Post by urobolus on Sept 23, 2005 11:58:04 GMT -5
Hey all,
Though I've never written in the genre of 'young adult fiction' before, I thought that I might just try it for fun, since writing serious stuff can be a strain. I love the ST storyline, so I thought it would be easily adaptable to the page.
The only trouble I'm having is giving Mike's character some depth, and coming up with some themes to develop (so far I think the whole "organic=good, technology=corrupt" is the only thing I've got).
Can you give me any input? I'll post it here:
It hovered nimble over the blue slate of waves, pointed in determination towards a drop of green off on the horizon. Through the midday’s prism, one could see lush outgrowths peering up towards the white sun, the white sun sitting complacently atop the noon sky, an uncanny eye of god outlining palm trees swaying in aquamarine motion, shadows flitting across organic surfaces…
As the helicopter approaches the island Mike can see civilization hedged into the tropic oasis, huts sprouting up out of the earth like seedlings, fenced in under the shadow of jungle foliage and bordering on a beach. The island is the shape of the moon cut deep, a giant C bearing itself to these rays of the hemispheres out of American reach…
There’s his uncle’s research center, a white palace of archeological wizardry reaching without restraint into the air on an estuary off the C’s tip, floor after floor looking out onto the endless ocean. Uncle Jones is waiting patiently, he thinks, and the chopper negotiates its way through the jetstream down to the helipad, where his welcome party awaits.
It takes the form of a short, rotund man of dark complexion, equipped jovially with a bushy mustache and rough hair; it is so hot no one has bothered with a shirt. Mike steps off of the vehicle, in full Massachussets uniform, pleated pants and tucked in shirt, cowlick and widow’s peak, standing straight up with a toothy grin; he might have been, if viewed from the right angle, the very fountainhead of youth.
“Hello,” is all he can manage. He’s a long way from home.
“’Ello, Mike, and welcome. I’m Babu, Dr. Jones’ assistant, sent by the powers that be to guide you to Coralcola.”
The name is puzzling; it takes Babu a full ten seconds to realize the boy’s confusion. “Oh…it’s the local town, here. You saw it on your way in. Not much in the way of air conditioning, but the cooking more than makes up for it.” He realizes he’s tired of yelling over the roar of the chopper and decides to fetch Mike’s luggage and exit the premises; they saunter listlessly away from the helipad down an unpaved road. It’s six hundred feet to the jeep, and Babu can’t fathom just exactly what Mike has packed that makes his suitcase so darn heavy.
These are not times of rest or eloquent luxury, friend. No, no. These are moments under the squeeze of a Them, of The Enemy, and the only solace these islanders can find, these people who feel the weight of Capricorn and Cancer, is the release you get by looking up at night. There in the parallax blackness are the lights you can only see in these parts, strung brilliantly in a cross. This is not an oasis or just a spot on some tourist’s to-do list…this is the abode of the stars hung high, these are the Star Tropics, and The Enemy is real, unnameable, and near.
Just a few days. It had been just a few days since that whole fiasco with the girl across from him in class—and why is it that getting up the nerve is hard as nails and getting shot down is easy?—the typical high-school blunder that every young one is bound to make, just one of many thousand blows a youth must take to find his way to self-satisfaction. Not to mention a few days since the tests, since the crowded hallways of the crowded high school and the rich brick houses of the Massachussets suburbs, since his last conversation with his buddy Dave, his buddy Ryan, those people who catch you when you fall, or at least drop you by mistake and not on purpose. Mike felt like he had been dropped politely one too many times, however. Somewhere inside there was a deep dissatisfaction, with his own faculties and his own situation, with his plainness. Sandwiched in between the prom kings who had it all and the off-beat personalities that provided him with laughs but not dates, not aspirations or enough people to talk to. His state wasn’t that cheesy soap opera teen dilemma, no not at all, but just that little sting in the back of one’s head, that keeps you dreaming of your one big breakthrough day.
“Your arrival’s been the talk of the town. Your Uncle is truly the life of this place—he’s deeply respected, deeply admired, you know, but he can also play baseball. I mean, he can really play.”
Mike raises an eyebrow and smirks. “This is the tropics; they don’t play baseball in the tropics, do they?”
Babu shrugs. “It’s nothing new, to tell you the truth. We played a sport very similar to it before Dr. Jones came along. But that league of yours…what’s it called…”
“The MLB.”
“Yes! They’re very good at making up rules. So a little MLB, and a little native gaming, and a little Dr. Jones gives you a good game of baseball.”
Mike felt for the first time the reality of his situation, that the angle of the looking glass was totally shifted, that he had been removed from the frame of his home and put on alien turf…these native mannerisms, ideals, viewpoints…each was a new reminder of just how far from home he was. Far from her, from school, and from being politely dropped.
From the grassy hill and through the thick tropic air one can see Coralcola in all its modesty—the shapes of tan-skinned people naked to the belt flit to and fro, children scurry in the town’s open square. It’s all straw huts and wooden cabins, like a place tangential to the time of civilization, a drop of the anti-modern in this tropic expanse. All eight dwellings of the town peer out onto a giant square of land, a unifying organic structure with wooden vendor stands, a baseball diamond, grass green and wet, flattened by the pattering of the villagers’ feet. There is an aura of complacency like Mike has never felt before…but, wait, what’s this…there’s something else…a tinge of…
Though I've never written in the genre of 'young adult fiction' before, I thought that I might just try it for fun, since writing serious stuff can be a strain. I love the ST storyline, so I thought it would be easily adaptable to the page.
