Chuck Hossenlopp

Folks here can tell you that I'm struggling with my opening chapters, but I believe in my story enough to throw that beginning out and rebuild it word by word. The skimming happens not because your words don't flow nicely. They do. I knew my first chapters had their problems, but I eventually stopped rewriting the beginning over and over and finished the book. As a result, I now know my characters and world so much better. The beginning of a story has to be so front loaded with world and character building that I'm convinced that the beginning should be written last. The front third of my book was painful to write (because there was an evil goblin on my shoulder telling me how much I sucked) But the rest of the book flowed way better and I had a lot more fun writing and rereading it. The goblin never goes away. You just start to figure out that he's not always right. Consider this first chapter a discovery writing exercise and take us forward. Figure out why you care about this story and show us that.

Guilty. One hundred percent Google translate. Agreed. I'm thinking that it starts with Sam interrupting the guys gaming, (no more fake out opener) followed with a quickie scene of S doing some blatant shenanigans under cover of night. The magical loot will be transported home via magic where guys will read them. They figure out that Sam stole them, character conflict ensues. That should give all the exposition needed to make a mess of San Francisco with magic Please! Keep it coming! You guys are giving the tough love this story needs! I do actually want to see this put out the the wide world of readers someday. Thank you all! @industrialistDragon What do you feel are the best aspects worth keeping as I revise these first three chapters into one?

You will like the rest of the book

Guilty. I'll be more mindful of that from here on out I spoiler tagged this above, if you're the type that's inclined to shake boxes to figure out what's in them I want to believe that this problem improves in Chapter 4 when all for of them split up and do separate stuff. Maybe this is a California thing. I just means "insult" either playfully or cruelly. The dig site is a train wreak. I'm using all of this commentary to slim down everything that happens before the opening of the books It's really hard keeping the creationist in the story without coming off as insulting to that worldview, but I'm trying With all that said, what would you say are my load bearing pillars here? What needs to stay in the revision?

@Curiosity's Splinter Long ago, clocks had spinny hands on them that... Nevermind. Overall what i think I'm hearing from you is that my jokes and banter are landing for you, and the magic hook is working. But like everyone else the the whole dig site scene is broken and the guys are too similar.

You can have it both ways. The adults in her life could be warning her about the looming darkness while Ar shrugs it all off to go feed chickens and hang out with her friends. Keep ratcheting up the pressure on her over the first chapter until she can't stop herself from taking action of some kind

I jumped right in here without having read your first part, so some of this may have already been addressed. Page 1: This first paragraph struck me as a little too on the nose. It's beat for beat Frodo and Bilbo's lament before their adventures. Belle from Beauty and the Beast did a whole song about this before her *ahem* adventure. (Can we really call her unhealthy ordeal an adventure?) Your protag doesn't seem to have a real concrete want, just a vague yearning. Your second paragraph, however, hits me in the guts. (That's a good thing) Having a perfectly acceptable, moderately productive life is my living nightmare! I think that rising above the mundane to become someone that really matters is at the heart of what makes us love fantasy stories so much (and most other genres now that I think of it) Page 3: Up to this point we've been told everything and shown nothing. Ar knows why her dad has to make an emotionally charged decision without talking to him? That's a missed opportunity for character conflict. That conversation can also give us some flavor about her brother by having Dad and Ar talk about what her brother isn't doing right now because he isn't home anymore. Show that this poor kid is loved and missed. Page 4: How do I say this? Referring to R as "the brown girl" made me flinch a little. Saying that her skin was darker than Ar's is fine. But if that's what she would be called in-world, you need to illustrate that this is an in-world thing somehow Page 7: She had 'weird dreams' in the half that i didn't read, and all of the people and place names indicate that this is a secondary world story, So I'm starting to wonder when the fantasy stuff is going to show up. Page 10: "She felt content about the Vale again"? She had better start wanting something before we watch her feed more chickens. Page 11: "What would your parents think..." The beginning of some mild conflict! The dissatisfaction with the Vale should be more constant throughout. he wishy washy "Maybe I like the Vale, maybe I don't" conflict needs to be way more front and center. I wanna see her desperately trying to convince herself that Vale life is for her, and fail miserably. She'll go mad if she has to stay there a single night longer! If only some kind of Call to Adventure would sweep me out my door! Page 15" The final paragraph is roughly similar to Brandon Sanderson's least favorite way to end a chapter. "They opened the door and..." Please fill in the "..." with life changing implications that can only be settled over the course of chapter two Yes I want to know what the horsemen are here for, but please end the chapter with a revelation. That will help me to crave the details of what the consequences are.

