7 Points To Let your Book Opening Hook Your Reader

 

We’ve all done it. We’ve picked up that book that looked exciting and read the first chapter and put it down, never to finish it. 

Why is that? Why did we put it down? 

As a reader, sometimes we don’t know, or couldn’t say. As a writer, all I can say is what I have heard from many others; first chapters are HARD!!! Personally, I think that is one of the greatest understatements of all time. 

Let’s ask ourselves a couple of questions; what should I put in my first chapter and how do I make it work to hook the reader?

An ideal first chapter should have the following 7 points:

1) Introduce the protagonist.                                                                     

You always want to open your novel with a scene involving the main character. In other media forms, this is not always the case, movies and TV often start with others and move to the MC but they move quickly and the audience can follow the progression.

Usually, we bond closely with the characters we meet first in a book. If characters that we’ve bonded with get killed early in the story, we feel cheated. (Hush now, I never mentioned George R. R. Martin.)

For me, I think one of the most important things to hook the reader here is also the first line of the novel.  It needs to draw the reader in. Preferably a line that tells or infers as much as possible about the protagonist as possible

That first line should try to project the gender and age of the MC. Also if possible the show the social status or position in society, but most of all, that first line needs to project the emotions the character is feeling in the scene. It sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? It is not impossible. Usually most of it will be inferred but it helps set the stage.

 

Here’s how I open Forged By Betrayal:
“I guess now I will finally get to find out why my life has been flipped upside down and I’m headed down to this muddy fringe world instead of starting Marine Leadership Command School.”

I haven’t used any description of the protagonist yet, but we can tell a few things from just this first sentence. The Protagonist is:

·        Coming from another planet.

·        In the Marines.

·        Not happy about the change in her life.

·        Wants answers to why they are here.

We can also identify with the stress of her not knowing why she is on the new planet and feel her frustration. She’s in an unknown situation and we hope to find out her future and see her succeed.

2) Help the readers want to follow your protagonist through their journey. 

This is the important part. The readers have to WANT to see her succeed. What makes the readers care? I don’t think there is any formula that will always work, especially for different genres. You just have to make your MC into someone they care about and create problems they can identify with and tell a good story. Easy, right?

We are always reading and being told that every ‘good’ story needs a “sympathetic” protagonist, but that doesn’t necessarily mean a person you’d like to go to a ballgame with.

Spock is cold to those around him and holds his emotions back from everyone, but he is one of the most influential characters of the last half-century. Dexter Morgan is a sociopathic serial killer. Even Han Solo is a lawless smuggler. It could be argued that some of these were not the protagonists of their stories but they were still characters that drew the audience to follow their story.

Your MC doesn’t have to have such obvious flawed as those characters. But they do need to have weaknesses. My protagonist, Sheli Chowdhury, hates not being in control and finds herself in a completely new environment where she is far outside her comfort zone. This leaves her floundering and sometimes, lost.

There are some readers who prefer aggressive, dominant characters, and others prefer a more laid-back, thoughtful hero. Sometimes it just depends on what genre you are writing in.

What you can’t have is an MC that is pushed by the story instead of being his own hero. He or she needs to make the story happen. The story can’t happen to them. The first chapter needs to show that hero being a hero in some way. It could be a small way this early in the story but they need to start here.

3) Ignite conflict.

I think the next most important thing that we need in the opening chapter is actually one thing that comes in two parts. We need conflict. Without conflict, we have a wonderful ‘day in the life’ memoir, but not an actual story that will pull a reader in. We need conflict not only here in the opening chapter, but we need an overarching tension that will propel your plot throughout the novel.

In our second book Day of Reckoning, the burning question in the opening scene is whether Lieutenant Monica Samuels will survive on having been left on a ship full of mutineers. But the larger conflict is with the orders she was given by Captain Brighton before he was forced off of the ship. Is she just supposed to survive or is she supposed to fight back? When the conflict of the opening scene is resolved, we still keep turning pages because of the underlying tension from a bigger story question—what will she do and how will she survive if she decides to fight back?

Setting conflict does not mean that you have to have an actual battle. It can sometimes just mean a character is having an argument with themselves. The reader just needs to see that the character has a problem that they need to solve and then watch them try to solve it.

The second part of the conflict equation is introducing the antagonist. An antagonist is someone/something that keeps the protagonist from reaching his goal.