The only trouble I'm having is giving Mike's character some depth, and coming up with some themes to develop (so far I think the whole "organic=good, technology=corrupt" is the only thing I've got).
Can you give me any input? I'll post it here:
It hovered nimble over the blue slate of waves, pointed in determination towards a drop of green off on the horizon. Through the midday’s prism, one could see lush outgrowths peering up towards the white sun, the white sun sitting complacently atop the noon sky, an uncanny eye of god outlining palm trees swaying in aquamarine motion, shadows flitting across organic surfaces…
As the helicopter approaches the island Mike can see civilization hedged into the tropic oasis, huts sprouting up out of the earth like seedlings, fenced in under the shadow of jungle foliage and bordering on a beach. The island is the shape of the moon cut deep, a giant C bearing itself to these rays of the hemispheres out of American reach…
There’s his uncle’s research center, a white palace of archeological wizardry reaching without restraint into the air on an estuary off the C’s tip, floor after floor looking out onto the endless ocean. Uncle Jones is waiting patiently, he thinks, and the chopper negotiates its way through the jetstream down to the helipad, where his welcome party awaits.
It takes the form of a short, rotund man of dark complexion, equipped jovially with a bushy mustache and rough hair; it is so hot no one has bothered with a shirt. Mike steps off of the vehicle, in full Massachussets uniform, pleated pants and tucked in shirt, cowlick and widow’s peak, standing straight up with a toothy grin; he might have been, if viewed from the right angle, the very fountainhead of youth.
“Hello,” is all he can manage. He’s a long way from home.
“’Ello, Mike, and welcome. I’m Babu, Dr. Jones’ assistant, sent by the powers that be to guide you to Coralcola.”
The name is puzzling; it takes Babu a full ten seconds to realize the boy’s confusion. “Oh…it’s the local town, here. You saw it on your way in. Not much in the way of air conditioning, but the cooking more than makes up for it.” He realizes he’s tired of yelling over the roar of the chopper and decides to fetch Mike’s luggage and exit the premises; they saunter listlessly away from the helipad down an unpaved road. It’s six hundred feet to the jeep, and Babu can’t fathom just exactly what Mike has packed that makes his suitcase so darn heavy.
These are not times of rest or eloquent luxury, friend. No, no. These are moments under the squeeze of a Them, of The Enemy, and the only solace these islanders can find, these people who feel the weight of Capricorn and Cancer, is the release you get by looking up at night. There in the parallax blackness are the lights you can only see in these parts, strung brilliantly in a cross. This is not an oasis or just a spot on some tourist’s to-do list…this is the abode of the stars hung high, these are the Star Tropics, and The Enemy is real, unnameable, and near.
Just a few days. It had been just a few days since that whole fiasco with the girl across from him in class—and why is it that getting up the nerve is hard as nails and getting shot down is easy?—the typical high-school blunder that every young one is bound to make, just one of many thousand blows a youth must take to find his way to self-satisfaction. Not to mention a few days since the tests, since the crowded hallways of the crowded high school and the rich brick houses of the Massachussets suburbs, since his last conversation with his buddy Dave, his buddy Ryan, those people who catch you when you fall, or at least drop you by mistake and not on purpose. Mike felt like he had been dropped politely one too many times, however. Somewhere inside there was a deep dissatisfaction, with his own faculties and his own situation, with his plainness. Sandwiched in between the prom kings who had it all and the off-beat personalities that provided him with laughs but not dates, not aspirations or enough people to talk to. His state wasn’t that cheesy soap opera teen dilemma, no not at all, but just that little sting in the back of one’s head, that keeps you dreaming of your one big breakthrough day.
“Your arrival’s been the talk of the town. Your Uncle is truly the life of this place—he’s deeply respected, deeply admired, you know, but he can also play baseball. I mean, he can really play.”
Mike raises an eyebrow and smirks. “This is the tropics; they don’t play baseball in the tropics, do they?”
Babu shrugs. “It’s nothing new, to tell you the truth. We played a sport very similar to it before Dr. Jones came along. But that league of yours…what’s it called…”
“The MLB.”
“Yes! They’re very good at making up rules. So a little MLB, and a little native gaming, and a little Dr. Jones gives you a good game of baseball.”
Mike felt for the first time the reality of his situation, that the angle of the looking glass was totally shifted, that he had been removed from the frame of his home and put on alien turf…these native mannerisms, ideals, viewpoints…each was a new reminder of just how far from home he was. Far from her, from school, and from being politely dropped.
From the grassy hill and through the thick tropic air one can see Coralcola in all its modesty—the shapes of tan-skinned people naked to the belt flit to and fro, children scurry in the town’s open square. It’s all straw huts and wooden cabins, like a place tangential to the time of civilization, a drop of the anti-modern in this tropic expanse. All eight dwellings of the town peer out onto a giant square of land, a unifying organic structure with wooden vendor stands, a baseball diamond, grass green and wet, flattened by the pattering of the villagers’ feet. There is an aura of complacency like Mike has never felt before…but, wait, what’s this…there’s something else…a tinge of…
Glad to see you got on here, hope you can sign the petition and check out some of the other topics on here.
