Oomph Chapters 1 & 2 4400 words

[shatteredsmooth]

Hi All,

 

My first submission is the opening to a novel I wrote this past NaNoWriMo, tentatively titled Oomph Unleashed. I've revised the first five or six chapters a few times, but the further into the ms I read, the messier it is. 

 

So here are chapters 1 and 2. I'm open to any feedback, but do have some specific questions. Feel free to answer or ignore them as you please. 

 

How well do I introduce the world? Where is there too much detail or not enough?

What do you think of the pacing?

Do you see a connection between what happens in the begining of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2?

Does the voice work? 

Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? 

 

Content Warnings: Language (some swears), violence, drugs

 

Thank you!! 

 

P.S. please let me know if I messed up any of the guidelines. 

[Mandamon]

Welcome to Reading Excuses and congrats on your first posting! I had a few extra minutes tonight, so I figured I'd get a jump on this since you sent it early.

Overall, this has some potential. Right now it's pretty rough, and needs a good once-over for technical issues, but the core is there. 

Questions:
How well do I introduce the world? Where is there too much detail or not enough?
--I think it's a pretty good introduction. The biggest issue seems to be several places where you label a thing, then don't explain what it is for a while. Especially Oomph. We need to know what that does and how it works early, as it's important to the story.

What do you think of the pacing?
--Pretty solid.

Do you see a connection between what happens in the beginning of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2?
--Yep. It works.

Does the voice work? 
--Good voice. You could actually take it down a notch here and there.

Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? 
--A bunch, especially on the first page. I've noted some below.

Note while reading:
pg 1: "waiting for distant contact of my mom’s to deliver something"
--Something missing in this sentence. "a" distant contact?

pg 1: "At least this criminal"
--what criminal? The distant contact? These last two sentences need to be clarified a bit.

pg 1: "glow like halo"
--a halo.

pg 1: "HoBo"
--I assume this is a car of some sort?
--ah, a hovercraft, a few lines down. Might be good to switch these two so we know what it is before it's named.

pg 1: "throws rows of hovercraft"
--through, hovercrafts

pg 1: A's name needs an apostrophe at the end.

pg 1: "with smooth edges"
--Why/how does clothing have smooth edges?

pg 1: "backdoor"
--two words. Back door.

pg 2: "But you did, and you’re doing that horrid thing..."
--needs a dialogue tag. I don't know who's speaking.

pg 2: "A leaned forward so xir nose was almost touching mine."
--why?

pg 3: "The silver bus flew up"
--Actually flew, or arrived quickly, or what?

pg 3: "Shoving the processed, buttery, salty goodness also known as popcorn"
--possibly too much detail?

pg 3: "hovering boxes (HoBo)"
--Ah. did not get this. Needs to be up at the beginning.

pg 3: "SE"
--who? Also, why would they be torturing D? We don't really know what's going on yet.

pg 4: "fatter than Martian dust bunny"
--are they fat? Are they even alive? dust bunnies are those piles of fuzz under the couch. I don't get a size comparison out of this.

pg 4: "Unfortunately, he was in prison, on another planet, that was run by a government that would rather see Earth destroyed than do a favor for a teenager with junk food problem."
--There's a lot in this one sentence, and I feel like you're burying the lede. Can you unpack this and show us instead of telling?

pg 4: "L-shaped tonged"
--tongue. Also, how does that work? which way does the angle go?

pg 6: "admitting my frail little arms were too small..."
--But doesn't D have more than human strength? Could D just pick them up differently?

pg 7: "willful veins feel like they were filled with electric maggots"
--this is a bit too purple compared to the rest of the text.

pg 8: "something that reeked of Oomph"
--did we know this before? I feel like it's an important description.

pg 9: "were 50% more likely to have an Oomph sensitivity"
--But D takes a suppressant. That tells me D's body manufactures Oomph, not that D can sense it. It would help if I knew what Oomph was and why it was so sought after.

