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3/20-Wisps of Aether-A Foreign World


Ace of Hearts

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Hi, everyone. :) This is my first submission, and I'm hoping that you get a chance to look at it.

I'm planning to submit this story for as part of an application for a creative writing class. I've been toying with it for months, and I wanted to see what you all think. It's a sci-fi story about isolation and connection in a world colonized by humans. I'm choosing this piece because I think it's one of my strongest short stories (for whatever that's worth), so hopefully it will be worth your time to read and critique.
 
As for comments, anything helps. I'm not sure if the science makes any sense, but hopefully I'm getting it right (I dive into an extremely basic attempt to understand and use the theory of relativity). I'm also assuming that the people judging my application for the creative writing class won't be familiar with sci-fi or fantasy, so I tried to remove a lot of the jargon that I would normally use. 
 
Also, I'm sent the email out to what should have been the right place and I'm assuming you all got it. If something went wrong with my submission, please let me know. :)  
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Welcome to Reading Excuses!
Interesting story. Your writing is fairly clean, though there were a couple confusing places I marked below. It's certainly got potential!


I have the most trouble with Jason's character. On the one hand he seems..suicidal? depressed? But we're in his head, and I would think those would trigger stronger emotions. At the end, the line "It’s a foreign concept to my brain, since I go crazy if I’m not checking items off of a to-do list." seems very contradictory to everything that's been going on the last few pages. Jason is just shrugging off what he's been feeling? I'd prefer to have a stronger ending. This one is just "hey, I guess I'll look around at this world," where I'd like Jason to have some objective. Is he going to try to kill himself again? Does he want to find friends? go back into space and come back in another 10 years? We're left hanging. You say it's about isolation, so the ending should reflect that theme. Instead, the ending is him going off with his sister.


Notes while reading:
Pg 1: Aphrodite / Apollo seems very on the nose.

pg 2: "“It freezes time for us"
--grumble grumble science grumble...maybe "slows time"?

pg 2: There's a lot of back and forth, all in dialogue. Having some description or mannerisms might break it up.

pg 3: "I didn’t ask to be unique."
As in, the MC was young, or something else?

pg 3: "you have my number"
--you could put a cool piece of worldbuilding in here. Do they still use phones/numbers? It's a different world and civilization. Maybe they only do video calls, or text each other, or maybe they have an implanted computer. 

pg 4: "He’s probably burning up on the inside"
--not sure what this means.

pg 4: the description at the end of the page is a little clunky. It could be cleaner.

pg 5: “Eight years have passed for you,” I say. “That must mean that you’re 21 now. What’s alcohol like?”
--a bit maid and butler

pg 6: “Yeah, it’s too bad that our parents left to live here,” I say. 
--here, where?

pg 6: Ok...much more maid and butler. Both siblings know this, so why are they telling the reader? You can probably find another way to get the information across.

pg 7: Would Rose come clean so quickly about trying to commit suicide? I don't actually know...just wondering. I can't tell how long ago it was in the story., but Jason saying "
You’ve been" makes me think it's recent.

pg 8: the dinosaur diorama doesn't do a lot for me, as it's not very connected to the rest of the story.

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18 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

Welcome to Reading Excuses!
Interesting story. Your writing is fairly clean, though there were a couple confusing places I marked below. It's certainly got potential!


I have the most trouble with Jason's character. On the one hand he seems..suicidal? depressed? But we're in his head, and I would think those would trigger stronger emotions. At the end, the line "It’s a foreign concept to my brain, since I go crazy if I’m not checking items off of a to-do list." seems very contradictory to everything that's been going on the last few pages. Jason is just shrugging off what he's been feeling? I'd prefer to have a stronger ending. This one is just "hey, I guess I'll look around at this world," where I'd like Jason to have some objective. Is he going to try to kill himself again? Does he want to find friends? go back into space and come back in another 10 years? We're left hanging. You say it's about isolation, so the ending should reflect that theme. Instead, the ending is him going off with his sister.

Thanks! :) You hit a lot of the points that I was concerned about here, so I'm glad that we're on the same page (no pun intended) about my story. I didn't want to say this up front since I wanted to see if people would notice something wrong without me telling them (which clearly happened), but the whole depressed/suicide bit was a more recent addition. I felt like Jason didn't have enough of his own problem and was mostly worrying about Rose, and I wanted to give him more of an internal struggle. Right, his general attitude does seem to be at odds with his past, but it was difficult to know what to do about the discrepancy because it's honestly quite similar to how I act now. A few things that I should probably clear up when I'm editing the story, but I'll say now so you know what I'm talking about:

-Jason fantasized about suicide, but he never actually tried to kill himself. 

-Similarly, Rose slitted her wrists as an escape from reality but had no intention of killing herself

The ending is something that I think I'll have more trouble with. The problem is that Jason doesn't really know what he wants. He might try to kill himself, he might want to find friends, and he might want to go back into space, but until he decides he's tagging along with the only person he feels that he can trust. I can see why that wouldn't be a compelling ending, but I'm at somewhat of a loss for how to change it. 

34 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

pg 2: "“It freezes time for us"
--grumble grumble science grumble...maybe "slows time"?

