10/28/24 - Ace of Hearts - Truthbearer (4148 words)

[Appol PhD they/he]

Hi everyone,

 

This is the second and final short story I've written in the same universe as Everlasting Sunset, though this one was written much more recently. Similar to Sunrise, the goal here is to write the kind of story that could go into a literary SFF journal. Which similarly means that I'll need help determining where the ambiguity/blurred lines works well and where it feels too confusing.

 

Thanks!

[Mandamon he/him]

I think this is some of your best writing yet! I didn't take many notes because I was enjoying the story. It's a good, cautionary tale, and I don't think there's any ambiguity at all. Really not a lot to say about. If you're going to submit one to a literary journal, I'd choose this one.

Notes while reading:

pg 1: "she remembers from her future education"
--so doing the time thing again.

pg 2: "The way they love without attraction"
--It seems like there's a lot of attraction here. Maybe "love without sex" or "love without physical intimacy?"

pg 13: Excellent story! Not a lot of comments on this one. I thought it was really poignant.

[ginger_reckoning]

Similar thoughts to Mandamon with this one, I thought that the writing was very well done in this story! Very melancholic, and even though I didn't really know too many details about the characters, the emotions are still very strong. I think it also works without having knowledge of the other stories better than the other short story did. Again, it is a little confusing but that seems to be intentional and is to it's credit, I think. Overall, I don't have too many overall critiques or on structure, though I did catch a couple of confusing statements and typos on the LBL. Good work!

Pg1 “girl sees herself” like her reflection, or a past version of herself, an out of body experience  or what? (edit: I’m guessing its the later based on the next stuff that happens)

 

Pg2 “centimeter further in like she is” I am a little confused by this wording

 

Pg9 “that consumes all life it touches” I would suggest moving this clause to directly after “C water” because here it makes it sound like the colonized planets are what is consuming all life it touches

 

Pg 10 “her face close both close” can remove one instance of close

 

Pg 11 “appearing as a loved on” loved one

[Silk she/her]

As I read: 

The first line is a bit of a mouthful. There’s potential for some good imagery and a good hook, but I stumbled trying to follow it.

“Shirts turning white” Are the shirts actually changing colour? Or is this meant to convey how fast the kids are moving?

 As I read, I find myself sometimes getting confused as to whether “the girl” refers to the POV character, or the image of herself that she is seeing.

By the third page or so, I’m getting antsy for more information about what the girl is attempting to do. There was a very early, very broad hint about “academic value” and that she didn’t expect to be shown her own story, but no information about what the goal is (or whether she is any closer to achieving it) beyond that. Also curious about how she feels about the stuff she is being shown/reminded of.

P5 “under the guides” guise?

P6 “…the universe-famous crystal fountain parks made…” stumbled on this line. I think it might be because of the reference to “the right” materials, I was expecting technical details about worldbuilding or something.

P8 “Hugging in public isn’t illegal… just as it wouldn’t have been illegal if she had participated n the protest” nicely done.

P9 okay, whoa, was not expecting the story to take such a disastrous turn. The last line of the scene on page 9 is great, but it would be really helpful to get some hints of this kind of turn earlier in the narrative. This could be hints based on POV or even just more ominous language leading us to expect a disaster.

Threading this through the narrative might also help keep up the tension in some of those earlier spots.

P10 “…starving and ready to die.” I actually feel a little more prepared for this mindset due to the couple references to “for the rest of her life” we’ve gotten, but yeah, I think more preparation for the disaster will also help bring this home.

“The girl is once again walking…” Oh. Well, this is horrifying.

Overall: I really enjoyed this piece! Although I was a little thrown by the turn towards the end, I was also fully engaged in the last few pages. Like Ginger and Mandamon said, I don’t think there’s anything particularly ambiguous about it: it’s a good tragic romance and I appreciated the way you threaded the horrors of colonization into the piece. It’s true that I doubt anyone who hasn’t read the novel will understand what “calamity” actually means here, but I don’t think that matters; you gave the information that was necessary to the story in front of us.

I touched on this in my LBLs, but I think a few hints seeded into the earlier parts of the narrative will help keep the tension up and prepare us for the turn at the end of the story. Even just a couple lines over the first few pages will probably do it.

Other than that, there were a few image-heavy lines where I stumbled because the phrasing was just confusing. In a story like this, for longer sentences, don’t be afraid to break sentences up until multiple clauses etc more than you normally would. In addition to helping with clarity, it can be a fun way to play with prosody and rhythm, which you can also get away with more of in a story like this.

(Am I saying that because this is something I actually do all the time, personally? Listen. You can’t prove anything.)