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So I've been thinking about this for a while now. I am a huge sci-fi fan and always wanted to write a novel. I'm bi-polar and have a very creative mind and I have all these character in side my head that I need to get out on paper. They have been developing over many years, having adventures together, living, loving and dying.
I am currently 150 pages in to a draft of the first in a series of books about these caracters. The series is entitled PARADOX (all capitols as its an acronym). Here is a snippet, please note this is a draft, the grammar may be bad at times, there are undoubtedly typos and such... please ignore them. I have someone to proof read it later lol. This is the opening part of the Prologue, which actually takes place right at the end of the book, because its a book about time travel. I've always been told that if the first couple pages in a book dont capture you, then you probably won't read further, so my question is..... did I capture your interest?
Paradox
Future's Prologue
19.9.2159 – 03:41 Universal Time.
The Seyborne Institute’s main control room, was once a hive of activity. The room had been brightly lit, shining metal stretched from floor to ceiling, only broken by the many computer monitors and view screens that displayed the various video feeds, medical data, status reports and other information that was vital to the crew that worked within. Now it stood almost empty, covered in a thick film of grime, dust and soot. All of the monitors and view screens were black as the night sky and one small desk lamp was all that lit the room.
Scott Seyborne, owner and head scientist of the Institute, sat in a battered chair, scribbling out equations in the dim light that flickered intermittently occasionally going out all together. Every time this happened, he flicked the bulb with his fingers and pleaded with it “Don't you fail on me, I have nearly finished. I promise I will turn you off soon”. During one instance of this repeating plea, a tall blonde woman entered the room “You know Scott, talking to inanimate objects isn't making you seem any more sane” she joked, Scott turned and looked at her before turning back to the paper on which he was furiously working. “Chrissie. You know very well that I am perfectly sane, even if the rest of the human population has deluded itself to thinking I have lost my mind. Now if you don't mind, I have work to do and so do you”
Chrissie Lee had once been amongst the principle scientists working at the Institute, she was a brilliant woman, attractive, hard working, funny and whom had graduated first in her class from the Lunar Colony University of Science. She looked around the room, just as the light went out again. Scott started to plead with the lamp again, but Chrissie interrupted him by flicking a switch causing the entire room erupt in to life. “I finished repairs on the back-up power generator about ten minutes ago, so now it's up to you”. Scott scanned the room, most of the monitors and view-screens were still almost black from the dirt that covered them, some didn't work at all.
The hum of electronic equipment began to fill the air, and Scott began to clean the dust and dirt from one of the keyboards that was inlaid within the desk. “Fantastic. It shouldn't take me long to finish off the calculations now, another few hours and...” his voice trailed off as he started inputting the data from his paper to the computer. Chrissie cleaned off another keyboard and typed in a few commands “We still need the core online to attempt an incursion Scott, and I don't think I can get it working alone”. Scott stopped working for a moment, then he turned on his chair and smiled at Chrissie. She had always loved it when he smiled, except when it was this particular kind of smile.
She knew full well what this smile meant, the neurons within the mind of Dr Scott Seyborne, father of hard-light holographic technology, the greatest physicist the human race had ever and probably would ever produce, were firing and had just produced one of his famous flashes of inspiration that usually meant Chrissie would be spending the next ten hours carrying out his idea. As it turned out, for once she would not need to carry out the idea all by herself. She would only have to do part of it, though that was still going to require a lot of work. No sooner had Scott finished explaining what she needed to do than she strode out of the room.
Three hours had passed when she re-entered the control room, where she found Scott laid under a computer station, he did not acknowledge her presence so she kicked his protruding foot and spoke “I'm nearly done, but I am having trouble with the stabilizing field. Every time I think I have it working properly, a new bug arises. Where is Kelley when you need him? He could have had it fixed in about ten minutes”. Scott sat up, and a different kind of smile crossed his face. This one Chrissie liked, this was the smile that meant her life was about to get easier.