I think sometimes the term “antagonist” is hard to understand. I know for me, when I first started, I wanted to use the term ‘antagonist’ and ‘villain’ as meaning the same thing. It is not quite the same. Of course, the villain of your story would be the antagonist but, in some stories, the antagonist can be the whole society, an addiction, a judicial system, or anything that might keep your hero from achieving their goal.

Even if you don’t have a specific villain, you need some kind of antagonist, and you need to introduce them in the first chapter.

4) Tell us about the World.  

This is the first chapter so you don’t have to give a huge amount of description, but there is quite a bit that you can do here. And again, I think there are three pieces to this section. The first is ‘World-building’.

Several years ago, I took a SF novel-writing class and Michael Stackpole was the instructor. He is a great author and I thought he was a greater instructor. One of the first things he had us do was make a list of the six things that the reader needed to know about our world. These things, he said, needed to be in our first chapter. Preferably in our first few paragraphs. Since the novel I was writing for that class was Forged by Betrayal, here is the list that I created for that novel.

·     Limited FTL travel is possible through jump gates and several worlds have been settled outside the Sol system.

·      National and planetary governments have been co-opted by rich Corporate ‘Families’

·      These Families are loosely governed by a Ruling Council formed by representatives from each Family.

·      The Ruling Council controls the Earth Combined Fleet but not each Families’ fleets or militaries.

·      The Fermi Family Governor of the planet Humboldt hasn’t been complying with humanitarian laws.

·      Sheli Chowdhury is a young officer assigned to her first command as a Combined Fleet Marine on Humboldt.

 

Don’t try to show too much in the first chapter. Tell the readers what they need to know and fill in the rest of the details, in pieces, throughout the rest of the novel.

The trick is to tell us enough to give us a picture of the scene that’s taking place, but don’t slow down the movement or action.

The second part of setting up your world is setting the tone of your novel. What do you want the reader to feel?

You don’t want to start out a murder mystery with a light dialogue or open a romance with a serial killer slashing a throat. You want to your reader immersed in the book’s world from your first sentence. You need to use your words to convey that tone because there is no other method available in the novel. Describe the weather, to set the tone. Change the pace of your sentences. Short, quick sentences increase the pace and show danger. Mocking, first-person joking can show a different tone. Or sarcasm can show anger repressed in the MC. Use their voices to set the tone, and do it early.

The last part of building your world is to let the reader know the theme of the story. I have to say, this is not something I do well because I don’t think about it often enough. If you plan to deal with a particular theme in your novel, you don’t have to make a big play in the opening chapter but you can throw out some hints. Foreshadowing is never wasted.

This is the opening paragraph of our book Day of Reckoning:

“Ensign Monica Samuels dispassionately watched Clint Morrison in his engineering enlisted uniform tap the butt of his pistol on the door frame before quickly bringing his prisoner back in its sights. The hatch opened and he eyed the young officer as she passed into her own quarters. The barrier closed again, and the metallic click indicated that it would not open again until someone on the other side came for her.”

You know right away that Ensign Samuels is in trouble, she’s locked up, she’s a prisoner, and she’s alone.

5)  Show the readers the protagonist’s goal: what does he/she want.

The readers need to know what the MC wants immediately, which in the story above, is to get out of her room.

But we also need to know pretty early in the story what your hero really, really needs before the end of the story. Going back to our story Day of Reckoning, her ultimate goal was to take the ship back from the mutineers.

Of course, the MC’s ultimate goal doesn’t need to be outlined in chapter one. But we do need to see something early that will lead the MC to that ultimate goal. Show the readers something in chapter one that will lead them to that goal.

6) The MC needs to have a life-changing event.

Just like closing each chapter with some kind of mini-cliffhanger to pull the reader into the next chapter, you need a big, life-changing event in the MC’s life to kick your story into high gear and pull your readers in. This ‘inciting event’ is what starts your plot moving and it needs to be in the first chapter.

This event is what gets your protagonist off of his couch and moving forward to solve his goals. It should also be what hooks your readers and pulls them into the story and pulls them from chapter one to chapter two.

This event is usually easier to get into the first chapter if you are writing genre stories.  In the new book I’m writing now, it is a murder mystery, I just had to throw a dead body and a serial killer into the first chapter and the story is off and away.  

