Thread: The Nuva: Psychologicals

Here we go, I spent sometime at school today working on some more!



"Psychologicals," continued the old man.

This triggered some muttering, Psychologicals weren't physically dangerous, but whenever you got close to one you got a ringing headache. The headaches wouldn't kill you, but they damn sure didn't help you. Most of the muttering wasn't about the headaches, it was about the other rumors. Those rumors said that Psychologicals could make one betray his allies or simply go crazy.

This had never been officially confirmed.

Diagrams of recovered psychological bodies flashed on the screen, the didn't look too different from an emaciated monkey, except for two characteristics. They had lilac skin, and their eyes shone a bright white, like fluorescent light bulbs, it was clinical, almost sickly. It reminded him of a hospital.

He looked around the small, crowded room; there were about a dozen rows of cheap, metal fold-out chairs. He felt cramped. It reminded him of home. His settlement was small, but overpopulated, there was never enough to eat, and work was rare. The NEI had come on a recruitment trip and asked for young adult volunteers. More than half the village volunteered. Most were immediately eliminated on the grounds of age, and many more on the grounds of health. Arthur had been lucky, he was young, strong enough, and not sickly.

He and a dozen others were chosen to leave and join the NEI. Seven of them were dead within two years. The other 5 had all died together. He had reached the rank of sergeant before being pulled for this mission. It looked like his village might get another recruitment trip soon.

I like the little bit of back story trickling in. I'd like to hear more about that as the story goes on. I think that having an interesting, complex past makes characters feel a lot more real (If you ever watched Lost, I think they did the back stories really well in that).
One thing that bothers me, though. Don't start a new paragraph with "He looked around...". You need to be very clear about which character it is at the start of any new paragraph or section or it will get confusing.

I love backstories, I think I might introduce a character after a few more, might kill him early though, not sure

As Josh said, the backstory is coming in nicely. This scene (the briefing) is a nice opportunity to fill us in about the character so we care for him when the shit hits the fan later on (or will it? ).

The only thing that bugs me is:

It reminded him of a hospital.

The fact that the last character mentioned before that is "the old man" can be confusing. Of course, the context in fact should dissipate any confusion, but a little extra clarity doesn't hurt

Looking forward to reading more.