part 1: his namesake was a fallen reclaimer

Thomas was squinting. He couldn't see anything but the cold white light
that felt like fire to his sensitive eyes. He hadn't used them in eight
months, but he didn't know that. At this point he was simply trying to
get his bearings. Where was he?

The Union Aerospace Corporation was the megacorp responsible for almost
all of the industrial infrastructure on Mars. In fact, their
colonization of the planet had become more successful than even the most
ardent futurists would have imagined. They had developed several pieces
of technology which allowed them to access unheard-of stores of energy
from the natural resources available on the planet. These technologies
originally caused a revolution in industrial processes back on Earth,
and UAC capitalized handsomely.

The Solar System's population was both excited and uneasy about the
rapid colonial development that was being reported from Mars. There had
been an incident on Earth's moon during the infancy of Gunthal processes
for world-building. The UN development wing had been reporting success
after success until they lost control of most of the Gunthal
construction systems. It took them nearly a decade to stop the
malfunctioning machines, and by that time around eighty percent of the
Moon's surface had been covered with colony buildings that were
uninhabitable due to the completely random placement and insane
short-circuits of Gunthals beyond human control.

Thomas' grandfather had been part of the UN reclamation force sent to
restabilize the Moon's surface by halting the mindless propagation of
the Gunthal construction systems. They had their job cut out for them.
It wasn't particularly hard to destroy Gunthal components, but the rate
of production and construction that made them so appealing for the
colonies made them nearly impossible to contain or control after the
catastrophic failure of the UN dev wing.

Thomas was raised hearing stories of the reclamation. The first few
years brought horrifying tales that described stunned crowds of marine
squads. With no pertinent training or orders for dealing with the new
consumption-hungry plague, they largely improvised crude techniques
to stop the process that was quickly rendering large areas of the
Moon uninhabitable.

Thomas was named after his grandfather's brother. The man was also part
of the reclaimers, but went missing during one of the very early
operations experimenting with the usage of nuclear weapons against the
Gunthal. In fact, most of the team running those experiments wound up
dead or missing, and the promises of reclaimer scientists that the
weapons would cause only minor destruction to the Moon's structure were
not materializing. The experiments were quickly abandoned.

The tide of the Gunthal war finally turned when a pair of companies
named Johnson Aerospace and Bolton Aerospace developed fragile
techniques for destroying the reproductive processes present in the
Gunthal machines. The reclamation forces were finally able to stop
using destructive force to annihilate Gunthal installations, and begin
to neuter the Gunthal, so that they'd expend their own energy and die
without propagating further.

It was a slow process to stop the Gunthal from spreading, but it worked
-- especially as the neuter devices became more effective. The aerospace
companies which developed the Gunthal stopping technology were
recognized by the UN as indispensible allies, and the UN development
wing was scrapped. In it's place, Johnson and Bolton were merged along
with a few other minor aerospace companies, and the result was named
Union Aerospace Corporation. This new and gigantic company was the
darling of the post-war period, especially because they were promising
new technologies that would make the Gunthal process look impotent (as
if their neuter devices weren't enough). In addition the new processes
would have fail-safes that would make uncontrolled spawning impossible.

Their cutting-edge technologies, massive resources, and a UN mandate
made UAC the most powerful corporation to ever exist. Politicians who
questioned the reasoning behind giving a private corporation so much
power were quickly furnished with luxurious mansions in Moon sectors
that were being slowly recreated out of the ashes of Gunthal insanity.
They were also quickly reminded that the UN still had oversight on UAC
policy, no matter how many writers, poets, or bleeding-heart liberals
claimed this was a formality.

The truth was that the UAC had become a behemoth compared to the UN, and
possessed a huge security unit that dwarfed the UN's multi-national
military. UAC had developed an opaque command structure which assured
the UN would only get involved in UAC politics during periods of extreme
controversy. Despite this, the formal command structure was preserved,
and UN delegations were always welcomed with much respect and fanfare to
UAC events.