Theoretically, light speed travel should completely freeze time, right? The astronauts assume that they're going so close to the speed of light that any time passing for them is negligible, but I didn't want to spend too much time on that idea since it was really only important to set up the age gap between Rose and Jason. 

 

36 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

pg 3: "I didn’t ask to be unique."

This was in reference to Apollo's statement that Jason's role in the space program wasn't unique and could easily be automated. I think it fits. 

 

37 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

pg 5: “Eight years have passed for you,” I say. “That must mean that you’re 21 now. What’s alcohol like?”
--a bit maid and butler

pg 6: “Yeah, it’s too bad that our parents left to live here,” I say. 
--here, where?

pg 6: Ok...much more maid and butler. Both siblings know this, so why are they telling the reader? You can probably find another way to get the information across.

Ah, I can totally see why it came off this way (always so obvious in retrospect). To me, the maid and butler bit would be more acceptable than in most circumstances because the characters are actually figuring out the new dynamic as they go. The reality that Rose went from being four years younger than Jason to four years older than him is just hitting him, and he says some obvious things because of it. On the same note, Rose is literally doing the math in her head right then to figure out how much older she is than Jason after he left for eight years and came back the same age. And she's trying to imply while describing their aunt and uncle that Jason shouldn't worry too much about how she's coping with their deaths because it wasn't a huge loss for her. She feels that it's more polite to reinforce her lack of dynamic with them rather than claiming outright that their deaths didn't affect her.

...But all that being said, I can see why it's still a problem and I won't be able to type out the above paragraph for every reader who comes across this story. :unsure: I'll give it a thorough edit, but I might end up asking more questions about this part. 

I'll fix the "here" part. I meant the planet of Aphrodite :) 

50 minutes ago, Mandamon said:

pg 8: the dinosaur diorama doesn't do a lot for me, as it's not very connected to the rest of the story.

Not surprised. I almost took this out and left it in just in case I was the only one who thought that it was a bit shaky. I agree completely. :) 

Thanks for your critique! :D 

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43 minutes ago, Ernei said:

“I’ve never been in this part of town before, so I wouldn’t know. I didn’t come from a rich family like the rest of the team did.”  - buttler-and-maiden. The lines of dialogue above aren't that bad, but I think they could also use some facelift.

"I shoot A. a strange look." - how does the MC know what does the look... look like? Also, more butlery dialogue around.

“You do the work of drones and satellites, J.” A. smiles, but it only makes me want to scrub out the mirth on his face. “Your role is hardly unique.” - While I like the direction the conversation took, this clashes with him calling the MC special lines above.

-Yep, I'll change it.

-I'll change that too.

-Heh, this is actually about how I feel being in school for science. Only the best get paid for doing research, and even then it's a lot of menial labor. The postdoc in my lab described research as being "not that different from working in a factory." So while it's impressive that Jason got here, Apollo thinks that the job isn't really fulfilling. I'll see if I can find a better way to word that idea. 

49 minutes ago, Ernei said:

More unbelievable dialogue here. This needs a rewrite :/

At first I read this as the dialogue "unbelievably bad" and was super concerned. :D Looking at the page again, the biggest part that sticks out to me is Apollo's block of text that swings into me trying to describe his motives in an awkward way. Was there anything else specifically that you noticed about this page?

 

51 minutes ago, Ernei said:

"He’s probably burning up on the inside, even though we were never really that close." - How does the MC know what A. is on the inside? It sounds stretched to me.

I'll probably add in a justification for why he thinks that about Apollo. :) 

 

52 minutes ago, Ernei said:

“Yeah, it’s too bad that our parents left to live here,” I say. - butler

“Still, Aunt Ch. and Uncle J. weren’t ever really close to us. - and maiden

This is a struggle for me because it's actually how I try to talk. I try to state something obvious that everyone agrees on to suggest something more subtle (Jason still wants to be a supportive big brother and validate Rose's feelings while Rose doesn't want Jason to worry about her for losing family). I can see why it's jarring, but I'm not sure how to change it while preserving the dynamic that I want to get across. Do you have any ideas?

 

56 minutes ago, Ernei said:

This ends a little flat to me - I don't have a feeling that anything got resolved here.

I'll look into it. Part of the problem is that Jason isn't really looking for immediate resolution, and I don't want to twist his character to force it. Curse you Jason; why must you be so tough to work with? :( 

 

1 hour ago, Ernei said:

Definitely the biggest problem are dialogues - there's a lot of butler-and-maiden exposition through them, and sometimes they sound a bit unnatural even when there isn't (but take that with a grain of salt, as I'm not native, and my 'sounds' means less than anybody else's on this forum). You have some very good description of places and the MC's feelings, and I find the sole idea interesting, so once you clean the dialogue up and perhaps pack a little more punch into the ending, it could be a great short story!

You're not imagining it; there's quite a bit of awkward dialogue. :) Ah, thanks. That's super encouraging. I think the reason I like this story more than most others I've written is that I do think that Jason and Rose set up an interesting dynamic while they try to deal with a relative age reversal. I just wish that I could communicate it better... I'm not sure if you ever feel this way, but I sometimes feel that I'm letting my characters down if I don't write them well. :( So I'll try to do them justice for this story! :D 

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Sweet little piece. I enjoyed it. Here’s some critiques.

