[Bindi]

Well, I posted in the intro thread...

My first proper novel is The Maiden Warrior: Tears of Fire. It's sort of in the process of being published by an amateur publisher but I gave him the wrong edit of the script by accident and now he's gone on holiday for two weeks... so I have two weeks to get some more feedback from the sci-fi community...

Please be gentle with me, lol. I know it has some shortcomings, like the fact that I was 17 when I wrote it and I think it lacks a bit of maturity that comes with continuing life, you know? I have some bad habits like word repetition, slowing it down and overusing personal pronouns ("she did x then she said y. She did... she did... etc) so please do point out any bits that need tweaking, adding, substracting, or complete re-writing :rolleyes:

I don't think there's any swearing in it... or if any, a rare use here and there. If there are any words, I apologise in advance.

Err... Well... yeah... I'll post the first chapter and if people want to continue to read it then I'll post more after :)

Thanks

[Bindi]

Here it is then... I know the rules said 1000 words per post so I've cut it down, but not sure how many words it is now... I can try and cut down more if the mods want.

I'm slightly nervous actually because this isn't a rabbit forum I'm posting this on this time, it's a forum where people must have read this kind of stuff to death!

The forum doesn't support the italics from copy and paste, so I've had to go through and do that... it makes more sense in italics, so I hope I got it all right. If anyone is interested in reading any more, either I'll post, or, if people prefer, I can email it in Microsoft Word.
Thanks :)

Tears of Fire

PROLOGUE

“I am a citizen of every nation on this Earth. I am not English, nor African, nor American nor Russian; I am not produce of the rich land or bane to the poor; I am neither white nor black nor a member of any one singular race but an amalgamation of every pure person on this planet- I am Human.”