pg 9: "and using Oomph"
--Same thing here. Using it for what? I still think "suppressant" is the wrong word. It's not suppressing the Oomph, but the ability to do things to it.

pg 9: "I tried to reach towards her with my mind"
--So it makes people telepathic? 

pg 11: "even with a boatload of “prescription” chems"
--Do the chems affect her ability to focus, or to talk?

pg 12: "and a dozen conversations I wasn’t supposed to have"
--Good line. Builds up personality while moving the plot forward.

pg 13: "Have you ever seen objects that channel Oomph?"
--Where is this question coming from? I still feel like I don't know enough about it to determine what it actually does.

pg 13: "growling stomach."
--Is this relevant to the rest of the conversation?

Pg 14: "You’re always hungry,”
--Ah. This lends context to the above note, but I think you need to mention this more often between the beginning and this point if it's a big character tag.

pg 15: "That didn’t they no one would try to steal the artifact for themself."
--Missing a word. Also, what artifact?

pg 15: "Our moms owned The Garden of Earthly Delights together."
--also good to know before now.

pg 16: "Oomph artifacts"
--still don't know enough about this.

pg 16: "type of item I just picked up for Mom"
--ah, that's the artifact. Need to add something in to tie it to the package.

[shatteredsmooth]

Thank you @Mandamon! Your questions are extremely helpful! They'll help me focus on the gaps in logic world-building -- the kinds of things I wouldn't notice on my own, even after letting these rest for a couple months. Same goes for the missing a's on the first page. I read that page a few times last night before I sent it. This is why I need good readers. 

Thank you so much!! 

[kais]

Hooray! You made it to subbing! Congrats on that first big step. I hope you love the group as much as I do. We're squirrelly sometimes, but in that lovable way (I hope). 

Overall

I think this chapter has good bones, but needs the muscle rearranged. There is some critical buy-in worldbuilding missing, and some scenes that I think aren't needed yet. I've left notes below. The writing was mostly smooth (some typos, but that's not unusual), but I did feel like I lacked buy-in with our main character. But I think with a bit more worldbuilding and backstory, especially in relation to what mom does and the business, I'd be fine.

This gives me a sort of space western vibe. Is that what you were going for? Saloons with aliens? I can get behind that!

Your Questions

How well do I introduce the world?

I'd like both more and less worldbuilding, in various places. I've pointed those out in the section below.

 

Where is there too much detail or not enough?

Generally, not enough to get me invested wholly in the narrative

 

What do you think of the pacing?

Too slow to start, but the second chapter seemed to find its rythym

 

Do you see a connection between what happens in the begining of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2?

No... missed that

 

Does the voice work? 

The voice seems appropriate for the age of the protagonist

 

Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? 

I pointed out the big one below. I think you could clip a number of sentences down, but that's something can be gotten to in LBLs at a later date.

 

17 hours ago, Mandamon said:

Where is this question coming from? I still feel like I don't know enough about it to determine what it actually does.

I had the same issue here. I need more about this drug, and the world it inhabits, much earlier on

 

As I go

- that second sentence has so much punch, I'd suggest deleting the first one and leading with the second. 

- "It was even worse..." this sentence is a bear. Consider reworking, because right now it is hard to read and I think we lost impact because of that.

- glow like a halo, perhaps?

- two enbies on the first page. Okay fine, you have my attention

- end of page two: I'm antsy. There's no real urgency in these first two pages, and the banter isn't snappy enough to hold my attention. I suspect the better hook opening to this chapter might be farther down a ways

- page three: I don't know what SE is, so the debate about it is meaningless at this point

- page four: than a Martian dust bunny?

- page four: so if you kept the second line on the first page, then started at "three knocks shook the...," I think your pacing would be a lot better. Waiting, boredom, etc., aren't great hooks for starting books, at least not so much anymore.