Scott pulled a chair underneath himself and entered some commands into the computer “You might be in luck, the holo-projectors and communications array are still functioning. Kelley might not be able to join us in in the flesh, but he might still be able to help us”. He then entered some more commands into the computer and an image appeared on one of the view screens. The image was of a scruffy, dark haired man, he spoke just softly enough to not strain the ear “Hello Scott, you're looking a bit under the weather old man”. Scott replied in a similar tone “Good to see you again Kelley. You don't look so great yourself, the wife stopped feeding you or something?”
The conversation continued in this manner for another minute or so until Kelley asked “Anyway, what do I owe the pleasure of the call. If its to ask me to come back to the Institute, you know I can't travel. House Arrest isn't as much fun as I thought it would be”. Scott laughed and looked sombre “I am sorry that you have been treated so unfairly. And I really wish you could have joined us. However that doesn't mean you can't help. I take it the holo-projectors in your home still work” Kelley nodded a yes “Then turn them on and give me access, you have work to do”. The screen turned black and then a perfectly life like Kelley appeared from thin air before Scott and Chrissie. Kelley looked around the room “I take it you can see me?” Scott gave an affirmative bow of the head “good, lead the way Chrissie”.
 
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Nothing much actually happened, but I can feel that Scott's discovery is vital to the continuation of the story. When you set the scene and the blonde lady walked in, I was almost sure she was a figment of his imagination. Who knows, maybe she really is, that would be interesting. You can't possibly be the most renown physicist in the universe without having a few... quirks.
I'm not going to point out any grammatical errors, not in the mood. You haven't given any kind of location, geographically speaking so obviously the importance is in the Seyborne Institue (or at least for the time being).
I'm a sci-fi fan so I thought it was pretty cool. As this was only a draft, I'm sure the final edit would be impressive. Good solid writing. I'd like to read more.
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I like the description, but the whole novel feels just a little... hyperbolic. Generally you want your novels to build up slow. Start small instead of starting with descriptions like
She knew full well what this smile meant, the neurons within the mind of Dr Scott Seyborne, father of hard-light holographic technology, the greatest physicist the human race had ever and probably would ever produce, were firing and had just produced one of his famous flashes of inspiration that usually meant Chrissie would be spending the next ten hours carrying out his idea.
1) this decreases the realism of your novel, which, even though you are writing sci-fi, is still critical to getting that suspension of disbelief required for all good fiction
2) this leaves you less "headroom" in the latter parts of the novel, as you run out of places to introduce bigger badder characters that keep the audience interested.
Of course, you may just be setting up Scott to be an Obi Wan (the Ace who dies quick and serves mostly as an invisible mentor/measuring stick for the remainder of the novel). That would be a neat trick and I'd like to see that.
Other than that quibble though, I think you might also do well to dumb down the verbiage while maintaining the intelligence of the narrative, because you're writing in third person limited. Right now, it looks like your characters are smarter than you are, which clutters the voice of a third person SF novel and confuses the reader. Even if your characters are geniuses, it helps for them to talk in normal-speak, while you can leave the complicated descriptions to be "in someones head" thoughtstreams.
The rest of the writing is fine. You've got an incredible vocabulary and the concepts you're illustrating look pretty cool. good luck!
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On September 09 2012 21:32 Shady Sands wrote:I like the description, but the whole novel feels just a little... hyperbolic. Generally you want your novels to build up slow. Start small instead of starting with descriptions like Show nested quote +She knew full well what this smile meant, the neurons within the mind of Dr Scott Seyborne, father of hard-light holographic technology, the greatest physicist the human race had ever and probably would ever produce, were firing and had just produced one of his famous flashes of inspiration that usually meant Chrissie would be spending the next ten hours carrying out his idea. 1) this decreases the realism of your novel, which, even though you are writing sci-fi, is still critical to getting that suspension of disbelief required for all good fiction 2) this leaves you less "headroom" in the latter parts of the novel, as you run out of places to introduce bigger badder characters that keep the audience interested. Of course, you may just be setting up Scott to be an Obi Wan (the Ace who dies quick and serves mostly as an invisible mentor/measuring stick for the remainder of the novel). That would be a neat trick and I'd like to see that. Other than that quibble though, I think you might also do well to dumb down the verbiage while maintaining the intelligence of the narrative, because you're writing in third person limited. Right now, it looks like your characters are smarter than you are, which clutters the voice of a third person SF novel and confuses the reader. Even if your characters are geniuses, it helps for them to talk in normal-speak, while you can leave the complicated descriptions to be "in someones head" thoughtstreams. The rest of the writing is fine. You've got an incredible vocabulary and the concepts you're illustrating look pretty cool. good luck!
