It's always interesting...

[tchernabyelo]

...to see how one's fiction is seen by others.

I came across this review of one of my Daily Science Fiction stories today:

“Flood Myth” by Brian Dolton (debut 12/09) is a lecture. The narrator expounds on the merits of water. The story is philosophical, pointing out how water is essential to the earth and its relationship to clay.

The story can be

Comments

[rob_haines]

I can see where that reader got the sense of the lecture; the tone was very instructive, very much directly addressing the reader. Personally I felt that by the end it had become more than that, strangely enough having a life of its own.

[tchernabyelo]

Any hint of second person narratives is anathema to a lot of people (including some editors) in my experience. People react very difficerently to a story the moment the word "you" appears outside dialogue tags - it becomes somehow much more personal, and the reactions thus tend to be emotionally stronger.

I'm still trying to work out, though, how the reviewer got as far as the "higher power" thing but apparently failed to get the whole create/destroy life motif. And there I'd worried that the title was too much of a giveaway...

[henry_the_cow]

Well, it is a lecture, and it is addressed to a (proto-)god. That much of the review was correct.

The questions are, who is speaking, and to whom? If a reader assumes that the author is speaking directly to them, then they would experience the piece rather differently from the way I read it.

BTW, Charlie Stross's "Halting State" is a novel that uses the second person narrative well. His use is apt because the story is set against a background of computer gaming, and adventure games have generally been written in the second person.

[sacredmime]

Clearly, the reviewer is a god, and thinks that you were lecturing him. Gods are funny that way.

For me, the story was about how frustrating the process of creation can be, how things can go wrong at any point, and how, at the end, after all your labor, you might have to go back to the starting point.

On another note, I miss reading your short stories.

"begin with water"

[anonymous]

- that says it all. Sounds like a HomeEc lesson.

If it's not an instructive text, you need a bit at the start to say who's saying what to whom (like what TheCow says above).

I pictured a chap in a white robe, big beard, cosmic scale, doing a "blue peter" demonstration to other gods. Galaxy-wide 2-sided tape on the table.

Yup, it's a lecture.

Re: "begin with water"

[tchernabyelo]

Thanks for the input.

Re: "begin with water"

[henry_the_cow]

Erm, I didn't say that Brian needed to explain who's saying what to whom. I merely said that the construction of the piece raises those questions. It's legitimate, in my opinion, for a story to raise questions; I think the story provides enough clues for the reader to decide for themselves.