Thanks for this find! "The jawbone was discovered in 2002 by a freshman on his first archaeological dig with the group." Now that I have more of @kais's perspective, I have the nightmarish vision that the kid dug straight through the entire cranium only stopping when someone over his shoulder saw the teeth and screamed for him to stop. Sigh. The civilizations represented at my fictional dig site date back to about 30k years ago. This jawbone dates back to nearly 200k years ago. Could sophisticated societies risen and fallen during that time in our real world? I'd like to think so. Everything is true until disproved. At least that's how it works for speculative fiction writers

So. Many. Caveats. For those just tuning in: Four friends found the remains of a Dwarf, Elf, Giant, and a shining knight in an archeological dig that dates back to the Ice Age. Your input on this chapter will help me greatly because I am now recafoobling an outline for a total rewrite of these three opening chapters. Here are the things that are already changing: S will be the only one on site in Germany. He's no longer a big deal archeologist, he's just allowed to help. The other three guys will follow the discoveries from home in California The both the American and German professors will be female So... With all that in mind, tell me what is worth keeping, and what aspects of the dig are horribly inaccurate. Any suggestions for improvement are greatly welcomed

@kais This is what makes you an amazing find for me. You know what an entertaining story needs, and you can call me out on my BS. I really hope you stick around for the whole ride

@kais I'd like you to read my unaltered Chapter 3. I have to warn you that the experience of doing so will make you slap your forehead often enough to sound like applause, but I'm leaning on you to introduce some semblance of logic to my dig site. I think your input will be crucial to my rewrite. What field are you in?

Done deal. Both the American and the German Professors are female now. I have to come up with new first names for them, and oh so many pronouns

I actually have a reason for my four protagonists being male. I want my story to deconstruct the martial hero archetype, and expose the toxic masculinity at the heart of the myth of redemptive violence. I also don't want to hit the reader square in the face with it either. Believe me, I thought of gender swapping the mains, but toxic masculinity just doesn't translate well to a female character.

I really hope that fridging has trended down since the 90's. One thing that I'm worried about is that adding a bunch of spear carriers to the opening scene could add confusion to the intro of the four main characters. Would that confusion be alleviated at all of the spear carriers were no-name pronoun people?

Chapter 3 is full of my shrugging guesswork on how field work functions. Worse than that, the dig is really just set up to get the magic stuff to happen in Chapter 4. These three chapters are in need of serious triage. If I can manage the time this weekend, I'm going to digest all of the notes that all of you have given me to get an all new streamlined intro to the story going. I just might hint at the existence of a human being that can survive and function without a Y chromosome. (How did I not see that?) Stay tuned

I always noticed the Genus species formatting thing, but didn't know the significance. Thank you for that. I did correct it in Chapter 1. My characters are college educated, I am not. I took just a little bit of anatomy and archeology, and there is a saying about a little bit of knowledge being dangerous for a reason. The blatant inaccuracies, like the Neanderthals being an ethnicity or a sufferers of some kind of deformity, come right out of the creationists' playbook. J's role is to make rational roll their eyes, and put a very popular tin foil hat belief on trial. The tinfoil hat that I actually want the reader to buy into is that Neanderthals and other extant hominini were the basis for the creatures in folklore. So this is going to take some severe overhauling. You're going to see some a lot more of my ignorance in chapter 3. Right now, this chapter is a load bearing structure. This is how the McGuffin gets discovered. I'm going to have to come up with a better way to get the McGuffin to the place. The guys are front and center in the dig site for story reasons. But I agree that, for plausibility reasons, the guys should be on the periphery of the dig. I wanted to keep all four guys together for the discovery. When it comes right down to it, Sam is the only one that has to be an archeologist. Maybe he can live stream with the other guys back home? Chapter 3 finishes the dig site scene and Chapter 4 truly begins what the rest of the book is. I'm thinking that the first three chapters should be streamlined into one quick chapter. I hope I can workshop some ideas here for getting the important doodad where it needs to go in the story. You'll have to read 3 and 4 before you can weigh in on that, though

I'd like to properly raise my hand for this Monday's post. (No more jumping ahead of the queue for me.)

@kais gently reminded me that taking turns is a part of playing well with others. May I submit next week?

I did NOT. Now I feel bad.

Page 1: "Placed her palm? Not hir? As an entry level reader, not knowing about the c-tech makes me feel like I don't know vital world building stuff. (Then again how many times have I read Spider-man explain his web shooters over the years?) Page 2: 12/29? Is this a date or time of day? Page 3: I enjoyed seeing the spaceport. But since Y isn't having much of an emotional reaction to it, I'm not really hearing Y's voice in the narration here. Page 4: Yellow-tuniced sounds good out loud, but on paper it looks like 'tunissed.' That's just a weird nit pick. Ignore me. Page 5: Cellulose, illicit lumber, I get the tech now. This is payoff. Ignore my page one comment "Everything in Y froze..." This paragraph shows that Y was not hugged often enough as a child. I love it. Being called to the boss'/principal's office is a universally relatable experience Page 6: "I'd like to offer you a job" came right at the top of a page break. There's not a lot you can do to control that, I just thought that was cool. I like it when a reveal comes at the turn of a page. Page 7: Hairy arms has been an ID tag for aliens up to now. Pointing out Y's human arm hair does something weird to me. Are you trying to draw an intentional parallel here? So R's have claws. Crab pincers or pointy fingernails? Can't imagine why Y would want to pass up a chance to be a well paid disposable schmuck. Is the bipedal copper dude human or alien? I don't have a picture in my head Page 8: "Anger is too far to bother with? Like his emotions got neutered somehow? Nothing suspicious here. Invasive peace? Now we're getting somewhere This explains his surliness all the way for me. His rage has an artificial lid of some kind on it, so it all comes out as passive aggressive bitterness. Page 9: No comments, just enjoying the ride Page 10: How is Y capable of yelling and throwing stuff? I would think that whatever the rage lid is, it would be in effect here Page 11: The N eludes me. Is N a place, a people, a serving class of the R species? Page 12: Ah. The N are further along the R's conveyor belt than humans are. What ever happens to the N will happen to the humans next. (at least that's what's in my head) This should maybe be established earlier. So... There's a part 3, right? This isn't meant to stand alone in any way, because the payoff is a call to adventure. All in all it's really not a bad intro to your universe. I like it