Right off the start, we get a page worth of expositions purely through dialogue. I do this a lot, so I don’t mind it. The only problem is when you have characters discussing something they both know (i.e. relativistic speed effects) instead of something they don’t know (i.e. certain parts of towns). That aside…

Protagonist: At the end, I got a sense that he was a bit broken and jarred, possibly from the unnamed event which is why his parents don’t exist. It’s be nice to see just a bit of foreshadowing to that at the beginning. Also, you may want to make it clear that the protagonist isn’t the quoted astronaut. Probably obvious, but I just assumed he was.

The time dilation plot device you used is one an author named William Sleator uses, the best example is a children’s book he wrote called Marco’s Million, so if you want to explore the concept, I’d recommend reading that. That being the case, eight years is a lot for personal relationships and people to change, but it’s not that much for societies to change. You’d need something big, like a technological revolution and a hundred years of so.

Overall, I very much enjoyed it.

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Here are my thoughts as I'm reading:

========
I take a long pause considering and re-reading the first sentence. I give up and continue reading the second phrase. Compared to this one, the first seems weak and lost. I'd have loved it more if it was phrased along the lines of : "Galaxies, emitting light ..., hypnotize me."

I like the opening segment of the astronaut. It's intriguing.

"feeling the stone's cold touch on my skin" doesn't really evoke an image in mind. It's just a piece of information that you hand me. How about relaying this information more personally like for example: "I squeeze the smooth, heart-shaped rock in my hand, and its coolness gently nips/pinches my skin." See the difference?

"I clench my hand so tightly that my knuckles turn pale." I honestly don't like the "that" here as a transition between clauses. It sounds too textbook. You could also remove "so" and use "and."

"A silent blur of white alerts me to transport pods whizzing by on magnetic rails to my right." I don't know why exactly, but this sentence was hard to read and understand.

I rephrased this bit of text for stronger impact:
“I take a deep breath and look up at the sky. The Aphroditian sun is gleaming above the high walls of surrounding buildings. I pause, shrouding the light with my hand. The sun will soon go to hiding, and the darkness will overwhelm this place."

"...oozing out of their pockets that they could pay..." Once more, I'm put off by the use of strict academic style.

"You know what light speed travel does to you, right?" This reply and the one that follows are redundant. We already established what time travel does to you in the astronaut segment. Plus it's a wildly known fact. Instead of laying it out explicitly like that, you could have incorporated it in the following rant of Apollo.

' “You do the work of drones and satellites, Jason.” Apollo smiles teasingly, but it only makes me want to scrub out the mirth on his face. “Your role is hardly unique.” This clause ruins the rhythm of what Apollo is saying. You can incorporate that feeling in the next sentence.

« I study Apollo’s expression, trying to see past flesh and into the gears of his mind I wish I could wipe that grin out of his face. I didn’t ask to be unique. » The first part is too deep.

“And is that why you were friendly to me?” I say. “ Was it out of pity?” Unnecessary.

Even if you don’t realize it yet, there’s nothing worse than being truly alone lonely. »

Apollo leaves. I’m satisfied with this part. I loved the dialogue. It was authentic and engaging. However, I was just left with a bit of confusion: why was Apollo accompanying Jason? I get now that he was just walking him to his apartment. But I sure would’ve loved it more if I knew this from the start. I thought they were out in a mission together or something.

I like how you described his confusion upon seeing the woman. You knew how to relay his emotions.

I’m not buying the whole calendar thing. I mean, couldn’t they have communicated while he was away? Was this technology unavailable? How can that be?

After clutching the small stone curled between my fingers for so long, I almost forgot that it was ever there. » I like how you went back to the stone. I love small details like this one.

« Whenever I’m with Rose, I feel like a robot. » Where did this come from ? It put me off honestly.

Life have has been rough ever since you left. »

« Rose rolled up her left sleeve, and I see scars littered around her wrist. » I don’t think someone, who went through so many suicide attempts, can just come clean about it all, as simply as that, to someone they hadn’t seen for years, even if they were siblings. It’s too painful to even think about, let alone share it out loud.

Jason’s first reaction to the scars can’t be farther from authenticity, they’re almost hilarious.

I reach the end. My impression is that, while the part with Apollo seemed down-to-earth and relatable, the last part was rather rushed and cartoonish in my opinion.
========

For the most part, I found this submission beautifully written, especially the dialogue between Jason and Apollo, and also quite intriguing at parts. Other than that, Jason’s feelings could use some more fleshing out, as they were surprising, at times, as well as confusing.

Keep up the good work! :D 

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I agree with everyone else, a lot of the dialogue was very As-You-Know-Bob

 
I think my biggest issue though, was the timeframe. I'm not entirely sold on the 8 years timeline, to be honest. For the amount of disconnect the two astronauts feel, it seems like it should be more. For context, eight years from this year was 2009. Smart phones were still around (if slower), people still chatted on the internet (with less FaceTime and Telegram, and more Skype and AIM, but still real time chatting), and cat macros were still a mainstay of the internet. Most of the established restaurants and companies in my hometown were still around back then, and definitely all the major landmarks and traffic arteries still existed. Today we have more new subdivisions and residential streets, more new businesses in what were once empty fields. One major company left, but its buildings are still around. 
 
