***

I saw things as everyone sees them outside my porthole window. Everything was right-side-up just like the first maps of Europe; just like the last maps being made today. As solitude, panic and boredom creeped into me, I thought that a little bit of company would calm me down and give me something to do. I flipped backwards and kicked my already ajar door open. My legs hit strong enough against the hatch that I was able to rebound off the hallway wall, do a front flip in a backwards direction and close my door with my feet just as I exited my cabin.

The flourescent lighted hallway pierced the pupils of my photosensitive eyes. I cringed when I came to the realization that this torture would continue for another two minutes until I made it to the cockpit. Because of bright pain and other curious thoughts, at the end of the hallway where it split into a 'T' I rebounded backwards and floated back towards my room.

I've been in space for three days and three nights but I had already mastered zero-g movement. I felt proud to be doing flips in the hallways as my co-pilots vomited into air tight bags and tubes. My learning curve for things is always pretty fast. I'm here as an environmental controller meaning I'm in charge of oxygen and nitrogen levels, air filtration and waste management. It's an easy job so it leaves me with a lot of lonely free time. Two pilots are russian and the only other person is an american woman who doesn't feel it is necessary to have a relationship with co-workers outside of the workplace.

With all these curious thoughts in my head I suddenly became curiouser.

First up, the feelings of 'solitude, panic and boredom' all being thrown together is a little odd. I cant say that I can imagine many people who are panicking feeling bored at the same time. Maybe there is a better word for what you're trying to say.

Also, I wasn't really that interested in all the detail about how he flipped and rebounded etc around the place (I think i've fallen into this trap though in the only thing ive written before. People told me that my intro was too action detailed as well).

Also, I dont feel anything at all for the character. But, maybe I would do later on after the story gets going a bit.

Last of all, the final talked about the character having 'all these curious thoughts' in his head. Well, I didn't find anything curious about what he was thinking so far. Maybe he has got some mystery to solve or some inquiring to do, but you haven't said so yet. Perhaps that should be the start? The character wondering about something so that the reader has a sense of why?

Sorry if I sound a bit harsh. But, I find it hard to be tactfull when writing criticism.

Ok, but I think about a lot of things so we might be here for a while.

"I saw things as everyone sees them outside my porthole window. DO YOU MEAN AS EVERYONE WHO IS OUTSIDE YOUR PORTHOLD WINDOW SEES THEM OR WELL, I'M NOT SURE WHAT ELSE YOU MIGHT MEAN. Everything was right-side-up just I WONDER IF THIS ADVERB IS NECESSARY like the first maps of Europe; just AGAIN, I WONDER IF IT'S NECESSARY like the last maps being made today. As solitude, panic and boredom creeped into me, I thought that a little bit of company would calm me down and give me something to do. OK, I GET THAT HE'S IN A SPACE SHIP BUT WHY IS HE FEELING THESE EMOTIONS? IN AND OF THEMSELVES, I'M NOT FEELING ANYTHING. I flipped backwards and kicked my ***already ajar*** AWKWARD door open. My legs hit strongLY enough against the hatch that I was able to rebound off the hallway wall, do a front flip in a backwards direction COMMA and close my door with my feet just as I exited my cabin.

The flourescent FLOURESCENT IS NOT AN ADVERB AND IS IMPROPERLY USED IN THIS CASE lighted hallway pierced the pupils of my photosensitive eyes. WHY ARE HIS EYES PHOTOSENSITIVE? I cringed when I came to the realization that this torture would continue for another two minutes until I made it to the cockpit. WHY? Because of bright pain and other curious thoughts, WHAT BRIGHT PAIN? WHY IS HE IN PAIN FROM THE LIGHTS? WHAT ARE THESE CURIOUS THOUGHTS? at the end of the hallway where it split into a 'T' COMMA IF YOU WANT TO PHRASE IT THIS WAY....PERSONALLY, I THINK IT'S A LITTLE AWKWARD AND WOULD PUT THE ACTION BEFORE THE MODIFIER I rebounded backwards and floated back towards my room.

I've been in space for three days and three nights but I had already mastered zero-g movement. THE TENSE IS INCONSISTENT IN THIS SENTENCE. "I HAVE" IS PRESENT AND "i HAD IS PAST PERFECT" I felt proud to be doing flips in the hallways as my co-pilots vomited into air tight bags and tubes. My learning curve for things is always pretty fast. I'm here as an environmental controller COMMA meaning I'm in charge of oxygen and nitrogen levels, air filtration COMMA and waste management. It's an easy job so it leaves me with a lot of lonely free time. IT FEELS LIKE YOU ARE MISSING A "THE" HERE Two pilots are russian CAPITALIZE and the only other person is an american CAPITALIZE woman who doesn't feel it is necessary to have a relationship with co-workers outside of the workplace.