I know that the plausibility of these college kids getting shipped to Germany needs work. The problem is that it's a load bearing plot hook. It's necessary to get the McGuffin from here to there in chapter 3 so that chapter 4 can happen. The professor explains why he wants these four guys in chapter 2, so so I'd like to hear what @kais has to say about my excuse for having these guys included on the dig. I did have descriptions of each character in an earlier draft, but it was all tell and no show. People playing online in separate rooms (and one on a separate tectonic plate) can't tug on their specific and unique tee shirt or fidget with their specific and unique hair. Ah-Ha! Laptops in the living room! No more fake out. They're just playing, and Sam joins the game because no one answers the phone. Would that fix a lot? Later in the story I feel like each of the guys has their own "limp and eyepatch." Since I have these characters firmly in my own imagination, they sound a lot different to me. Fresh eyeballs are valuable for sure.

Thank you all for your feedback on Chapter one. I am hereby oath bound to redo that intro from scratch. Moving on! Yes, this is a DONE manuscript. I can feed it to you as fast as you're able to digest it. Though I'm not sure about the wisdom of doing so. On with the show...

A barefoot service industry wouldn't bother me. Dentists and wait staff would still wash their hands. As for those other professions, let's just assume those haven't been automated out of existence or relegated to the unwashed shoe-wearing under class. Shoes in this society would become like work gloves. Worn only for a specific purpose and put away before doing anything in polite or casual society. Does this weird detail serve a purpose? These aliens have gifted humanity with world peace. Instantly. Humanity is comfortable and coddled. Like pets. Something is up. The aliens want us walking around with our pink bellies exposed. That's the purpose that I figured I could be wrong though

I just read Mandamon's comments. I really thought this was a stand alone first chapter. The shoeless thing made sense to me as a fashion trend. Fashion usually tries to communicate that you're wealthy (even when you're clearly not). What's more opulent than saying "My entire environment is so perfectly manicured that I have no need for foot protection" Also, you said rough, so I said nothing about commas and dropped words and stuff.

Page 1: Grand theft spaceship? I'm in. Also humor. Page 2: World building by whiny rant. I like it. It's quick. Irreverent view of cultures that I'm not familiar with. Dig that. There's enough opinionated swearing in the narration so far that I'm wondering why this isn't in first person VP. Page 3: A big gun duct taped onto a vessel that predates known conflicts? Historical secrets and government cover ups? I'm digging this. The narrative voice is keeping my attention Page 4: Aliens have assimilated into the workplace, and just like in the movie "Ted" amazing stuff becomes boring way too quick. Endangered trees are part of the heist, but the protag justifies it to soothe his conscience, keeping him likable. Second mention of that C-T tech. I'm expecting more description of it soon Page 6: The heist falls apart right away. The protag doesn't freak out at all. He's just surly about it. Like a vending machine that keeps giving my dollar back. I' like to be a bit more scared for him here. Page 7: "Criminal today or..." So he's not a hardened career criminal? This whole ordeal seems like an ordinary Tuesday to him. This dude is seriously jaded. “To me, Youth Journey, this time of directed internship and globalization, if you will, of the System’s young people has only the noblest of intentions." This was pretty clunky to read. When I read it aloud I sound like Hedonism Bot from Futurama. At this point I don't know who is speaking Ah. It's the protag. Big change in voice makes sense now that I know he's role playing a bit. The -- made me think this was a scene change, maybe a POV change. Page 9: I thought "hir" was a typo until I saw xe. Is this a single gender species? If so, "xe" is more obvious and attention getting. Maybe find a way to make it the first pronoun we see for them "Xe rubbed at hir neck slits." now that looks intentional! Page 10: It's a cookbook! "To Serve Man" is a cookbook! So these sweet aliens pacified humanity somehow, but why? I'm interested to find out. I also want to see Y's plans and goal fall apart at every turn as he get sucked into alien conspiracies and a big amazing heist to save the world at the end. Overall I like the voice, but Y doesn't seem very motivated in any real direction. We know what he doesn't like, because he's cantankerous guy. But we don't really know what he wants aside from getting paid off for illicit lumber. He seems to want that about as much as a taxi driver wants to pick up his next fare. Is this a life changing amount of money, or just enough to get off world? I'll look forward to seeing what Y is up to next week