I will say though, like king, that I found the scars section to be a bit unbelievable.
 
That said, I did enjoy the story. I like how it ended. I found it  a bit upbeat, even.
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- Mythology nitpit - Venus is the Roman appropriation of Aphrodite, so is it redundant to have two planets named after the Greco-Roman goddess of beauty?

- Another Greek name - Apollo? Seems a little out of place, but maybe it will be explained later.

- The main character's name is Jason . . . noticing a pattern here. 

- I am liking the time jump element though.

- The two segments feel slightly disconnected. I would have liked to have seen more mention of Rose in the preceding section. Overall though, I thought it was a good story. 

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P.1

I'm not sold on epigraphs on shorts-- you're working to length constraints, so you need to be elegant. This seems like it's stating outright things the fictional writer would take as given, and it clunks. It also seems like you're outright stating, at the start, the thesis of your story. Give your reader at least a little credit here.

Reading down the page, this feels really clumsy to me. Your description's muddy (a blur is by definition silent, eg) and you're just explaining so much that the characters already know, both within the narration and in the dialogue. The entire first page of eight here is sunk into explaining things the POV character already knows, and when there's dialogue it's pure explanation for the reader, not natural dialogue. This doesn't parse as a conversation, and this doesn't parse as someone returning to a place once-familiar that's now foreign.

The thing about this is sort of exposition is that it really shows a lot of disrespect to the reader; you're not giving them any credit for being able to pick up things that aren't stated outright and beaten into them. Especially when you're working with a short: you have better things you could and should be devoting the space to.

P.2

Write numbers as words.

We've now spent 25% of the page count of this story explaining the premise: time dilation. You are at this point actively wasting the reader's time.

P.3

It is three and a half pages in to an eight page story before we actually hit story, to wit, that the world is different around the POV character, and they do not know what to do with themself, but they must do something. Description is absolutely wobbly and you've got some very clumsy attempts to break POV here. The same smile is relieved in one sentence and bittersweet two sentences later, without any reason to suspect a change. Your POV character is making laser-precise surmises as to other people's mental states. I have no reason to believe this person is capable of doing this.

P.4

I would straight-up trash everything prior to the demarked line break on this page. There's nothing in it of value to the story: it's straight-up giving us the premise, over, and over, and over again. You don't need it.

Here, your narration is still heavy-handed and over-explanatory (looking down at the watch is definitely going too far), but here, you've actually got something of interest.

P.5

But you're really weak on dialogue. Lots and lots of point-blank explaining things to one another, and boy howdy does this POV character not parse as seventeen years old in the slightest. So the POV character's sister's words are touching their heart: you're not conveying this in any way other than just saying that's the case. You're gonna have to do more than that.

P.6

Like above all else, you are just saying things outright way too much. Don't tell me something's moving or compelling because you certainly aren't doing the legwork narratively to make it seem that way, and you're not writing the character as being meaningfully moved or compelled either.

The 'forgotten' thing is straight-up a cop-out. The stone hasn't meaningfully existed within the story prior to this point. You can't sell it as having any import now.

And frankly, you're not even trying to sell it as having import; it didn't exist before now, and suddenly someone who's crying and profoundly unhappy suddenly is happy and relieved. I have to call BS on this. This isn't emotionally believable.

P.7

Honestly, the way you're handling the self-harm feels really cheap, like you're primarily using it as a bid for the reader's sympathy. That's really not cool at all. If you must retain this aspect, you're going to need to do the legwork to make it feel like you're doing anything other than taking really tacky shortcuts. Personally, I would excise that aspect and just do the actual work of making the reader feel like the character's had a lousy life and hasn't handled it well. The same goes for the POV character too.

P.8

And then... nothing.

So, this is a piece with a lot of problems: among other things, the SFFnal concept doesn't actually interact with the plot or the characters in any meaningful way. You sink so much time and space into going on, and, on, and on about the time dilation aspect but when we get to the meat of the story, there's really nothing about it where the main character leaving for a month and returning eight years later means anything at all. There's nothing about this interaction between the POV character and their sister that wouldn't make exactly as much sense if they'd just literally been gone for eight years themself, and there's nothing about it that requires a secondary world setting. This could happen down the street from me right now. This is not to say your story needs to meaningfully be SF or anything to have value but you're devoting nearly half of your used space to explaining concepts that really have nothing to do with the story you're telling.

Your dialogue pretty much never rings true and your narration only exists when necessary to explain something. You're not selling your uses of emotionality, and they come off basically random and they only exist for the moments of convenience within the story.

You don't actually have a plot, and your story is thin on the ground because of this: the POV character was away for several years, and when they return, their sister has had a hard go of it. That's basically it.

I would say it needs a redraft from scratch; the core relationship between the POV character and their sister has value, but right now, I just don't think this submission actually tells a story.

Edited by neongrey
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Hooray for first subs! Welcome welcome!

