First 550 words of a novel, A Distant Blue Light

[Michael Bickford]

My first post for crit! Anxious and excited. I've had good interactions with all the nice, smart folks I've encountered here so far. Ready for that to change somewhat when y'all land into my piece!
Being a novel, this is just the opening to several set-ups. I want readers to have certain questions—to wonder about certain things that will come out over the first few chapters. So, I'm interested in what you notice, may be unsure of, or even confused by because questions and uncertainties are part of the set-up for details to be revealed in time.
Thank you for reading it.


A Distant Blue Light


PART ONE

1.0 Launch

“OIT5 requesting permission to engage boosters.”

This twenty-third launch will be a first in the pilot’s twelve-year career: the boosters will be accelerating Orbital Industry’s Transport Module 5 completely out of earth-orbit, placing it on a path around the sun. So, even after twenty-two launches, the excitement around this one would have been almost overwhelming, but dread lurks just below the surface as well because far more is being launched in the next few minutes than a transport module to a five-year mission. In this astronaut’s young life, the prospect of failure looms larger than ever before.

“Permission certified, OIT5. Final clearance on your request. Looking good you two!”

The flight engineer, on the other hand, has experienced only two previous acceleration events—the initial ground-launch, two weeks ago, and a subsequent relaunch into their current geosynchronous orbit at L2—yet has a cool confidence partially based on that dearth of experience, but more fundamentally grounded in deep self-knowledge.

“Enga–agment?”

“Is that a joke?”

“Sort of. I mean, we never really did that part.”

“Oh, OK. I’m saying yes all over again then, if you’re asking.”

“Roger that.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Negative.”

“Oh, just negative thoughts.”

“Negatory on the negatives.”

“Ha! That’s good, cuz it’s too late now.”

“Roger that.”

Checking for scratch-worthy readouts, they scan once more the red and green graphics that pulse and crawl across the holographic display hovering before them, the starfield through the flight deck’s view-port dimmed by its artificial brilliance. The pilot’s biodata looks like a flunked polygraph—biofeedback failing them as usual—heartrate, blood pressure, endocrine readings all in the yellow; only the breath coming slow, steady, and deep, keeping O2 saturation nominal. The flight engineer on the other hand is either a stone-cold liar, or naturally calm in stressful situations. The pilot relaxes a few beats per minute knowing the latter to be the case.

“Ready to engage auxiliary engines on this end. Orbital Industries Transport Module 5 requesting final clearance. Just say the word, Willa.”

“Roger, OIT5. The window is open and L2 Control is green. We are GO for full auxiliary burn on your mark. See you on the other side!” The faux enthusiasm in Willa’s usually calm voice strikes them both as funny, but neither of them laugh. Willa isn’t capable of being intentionally humorous.

“OK, then. No joke this time. Engaging. On my mark, 3 – 2 – 1 – Engage auxiliary engines.”

“Auxiliary engines engaged.”

The reusable boosters that will power the newlyweds out of L2 orbit press their backs into their twin acceleration seats. Fighting the rising gs, Del slides a gloved hand across the padded console between them. Naz, sensing this, reciprocates. “I know this is the right thing to do, Del,” says Naz.

“I do too,” says Del.

As the gs multiply, they relax as they have been trained to do, mindful of their breathing: inhale, count, hold, count, release, count, repeat. Display off, they monitor their own bodies for strain. As the invisible weight builds up on their chests, they sink deeper into the e-foam, letting the computers do the work until the big burn is over and they can float freely in the spacecraft that will be their home for the nine-month journey to the cluster of asteroids they will be mining.

​

 

[luriantimetraveler]

Hail, fellow California! (I'm down in the Bay)

PART ONE

1.0 Launch

“OIT5 requesting permission to engage boosters.”