- "Are you okay, human..." then your protag could follow with some indignation about not being completely human, thus getting at some of the worldbuilding you'd have cut earlier. Also indignation is a good hook emotion

- page six: a bit of a pull from the narrative here, as I had assumed we were in the future, but the not having the enby bathroom thing figured out yet seems unlikely in a future where there is level of tech already described. It wouldn't be enough to get me to put down the book, though, just something that snags right now

- page eight: "Not everyone could sense or..." is there a typo in this sentence?

- page 10: still not sure what the SE are. Police?

- page 11: so an agent once gave me this advice: start and end each chapter with a hook, to keep the reader reading. In chapter two, your opening chapter states how doing what most of us would consider an exciting thing is in fact, not exciting. This doesn't really hook me into reading any more of the chapter. If it isn't exciting, and I'm not yet invested in our protag, why do I care what they are doing?

- page 13: while I like the conversation here, and the warning to stay away from mom's dealings, I don't understand where the question about channeling this drug comes from. I feel like I'm missing some backstory, or critical worldbuilding, and I also don't know why our protag cares about it, or why they are hunting up this information 

- page 14: It's three hundred years in the future, give or take fifty, and there still aren't gender neutral bathrooms on Earth? Is it just where our protag lives?? I don't know if I can suspend disbelief this much. With aliens on world, who all cannot possibly prescribe to a gender binary, wouldn't there at least be alien gender bathrooms that could be used? Single user bathrooms are common across the USA already, even if intended for lactating parents and such. I find my disbelief stretching a bit too far here.

- there is some good tension at the end, but I'm not sure I understand enough of the world for it to carry me

[shatteredsmooth]

1 hour ago, kais said:

- page 14: It's three hundred years in the future, give or take fifty, and there still aren't gender neutral bathrooms on Earth? Is it just where our protag lives?? I don't know if I can suspend disbelief this much. With aliens on world, who all cannot possibly prescribe to a gender binary, wouldn't there at least be alien gender bathrooms that could be used? Single user bathrooms are common across the USA already, even if intended for lactating parents and such. I find my disbelief stretching a bit too far here.

I guess there is a limit to how backwards and dilapidated one two can be. I'm not sure what I was thinking, but I suspect I wasn't thinking I was that far into the future until I got to the diner scene, but the rest of the world building, and stuff that happens later makes more sense 300 years in the future. I will drop the bathroom thing. I probably should have dropped it three revisions ago. 

1 hour ago, kais said:

This gives me a sort of space western vibe. Is that what you were going for? Saloons with aliens? I can get behind that!

Somewhere between space western and retro.

Your comments and questions are super-helpful, especially for getting me to hone in on what details are missing and what needs to go. I also like the idea of starting a little later in the opening scene. Thanks! 

 

[QuirkyGrandpa]

Ahh, a fresh story. 

@Jorville, is patience a word used to describe me?

 

Spoiler

Sometimes I wander off and do a lot of wondering and theorizing :3. You don't need to respond to anything I write, even questions. It's just my way of letting you know what is going through a readers mind. Do with and discard as you will! 

You say you've already done a lot of revising, so I'll try and stick to your points:

Spoiler

How well do I introduce the world? Where is there too much detail or not enough?
First time I realize we are in a future type world is at the mention of the hovercraft. Cool beans! You introduce humans and extra-terrestrials shortly afterward, and now we know this is probably several hundred years ahead at least. ('throws'is a typo I believe but someone else probably already caught that). Everyone is dressed very colorfully except for A, makes me wonder why. Goth version of future people maybe? Poor? Who knows! By the end of the second page, I'm questioning why D thinks discussing the gender they are is 'awkward', their cousin is also being referred to with alternative pronouns giving it more of a normalcy vibe than awkward. Page 3 and busses are flying! We have something even better than hovering! Vac-rats is your first introduced swear word, later in the story, some background on it would be nice. Good description on page 3 of different vehicles. Planet-forsaken is the second 'swear', and makes me wonder why it is a negative term. There are apparently also space worms, which would be cool to see later in the story. There are also fat martian dust bunnies somewhere . D is a piggy with a junk food problem (I can relate), and despite lots of advancements in this society, they don't have enough information between all alien species to know what makes D, D. This means we know there is interbreeding between species. Is this why D finds discussing their gender awkward? Possibly. I found it interesting that despite D's genetic difference, the G immediately refers to D as a human, which makes me wonder what other category other species fall under. we learn at the end of chapter 5 that there is a G of ED which is problem the sex trade mentioned earlier, it must be legal on this plant wherever we are.  We learn on page six that D is a bit overly worried about how they are perceived. Same page and we discover that this world is polluted, at least here, and D lives in a crappy place apparently. Page 7 and we learn D has physical problems with touch. D has a lot of negatives now, and not a lot of positives, might want to round that out a bit more. I like that there are still 20th century buildings about, but retrofitted here in chapter 7.We learn about Oomph on page 8, and now we know why the book is titled this way. Page 9 we find out Oomph ability can be used to sense things about people. Pretty cool. we learn there was a failed revolt to give Oomph users rights on page 11. This story might be about another rebellion soon. Page 12 and we find out we're on...Earth! Just a future Earth. Page 14 and I'm wondering again why gender discussions were awkward when so far Z, D and A are on par, or does D intentionally only hang out with similar people? Could be coincidental and not reflect on the majority of the world or maybe there is still another awkward reason for it. Also, D is a bit of a criminal, but there is a large amount of people who know what this character is up to and they discuss it openly in a diner. Low threat?  I feel a bit cheated that I don't know how these characters got together and why they are the way they are. chull-hat, new swear for this world. 

What do you think of the pacing?
I'm not feeling a lot of hook at the beginning. Slow to start, but...I have high hopes of the pace picking up since in the first paragraph we're learning that mom is involved in sex and drugs and we're meeting a contact with something worse. By the end of the second page you have introduce six different people: A, Mom, the G, D, Z, and B. That's a lot of introductions, most of which aren't terribly important to the story this very moment, and its keeping things very slow. Page 4 and I feel like we're getting a decent flow of information without being swamped. Still waiting for something exciting to happen. As D's anxiety grows, so will the readers but I am not feeling that anxiety as strongly as I'd like. I'm a little disappointed half way down 5 for nothing too exciting to have happened. Although, I'm hoping that this mystery drop will amp things up. End of chapter 5 and its at least causing some personal distress for D. R is now introduced, but is just the security chief. ES is mentioned. We have now introduced 8 people but know almost nothing about any of them. At the beginning of page 7, and its still plodding along. I worry that you might lose readers without a little more up and down, fast and slow. Everything is pretty much a flat line. We meet mom finally, page 8! We find out why D is special (oomph sensitive), but nothing really exciting is happening (This is all still chapter 1 though, so it's necessarily bad). Mrs.M is introduced, a client.Bo is introduced, a client as well. This is a LOT of people with only snippets of background. Chapter 2 is definitely more interesting. Bringing up a lot of questions, but I'm not feeling how the character is feeling. D's hand is shaking in a fist, but emotionally the character isn't connecting with me the reader. Finally meet Z on page 14. Page 16, YAY! Action! 

Do you see a connection between what happens in the beginning of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2?
What I got was that mom is having D pick up something worse than drugs and sex. At the end, M is accused of knowing something about an Oomph artifact. We can conclude that the item D got for Mom is that artifact possibly. Uh oh!

Does the voice work? 
You have a nice rhythm and I found it easy enough to read. My only worry is that it's not coming across as terribly unique. I'm not feeling who YOU are as a writer.. Simple, generalized, unconcerned. Definitely not funny, cruel, snarky etc. I think this is what is keeping your pace sort of slow and plodding, and my difficulty connecting with the main when they feel upset, scared, etc. I want to feel exhausted and irate with mom, I want to be a little creeped out by R, I want to feel safe and open with Z & A, etc.  Of course, this is only chapters 1 & 2 so there is plenty of time to build.

Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? 
Obviously we aren't counting the awkward introductory use of your pronouns with A, but that will fade as the story goes for anyone not use to reading those specific terms, so if you're worried about it, don't worry too much about it. I've gotten to chapter 11 and I'm pretty happy with your writing so far. Some typos here and there, but nothing major.

Overall, I think this was pretty good. I definitely think you need to think about what -your- voice is as a writer and try to get that in there a little more. I want to feel like I'm there, so make me FEEL it. Also, YAY for first submission. I'm still not sure when I'll be able to write something :o. Never written -anything- before, but I'm thinking about it..

[industrialistDragon]

Hello and welcome to Reading Excuses!
 

Overall

I'm pretty much in agreement with @Mandamon and @kais: I felt like the bones of a good story were there, but the shape of things could use some work. I like the main character, I like mom, and her friends are decent from what we've seen so far. From a technical standpoint, it could use some cleanup, but that's to be expected in an early draft, especially one written under time constraints. 

 

Questions

How well do I introduce the world? Where is there too much detail or not enough?

-- I agree with mandamon, in that I felt it was a pretty good introduction. I think there is both too much and not enough information depending on where in the story one is, however.

 What do you think of the pacing?

-- Decent. the start is slow, but picks up. 

Do you see a connection between what happens in the beginning of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2?

-- Between the drop off of a strange artifact and a police raid about a strange artifact? I felt it was pretty super obvious. Is there something I'm missing that would make the connection un-obvious? 

Does the voice work? 

-- Sort of? I have some issues. I try to work out why below.

Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? 

-- Yes, but i'm sure the other grammar-sensitives will have gotten them already. They're not to the point where I'm driven completely out of the narrative.

 

As I Go

I'm not sure how clothing that's presumably made of fabric and not, like, hard plastic or boxes, manages to have edges, and moreover that these edges are somehow so common that the lack thereof -- smooth edges, aka the way normal fabric acts when draped around a soft form like a person -- is so notable that it needs to be pointed out. If the fabric has body and is freestanding off the form it is draped around, words like crisp or stiff or even sharp in some contexts are much more common and understandable. If the intention is to contrast the character's relatively shabby clothing with better made outfits, then words like couture, chic, tailored, well-fitting, or even just high quality or classy would be less-obscure choices.   This threw me pretty forcefully out of the narrative. 

 

The timeline seems skewed to me as well. There're incongruities like references to women's clothing and pockets that seem very here-and-now, while at the same time there're references to scifi far-future tropes like flying cars and wireless energy. The dissonance between the expectations created by these two things is causing problems for my understanding of the story. 

No... I can't let it drop there. I need to math some things out. 

1956 + 300 = 2256, or thereabouts. In the Star Trek franchise, 2256 is right around the time the original series with Kirk and Spock takes place. In Babylon 5, another scifi series that has "old Earth" roots, the 2250s and 2260s are when most of the original TV show takes place. These are the sorts of ideas and stereotypes that are associated with the kinds date ranges being mentioned here. B5 had references to our time, but they were usually in the context of various characters collecting antiques, not in the everyday usage or mindsets. 

To go in the other direction, 1956 - 300 is 1656. In 1656, the Dutch East India Company is thriving and well on its way to securing a monopoly on cinnamon. Cape Town, South Africa, only exists as a small supply station for this company. Blaise Pascal, the mathematician, is still alive (though nearing the end of his life), Sir Issac Newton is fourteen, and the fashion of the time has women's pockets (when they were allowed to have pockets at all) as freestanding bags tied to a belt worn over the petticoat but under the overdress, making them exceptionally difficult to access. The mantua overdress is the height of fashion.  Bloodletting is considered a valid medical treatment, used to balance the humors in one's body.  It is still technically the Renaissance.