The grandfather who fought the Gunthal war hung up his "dust hoppers",
as the reclaimers' boots were nicknamed, and returned to Earth for a
career as the owner of a construction business depending heavily on the
new UAC techs that were being developed. He eventually had a family,
giving birth to Thomas' father.

Thomas' father received a fine education from the profits of his own
father's innovative business. He eschewed the military which had
provided so much for his father, and studied literature until he ended
up a high school English teacher. Despite his academic leanings, Thomas'
father would never lose a deep respect for the military that he saw so
much of through his own father's friends.

University bored Thomas. When he finally graduated with a degree in
political studies, he had no idea what to do with it. However, his
family still had some very close friends in the upper echelons of the
military establishment, and they all seemed to want him to go through UN
officer training. He decided to follow in his Grandfather's footsteps
and sign up for the marines. What a mistake.

None of these thoughts were passing through his head. His limited
faculties were aware of the blinding light, and the fact that he felt
enormously cold. He felt cold tiles pressing against his hands and
knees. Where the fuck was he?

---
to be continued

This is well-written but IMO your style could use a tweak or two. I found it a bit like reading a personel file, or a life story.

Maybe try minimising the details and focus on developing some intrigue. But still, nice start.

I think it was all right for a beginning, but yes, some intrigueing stuff could've made the beginning really great.

The best way to make a beginning is to tell parts of the characters' life story and complement it with stuff that makes the reader wonder what will happen or what did happen before - then as the story unfolds, gradually reveal stuff about the character's (or characters' - if there are multiple characters that require in-depth descriptions) past.

Anyway, this all sounds very interesting. I'm interested to see which direction the story takes, so keep it up buddy.

you're both right, it's too dry.. i guess i'm used to writing essays, i'll try to get on with the interesting stuff as soon as possible.

Mantafin said:

i guess i'm used to writing essays, i'll try to get on with the interesting stuff as soon as possible.

Good luck and remember: Coming up with the intriguing and exciting parts of a story is the most rewarding regardless what the audience says.

dsm said:

Good luck and remember: Coming up with the intriguing and exciting parts of a story is the most rewarding regardless what the audience says.

what does the audience say?

Mantafin said:

what does the audience say?

If you've written a chapter that you're damn proud of - a chapter where you really think you've done the best you've done in a long while, then the audience typically doesn't seem to think it's all that great.

I've tried that lots of times.

oh, ok. i thought you were talking about whether the audience would find it intriguing and exciting.

Very interesting.

One thing that I have been doing, and it seems to be effective from the response I have gotten, is to start my stories already into the action. No preamble, just dump the reader into the middle of a situation, usually a very bad situation. One thing a writer has to do, is to get the reader feeling edgy right from the start and by dumping the reader into the middle of the action, they have a lot of questions.

I then slowly build up the characters (because people want to read about people, not about events) while they are fighting through the situations. This keeps the story moving, keeps the reader involved in the characters, and makes them care about the people as they learn about them.

The writing books call this raising a "story question" in the mind of the reader. Being thrown into the middle of a bad situation is certainly going to raise several questions. The more edgy you make the reader feel, the more likely they will stick with what you write just so they can get some closure on the feeling you have raised in them.

Of course this means though, that you have to build your characters as you move the action. If you don't get the reader to identify with your characters, they won't care what happens to them.

It is odd, but true, that the reader doesn't want to feel safe in a story; it is boring and they will never read it. The more uncomfortable you can make the reader feel, the more likely they are going to read your stuff. And you do that by making life hell for your characters.

The idea of a story question, also means that you can't answer the question right away. For every victory your hero(s) make, they must fail at least as often. In fact, when they win, it should bring about a situation where they are in worse shape then they were in before the win. This keeps the reader on edge, keeps them focused on getting that edgy feeling resolved.

This will drive your story to a final climax where it is all or nothing. Either the hero(s) win and make it out alive or they don't. The climax is for all the marbles, and depending on what you want to achieve in the story, they either win it all or lose it all.

Heh. Sorry for the book.

Look forward to the rest of the story.

thanks wildman, i wasn't expecting to get feedback from the great rick clark :) i hope you find i've tried to run with everyone's suggestions in the second part.