This twenty-third launch will be a first in the pilot’s twelve-year career: the boosters will be accelerating Orbital Industry’s Transport Module 5 completely out of earth-orbit, placing it on a path around the sun. So, even after twenty-two launches, the excitement around this one would have been almost overwhelming, but dread lurks just below the surface as well because far more is being launched in the next few minutes than a transport module to a five-year mission. In this astronaut’s young life, the prospect of failure looms larger than ever before. Both the tense and the avoidance of character (the astronaut) made this paragraph confusing for me. I was also tripped up by the cascade of numbers (twenty-third launch, twelve-year career, Module 5, five-year mission). It took me several reads to understand what was happening (could also be user error!), and in the end, I wasn't left with a strong sense of the astronaut's fear of failure — the fear was muted by the convoluted explanation of what was happening.

“Permission certified, OIT5. Final clearance on your request. Looking good you two!”

The flight engineer, Where is the engineer in relation to the pilot? Are they in the same part of the ship? Right now our two characters are more abstract than imaginable on the other hand, has experienced only two previous acceleration events—the initial ground-launch, two weeks ago, and a subsequent relaunch into their current geosynchronous orbit at L2—by the time we're here, I've forgotten the subject of the sentence yet has a cool confidence partially based on that dearth of experience, but more fundamentally grounded in deep self-knowledge. Just a reflection: the language in these first two paragraphs is very formal. It doesn't naturally set the reader up for the joking banter that follows.

“Enga–agment?”

“Is that a joke?” Without dialogue tags (which I recognize was a deliberate choice to withhold that these are a married couple) I wasn't sure who was saying each line, which is a missed opportunity for characterization. Could be remedied with "..." the astronaut replied.

“Sort of. I mean, we never really did that part.”

“Oh, OK. I’m saying yes all over again then, if you’re asking.” Cute!

“Roger that.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Negative.”

“Oh, just negative thoughts.”

“Negatory on the negatives.” LOL love this

“Ha! That’s good, cuz it’s too late now.”

“Roger that.”

Checking for scratch-worthy readouts, they scan once more the red and green graphics that pulse and crawl across the holographic display hovering before them, the starfield through the flight deck’s view-port dimmed by its artificial brilliance. The pilot’s biodata looks like a flunked polygraph—biofeedback failing them Is the them referring to the pilot? Both pilot and engineer? as usual—heartrate, blood pressure, endocrine readings all in the yellow; only the breath coming slow, steady, and deep, keeping O2 saturation nominal. The flight engineer on the other hand is either a stone-cold liar, or naturally calm in stressful situations. The pilot relaxes a few beats per minute knowing the latter to be the case. Nice characterization here

“Ready to engage auxiliary engines on this end. Orbital Industries Transport Module 5 requesting final clearance. Just say the word, Willa.” By this point, I think you are hoping that we have sorted out which character is which, but I still feel lost. Is Willa the pilot? The engineer?

“Roger, OIT5. The window is open and L2 Control is green. We are GO for full auxiliary burn on your mark. See you on the other side!” The faux enthusiasm in Willa’s usually calm voice strikes them both as funny, but neither of them laugh. Willa isn’t capable of being intentionally humorous. Oh — is Willa a third character who is giving them permission to launch? Hadn't really realized there was a third character in this scene.

“OK, then. No joke this time. Engaging. On my mark, 3 – 2 – 1 – Engage auxiliary engines.”

“Auxiliary engines engaged.”

The reusable boosters that will power the newlyweds out of L2 orbit press their backs into their twin acceleration seats. Fighting the rising gs, Del slides a gloved hand across the padded console between them. Naz, sensing this, reciprocates. “I know this is the right thing to do, Del,” says Naz.

“I do too,” says Del.

As the gs multiply, they relax as they have been trained to do, mindful of their breathing: inhale, count, hold, count, release, count, repeat. Display off, they monitor their own bodies for strain. As the invisible weight builds up on their chests, they sink deeper into the e-foam, letting the computers do the work until the big burn is over and they can float freely in the spacecraft that will be their home for the nine-month journey to the cluster of asteroids they will be mining. Sweet close to the scene

Noticings, wonderings, thoughts (questions to ponder! Don't feel the need to answer them to me ):

• I was confused by who was who throughout almost the entirety of this scene, and I'm not sure what you hope to gain by withholding the names of the two principle characters?
• The banter — it's GREAT! Very sweet and does a lot of work in characterization (although, as noted, because I didn't know who was who, some of it gets lost)
• Is Del the pilot (i.e., the one with a feeling of dread)? I would have loved a hint or a hook of some residual dread re: the mining operation (which I assume has something to do with why Del is nervous? Or is Del nervous because they are pregnant [reading into your Lounge post LOL]?)?