My point with this is twofold. First, to show how long 300 years really is, and how much things can change. Do we still talk about Pascal and Newton? Absolutely, but not in the same context that we talk about modern scientists. Do we still refer to mantua dresses? Definitely, but it's usually regarding costumes, and generally not in the same context as modern fashion. Bloodletting... eh, not so much. Modern references in a work set in the future are fine, but when they're treated the same way they are now despite the work being set many hundreds of years in the future, it causes confusion. 

Second, when dealing with well-established tropes like flying cars and specific future timelines the author is creating a specific set of ideas in the reader, regardless of what is included in the text. The thing to remember here is that this is not inherently bad. It's not inherently GOOD, either. It's part and parcel with the baggage that comes from not living in a media vacuum. Any way tropes are used, however, the author should be aware of the expectations tropes create, so that they are able to address any potential issues the history associated with those tropes bring up. 

Modern and future can and are used in the same story, however, the two need to work in tandem with each other. Here it seems to me that they are often at cross-purposes, and that is preventing me from understanding or getting involved with what's going on in the story. 

To reiterate, I do like the characters, the world seems interesting, and there's an interesting premise, but to be really invested in what I'm reading I think I need more harmony in the facts on the page, if that makes sense. Anyway, keep at it and welcome!

[Robinski]

Welcome again @shatteredsmooth, great to be reading your first submission.

On 28/05/2018 at 3:07 AM, shatteredsmooth said:

My first submission is the opening to a novel I wrote this past NaNoWriMo, tentatively titled Oomph Unleashed.

I love the title, it's different, stands out, grabs the attention, as it would be on a bookshelf, I think.

Chapter One

On 28/05/2018 at 3:07 AM, shatteredsmooth said:

How well do I introduce the world? Where is there too much detail or not enough?

After page one, I feel like I've learned some good stuff already. There are aliens, there are hovercraft, but there are still shops. Okay, there are not big world-building details, but it gives me the flavour and is more than enough to keep me reading. On a personal level, as a transportation engineer by profession, the hovercraft thing is very interesting and I am going to want more details!!!

Love the eclipse line. After page one, I'm really comfortable with the tone and I think the writing style is very readable, and pleasing to read. I'm engaged.

"r vans, capable of breaking the sound barrier and atmosphere" - Aw, cool. Do you mean breaking atmosphere, as in capable of space flight? I wasn't totally clear. Oh, and hang on. So, the hovercraft are capable of space flight, but the RVs can break the light barrier? I'm confused here, like there's a step missing.

"from the rear view window." I feel like it's either 'rear view mirror' (great song), or 'rear window' (great movie).

"rummaged through the grocery bags until I found the chocolate chip cookies" - I believe they are on the back seat, as they spilled out with the popcorn, unless those were different cookies, as the typo was not specified at the time they spilled.

"Unfortunately, he was in prison" - excellent. Good background.

Would the G call Di human, given the description we have just heard?

"too-feminine" - Huh? What's this mean?

"but that would mean admitting my frail little arms were too small to fit around all the paper bags" - But no, this is nothing to do with frailty, and all to do with the length of the arms. The Rock couldn't get his arms around a Smart car, that doesn't make him frail. Probably he could still life one.

"late 20th twentieth century", "were 50% fifty percent more likely" - can I get a show of hands on numerals in narrative and their purgation?

On 28/05/2018 at 3:07 AM, shatteredsmooth said:

What do you think of the pacing?

Fine so far at the end of Chapter One. M/C is moving forward, stuff is happening, unfolding as I go, and I am learning about the world with each page. All good.

On 28/05/2018 at 3:07 AM, shatteredsmooth said:

Does the voice work?

Yes. I'm getting snarky, opinionated teen with issues, but also chips on the shoulder.