CHAPTER ONE

She sat there at the wheel of the car, head in her hands, fingers covering her ears as though that would make all the recent happenings go away. The wind outside buffeted the metalwork and let the vehicle rock gently from side to side under its unforgiving force as a forlorn whistling filled the otherwise stale air; but for all its incessant wailing, it went unheard. In the deadly quiet, there were louder things spitting their infernal curses to the world. The children sat in the back of the car, silent; they were too shell-shocked to speak a word, the things that they had seen going round and round in their heads until they no longer saw her sitting there but instead saw the flashes and heard the screams that now incarcerated themselves in their young minds. After a moment the tormented figure looked up, rubbing her grubby hands across her cheeks with numbed fingertips chafing across the grains and, for a moment, lingering on a day old spot with distant preoccupancy before the shaking palms passed across her hair, as if that somehow would change things. She gazed out across the deserted road, its verges covered with brown grass and the churned earth spread across the track- the rain clouds in the sky gave the scene a barren and forsaken look. She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror; her long light brown hair was wrapped around her neck and looked so unkempt, her eyes had lost their spark and her fair skin was covered in dust and tiny bleeding cuts that mingled with the dirt and made such a contrast in colour to her deathly pallor. Wiping the dirt and sticky moisture from around her mouth, she dared to turn her aching body to glance over her shoulder and the wide eyes stared back at her, soulful and vacant- there was a glaze in their look that she knew she must mirror but with the faintest flicker of sentiency behind it that looked to her. What could she say? She didn’t love them… and they felt nothing for her beyond the bond of blood they shared. But they looked to her now.
Why did they look at her with such soulful eyes when she could not speak a word? They had been snatched and reality had turned from the familiar to the unfamiliar as instantaneously as a flash of lightning and she could not return them. They were not hers and they never would be. She was a victim of circumstance… that’s what it was… but why wasn’t there a way for this to become undone?
Her mind was numb and could not think. She had always relied on herself to have an answer to everything, even if it turned out to be the wrong answer, but it would not give her anything now. The silent statues expected so much of her that she could not deliver and the wish took her suddenly to get out and run… the running to wasn’t important, but just to get away from the responsibility… Her head had never been this empty… there were just the ricocheting voices of memory… look at the size of that thing! Familiar voices, voices of people she knew only by name or by face, innocent bystanders whom she had never seen before…what is it?… she had watched, standing there, gazing upward at a sky that was home to the largest star she had ever seen- indeed, at first they had thought it was the moon, but as it came closer and closer they realised that it was not. It was not alone in the midday sky- there were hundreds of these shining moons all over, as strategically placed as a carefully considered chess match. They had been at a pub for her cousin’s birthday; it was… had been… a quaint little building in an old town with the Tudor beams and bright green ivy trailing up the outside wall, surrounded by various bushes and flowers aimed at making the atmosphere friendly and the garden aesthetically pleasing. The light breeze had taken the warmth that the day had so far mustered and had swept it around the boughs like an elegant maiden in an unseen waltz as the sun glittered off the last remnants of the morning’s dew… A few of her family had finished eating and had retreated outside under duress from the younger members, drifting in and out of the door to socialise with the rest of the family at their leisure while she, someone who did not eat a lot, had been left sitting on a picnic bench with the family children- her cousin’s daughter Olivia, who was four, and son Jack, who was only a baby. Not far off had been her other cousin’s 10-year-old daughter Maisie, who was playing in the playground at the back of the pub garden.
She had heard the exclamations before she had seen the things herself, and all she could do was stare upwards in awe and confusion. Most of the family were still inside finishing their dinners, but soon they would be out here watching with her. Or so she had thought. The younger children’s father came out of the door and turned to see what everyone was staring at. She saw a blinding flash of light… and then nothing.
For a while, her eyes did not see and her ears did not hear. She sat up painfully from where she lay in the dirt and immediately with disorientated panic thought that she had gone blind, but then the smoke began to clear and her ears perceived the wailing of Jack and the ragged, bewildered sobs of the girls. She waved a hand before her face to help clear the air and through the screen she began to see ruins, a building hardly recognisable yet she had sat in there, eating contentedly, not long before.
An explosion? Perhaps she had been wrong and those great things had been a meteor shower or something… raining down to earth and landing before her like something she never would have thought she would ever see. But then… where had it landed? Mum? Mum would know what to do… She had always known what to do. Even when they had had their differences, deep in Bindi’s soul she had known that her mother might have the answers to life’s tough questions. Where…? Where was she? Her eyes turned back to the broken down building and the wind that had danced before cried loneliness around her. Oh God no… She had to find her mother…!
The wind blew and she saw a lot more now. The things were still far above her head and she knew it could not be them… and there was not any evidence, any stony shrapnel, to say where something could have fallen nor had she seen anything plummet to the ground… No noise… Just a flash of light… Others who had been in the pub garden too were clambering up from where they lay and hugging each other in distress. Bindi knew that what had happened was bad and the girls were grabbing at her clothes and crying with all the effort they could muster. The only real explanation that crossed her mind now was that they were being bombed by some powerful enemy- she wondered briefly whether the insurgents in the East were that powerful or what purpose they had to bomb such an insignificant place that was so small that it could not possibly have been mistaken for London or Manchester or any other major city.