Thanks for sharing your work for critique!

 

[sule]

I thought this was a good opener. I was initially thrown by the present tense omniscient narrator, but I think I got used to it by the end. The dialogue worked for me, as well; in my opinion it was the strongest part of this passage. I didn't know for sure who said what, but I wasn't really bothered by that this early in.

There were a couple of sentences whose construction troubled me, but since I am not a grammar expert I will chalk that up to personal preference.

 

[Michael Bickford]

Hail, fellow California! (I'm down in the Bay)



Noticings, wonderings, thoughts (questions to ponder! Don't feel the need to answer them to me ):

• I was confused by who was who throughout almost the entirety of this scene, and I'm not sure what you hope to gain by withholding the names of the two principle characters?
• The banter — it's GREAT! Very sweet and does a lot of work in characterization (although, as noted, because I didn't know who was who, some of it gets lost)
• Is Del the pilot (i.e., the one with a feeling of dread)? I would have loved a hint or a hook of some residual dread re: the mining operation (which I assume has something to do with why Del is nervous? Or is Del nervous because they are pregnant [reading into your Lounge post LOL]?)?

Thanks for sharing your work for critique!

OK good to know. Thanks for responding.
I intentionally want the reader to not know the gender/sex of either character from the banter, or which one has which job, so if you couldnt tell which was which, I succeeded. I want the readers prejudices to come out. The characters’ genders/sexualities—which are complex and a major part of both their personas and the story—are matched with names and jobs within the next page or two and further developed throughout. I only want the confusion to last a few moments, but I do want each reader to be aware of their stereotypes/prejudices when I tell them who’s who.

Good thought about more of a hint re the source of Nan’s dread (you switched the names, but you barely got introduced, so thats OK) sources of Naz’s dread hinted at are 1) that she’s never been out of earth orbit, and 2) that she is a newlywed—i allude to the fact that they are launching their marriage as well as the transport module. I will add a few words to make these allusions more explicit.
It is complicated and Naz is not sure themself why they feel this dread and they (Naz) are in denial about it, so it’ll come out in interactions with Del and in backstory. You seemed to notice that Naz uses gender-neutral pronouns and I will as well in referring to Naz. It has been a challenge for me and it will be for the reader, but it is a real thing, an important thing, that is happening now, so I wanted to deal with just such a gender-fluid self-concept and the sex-transitional physiology I predict for the future in my character living 100 - 150 years From now.
It will come out early on that Naz was born cis female, (Referred to as “she/her“ in backstory of her girlhood and adolescence) she socially transgendered to they/them/their as an adolescent and then went through only a bottom surgery transition, physically. Her hormone profile is completely under her personal control. Naz has breasts because she choose to retain them in her transitions. You astutely pointed to a possible pregnancy in a micro gravity situation. It is unclear whether Naz still has functioning ovaries and viable ova. This is later in part two, once they reach the miningy ship. Good call!

You’re minutes into a several hundred page novel—are you intrigued enough to keep reading? Curious enough about the people and the situation that you want to read on? Does it seem like it’s not the usual fare? Is that good by your lights?
oK you got more preview that I wanted to give. More will come in subsequent postings. They’ve got to finish this acceleration, square away the ship and explore their quarters. It‘s their wedding nigh after all.

 

[Michael Bickford]

I thought this was a good opener. I was initially thrown by the present tense omniscient narrator, but I think I got used to it by the end. The dialogue worked for me, as well; in my opinion it was the strongest part of this passage. I didn't know for sure who said what, but I wasn't really bothered by that this early in.

