The first chapter of a story

[paranoid marvin]

Currently untitled, but something I have been interested in writing for a while now. Any comments and observations are warmly appreciated.




"The point is," said Grayson.

"Yes?" enquired Jennings.

"The point is," he persisted.

"Go on," encouraged Jennings.

"The point is... look, will you please stop interrupting me!" spluttered Grayson.

"I'm sorry old chap." replied Jennings apologetically, "I was only trying to encourage you."

"Well don't, it's annoying. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was..." he paused for a second, "Look, I've forgotten what it was now;" glaring at Jennings, "But you can be sure that it was valid and very..., er very..."

"Pointy?" suggested Jennings.

"Go boil your head!" retorted Grayson, storming out of the room. If he could have slammed the door behind him, he would have done so. But seeing as all of the portals on the ship had electronic mechanisms, he decided instead to press the 'close' button very firmly indeed.

"What was up with him?" asked Lieutenant Blake, lifting his gaze from his navigation monitor.

"Oh, it's his first trip aboard a holiday cruiser," explained Jennings. "He hasn't accustomed himself to the way things are done around here yet."

"Ah... yes... I see," replied Blake, "We all thought we knew better in our salad days."

"Salad days..." mused Jennings, "Tennyson?"

"You're improving," commiserated Blake, "But no, it's that's the Bards's work: Antony and Cleopatra, Act One My salad days when I was green in judgement, cold in blood."

"So that's where the term 'Caesar salad' comes from then, is it?" mused Jennings.

"Not quite," replied Blake, "Anyway that was Cleopatra speaking."

Such riveting conversation helped time pass for the bridge crew of the Starship Sunshine. Their six week mission to take the latest consignment of rich and famous passengers around the binary star system Callisto, before depositing them on the luxury planetoid Triax 5, and then returning them home. And it may have continued to have been just as uninteresting as all of the previous three hundred and sixty five voyages that Sunshine had made, if it hadn't been for the small chunk of rock that had accidentally placed in her path by an overtaking ore mining ship that had spilled part of its load.

"Red alert, red alert!" cried the NavCom, the ship's computer warning systems.

"Are you sure Nav?" enquired Blake, dashing back over to his monitor. "We've never had a 'Red Alert' before."

"I wouldn't have said it was a Red Alert if it wasn't one," retorted the computer sulkily. "Anyway, I've told you before: it's NavCom, not Nav. How would you feel if I started calling you Bla?"

"Okay, okay Nav, don't get your transistors in a twist. So what is this 'Red Alert' all about then?"

NavCom decided not to persist with the protests regarding the shortening of its name. "A chunk of carbon has found its way into the navigation system; we can't steer the ship. Also..."

"Nav, you'd better put the ship in 'park'," interrupted Blake.

"If you'd let me finish," continued NavCom, "I was about to inform you that it also damaged the propulsion system."

"But shouldn't the heat and the pressure from the engines have evaporated the chunk of rock?" asked Blake, ignoring the computer's retort.

"Well normally yes," explained NavCom "But this piece hit a blind spot, and caused the carbon to crystallise into a thousand kilograms of the hardest stone possible."

"You mean we have a diamond that weighs a ton wedged into our navigation system?" gasped Blake. At the mention of diamonds, Jennings pricked up his ears, as did Grayson, who had surreptitiously re-entered the room upon hearing the alert warning.

"The boy's a genius," said NavCom sarcastically, "You've got it in one. Shall I try using the emergency exhaust systems to disintegrate the blockage?"

"No!!!" cried Paulson, Blake and Jennings in unison.

 

[Wayne Mack]

The sounds like a dysfunctional spaceship crew that is embarking on a get rich quick scheme with a sulky, sentient computer system. This is a set up for a fun and interesting tale. Some things that distracted me from the story were, the deferred description of the setting and getting three crew members' names thrown at me in a short span without them having any significant personality difference.

