Paul SB - Incompatible, sub01 - 4820 words

[Paul SB]

I decided to go with a spinoff instead of going straight into the first sequel for Twilight's Rift (I'm currently drafting Book 5). It would take quite some time to revise the sequel to match the changes I've made to Book 1. I'll work on that while you folks have fun with this little spinoff.  I don't have any specific questions about it at this time, but any feedback is greatly appreciated.

[AnAirSickFool]

Finished reading.

Overall it was interesting. There is enough going on to make you want to know what will happen next.

Some minor nitpicks.

I did feel like there were to many mentions of D not being attractive, but since it seems tied to their character it will probably be fine.

the guard noticing them as they hack the door feels a little random. Just because one second the door whooshes open then suddenly the guard sees them. Maybe if there was something that made the guard notice them it would work. If the whoosh sound was supposed to be what alerted the guard then maybe a louder sound. For me whoosh is pretty soft so it felt weird that it alerted the guard.

Aside from that a good start to a story. 

the end especially makes me want to know what happens next.

[Paul SB]

I'm glad you liked it, and thanks for getting to it so quickly. I'll look back at that chase scene.

The story I submitted here before sat in my computer for a very long time. I wrote the original draft in the Winter Break of 1999-2000. At the time I had no idea there was such a thing as Story Theory. This one I wrote last summer, after a few years of reading lots of books about Story Theory, and I think it shows. If you're serious about getting your writing out there you might want to look into it. I found K.M. Weiland's triumvirate: Structuring Your Novel, Creating Character Arcs, and Writing Your Story's Theme, though there are a whole lot of books out there. And if you find yourself trapped in the Eternal Traffic Jam as I do, The Great Courses has several lecture series that are quite good, especially Molly McCowan's Effective Editing, but they also have some on genres that are great food for thought. The company licensed their audio versions to Audible, though you don't have to have a membership to buy them through Amazon. Ackerman & Puglisi's thesaurus series are fantastic tools for writers. I have all of them, and like most people started off with The Emotion Thesaurus. Reading gobs of fiction is necessary to write well, but it's rarely enough on its own.

[Appol PhD they/he]

Excited to dig into this new story!

Overall: The pacing here is pretty good, and I like the way D and J bounce off each other. In particular, J talking about D’s girlfriend did a good job of both fleshing out his personality and raising the tension for D by complicating the situation and forcing her to confront the vulnerable position she’s in.

My main constructive comment is that the stakes didn’t always quite land elsewhere. A lot of the rest of D and J’s conversation felt like it told us a bit about them in the world, but wasn’t quite important enough for the characters for me to be fully engaged. I think in chapter 2 we need another personal hook for D, since her main goal was thrown off track so early on. Obviously she doesn’t want to get caught, but I think we need something more personal about what she’s trying to get out of this situation.

As I go:

Pg 2. This does a good job of setting the scene, but it feels like we’re missing a hook. Ideally from the very first sentence we understand why this is an important enough moment for the story to be starting here.

Pg 3. I like the tongue and cheek humor about the corporation, and I want to see it feel a bit more personalized for D’s situation.

Pg 5. There’s a good sense of motion and pacing here, though I’m still not quite fully engaged with the plot. I think it has to do with the above point that I need a bit more to understand why this is important.

Pg 8. The tension with D being into her former owner’s daughter has a bit more meat on it than what we’ve gotten so far, and I’d like to see it moved up if possible. My suggestion would be to have D acknowledge these details in the first paragraph since it adds a lot more complexity right off the bat than knowing she’s heading to Mars to see someone.

Pg 9. I like how J is used here to create more tension in D’s mindset. It’s great to pull characters around like this to add complexity!

Pg 11. I think we need a bit more from D upfront about what to do now that she knows the ship’s not heading to her intended destination.