyone’s always really focused on the academics, and I never seem to have anything in common with the girls. They’re just…”
“Passengers?” there was that smirk again, but this time it didn’t look as cute as before. The divide between the passengers and crew widened with every year, and he knew people from both groups that resented the other. She was testing him now, he realized, trying to find out if he was one of those who looked down on their civilian neighbors.
“That’s not true,” he answered quickly. He resolved to play it off as though he was oblivious to the implications of what she had asked. “There’s a female technician from the Agricultural department that I’ve had several classes with.”
“Is she pretty?” She sat back in her chair and folded her arms. She looked skeptical, but she was obviously enjoying watching him dig himself into a hole.
He made a show of pretending to weigh the merits of the other girl in his head. He knew he could be charming, and he was started his counterattack against Cindy’s mischievous smirk. “Maybe not in a… conventional sense, but she has many redeeming qualities.”
“Such as?” she laughed.
Cindy’s smirk, though cute, didn’t compare to the way she smiled when she laughed. Adam drove full-speed forward with his offensive. “Well, she has a steady hand. Good posture. She always seems… punctual.”
“Punctual… well, I’ll have to get there a little early to tell her to keep her steady hands off of my man.”
“Your man?” Let’s see how you deal with a bit of smirking? Adam did his best to affect the same posture as her, leaning back in his chair with arms crossed.