For other genres it might get tougher but make sure you do it, it will definitely pull the readers along.

7) Let your readers meet the other characters. 

Let’s be careful here. In the first chapter you only want to introduce characters who are going to be major characters in the novel. Don’t confuse the readers with characters who they are never going to see again. You are trying to hook the reader into reading the whole book. Don’t confuse or upset them. They’ll put your book down and find someone else’s.

(One thing I saw in a book I was reading a few years ago was two characters who’s names were very similar. At the beginning of the book, it was hard to tell who was who. Try to avoid doing things that confuse the reader that way.)

These are my opinions on how to hook a reader in your first chapter.

What are your thoughts?

***

Author Interview

Last year at WonderCon, we were approached about doing an interview for a fan's blog, "No Wasted Ink."  I'm posting it here for anyone who's interested.

Please introduce yourself.  Give your name and a brief summary of who you are. This is not about your books, we want to know about you as a person in the opening of the interview.

We are three of seven brothers who grew up on the north Oregon coast.

Jeff-   I am living in Northern Oregon and working in the Computer Manufacturing industry. I have three grown children (one still living at home) and am living with my wife in a small town in the woods. I am brother number 2.

Craig-  Though I'm an Oregon native, I'm currently living in Utah with my wife and children.  I have a day job as an electrical engineer, which is constantly offering me new challenges.  I am brother number 4.

Jared-  I am also an Oregon native, and Oregon has been home for most of my life.  I have had brief stints elsewhere, and have traveled extensively in my twenty plus year technology career.  I have worked as a global technology executive and leader for more than a decade, which has provided some great vignettes for writing.  I am brother number 7.

When and why did you begin writing?

Jeff-  I had to write a short story for a junior English class in high school and the story never gave itself up inside my mind. I kept expanding it into a novel length story in my head, though I never finished writing it. I kept writing other stories and those I did finish. With that first story, I started to see stories everywhere and wanted to write them.

Craig-  My first attempt at writing a novel was in 1992, though it's always been an interest of mine.  I was living in the same city as a different brother (#3), and we had a great idea for a Star Trek story based on Aleksander, Worf's son, when he grew up.  We had quite a bit done, but The Next Generation was still airing episodes, and eventually Aleksander's history changed to the point that our story wouldn't have worked, and we never finished it.

Jared-  I actually began writing in high school, with three different stories that I am still working on.  J  I have always read extensively and have always enjoyed recounting stories.  Writing has been a natural extension of that throughout my life.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

Jeff-  It wasn’t until I finished Dead Reckoning, our first book. Up until then, it had just been a hobby that kept me way too busy. When I was able to stick to the end and finished the project and get it all the way to publication, I truly felt like a writer.

Craig-  Writing is still not my principal employment, though I'm trying to move that direction, so I don't think of myself primarily as a writer, even now.  The first time I felt confident in my ability to write was after I entered a writing competition and won the runner-up award.  That was my first positive feedback from someone who was neither family nor friend.

Jared-  In my college studies, I spent an entire year working on a thesis with a very well published thesis advisor.  When I completed it, and he signed off on it as publish worthy work, I began to take confidence in my capability for technical writing as well as storytelling work.

Can you share a little about your current book with us?

Dead Reckoning is the first of four books in the Pathfinder Series. We have just finished the series and really enjoyed the process. Dead Reckoning starts the series as a loyal captain is thrown into the void of space with a few of his loyal crew. They are told they can survive by going to a nearby planet, but the captain is obsessed with regaining his ship and decides that he and his crew have the resources to take their small shuttle back to Earth and return with a crew to take back the ship.

The book tells the story of the captain and his small crew trying to survive, overcome immense obstacles and return home safely.

What inspired you to write this book?

Jeff-  We had wanted to write a book together for some time and we got together and chose a theme that none of us had already written on. It was an adventure trying to figure out how to write a book with three separate authors, but it was great fun. 

Craig-  Honestly, it was a combination of lots of things.  The main impetus was the desire to work together so we could hold each other accountable to finish what we start.  Before this, I had probably started writing a dozen stories, at least.  Then the question arose of what to write, and we decided it wasn't fair to take a story that one of us had started, because that one would feel too possessive of it.  So we decided to create a new story.  Some of the elements of Dead Reckoning are loosely based on the book Men Against the Sea, which is the story of Captain Bligh and his loyal crew sailing a tiny boat 4,000 miles across the Pacific to reach civilization after The Mutiny on the Bounty.

