When the Hammerheads Sing

[johnnyjet]

The following is the opening scene of a 5,000 word short story that was recently rejected with some good comments. I wonder if I might get some feedback from the illustrious Chrons critiquers. Thanks in advance!



Someone buzzed Captain Chantelle Cruciante while she was recording her morning log. Since everyone knew she hated to be interrupted during her sequestrations, she expected it was important. It had better be important.

"Corporal Callie Buenaventura, Captain. I was asked to inform you the hammerheads are about to sing."

She put down her recorder, pushed dark strands of black hair from her face. She sighed. The endless attempts to understand the hammerheads!

"Thank you, Corporal. I'll get there as soon as I can."

She expected it was going to be the same old thing, so she didn't move very quickly. She took her time stripping off her leisure mistware and putting on her uniform. She was middle-aged but her body was taut and well-shaped, her face somewhat hardened yet still displaying classic beauty lines. Her six foot height gave her an imposing stance that demanded respect as commander of a first contact mission team.

The hammerheads were the intelligent species of this world called Sienna. The mission's language experts were struggling understanding their language and communicating with them beyond the simplest concepts. They spoke in soft shushing sounds that were barely distinguishable from each other. Other times they sang. Beautiful sounds that transcended words.

The linguists were frustrated in their efforts to make sense of the speech and song patterns of the natives of Sienna. When the hammerheads sang, it was an important event, attended by the highest officials (who never sang themselves) and many of the population. Yet to the linguists it seemed to be just a series of random concerts presented for no discernable reason.

Needless to say, construction of a workable interpreter algorithm was proceeding very slowly. Too slowly for Captain Chantelle. She was renowned among the Federation for her successful missions, and she refused to have her record tainted.

She called for a roboshuttle and spoke her destination. Number 23, compact, tubular and shiny under the pale reddish sun Arcturus, hovered over Sienna's gray-green dirt as the Captain climbed onboard. It swiftly delivered her to the natives' auditorium.

She found her linguists, Xenia Barrett and Gary Pendragon, stationed at the back with their recording equipment setup. As usual they were recording audio, visual, olfactory, tactile and weather indicators.

Xenia was young and attractive with short brown hair, petite, full of energy and knowledgeable in the latest xenolingual analysis technology. Gary was middle-aged, tall, and well-built, with dark thinning hair and a proponent of the tried and true xenolingual techniques.

She said, "Well?"

Xenia shrugged. "As you can see, they're still rehearsing. Should be starting soon."

Chantelle could never tell the difference between rehearsals and actual performances. She said, "How many concerts must we attend before you finally understand their language?"

Gary said, "The sounds are so complex and fraught with subtle nuances that it's nearly impossible to learn their language by any standard methodology. We are inventing new ways to analyze the phonemes and morphemes as we observe and listen to them."

She'd heard the same old incomprehensible song and dance from her linguists before. More of the same excuses.

Xenia smiled and said, "Not impossible, Gary, just challenging. We think some of their songs are about us."

Well, that was a new one.

"How so?"

"Lately we've noticed specific actions of our own mission team correlate with specific musical performances. A rock and soil gathering operation recently resulted in a unique performance."

"Ah." She didn't know whether this was good or bad news.

The air around them grew suddenly warm and crackled. A low soft humming gradually grew louder. Chantelle felt her defenses soften, her body relax, her tensions unwind. Soon the hammerheads let loose with a powerful burst of song, harmonizing the nine voices on stage, each a distinct sound yet perfectly blended. For several minutes the space around them was filled with complex layers that weaved in and out of each other.

This was the part Chantelle enjoyed the most, what drew her to the performances. The experience soothed her body, mind and soul like nothing else could.

 

[The Judge]

I thought this was an intriguing idea, but personally I'd have liked a lot less dumping of information, particularly so early on. The self-description at the beginning was a real problem for me -- do we really need to know her height and all the rest of it to engage with the story? And even if part of it is needed, does it have to be given so bluntly? Height can come across by her having to duck under the door frame or some such. The descriptions of the two linguists was also a bit blunt in the way it's dumped on the page -- again is it important to the plot that we know what these people look like? if not, why is it there?

I appreciate why you've given so much away so soon about the hammerheads, but I don't think you actually need as much out there as you think, and certainly not so soon. When you'd actually got Cruciante with the others, that read much more smoothly, and the information was given in a far less jarring way, and in fact effectively repeats some of what you've already told us. You don't want a "As you know, Bob" conversation -- and this teetered on the edge of it -- but I think the necessary parts of the two earlier explanation paragraphs could be slipped into the meeting making the whole thing more natural.

As a matter of naming, do these Sienna-ese call themselves hammerheads? Presumably not, since the humans can't understand much of their language. Because to me it reads as perilously close to a racist/speciest insult, and while I've no doubt some humans would use it informally, surely there would be mission protocols to avoid speaking derogatorily about the planet's sentient inhabitants.

I am interested in knowing more about the songs they sing though, and what happens, so you've caught my attention despite my cavils about the info-dumping. I think if you tidied it up and removed the exposition so it flowed better, this has the makings of a cracking piece. Good luck with it!