Overall

I'm unsure. The beginning was great, and I filled up and got hooked on a sense of wonder. It unraveled with the dialogue, first with the other astronaut, and then with the sister. I didn't get a lot of emotion out of our protag, and the way their conversation goes doesn't feel like it wraps up well at the end. I'm unsure as well, about the knife in the eye thing (did he try to kill himself?), and if you're trying to tie that to the sister also doing self harm? 

I have a lot of loose end questions, basically, and I'm not sure your beginning, while enchanting, is the right one for this story. It sets up reader promises that aren't really met in the rest of the story.

But good on you for subbing! The name of the game is revisions, so I look forward to seeing your next sub!

12 hours ago, neongrey said:

There's nothing about this interaction between the POV character and their sister that wouldn't make exactly as much sense if they'd just literally been gone for eight years themself, and there's nothing about it that requires a secondary world setting. This could happen down the street from me right now.

I think this was where I hung up, too, in terms of keeping promises to readers. All the glory of space travel and coming back, and the interaction has none of that in it. I was disappointed. 

 

As I go

- The Battlestar Galactica vibe is strong here, early on

- page one: might be autocorrect, but tags don't have to be capitalized after a question mark.

- page two has some pretty heavy maid and butler dialogue. It makes me not want to read it.

- page one started with an aura of real wonder, and I was drawn in. The dialogue ending on page two is pulling that back, for me. 

- page four: the relationship between these two people is a little confusing to me. They talk about being friends, sort of, but I don't see that really shown anywhere. So the talk, especially on page four, rings a bit false

- page four: she's grown taller? Was she also 17 when our protag left? If so, very few women grow taller at this age. Most have their last growth spurt at 14-15. Edited - she is the little sister. Ah.

- The sister says "I'm glad you're back", but I don't really feel that from her. Her dialogue from the start, and the fact that she forgot when her brother would return, sell me more on some intense sibling rivalry that hasn't faded. You'll need to ease more affection in, I think, if you want the reader to buy that the sister is happy to see the brother again

- page six: she's crying now? Not sold on this emotional display, especially since our protag doesn't seem to be emoting along the same lines

- page seven: I feel like a robot. Interesting, because his emotions come off the same way

- Not sold so much on the ending

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Done with finals, so I can finally respond to all of these thoughtful critiques! :) 

On 3/20/2017 at 6:13 PM, aeromancer said:

Right off the start, we get a page worth of expositions purely through dialogue. I do this a lot, so I don’t mind it. The only problem is when you have characters discussing something they both know (i.e. relativistic speed effects) instead of something they don’t know (i.e. certain parts of towns). That aside…

 

Protagonist: At the end, I got a sense that he was a bit broken and jarred, possibly from the unnamed event which is why his parents don’t exist. It’s be nice to see just a bit of foreshadowing to that at the beginning. Also, you may want to make it clear that the protagonist isn’t the quoted astronaut. Probably obvious, but I just assumed he was.

Oh yeah, I guess I did have them talk about something they both knew... :unsure: I should definitely find a better way to get that message across. Actually, the jarring side to Jason comes from me wanting to vent my recent experiences more than anything else, but connecting it to the absence of his parents is honestly a wonderful idea. I should totally work that into my story. :D And yes, I should make it clear that the protag isn't the quoted astronaut.

 

On 3/21/2017 at 8:29 AM, king007 said:

For the most part, I found this submission beautifully written, especially the dialogue between Jason and Apollo, and also quite intriguing at parts. Other than that, Jason’s feelings could use some more fleshing out, as they were surprising, at times, as well as confusing.

Keep up the good work! :D 

Oh yes, Jason's feelings are quite muddled. I think I feel into the trap of "I feel like this so it's okay to portray him in the same way," even when they're not coherent or compelling. I'm not trying to write a story about a mental schism here, and I need to clean up my character's thoughts. :P 

 

On 3/21/2017 at 4:42 PM, industrialistDragon said:

 

I agree with everyone else, a lot of the dialogue was very As-You-Know-Bob

 
I think my biggest issue though, was the timeframe. I'm not entirely sold on the 8 years timeline, to be honest. For the amount of disconnect the two astronauts feel, it seems like it should be more. For context, eight years from this year was 2009. Smart phones were still around (if slower), people still chatted on the internet (with less FaceTime and Telegram, and more Skype and AIM, but still real time chatting), and cat macros were still a mainstay of the internet. Most of the established restaurants and companies in my hometown were still around back then, and definitely all the major landmarks and traffic arteries still existed. Today we have more new subdivisions and residential streets, more new businesses in what were once empty fields. One major company left, but its buildings are still around.

 

Yep, yep, good to hear about the dialogue one more time just to have it get further through my stubborn ego. ;) I never thought about the timeframe as an issue before, so I'm super glad that you mentioned it. I exaggerated the effects quite a bit so that Jason would feel like this is truly a foreign world, but I can hardly do that if it doesn't make sense. :) 

 

On 3/22/2017 at 4:20 PM, rdpulfer said:

- Mythology nitpit - Venus is the Roman appropriation of Aphrodite, so is it redundant to have two planets named after the Greco-Roman goddess of beauty?

- Another Greek name - Apollo? Seems a little out of place, but maybe it will be explained later.

- The main character's name is Jason . . . noticing a pattern here. 

- I am liking the time jump element though.