There were a couple of sentences whose construction troubled me, but since I am not a grammar expert I will chalk that up to personal preference.

yes, I want to reader to be confused and unsure of the genders and the jobs of the two characters at first . I want the reader to experience their own stereotypes and prejudices before I reveal Naz and Del in all their complexity and contradiction. I only lasts a minute or two over a novel of several hundred, so I think it’s tolerable and it serves a point.

Grammar in this novel will be a problem the writer and the reader will have to come to terms with.
Naz presents themself as they/them/their and I go along with that. I present their backstory, before her transition with pronouns she /her. A challenge for the writer and the reader, but this is happenping in our world, and will continue into the future, imo. It gets easier as you go along. Both of their gender and sexual orientations are complex—as are real people’s—but I, and they, will be quite explicit by the end of the Part 1.

 

[Droflet]

Hey, Michael.
Omni, hey? You are far braver than I. You want people to be confused? Okay, I'm confused. An agent or publisher might not like what I like. They're a simple lot and like things, if not spelled out, then at least cognizant. Your call, of course.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

Hi, and welcome to the crits. Hey, welcome to the site.

You may have seen some of my critiques before. I tend to be picky on detail and some have said too picky.

I'm not authority on writing and these ramblings should be treated as the musings of an idiot.

However, maybe you'll find it useful. If not - forgive.

Overall I was confused and the questions I asked were mostly distracting which prevented me getting involved with the characters.

OIT - the explanation came after another confusing sentence

This twenty-third launch will be a first in the pilot’s twelve-year career :-

So while I'm thinking could it be Off inter... Say what! This is is his twenty third first launch... Oh I never would have thought of Orbit. Wait, the engineeer an old timer, with just two launches???

If you get the idea.

Then it's followed by a dialogue that meant to confuse and it really does, so now I'm really really confused.

Sorry, but to me, this doesn't work.

Hope I helped

Tein.

 

[Brian G Turner]

The first few paragraphs read more like a newspaper report than a character experience, which means you are really missing out on the strengths of novel writing. It's more ideal to drop a reader into a character and raise immediate and interesting questions about that character's inner drives and conflict. The omniscient narrator perspective you've chosen is probably the weakest form of introduction you could opt for, and you would make your story a lot stronger if you focused on developing your Point Of View (POV) character better. You really would be advised to read Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer or watch Brandon Sanderson's writing lectures on YouTube to get a better idea of the techncialities so that you can get the most out of your writing.

I intentionally want the reader to not know the gender/sex of either character from the banter, or which one has which job, so if you couldnt tell which was which, I succeeded. I want the readers prejudices to come out.
...
I want to reader to be confused and unsure of the genders and the jobs of the two characters at first .

This can be seen as trying to be too clever and additionally being ignorant of SF as a genre. You'll find that issues of gender and sexuality are overtly addressed in a number of relatively recent books. You're also putting trying to trick the reader over the value of telling a strong story from the start. Obfuscating your setting and character circumstances is more likely to confuse a reader and make them give up than intrigue them.

I appreciate the feedback is more critical than encouraging, but it's more about how you are trying to tell your story from the start than anything wrong with the events themselves, and I do hope it helps.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

I like the narration and voice, the story moves along, and I don't mind that we don't know gender etc

There's a difference between confusing and leaving the reader feeling conned/cheated/played with by the author. For example when I read something by Will Self or James Joyce, I can be confused but I don't feel cheated.

You have chosen an omniscient narrator so as a writer you can't say the narrator didn't know. Using a limited narrator can give an author more scope because the narrator didn't know enough about something to tell the reader.

You can still give the characters some marker or identifiers because at the moment the dialogue is static and noise, as a reader I am working so hard to work out what is going on, I'm not actually taking in what is being said. Which is a shame because it's preventing what appears to be a good story from moving on. I don't know if it's the astronaut or the flight engineer speaking.

I've also not been given a reason to care about these characters.

If you're writing sci fi then it has certain genre expectations.