Nothing mattered now… Her eyes just wanted to see the woman who had been there ever since her first breath and her heart begged the world to make it so, even if it meant ignoring all else until she had reached that means, but as she staggered towards the building, tiny hands kept their grip and cried all the more for her abandonment. She looked down at the children and then across at the car park. Her lips set tightly against each other as she suddenly resented their presence and had no idea what to do with them- they were not her own and she cared little beyond the knowledge that they were her kin and possibly the only left… Picking up the screaming baby in his carry case, she herded the children across to an estate car with its doors wide open. Pushing them inside, she told them all to stay there and not to follow her, before shutting the door and turning away to face the scene of devastation once more. She hoped that they would stay there. The sickness in her stomach came twofold- keeping her distance from the inexperience of looking after young and also an instinct that screamed that the children should not see what she might be going to see. Blanking out the muffled howling still coming from behind her, she strode up to the burning walls, trying not to stumble over the blocks of contorted bricks and timber that had tumbled into a blast radius around the stricken building and as she stood on a pile of wreckage she saw beyond, a crater of fire, and thought that no bomb save the atom or nuclear could have created that complete and utter demolition of the town square and a lot of the very ground it had stood on, but yet, it was too clean- although the buildings were gone and the surrounding area had been hit by the shock waves, it was nowhere near as powerful as what she had heard tell of regarding Hiroshima. She at least, was still alive and unharmed. She covered her mouth and tried to keep the thick dust cloud from entering her eyes but it refused to settle and the eyes that were already raw ran all the more for the particles of debris that managed to twist their way into them. She began to cough with racking gasps but she had no option but to go on. There was nothing that she could cover her face with save her hands- oh, if only it had been winter for her to have a scarf! Her free fingers reached out for a handhold through the mess, the shaking tips rubbing across the rough brick, the dangling shards of ivy and collecting soot and some unknown filth as she went. Walking forwards so slowly and staring blankly at the void, she tripped over something that, on closer inspection, turned out to be a smoking body. At once gripped with a wretched impulse to find her mother, she rushed into the remnants of the pub calling names out, competing with all the other voices that rang out across this new landscape of rubble and to the backdrop of harsh car alarms.
The dining area was completely caved in. She knew where the table had been and raced right for a place that had to have been it, but was now an entirely different landscape. She pulled wood and plaster aside with no care for the consequences, digging deeper and deeper and tossing aside anything that came into her path; but she was thwarted- roofing timber lay in front of her, propping up a crumbled dining table, pieces of the last meal still sticking to the torn cloth that covered it. She pulled it aside in silence and stayed immobile for a moment, looking ahead at the bloody face of her cousin, with eyes wide open and a fork in her hand, still spearing a piece of food that would never be eaten. She dropped the table hurriedly, regaining her breath and wiping her tear-soaked eyes. The rich metallic stench of blood was filling the air with such a pungent scent that she pawed at her nostrils to try and fend it off, the very perception of it a twisted notion that the giver of her life was in there somewhere and she didn’t know how she could find her. There had to be a way to dig through the mass of collapsed roof, what was left of it, but as her desperate eyes scoured the scene and her hands scrabbled desolately at a few possible, but vain, places she could see no way that she could do such a thing. As though her aching legs had turned to jelly, she collapsed despondently against the impenetrable barrier and looked down at the blood and filth that were scraped across her young hands. As she stood there crying hysterically, she realised that she was being watched… to her relief, she recognised the stricken figure was her mother and rushed to her side… but the eyes continued to stare at the opposite wall and the lips would draw no breath, not even with all the shaking and lamentation that issued forth from her daughter. Eventually the body slumped down and became still once more.
Some fallen leaves blew in mad spirals across the car bonnet, followed by crumpled scraps of dirt and bloodstained paper, some with fading ink that would soon be lost completely- wiped off the face of nature just as the hand that wrote it. Every inch of the car itself, including the windows, was covered with a fine layer of ash, and whatever colour the paint had been before, it was the colour of death now. Around her, undergrowth rustled and the worn gravel that the vehicle was parked on was crunched with abnormal intensity as rhythmic pressure was placed on them, one, then another, then another. She heard the slow, deliberate footsteps approach them but she didn’t turn around. She listened vaguely as the door opened with a gush of salty air and a seasoned man sat inside, stroking his grey stubble wretchedly with one hand as he remained deep in thought, his blue eyes looking out over the monochrome landscape beyond. As another tumbleweed of lost litter twirled across the road ahead, he sat there in silence for a while, as if the reality of their situation was dawning on him too. He was wondering how to break the news to her.
“We’re near the coast,” he said after a while, expression carefully immobile with bewilderment except the uncontrolled flickers of emotion that made him shudder. “There was a town just over there, the buildings are still full of food and things…” he trailed off and sat with his head bowed, rubbing his hands irritably. Her heart ached at the sight of him- she had never seen him so distracted and the love that flowed in her veins was bitter and twisted with the pain of his distress as she felt the aura that drifted from his tired body. She couldn’t see his eyes and knew that he was endeavouring to hide his internal truth from her; the thoughts and fears that he held inside him he knew that she would be able to see. Even without looking into the deep depths of his soul, she knew him too well.
Bindi turned her head with a quivering lip and looked at him fondly, but there was a certain coldness to her voice that she hadn’t intended. “Now tell me what you are not telling me, John.”
His lips moved softly, just on the edge of perception, as though he was searching some mental script for the right answer and her brow furrowed, just for a moment, as she wondered if he would actually lie to her but the effort couldn’t stay on her face and she waited with bewilderment for his reply. The old man looked at her quietly as he considered the options, but eventually gave up any notion of softening the blow and replied frankly: “This will be strange, love… but we aren’t alone around here…” he shook his head like he couldn’t understand what his own voice was saying. “I… I can’t describe them, love… You had better see them for yourself…”