Jared-  Several of us brothers had wanted to write together for a long time before we decided to find a story that we could create together and tell in an interesting way.  The opportunity to work with my brothers on something fun and creative was my motivation.

Do you have a specific writing style?

Jeff-  I like to plan out the basic plot but write each chapter creatively. I usually have a list of things that need to happen in each chapter but not how they will happen.

Craig-  I am mostly a planner, which is really a necessary thing when writing as a group.  There are lots of instances of me sitting down to write according to plan and coming away with something very different, however.

Jared-  In order to work closely with my brothers, it requires us to plan closely together.  My style leans more towards creative flow, and I tend to see and hear the story playing out as I write in order to make sure it flows well.

How did you come up with the title of this book?

Craig-  Dead Reckoning refers to a means of navigating without having any landmarks to work with, where you keep track of your heading and speed to deduce where you are.  It was used frequently in Men Against the Sea, and it seemed to fit our book as well.

Is there a message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?

Jeff-  There wasn’t one when we started, but we wanted it to be a survival story, so the persistence and overcoming obstacles was a big part of the story.

Craig-  I think the overall message is to keep moving forward.  Bad things happen, but if you persevere, you can still find success.

Jared-  For me, it also resonates that you can’t just allow things to happen to you, no matter the circumstances, you have choices and you have to take whatever opportunities you can.

Are experiences in this book based on someone you know, or events in your own life?

Jeff-  Not any of the stories, but some of the characters have a basis in some of the people that I know. Things that I like and things that I don’t like.

Craig-  Not really, though one of the stories the crew tells to pass the time actually originated in that Aleksander story I wrote years before. (Never throw your writing away!)

Jared-  Nothing specific, although one of the very frustrated engineers experiences a series of events that drive an outburst I have felt brewing in a few engineering situations before.

What authors have most influenced your life?  What about them do you find inspiring?

Jeff-  Robert Heinlein is probably the biggest in my early life. Also, Anne McCaffrey. They turned me into a reader at an early age and turned me into a SciFi/Fantasy reader and into science as a profession.

Craig-  Robert A. Heinlein's juveniles were my favorites as a kid, especially The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Sixth Column.  The most impactful books I have read are The Count of Monte Cristo by Dumas and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Pirsig.  The former is not about revenge, as most people think, but about justice.  The latter just has tons of little tidbits of wisdom about how to interact with the world.  Also, Shakespeare's plays are great reference material for studying how and why humans behave the way they do.

Jared-  As a very young reader, J.R.R. Tolkien and some of the classic Sci-Fi authors, Robert A. Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, Phillip K. Dick, Anne McCaffrey were what introduced me to untold worlds.  McCaffrey’s Dragons of Pern brought me back around to a thirst for great stories that I found in fantasy fiction, including tragedy and heartbreak, along with the soaring human (and dragon) spirit.  I continued to read Sci-Fi, Fantasy and Historical Fiction, Environmental Fiction, traditional western civ classics, along with a lot of business and engineering books over the years. I will forever be grateful to my college Honors professors for interweaving so many classic stories & novels into my education. I will have a bit of nostalgia for those early influential authors.

If you had to choose, is there a writer would you consider a mentor? Why?

Jeff-  There are a few that I would name. Michael Stackpole has taught a class at ASU for novelists that I have taken and he has been a great help, answering questions and making comments on my work. Robert Vardeman has also been a part of that program as has Joe Nassise. All three have been helpful in mentoring my writing. There have also been numerous critical readers along the way.

Who designed the cover of your book? Why did you select this illustrator?

Craig-  My brother-in-law, Mark McCormick, did a marvelous job on the original Dead Reckoning cover.  When we decided to create a boxed set for the series, I created the covers to match each other.  I think it's a good design, but definitely more sterile than the original.

Do you have any advice for other writers?

Jeff-  Keep writing! Believe in yourself. Study what you are doing and keep working at it. If you don’t have success with your first effort, start again!

Craig-  I've heard lots of good advice over the years, but the best was this:  "Be married to your book while you're writing it, but be divorced from it while editing."  You have to be emotionally invested for your writing to be any good, but when it comes time to trim and fix, if you're too emotionally invested, it can blind you to its flaws and keep you from cutting out what really needs to go.

