Hope the day has been treating everyone well!
Over the past few months, I've written several articles that aim to define certain aspects of a fully sustainable world. After writing the last couple of articles, I wanted to really explore those concepts within a story. To really get a sense of how life might actually play out. Below I have a link to a story where I put together elements of an open travel society, a shared community, and food culture together:
I had fun writing the sections that I explored, and hope that reading through it was equally enjoyable. Would love any feedback or opinions that you may have. What did you think of the narrative? Could you envision yourself in that world? Would you buy a solarpunk cookbook filled with short stories?
Hope the rest of the day goes well and thanks for reading! :)
I think it needs a bit more of a hook. We hear it's a special day, and there are special guests, but we don't really learn why. It's also a bit tricky to place this, in time or geography, and we don't know why Navi was so set on getting these berries, or what this bear confrontation looked like.
I suggest trying to answer these and tie them all into a theme that circles back in the end. It's a newer settlement, perhaps, in an area undergoing recent restoration from ecological devastation. Navi's friend is a mushroom obsesive, but Navi loves berries. Navi was determined to get some to go on top of tarts for dessert, and the visiting elders, who've come to assess progress with the new settlement are amazed, because they recognize the berry as a staple of the region thought lost, redeeming Navi's actions in front of everyone. Something like that.
It does indeed read like an except out of a longer story and not a more self-contained short.
I do like some of the ideas that hint at a broader world-building though.
I intentionally wrote the story as an excerpt, to give it a "slice of life" feel to it. I didn't want everything to be explained and instead leave it to the reader to fill in the blanks as to how certain aspects came to be. You're take is interesting and quite different from my headcanon, though I could definitely see things playing out that way.