- The two segments feel slightly disconnected. I would have liked to have seen more mention of Rose in the preceding section. Overall though, I thought it was a good story. 

I'm glad that you like the time jump element, because that's the one thing that I'm not willing to give up. ;) Yeah, the names were lifted from another one of my stories that took more from mythology and I honestly forgot about that fact. I'll see if I want to change them. Yes, it's been difficult for me to connect the two scenes, but I think that I may have a solution...

On 3/22/2017 at 10:09 PM, neongrey said:

And then... nothing.

So, this is a piece with a lot of problems: among other things, the SFFnal concept doesn't actually interact with the plot or the characters in any meaningful way. You sink so much time and space into going on, and, on, and on about the time dilation aspect but when we get to the meat of the story, there's really nothing about it where the main character leaving for a month and returning eight years later means anything at all. There's nothing about this interaction between the POV character and their sister that wouldn't make exactly as much sense if they'd just literally been gone for eight years themself, and there's nothing about it that requires a secondary world setting. This could happen down the street from me right now. This is not to say your story needs to meaningfully be SF or anything to have value but you're devoting nearly half of your used space to explaining concepts that really have nothing to do with the story you're telling.

Your dialogue pretty much never rings true and your narration only exists when necessary to explain something. You're not selling your uses of emotionality, and they come off basically random and they only exist for the moments of convenience within the story.

You don't actually have a plot, and your story is thin on the ground because of this: the POV character was away for several years, and when they return, their sister has had a hard go of it. That's basically it.

I would say it needs a redraft from scratch; the core relationship between the POV character and their sister has value, but right now, I just don't think this submission actually tells a story.

I would defend my story if I thought it would do any good, but since the story itself didn't persuade you... well, no use in wasting our time, right? :) 

I've come to the conclusion that you're right about the redraft. I really like a lot of what's going on in my story, but I think that I can find a better way to tell it. For starters, I think that the story would actually work better from Rose's PoV because she, despite first appearances, is the more proactive, reliable, and stronger of the two siblings. And I think that Jason doesn't come off as genuine because he contains to many of my own self-contradictions that I've internalized as "normal." And, just like me, he seems to have no real purpose in life. :( I feel like forcing a purpose on him would be unfaithful to his character, so I would rather have the conclusion come from Rose.

On 3/23/2017 at 10:15 AM, kais said:
On 3/22/2017 at 10:09 PM, neongrey said:

There's nothing about this interaction between the POV character and their sister that wouldn't make exactly as much sense if they'd just literally been gone for eight years themself, and there's nothing about it that requires a secondary world setting. This could happen down the street from me right now.

I think this was where I hung up, too, in terms of keeping promises to readers. All the glory of space travel and coming back, and the interaction has none of that in it. I was disappointed. 

Ah, this is indeed a problem. The story was never intended to be about the glory of space travel and was supposed to focus more on Jason's falling out of time as an allegory for his own weakness that runs deeper than Rose's fragile exterior. I should switch up the promises that I'm making at the beginning of the story, then. :) 

On 3/23/2017 at 10:15 AM, kais said:

I'm unsure. The beginning was great, and I filled up and got hooked on a sense of wonder. It unraveled with the dialogue, first with the other astronaut, and then with the sister. I didn't get a lot of emotion out of our protag, and the way their conversation goes doesn't feel like it wraps up well at the end. I'm unsure as well, about the knife in the eye thing (did he try to kill himself?), and if you're trying to tie that to the sister also doing self harm? 

I have a lot of loose end questions, basically, and I'm not sure your beginning, while enchanting, is the right one for this story. It sets up reader promises that aren't really met in the rest of the story.

But good on you for subbing! The name of the game is revisions, so I look forward to seeing your next sub!

I think that this really nails it, and I'm so glad that you took the time to critique my story. :D I got many negative comments about parts that I really liked in the story, and I see now that it's partially because many of them lacked the proper setup. I honestly think that I can't really work with Jason right now. The kid's riddled with too many of my own contradictions to cut through the muck of this story. Just like me, he can analyze all day without coming to any useful conclusions about what he should do with his life. I think that trying to force a conclusion through his thick skull would be awkward and unfaithful to his character, so I'm thinking about having the story focus more on Rose's perspective instead. Let her deal with his contradictions and indecisiveness while coming to her own conclusions. :) Of course, that basically means a full rewrite from Rose's PoV, but I think that will also eliminate some of the awkward butler-and-maid dialogue (because she doesn't really care as much about the motives of the other astronauts, so I won't have to jam as much in). 

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Hey Wisps, apologies it’s taken me so long to get to your story, but I'm always excited to read a first submission, especially since it’s a short, and SF too. Feels to me like both those elements are a bit rarer around here. Diving straight in then!!

  • It’s an intriguing start to the story, the mini prologue; not flashy, but solid and thought-provoking. It also flags several important things for the reader, like genre (SF), theme (time/space travel) and setting. Not to mention some good character cues. Nice work.

  • The first page is thoughtful, and I find it pulls me in. The rather vague companion works fine, because I find myself asking question about them. Also, the fact that Jim and Apollo are arguing is a nice touch; something a bit different, and conveys more character.

  • I’m happy giving impressions right now, and don’t want to stop for grammar. There are some drafting things though. Maybe I’ll come back to them.