On 28/05/2018 at 3:07 AM, shatteredsmooth said:

Are there any obvious, obnoxious sentence level issues? 

YES!! See p.s. below, but based on this comment, I'm going to presume you've answered that question here and email the LBLs to you. I offer grammar comments from a love of language, and an earnest belief that this stuff will help your text read more smoothly. Please believe they are made with the best of intentions, and I hope nothing causes offence!! I have been known to get slightly (over?)zealous, at times (just ask @kais).

Chapter Two

"Boy clothes are practical. They actually have pockets" -  

A page into chapter two, a question still niggling in my head after chapter one is about the payment for the drugs that Di is handing over. I'm presuming that all these transactions, including the initial purchase, were prepaid. >>> "pulled out a wad of creds" - Ah, so maybe not per my assumption, or maybe some prepaid and some not? >>> “Mom said you already paid.” - AHH, okay. As you were.

"Our moms owned The Garden... together" - Oh, can I have this detail much earlier, in chapter one, or at least tag that Di's mum is only part/joint owner of the business? This felt a bit like retconning to me.

"shooting his forehead with a yellow stun bolt" - Why does Al have a gun too? Is it because xe is also a runner, because xir mom is a partner? I feel the justification for xir having a weapon is unclear.

"That would lead them back to us" - How? Fingerprints? before, you implied credits were money.

Another last line that feels incomplete, to me, even if just to say 'I cranked the engine and we sped away from the diner.

Overall / Summary

Nice pacing and good chapter length, plus clear and believable events equals a good, brisk read through these first two chapters. I like the tone and the feel of the story. Forced to make comparisons, I'd go straight for Men In Black, due to the undercurrent of 'here's a bunch of weird ET sh1t, just go with it". I'm completely fine with that. I don't need to operate in SF world where everything is linked to real science, or cosmology or anything else.

Nice work here. I am entertained, and want to read more. This is the sort of story that the word 'romp' was invented for. I like it  

On 28/05/2018 at 3:07 AM, shatteredsmooth said:

Do you see a connection between what happens in the begining of chapter 1 and the end of chapter 2?

Yes, because the thugs are looking for the McGuffin / Gee-Gaw thing that Di collected, right?

<R>

p.s. Do you want Line-by-line comments? I've got LBLs in the Word file if you want them. There are some typos and I have some grammar stuff which I think would help certain lines read more smoothly, shall we say. If you don't like them, you can have your money back...

[shatteredsmooth]

13 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

1956 + 300 = 2256, or thereabouts. In the Star Trek franchise, 2256 is right around the time the original series with Kirk and Spock takes place. In Babylon 5, another scifi series that has "old Earth" roots, the 2250s and 2260s are when most of the original TV show takes place. These are the sorts of ideas and stereotypes that are associated with the kinds date ranges being mentioned here. B5 had references to our time, but they were usually in the context of various characters collecting antiques, not in the everyday usage or mindsets. 

To go in the other direction, 1956 - 300 is 1656. In 1656, the Dutch East India Company is thriving and well on its way to securing a monopoly on cinnamon. Cape Town, South Africa, only exists as a small supply station for this company. Blaise Pascal, the mathematician, is still alive (though nearing the end of his life), Sir Issac Newton is fourteen, and the fashion of the time has women's pockets (when they were allowed to have pockets at all) as freestanding bags tied to a belt worn over the petticoat but under the overdress, making them exceptionally difficult to access. The mantua overdress is the height of fashion.  Bloodletting is considered a valid medical treatment, used to balance the humors in one's body.  It is still technically the Renaissance.

This is very helpful!! I think as the ms goes on, once people get away from Earth, the present and future are less mismatched so I'll try to work on that. Star Trek is a great comparison for how far into the future I am picturing this. However, if we are mentioning Star Trek, this world is a little more Star Wars because of the fantasy element. 

Still, I defintly need to spend sometime thinking about when this actually is happening and how that affects Earth. 

