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Hello. I’ve been writing this story series called Aquila, which is kind of a Star Wars-y story, sans aliens, the Force, and Lightsabers. The premise is a corrupt government, which I call the United Federation of Systems (UFS), has been in power too long, and a rebellion has formed, which I am thinking of calling either the Resistance, or CO.UP., which stands for COordinated UPrising, that is going to overthrow the UFS. The story starts out with a saboteur crew, having stolen a hard drive with some sensitive information on it, are being pursued by one of the government’s prefects.
I’m not going to upload (if I can?) the first story yet, because the “first draft” is close to being done…like, two chapters away from being done! I will include an excerpt, though.
Pandora opened the door to the hold in question. It was dark in there, the only light streaming in from the open door. Her hand groped for the light switch on the wall. She found it, and flipped the switch. It made little difference though, as the lights needed replacing since she got the ship. But it made enough difference for her to notice that a foreign object now resided in the middle of the chamber. A monitor turned on, and the AI appeared on-screen.
“What is that?” she whispered, confused, curious and slightly afraid.
What she saw was a blue star-fighter sitting there in landing position. She saw from the small amount of light coming into the room that it had yellow or gold accents going across it at sharp angles.
<Azurewing star-fighter,> the computer reported. <Resistance markings. Four sub-light ion engines. One dual-shot plasma cannons on each wing. Two wing-tip mounted guided missile launchers…>
“Yeah, yeah,” Pandora said, cutting off the AI, “that’s enough with the technical specs.”
She started walking over to it, inspecting it, her hand holding her chin in though.
“I wonder if we could sell it…?” she said thoughtfully.
“It isn’t yours to sell,” a male voice said from behind her.
Pandora jumped, startled, giving utterance to a shrill yelp, spinning a one-eighty in the air. Inwardly, she slapped herself. Of course there would have been a pilot. How could she have been so blind? And here he was on her ship!
“Intruder alert!” she exclaimed, shrill with panic. This has never happened to her before. “Activate security systems!”
<Error. No such system present on ship.>
Pandora’s face fell. “Oh, right, I forgot I sold them,” she said, remembering her stretched budget. She jerked her head up, keeping it slanted in an authoritative stance. “Who are you?” she asked accusingly. “Where did you come from?”
The pilot raised his hands defensively, walking slowly out of the shadows. “Relax, relax,” he said, his voice calm. “I don’t mean you any harm. I was hiding from…well, I assume you’ve all ready met.”
“You mean that pompous prefect in the stiff suit?” she said. “Yeah, I met him.” She sauntered over, still trying to display an air of authority, coming in closer to examine him. “You an outlaw?”
“A rebel, specifically,” the pilot corrected.
<I did say that the craft had Resistance markings.>
“Uh-huh,” Pandora said impatiently, trying to keep the matters on the intruder. Then she figured that said matters were better dealt with quickly. “Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, but you really should get going.”
The pilot stared at her, his mouth agape in confusion and offense. “Wait…I just escape capture from my enemies, and now you’re kicking me out?”
Pandora sighed, placing her hands on her hips. She lowered her head, shaking it.
“I seem to be on some sort of UFS watch-list. They keep nicking my cargo. If I’m discovered harboring a rebel, we’ll both be in big trouble. So…goodbye.”
The pilot put his hand to his head in frustration. “Miss,” he said, trying to retain what patience he had left in his voice, “my craft is in need of repairs. In fact, I’m fairly sure that it lost a lot of parts on the way over here. And besides, I sent something here, and I need to get it.”
Pandora was confused.
“Sent something?” she asked.
“Yeah, a hard-drive. Where’s your teleporter?”
“In cargo bay two…” she said before she realized what she was doing. She was perturbed from this intruder’s presence, and not a little anxious, thinking about what would happen if that UFS gunship decided to drop in again unannounced. The pilot, meanwhile, had walked out of the cargo hold, and going down the wrong way to boot.
She ran to catch up with him, and tried to keep in pace with his long, determined stride. “What hard-drive?” she demanded.
“That’s need-to-know information,” the pilot said over his shoulder.
“It’s on my ship, I need to know!” Pandora countered, still following him.
The pilot stopped, rubbing the back of his head, sighing.
“Who do you think you are, anyway, just barging onto my ship?” she demanded, arms crossed.
“Look, miss,” the pilot said, turning to face her, “I don’t even know what exactly is on there. I just know that it’s sensitive information against the United Federation.”
