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#101 2004-10-17 09:37:34
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Yes, I like chapters 8 and 9; there's a lot of human interest in them. I'm not good at that; my imagination doesn't normally trend that way. But I have tried to add more of it.
The commander is busy; but I think anyone who's good at a demanding job is busy. They have to be.
Thank you for your encouragement. I'll have to get more chapters up!
-- RobS
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#102 2004-10-23 00:19:31
#103 2004-10-25 22:52:41
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
I just posted chapters 13 and 14, which end volume 5. Just think, they've now been on Mars ten years!
I'll get started posting volume 6 later this week. I am currently writing volume 12, so it'll be a while before I catch up.
-- RobS
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#104 2004-11-08 21:30:12
#105 2004-11-16 10:05:40
- Ian Flint
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- From: Colorado
- Registered: 2003-09-24
- Posts: 437
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Wow...an eight-day week, huh?
Rob, if you don't get your manuscripts in on time, I'm just going to have to let you go.
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#106 2004-11-16 12:42:01
- Rxke
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- From: Belgium
- Registered: 2003-11-03
- Posts: 3,669
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Yes, Rob, we can no longer accept this behaviour.
My secretary it typing your resignation letter as we are speaking...
Last chance Robert!
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#107 2004-11-17 00:11:39
#108 2004-11-17 09:02:17
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
It's finally done! I put up FOUR chapters, since know everyone was waiting so long. I apologize for the delay. They seem pretty good, too:
http://rsmd.net/MarsFrontier/6/]http:// … rontier/6/
-- RobS
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#109 2004-11-18 04:52:20
- Rxke
- Member
- From: Belgium
- Registered: 2003-11-03
- Posts: 3,669
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Excellent stuff, i PMmed you some comments, as usual...
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#110 2004-11-24 18:25:50
- Ian Flint
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- From: Colorado
- Registered: 2003-09-24
- Posts: 437
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Ok mister, I sure hope you plan on working through Thanksgiving!
I will not tolerate this insubordination much longer!
By the way, nice novel. 
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#111 2004-11-24 20:46:16
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
I'm torn between revising and posting volume 6 and writing volume 12. I was just at a conference for five days and managed to write about 30 pages on volume 12. But okay, I'll try to get two more chapters of volume 6 up. . .
-- RobS
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#112 2004-11-24 21:01:50
- Dook
- Banned
- From: USA
- Registered: 2004-01-09
- Posts: 1,409
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
A few writing tips:
-Don't use past tense unless it is absolutely necessary. Only when someone is thinking or telling of the past. I want to be there as it's happening. It's not a deathbed confession. Bring me along for the ride.
-Get rid, of, the comma's. They slow the story down. We need to connect the beginning and the ending of sentences.
How about something more like this:
High above the Tharsis Uplift the shuttle descends into the thin atmosphere at just over four kilometers a second. The titanium heat shield glows a bright martian red as hot plasma mixes with ionized gasses, escaping and cooling quickly into a thin white trail. A spider in the martian sky, hanging by a single stretching thread. Emily touches the controls lightly as she monitors the CAP (Computer Autopilot). Her eyes scan the instruments. She turns a knob one notch.
"Plus one optimal glideslope" the CAP announces.
The craft begins to slow, cooling the exterior and increasing the force on the twenty ton cargo and eight scientists to four times earth gravity. Emily smiles as she hears a moan from the back.
But if you are dead set on your paragraph, then use this:
The Mars shuttle Arsia plunges into the Martian atmosphere at just over four kilometers per second. Within seconds the metal heat shield covering its blunt conical base glows red hot. A plume of ionized gas envelops the craft, tracing a meteor-like reddish trail across the predawn Martian sky high above the Tharsis Uplift. The pilot, Emily Scoville, monitors the computer closely as it maintains the craft’s lift at maximum, lengthening the glide and minimizing the force on the eight human beings packed into the two small passenger cabins built into the cargo bay just above the engines. The rest of the cargo bay is stuffed with twenty tonnes of cargo: consumables, drills, solar power units, sunwings, and new computer equipment. The passengers watch their television screens as they endure the deceleration.
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#113 2004-11-26 11:00:37
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
I prefer the narrative past; I find novels in the present jarring. As for commas, they are partly a matter of taste and partly experience. I have published three books (check Amazon.com) and will stick to the system my editors taught me.
Thanks.
-- Robs
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#114 2004-11-27 15:15:26
#115 2004-11-28 14:54:32
- Rxke
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- From: Belgium
- Registered: 2003-11-03
- Posts: 3,669
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Only had time to skim through it very rapidly... Will come back on it later, probably.
A bit offtopic, but we once discussed 'new words' to use in the novell, and then the discussion was about the origin of the word 'polder.'
Found it: comes from old Dutch polre, poller, or pol... which originally meant 'through acretion (Dutch: aanslibben,) formed land' (not sure 'bout the accretion-word... I mean the setting down of soil in estuary beds etc...)
