Blog for budding Sheikhspeares entering National Novel Writing Month 2006

November 05, 2006

It's working!

In the past two days I wrote more than I did in the past fifteen years, and I am enjoying it tremendously.
English being my third language, I find it at times extremely difficult to come with the right expression, and I am sure my grammar is catastrophic, but it doesn't make it any less fun.
I am working on a Sci-Fi story. (the Why is here ). I find it challenging as not only you need to invent completely imaginary settings and characters, but you also need to suspend the "disbelief" of a casual reader. Here are a few of snippets. Feel free to comment.

“The Invaders are coming.” Said the man in what was obviously the gravest tone he could produce. He was the only standing man in the half empty village community meeting room. Not that he needed to be standing to draw attention or be heard and seen. Clad in an immaculate turquoise high ranking government officer suite, his ridiculously long frame seemed too frail to support a disproportionately large head. It was hard to imagine this character in the role of the Governor’s personal assistant, as his credentials proved him to be.
“What follows is the message sent by the Governor to this village.” He scanned the room as if there were more people in it than the twenty farmers, whom constituted all of the Tildis village population.
“Fellow citizens of Meldis. Our planet stands in the way of a grave danger. A danger we can not ignore.” He paused for effect.
and this one from later in the same chapter:

For several long moments, the only sound in the room was a distant humming coming through the air vents. The Invaders. Annihilation. Evacuation in under fifteen days. What had always been considered by most to be old people’s night tales and legends had suddenly become very real. It was simply too much to take in for the young farmers.
“Is that all?” Asked someone from the last row.
“This is the message I was charged to deliver. As the Governor said, you will all receive individual instructions on how to proceed.” Answered the government official, obviously annoyed that he had to repeat himself.
Then, as if on cue, everybody in the room started asking questions at the same time. The cacophony that ensued would prove to be a real challenge for the automatic transcript system to sort out.

This last one from another chapter:

Commander Kapkin Notante was a small and fragile looking man, features that would have exempted any male of the Bulborg system from the duty of serving the ten years in the United army, was it not for his tenacious insistence with the recruitment officer to be enlisted. He wore a thin moustache that did nothing to hide his practically non-existing lips, a feature he inherited from the father he never knew his mother told him. He always spoke in moderate tone and seldom raised his voice. One could be easily fooled by the frail looks of the character and his nonchalant manners, was it not for those tiny dark eyes and the blood freezing looks they could throw...

3 Comments:

Blogger secretdubai said...

Oh yay I love Sci Fi!

"young farmers" made me laugh, because they had a Young Farmers society where I used to live, and all they seemed to do was throw drunken balls and parties, and be barred from various country pubs.

05 November, 2006 13:02

 
Blogger ArO said...

lol.. partying farmers would have proved completely useless for what I want them to do.

05 November, 2006 13:45

 
Blogger ArO said...

Thanks for the very nice comment Susie. You just gave me a much needed steroids shot.

cheers!

06 November, 2006 14:16

 

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