I know I've had to change what I write from fantasy to speculative fiction with a more literary bent because I like a slow introduction to the character. My stories need an overhaul because of it.

 

[tinkerdan]

The first thing I noticed was the lack of pronouns.
The next thing that flashed through my head as the dialogue progressed was that this was a couple--based on the above--I should expect it to be an unusual couple Two he's; two she's; two non-gender specifics; or even some mix.
The tell is too easy too early; so if, in fact, you are doing this just to mess with peoples heads about preconceived thoughts about the characters and sex and gender, I think you are ten or more years too late for that.

With that in mind you are trading that for a chance to dig into the emotions of the characters to get us involved with them. Or in the in the words of Forest Gump you are trading something with a better margin of success for a box of chocolates.[Where you are never sure just what you will get].

I'm not certain that it is worth it. I also think you could maintain a lot of the purpose and still bring the reader closer to the characters just by naming them early and establishing who says what and I think the names are not going to give up pronouns too quickly so you could still withhold the pronouns. At the same time you could give us more emotion from the characters if you went with something like third person POV. However, even with Omni, you could show by observation some of the emotion--people sweat; they fidget; their eyes tell us things; even facial expression tell us things. The more we know about these characters including who says what; the more involved in the story we can become.

Nine out of ten readers are going to figure it out quickly and probably be disappointed that they can't tell who said what so they can't differentiate the two right away so they are like a set of co-joined twins more than a married couple of indeterminant gender.

It's a nice idea; however I think you are hampering your writing and taking a chance on something that at least for me kind of falls flat.

Unless they are co-joined twins; in that case, wow, thumbs up.

 

[Wayne Mack]

One of the challenges I face when I write is that I know exactly what I want the story to say and I assume the reader has the same information even though the text did not provide it. Especially in an introduction, I feel the reader needs a limited amount of new information and that information needs to be expressed very explicitly.

To be blunt, I did not finish reading the excerpt before giving up and having no idea what I was supposed to grasp. I will try to recreate my initial reactions and then address some of the after the fact explanation provided.

1.0 Launch

“OIT5 requesting permission to engage boosters.”
[Rocket has taken off and has switched from main engines to boosters]

This twenty-third launch will be [Will be? The previous line said the launch had already occurred.] a first in the pilot’s twelve-year career: [If the pilot has had a twelve-year career, why is this the pilot's first launch?] the boosters will be accelerating Orbital Industry’s Transport Module 5 completely out of earth-orbit, placing it on a path around the sun. So, even after twenty-two launches, the excitement around this one would have been almost overwhelming, but dread lurks just below the surface as well [Who is excited? Who is in dread?] because far more is being launched in the next few minutes than a transport module [Other rockets are also being launched.] to a five-year mission. In this astronaut’s young life, [Young? I thought that the pilot had a twelve-year career?] the prospect of failure looms larger than ever before.
[Who is speaking? This sounds like notes of what to write.]

“Permission certified, OIT5. Final clearance on your request. Looking good you two!”

The flight engineer, on the other hand, has experienced only two previous acceleration events [Why only? The flight engineer has more experienced two launches, the pilot has only experienced one.] —the initial ground-launch, two weeks ago, and a subsequent relaunch into their current geosynchronous orbit at L2—yet has a cool confidence partially based on that dearth of experience, but more fundamentally grounded in deep self-knowledge. [Why would knowledge of self provide confidence for a third launch?]

“Enga–agment?” [Who is speaking? Why is the speaker stuttering?]

“Is that a joke?” [What joke?]

“Sort of. I mean, we never really did that part.” [If this launch is the pilot's first and it is a thing of dread with prospects of failure, why isn't the pilot concentrating on the launch?]

“Oh, OK. I’m saying yes all over again then, if you’re asking.”

“Roger that.”

“Having second thoughts?”

“Negative.”

“Oh, just negative thoughts.”

“Negatory on the negatives.”

“Ha! That’s good, cuz it’s too late now.”

