A sample/screener, Need some people's reactions!
Aug 22, 2009 22:45:27 GMT
Post by silverlining on Aug 22, 2009 22:45:27 GMT
Hi everyone!
I've just finished a segment from one of my many stories and I'd love it if some people could read it and tell me what they think. This is sort of a sample/screener: I'm mostly looking for people's immediate reactions to the text. Is it interesting? What does it make you wonder about? What does it make you feel? Is there anything you get curious about? Etc. etc. I'm particularly interested in how the world this takes place in comes across from this short peice. Of course, if I've made any spelling or grammar mistakes or if any sentences are just linguistically confusing, feel free to tell me that too.
This will actually probably be chapter two in this story, but it seemed a suitable peice to let some people "taste". Here it is:
The Smythe-McRae Institute: Chapter Two
Kella found herself almost smiling as she walked through the hallway on the second floor of the main building. It was a nice day, the September sun was shining outside and she’d spent the morning catching up on her paper work. She was almost done and now she was heading towards the northern wing of the manor where she and Thea, and most of the teachers and staff, had their private rooms. She was going to change out of her pinstriped slacks and white blouse, the closest she would go to actually wearing a suit or anything of that sort, and head down to the gym. Then she would shower, have a quick lunch and go back to her office to make some phone calls.
A group of second year students passed her in the hallway, probably on their way to the canteen to have lunch. One of them shyly piped up a “Hello Headmistress McRae” and was rewarded with a smile and a nod. Kella found it strange how easily this place could make her feel happy in the daytime. The nighttime was a different story altogether. When the darkness came and silence spread through the school as the students left the main building and headed for their dormitories, brooding and restless thoughts crept into her mind. Just the night before she had sat up well past midnight and, while Thea slept in the bed behind her, gazed out over the back garden from her bedroom window. As her dark brown eyes darted back and forth across the garden without really finding anything to look at she had wondered what she was doing there. Sitting in her leather armchair by the window she had thought that she was much more a fighter than an administratrix. What was she doing signing papers and making phone calls all day instead of battling Worldstate troops and planning political rallies? Had she lost her spark? Had she lost her thirst for freedom? Once she started thinking like this she began doubting whether running the school really was as efficient a way of non-violently fighting the system as she had thought. There were still splits within the classes, groups of students that refused to talk to each other and even instances of bullying. Only last week two girls had been put in detention after taunting a third girl for saying that she was thinking of beginning to wear a hijab. Prejudices lurked under the surface and she knew many of the children tried not to be too different. And these were generally the children of freedom-fighters, of society outcasts and of multiformitists! Sometimes the dark made her feel as if what they were doing wasn’t making any difference at all.
In the day things were completely different, and those thoughts seemed very far away and the only trace of the night’s brooding was a skillfully applied, and therefore unnoticeable, layer of concealer under her eyes. As she continued walking over the red carpet that ran along the length of the hallway she felt a mellow sort of pride at how many lives were touched by the existence of the school. If it hadn’t been here, many of these kids would be walking dogs, pulling weeds and shining shoes while waiting to grow old enough to start working in some restaurant, factory or clothing store. Children, she knew, would always be children and teenagers would always be teenagers. Problems like teasing and disagreements would always be around at the school. Today she felt that even in spite of such problems maybe, just maybe, they had managed to create the sort of environment where these young people had a chance to build up the courage to be themselves in a way that most other schools didn’t allow. That was, after all, why she had thought of the idea in the first place. How, she had said to Thea almost five years ago now, can you create a society which allows people to be themselves when the children who grow up in it are held so firm by norms and ideals that they never really find out who they are? She had already known the answer and about two years after she had uttered those words the Smythe-McRae Institute for Intermediate Learning had opened its doors to its first batch of students. The fact that students of theirs even dared admit to a religious belief that deviated from the Worldstate norm was a sign that they must be doing something right, Kella thought and nodded to herself.
She reached the end of the hallway and passed through the arch which led to the northern wing. The adjoining hallway was smaller and, unlike the one in the main part of the building which had rooms on both sides of it and no windows, ran along the outer side of the wing and had windows which looked out over the northern parts of the school grounds. The private rooms where the teachers and staff lived were on the other side of the hallway and had windows overlooking the back garden, and both the floors above and the floor below had the same layout.
Kella passed a window which stood slightly ajar and stopped when a low mechanic hum traveled in through it. She glanced outside to find the source of the sound and wasn’t terribly surprised to see young Adam Peters standing in the grass outside, facing away from the big building. His head was tilted back a tad and his blue eyes were fixed on a flat, diamond-shaped object which seemed suspended in midair about ten feet off the ground. It was black and while the frame was made of dull metal, the sail which covered it was made of fabric and glistened in the sun. Kella smiled. She’d given the boy the hover-kite herself, just before the spring term that year had ended. He’d come to the school at eleven, like most students did, and had shown a keen interest in technology from the start so when she’d found the old broken thing while going through some boxes in the attic she’d decided to give it to him. She hadn’t thought he would actually manage to get it flying again, but apparently he had. She could tell he wasn’t used to the controls yet from the way the kite wobbled in the air, but he would probably get the hang of it with some practice. She had been fairly good at flying them in her youth but the control-gloves, one working as a throttle and the other for steering, weren’t easy to master.
“Nice work, Peters!” She called from her window.
The thirteen-year-old jumped in surprise, thus losing control of the kite which came soaring towards the ground. He caught it and looked up towards the voice.
“Told you I’d get it flyin’, Headmistress!” He shot her a sheepish grin.
“That you did.” She nodded, and left the window to continue on her way. A moment later she had reached the last of the doors that lined the hallway on the wall opposite the windows; the door to her family’s quarters. As she stepped through it she had already begun planning her workout in her head.