[Robinski]

On 28/05/2018 at 11:45 PM, kais said:

Hooray! You made it to subbing! Congrats on that first big step. I hope you love the group as much as I do. We're squirrelly sometimes, but in that lovable way (I hope).

Yeah, squirrelly like a fox...  

For what it's worth, given the tone of the story, I'm less worried if at all about tech levels and historical trends. It's a modern fantasy. Start Trek and B5 are fiction. You're not writing hard SF here, so I would not worry overly about accurately predicting the future c/f Star Wars; anything by Marvel or DC; Farscape; Dr. Who; etc. Unless you are aspiring to be Arthur C. Clarke, I wouldn't worry about it. I really don't think that's your market.

You might have gathered from any comments that I'm a fan of travelling light and not burdening with world-building. I don't disagree with the comments of Kais and Mandamon, but I would caution against burdening your free-flowing text with too much detail (and therefore word count). Sure, nail some more points on the way, but I'd be sad to see the irreverent and carefree tone being lost.

[industrialistDragon]

9 hours ago, Robinski said:

I'm less worried if at all about tech levels and historical trends.

I'm sorry, I can get overly complicated when I write sometimes. I did not mistake this science fantasy for a hard science fiction story. I did not call for more citations or more emphasis on evidence-based predictions. My point was about frame of reference. I used technology, historical facts, and media references to illustrate that point. They were examples to provide a sense of scope, not indictments of the text.  

 

In this submission, there are promises made by using some standard tropes that are then reneged on by modern points of view almost immediately after they occur in the text and this see-sawing feels both un-thought-out and detrimental to the narrative. The solution is not to add citations or pile on useless details, but to better consider the narrative's frame of reference. It is entirely possible to do this without losing voice, breezy or otherwise.

[shatteredsmooth]

13 hours ago, industrialistDragon said:

It is entirely possible to do this without losing voice, breezy or otherwise.

Yes it is very possible!

And it isn't as drastic a change as it sounds. It's more of rewording descriptions, cutting somethings and working others into the character's voice and observation.

The readers didn't quite get the same picture as me about my version of future Earth, so I need to work on it. I've been thinking about that a lot this week, mostly while driving and/or in the tutoring center (which is pretty slow this time of year). A lot of the issues people pointed out were me letting my own thoughts on modern problems bleed through and/or me flip-flopping about when this was happening. However, no one picked up on that Earth was in a partially post-apocalyptic state... hence the lack of advances in some areas, and the others, the flying cars and fancy screens -- tech brought in from off-world. It may be at a Star Trek-ish point in the future, but it has very little of that optimism. There is very little, or nothing that hints at that at all until Chapter 3, and that is a problem. 

According to notes and/or descriptions that didn't make it past draft 2, Earth was in the middle of an environmental crisis when beings from other planets showed up and offered minimal aid. Eventually, a lot of humans left Earth to find better planets. The planet recouped a bit with less population, but remained on the fringes of the galactic government's radar. After the war that is mentioned, beings from planets affected by it fled to earth since Earth was left out of it and a place no one in the galaxy really knew of or cared about. The planet is more or less autonomous, but attached to absentee colonizers that only show up when something like the mysterious artifact from Ch. 1 shows up and has limited access to some advances, and people in places like Di's home town have even less access. 

I'm obviously not going to have all this completely spelled out in one big info dump, but I will work on making it clearer. A lot of these things can be snuck into a phrase here or a sentence there. 

[Robinski]

On 01/06/2018 at 1:27 AM, industrialistDragon said:

I'm sorry, I can get overly complicated when I write sometimes. I did not mistake this science fantasy for a hard science fiction story. I did not call for more citations or more emphasis on evidence-based predictions. My point was about frame of reference. I used technology, historical facts, and media references to illustrate that point. They were examples to provide a sense of scope, not indictments of the text.

My bad. Apologies, ID.