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Review #4612279
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Review by Starling Author IconMail Icon
Rated: | (4.0)
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Title and Author: Once Upon A Normal Morning by Earl Schumaker

In the interest of clarity, I will be using the following conventions in my review:
c:black}Your Words:
Review comments
My Impressions as I read:
Editing Suggestions:

Plot::
An alien race sends ships manned by machines to Earth to remove all of the cellulose (wood products). It takes a while for them to start the process but it is ongoing. Eventually, people are turned into wood and scooped up also.

Opening Sentence and Paragraph:
The first paragraph attempts to set the mood as easy going, filled with everyday events.

Characters Development:
There is not much character development. The whole story is written as if a non-Earthian person is reporting what happened to Earth.

Dialogue:
Internal dialogue is the only thing which exists.

Punctuation and Structure:
The structure of the story follows a logical progression. Details are given as if a report is given.

Closing Statement
It took two readings before I finally figured you were writing this as if you were giving a report to some species about what happened to Earth in the past and why it was like it was now. At first, I thought you were doing it in the first person, but that didn’t pan out. The concept is sound and interesting. You have left plenty of room to expand on the story and go into more details.

In my opinion, you have too many hyphenated words. Hyphenated compound words are used when the words being joined together are combined to form an adjective before a noun. If the description is put after the noun it is describing then the words are not hyphenated. Example: It was a forty-acre farm and The farm was forty acres. I am not the best person to tell you how to correct your writing without rewording it to a large extent. I also fight a constant war in my own writing to not use as few hyphenated words as I can.

Thank you for posting

Starling

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Corrections:
...Once upon a morning much like this; where dew drops (one word) newly born,
...waving over flat lands (one word) (/c}full of life. To their (who is this?) surprise (need comma) the day is well underway in its arrival. (This is a very poetic introductory paragraph. I read it as you are trying to set a mood of tranquility before the storm. You might put it in italics and indent the paragraph. Add “Author unknown” to the end of it also.)
...{c;blue}Very few Citizens in the remote village didn’t realize realized the significance of what was about to unfold. (I would be willing to guess none of the citizens realized the significance)
...Mother ducks waddled on in their awkward march across the black pitched (hyphenated) street with their chicks lined up behind them as if strung together with an invisible string.
...vibration of the gigantic air ships (one word) as they filled the sky with doom.
... On this day it could not arrive too soon. (This sentence does not make any sense. Why would the afternoon be important?)
...numbers was mind numbing (hyphenated) to the point of madness.
...Suddenly the odd looking (hyphenated) pace machines
...trucks (need comma) and cars to near by (one word) farms and hills
...When the sky ships (one word) arrived they simply became affixed there in mid air (hyphenated) by some unknown forces. It was a surreal experience. How can such heavy solid objects just be suspended there (need comma) in empty space?
...Clearly (need comma) these creatures or beings did not come from France. (I know you are trying to be flippant here, but not sure it works as you want it to)
...stationed themselves everywhere, in above (unless you are saying they have landed somewhere) every community
...Several war like (hyphenated) nations sent
... New religions and cults formed almost over night (one word) to honor and praise
...about to take place..(remove one period) (The second sentence is a run-on sentence and should be broken up into 2 or more sentences.)
...The transformation from a solid state (hyphenated) into an energy
...what is seen in the circumference of a 7 foot (hyphenated) diameter circle as 21.991 feet: 263.89 inches: 21’11.89 feet and inches in relative calculations there about. (What does a 7-foot diameter circle have to do with 21.991 feet?)
...They would pulse and make a low frequency (hyphenated) whirring sound
...Over the span of 3 days (need comma) the villagers discovered the hard way,
...They learned quickly that the alien ships had no life forms on board. (one word) They were operated completely by automated machines.
...the androids from their work stations (one word) but without success.
...thinking machines and workers found on board (one word) the ships. They do not have faces. Clear translucent globes are affixed above what appears to be shoulders on a human like (hyphenated) torso or body.
...The glass like (hyphenated) “heads” seem to be filled with
...fluid memory energy which (replace which with that)
...They have normal looking (hyphenated) hands but with 8 long
...There were a sub species (hyphenated) of androids which stood (replace which with that) 3’ tall. They were mostly box shaped, (hyphenated) simple functionaries designed
...Large, torpedo shaped (hyphenated) shuttles began to leave the main ship through the newly opened portals. They were very long cylindrical containers with built in (hyphenated) compactors designed to compress material. Giant earth moving (hyphenated) equipment followed them out and down to the surface
...wood, bushes, shrubbery (need comma) and the entire contents of all jungles on Earth.
...A signal had already been sent back to their home world (one word) with the information
...millions of giant ships were was (only one fleet which is the subject) dispatched, already on their way through the distant void. Somewhere out their there in deep space the new fleet of UFO’s (no apostrophe) were racing towards us to finish the job of taking our resources.
...The ships returning to their home world, (one word) filled to capacity
...They released a green yellow (hyphenated) gaseous fog on the ground
...They were the first to die because the gaseous substance was released on board (one word) the ships. The gas had no effect on the androids but the substance or virus got into the humans (need apostrophe) lungs and systems and instantly
... concrete (need comma) or metal living quarters might have a chance for life in the short run.





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