Tuesday, May 26, 2009

#16 1000 Words

TITLE: Robyn's Egg
GENRE: Science Fiction


Robyn Winfield watched through the store window of Baby Universe as a clerk stocked shelves. The clerk was young and pretty, too young to have a child of her own or know much about them. Another woman, a customer, walked among the displays. She was older, in her late forties, Robyn judged. She walked tall and proud, her face placid. It was her eyes that struck Robyn as profoundly sad. They displayed no spark, no life. The woman plucked a doll off the shelf. A small smile tickled the corners of her mouth. She pulled the doll tight to her chest, and then cradled it in her arms. The woman looked outside as if she sensed someone was watching and Robyn froze, feeling like a voyeur, sure she’d been caught. When the woman turned away, Robyn started for the entrance. On her way inside, the woman with the doll brushed by on her way out.

“Ma’am! Ma’am, you can’t leave with that,” the shop girl called.

Robyn watched the young clerk rush past in chase. The clerk caught up on the sidewalk and clutched the doll by the foot. The woman turned, eyes wild, nostrils flared, mouth puckered in determination. “It’s my baby,” she snarled at the girl. She tightened her grasp and jerked the doll away, but the clerk wouldn’t release her grip. After a few more tugs, rationality returned to the woman’s face, and with it, resignation. She released the doll, tried to blink back tears, and walked away.

The clerk carried the doll back inside by an arm, dangling it loosely like a sack of onions. With her other hand she flapped her blouse in and out rapidly to draw cool air against her skin. She started when she noticed Robyn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were there.”

“Does that happen often?” Robyn asked as the clerk returned the doll to the shelf.

The girl’s face flushed pink. “Yes it does, and it’s scary every time. It’s the look in their eyes that gets me. For a second they seem like they are capable of anything. I swear they go a little insane. It’s the time before their sanity comes back that frightens me. You can never be sure if the reason they’re childless might be a psych problem.” She shook her head side to side. “Some people would do anything for a baby, even a plastic one.”

“She looked sad to me,” Robyn said.

The girl grinned sheepishly as if she realized she’d said too much. “Can I help you find something?”

“No, I’m just looking.”

The girl gave an understanding smile and returned to the counter. Robyn affected interest in baby accessories as she made her way to the infant mannequins. She picked a doll from a display and held it to her breast. The shape and weight were right, but the color was a bit off and it felt wrong – stiff and cold. She looked at the price, almost two-thousand credits. She returned the doll to the shelf.

“We have better models,” the clerk said. “That’s a low end decoy.”

“Two-thousand is the low end?”

The clerk smiled, but didn’t answer. She brought another doll from behind the counter, carried it in her arms as if it was alive, and placed it in Robyn’s arms. It was warm. Soft blond hair tickled Robyn’s arm. Eyes moved under closed lids. Its chest rose and dropped as if it was breathing, and it turned and snuggled against her. Robyn felt a tingle in her lungs and a stunned numbness inside her head. She was surprised at her reaction, and the emotions building within her. She had held a real baby only once before, her friend Kelsey’s daughter, Hope. She bent down, her face close to its hair and inhaled through her nose. It smelled chemical and sterile. The spell was broken. She realized she was holding nothing more than a piece of plastic – a clever trick filled with sensors and motors, but nothing more.

The clerk was watching expectantly. Robyn felt embarrassed. Then she understood the distinction between the two dolls and the implications. The inexpensive doll was a decoy meant to fool baby snatchers. They were intended for people who already had babies – real parents. The model in her arms was a baby substitute. It was as real as it could be, as real as it ever would be. It was meant for those who would never have children – pretenders. In the girl’s eyes, Robyn was a pretender, as unstable as any woman who had tried to flee the store with a doll. And for those few moments in which she’d succumbed to her emotions over an animated piece of plastic, the girl was right. She felt pathetic. Why had she come? She knew why. She had come to relive the moments she held her friend Kelsey’s baby in her arms pretending it was hers. She dropped the doll to the floor and rushed out of the store.



