Incidentally...humans do not make an appearance in this story. In fact, their only mention was written out last night.

Enjoy, and thanx in advance!

S!
S!...C!

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Disjointed wavelengths flattened and disappeared. Confusing equations erased themselves. The enemy's metallic face assumed the vacated sight and spit into the dim waters. Bloppta-glokk's hind legs would not obey its fright. Liquid flames roared out and enveloped its torso from behind. Its muted blue scales bubbled from the heat.

Searing pain evicted Bloppta-glokk from unconsciousness.

Bloppta-glokk lay still, afraid to move until it was sure that only cool water occupied its sleep chamber. It cautiously lifted its long neck upwards and into the congestion of leftover bubbles from its scream. This was the second consecutive night the same nightmare of fire and pain invaded its unconscious mind.

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This is pretty interesting... but I have some issues/concerns:

(Disjointed wavelengths flattened and disappeared. Confusing equations erased themselves.) You lost me already. I don't have enough context for these words to fit together. You are already in 3rd person omnip. or 3rd person limited, so it might be more effective to lead with something like , "The dream swirled around its sleeping mind..." The enemy's metallic face assumed the vacated lost me again. not sure what this means sight and spit into the dim waters. Bloppta-glokk's Have to say, this is a hard MC name to expect to see repeated a hundred times in a 6K piece. I stumbled over it both times I read it in the piece. I would recommend you choose one or the other. My off the cuff preference is... "Glokk." hind legs would not obey its fright. Liquid flames roared out and enveloped its torso from behind. Having a point of view issue here. Why from behind? I realize it's a dream, but it will be more "nightmarish" if I have some build-up to the "jumped from behind." Its muted blue sales bubbled from the heat.

Searing pain evicted Bloppta-glokk from unconsciousness I didn't get the fact that he was waking up. With the "evicted ... from unconsiousness," I expected to see him still on the battlefield. If he's waking up, then use that somehow...

Bloppta-glokk lay still, afraid to move until it was sure that only cool water occupied its sleep chamber. It cautiously lifted its long neck upwards and into the congestion of leftover bubbles from its scream. This was the second consecutive night the same nightmare of fire and pain invaded its unconscious mind. This paragraph is better written. It functions as an OK hook, but needs some better set up in the two paragraphs above to make the transition work effectively...

Hope these comments help,

T2

Its muted blue sales->scales?

Sentences like the following illustrate that calling the creature "it" instead of "him" or "her" will make many sentences awkward: "Bloppta-glokk's hind legs would not obey its fright." By proximity, the "it" refers to the hind legs. It becomes overloaded in usage when it applies to creatures and objects. If your creature is genderless, consider calling it a generic "him" unless the genderlessness is important in the story.

I think you are doing something similar that I got heat for with a story I've been working on (you might find some of the comments useful).

That is, that the writing is very descriptive, but some of is is so unnatural they begin to fall apart.

I like the idea that he is in a water chamber, but it doesn't allude to that in the beginning which makes all of the fire-water descriptions difficult to understand. When the enemy spits in the water I thought he 'spit in the water', it is only later that I assume he was doing something different.

What happens then is I read the thing then I say "Oh, he's in a water chamber" then I re-read the beginning and try to make sense of it. That is tiring for a reader.

I don't know about starting with a dream, it seems sort-of cliche. If you decide to continue with the dream sequence I think you should expand it into a few paragraphs of detail. Maybe make it italic so people know it is separated from the story?

Aside from that you might want to get in early that the creature is water based. Him swimming, moving around in water, blowing bubbles, whatever, just get that notion out before the reader becomes too confused.

I think you have some good ideas in here. I like the concept of a water-based lifeform. The genderless descriptions will become an issue, hey you could always go spivak on th reader.

The opening description of equations and waveforms takes on its true meaning later in the story. As it happens in real dreams and visions, some images will make absolutely no sense, and it is this uncertainty and disorientation that I am attempting to convey through what Bloppta-glokk sees. However, not everyone will want to read that far into the story to figure it out, so I am making this passage a bit less intentionally incoherent.

The condition of asexual gender is a pain to convey, and the only third person singular neuter pronoun readily available is 'it'. In many of the story's later passages, I replace this demeaning pronoun with the actual name as often as makes sense. And, no...taking the easy way out and making Bloppta-glokk's species dual gender like every other species with which I've populated my Universe never once crossed my mind.

Again, thanx for the crits.

S!
S!...C!

I had to read this a couple of times to try to figure out what was going on. The sentence structure and word choice is a little odd, and a bit rough to begin a story with. On the other hand, I like that it might reflect Bloppa-glokk's unique consciousness.

quote:

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Glokk also makes me think of a glock hand gun.

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My music / percussion background keeps reminding me of the glockenspiel.

And, yes...creating alien names that work properly can be frustrating. On the one hand, I don't wish to spend more time with creating names than I do with creating scenes, yet I also don't wish to underestimate the weight many readers place on names. When I read, I don't tend to get bogged down on some of the more bizarre alien names I've run across, mainly because I tend to translate the sequence of letters into an image that I then mentally associate with that character's subsequent traits and actions. Now, whether that practice is a product of being right-brain dominant (as much as an ambidextrous person can be), or being dyslexic, or having some other brain-based malfunction I didn't even know I have, I'm not entirely sure, but it has led me to create alien names that make 'Bloppta-glokk' sound more simplistic than 'Bob'...the vast majority of which have mercifully been changed.

quote:

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<aside> what's with the "S! S!...C!"?</aside>

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I usually only abbreviate my signature of...

Success!
Steve!...aka Crank!

...on forums where the participants know me in the physical world.

Again, thanx to add for the additional thoughts.