It is quite far into the story before I realized that this was aboard a spaceship in some future time period and that there was another person present. As each character only gets a very brief introduction, I didn't feel any differentiation between characters; they all seemed to have precisely the same voice. One idea to consider would be to start the story with the paragraph naming the Starship Sunshine and its collision and limiting the seen to Blake and NavCom. This would allow each of the previous conversations to be deferred and given an extended stage to express specific personality traits. Having different personalities at odds with each other provides a good basis for comedy.

Another thing to consider is the dialogue feels to be heavily tagged with a lot of adjectives and modifiers. A reference on dialogue techniques that I found useful is:

This clip 15 minutes and Brandon Sanderson is an interesting lecturer.

I think this is a good set up for an interesting story. I always like humor, so I look forward to seeing the full thing.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Thanks for the feedback. Plenty to ponder on there.

 

[HareBrain]

By the end we have a potentially interesting situation, but I think the route there could use some strengthening. For one thing, there's no real viewpoint character. To start with, we assume it's Grayson, because we're introduced to him first. And a bit later this seems to be confirmed by "If he could have slammed the door behind him, he would have done so", which is clearly showing us his interior workings. But then he's out of the room and we're still with Jennings. If you're not clear about the different types of viewpoint, it's worth reading up on. What you have here could be omniscient, except there's no clear "god-like" narrator, so it reads as head-hopping, which is rarely engaging. I think it would work better for us to really get inside the head of the main character before the crisis point, especially in comedy.

I also think Grayson's complaints about being interrupted don't work because to us it doesn't read that he is being interrupted. He finishes speaking, and there is a pause for the dialogue tag, before the next voice. You have to show the interruption. Something like this would be much more effective IMO.

Grayson took a breath. "The point is--"
"Yes?" enquired Jennings.
Grayson persisted. "The point is--"
"Go on," encouraged Jennings.

There should be no gap at all between what's being interrupted and what's interrupting it. The em-dash is traditional for interruptions.

I did like the line about Caesar salad relating to the Shakespeare quote.

Finally, I know very little about writing comedy, but I think you're trying too hard to be continually funny, especially with the NavCom joining in. And the bickering with it echoes the first few lines a bit too much. Good comedy is often the interplay of characters with strong traits that spark off each other. The good thing about a strong character-based set-up is that even if you struggle to think of a joke every few lines, it works as drama.

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Thanks for the great feedback HB.

 

[msstice]

Overall, getting Red Dwarf vibes here, which is great (Red Dwarf was my first experience with SciFi comedy, and I think it's still the best). I did read the other critiques before writing mine, so it's a bit polluted, but I agree with most of the previous pointers.

I got that the structure was: here's the crew's mundane life and now here's the inciting event. I think the "mundane life" part is unsatisfactory by being too long and too short at the same time.

It might be a better opening to spend more time with the crew bickering (conflict!!) over small things (mundane!!) to set the stage. An argument over who ate the last piece of bacon is low stakes to us (mundane) but if depicted as high stakes for the characters emphasizes how bored out of their minds they are and has scope for character building. Then comes the diamondification which is the inciting event.

As an aside, it sounds like the rock got stuck in the propulsion system rather than the navigation system.

 

[THX1138]

My experience in comedy comes from improve street acting for Renascence Fairs (Medieval Fairs) so the setting and sight gag were already in place for the joke and punch line. And I have played around with writing comedy, just not much here in Chrons yet. So, my penny's worth.

Writing comedy can be difficult to do. When we see it on TV or in movies, the scene is set visually for it. But in writing, we need to describe it just enough and get the timing of it too. And sometimes it might be in front of you all along in the wording on the page. Like here, it seems that the crew know each other's behaviors, so use it. Like this...

"The point is... look, will you please stop interrupting me!" spluttered Grayson.

"I'm sorry old chap." replied Jennings apologetically, "I was only trying to encourage you."

"Well don't, it's annoying. Anyway, the point I was trying to make was..." he paused for a second, "Look, I've forgotten what it was now;" glaring at Jennings, "But you can be sure that it was valid and very..., er very..."