“Roger that.”
[Why is this conversation happening now? ]

Checking for scratch-worthy readouts, [What is a scratch-worthy readout?] they scan once more the red and green graphics that pulse and crawl across the holographic display hovering before them, the starfield through the flight deck’s view-port [I thought they were looking at the display not at a view-port.][A flight deck implies this is a large ship, not a rocket capsule.] dimmed by its artificial brilliance. [Is it dimmed or is it blilliant?]
[This is where I simply gave up reading.]

From the explanation:

yes, I want to reader to be confused and unsure of the genders and the jobs of the two characters at first . [The jobs are defined, pilot and flight engineer. There are three characters presented.] I want the reader to experience their own stereotypes and prejudices [I am not sure what stereotypes and prejudices I can form before being introduced to the characters.] before I reveal Naz and Del in all their complexity and contradiction. I only lasts a minute or two over a novel of several hundred, so I think it’s tolerable and it serves a point. [As a reader, I am not going to keep slogging through text to see if the author is going to make a salient point. Seeing as the launch does not seem to be pertinent to the point to be made, perhaps just skip this entire section and start with the reveal of Naz and Del.]

For me, this introduction did not work. I did not feel it introduced environment, character, nor plot line. I have a bias of being an impatient reader, so if an opening doesn't quickly grab me, I am going to put the book back on the shelf without purchase and try another one.

 

[Michael Bickford]

Hi Droflet.
Thank you for the response.
Yeah OMNI. Ominous. But actually as I go along and rewrite I am trying to make it 3rd person from alternating POVs. I have only two main characters and it's about them and their relationship as much as anything, so it makes sense to do it that way.
Naz is gender-fluid/semi-trans and I was experimenting with no pronouns at first and then sliding into ungendered pronouns for her POV, but it is turning out to be a bear of a grammar ands sense-making task, so I'm gonna give it up. I haven't been able to get much guidance or even examples from transgendered writers.
I really appreciate you reading my experiment and hope you will read the next post which is a normalized version of this intro.
Thanks again.

 

[Michael Bickford]

Thank you, TheEndIsNigh, for the read and the response.

This was something of an experiment, but it was what I was doing at the time and so I posted it to see how people would read it—or if they even could.
I have been trying to write Naz with ungendered pronouns, but it's too tricky. I'm switching back. I hope you will read the next rendering of this intro. It will be clearer.
I was thinking of an inversion of the Blake quote about never knowing how much is enough until you know how much is too much?
More like You never know how little is sufficient until you know how little is too little.
This was apparently too little, and so confusing.
I'm working out how to deal with Naz's gender fluidity and partial sex-transitioned state in another way. Her sexuality is an important element in the story.
My rewrite is ready with normal pronouns. I'll post it after I respond to these responses.
Thanks.

 

[Michael Bickford]

The first few paragraphs read more like a newspaper report than a character experience, which means you are really missing out on the strengths of novel writing. It's more ideal to drop a reader into a character and raise immediate and interesting questions about that character's inner drives and conflict. The omniscient narrator perspective you've chosen is probably the weakest form of introduction you could opt for, and you would make your story a lot stronger if you focused on developing your Point Of View (POV) character better. You really would be advised to read Wonderbook by Jeff Vandermeer or watch Brandon Sanderson's writing lectures on YouTube to get a better idea of the techncialities so that you can get the most out of your writing.



This can be seen as trying to be too clever and additionally being ignorant of SF as a genre. You'll find that issues of gender and sexuality are overtly addressed in a number of relatively recent books. You're also putting trying to trick the reader over the value of telling a strong story from the start. Obfuscating your setting and character circumstances is more likely to confuse a reader and make them give up than intrigue them.

I appreciate the feedback is more critical than encouraging, but it's more about how you are trying to tell your story from the start than anything wrong with the events themselves, and I do hope it helps.