With all these curious WHY ARE THESE THOUGHTS CURIOUS? thoughts in my head I suddenly became curiouser. CUTSY...MIGHT WORK IF THIS IS YA OR CHILDREN'S BUT IT FEELS WRONG FOR THIS PIECE"

************************

Ok, after all this I'd say this opening needs quite a bit of work, to be honest. First of all, nothing ihere particularly piqued my interest. There is some acrobatics going on but no action that is meaningful, and then we slip into some exposition. There is a lot of emotions being told rather than shown. (See the attitude vs emotion thread in open discussion) and in this case it's really not working for me because I'm not even sure why he would feel any of these things. There were also quite a few grammar errors that I flagged. (Hopefully I flagged them accurately, I'm not perfect, either. )

>just like the first maps of Europe; just like the last maps being made today. HUH? EARLY MAPS OF EUROPE, IIRC, HAD EAST AT THE TOP; HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE PORTHOLE? WHAT ARE THE LAST MAPS LIKE?
>As solitude, panic and boredom creeped into
PANIC IS INTERESTING. WHY'S HE SCARED?

>The flourescent lighted hallway pierced the >pupils of my photosensitive eyes. I cringed
LIGHT DOES TEND TO PIERCE PUPILS!

>I felt proud to be doing flips in the
I THOUGHT HE WAS PANICKY.

>american woman who doesn't feel it is necessary to have a relationship with co-workers outside of the workplace.
I DON'T KNOW WHAT KIND OF SHIP/PLANE WE'RE ON, OR WHY HE'S PANICKY, OR WHERE THEY'RE GOING. I DON'T CARE THAT THERE'S A WOMAN HERE WHO DOESN'T DATE CO-WORKERS.

>With all these curious thoughts in my head I suddenly became curiouser.
"CURIOSER" ISN'T A WORD. LEWIS CARROLL WAS JOKING WHEN HE USED IT. ARE THESE CURIOUS THOUGHTS? WAS HE ALREADY CURIOUS? I COULDN'T TELL.

From the narrative given it seems like the POV character can do no wrong. He 'mastered zero-g' and was 'doing flips' while everyone else was still puking. And the acrobatics he does to get himself out of his room are obviously showing off to your reader, since none of the other characters see it.

It's OK (usually), in third person, to tell of a character that seems to be darn near perfect, but to do it in first person only represents your POV character as full of himself. Very unlikeable. Even in third person, a character like this will not be particularly popular. But in first person he's downright detestable. He's like the star of the High School football team who struts down the hallways ignoring the 'lesser folk.'

Try rewriting in third person, or rewrite your character as an observer of a different main character.

wbriggs: ">The fluorescent lighted hallway pierced the >pupils of my photosensitive eyes. I cringed
LIGHT DOES TEND TO PIERCE PUPILS!"

You're right… what's your point?

">I felt proud to be doing flips in the
I THOUGHT HE WAS PANICKY."

Have you ever jumped off a wall the height of a 5-story building, with nothing but a crudely tied rope wrapped around your groin to dangle from, and the attention span of the guy below you to save you if you screw up, on top of the usual fear of heights…? That's panic… but yet, I still flew down in three hops, followed by a sincere battle cry of "Outlaws!"… That’s pride. I think his concept is pretty simple to understand… I have other scenarios that could help define it for you, if you'd like…

""CURIOSER" ISN'T A WORD."

I thought it was in first person… can you think of a reason for why the character wouldn't use that word, other than it just not being a word? You, me, and everyone who reads it very clearly know what it means, right?
I noticed you didn't object to the word "Reflexively" in the other thread... you even suggested it in one of your critiques... "reflexively" isn't actually a word either... but... of'course... we know what it means, and that's good enough...

I write this in a basically free association style meaning... I didn't go back to nitpick at grammar but the things you said do make sense.

Other than that you just sound too anxious to read the rest of it. I'll link the rest of it some time in the future.

Sorry for the profanity but the use of CAPSLOCK when critiquing makes you sound like an asshole.

reazwoz, I might add (or clarify) that you not only eliminate as a critiquer the person you've insulted, but many other potential critiquers who might have given you good advice in the future, but now never will.

RavenStarr: (1) I think the problem with "panic" is that nothing in this passage suggests any faint resemblance to panic, except the bald assertion of it. (2)Light always "pierces" pupils. Using that word here is serious overwriting. And all eyes, except those totally blind, are "photosensitive," so why mention it? Something like "I squinted at . . ." would be better. (3) "reflexively" is too a word. But I'll grant you that a first person character can say "curiouser" if he wants.