Pandora cocked her head to the side in mild surprise.
“I know how to deal with stuff like that,” she said, arms still crossed. “Format the hard-drive.”
“That’ll delete everything,” the pilot said, thinking that her idea was clearly the opposite to a solution.
Pandora twisted on her heel, and started walking in the opposite direction.
“Exactly,” she said, walking away.What do you think? Would any of you be interested in reading it? Please let me know your opinion. I’ll put it up here for you to read as soon as I’m done with it. 😀
@leumeister, While I’m picky about sci-fi, I was getting drawn into the story. 🙂 I like it, and would probably read it (depending on the premise and the characters.) I like Pandora and how she tries to sell everything. If I was being picky, I would say that the flow was slightly awkward, and this section:
Pandora jumped, startled, giving utterance to a shrill yelp, spinning a one-eighty in the air. Inwardly, she slapped herself. Of course there would have been a pilot. How could she have been so blind? And here he was on her ship!
Was a little confusing. Where did the man come from? Altogether though, it was a solid start.
I don’t think that KP has a place where you can upload the whole story, and I don’t think the forum would be the right place… @Daeus?
Yeah, you can’t upload files here. I wouldn’t recommend it anyways. An excerpt is fine, but most people aren’t going to check out a whole book. That is, unless they want to beta read for you.
And nice to meet you, @leumeister. You should stop by the “Start Here” forum so we can all say hi. And I will return to read your excerpt. It will probably be tomorrow.
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That’s not actually the beginning. 😛 I just uploaded a sample taken from somewhere in the middle. Thanks for your input, though! 😀
@Daeus: I didn’t think so. :/ I would need “beta-readers” though, so I could probably upload to Dropbox and link it here… Is that allowed? I used to go on a forum where any external links were not allowed.: PAnd yes, I think I will stop by the Start Here forum. Thank you. 🙂
@leumeister Alright, I’m back. And the verdict is…
I love it! *cheers* *confetti* *kazoos*
I mean, it’s not perfect of course, but even as it, is it reads well. I’d probably want a good synopsis of the story before I would decide to read it and I couldn’t give a definite opinion of the book until I had read the whole thing, but you get a big thumbs up for writing style.
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I mean, it’s not perfect of course, but even as it, is it reads well. I’d probably want a good synopsis of the story before I would decide to read it and I couldn’t give a definite opinion of the book until I had read the whole thing, but you get a big thumbs up for writing style.
@Leumeister What @Daeus said there. 😉 Forgive the theft, Daeus?And I love the pilot. He seems a really good character, and I really like him. And slightly pity him for having to deal with a frustrated Pandora. 😛
@emma-flournoy Why, of course it’s fine. Steal is my personal motto, you know.
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@Daeus Oh that’s right! I knew that. Well, good.
@Daeus @emma-flournoy Thanks guys! This is really encouraging! 😀
@Leumeister Great!
@Leumeister I like it! It’s got the bones of a great story. One thing I would say is you tend to tell sometimes where you should show. For instance,
She sauntered over, still trying to display an air of authority, coming in closer to examine him.
is pretty good, but it would be stronger if you simply described what she did and gave us the impression of her still trying to be strong and authoritative and such. Showing us what she did and letting us draw our own conclusions from our knowledge of her personality and her situation.
Otherwise, it’s really good. I love the way she thinks about selling everything. 😀 And the names are awesome— not your typical scifi stuff.
Okay… How can I show instead of tell? :S
I don’t think she thinks of selling everything… 😛 I just thought, since she’s financially hard-pressed at that point, she may want to take advantage of the situation. But then again she does intend to sell….well, you’ll see… 😉
Thanks for the critiques! 😀
@Leumeister you already do quite a bit of showing, and that’s great. But there were several instances where you told that could have been stronger through showing. It’s the difference between this line:
She sauntered over, still trying to display an air of authority, coming in closer to examine him.
and this line:
Pandora sighed, placing her hands on her hips. She lowered her head, shaking it.
“I seem to be on some sort of UFS watch-list. They keep nicking my cargo.In the first sentence you told us she was trying to display an air of authority. In the second sentence, you showed how she was despondently exasperated without having to say it in so many words.
Showing consists of keeping the emotions unnamed, and leaving them to inference by the character’s body language.Oh, so cut out “still trying to display an air of authority,” and replace with, perhaps, “looking down her nose at him”, or something?
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