Jared-  Plan your outline carefully to make sure you have all of the nuances the story will need. Then, as you write, don’t be afraid to change the plan when the story needs to evolve, but don’t lose your direction. Let the story come to life, and let inspiration come when it can, but don’t feel like it has to be there all the time. Keep writing no matter what.

Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?

Jared-  We really appreciate our readers.  I have actually been thrilled to find people we don’t know who have read our work and have great things to say about it.  I actually appreciate those that buy it and have anything to say about it at all, but we like the positive ones better.  J

***

Finally, not as part of the interview, but for the blurb at the bottom that goes with your book's cover art:

Your Author Name: Jeffery L., Craig J. and Jared L Cheney

The city and state in which you live: Outside Portland, Oregon and Ogden, Utah

The Title of your Book: Dead Reckoning

The name of your cover artist and a link to this artist:  Mark McCormick & Craig J. Cheney

Name and link to your publisher, if applicable: 7 Cs Books, LLC; www. 7CsBooks.com

Links to where your book can be purchased: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Smashwords, etc.:

https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Reckoning/dp/B00AIE5N00/

https://www.amazon.com/Dead-Reckoning/dp/1939223024/

www.7CsBooks.com

Your personal social media links: Facebook Author Page, Google+, Goodreads, Twitter, etc.:

https://www.facebook.com/JefferyLCheney/

https://www.facebook.com/CraigJCheneyAuthor/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/133841723289/

https://twitter.com/jlcheney10

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1680385.Jeffery_L_Cheney

A one or two sentence description of you as a writer.

Three brothers who write military SF adventures, mysteries, and fantasy novels – often at the same time!

--

Wendy Van Camp

No Wasted Ink

http://nowastedink.com

wvancamp@earthlink.net

Hooray for feedback!

Question of the day:  Is negative feedback good?

Being an engineer, I can unequivocally say that, yes, negative feedback is good.  If you have a system with only positive feedback, it quickly spirals out of control and explodes, or at least lets all the magic smoke out of the circuits so that they no longer work.

With that in mind, I'd like to share some feedback I recently received.  More than once.

Craig, you talk too much.

Now, it's a good thing that someone, or I should say, multiple someones, provided this feedback to me, because I never would have considered it on my own. 

Writing is about using words to express ideas, so if you have complex ideas to express, doesn't that mean you'll need a lot of words?  Not necessarily.  Writing is just as much about selecting the proper word to fit the need, using an economy of expression.  Apparently, I should work on that.

My last post was meant to give an excerpt of a chapter I wrote as part of a short story coming out in Outward Bound next week.  I had hoped to break it up into ~1,000-word chunks and post it over the course of a month or so.  However, I found that there wasn't a clear place to break until almost 2,500 word into the chapter.

So I wrote a few notes to introduce the story, and then plunked the whole opening into the blog post.  The feedback I got was that the post was too long, and no one would likely spend the time to get to the end.

Oddly, I received the same feedback from my partners in crime.  For our fifth book, we had decided to publish a number of short stories to expand on what was told about certain characters central to our other four books.  Five stories were assigned, and each one was to have been 10 to 15 thousand words. 

When I turned mine in, it was nearly 30,000 words, and the feedback was that I needed to work on the "short" part of short story writing (see last post).

Feedback acknowledged, and I will definitely work on that.

-Craig

The Competition Excerpt

Hi, everyone! I haven't posted in a while, for which I apologize. Most of my free time lately has been spent working on finishing up Outward Bound.  That's not a bad thing, right?  The way to be a writer is to write, after all.

Anyway, since my time lately has been put into the new book coming out on 5 September, I thought I would share the piece of "The Competition" I worked on, served up in bite-sized chunks!

But first, a few words about what this book is, and how it's different than the four previous books my brothers and I have produced.  Dead Reckoning, Day of Reckoning, Force of Reckoning, and Final Reckoning together form a four-act play, but like every story ever, it starts in medias res, which leaves backstory to fill in as you go.  In some cases, there's just too much that happened to just "fill it in."  For example, early in Dead Reckoning, Admiral Cosina comments to Captain Brighton that he had forgotten that Brighton knew Major Chowdhury already, having become acquainted during "that Humboldt mess."  Well, that stray comment led to us imagining and talking about what had actually happened, especially how that event led to Chowdhury's current outlook and personality, to the point that we had a whole novel's worth of story to tell.  Jeff started writing it out as The Humboldt Mess, but then changed the title to Forged by Betrayal, which should be finished up and published by the end of the year.