#



On the platform waiting for the tube home, Robyn spotted a mother clutching her baby. She moved in behind for a better look and to be on the same car. Once inside, she took a seat facing them. The woman was young, younger than Robyn by a few years. Money: that was the only explanation. No woman that young could afford a child if her family wasn’t wealthy. If her baby was taken, it could easily be replaced. What was the old saying, no pain for the privileged?
What if at the next stop the child was plucked from its mother’s arms? If timed properly, the doors would close before anyone could react and before an image of her face could be picked up on the net. An alert would go out immediately mobilizing Security Services. But Robyn knew the city well.

20 comments:

  1. I found this to be rather intriguing. It left the door opened for questions that I want answered. Is Robyn a nutcase? Is she thinking about taking the baby? I would keep on reading.

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  2. HOOKED. This was cool and weird, and I really liked it.

    I do think it needs a bit of tightening. The dialog with the clerk at the beginning seemed a bit redundant and long.

    Also, the first sentence: watched implies she's watching something. I'd either say "Robyn watched the clerk through the window." or "Robyn looked through the store window." It's nitpicky, but especially as a first sentence, it needs to be tightened.

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  3. Cool and freaky is how I'd describe this. I'm hooked...but a little scared that I'm not going to end up liking this heroine.

    Otherwise...It does ramble a little. I found myself skimming some sentences to find what was about to "happen." Also, I think you need to ground us in your world a little more solidly. Not a lot...just a little. We know it's science fiction, but that range of things is so wide, that we're kind of lost as to where we're at. The store name is, I think, part of the problem. Baby Universe seem such a "normal" name for a baby clothing and item store, that it took quite a while to catch on to the fact that this is NOT what this store is.

    Basically, by the end, we know that babies can be replaced in some mysterious way, and that only the rich can afford them. That last part makes me naturally think that it's expensive to birth/care for a baby...but the "replace" aspect makes me think I might have gotten the wrong impression.

    Anyway, I think you need one or two details that are totally different than our world, up in that first paragraph. Something that indicates or hints strongly at how this world is different from ours, so we find it easy to "break away" from this world/reality.

    I hope that makes sense.

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  4. I'm with the others who are hooked but see room for tightening. The premise is great, though. Chilling, too.

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  5. Ooh, love this one! I'm with the others on that. Not so much with the tightening. I thought you did a great balance - left me with a melancholy feeling - without you even saying so, I could feel her pain. And the idea - wow, too cool!

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  6. I really like how you ease us into this scene, Robyn watching the woman with the baby-lust. And then later we see that Robyn has the same desire. I am totally hooked.

    One nit - I don't think you hyphen "two-thousand," but I would put a hyphen on "low-end." I could be wrong, but it just seems right to me that way.

    Very well done.

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  7. Hooked, don't change anything. I felt like I was there watching the scene play out.

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  8. Interesting, unsettling premise. Some line edits and one or two thoughts:

    Do you NEED the deranged woman attempting to snatch the decoy baby? You're making the reader work to figure out who this first woman is and how important she is, then she immediately disappears. Seems you might be able to accomplish the same thing with just the clerk and Robyn.

    "Robyn watched the young clerk rush past in chase." - You don't need "Robyn watched" -- it distances us, and we already know whose POV we're in.

    "After a few more tugs, rationality returned to the woman’s face, and with it, resignation." ... then 3 grafs later, "It’s the time before their sanity comes back that frightens me." These two sentences are awfully similar, from two diff. points of view. Kind of repetitious.

    "two-thousand credits" -- don't need the hyphen for amounts.

    "a stunned numbness inside her head." -- if it's such an emotional experience, why "stunned numbness"? That didn't read like the right reaction to me.

    But those are small snags. Overall, I'd be interested in reading more.

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  9. I'm also hooked. Agreed that some tightening might be in order.

    However, the part after the # didn't do much for me. I think I stalled because you're using the same thing every time you introduce a character in the scene - thier age. Just a small pick. Also, I didn't really understand where those last two paras were going, but only because we got cut off by the end of the word count.

    Also, the second time you use "her friend Kelsey’s baby" can't you just say Hope instead?

