My short story. Constructive criticism wanted

[Caius Britannicus]

I had to write a short story for my Sci-Fi english class. Its five and a half pages long its untitled and I was hoping that you guys after reading it could give me some suggestions along with some constructive criticism. Also note that I live in Canada and many of my words will have the ENGLISH spelling (i.e. the proper way of spelling it) rather then the american spelling. Thanks a bunch in advance to anyone that reads it and replies. :grin

[Justinian]

Only a few technical things. (I'm a writer myself, actually *tongue*)

Firstly, never have two people talking on the same line. Instead of "Hi," someone said. "Hi," I said, it would be

"Hi," someone said.
"Hi," I said.

Also, when you're ending someone's speech, putting text in between and then having them talk again, don't go "Insert word here", it's "Insert word here," blah blah, "insert more words."

Also, try to find slightly more varied words to use after speech, instead of always "Blah blah," so and so said. Words like replied etc. are good.

Shalom.
-Justinian

[Caius Britannicus]

thanks. I'm not much of a writer tho. I'm a mechanical engineer and this is my first attempt at actually writing something. Your help is greatly appreciated.

[Justinian]

this is my first attempt at actually writing something.

:huh It is? Woah. You put my first attempt to shame, I'll just say that ...

[Caius Britannicus]

Originally posted by Justinian@Apr 7 2005, 03:24 PM

:huh It is? Woah. You put my first attempt to shame, I'll just say that ...

:blush

Well, I read a ton. Some people say that can really help.

What did you think of the story, did you find it interesting? Thought provoking? In your opinion does in fall into the science fiction genre?

I ask the last question because part of the marking criteria is that it must clearly fall into the genre and I'm afraid I made an about face and left the genre in my dust at the end.

[Justinian]

It was interesting. It could use clarifying here and there, but since it's a short story and not a novel, clarification isn't what's supposed to be there.

In the beginning it is very certainly Sci-Fi with many of the standard elements of Sci-Fi inside it. It heads away from the mainstream genre slightly towards the end, but is all in all very definitely Sci-Fi. Note that science fiction is one of the widest genres, and it doesn't have anything to do with science to be Sci-Fi ... any story set in this universe in the future will probably get the "Science Fiction" label.

Shalom.
-Justinian

[Caius Britannicus]

Originally posted by Justinian@Apr 7 2005, 03:34 PM
It was interesting. It could use clarifying here and there, but since it's a short story and not a novel, clarification isn't what's supposed to be there.

In the beginning it is very certainly Sci-Fi with many of the standard elements of Sci-Fi inside it. It heads away from the mainstream genre slightly towards the end, but is all in all very definitely Sci-Fi. Note that science fiction is one of the widest genres, and it doesn't have anything to do with science to be Sci-Fi ... any story set in this universe in the future will probably get the "Science Fiction" label.

Shalom.
-Justinian

thanks. That was my biggest concern.

[Niles Crane]

I found it hard to start reading without the use of proper capitals where they should be. Something like this is better,

'Defuse the bomb!' Cried Sarah.

Instead of,

'defuse the bomb!' cried Sarah.

[rububula]

Yeah, you need to make sure you're handing in something that's gramatically correct. Sometimes you want to break rules to get an effect, but look to keep your tenses and numbers together. Occasionally you pluralize something that should be singular, or vice verse.
Also, always double space. It's just easier on the eyes. And don't italicize (or bold, for that matter) unless it's absolutely necessary. "void" and "meat locker" shouldn't be italicized.

Now for some constructive criticism:

This story should be half as long, at least. The first half is all exposition which has very little to do with the crisis of the story, the encounter in the cave. You explain all this extraneous stuff in the dialogue that we don't need to know. The whole point of the first few pages is to get the hero alone in the cave, and you can accomplish that in one or two paragraphs.

And you don't need detailed physical descriptions for characters that become completely irrelevant by the next page. You give us whole paragraphs of description for the rest of the crew, and then they say a few stock SF lines about mysteriously going off course, and then disappear. You might as well have him on the spaceship alone. In fact, that might work a lot better. A character alone on a spaceship is a much better place to have an existential crisis about the "void".

That's the other thing. You tell us the hero wrestles with this "void", but you never show it. This struggle isn't reflected at all in his behavior, or the way he interacts with his surroundings. So much of the story is spent on exposition that we never actually get to see the characters develop.

You can also clean up a lot of redundancies and mixed metaphors. Just to give you an idea of what I'm getting at, here's a simple re-edit of your first page:

He awoke to darkness and noise. The darkness struck him, a deep blackness that penetrated his soul, stretching away from him into infinity. The void, the emptiness from his dreams. Panic gripped him, constricting his chest like a python. Was this death? Just an endless void?
The noises brought him back to reality, the buzz and whir of computers – diagnostic equipment of the “meat locker.” He was coming out of cryo. He attempted to open his eyes to escape the darkness but they wouldn’t move. His chest began to tighten again in panic until he remembered his training, remembered the effects cryogenic freezing had on the body. He lay still for several minutes and tried to open his eyes once more and this time was greeted by intense light, a light just as imposing as the darkness he had left, replacing the blackness of his dreams with an endless white. His vision began to clear as his eyes adjusted. He was alone in the “meat locker”, the ship’s med-bay for cryo thaw, laid out like a corpse on a stainless steel gurney. Tubes ran from his arms and wrists carrying nutritional supplements.
“Welcome back, Dr. Adams” the ship’s computer greeted him in its imitation of human voice, seemingly both male and female at once. “The rest of the crew has already been awakened and are awaiting you in the Command Center. Your ship’s clothes are on the bench to your right. If you require any assistants I can gladly page Dr. Ashcroft.”
“No. I can manage myself, thank you,” he muttered at the nearest wall speaker.

I know it's a little obnoxious of me to actually edit, but I think it'll help just to give you an idea of how you can clean it up. Anyway, almost anything that gets published eventually gets edited by someone who isn't the author.

[Niles Crane]

Also, always double space

I've always been taught to use one space and that's what I've seen in the hundreds of novels I've read. Still, I can read without proper lighting anyway.

[rububula]

Obviously a novel will be single spaced. But it's hard enough to read something on a computer screen, it's like looking into a flashlight. If you don't believe me, turn the lights off. The computer screen will light up the whole room. Also, manuscripts are often expected to be double spaced to leave room for editing marks.

[Dr Zoidberg]

I thought it was quite good. For a short story it kept you entertained and thats very hard to do. I'll give it 3.5 Zoids out of 5.

I'm also trying to write a sci-fi novel in my spare time. Its about a civil war in our own solar system a couple of hundred years from now.

So I can sympathise with you when it comes to writing a story that is original, coherent and entertaining.

If anybody's interested I'll post what I've done so far...