From: nicky.matthews@btinternet.com   
      
   On Friday, September 12, 2014 12:38:15 PM UTC+1, William Vetter wrote:   
   > I think about it that way to an extent.   
   >    
   > Below is an opening.  I try to begin in a conflict.  Bring reader into   
   setting and world fast. Show the POV character's station in the world, age,   
   gender directly; make it in no way a struggle to figure out.   
   >    
   > You can see immediately reasons why it will never be published...there are a   
   lot of exotic character relationships, but the SF elements are subdued.  But   
   this is the best I can do to make the opening strong in this story.  I see   
   pulling the reader in    
   as an aspect of art and skill.  About editors, it has more to do with being a   
   prostitute.      
   >    
   >    
   >    
   >       "Jin Yu, where is your slave tag?"   
   >    
   >       "I don't know."  I threw it in the woods.   
   >    
   >       Wai Jan bent over to poke into the space under the    
   >    
   > oven with a burning stick, then shoved it further into the    
   >    
   > fire.  She made a big deal out of her stupid oven, said its    
   >    
   > bricks were dug out of the ruins of Denver and some other    
   >    
   > town, that nobody had made any good oven bricks for two    
   >    
   > thousand years.  "Lauren will be upset if she sees you    
   >    
   > without your tag."   
   >    
   >       Her voice made my head hurt.  "If Lauren owns me, then    
   >    
   > how come the tag has a mark on it that Indians put on their    
   >    
   > cows?"  I saw the brand last fall when they brought in a    
   >    
   > steer's hindquarters for Wai Jan to braise.   
   >    
   >       Wai Jan straightened.  When she frowned, her rounded    
   >    
   > nose crinkled and you could see into the nostrils.  She had    
   >    
   > big boobs like the White Women, but she was shorter.     
   >    
   > "We've explained this to you before.  You're a very    
   >    
   > beautiful child.  You're old enough for someone to take you,    
   >    
   > a strange Navajo or Apache.  Nobody would steal from Chief    
   >    
   > Brightknife."   
   >    
   >       Then nobody would make me work in a fake restaurant.  I    
   >    
   > mean, what was it?  Just a hogan with a sign over the door    
   >    
   > that had Chinese letters burned onto it with a hot coal.   
      
      
   It's interesting. I don't think the exoticism is a problem. Maybe the voice is   
   a little uncertain in that the narrator uses an odd mix of language registers   
   that don't immediately gel but that might be explained later.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)