There's another scene early in Dead Reckoning where Admiral Cosina asks the commandant of the Naval Academy to find a way to identify the top five graduates for him to assign to a project, and she can't tell any of them exactly what they're needed for.  The five new ensigns become central characters to the story, but there's still that origin story that was just too big to put in a flashback scene.  So that's where "The Competition," comes from.  It tells the story of the senior year at the academy, and the year-long competition to find out who the best really are.

In addition to that story, Outward Bound has four more "short"* stories.  "Born Explorer" is a little of Captain Brighton's experience at the academy; "I'll Rise" is a combat story about Major Chowdhury; "Lost and Alone" features Hayes and Mitchell, whose interactions are always fun to write; and "Whatever the Family Needs" reveals all the details of the secret Ensign Samuels goes to such great lengths to keep.

I hope you all enjoy the stories, and to whet your appetite, here's the first 2,500 or so words of Chapter 6 of  "The Competition!"

-Craig

* Jeff says I just don't get the "short" part of short story writing.  He may have a point, since my contribution to this compilation weighs in at nearly 30k words.  It's just that, well, that's how much it took to tell the whole story.

Maybe I just talk too much...

Chapter 6

Warner Naval Academy, Quito Complex

Saturday, 15 November 2786

In years past, the week after course finals were completed had always been a time to decompress; perhaps visiting home, or just getting away with friends.  That wasn't going to happen this year.

As far as Monica Samuels could figure, the Academy brass wanted to keep the pressure as high as possible, probably expecting this to be another differentiator in determining whom the best actually was.  To that end, they had announced two "voluntary" competitions, one in unarmed hand-to-hand, full-contact combat, and the other in Kendo stick, which would contribute points towards the cadets' ongoing competition.  Since participation in the concurrent tournaments was not required, they were living up to their obligation to allow downtime, while still knowing that anyone that was serious about winning could not allow herself to skip any possible source of points.  Most of the cadets knew they weren’t going to make the cut down to the top fifty, and were likely leaving campus later this morning, but since the final grades had not yet updated the leaderboard, there were probably over a hundred still holding out hope, Samuels thought.

That was why, at 0615, fourteen hours after her Astrogation final was submitted, Samuels was jogging through the early morning fog across campus toward Harrington Field House, instead of climbing onto a maglev to join her adoptive family at their home.  She couldn't afford not to, not if she was serious about winning, and she couldn't remember being more serious about anything since making the decision to come to the Academy.

The day’s events were not something Samuels was expecting to win.  While she was clearly at the forefront of her class in all the academic areas, for many of the physical aspects of the competition, she found herself buried in the fat part of the bell curve.  Still, her willowy build had been an asset in the fun run, and she did have ambitions to excel in the Kendo tournament.  She didn't have the strength to grapple effectively, so hand-to-hand had always been difficult for her, but the speed and grace her slender frame could produce were well-suited to the two-stick martial art.

The tournaments were not set to begin until 0800, but Samuels wanted plenty of time to register and strategize once she had her match schedule.  The field house was enormous, entailing multiple buildings, and she might have to sprint from one event to the next, depending on how the timing was arranged.

Her idea was clearly not original, as she came through the main doors and straight into a queue at least forty cadets long leading up to the registration table.  Nor had she been accurate in her estimate of the number of cadets still holding out hope.  There were easily another hundred behind her before she made it up to the front of the line.

“Entering both tournaments?” the bored woman with Chief Petty Officer’s stripes asked. 

“Yes, Chief.”

“Step on the scale.”  Samuels complied.  “Cadet M. Samuels, 48.8,” she called to the other end of the table to a Marine corporal, who dutifully entered the information, causing Samuels’ name to appear on the tournament board behind the table.  Hers was the only name appearing in the “Strawweight” list on both boards.

