Scifi Thriller Opening

[ColGray]

The plot, prose and style of this is so far out of my comfort zone I need hiking boots and a week’s supply of Mars bars to get me anywhere close to it, so it’s safe to say I’m not one of your intended readership! (And I had to laugh at the idea of your being confused by my piece – a model of elegance and clarity, naturally – when this is so bamboozingly opaque, not to say impenetrable on first read! Actually, even on second and third read in parts, as I still don’t understand the bit about helping him to breathe and the class watching.)

lol-- wait, wait, you've got it backwards; my piece is the model of elegance and clarity! /s This is both a different genre, style and tense from my norm, so trying lots of things here.

The death doula snippet obviously needs to go. She's imagining herself as a doula but rather than preparing to give birth, she's preparing him to die, thus, having him breath while she looks around the class [that exists in her head] and smiling like the proud teacher [that she is ... in her head]. Jokes are always better when they completely fail and then get explained, right? If you've seen 30 Rock or Brooklyn 99, they do these cut away jokes that last 2-6 seconds. This was my failed attempt at that.

Anyhow, for what it’s worth, I’m with Swank in saying the opening para put me off – rhetorical questions are tricky things, especially at the beginning – but in my case persevering didn’t bring a change of mind and heart. I also found the use of pornography so early on, no matter how tame, rather distasteful with Kyle’s near-salivating coupled with the dismissive description of the woman. (Yes, everyone is judgemental as you've noted in a later post, but for me at least this rang as near-misogynistic in its gloating.)

Same with the rhetorical. Swing and a miss!

Candidly, the use of pornography is intended to be off-putting but I think the progression needs rework. The image of being at a party and someone thrusting a glass plate picture of a naked person at you, and lauding it as "authentic", a) happened to me about 15 years ago, b) is wildly off-putting and my brain went to, How do i exit this conversation immediately, and c) it's highly judgmental bc the person pushing the image is saying, This thing in my hand is authentic--and the people around me/you are not. I'm struggling to grok how the person on whom the image is thrust is the focus of ire, rather than the person shoving the image in someone else's face, but i think that's entirely on my execution of the scene.

The idea of multiple worlds didn’t occur to me, and I put the frequent murders down to some kind of role-play/simulation/fantasy, but that could well be because I don’t read much present-day SF so I don’t know what’s commonplace now, but it's perhaps best to make it clearer earlier on. And although I wouldn’t have labelled the main character as misandrist (I’d put her down as an equal opportunities hater), the words “sociopath” and “psychotic” weren’t far from my thoughts on first read.

Multiple world theory is very "in" right now but it's not terribly new (DC and Marvel comics have used it since at least the 80's). I've written in that space myself--it's fun!

But, my intention wasn't to define the conceit by sentence 10, but to ensure that readers know something is off/this isn't normal and then define the conceit by the end of chapter 1: She's a detective, she solves crimes, she's in a sim, she's trapped,

It's also probably my own rabbit hole knowledge and not something i should expect of readers, but, psychopathy and sociopathy are defined by a lack of empathy and emotional connection to others and a lack of normal societal morals. I was trying to avoid the, Oh, she's a sociopath, interpretation by having her debate the morality because a sociopath wouldn't. The morality is irrelevant (to a real sociopath). Again, fodder for rework!

Anyhow, I’m a nit-picker, so some points that will undoubtedly be of more use to you than the above:

Definitely helpful and I didn't even think to go back and check Word's autocorrect on this stuff. Thank you!

• I am a martyr and my cross is named, `Kyle` – no comma and no quotation marks needed, and as HB says the left hand one leans the wrong way. (If it’s of interest I read this as shorthand for “the cross I have to bear” but it still rather surprised me as an overt Christian reference in a futuristic SF work, but that may be a matter of UK-US differences of education and expectation.)

Yep, cross i have to bear, which comes from the fact that many early Christians were martyred on crosses.

There's a whole other debate on religion, but, anthropologically speaking, three things you can find in literally any recorded human civilization are 1) Rules on who can/cannot have babies with whom, 2) A way to get altered (liquor, mushrooms, frogs, smoking, etc.) and 3) Explanations of higher powers (god/s, spirits, ancestors, animism, etc.). In my opinion, the supposition that theistic religious traditions vanish in the next century fails at a human hard-wiring level.