    I would hope the next page after this explains the why behind Robyn and wanting and/or not able to have kids. I'd read on to find out though, so nice job. :)

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  10. The concept is intriguing. I think you lose a lot of the tension in rambling. I can see that everyone is more or less hooked on the concept, but they are asking questions before they really know much about the story.
    When you are world-building I think you need to be smarter about that essential tension. The implied tension is in there, but there's a lot to waffle through to find it. Does that make sense to you?
    You do have a winning theme. But you really need to do it more justice is the essence of my reaction.
    Hope this helps. Good luck.

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  11. WOW, what an interesting place/time this is! I was really sad that I could only read 1000 words.

    I love the description of the high-end doll. Intriguing concept.

    Is it possible to give more of an indication (showing, not telling) of Robyn's age and situation in life? She seemed really young to me, but I don't know why. Maybe it's because she's so self-conscious? And she seems to be just hanging around - kind of floating without purpose, which makes her seem young too.

    Good luck!

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  12. The premise is great but it needs to be cut by about half, I think. Too much repetition, a little too much telling instead of showing. Example:
    She realized she was holding nothing more than a piece of plastic – a clever trick filled with sensors and motors, but nothing more.
    to
    She dropped the plastic sensor-filled doll to the floor and rushed out of the store.
    You could almost eliminate the last paragraph. It doesn't matter what the clerk thinks of her.

    I'd keep reading and hopefully this will pop up again, tightened up. I want to know what happens.

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  13. You have a quality premise, but I'm afraid I'm not hooked.

    I don't think there's enough conflict -- the clerk seems just to parrot back what Robyn's already observed -- the look in the dollsnatchers' eyes, the loss of sanity. Why not give the clerk a strong attitude set against Robyn's -- for example, the clerk hates her job and having to sell stupid dolls to deluded crazies, and Robyn tries to defend them? Or the clerk is totally bored and unconcerned, and that annoys Robyn? But something that delivers Robyn's realizations and the facts re: childbirth restrictions and doll proxies through conflict. That way things won't seem to drag. I'm not saying there has to be any overt argument, but I think the clerk is too expository right now instead of a fully realized (though minor) character.

    Also, I think you need to provide some ostensible reason why Robyn would go into the store in the first place.

    But it's a good premise, and the end of the 1000 words suggests good things to come.

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  14. Really an interesting premise. I would keep reading. I think it could use a little tightening. You do a lot of telling AND showing, but once I've been shown I don't need a recap. (See John O's comments).

    I think it's the POV that snags me. 'The girl gave an understanding smile.' We're not in her POV, we're in Robyn's. Can you show that? (The girl smiled and nodded, or whatever).

    All in all, well done.

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  15. As others said, intriguing premise but needs tightening. One thing missing though is a little clearer motivation for her impulse to take the baby on the train. Somehow you have to let us readers a little further into this world you've built--to put us on Robyn's side by this time.

    Keep working on it--I'd love to read more.

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  16. I don't usually read sci-fi but I would probably read on, if just to find out a few things. I agree it could be tightened but everyone has said that. I wish I could have critiqued it earlier. Don't want to repeat others words. I do want to care about Robyn, and need a reason to.

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  17. I would definately read on. I agree with everyone's suggestions so far and would add that the second sentence could be deleted. I had to read it twice to wonder why a clerk would have a baby with her while working, then when I figured out she didn't, I wondered why you mentioned the clerk being too young to have a baby in the first place.

    I, too, thought the mc was younger, like a pre-teen. If you mentioned a purse or something adult-like I would know the approximate age of the mc.

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  18. HOOKED.
    My heart ached a little for Robyn at the end of the first section.

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  19. I thought this was great. My only problem was the set up, which I think isn't really a problem since a person grabbing this off the bookshelf will have read the flap copy and will know its sci fi. The reason I had the problem was because it is not my experience that women go into baby stores and go off half cocked. So I was immediately questioning your credibility. But once your world was more realized in later paragraphs, it made sense. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ground your reader in this sci fi world a little more clearly in those first paragraphs so no one sets it down.

    I'd like to know what the larger story is by this point. I didn't get as firm a handle on Robin as I'd like. But I'd be willing to keep going to find out. Good job!

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  20. Is this some kind of dystopian story where real infants are rare?

    If so, I was hooked and would definitely read on.

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