  • Some of the dialogue is a bit exposition-y, and formal too.

  • Everyone I knew know is eight years older” – He still knows them, they’re just 8 year older.

  • Oh, protag is Jason; I assumed he was Jiarm.

  • gears of his mind” – so, Apollo’s a droid of some sort? Ah, so he’s not. I that case, he comes over as rather devoid of personality, bland.

  • apartment number 234152” – ha ha, I’m in this stage as part of the edit of my story, assigning addresses (story locations) to the map that I’ve made of Lunaville. At a practical level, why is the apartment number so high? The system we have now arose for good practical reasons. Once you get into the thousands, even 10’s of thousands, you’ve lost any kind of practical traceability for the purposes of navigation, hence the reason for street names and neighbourhoods. 234152 implies to me that there is no practical aspect to the social organisation on this planet.

  • I watch him walk off into the nameless crowds” – blocking problem. I’ve got no sense of there being crowds around here. No description of noise, clamour, bustle, etc. Actually, there is very little description at all. I think the story would benefit immensely from just the odd highlight now and then.

  • ready to swallow me whole once I step inside the door” – Not the most startling metaphor.

  • but I take the elevator up to the 12th floor without running into any more problems” – I haven’t seen anything that could be described as a problem yet.

  • it shakes uncontrollably” – Really? This reaction, to me, is disproportionate with the emotional response that you’ve described up to now. J is nervous, but ‘uncontrollable’ seems over the top to me.

  • round facial shape” – awkward, can you just say ‘face’?

  • The similarities and differences combined” – nice phrase, evocative of the essence of those 8 years.

  • I swear that there’s a tsunami every other week. On Earth, people go in the ocean and swim because they know that the waves won’t hurt them. What would that be like?” – I like the tsunami line. The line about waves on Earth? I’m not sure that ‘know’ is the right word. Trust? It’s just that waves on Earth can hurt, they don’t have to be tsunamis.

  • Yeah, it’s too bad that our parents left to live here” – kind of clunky and tell-y.

  • Still, Aunt Chrys and Uncle Jeff weren’t ever really close to us” – yeah, I think this is just flat out maid-and-butler.

  • I know that I’m not.” – here’s what I mean about the dialogue. Very few people use ‘that’ when speaking – even though it’s correct grammatically.

  • I remember holding the blade of a knife up to my eye, so close that it turns turned blurry” – If it’s a memory, I'd suggest selling it by using past tense.

  • Nothing I do is ever enough. The only way to end the pain is… is…” – You’ve not sold me on this level of emotion turmoil within Jason. I’m just not convinced by this sudden angst.

  • She always viewed her tendency to cry as a weakness, but I never do. Her sadness was moving, compelling” – the tenses are mixed up here.

  • You’ve been slitting your wrists” – Phew, I've got to say this, for me, is a clunker. It’s soooo obvious from the previous line; it’s not even a question. Also, I think ‘self-harming’ is a far more contemporary and accurate word. Slitting wrists, to me, implies a suicide attempt, implies much more than self-harm.

  • Oh no.” – Ach, I just think some of these lines feel really forced, like bad amateur dramatics.

  • took over while I watched” – how can she take over her own task? Sounded off to me.

  • just another dinosaur diorama that she needs to struggle through” – great line.

  • Was looking at the stars enough to silence the voices in my head?” – Again, still not sold on the inner torment.

Well, I enjoyed reading that, but ultimately, I am left rather frustrated. I had various issues, as follows: (1) The dialogue is really rather dry, too grammatically correct and verging on info-dump in places. There was one instance of pretty clear maid-and-butler, I thought, and other instances of telling. I think you could really improve the story by doing a pass where you read your dialogue out loud – it helps a lot with rhythm and conviction (if you will).

(2) Description is very light. I know it’s a short, but just a dash of ‘colour’ here and there would make a big difference, I think. You mention things that have form, like a steel building, but that could be anything. What colour is it? What does the sky look like? Does this lane/street smell like anything? What sounds can Jason hear when he’s in his contemplation? It doesn’t take much to put the reader in the location, and handful of words on each page can do it. The proof of the pudding is where you mention the street being crowded and I had absolutely no sense of that at all.

(3) About 3 or 4 pages from the end, you veer away from the interesting time/interstellar travel theme into pure melodrama of the brother/sister relationship. There an interesting note of how she is now the big sister – which is great, but you lay on all this stuff about Jason’s angst and I don’t think it comes across at all. There are some notes about what he does because of the pain he’s feeling; holding the knife to his eye, but where is the pain, where did it come from?

I enjoy your style, you have a nice turn of phrase. I think there’s good potential in this story, but I think there are a number of ways that you can punch it up into a piece that really grabs and holds the reader. Nice work! Some more work to do :) 

<R>

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3 hours ago, Robinski said:

 

Hey Wisps, apologies it’s taken me so long to get to your story, but I'm always excited to read a first submission, especially since it’s a short, and SF too. Feels to me like both those elements are a bit rarer around here. Diving straight in then!!

