Background
The Puzzle is an older story. When I was first writing Star Trek: Enterprise fanfiction, and following the five senses, I got to sight last.
The Puzzle, a Tale Told in Pieces
So instead of writing just about sight, I decided to create a multi-chapter story and more or less go for broke.
I also disliked how little screen time Travis got, so I gave him a little love with a story all his own.
A Puzzle of a Plot
In the middle of the night, Travis is pulled out of his bed and dumped … somewhere. But he’s not alone.
Pieces of a puzzle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There are people from a few canon species – Andorians, Vulcans, Xindi sloth, Orions and Klingons. There are two of each, one male and one female. He doesn’t know the human woman he’s in a pair with; she is a far older woman, she speaks Russian and she is a librarian at the Lunar Colony Library.
And then they start to be prodded into working out a series of problems. For better or worse, they learn that they have to work together.
Story Postings
- The Puzzle, A Tale Told in Pieces on Ad Astra
- The Puzzle, A Tale Told in Pieces on Fanfiction.net
- In addition, The Puzzle, A Tale Told in Pieces on Fictionpad
- The Puzzle, A Tale Told in Pieces on Fictionpad
- Also, The Puzzle on Wattpad
- The story in context
Rating
The story is rated K.
Upshot
So the story is … okay. It’s not great. I have given it a bit of updating. (Lili makes a quick appearance), although I really should have done more. The plotting is slow in parts, and it can drag and be rather talky. There are original characters, and I’m glad that I felt confident enough in my world-creating abilities to add them. However, some are wooden and others are more three-dimensional but still pretty fuzzy. Not too bad for a mystery tale, but I now know it is better to give more information about characters, in order to give the reader something to hold onto while reading.
It could be better, and probably a lot better. But it taught me a lot about story creation and pacing, and so I am grateful for its existence.
