First Page: The High General Romance Science Fiction
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She spied on him through the trees. He was the most interesting man she had ever seen. Of course she was afraid of him; she was afraid of the whole group of giant men. But her curiosity overruled her fear to the point that she had followed him back to their camp. She should have fled in terror – her sisters would have fled, all 27 of them. Curiosity would only go so far. If spotted, she knew she would run faster than the time when her father had tried to punish her for leading her sisters out for a nude swim.
The strange man’s camp was large, with many men in various activities. Some exercising, some bathing or eating, and every now and then she heard masculine laughter. The men were dressed alike, as if they wore a standard uniform. They were all broader in shoulder and taller in height than any other men she had seen. Even more interesting was the fact that these strangers were all males. Not a female in sight. Seeing so many men all in one place was strange to her. Her immediate family had only two men.
With herself and her sisters, plus her mother and ta-mothers, there were 38 women in her home. This many men totaled more men than inhabited her whole village.
She especially worried about the sentries who seemed to be guarding the camp. Some stood next to entry points while others walked from entry point to entry point. She didn’t want to find out what they would do if they saw her.
At least thirty buildings had been erected – how could they do that so soon? She and her four closest sisters had gathered moonberries here just yesterday. Those buildings had not been here, but this camp was so completely built that it hardly seemed possible the camp was only a few hours old. The small buildings were made out of something she could not name, not wood or diamond bricks like the dwellings in her town. The walls seemed very smooth like when a diamond cutter cracked a diamond in the right place.
The golden knight who held her fascination had disappeared within one of the buildings. And if she wanted to continue her spying game, she thought, she would have to venture into the camp, past two other buildings. Oh, her father and brother would beat her good if they learned what her mischievous mind would lead her into today.
The pull of this man was strong for some reason. He looked like the others, but she was not at all interested in them. She knew she should just leave, but she was highly reluctant, feeling oddly drawn by the man’s presence. Talking herself into more exploration, she told herself it would be against her nature to back down in the face of all these curious things. She must be true to her nature, right? Plus, if she got home this late, she would still be in for a few strikes with the thigh paddle from her father or brother. If she was going to get punished anyway, she should see where this game took her.
No girl wanted the standard family discipline of their culture (or rather female discipline, no treasured male was ever disciplined); and getting out of punishment was why women played deceptive games to avoid it. Her father and brother punished her more than all her sisters combined; but they did not know even half of the naughty things she did. She was known as the first sister to do something forbidden when trouble was to be had.
Wherever you’re going with this, a page of description and backstory is too much for me. Make something happen. My bet is she gets discovered, so make that happen on page one.
How old is she? She reads like a 5 year old, worried about paddling and being naughty. Possibly a young teen. If she’s supposed to be an adult and her romance with the Golden Knight doesn’t start after she grows up, then, I’m out.
I didn’t find this realistic: A large group of unknown soldiers camps close to her community and she isn’t the slightest bit worried about the threat? If she’s a 5 yo, why didn’t her parents warn her? If she’s an adult, why isn’t she concerned?
Then, she seems to be planning to enter the camp, evading the sentries, without a single thought about how the soldiers might perceive this. If she’s a 5 year old, known for mischief, with 27 sisters, how did no one notice her missing? Why didn’t she have an older kid responsible for keeping her out of the camp?
If she’s an adult, she’s TSTL. An identity based on being mischievous and doing stupid stuff is not someone who deals with life in a mature way.
PS: saying the golden man looked like the others but had an odd pull does nothing to help me see why she is watching him. I’d understand if there was some were-like mating thing (that she recognized), if she were an artist and he was a magnificent specimen of manhood, etc. As is, you’re telling me, not showing me.
There’s such a jumble of things here: story, backstory, digressions, inconsistency with the writing. All of that takes away from what you’re trying to tell me.
Nitpicks: be consistent with numbers, and I’d prefer they were all spelled out. I’m not a fan of parenthesis in writing. Just say whatever it is.