 

No worries! :) I'm still planning to get to your chapter as well... eventually. :ph34r: I have to admit that SF and short stories aren't what I normally write, but when I write short stories I often feel like it's not worth it to set up a super abstract fantasy culture. But I still want the setting to be a bit different from our own, so SF often works. 

3 hours ago, Robinski said:

Still, Aunt Chrys and Uncle Jeff weren’t ever really close to us” – yeah, I think this is just flat out maid-and-butler.

Moments like these are difficult for me because that's actually how I would talk to imply what Rose is trying to get across about how she doesn't want Jason to press the point and worry about here more. It's hard to be non-confrontational without stating the obvious sometimes. :( 

3 hours ago, Robinski said:

Well, I enjoyed reading that, but ultimately, I am left rather frustrated. I had various issues, as follows: (1) The dialogue is really rather dry, too grammatically correct and verging on info-dump in places. There was one instance of pretty clear maid-and-butler, I thought, and other instances of telling. I think you could really improve the story by doing a pass where you read your dialogue out loud – it helps a lot with rhythm and conviction (if you will).

 

(2) Description is very light. I know it’s a short, but just a dash of ‘colour’ here and there would make a big difference, I think. You mention things that have form, like a steel building, but that could be anything. What colour is it? What does the sky look like? Does this lane/street smell like anything? What sounds can Jason hear when he’s in his contemplation? It doesn’t take much to put the reader in the location, and handful of words on each page can do it. The proof of the pudding is where you mention the street being crowded and I had absolutely no sense of that at all.

 

(3) About 3 or 4 pages from the end, you veer away from the interesting time/interstellar travel theme into pure melodrama of the brother/sister relationship. There an interesting note of how she is now the big sister – which is great, but you lay on all this stuff about Jason’s angst and I don’t think it comes across at all. There are some notes about what he does because of the pain he’s feeling; holding the knife to his eye, but where is the pain, where did it come from?

 

I enjoy your style, you have a nice turn of phrase. I think there’s good potential in this story, but I think there are a number of ways that you can punch it up into a piece that really grabs and holds the reader. Nice work! Some more work to do :) 

 

<R>

(1) Yeah, the dialogue is tough because again, it does stick fairly close to how I would talk. There are definitely moments where I know how I would clean it up, though. And I really should read my story out loud. I used to do that with the stories I write, and I don't remember why I stopped.:huh:

(2) I was actually expecting a lot more comments like this one from other readers. Description is the point when I often feel the weakest, so I sometimes just drop it. It's hard for me to give description the depth it really deserves. Even when my dialogue is flat, there are usually character sentiments going on beneath the surface that I want to play with and explore further. With description, it's a little harder... but I'll definitely try. :D 

(3) This story does feel like it's trying to say two separate things, doesn't it? That's something that I struggled with ever since my first draft, and I think that I just made the problem worse by constantly revising and muddling it. Yes, the interstellar travel was supposed to set up the age difference between Jason and Rose, but I definitely agree with you that it doesn't come across as well as it could. I think that I'm going to rewrite the story from Rose's PoV to focus more on their relationship, and maybe eventually write a separate story to talk more about Jason's experiences in space. 

Thanks for the critique, and I also really appreciate the encouragement. :) I know that realistically I have a long way to go, but it's great to hear that you liked parts of it. :D I think that it's important for me to have confidence in my writing. If I think that I've almost got my story in a good place then it will motivate me to work harder regardless of how far away I actually am. So I'll work hard at rewriting this story, and even if it doesn't really achieve its potential then hopefully I'll learn something from the process. Thanks for your support.

(As an aside, I'm having way too much fun with these emojis :ph34r:

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5 minutes ago, Wisps of Aether said:

that's actually how I would talk

I think it sounds more natural if it becomes a question, so Rose is acknowledging that Jason knows this, but is requesting his acknowledgment of the fact. Still, Aunt Chrys and Uncle Jeff weren’t ever really close to us, were they?

9 minutes ago, Wisps of Aether said:

Description is the point when I often feel the weakest

Sometimes it's as simple is naming the thing. A recent example of RE was that of a table. Don't say 'wooden table', say 'oak table'. It doesn't tell the reader anything more unless they are familiar with the patina of oak, but it feels deeper, it resonates, I think. 

...sorry, need to break off. I will be back...

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1 hour ago, Robinski said:

Still, Aunt Chrys and Uncle Jeff weren’t ever really close to us, were they?

Ah, you're right. That does sound more natural. :) I'll definitely keep that in mind. 

1 hour ago, Robinski said:

Sometimes it's as simple is naming the thing

I've definitely heard that before as well. Those examples help a lot. It's hard to know what I'm doing wrong if I don't have ideas of what to do right in my mind. :D 

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4 hours ago, Wisps of Aether said:

it's great to hear that you liked parts of it

Sorry, I was interrupted earlier, but as it turns out, I didn't have that much more to say!!

Yes, I would not want to you underestimate the point about the prose. I wound your style very comfortable to read. That's not meant to be faint praise. TBH, on here, I often find myself 'battling' punctuation and grammar issues that make some pieces quite hard to get through, certainly in any kind of joined up way, but I though your piece flowed nicely and that's half the battle in winning readers over, I think. Story choices can be edited, but style takes longer to refine, so I think you're in a good place. Keep going!!

:) 

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