Samuels accepted the sheet she was handed and listened to the monotone recitation of her instructions.  “First round is a round robin by weight class.  Top two advance to a double elimination round with the neighboring class; for you that’s flyweight.  Ten points for first place, 7.5 for second, 5 for third, 2.5 for fourth.  No points for an exit in the first round.  The order of events is first round hand-to-hand, first round Kendo, remaining rounds hand-to-hand, and remaining rounds Kendo. Any questions?”

“No, Chief.”

“Next!”

Samuels collected her duffel bag from the floor where she had set it to weigh in and hurried around the table.  Taking a last glance at the board, she saw that ‘0800’ was now displayed next to her name, as it was for the top pair in the other thirteen classes, the times generally increasing as her eyes swept lower.

There were few names from her personal watch list who had registered already, but one stood out immediately.  Kinsey Pinson was listed in the Flyweight Class, which meant she might have a chance to face off against her, and perhaps move past her in the standings.  Always assuming she could actually make it out of the first round, and then do better than Pinson.

Samuels double-timed it down the corridor, entering the net address she found on her sheet into her datapad as she went.  The main board she had seen before was there, but also match locations for herself, and what would eventually be round robin standings for her weight class.  She followed the helpful directions on her pad, first for “hand-to-hand events” (Building A), and then to her assigned match location (Green 1) on the main floor.

She had arrived wearing her exercise uniform, so there was no need for her to change.  That wouldn't be the case for her next round, and she would have to allow several minutes to don the protective kendogu.

After twenty minutes of stretching and warming up, Samuels felt ready to go, but she still had 35 minutes before her first match.  She headed over to the spectator seating and pulled out her pad.  Time for more strategizing, now that more information should be available.  Another name, Brekka Gustafson, had been added to the strawweight list, and there was a banner declaring that registration would close in 19 minutes, 15 minutes before the first event.

Preparing a strategy to beat Gustafson was proving difficult, since Samuels had not interacted with her much.  Firstly, Gustafson had been in a few of the same courses, but had always been reserved, never asking questions.  The young woman wasn't in the same barracks as her, nor even in the same battalion, so the two simply traveled in different circles.  The one clear memory Samuels had of her was during Basic Cadet Training, when her blonde hair and pale complexion, combined with her unaccustomedness to the high altitude, had led to a bad sunburn and heat exhaustion.  They had all been out on maneuvers in the Ilinizas Range, west of campus, and an air lorry had to be called in to carry her out.

The best strategy Samuels could think of at the moment was to watch the other girl warm up and see if there was any flaw on display that she might take advantage of.  It was pretty thin, but all she could come up with.

That part of her planning out of the way, she went back to her pad to see what new data it contained.  The answer was, not much.  She could see on the main board everyone who had registered so far, which was a much larger number than Samuels had expected, but there were no match locations available to her for anyone outside her weight class.  Samuels had been hoping to observe some of the matches for the flyweights, in case she wound up having to face them in the next rounds.

Gustafson had come in while Samuels was trying to glean a little more information.  Her uniform was as damp as Samuels' was, so clearly, she had warmed up somewhere else.  So much for her brilliant planning. Shockingly, Gustafson walked straight across the mat and sat down next to her soon-to-be opponent.

"Samuels."

"Gustafson.  How were finals?"

"No surprises.  Except Gravimetrics.  Nine tenths of the final exam was material we'd only covered in the last two weeks."

"Who did you take it from?"

"Captain Andretti."

"Hm.  I'm in Admiral Yu's section.  Guess I can thank my lucky stars."

“While you’re at it, you can thank them that for once, your size is going to be to your advantage.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the way the two tournaments are set up, you and I are guaranteed at least five Competition points each, just for competing.  There are only three strawweights in our class, and Chantel’s family absolutely would not accept any excuses for her staying here during break.   That leaves only you and me, so both of us are getting out of the first round, and by my math, that’s at least 2.5 points per tournament.  Plus, I’m about to propose a strategy to increase our chances.”

“Whoa.  Hold on a second.”  Samuels pulled up the main board on her pad and looked it over.  She couldn’t see any changes from her last view, which meant that everyone who was going to register had probably already done so.  As Gustafson had said, there were still only two signed up in her weight class.  The next smallest class was super heavyweight with 14.  Twenty-five were registered as flyweight.

“There are a lot more registered than I thought would be here,” Samuels commented.  “Surely all these cadets can’t think they have a chance to be in the top fifty and make the cut.”

