I did not have the luxury of sitting on my haunches. I was alone near the front lines, but on the wrong side. As soon as the bombs stopped, I could hear the machines of war rumbling around me. Tanks, soldiers, and mechs made their way to the front lines. Someone was bound to come in and find me. I checked the charge on my BR 94. It was half empty. I had fifteen shots left.

(Note from Kathleen Dalton Woodbury: 13 lines of manuscript text (12-point courier font with 1-inch margins on 8.5x11-inch paper) please)

__________
Please tell me if you would like to read the whole thing and of course any suggestions over these first 13 lines would be appreciated.

Two nits:

"The silence was killing": given we're on a battlefield, my immediate thought was to take this literally and wonder who it killed and how.

Last sentence: yes, this is the perfect place for an info dump -- immediately when we need it. But maybe it was that the mood of the sentence was different: we went from terror to discussion. Maybe something more like:

quote:

---

A mech stood directly outside the window, its cameras facing [some direction--MC will definitely be interested!]. It could level a city block with one shot; if it saw me [dire fate and big boom].

---

Also . . . that's some major firepower. If there are things this big around, why would we have tanks or foot soldiers? The only good answer I can think of is the reason you still have foot soldiers when tanks are around: tanks are great at blowing up other tanks, but they're vulnerable to foot soldiers. In which case MC might be in less danger than I started to imagine.

I had one nit. I hate sentence fragments (they jar me out of the flow of the words), so instead of two sentences:

"I could not describe the feeling. The feeling that came after a hard pounding while the floor shakes, the dust floats into your eyes, and a building collapses over your head."

I would make one:

quote:

---

Also . . . that's some major firepower. If there are things this big around, why would we have tanks or foot soldiers? The only good answer I can think of is the reason you still have foot soldiers when tanks are around: tanks are great at blowing up other tanks, but they're vulnerable to foot soldiers.

---

This really didn't throw me. Tanks are pretty effective against infantry (Hitler's blitzkrieg tactics wouldn't have been worth squat if they weren't). It was anti-tank equipped infantry that was the danger, necessitating screening forces to advance with them. Today the biggest threat is aircraft.

Even so, history is replete with examples where smaller, more mobile forces with outdated equipment brought down larger, more powerful enemies.

Sorry about the 13 line violation. I use times new roman when I'm typing so I put in 13 lines in that font. But I did find a way to keep the mood going as wbriggs pointed out the problem to me.

I think adding a semi-colon addresses any problem with sentence fragments.

quote:

---

I could not describe the feeling; the feeling that came after a hard pounding while the floor shakes, the dust floats into your eyes, and a building collapses over your head.

---

Susanna:

quote:

---

He wasn't sitting on his haunches, is he sitting? I couldn't quite figure out how he was hiding. I mean the though goes from not how his body was positioned straight into his physical coordinates. Is he standing with his back to the only wall of the building left and peering outside at an enemy?

---

The phrase "The silence is killing" is a turn-off for me. Starting your story with a sentence that sounds wrong, or off, is a bad idea. I understand you are trying to come up with a clever way to convey an image, but I think that one misses the mark. Normally we hear: the silence is deafening. If you are going to make "killing" into a metaphor, you need to explain what that is supposed to mean.

Plus, you say: "The silence is killing" and your next sentence is: "I can't describe it."

Huh? You just DID describe it, even if we don't understand what the description meant, exactly.

In my opinion, the biggest problem is you toss this sentence at us right out the gates, and the reader comes to an immediate halt, scratching their head and thinking, "Huh? I don't understand what that's supposed to mean."

Mi dos centavos.

It is compelling to a degree, but for my tastes, there are too many short sentences in a row. Particularly this section: "Someone was bound to come in and find me. I checked the charge on my BR 94. It was half empty. I had fifteen shots left."

I imagine you're going for 'effect' with that, but it needs more. For example: "I checked the charge on my BR 94, and it was half empty. Only fifteen shots left."

Maybe adding the character's reaction in there would help. I want to know how the character is dealing with the situation, not how I might imagine someone would deal with the situation.

Also, one final consideration: "I could not describe the feeling" If you cannot describe it, why should I continue reading? Maybe 'difficult to describe' instead? This may be a little harsh, but I recently finished reading this, so it was fresh in my mind: http://www.intergalacticmedicineshow.com/cgi-bin/mag.cgi?do=columns&vol=carol_pinchefsky&article=003

I also agree that the samey rhythm might harm your prose.

quote:

---

It was a brief moment of relief filled with terror. The threat of being heard amidst the cold stillness was petrifying. To move an inch was to be heard twenty feet away.

---

quote:

---

I checked the charge on my BR 94. It was half empty. I had fifteen shots left.

---

WOW!!!

A jumble of sounds, smells, fears and feelings of absolute terror that so effectively convey the horror of battle. The second version, without the "killing" reference is much stronger. In fact, I can't find anything about this that I do not like. Everything fits perfectly in the 2nd version. If the rest is like this, I have to believe you could sell it just about anywhere.

I would love to dig into more of this! I promise to try hard to find pieces of narrative that are flat, or action that is not cohesive, or character development that is not consistent. Email me if you think I can help.

Pearson Moore

Now, as best I can tell, “the feeling” is what the pov felt in that brief moment of relief filled with terror. Am I right? But you inject all this description – the floor shaking, dust floating, building collapsing – in between opening the subject of “the feeling” and describing the feeling. That confused me.

I think it may be that you have them out of order.

The bombs stopped, then the floor stopped shaking, Dust floated into my eyes. I felt relief for a moment but only a moment. The threat of being heard amidst…. (oops! I thought the floor stopped shaking…I got confused amongst all your details.)

You see – to me – the feeling you are trying to not describe comes after a lot of other description.

“the feeling” that came after a hard pounding while the floor shakes, the dust floats into your eyes, and a building collapses over your head – that feeling is: “It was a brief moment of relief filled with terror.” --??

Or, was “the feeling” merely “surprising” and then that “feeling” is dropped to go on to a different feeling…the relief filled with terror?

Now, as best I can tell, “the feeling” is what the pov felt in that brief moment of relief filled with terror. Am I right? But you inject all this description – the floor shaking, dust floating, building collapsing – in between opening the subject of “the feeling” and describing the feeling. That confused me.