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The aircraft appeared out of nowhere six hundred meters above the sea and shot across the night sky. Inside the deltoid vessel's cockpit, two men hastily examined the data fed to them by the vessel's sensors.

"Did we make it?" Ben queried tentatively.

In front of him, Max shrugged and replied, "I'm no geek, but the Eurasian fighters are gone, so something must've happened."

"Maybe we died and this is what happens afterward," Ben grumbled.

"Can it, Doctor!" Max snapped. Before Ben could say anything else, Max added, "Look, I know you're thinking about everyone back at Chronos Command–"

"Probably dead by now," Ben interjected morosely.

[This message has been edited by Josh Anthony (edited August 14, 2007).]

<preaching>The scene would be more tense, IMHO, if you lose the heavy-handed tags: Ben queried tentatively, Max shrugged and replied, Ben grumbled, Max snapped, Max added, Ben interjected morosely. These add up to about 1/7 of the text and suck oxygen from the action. There is a lot to be said for 'he said,' and skipping tags altogether now and them. </preaching>

<meddling>The space freed up from the preaching could be used to indicate where the aircraft is going; I think that could add to the hook. If needed space could be reallocated from the bit about where the aircraft came from, which seems to slow down the pace a bit. Since this appears to be a two-person aircraft, I'm not sure it would be called a vessel. I'm not sure of that, but it didn't sound right.</meddling>

--WouldBe

Technical stuff:

'Vessel' doesn't quite fit a 2-person aircraft. Perhaps 'plane's sensors'

"Max snapped" and then "Max added" is repetitious. The second tag could be "he" even though Ben is mentioned.

That brings up the dialog tags with all those euphemisms for 'said.' The point is that just plain 'said' is better because the reader blows right by it as if it's invisible. The reader finds out who said the dialog, but isn't bogged down trying to decipher something extra. Many of those euphemisms are redundant. "Queried" after a question mark, "grumbled" after a complaint, "added" when he adds more and "interjected" after an interruption are all redundant to what we get from the dialog or action itself, yet we have to work to understand that you aren't really adding anything.

Then there are the Tom Swifties - adverbs in dialog tags that are again redundant. "Tentatively" after that particular question and "morosely" after mention of death distract the reader without adding anything that's not already there.

The technical stuff is easy to fix and the story sounds interesting - characters, conflict and scifi. I'll offer to read it when it's ready.

http://www.hatrack.com/writingclass/lessons/1998-08-14-1.shtml

The crux of it is, only use something other than said, or an adverb after said, when the information conveyed in the speech is likely to be misunderstood without it. (Personally, I think "replied" is almost invisible, too, but only when used occasionally. If a couple pick it up in a critique, it suggests that it is visible.) The lessons on this website are well worth a read.

I agree with Jeff Barton, above - there are some key words that appeal to people within the science fiction readership (but perhaps not fantasy readers) that provide a hook. You will get both types of readers on this website, so such words wont appeal to everyone, but that does not matter. So keep working on it.

Oh, and by the way, thanks for the "said" suggestions. If you want to hear some worthless trivia about my life, the reason I kept using all those adjectives was because my writing teacher was an ardent advocate against using "boring" words such as "said", "walk", etc. But I got the point and will see what I can do.

I couldn't get through it because "who queries tentatively?"

You are using short cuts to tell us what they feel rather than showing us.

"Did we make it?" already shows me the tension/nervousness. The tag makes this a comic book dialog.

"Said" isn't boring. It's invisible. That's the kind of advice Lit 101 teachers make that hurts you in professional writing. The eye glosses over "said" but the others are roadblocks and call attention to themselves and stop the story. "Walk" is also nearly invisible. Sometimes the common word is the best.