Chronicles,

Definitely better restraint with wordage! Still, if 1800 words--about 7 pages--takes you to the first challenge, you might want to trim a bit yet.

Again, don't lead with weak verbs: "was broken," "were revealed." (Actually, try to avoid them period. You seem to have done better on this point, too.)

With a little tweaking, your first paragraph can be almost poetic:

"Only the sparkle of distant stars broke the darkness, faint streaks from a supernova barely visible across the vast gulf of space. From among the deepest shadows, an oblique crescent of sunlight formed on a deep blue gas giant, a scattered twinkling that revealed the narrow rings around its equator. The white-hot sphere of the local sun burned into view, its spreading illumination exposing the blue and white cloud formations around the massive ringed planet."

I can be a nit-picker when I'm let loose, so take the following at arms' length before you apply any of it seriously:

"as the bodies continued in their orbits" is unnecessary since at this point in the story it's assumed they would do just that.

"before the ship" is sufficient. (Anyway, "ship's course" should probably be "the course of the ship" since inanimate objects can't own anything. {Or am I showing my age here?}

Loved the 2nd sentence in the 5th paragraph! But instead of "from its fore to its aft" which might be grammatically incorrect since I believe those words may not be nouns and don't read very smoothly anyway, you might try something like "along its length."

When I read paragraph 6, I was still in space and stumbled there. You might want to add a transition so the change from space to atmosphere is apparent. Maybe:

"Thick orange clouds choked the atmosphere as the shuttle cut through it, the ground below..."

Although why are the clouds orange when from space they were blue and white?

It's not necessary to repeat the prismatic coloring--the reader can already see them. When you describe something once, try not to do so again unless there is some specific purpose. A lot of trimwork can occur here.

Never thought I'd suggest to anyone to add "ly" but watch the few adverbs you allow so they are in the correct form: "rippling slightly," "fullly obscured." It occurred to me this might be a UK thing since you do it several times.

Be careful of redundancy:
"carrying in their arms"
"followed after him from the shuttle" In the scene, there's no where else they could have come from.
"over toward"
"upon there"
"lifted the tripod before himself"

Perras should probably be thrown "down" instead of "to the floor" but I'm sure you would have caught that.

Understatement would work. Instead of "fierce onslaught of red dust" lose the "fierce." Ditto with the "tempestuous" in "tempestuous air."

Wonderful sound imagery in "another sound now rising up like an entire star screaming." Trim it for best effectiveness by losing "now" & "up."

All in all, the scene is solid--just needs more tweaking. You seem to be on track.

P.S. I'm flailing around here with UBB's and all. Still can't figure how to transfer a quote from elsewhere. I don't see any icons for cut & paste. Quick hints, anyone?

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P.S. I'm flailing around here with UBB's and all. Still can't figure how to transfer a quote from elsewhere. I don't see any icons for cut & paste. Quick hints, anyone?

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Kolona, you still have to use your web browser's edit pull-down menu to copy and paste what you want to quote.

Then, in your reply box here at Hatrack, you put

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at the beginning of what you've copied and pasted and

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Hmm.

What I put in the front of my quote is the word quote in square brackets. Then at the end of my quote, I put the / right in front of the word quote and put the slash and the word in square brackets.

The transition you stumbled upon was because the intiial focus was the Battleship around the blue gas giant, but then focus shifted to the emergent shuttle and its course to the red moon [basically, a Mars clone]. Perhaps I need to make this clearer, as suggested.

Aside from that, the feedback was excellent. I just have no capacity for dealing with the technical aspects of languages, so criticisms of verb use, adverbs, and redundancy I find utterly essential.

Thanks again.

Brian

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What I put in the front of my quote is the word quote in square brackets. Then at the end of my quote, I put the / right in front of the word quote and put the slash and the word in square brackets.

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I still don't know where my clipboard is. I'm told there's a viewer for it but if I can't find the board, there's no hope I'll find the viewer.

I feel like the kid on the commercial who couldn't find his socks.

But I did manage the quote, so praise the Lord for that.

The opening description again loses some of its impact in the sheer number of descriptive words used. A trim is in order.

The part about the red moon could be made clearer. When it is first referred to as “a smaller red body before the ship's course,” it sounds like it is some other craft. Maybe the moon could be including in original panorama shot your setting up.

The 2 paragraph section on the landing seems unattached to anything, and is probably unnecessary. Such information might better given through the characters when they exit onto the surface – and actually, a lot of it already is, either directly or indirectly. For example, the part about the gravity and atmosphere can be inferred from wearing grav suits.

You repeatedly refer to the silver of the shuttle and the red/orange dust and how it’s everywhere. These facts are set the first time you describe the objects, so unless something changes, it does not need to be repeated. The reader, having created a picture the first time it is mentioned, will carry that picture along until given a reason not to.

Paragraph 2 uses the word myriad twice . . . to describe the same thing. Why does a Battleship have so many windows, anyway? The description sounded more like a luxury liner to me.

You can send your battleship on a tangent (by definition a straight line) if you like. But typically both shuttle and battleship will travel in different parabolas, even using their engines.

You have a big shuttle carrying four people to do a job that ought to be done by two people (max) plus maybe a small ground vehicle. It would be more believable if Perras and Numellan had more to do than complain about their jobs.

On first reading, I thought Houel was aboard the battleship. You might mention this fourth member of the team as they are leaving the shuttle.

I'd like to know what Arlissa knows about the moon, so I can understand what she is thinking when she sees the figurine. At first I assume she's shocked by it, but you never say for certain. Perhaps it's common knowledge that the moon was once inhabited?

When the tremmor starts she definitely finds that shocking, and forgets the figurine. This validates the "everyone knows the moon was inhabited" theory.

The myriad repetition - silly error now corrected. The reason for the battleship form is explained later in the writing.

As for the association - there's no reason to make one between the tremors and the figurine. Possibly I could consider having her glance to the figurine when the situation develops. But I figured a natural reaction wouldn't require it.