I find myself writing...

[agilebrit]

BeeFic.

Yes. The "honeycomb" prompt for the Utah Arts Festival IronPen competition has prompted me to write a story about a pitched battle between bees...and faeries. Because I'm a genre writer, dammit.

And this is an interesting writing exercise for me, because somehow I think that the only bee in a colony with an "I" mentality is possibly the Queen. All the rest of them, at least in my little universe here, are "we."

Now, there are subsets of "we." There are the foragers, and the builders, and the larvae tenders.

However, this is making it hard to personalize this battle. I feel like I've got the bare bones of a story here (which isn't complete, but I know how it ends, and that's half the battle), and it needs to have organs and muscles and nerves and things added before it's a full, actual story.

And now I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better to tell it from the faeries' viewpoint. Hm. Will need to ponder that.

Comments

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

It would be. Because you're right - the only bee viewpoint that would produce narration would be the queen. And there wouldn't be a lot of character interaction; it would all be monologue, unless she captured a faery.

Whereas the faeries are facing a biological Borg Collective, Cylons, Heinlein's Bugs, Skynet, however you want to think of it - they're fighting biomechanoids who don't even hate - they simply kill, and die, and spawn and kill until they're killed, without passion or parley... It's like fighting a forest fire. There's nothing to personalize; it's an impassive, implacable force of nature.

Now, the only problem is that bees just aren't that aggressive - survival is their game, and they don't really go to war per se, not like ants do. You may wish to consider dusting off your copy of “Leiningen versus The Ants”, and turn loose some really terrifying biomechanoid monsters upon your embattled faeries.

[baron-waste.livejournal.com]

The Brazilian official threw up lean and lanky arms and clawed the air with wildly distended fingers. "Leiningen!" he shouted. "You're insane! They're not creatures you can fight--they're an elemental--an 'act of God!' Ten miles long, two miles wide--ants, nothing but ants! And every single one of them a fiend from hell; before you can spit three times they'll eat a full-grown buffalo to the bones. I tell you if you don't clear out at once there'll he nothing left of you but a skeleton picked as clean as your own plantation."

Leiningen grinned. "Act of God, my eye! Anyway, I'm not an old woman; I'rn not going to run for it just because an elemental's on the way. And don't think I'm the kind of fathead who tries to fend off lightning with his fists either. I use my intelligence, old man. With me, the brain isn't a second blindgut; I know what it's there for. When I began this model farm and plantation three years ago, I took into account all that could conceivably happen to it. And now I'm ready for anything and everything--including your ants."

The Brazilian rose heavily to his feet. "I've done my best," he gasped. "Your obstinacy endangers not only yourself, but the lives of your four hundred workers. You don't know these ants!"

Leiningen accompanied him down to the river, where the Governrnent launch was moored. The vessel cast off. As it moved downstream, the exclamation mark neared the rail and began waving its arms frantically. Long after thc launch had disappeared round the bend, Leiningen thought he could still hear that dimming imploring voice, "You don't know them, I tell you! You don't know them!"


It was a sight one could never forget. Over the range of hills, as far as eye could see, crept a darkening hem, ever longer and broader, until the shadow spread across the slope from east to west, then downwards, downwards, uncannily swift, and all the green herbage of that wide vista was being mown as by a giant sickle, leaving only the vast moving shadow, extending, deepening, and moving rapidly nearer.

When Leiningen's men, behind their barrier of water, perceived the approach of the long-expected foe, they gave vent to their suspense in screams and imprecations. But as the distance began to lessen between the "sons of hell" and the water ditch, they relapsed into silence. Before the advance of that awe-inspiring throng, their belief in the powers of the boss began to steadily dwindle.

Even Leiningen himself, who had ridden up just in time to restore their loss of heart by a display of unshakable calm, even he could not free himself from a qualm of malaise. Yonder were thousands of millions of voracious jaws bearing down upon him and only a suddenly insignificant, narrow ditch lay between him and his men and being gnawed to the bones "before you can spit three times."


One man struck with his spade at an enemy clump, did not draw it back quickly enough from the water; in a trice the wooden shaft swarmed with upward scurrying insects. With a curse, he dropped the spade into the ditch; too late, they were already on his body. They lost no time; wherever they encountered bare flesh they bit deeply; a few, bigger than the rest, carried in their hind-quarters a sting which injected a burning and paralyzing venom. Screaming, frantic with pain, the peon danced and twirled like a dervish.

Realizing that another such casualty, yes, perhaps this alone, might plunge his men into confusion and destroy their morale, Leiningen roared in a bellow louder than the yells of the victim: "Into the petrol, idiot! Douse your paws in the petrol!" The dervish ceased his pirouette as if transfixed, then tore of his shirt and plunged his arm and the ants hanging to it up to the shoulder in one of the large open tins of petrol. But even then the fierce mandibles did not slacken; another peon had to help him squash and detach each separate insect...

- Classic Short Stories

[mermaidrain.livejournal.com]

Have you ever read "the Fairy Rebel" by Lynne Reid Banks (a kid's book)? It had an interesting concept of bee-like fairies. And the queen was terrifying!