I've just finished a segment from one of my many stories and I'd love it if some people could read it and tell me what they think. This is sort of a sample/screener: I'm mostly looking for people's immediate reactions to the text. Is it interesting? What does it make you wonder about? What does it make you feel? Is there anything you get curious about? Etc. etc. I'm particularly interested in how the world this takes place in comes across from this short peice. Of course, if I've made any spelling or grammar mistakes or if any sentences are just linguistically confusing, feel free to tell me that too.
This will actually probably be chapter two in this story, but it seemed a suitable peice to let some people "taste". Here it is:
The Smythe-McRae Institute: Chapter Two
Kella found herself almost smiling as she walked through the hallway on the second floor of the main building. It was a nice day, the September sun was shining outside and she’d spent the morning catching up on her paper work. She was almost done and now she was heading towards the northern wing of the manor where she and Thea, and most of the teachers and staff, had their private rooms. She was going to change out of her pinstriped slacks and white blouse, the closest she would go to actually wearing a suit or anything of that sort, and head down to the gym. Then she would shower, have a quick lunch and go back to her office to make some phone calls.
A group of second year students passed her in the hallway, probably on their way to the canteen to have lunch. One of them shyly piped up a “Hello Headmistress McRae” and was rewarded with a smile and a nod. Kella found it strange how easily this place could make her feel happy in the daytime. The nighttime was a different story altogether. When the darkness came and silence spread through the school as the students left the main building and headed for their dormitories, brooding and restless thoughts crept into her mind. Just the night before she had sat up well past midnight and, while Thea slept in the bed behind her, gazed out over the back garden from her bedroom window. As her dark brown eyes darted back and forth across the garden without really finding anything to look at she had wondered what she was doing there. Sitting in her leather armchair by the window she had thought that she was much more a fighter than an administratrix. What was she doing signing papers and making phone calls all day instead of battling Worldstate troops and planning political rallies? Had she lost her spark? Had she lost her thirst for freedom? Once she started thinking like this she began doubting whether running the school really was as efficient a way of non-violently fighting the system as she had thought. There were still splits within the classes, groups of students that refused to talk to each other and even instances of bullying. Only last week two girls had been put in detention after taunting a third girl for saying that she was thinking of beginning to wear a hijab. Prejudices lurked under the surface and she knew many of the children tried not to be too different. And these were generally the children of freedom-fighters, of society outcasts and of multiformitists! Sometimes the dark made her feel as if what they were doing wasn’t making any difference at all.
In the day things were completely different, and those thoughts seemed very far away and the only trace of the night’s brooding was a skillfully applied, and therefore unnoticeable, layer of concealer under her eyes. As she continued walking over the red carpet that ran along the length of the hallway she felt a mellow sort of pride at how many lives were touched by the existence of the school. If it hadn’t been here, many of these kids would be walking dogs, pulling weeds and shining shoes while waiting to grow old enough to start working in some restaurant, factory or clothing store. Children, she knew, would always be children and teenagers would always be teenagers. Problems like teasing and disagreements would always be around at the school. Today she felt that even in spite of such problems maybe, just maybe, they had managed to create the sort of environment where these young people had a chance to build up the courage to be themselves in a way that most other schools didn’t allow. That was, after all, why she had thought of the idea in the first place. How, she had said to Thea almost five years ago now, can you create a society which allows people to be themselves when the children who grow up in it are held so firm by norms and ideals that they never really find out who they are? She had already known the answer and about two years after she had uttered those words the Smythe-McRae Institute for Intermediate Learning had opened its doors to its first batch of students. The fact that students of theirs even dared admit to a religious belief that deviated from the Worldstate norm was a sign that they must be doing something right, Kella thought and nodded to herself.
She reached the end of the hallway and passed through the arch which led to the northern wing. The adjoining hallway was smaller and, unlike the one in the main part of the building which had rooms on both sides of it and no windows, ran along the outer side of the wing and had windows which looked out over the northern parts of the school grounds. The private rooms where the teachers and staff lived were on the other side of the hallway and had windows overlooking the back garden, and both the floors above and the floor below had the same layout.
Kella passed a window which stood slightly ajar and stopped when a low mechanic hum traveled in through it. She glanced outside to find the source of the sound and wasn’t terribly surprised to see young Adam Peters standing in the grass outside, facing away from the big building. His head was tilted back a tad and his blue eyes were fixed on a flat, diamond-shaped object which seemed suspended in midair about ten feet off the ground. It was black and while the frame was made of dull metal, the sail which covered it was made of fabric and glistened in the sun. Kella smiled. She’d given the boy the hover-kite herself, just before the spring term that year had ended. He’d come to the school at eleven, like most students did, and had shown a keen interest in technology from the start so when she’d found the old broken thing while going through some boxes in the attic she’d decided to give it to him. She hadn’t thought he would actually manage to get it flying again, but apparently he had. She could tell he wasn’t used to the controls yet from the way the kite wobbled in the air, but he would probably get the hang of it with some practice. She had been fairly good at flying them in her youth but the control-gloves, one working as a throttle and the other for steering, weren’t easy to master.
“Nice work, Peters!” She called from her window.
The thirteen-year-old jumped in surprise, thus losing control of the kite which came soaring towards the ground. He caught it and looked up towards the voice.
“Told you I’d get it flyin’, Headmistress!” He shot her a sheepish grin.
“That you did.” She nodded, and left the window to continue on her way. A moment later she had reached the last of the doors that lined the hallway on the wall opposite the windows; the door to her family’s quarters. As she stepped through it she had already begun planning her workout in her head.
I mostly just wanted to see if I was on the right track for what I wanted to convey.
Kella has my got my attention to want to know more about her! 
At least it wooed me, the first time I heard it I just went "I MUST use that in a text".