The characters are smarter than me lol. They are all physicists who figured out time travel ;p This section of the book actually takes place later in the story and the whole first book leads back up to this point and wthether or not they can change what went wrong. Scott is the main character, there will be bigger badder people but of the humans, he is top dog and always will be ;p
thanks for the feedback, will take it on board. Haven't ever written anything like this before, only short stories, so i'm on a learning curve for how the dialogue and narration should work.
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On September 09 2012 20:43 BookTwo wrote:
Nothing much actually happened, but I can feel that Scott's discovery is vital to the continuation of the story. When you set the scene and the blonde lady walked in, I was almost sure she was a figment of his imagination. Who knows, maybe she really is, that would be interesting. You can't possibly be the most renown physicist in the universe without having a few... quirks.
I'm not going to point out any grammatical errors, not in the mood. You haven't given any kind of location, geographically speaking so obviously the importance is in the Seyborne Institue (or at least for the time being).
I'm a sci-fi fan so I thought it was pretty cool. As this was only a draft, I'm sure the final edit would be impressive. Good solid writing. I'd like to read more.
Thanks, yeah the location is revealed a couple pages further on but at this point in the story the only thing that is important is that they are in the Seyborne Institute. Hate to ruin the suspense but shes real lol.
This is literally the 2 and a bit opening pages, so i'm basically setting up the characters and how they fit with each other. The action starts on about page 6, aliens with big guns and all hell breaking loose. You basically get to read how the institute came to be in its current state.... but spoilers!
If you are interested in reading more, swing me a PM. I can PDF it and let you have a perusal, always good to get feedback, even if it is to bad or the book is confusing etc... cause I understand where i'm going with it perfectly lol
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On September 09 2012 22:53 emythrel wrote:Show nested quote +On September 09 2012 21:32 Shady Sands wrote:I like the description, but the whole novel feels just a little... hyperbolic. Generally you want your novels to build up slow. Start small instead of starting with descriptions like She knew full well what this smile meant, the neurons within the mind of Dr Scott Seyborne, father of hard-light holographic technology, the greatest physicist the human race had ever and probably would ever produce, were firing and had just produced one of his famous flashes of inspiration that usually meant Chrissie would be spending the next ten hours carrying out his idea. 1) this decreases the realism of your novel, which, even though you are writing sci-fi, is still critical to getting that suspension of disbelief required for all good fiction 2) this leaves you less "headroom" in the latter parts of the novel, as you run out of places to introduce bigger badder characters that keep the audience interested. Of course, you may just be setting up Scott to be an Obi Wan (the Ace who dies quick and serves mostly as an invisible mentor/measuring stick for the remainder of the novel). That would be a neat trick and I'd like to see that. Other than that quibble though, I think you might also do well to dumb down the verbiage while maintaining the intelligence of the narrative, because you're writing in third person limited. Right now, it looks like your characters are smarter than you are, which clutters the voice of a third person SF novel and confuses the reader. Even if your characters are geniuses, it helps for them to talk in normal-speak, while you can leave the complicated descriptions to be "in someones head" thoughtstreams. The rest of the writing is fine. You've got an incredible vocabulary and the concepts you're illustrating look pretty cool. good luck! The characters are smarter than me lol. They are all physicists who figured out time travel ;p This section of the book actually takes place later in the story and the whole first book leads back up to this point and wthether or not they can change what went wrong. Scott is the main character, there will be bigger badder people but of the humans, he is top dog and always will be ;p thanks for the feedback, will take it on board. Haven't ever written anything like this before, only short stories, so i'm on a learning curve for how the dialogue and narration should work.
Ah, got it. Why don't you PM me your email? I'm eager to see the rest of your novel.
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EPT