[MElliott]

Well, after finishing this post, I feel I have to tell you that it wasn't quite as entertaining as a book should be. I know that sounds bad, but that's how it was. I knew that Bindi was in a car, that something extraordinary had just occurred (why you chose to begin the book immediately after something extraordinary happened instead of during the event, I couldn't say, but perhaps I'm overanalyzing), that Bindi wasn't a big fan of her kids, and quite a few of her family members had just perished in a pub. That's about it.

The descriptions, though eloquent (sometimes borderline beautiful), were often scatterbrained and overpowering. You jam so much sensory detail into one sentence that it reads more like a list than a line of prose. It's hard to bash you for it though, because there are other times where your writing is so good that I can't believe I didn't particularly enjoy reading this.

The story itself is intriguing, but the way you present it makes it less interesting than it should be. Halfway through you delve into a flashback that details the bombing? more clearly, but still, I just felt like I left with hardly any more knowledge than I entered with. You used pretty words, but they didn't paint a pretty picture.

You also really need to work on seperating paragraphs. It could just be the formatting on the site, but if your actual MS looks like this, I can imagine the publisher having difficulties down the line. Half the reason why I had such trouble reading this is because it plows into new ideas without any indicator ahead of time to warn me. You jump from topic to topic more quickly than I have the patience to deal with. Work on focusing on one thing at a time.

On the other hand, Bindi was fairly believable as a character. And once again, I want to let you know that your writing, in and of itself, is very good. You've got great diction. Put it to better use. Good luck in the future, and I hope this works out for you.

[kmtolan]

Well, I posted in the intro thread...

I know it has some shortcomings, like the fact that I was 17 when I wrote it and I think it lacks a bit of maturity that comes with continuing life, you know? I have some bad habits like word repetition, slowing it down and overusing personal pronouns ("she did x then she said y. She did... she did... etc) so please do point out any bits that need tweaking, adding, substracting, or complete re-writing :rolleyes:


There's this scene out of "Starship Troopers" where the commander barks "You give the best...you get the best!"

Not trying to be a jerk, here. Just encouraging you to come at me with your "A" game.

Kerry

[MElliott]

By the way, I hadn't seen the part where you mentioned that you wrote this when you were 17. Being a young aspiring writer myself, I can see how hard it must have been for you to put yourself into the shoes of a mother. Your writing is miles ahead of other people our age, and I can't imagine you failing to find a place in the writing world at some point down the line. You've got a lot of talent, don't let my critique discourage you. Keep going with this book or another.

[Bindi]

Perhaps the reason you were so confused, MElliott, is because that was only half of the first chapter (the post limit caught me...) so most of the attack isn't actually there. Thanks for the other comments though. I'll have another go at it.

Yes, the original MS has indenting etc... It didn't transfer very well.

I did start the book originally just before the attack, but it didn't work out so I re-wrote it. I'm sorry you didn't like that... I do though, lol. I don't think now that I would have written it any other way.

Oh, and they aren't Bindi's children :) I thank you for saying she is believable- I'm glad that I can transfer my own thoughts and feelings onto paper well enough. The main character is actually me (although I didn't get invaded by aliens, obviously...)