Thank you, Brian, for the read and response.
And thanks for the references. I'll look into them.
This was an experiment, and it has failed. I will am rewriting in 3rd person POV shifting between the two main characters. I
I've given up trying to write Naz's character with ungendered pronouns. I am bringing her gender fluidity and sex-transitioned situation to the reader in another way. It is a tricky thing, but that's who this character is, and it is central to their relationship which is largely what the story is about.
I have a rewrite of this into ready to post and hope you will read it. I'll post it after I respond to these responses.
Thanks again.

 

[Michael Bickford]

Thank you, AnyaKimlin, for the read and response.
Yes, this is my first attempt at Sci-fi in many years. I know I am bending the expectations. This attempt has crashed. It was an experiment, though, and I'm ready with a clearer, more conventional intro scene, I hope you will read it. I am not going to attempt to write Naz's character with ungendered pronouns, though I have several chapters already that way. I'm rewriting with normal pronouns and presenting "her" gender fluidity and tran-sexuality a different way. Too hard to be clear using only they, them and their!
I'm posting the rewrite as soon as I respond to all the kind and helpful crit I've received here.
Thanks again.

 

[Michael Bickford]

Interesting and helpful response, tinkerdan. Thank you.

Yes, the pronoun thing is an experiment that failed. I might attempt it in a smaller piece at some point in the future, but for this story, even though Naz is gender fluid and partially transitioned sexually, it is too hard to be clear using they, them and their. I'll bring her trans-sexuality into the story another way. It is central to their relationship, which is much of what the story is about.
Blake could have said: You never know how little is sufficient unless you know how little is too little. That's what I was thinking when I posted this extreme version. I'm kinda relieved to leave the experiment behind for now. I have another version with normal pronouns ready to post as soon as I respond to all the nice crit I've received here. Everyone has been very patient with my experiment. I really appreciate it. I will be going with 3rd person POV switching between Naz and Del. I hope you will read the new version.
Thanks again.
(Interesting about the co-joined twins. Have you read Geek Love? Also, I am writing a pseudo-memoir involving superfecundation—fraternal twins with different fathers. Not Sci-fi, but interesting.)

 

[Michael Bickford]

Thanks for the read and response.
Yes, this was a failed experiment. I've been writing and rewriting much of part one with different POVs. This was an extreme example. I appreciate everyone's patience. I get that it was too unclear to finish in your case, but appreciate your responding anyway.
I hope you will read the more conventional rewrite that I am posting later today. It still may not grab you, but I thanks in advance for giving it a try.

 

[Brian G Turner]

I am bringing her gender fluidity and sex-transitioned situation to the reader in another way.

Just to ask, are you writing this as someone who has experience of gender-fluid or transitioning people? Or are you writing this in because it seems cool and edgy, even relevant? Just that if you don't have experience of it, you could be setting yourself up for a fail from the start by making this topic a key part of the story.

Most normative writers struggle to portray normative characters well as it is, let alone divergent characters. What special insight do you have into the issue? That's a rhetorical question, because if your answer to yourself is that you don't, you may want to re-consider that aspect. Of course, if you are gender-fluid or transitioning yourself, or are very close to people who are, then perhaps you really can bring something useful to wider discussion of the issue.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Thank you, AnyaKimlin, for the read and response.
Yes, this is my first attempt at Sci-fi in many years. I know I am bending the expectations. This attempt has crashed. It was an experiment, though, and I'm ready with a clearer, more conventional intro scene, I hope you will read it. I am not going to attempt to write Naz's character with ungendered pronouns, though I have several chapters already that way. I'm rewriting with normal pronouns and presenting "her" gender fluidity and tran-sexuality a different way. Too hard to be clear using only they, them and their!
I'm posting the rewrite as soon as I respond to all the kind and helpful crit I've received here.
Thanks again.

It hasn't crashed it just needs a rewrite. That's not a disaster - most early drafts of new works need work. There's nothing wrong with ungendered pronouns or the more conventional they (seriously I have a household with a trans woman and a trans man who went through various phases). The biggest issue was it wasn't clear which character was saying what and they weren't grounded in their space and time.

 

[TheEndIsNigh]

S/he said
s-he said
s.he said

just a thought