Also, old Nordic: 'pollr,' which meant round inlet of the sea.
Further: probably linakble with old Dutch 'pol,' which meant swelling, We have a modern descendant from that, '(uit)puilen.' which means bulging (out.)
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#116 2004-11-28 18:04:40
- Dook
- Banned
- From: USA
- Registered: 2004-01-09
- Posts: 1,409
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
How much creativity is in a documentary? It's like reading math.
Documentarian's naturally use past tense to tell a factual story because everything has already happened.
A story writer assembles alphabetic ingredients together to create a new world. How can you create something new and tell me about it as if I am late for the whole thing?
In a good novel the writer creates a recipe for a new dish that everyone is dying to get a taste of.
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#117 2004-11-28 21:32:12
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Thanks, Rik, for the etymology of polder. It isn't connected to "field" as I thought. Interesting.
Dook, you are free to write a novel in the present tense if you want. Scan any shelf of novels and you will see that they all put the narrator's voice in the past, with the actual conversations and quotations in the present (i.e., "'Yes, I'm going to the store,' he said," where the narrator's "he said" is in the past but the character's statement is in the present).
-- RobS
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#118 2004-11-29 02:13:20
- Rxke
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- From: Belgium
- Registered: 2003-11-03
- Posts: 3,669
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Since the novel is dealing with stuff in the future, why not use future tenses?
"the commander will push the button, the engines will roar into life..."
:;):
Seriously, Dook, how many novels use the present tense throughout?
It's sometimes used for effect, but still...
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#119 2004-11-29 13:33:15
- Dook
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- Registered: 2004-01-09
- Posts: 1,409
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Sure they put the narrator's voice in the past, if they use one, which they rarely do. The reader replaces the narrator.
How many novels use present tense throughout? Just the good ones.
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#120 2004-11-29 20:49:21
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
I'm going to have to look at novel writing advice columns more! They have fascinating stuff, and I am sure they can help with my technique.
But I found this tidbit at http://fictionaddiction.net/askexpert8. … pert8.html:
Q: I'm frustrated concerning a question on tense. I completed a serial-killer novel in 12/02. It was edited by a professional freelancer. My use of the present tense was okay with her.
Charlie Spicer at S&S read it along with marketing. He had much praise for the manuscript, but marketing had too many similar works in the pipeline. Not a word on tense.
A friend of mine asked to read the book. She was in publishing for 20 years, and now has her own firm: editing, illustration, etc. She says I can't use present tense in fiction; it's been done successfully only a few times.
Could you give me your considered opinion? Thank you. -Gordon
A: When book doctors and acquisitions editors think in terms of marketability, we lean toward the highest percentages. Yes, you can write a novel in present tense, but only a low percentage of those manuscripts ever get published, and only a few of those become bestsellers. Don't buck the odds or work against the system. If you want a higher chance of selling your novel, go with the numbers. Novels in past tense sell better, so seriously consider writing novels only in past tense.
BACK TO ME. There are very few novels in present tense, but until you mentioned it, I don't think I had noticed any.
-- RobS
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#121 2004-11-30 02:33:19
- Rxke
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- From: Belgium
- Registered: 2003-11-03
- Posts: 3,669
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
How many novels use present tense throughout? Just the good ones.
Oh, I take it you're just kidding, then.
The use of present tense is suitable for a limited kind of story-telling, not for *all* kinds.
As a matter of curiosity, which novels, written in the present tense spring to mind?
Only one I can think about right now: "bright lights, big city," which also uses the second person in it's narrative, and which I thought seriously above average. But its way of storytelling got copied so much, I has all but become an irritating gimmick.
Too bad, for sure... Again a sad case of "copy the successful until it gets nauseating," sigh...
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#122 2004-12-02 10:23:54
- Ian Flint
- Member
- From: Colorado
- Registered: 2003-09-24
- Posts: 437
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
Hey Rob,
My wife says all your characters talk like nerds. I tried to explain that to go to Mars you must indeed be a nerd, but she didn't go for it.
One thing that sounds funny is how Will is always summarizing how the entire operation is going to crew members who should already know the intimate details. Maybe he could do his summarizing to an audience on Earth, like in press releases.
Anyway, I love reading your novel. By the way, have you seen the movie "Little Shop of Horrors"?
FEED ME SEYMOUR!!!
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#123 2004-12-03 12:12:35
Re: Mars Frontier Novel - New web location
I suppose my characters sound like nerds because I am one, and I talk that way! That's probably true. Not much I can do about it.
I try to come up with situations where Will can summarize things to Mars crewmembers who are not likely to know about something, like Madhu, the artist. But there are just not enough of those situations that can be written into the story, I think. On television and in movies, characters often explain things to people who should know, so I haven't worried about that too much.
I hope to get the last two chapters up this weekend.
-- RobS
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