Hey John,
         I saw your suitcase on the Anniversary Review page and thought I'd drop in to honor this occasion, your 2^nd WDC Anniversary!

         You have a decent start to a story here, but it's far from complete. It needs editing to do more 'showing', involving the reader more. You show through dialog, through excellent descriptions that pull the reader in. Excellent showing causes a reader to not want to put down what they're reading. You 'tell' too much here. Decent descriptions of the planet and its environment, but little else.

         The story also needs an ending. Right now, I can't say it has one. Rather go on and on, here are some specific comments on it.



Title:  Good for the story.



Description:  You might want to briefly describe the planet, and what people face living there. This will tell a reader what the current description does, but cause them to WANT to read it, not pass it by.


General Comments:  

1. You do a lot of telling here, very little showing. What I mean is, you describe what Dane is going through, but you do it in such a way that doesn't get the reader emotionally involved. Other than a cursory question about where this story was going, I didn't care if Dane lived, or died. Involve the reader! Make them cheer for Dane, make them want to know more about this story. Do it through showing, not telling. Here's an example of where you could have done this. As he tired, his resolve grew as wide as his pupils and as bright as the sun which now bathed the desert a diluted bloody red. He was on a mission with laser focus bounding through the sands with an ever slower pace in the increasingly unbearable heat. Surely he was bathed in sweat, his clothes drenched. Surely he was thirsty, his throat parched, breath rasping through tortured lungs with each agonizing breath. These are a couple of small examples of how you could have described this particular scene, building a picture in a readers mind. You don't need to tell them everything, but you need to build a scene in their mind, one that they will fill in with their own imagination as they read on....


2. The mercenary collapsed in terror as a wall mounted laser cut through the predator. This seems a little off. Why would he collapse in terror when the predator is killed? It seems he'd collapse in exhaustion, grateful to be alive.


3. Dane threw his cup into the nearby garbage can with force and down the hall. Did he throw the cup into the can with enough force to move it down the hall? The way it is written, it's not clear how he threw it.


4. Due to its rotation, the crescent was growing into a half moon on its movement towards the opposite side town. If I'm not mistaken, a moon orbiting a planet does not change phases as it rotates, it changes phases because of its position in relation to the planet its orbiting and the sun the planet orbits.


5. Where's the end of this story? You have it started, then leave things hanging like clothes on a line in a stiff breeze. There is no end. Any story needs a beginning (your is okay, but full of telling, no showing at all), a middle (this has some showing in it, but could use a lot more), and an end (doesn't exist in this story. It doesn't conclude, you just drop us in mid-air.


Overall impressions:  A good story, or start to a story. It tells far too much, and has little, very little, showing.


Sum1





My review has been submitted for consideration in "Good Deeds Get CASH!" .