"I'm sorry old chap." replied Jennings apologetically, "I was only trying to encourage you."

"To what? To forget what I was going to say? Well, it won't work boyo! Anyway, the point I was trying to make was..." he paused for a second, "Look, I've forgotten what it was now;" glaring at Jennings, "But you can be sure that it was valid and very..., er very..."

"Memorable?" suggested Jennings.


Something like that maybe? But setting up the scene may be just as simple too. Like this variation of the 'Space Pimple' from RD:

Lister entered the ships cafeteria holding his head, "Oy, me head hurts really badly! I don't know how much of this I can take!"

"Sir!" Interjected Kryten, the ships adopted stowaway android. "It appears you have a rather large space pimple on your forehead." Gesturing at the overly large, wrinkly prune growth.

"A space pimple? How do I get rid of it?"

"Why, simple sir. You can pop it yourself or wait for it to pop on its own." Informed the android.

"I ain't popping this me self! And I'm not waiting for it to pop on its own ither!" Lister turned and left the room. Suddenly there was a loud POP and a very unpleasant sound of pudding plopping to the floor.

"That feels better!" Lister called from the corridor. "And now we have some artificial creamer too!"

Kryten failed to fight back the unfortunate 'Dry Heave' in his programming.


As writers, we have to set it up!

 

[Bowler1]

Hey PM

Lots of Head Hopping and it confuses and blurs the characters near the end.

I liked the opening as it was good dialogue that pulled me in. I also felt this had painted you into a corner, because it was so heavily dialogue based that to set the scene and get description in it had to be with a new section explaining the spaceship that is a noticeable shift in presentation. You then swing back to dialogue again leaving the description section in the middle even more noticeable because of this. So from me, I think you need to mix it up more as you go and not just so heavily dialogue based, and to and keep closer to a main character for clarity.

Lots of good here. I read to the end and enjoyed the whole idea so keep at it, it did make me smile. You have the nub of a great idea - editing will be your friend here.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Thanks guys for all the feedback. As my favourite scifi author is Douglas Adams, and my favourite scifi TV series is Red Dwarf I guess that both have had an influence on my writing.

I really do struggle at times with descriptive text, so that is probably why I rely more on dialogue. Also comedy feels nore dificult as the story increases in length; it's a real balancing act between a gag-laden Police Squad story and something that is less in-your-face like HHGTTG. I may need to try for a shorter story.

Plenty to think on, and thankyou all again.

 

[ColGray]

My experience in comedy comes from improve street acting for Renascence Fairs (Medieval Fairs) so the setting and sight gag were already in place for the joke and punch line. And I have played around with writing comedy, just not much here in Chrons yet. So, my penny's worth.

Writing comedy can be difficult to do. When we see it on TV or in movies, the scene is set visually for it. But in writing, we need to describe it just enough and get the timing of it too. And sometimes it might be in front of you all along in the wording on the page. Like here, it seems that the crew know each other's behaviors, so use it. Like this...

"I'm sorry old chap." replied Jennings apologetically, "I was only trying to encourage you."

"To what? To forget what I was going to say? Well, it won't work boyo! Anyway, the point I was trying to make was..." he paused for a second, "Look, I've forgotten what it was now;" glaring at Jennings, "But you can be sure that it was valid and very..., er very..."

"Memorable?" suggested Jennings.


Something like that maybe? But setting up the scene may be just as simple too. Like this variation of the 'Space Pimple' from RD:

Lister entered the ships cafeteria holding his head, "Oy, me head hurts really badly! I don't know how much of this I can take!"

"Sir!" Interjected Kryten, the ships adopted stowaway android. "It appears you have a rather large space pimple on your forehead." Gesturing at the overly large, wrinkly prune growth.

"A space pimple? How do I get rid of it?"

"Why, simple sir. You can pop it yourself or wait for it to pop on its own." Informed the android.