• that announces, he’s a good guy – again no comma needed but if you want to set it off, you’d need a colon
• The world didn’t need more Kyle’s, generally, or more of this Kyle, specifically – again the commas aren’t needed; the apostrophe at “Kyle’s” is wrong, it’s just “Kyles” since it’s a simple plural, and since the text is present tense that “didn’t” rather stands out, as does the he was what in the next line, so you might want to think about what you're intending there
• Kyle’s die young. There are no octogenarian Kyle’s – again, no apostrophes here for the plurals
• six-hundred times – no hyphen, two separate words
• pitch shifted – conversely, a hyphen is best here to create a compound adjective, and the same for brass rimmed
• trust-fund DJ’s – again no apostrophe, it’s just a plural
• “South Africa wasn’t under British rule?” Kyle protests with bland, flat eyes – is he protesting if it’s given as a question? And as a stylistic point what relevance has his eyes to the perhaps-protest?

I love that rhetorical technique and use it a lot, so its presence here didn't worry me, but (a) I think it needs to be used in character and (b) a little of it can go a long way, and I end up taking some out to avoid overload, so perhaps watch how often it's used in the entirety of the work.

Anyway, hope some of that helps. Good luck with it!

Definitely helps -- thank you!

 

[The Judge]

lol-- wait, wait, you've got it backwards; my piece is the model of elegance and clarity! /s

In which multiverse?!

The image of being at a party and someone thrusting a glass plate picture of a naked person at you, and lauding it as "authentic", a) happened to me about 15 years ago,

and c) it's highly judgmental bc the person pushing the image is saying, This thing in my hand is authentic--and the people around me/you are not.

Ah, that went completely over my head. I thought he was simply saying other porn isn't authentic, not that he was passing comment on everyone else. I also didn't grasp how it had come about that he was showing her. Perhaps more revulsion might be in order.

I'm struggling to grok how the person on whom the image is thrust is the focus of ire, rather than the person shoving the image in someone else's face, but i think that's entirely on my execution of the scene.

Ah, no. I thought it was taken as read that Kyle is a crude, vulgar, crass boor and worse (and thanks for teaching me a new word with "choad" by the way) and he deserved to be slapped down, so I'd have had no problems if she'd directed her contempt at him. It's the long, lingering description of the woman in the image that I found distasteful, with Claudia's jeering tone about her body -- all the disdain is directed at the objectified (and likely exploited) woman and her pose rather than the sh*ts who brought the porn into being and continue to drool over it.

In my opinion, the supposition that theistic religious traditions vanish in the next century fails at a human hard-wiring level.

I wouldn't argue the point even if I could (we don't talk religion here on Chrons because such discussions can get heated all too quickly, so this will have to be the end of it) but some kind of theism doesn't necessarily equate to specific knowledge of traditional Christianity -- I have grave doubts that many people on a British High Street would know much at all. As I said though, it's likely a difference in UK-US experience.

 

[Danny McG]

Get the story finished and let the beta readers look at it, I couldn't care less about colons and inverted commas etc at this point...i wanna see how it grabs my interest and if it seems a worthwhile read.

All the prissy little grammar details can be sorted at the proof reading stages later on.

 

[Bowler1]

Ok, a lot to like for me here - some people would say I'm comfortable with senseless violence, but I'm actually a very nice guy with a fetish for pitchforks - what's wrong with that I ask you?

The start felt like like we were living with the killer and when later this was not the case, I felt a bit cheated. Set the premise sooner I think, if only for clarity. The porn bits were pushing things some, but the poop shoots felt overly strong even for me - while also potentailly dated, how many people younger than 25 know South Africian history that well? Anyway, you're clearly pushing boundarys here and generally it didn't bother me too much, but with the images coming fast and furious, it felt a little over worked at times. I think a whole book at such a fast and hard hitting pace would be too much for me, but the section posted in general worked for me. Just more on clarity please, so it's clear this is someone living the events not carrying out the crimes. Then I feel you can revel in the details as the character is no longer the psychopath and this would put that needed little bit of distance between your character and the killer.

Now grab a pitchfork and let's go find ourselves some Kyles (hopefully comma correct, or Judge could be on to me) and do naughty things to them.