Big issues: I have no idea what your MC is supposed to be. I have a sense she’s a fairy, or a young child, or a young fairy child. I think you’re trying for a naive being who is seeing humans for the first time, but that’s just a guess. But even that guess has flaws: if she’s lived there forever, why hasn’t she seen them before? So I think extraterrestrials…and then I think I don’t want to think that hard on a first page.
Not much happens either. She’s spying, she’s telling us she’s spying. She’s telling us a great deal, but I don’t know how she feels about all that.
I don’t really need to know everything on the first page, but I’d like to be a bit more grounded in the story than I am coming away from this page.
In reading through it again, I do come away pondering the girls/women to men ratio, and spent a great deal of time (more than actually thinking about what she was seeing or why or anything else related to the story) wondering/worrying about the genetics pool in that little community. So I had to go back and do the math again, because I wondered who the diamond cutter was, and who built the buildings…and I got distracted from your story.
I think there’s an interesting premise here, and maybe a good story, but it’s struggling under too much stuff that’s not relevant.
Another vote for cutting a lot of this out.
I feel like I’m being beaten over the head with how rebellious and different and curious she is. I’d rather figure it out for myself, just by seeing what she does.
I didn’t get the 5-year-old vibe, but I definitely suspected TSTL.
And the line ‘as if they wore a standard uniform” jumped out at me – first because “standard uniform” is fairly redundant, but also because the “as if” part seems weird. It suggests that she’s not familiar with the concept of uniforms? But if she didn’t know the concept, she wouldn’t know the word, right? So I’d go with something like “clearly a uniform,” or “as if the same seamstress had used the same fabric and pattern for all of them.”
I really like space-age societies meet stone-age societies stories and think there might be something intriguing here, but this first page didn’t really inspire me to read on.
Thank you for sharing.
I do think you have something interesting going here, though I agree there is too much backstory, especially about the potential punishment. I think this can be mentioned in a more concise way.
There were a couple of things that made me stop:
1) Masculine laughter – not sure why. Perhaps because I already knew they were all men and the word masculine seemed unnecessary.
2) She would run faster than the time when her father had tried to punish her…. — it is good to try to describe how fast she would run, but when it is stated that her father ‘had tried to punish her’ it made me think that if one runs fast enough one won’t get punished. Wouldn’t the father eventually catch up to her?
3) I had a hard time picturing the material the buildings of these men were made of. The cutting of diamond term was used but, not being an expert with that, I had a hard time. Are they made of plastic? Or a new alien material? (Just wondering)
4) Same comment as Cate regarding the uniform.
5) Even though there are a lot of men and the place is guarded she is wiling to just go in. I had a hard time buying this. If she’s a fairy (which I didn’t get because she doesn’t mention flying) then maybe, but this is not clear.
6) There is mention that these men are big, but I don’t know how much more than her people. Are they twice the size? Three, four times? Or is it just that they are very tall (I.e. How a 5′ person would compare to a 6′ person)
7) l had a hard time with the golden man being the same as others, but having a pull. I think I’d like to know more about what she is feeling here, perhaps to understand better the pull. Also, what is meant by he was like the others? He wasn’t considerably handsome? They were all handsome?
I think your writing is good and you do have a story. For these opening scenes, consider cutting some of the backstory and focus on the now and what she is feeling. Good luck!
Lana provided a lot of great comments for this piece. It kind of reminds me of Johanna Lindsey’s Warrior’s Women. I read the whole piece through, which is a good thing, because I skim if I don’t find the first page interesting. Nor do I comment. I’d read on.
That thigh paddle sounds really creepy.
Hate to be harsh, but by your second sentence I was in a Dos Equis ad. Not, I think, your intent.
I love SFR, but I need to learn the characters and world by what they do and say, not by info dump.
This could be an interesting set up, but I don’t think your story starts here.