Our live edit series focuses on making the first 500 words of a story opening shine. We want to show you examples of what weaknesses to look for in your own writing and how to polish it up.
Today we’re looking at a far-future sci-fi narrative, one in need of minor adjustments for big style and voice impact.
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Generational Escape - story opening
I exist to fulfill three needs:
1. Provide essential water to our population.
2. Procreate and sustain our population.
3. Transfer knowledge to rising members of our population.
Our water systems have never faltered for more than a few hours. My apprentices are well trained[.] and m[M]y activities over the last two decades have guaranteed that our population can ensure access to this essential resource in the near future. I have not the creativity to foresee what challenges the far future will present, but I know my apprentices’ apprentices would tackle the problem with fervor. Either way—success or ultimate failure—my role is done.
The opening beats of the story are so stark, don’t get bogged down in wordiness as the narrative moves to paragraphs.
I created the two required children. One by one man and one by another in the name of genetic diversity. My children fulfilled their own requirements to produce two children—four grandchildren if you will permit a dead woman this colloquial term of endearment.
“Colloquial term of endearment” tells us a lot about this stoic sci-fi community.
Though I established success regarding these first two goals, I fear I have undermined the third. And that is why I seek to address this oversight in my postmortem letter.
My parents were part [members] of the original crew that left Earth. Their goal was profound: to ensure the survival of homo sapiens by growing and maintaining an alternate population off planet. Not one that is biologically different, but one that would be untouched by the whims of an Earthly Mother or the happenings of a passing asteroid.
We sought certainty in our survival.
The truth is harder to hear. There is no certainty. We cannot run from the risk of living.
Even writing this letter, days before my extermination date—even dead—I feel your anger.
By saying we cannot achieve certainty for our species, I fly in the face of all our generation ship stands for. I tear the purpose that holds your life together. I blaspheme.
While my voice was slight in life, it has power in death. I know this address will be read as the capstone of a long life onboard. Read on. You will want to know what I did the day before my extermination.
While it’s helpful information that the letter is being read aloud to the ship, it’s clear the sentence is there for our benefit as the reader. See if you can make it more subtle, or cut it altogether.
I am nearly 80 and so, near the end of my life, near the end of my usefulness.
Evolutionarily, women live long past our child birthing years. We provide value to the collective in other ways. We are not insects, withering away after laying a clutch of eggs; just a swarm of loving arms unable to hold her brood. Still, one cannot stay relevant forever. I have reached the point in my life where I become a burden to our carefully constructed systems, rather than an asset.
Since the beginning, since the ship left Earth, protocol has decided that 80 years are long enough. It is the point at which one goes from giving to taking. The council has never voted to change this. Reasonably so. Most of them are men who die naturally at 72.
Giving the ship a name will feel more realistic.
And yet, I am not bitter. I mention this only because I know many will assume it to be the reason behind my actions. Let me speak clearly: I am ready to die. My extermination date played a minor role in my decision making, but only in the development of my method, not in the reason for the act.
My treason is more complex.
Our Notes
The narrative quality to this story works well and there are some moments of real color (“a swarm of loving arms”). We’ve made minor adjustments in the text itself, but have four main takeaways for your revision process.
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