In the roaring 40’s spring announces its coming with wind. It announces its going with wind. Okay so there is wind in the middle too, and quite a lot the rest of the year. This year we’ve had a savage batch – the island on the far side of the Bass strait recorded gusts of 150kmph today. They have asked us for their cows back, but I think try New Zealand or South America. It was too miserable to even try working on anything outdoors — we lost a tree and nearly our old SUV.
So, it was a good day for me to start writing Storm Dragon — me trying to channel my inner Andre Norton/Heinlein Juveniles.
I started – as many books in this age-group are: in first person.
“The first time I met my best friend, he took a bite out of me, and ate it. Okay so it was a pretty little bite, because he couldn’t open his mouth wide enough to get more in. Snark was only about eight inches long, then. By now he can probably eat my whole arm, let alone a tiny bite out of the base of my thumb.”
*Could eat your whole leg, but I wouldn’t want to. You taste horrible, but I was very hungry. Very, very, very hungry. Poor Snark! Anyway, if you’re going to tell the story, tell properly. Begin at the beginning, Skut.*
“Ok, so it began when I decided to run away. They all hated me.”
*Didn’t. Just the mean girls.*
“Who is telling this story, Snarky?”
*You. I just fix it.*
I wasn’t happy so I wrote it in third. It loses some immediacy, but does let me set the scene and background more easily.
A savage wind full of icy shards bit at Skut’s face around the edge of his parka-hood. It kept him looking down, and not around, which was always a mistake on Vann’s World. He would never have got that close to the diving hamerkops if he hadn’t been trying to pull his head into his parka like a turtle.
He might never have heard the squall the squall for *help!*. Well, ‘heard’ was the wrong word. He felt it in his head… and it wasn’t so much the word help as the need for it.
“I’m coming,” he yelled, which would have been pretty dumb even if the wind hadn’t whipped the words away, because you really didn’t want to make yourself obvious on the coralline spike flats. Too many things might notice.
But something did hear. And the *quick!* wasn’t so much a word either, but a desperate need.
He saw the little electrical flash just before he saw the diving Hamerkop. Dad’s training meant he didn’t even think, he just drew and fired his Fleche. The dive ended in a splat onto the etched rock. The second savage bird managed to turn its attack on him, but he was still quick or lucky enough to hit one wing and send it spiralling into a tide-pool, where it ended in a sudden snap of waiting teeth. That pool must have a resident slake-eel – lucky he hadn’t stood in it.
The rest of the hamerkop fair, shrieking in rage loud enough to even be heard above the wind, held off.
Up against the coralline spike, with several blackened streaks around it, sat the most miserable little thing Skut had ever seen. It was *cold*, *scared* and *HUNGRY*! He picked it up without even thinking about it. It was maybe eight inches long, two thirds of that tail, and curled into his palm easily enough.
*Warm!*
And then it bit him!
“Ouch! You filthy little beast!” Only the fact that it was clinging to his hand with all its claws and with the tail wrapped around his wrist stopped Skut flinging it away.
*Hungry!* somehow that ‘hungry’ conveyed “food or die” to Skut.
“Well, you can’t eat me.”
Somehow Skut got the idea that the miserable scrap of blue fur and tail was not sure just what ‘me’ was. And it was chewing the little bite it had taken. It was a very little bite, for all that it was sore. The little thing only had a tiny mouth. *had to have food. Foood!*.
Skut grabbed the fallen Hamerkop. The flechette needles had torn one leg nearly off, so he was able to pull the meaty drumstick free and put it in front of the little creature on his hand. “Eat that, not me. Now where can I put you?”
*Warm.*
Skut didn’t know quite where that came from. The little beast’s snout was already buried in the meat, the little tail still locked around his hand, as it gorged. But wherever ‘warm’ was, it wouldn’t be here. The tide was going to surge over these flats, ripping through the coralline spikes pretty soon.
He knew he should just put it down and let nature take its course. The Hamerkops were higher, but still circling. That was what he was supposed to do. He also knew he wasn’t going to. Somehow trust and contentment were coming from the little creature. He didn’t even know what it was. His hand throbbed from the bite – but he still wasn’t going to put it down. No, they’d head for high ground, and then he’d decide what to do with it.
Skut made his way, carefully, because, well, Vann’s World. It was a good place to end up being bitten or stung, if not eaten by wildlife – and not just by tiny little things either. There was a first-tide shelf a little way back. They’d be safer there, even if it was harder going, with the plants. Mostly safer, anyway. The sea was the real danger, this low down the tide-line, and the tide, he could see, was coming in fast.
Well? thoughts?
Mad Genius Club 
30 responses to “Storm Dragon”
Oh, I like this start! More, please!
Love it
It will be there for your children soon. 🙂
Thank you! I’ll get it, and if there are hardcovers, I might donate some to the school library. My older kids are 21-18, so they read adult literature, and the youngsters are illiterate. The oldest of those just started kindergarten, and they’re working on their skills – they’ll get there, but I hope your book will get there a lot earlier.
I like them both—I was pulled in quicker with the first person, but I like them both.
Yes, that is the key advantage of first – rapid engagement 🙂
Really good. I’d vote for the third person version myself.
Love it! I prefer the third-person, but that’s true for most books I read, so I’m not a good judge.
Is the rest going to be first or third person? If third, the first could be prologue? Or the other way around?
At the moment I am leaning to third.
Yes, please. 🙂
I do like both, but the third-person gets me into the world much better. [Makes mental note for Amazon purchase sooner or later.]
This was exactly what I was trying to illustrate, and maybe why one form is better suited to a setting where the audience is already familiar.
I like it.
As for wind, North Dakota has quite a bit. We like to say it’s because Montana blows, and Minnesota sucks. When I was a kid and watching baseball games on TV it always gave me a chuckle when the announcers said it was a windy day at the park, with 15 mph winds. That’s a calm day in North Dakota.
Right? Lived in N.Dakota for 4 years.
Campo, CO was wind all the time, too, often even at night.
Tulsa, OK wind, but not quite as bad as the other two.
High Plains – “What do you call a 25 MPH wind? Tuesday. What do you call a 50 MPH wind? January through March.” What slid past the Dakotas comes racing down to us.
Third person. Do continue, what happens next? 🙂
(chuckle) shocking things.
I expect nothing less from you.
Loving it! That is a right fine adventure beginning. you might even combine the two, with the first person to start, then to the third person for the “flashback”, which might last the whole story, then finish with a bit of “now/first person” at the end.
I like it. I realize it’s “not done” to alternate between the two perspectives, but this might just work, and piss on those that say “it’s not done.”
Well, I have (CHANGELING’S ISLAND). It’s quite useful for very different perspectives.
yeah, I need to get around to reading that… so many books, so little time.
Third person, definitely.
My youngest demands that I purchase her a copy when you finish.
I’ll let you know. I’m glad to have the appeal tested. Age?
16
Sounds like you’re channeling <i>Red Planet</i> a little, not that I’m complaining.
There are certainly worse things 🙂
Seems more Norton than Heinlein, with the telepathic link between the kid and the creature.
I think technically you could make it work in first person, if you did it not as a summary of backstory with snarky comments inserted, but as more straight narrative. I don’t know if that would be an improvement.
Doesn’t matter to me whether you write it in third-person or first-person. Or get totally weird and write it in second-person. I know it will be a great story when you get done. I’ll buy it.