 

[Brian G Turner]

It's a great title - caught my attention immediately.

But...Chantelle wanders about, bored, irritated, and not really involved in anything. The big question posed is - can we understand this race? But there are no stakes involved at all...

Also, your use of POV shifts a lot and always takes us outside of the characters - you're more interested in giving us a visual picture than an experience. The result is that the POV weakens the narrative, rather than strengthens it.

The story only really comes alive when people stop trying to explain the music, and Chanetelle directly experiences it. Suddenly, she's in the story, something is happening, and as a reader I'm asking questions.

 

[johnnyjet]

Thanks for the great critiques, Judge & Brian. Your comments are very helpful and give me some direction as I revisit the story. Much appreciated!

 

[Appello]

Have to echo what has already been said. The biggest problem with this piece are the info-dumps regarding the characters' physical descriptions and world building in the first half. As soon as you get long paragraphs of 'explanation', especially so early in a story, it takes the reader straight out of their immersion, and once that's lost, it's really hard to stay engaged in a story.

There are countless ways of introducing a world and scene without the stock-standard, 'let the omniscient authorial narrator explain it to you' trope. Challenge yourself to find them. Also keep in mind that less is almost always more when it comes to opening scenes. As the Judge has pointed out, do we really need to know that Callie's body is well-taut and shaped, or that Xenia is petite? Does it matter at all to that particular scene? To be honest I almost always cringe when I read male novelists describing their female characters in such ways - without even getting into a dialogue about the sexual objectification of female characters in literature, it just reads odd and clunky and unnecessary. If you really want to emphasise that she's fit and athletic, have her engage in some kind of activity which shows that - say, jumping down from a high ledge and landing on her feet, or taking the stairs two at a time. But by far the best thing of all is to leave it to the reader's imagination. Trust me, nobody is going to imagine her as ugly or overweight unless you explicitly describe her as such.

I would also start immediately with 'the action' - in this case, the singing of the hammerheads. The entire opening montage of Callie getting called up and dressing and walking to find her companions is really just a veiled excuse for info-dumping. Get rid of it and dive straight in. The colour of her hair can wait.

 

[Toby Frost]

It’s a great title and a really interesting concept. There aren’t many aliens that are just, well, alien. Actually, I’d have liked to know slightly more about what a hammerhead/Siennian (?) looked like, partly because I had this image of a shark standing on its tail, which was too silly to fit the seriousness of the story. Maybe she could see them climbing onto the stage on their many legs or the like, or nodding their scaly heads or something like that? The question of what their singing means is really interesting, and I’d definitely keep on reading because of that.

I agree that there’s no real need to describe the heroine. She’s just the “lead” and most people will probably give her a mental image of their own. If there’s some striking - and important – feature to be added, then it needs to go in, but I would just keep the details simple as The Judge suggests.

Gary said, "The sounds are so complex and fraught with subtle nuances that it's nearly impossible to learn their language by any standard methodology. We are inventing new ways to analyze the phonemes and morphemes as we observe and listen to them."

This is pure info-dump. For one thing, does anyone, even a scientist, talk like this? For another, surely the captain would know this before she got there? So it has to be there for the reader’s benefit, and I’m afraid that it shows. I think I, too, would be inclined to start with the action. Perhaps the story happens in between "concerts"?

Re the whole describing women thing: the modern convention is to lose all words to do with how sexy they are and go for a totally impersonal approach. Obviously “attractive” or “busty” etc would go, as would references to low-cut tops etc, but also comments of the “her toned body” sort can be lost. Of course, neutral descriptions are fine. I believe the jargon phrase is “the male gaze”, which I dislike as an expression, but it does look old-fashioned.

Also, given the setting, I’d change the phrase “song and dance” to something more, er, less vocal!

Anyway, this is very interesting and has real potential, I think.

 

[johnnyjet]

Thanks for the great feedback, Appello and Toby. I really appreciate your insight and I will definitely take your suggestions to heart when I rework the story.

 

[Stable]

The main points I'd make have been covered already, so I'll just add that your character names are a bit much at once.
Captain Chantelle Cruciante and Corporal Callie Buenaventura are both long names (and we don't have much to tie each name to a character yet, so it's mostly just noise), not to mention the similarities of CCC and CCB will make it hard to remember and distinguish them.

Cool worldbuilding though, I enjoyed your ideas.

 

[The Big Peat]

Echoing everything said above and adding to it -

I like the idea. I like the hints of characterisation there. I like the ludicity of it.

Where I think things fall down is a certain bluntness/lack of polish - the physical descriptions are the obvious example, I like them but not thrust in like that - and not quite enough focus. Its an interesting scenario but really hammer us around the head* with why it matters to Chantelle because that will make it that bit much more interesting. Is she on a deadline? Did she strike out on her last mission? Is she hoping for promotion? Or something deeper and more personal. I think particularly in short story formats you have to seize the jugular and tell us what exactly the stakes are.



*I am not even remotely sorry for expressing things in that way given the title