TITLE: Xenolith
GENRE: Urban Fantasy
Inches from Dr. Bowen’s eyes, ants scrambled from their mound,
spoiling for war. Thin cords bit deeply into his wrists and ankles.
The ants spread like brushfire. He wriggled back, but his spine met
the shins of an ambusher. A sandaled foot descended from the thicket
of legs surrounding him and planted his head into the humus. A musk of
decay rose up, mingling with wisps from the scattered, trampled sweet
peas he had carried all the way from Bethesda for Liz.
His hands and feet throbbed. His pulse fluttered in skips and starts
against the cords, like a frantic message in Morse Code. He struggled
to remain calm, worried that outward signs of agitation might amuse
his captors and inspire torment. But his heart galloped on, unbound by
any time signature. Obsessing about its queer rhythm only made it beat
harder and more erratically.
His captors, male and female, bickered in a tongue he couldn’t peg,
its clicks and pops sounding more African than Mayan. They bristled
with machetes and spears and even a crossbow. None carried guns.
The pressure eased off his ear. He squirmed off the root that had
jutted into his ribs. Hands reached down, helped him sit and brushed
ants and bits of leaf from his face. A warm trickle ran down his neck.
He turned to face the rigid gaze of a young woman as she inspected his
benumbed ear. A swath of scabs marred one side of her face. Her
kindness encouraged him.
The action and imagery works for me, I just don't know if I'd read further. There's nothing wrong with it, it's good writing, it just didn't grab me the way it should have.
ReplyDeleteThe ants are a good opener, but it seems that they would dominate any other sensation.
ReplyDeleteHis intimacy with his pulse and heart motions is a little off-putting. A whole paragraph seems like a lot more than it needs to be. *His heart pounded* seems more than sufficient.
How would he know that *none carried guns*?
I like the female character you introduce in the last paragraph. I hope she figures prominently in the story.
The imagery is good and it's well-written, but I don't get a real sense of anything other than his fear, and because of that, I don't buy the last line.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the way he moved away from the ants, I imagined fire ants, and the other people wouldn't exactly hang out for that. Does the guy have some insect phobia or what? Because I'm thinking in his situation, if the ants aren't going to start attacking him, they are the least of his worries.
In other words, not sure this hooked me enough to keep reading.
I love the opening with the ants!!!!!
ReplyDeleteBut the imagery/wordiness is working against creating clear pictures in my mind. Simpler would be better, for me.
I like where this is going! N' I definitely want to see what comes next! Nice work, FAR OUT!!
I felt like the scene was a little muddled. Is hey lying face down? How does his spine run into someone's shin? A foot maybe.
ReplyDeleteI would leave out the part about the guns. If they are untouched by the modern world, then not mentioning guns is enough.
(Without reading other comments...)
ReplyDeleteI love how descriptive you are, but something about this didn't work for me. I think the question of why he was captured and where he was going before he was captured bugged me too much to just keep reading to find out.
For me, maybe this is one instance where the "start in medias reas" mentality doesn't work. I would have preferred to have a little bit of set up for who Dr. Brown is and what is going on (at least in his mind) with these people - maybe even where he is, because I live beside Bethesda, Maryland and couldn't stop picturing him being hog-tied on the National Mall.
I'm afraid I wasn't very helpful, but good luck!
There's nothing particularly wrong with this, but it doesn't draw me.
ReplyDeleteNot hooked. It felt over the top - a lot to hit me with at the beginning. Where do you go from here? Obviously you slow down a bit to explain, but then, when the action picks back up...do you get more uncomfortable than the first page? I'm not sure I want to know the answer to that.
ReplyDeleteWow. Not my thing, but nice descriptions and setup here.
ReplyDeleteGood start, although I'd switched that first sentence around so it begins with the ants scrambling inches from his eyes. And I agree that the last sentence is problematic. But over all, I like it and would read further. I love how you used linguistics to set the scene minimally but effectively; obviously Central American, but you hint that there's something alien about his captors. Nicely done.
ReplyDeleteNot quite hooked, but could be.
ReplyDeleteIt's an interesting premise and written well, but I think what's missing is that there is no emotion here.
Dr. Bowen doesn't react to anything that is happening to him. He doesn't even have a thought about what's happening to him. It appears we're only getting a list of facts. This happened, then this, then this . . .
If it's his story - and it seems like it is -- we need to hear from him and we need to feel for him.
This isn't hooking me, unfortunately.
ReplyDeletePart of the problem is that the first 250 words are so full of adjectives and description that I'm having a hard time figuring out what's happening. I can understand that Dr. Bowen has been taken captive, but I don't know where he is. Is he on Earth? An alien planet? Who are the people holding him captive?
And frankly, I think you have a lot of wasted words on the ants, where you should start with the hostage situation itself. The ants are a sensory detail, but you lost my interest with them immediately because "ants spoiling for war" just seems so melodramatic.
*Posted without reading other comments*
ReplyDeleteI'm not hooked. I think there's a fine line between starting with action to hook the reader, and plonking the reader into the middle of an action scene that they can't make sense of. Unfortunately, for me, this falls into the latter. I think #39 was a good example of a piece that started with action, but gave enough information that we weren't left disoriented.
However, as I said on another entry, this is a personal preference of mine, and others may have different opinions.