Gustafson waved an arm aimlessly.  “Of course not.  I know I’m probably not in the running anymore, but that’s not the point.”

“Okay, then what is the point?”

“The point is, that when all of these cadets graduate, and go out applying for postings, for the first time ever there is going to be an objective ranking from top to bottom of exactly how good you are.  For those of us not in the top fifty, after this week our ranking is set.  Period.  Don’t you think everyone wants the chance to add just a few more points to their final score?”

“Huh.  I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it makes sense.”

“Well, I may not be top fifty, but I do have a functional brain.”

“That, my new friend, is quite evident.  So, what is this strategy your functional brain has come up with to increase our odds?”

“There are two aspects, so I’ll start with the one you’re most likely to accept.  There are twenty-five possible opponents we could be facing in the next round, of which I have only sparred with the two from my company.  The best approach would be to study them while they’re working through the first round, but there are too many matches going on at the same time.  However, with two people working together, and sharing notes, it would be possible.”

“Deal.”

“Okay, now for the somewhat less ethical proposal.”

Samuels drew back slightly.

“Oh, it’s not all that bad."  Gustafson waved her hand negligently.  "I said less ethical, not unethical.”

Samuels waved a hand.

“This should be good, let’s hear it.”

"We've already got an advantage over the flyweights for the next round, because our first round will consist of one match, while they'll have 24.  So, they're going to be more worn out and beat up, no matter what."

"Makes sense."

"And since the final rounds are double-elimination with four competitors, the seeding makes almost no difference. You have to beat either two or three of the three competitors in order to win."

"I can see that," Samuels said, though she hadn't thought about it that way before it was pointed out.

"And given your greater reach and speed, you're likely to beat me in Kendo.  But given my greater strength and better leverage, I'm more likely to beat you at hand-to-hand.  I say we just accept that as the likely outcome, and give only a token match to each other.  So, what do you think?"

"I think that if I ever get a command of my own, I want you running my Tactical Department."

Samuels had to concede that the other cadet's assessment was likely true.  Gustafson was much shorter, and had the musculature of a gymnast.  She also had considerably more curves, not that Samuels was jealous.  And her calling it 'less ethical' was probably also the right read, since it wouldn't actually violate any rules.  So, what harm could it do to play it safe?

Samuels could tell immediately that even asking herself the question was meant to justify it to herself, because it didn't feel right to her.  Another thought occurred to her at almost the same time, and that one she shared.

"The commandant said that her staff would be watching more than just the points during the competition.  I don't think it's worth the risk of incurring their displeasure, especially when we've already got a big advantage in hand."

"Fair enough.  I'll try not to hurt you."

"Right.  Just remember that whatever happens in hand-to-hand, I'll have a chance to even the score in Kendo."

Gustafson smiled.  "Right."  She extended her hand and Samuels took it and shook on their deal.  The referees had arrived while they talked, and it was time to begin the day's events.

Gustafson turned out to be so much better than Samuels that Samuels was wishing she'd taken the deal after all.  The first fall went less than 30 seconds, and she barely lasted a full minute for the second.  By the third, Samuels was learning a little more about how Gustafson liked to attack.  Samuels saw the same grip from the first fall coming and maneuvered out of it before it was established.  The two combatants re-established positions, and Gustafson was a little more hesitant to initiate contact now.  Samuels tried a feint and then a leg sweep that Gustafson anticipated and dodged.  Her countermove came at Samuels almost faster than she could react, but she moved just in time and caught the extended arm and pulled, twisting on the way down so that Gustafson hit the mat underneath Samuels.  A quick strike to the sternum without any power behind it earned Samuels her first point of the match.  It turned out to be her last also, as Gustafson scored the three remaining points needed to win in a matter of a few minutes.

Walking back to the spectator seats, where they had left their gear, Gustafson commented, "I told you that would be the likely outcome."

"You did, indeed, tell me so.  And honestly, I thought you were probably right.  I just couldn't not try, you know?"

"I completely understand.  Shall we divide up who's evaluating which flyweights?  I don't much care about most of them, but I would like to take detailed notes on Pinson.  If our paths do cross, I want to know every possible way to render her unconscious."

"You, my new friend, have just risen even higher in my esteem.  Perhaps we can arrange things so that both of us will have that opportunity."