McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
First Person, Present Tense, and No Backstory. Can it work?
twinswin123:
be careful. too much action without any prior knowledge can get very old , not old i guess but it gets too much for readers and they have to walk away from it.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: twinswin123 on February 14, 2008, 02:45:12 AM ---be careful. too much action without any prior knowledge can get very old , not old i guess but it gets too much for readers and they have to walk away from it.
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Only if you fail at making it intriguing.
blgarver:
--- Quote from: conte on February 14, 2008, 02:17:51 AM ---Try watching the movie "Memento" -- First Person (in a sense, one person's POV), and moving backwards in time. The movie will show you how a gimmicky concept can work... But if you aren't absolutely perfect, "gimmick" is all anyone will remember.
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This is one of my all time favorites. I was thinking more of a feel of Cloverfield or Blaire Witch, as far as the POV goes anyway. Plus there won't be any motion sickness from short story. ;)
And by "action" I don't mean explosions and gunfights and harrowing close calls...I just mean the stuff that's happening in the scene. There actually will be no action movie elements in this story, at least as it exists in my head at this point.
I want to make it more suspensful and intriguing than intense and action packed.
blgarver:
Okay, so I couldn't wait until the WIP was finished. I had a lull in the big project the other day, and slapped some paragraphs down of this sci-fi concept...though it really might be more of a horror piece.
I call it "Assimilation".
Here are a few paragraphs if anyone is interested.
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My skin crawls in every place their clammy hands clutch.
They have entered my cell again. I can only see their silhouettes against the searing white spotlight someone shines through the door. Their heads seem long, their arms seem stretched. They move quickly despite their apparent limp.
I don’t scream anymore. I don’t even struggle. I just grit my teeth as my legs and arms and ribs and chest turn to gooseflesh beneath their grip. A pair of the figures yank me into sitting position. My shoulders pop and my head lolls forward.
They don’t speak. There is no sound from them but that of their soft, clammy flesh as they move around my metal slab. My scalp burns as a hand jerks my head back. A pair of hands sprawl over my face, the fingers pull my eyelids open. I grit my teeth and snarl against the discomfort, but I have no intention of fighting them.
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Thanks for all the input guys!
BLG
novium:
--- Quote from: neurovore on February 01, 2008, 04:52:47 PM ---There is no technical way of doing a story that cannot be made to work if you are good enough.
Look at the top selling SF/Fantasy novels on Amazon right now. Stross' Halting State is up there in the top ten, and that's written in multiple second-person singulars, which are to my mind a lot weirder than anything that can be done with first. Lots of people are buying that.
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but are they finishing it, that is the question. I couldn't. I found it too distracting.
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