"I ain't popping this me self! And I'm not waiting for it to pop on its own ither!" Lister turned and left the room. Suddenly there was a loud POP and a very unpleasant sound of pudding plopping to the floor.

"That feels better!" Lister called from the corridor. "And now we have some artificial creamer too!"

Kryten failed to fight back the unfortunate 'Dry Heave' in his programming.


As writers, we have to set it up!

I like your edit @THX1138 --good punch up!

Couple of other suggestions/questions
1) Why does only one person have a rank-- there's only Lieutenant Blake. Everyone else is just a name. I wasn't sure if Grayson was crew or passenger.
2) Agree with the comments on reducing names/number of people in the scene
3) You could shift the tell of, This is mundane and OMG a red alert!, to a show by having NavCom make some comments about

"Lt. Blake, do you have a moment?" NavCom inquired.
"What is it, Nav? I was about the explain the history of icthyoidian emulsions on greenery to Jennings."
"Riveting. Is that more or less important than the Red Alert i'm about to sound?"
"Red al--we've never sounded a red alert on the Sunshine," Blake said, confused.
"Technically, it's been 742 days since our last red alert," Nav corrected -- etc

4) If people can make giant diamonds that easily, are diamonds that valuable? And if so, why? Same thing for slamming the door-- would someone who lives on a ship where there are no doors to slam think about slamming a door when they're frustrated?

Love the Red Dwarf vibes and the caesar salad joke. The interactions feel lived in--which is really nice.

 

[ExoHack]

I think it may be a good idea to have a scene of the characters acting normally with each other before the emergency situation. This could give the reader context of the characters character and we can see how far their character can change in the heat of the moment; a normal scene could also serve as an anchor for the reader, a sense of normal they would desperately want to see the characters return to (or not for some readers who like drama). This approach may also require the reader to be emotionally invested in characters in order for the reader to care about their return to the ships normal conditions and environment. You got this!

 

[ExoHack]

I see now that (unless I'm wrong and If I am, correct me) your beginning serves as a hook for the reader, as the reader wants to hear the freaking point Grayson is trying to make! It can be incorporated into the story. The logic of the first chapter can go as follows:
~ Hook the reader into your story with the conflict of getting a point across
~ Characterize the main characters - and I mean the main characters - because you don't have all the time in the world to characterize everyone;
The characters act in a normal manner for a few paragraphs (This and the comment above are interconnected)
~ Emergency strikes
~ Characters reflect on what just happened and their responses can serve as a catalyst for conflict (with short term or long term consequences)
Bonus: Both the reader and the characters can look back on the situation and ponder if the characters reactions were either A) out of character or B) unproductive for the situation. It could serve as a catalyst for conflict for the characters and serve as a moment of reflection (Should I have acted this way? Could I have done something different?) It's possible though that without any changes to the story, the characters could still reflect on their part of the situation, and it can still serve as a catalyst for conflict. That may have been a lot and I hope I didn't offend you or upset you, I just want to help!

 

[ExoHack]

I don't have anything else to say unless I see more material.

 

[paranoid marvin]

Thanks for the additional feedback it's much appreciated. Yes my intention is to go in head first with a memorable opening, then rein it back a little. Unless I made it into a novella.

Plenty to consider here, thanks again.

 

[THX1138]

@ExoHack Welcome to Chorns! And good points too. Good, bad or ugly, that's what critiques are for! It's the thread(s) I learn the most about writing from.

 

[DAgent]

I've been on a bit of a 'Dads Army' binge of late (up to series 5 so far), and a lot of the banter reminded me of a lot of those characters bickering with one another before getting into the absurd situation of the week! And then there was a touch of 'Red Dwarf' with the Nav computers personality to boot!
Not a blend I was expecting anyone to come up with anytime soon (I have been working on slightly similar but I'm more kinda worldbuilding on it right now) but Grant/Naylor did sell 'Red Dwarf' as 'Steptoe and Son' in Space, on Acid and this should work quite nicely. More please.