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Author Topic: Between the Worlds
besimirch
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I set Raise the Shadow aside because I saw an anthology that I fancied having a shot at. This one is going to be sci-fi horror. Thanks in advance for any comments.

The Spacefarer’s Hall was hot and cramped and buzzing with a thousand different languages and accents. I had to stand on tiptoe and crane my neck to find the table I was looking for. There, the Captain of the Fleetwing . He looked hot and harassed as he tapped details into a datapad.
****, I hoped I wasn’t too late. I slid and elbowed my way through sharp insectoid bodies, soft human bodies and other alien forms that even I didn’t recognize. Kharatim surely was the Crossroads of the Worlds.
I arrived at the table of the Fleetwing , adjusted my collar and tried not to look too flushed and eager.
“Name?” the Captain asked, his red uniform tight and his expression bored. I could barely hear him above the chatter in the Hall.

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Brendan
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Positive: Pacing seems true. It moved well from the main character to other characters and back.

Could improve: Needs a stronger hook - so far there is little except the conflicting emotions of the Captain to keep me interested in the story. I am looking for something with the plot to keep me reading. Also, the opening descriptions could be more active.

Overall: Nice effort. I would be strongly tempted to keep reading because of the pacing.

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extrinsic
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A spacefarer presumably seeks a billet aboard the Fleetwing. An event of substance in itself, a want component of a dramatic complication, surely. No problem opposition to the want shown yet. Emotional disequlibrium teeters though not yet upset. Nor per se a routine established about to be interrupted. Middling to strong writing craft that at least an agonist want raises a degree of curiosity.

The first sentence is a stasis statement, static in that it describes an ongoing, nondefinite state of being. Static voice is less than ideal for an opening fragment or sentence.

A coordination fault, too, inconsistent tense, "hot and cramped and buzzing". "buzzing" is a present participle verb. "hot" and "cramped" are simple past tense verbs. For appropriate coordination, one tense is warranted.

"I had to stand on tiptoe and crane my neck to find the table I was looking for." An artlesly withheld contexture there, "the table I _was looking_ [looked (for tense coordination again)] for." Ends the sentence on a preposition too--grammar fault.

This is an opportunity missed to clarify and strengthen the first-person narrator, viewpoint agonist's motive, his want portion of the dramatic complication, say, that he wants a billet aboard the ship. This is also a matter of situational foreshadowing. Naming the table as a crew recruit enrollment table sets up for the action to come, prepares readers for what's about to happen, which then allows for a problem or problems to develop that oppose the want. What does he want--the entire cosmos antagonizingly opposes easy satisfaction of the want. That's drama at its simplest expression.

The summary and explanation nature so far spoils the close narrative distance that first person by default enjoys, remote narrative distance. Personal emotional attitude commentary development would transform the summary and explanation fragment into closer narrative distance, stronger show, less summary and explanation tell. The Spacers' Hall, for example, how does the agonist emotionally feel about the space and its crowded population? Aggitated? Eager? "Hot" and "cramped" and "buzzing" are external sensations. How do they personally antagonize the agonist?

The what is given; the why and how are missed. Likewise, "had to stand on tiptoe and crane" the neck to see. How does that event personally antagonize the agonist? Frustration, naturally, perhaps annoyance, certainly he's passionate, avid to gain employment. See Wikipedia: Emotion for a comprehensive list of basic emotions of less abstract feelings and more abstract emotions for inspiration.

Six human senses, the sixth the most crucial sensation for reality imitation show used in prose: visual, aural, tactile, olfactory, gustatory, and emotional sensations. Humans emotionally, eventfully react to the six senses as events themselves.

This sentence is out of natural sequence order: "Kharatim surely was the Crossroads of the Worlds." It belongs after the second sentence, not shoehorned in after the later action, after the events switch to finding the table, while the narrator-agonist is focused on the Hall's complement.

This sentence could probably be positioned earlier too: "I slid and elbowed my way through sharp insectoid bodies, soft human bodies and other alien forms that even I didn’t recognize."

Note also that the second clause is a negation statement that could be, as a best practice, recast to a positive statement. Instead of "didn't recognize," unrecognizable, alien, foreign, unfamiliar, etc., and the clause and possibly the sentence recast around that main idea.

"slid" is a verb that takes a second word, a two-word verb-adverb phrase: slid down, slid up, slid between, through, over, under, past, onto, etc.

Serial-list punctuation fault too, "insectoid bodies, soft human bodies[,] and other alien forms". Only journalism skips the serial comma (Harvard comma, U.S. dialect; Oxford comma, British dialect) before the conjunction word preceding the last list item. Publishers, usually of short fiction digest experience, overlook that prose grammar principle. The prose serial comma convention requires that last comma.

This piece of dialogue and attribution stands out for me as the strongest craft strength of the fragment: "'Name?' the Captain asked," That's an artful method to introduce a first-person narrator-agonist's name. Too often, first-person narratives either leave out an agonist's name or untimely, injudiciously, clumsily introduce it.

[ September 16, 2014, 02:46 PM: Message edited by: extrinsic ]

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besimirch
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Thanks for the comments on the opening.

This is finished at 9,984 words. Anybody fancy a crit swap?

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