Are you under the impression that reazwoz was for some reason incapable of reading my post?

wbriggs; rickfisher:
"Be aware that every time you insult a critiquer, you reduce the pool of people who will be willing to help you in the future."

"reazwoz, I might add (or clarify) that you not only eliminate as a critiquer the person you've insulted, but many other potential critiquers who might have given you good advice in the future, but now never will."

He wasn't insulting anyone, he was stating that he was offended due to a misunderstanding of the meaning of cap-locked letters on here as opposed to its meaning anywhere else (which he explained rather clearly). No offense, but you sound like your whining... please stop...

rickfisher:"I think the problem with "panic" is that nothing in this passage suggests any faint resemblance to panic, except the bald assertion of it."

I slightly agree, but not entirely. reazwoz, I'd say, you should either use a word lighter than "panic" (ex: nervous, agitated, etc.), or if you wish to keep such a strong word, add more reasoning to support it.

"Light always "pierces" pupils. Using that word here is serious overwriting."

I still completely disagree with this one. Light does not always "pierce" the pupils... if they do, then you may wish to get your eyes check, or maybe tone down on the number of times your getting your eyes dilated.

"And all eyes, except those totally blind, are "photosensitive," so why mention it? Something like "I squinted at . . ." would be better.""

reazwoz, the best you may wish to do would be to maybe change it to "extra photosensitive", for those who aren't able to pick up the fact that when someone states something like "my photosensitive eyes", that it's usually taken as an understatement. Of'course, I would already understand "photosensitive" referring to the sensitiveness that your pupils have when you first wake-up in the morning...

""reflexively" is too a word."

You got me on that one... I rechecked it... my mistake. But, yea... my point still stands.

reazwoz: Ok... I prefer to avoid repeating critiques that have been made that I agree with because it just seems to be rubbing it in, and isn't exactly productive (productive the first time it was said... but the 7th time... not so much), so... I'll try to avoid it... but anyways. From what I can tell from you 13 lines, your still spewing ideas... don't get me wrong, spewing ideas to come up with a story and leave the ideas to be reorganized later to make some sense is ok, I do it all the time, but I wouldn't exactly be willing to put any of my idea spewings up for critiquing... I would rather wait 'til at least my second draft to get run through the gauntlet. Not that you can't learn anything from these critiques, but you can probably learn more from the second draft. Right now, almost everything is obviously out of order...

ex:
"the only other person is an American woman who doesn't feel it is necessary to have a relationship with co-workers outside of the workplace."

The fact that you told us that isn't quite as out of place as the fact that it was the First Person narrator who told us that... why does he know this information? I'm sure that in your head it's arranged to make sense... but right now... it's not. When I said that I like it though, I was serious, although, I was referring more to the ideas that you were spewing that I liked, with high hopes that you will pull that mess together somewhere close to what I'm imagining you will.

"Sorry for the profanity but the use of CAPSLOCK when critiquing makes you sound like an asshole."

Yea it's a bit out of the norm and it can be a bit jarring at first, but don't worry, you'll get used to it...

For the record, by calling me an asshole (either directly or indirectly as the case may have been) you have, in fact, made it easy for me to keep from critiquing any further work of yours. There are many people who ask for help and I have to pick and choose which ones to spend my time on. I will no longer spend any time on you or your work.

I went to a great deal of trouble to do an in-line critique of these thirteen lines rather than summing it all up. In this case, I felt that the at-the-moment feelings were more relevant than usual because each subsequent sentence was effecting my judgment of the story. I choose ALL CAPS despite the yelling connotation because it is easy and because on a critiquing site I felt it was entirely understood what the meaning was. I usually even say that my comments are in ALL CAPS, but I forgot this time. I did not expect that missed detail to constitute a charge of sounding like an ass.

Yea... good thing I followed all that perfectly… wbriggs seemed to be the one "complaining about the lessons", but that's ok... it doesn't discourage me from continuing to critique anything he may wish to have critiqued.

Christine: "I usually even say that my comments are in ALL CAPS, but I forgot this time. I did not expect that missed detail to constitute a charge of sounding like an ass."

It's a simple and honest mistake... although, if you choose to critique in that manner, especially for any newbies, you should make sure to remember the "disclaimer"... but don't worry, unlike everyone else, I already apologized for you...

reazwoz: Don't worry... you at least still have me to critique your work in the future... my only requirements is that I find your writing at least somewhat interesting enough for me to want to help you work out the kinks (no offense to those I haven't critiqued... it's just a difference in taste).