your story really engages. If that were the beginning of the first chapter of a novel, I would be hooked already.
Your dialogue sounds natural, which is a large part of making people feel real and believable. Your writing also flows very well, which makes easy to read.
The one piece of constructive advice I have revolves around one word: "she".
It can be hard to come up with ways of avoiding using either the characters name or he/she/it/they constantly,but it would be worth re-phrasing some of the first paragraph in particular, to remove so many instances of that word. Any word repeated too much becomes noticeable and tends to pull me out of the story a little, or at least become the focus more that what I am reading.
The first 3 paragraphs use "she" 6,5 and 5 times each at rough count,maybe a few too many.That's just my 2 cents worth, a minor issue in an otherwise great piece.
I hope to see further expansion of this story, I already want to know what happens next!
fantastic article! I very much like that the article is short but so full of information - it is easy to read because of the shorter length, but very information dense so I got a lot out of reading it.
The tips are very helpful, thank you. I do find that I tend to be "all over the place" with ideas, and the box to keep them all in is a much better idea than the current pile of notebooks that have 1 page written in each. A very, very useful tip.
I love that the article ends with a challenge, as a reader that really engages me, to the point that I liked the challenge so much I have decided to put aside that hour a day to write for the next 4 weeks.
Your writing style is very easy to read, it flows really well. Your constant use of questions to the reader throughout the piece really make the reader engage with the writing by having to think and relate it to themselves. In a factual piece that really works.
Thanks for the article, it has definitley been helpful to me to read and has inspired me.
Plot: In the early days of teleportation experiments, it turns out consciousness can be exchanged if 2 beings are teleported
Dislike : I really love this story, there isn't much that I can find to dislike, but I will start with the one thing that I did find . For me the 2 long paragraphs regarding the background of Alec break up the flow of the rest of the story, up until that point the short, punchy paragraphs really flow well. Don't get me wrong, it really helps to flesh-out the character by having his background in there, just the long paragraphs is the issue.
Love: Everything else. It is great to read a perspective on early Star-Trek technology. The pacing is fantastic and I found the story really easy to read. I really like the novel take on it being the conscious part of a creature being exchanged in teleportation rather than the often-done body parts. It also left me questioning - what if Alec's body wasn't dead, but had the buzzard intellect now residing in it. What would be the consequence of the buzzard now having a vastly larger brain and different way of viewing the world?
To sum up: love it! It is great to see a good sci-fi short story on WDC, i love the concepts and execution. Thanks so much!
fantastic story - I loved it and the twist is amazing.
To get the bad bit out of the way first, the only thing I can find fault with is that for me the character's name is used a few too many times - the name "Dagera", maybe because it is an unusual word, stands out for me in the text and when reading. This makes it noticable. For instance, out fo the 13 paragraphs in the story, 6 start with the name.
That, however, is the only thing. The rest is fantastic. Your writing flows really well and is a pleasure to read, and you convey the excitement of Dagera and the urgency in her work really well.
As I mentioned, I love the twist and it creates so many questions in my mind - what happened to humanity, is Dagera a complete alien, or perhaps some long-lost off-shoot of humanity come back to a forgotten earth? The story leaves lots to be expanded upon, I would love to read more.
you letter to yourself had me both laughing at some of the stuff in there that is EXACTLY the same for me, and kicking myself up the bum for other stuff I do that is exactly the same as well. I definitely felt kinship while reading your letter.
It is fantastically written, being in a letter form makes it easy for me to read and it really hammers home the points. Definitely the main point I gained from this is to get up off my arse (or ass if you are in the US ) and actually stick to what I have started, as you are telling yourself to do. It can be very hard to look at yourself objectively, and you have certainly done a fantastic job, and the letter form is probably one of the best tools for looking in from the outside.
It sounds like your writing is going well, I would love to see some of your draft of your novel/s posted here to read. I get excited about a new take on the old vampire/lycanthrope/etc fable. I can definitely recommend WDC as a great place to expand your writing technique - I have found reviewing a great motivator to have to think about the way writiing is done, as well as really think about how my writing will be read by others.
A very powerful poem. I find myself asking the same questions so the poem very much spoke to me. Why did God create such an imperfect world?
I found that the poem worked really well on a pacing level by having the short question on the first line then short second line. They flowed into each other well and were very easy to read together as 2 connected lines. The rhyming really worked for me as well, it flowed and did not come across as clumsy but instead well thought-out.
The double-spacing between each stanza makes the poem very visually effective and makes each stanza a very punchy question.
first off in the review I just have to say "Wow". I have read both chapter 1 & 2 so this review counts for both of them.
Your story is very powerful. For me a large part of that power comes from the straight-forward, matter-of-fact way that you write. None of the events are dressed up with prose, they are just told as real and gritty. I really like that, it adds the sense of being there, makes me wonder how I would be feeling in that situation.
Adding to that are your short, punchy paragraphs. They definitely add to that sense of immediacy, and make the story feel like a whirlwind of events out of your control. Usage of grammar is great as well, it keeps the sentences easy to read and immediate as well.
Your story is very sad but very inspiring, I cannot wait to read more.
I feel like that a lot of the time, so your poem spoke to me. I like it a lot.
In criticism, in the 6th line the use of "virule" makes the line read too long for me - just infection would read easier, or "viral". One less syllable if you were to use "viral" works better to my reading. I guess that it depends on your accent when you read it though - I read it as "vei-rule-yah", you may mean it as "vi-rule".
Do you thank God for feeling that way? Would a god be responsible for someone dwelling in darkness? To me it seems like you protect yourself. It doesn't seem like a god would make someone dwell in darkness. It's a question I would ask further, and maybe take more credit for yourself in what you do.
Now the bad stuff is out of the way - the pacing is great, very punchy, each line is like an assault. I may not be a skilled reviewer either () but I like my poetry to rhyme, and not in too obvious a way. Your poem rhymes without cliche, which really made it stand out for me. I love the turning and walking away line - I do feel like that a lot of the time, but I feel comfortable in the darkness, your poem made me feel like I am not the only one.
first part of the review is WOW! I like this a lot, it speaks to me.
It is very effective that you present the argument first as to what constitutes a sentient person, and then use questions to ask, based on these observations, how is it that you do not fit in?
I am a hard sci-fi fan and there are a lot of recent stories around what constitutes sentience, intelligence etc. Would you be the same if your mind was uploaded into massive computer? Would you be the same person if you were teleported - broken down molecule-by-molecule, sent as a signal to somewhere, and then rebuilt? What if someone else were uploaded into you brain as well? These topics pose a lot of interesting questions, questions I love to ponder over, and your writing has given me some new avenues to pursue thinking about it.
You have made me intensely curious as to the background of where you are writing from. I personally have type 2 bipolar disorder, which is quite effectively "under control" most of the time, but sometimes does not feel like me. Sometimes when I am having a bad "up" stage I feel more like me than ever. I think that is why your piece spoke to me so much, as people surrounding me don't want to see the up and down stage as me.
As for the writing - I found it perfectly paced. The short paragraphs are very punchy, they do not bog the reader down, instead they very effectively get the essential question across and then "bang" - straight onto the next point.
Thank you so much, a great piece that has given me pause for consideration both personally, and also in relation to the fiction/non-fiction topics I like to read.
this is my first review and I am happy that it is of your story.
The thing that I like most about your story is the concept as a whole. The concept of a science fiction story that has a religious basis to it is very novel and interesting. I read a lot of science fiction and while the idea of building arks to get off a dying planet is not new, the religious basis of it is not something I have seen before and it would be very exciting to see it developed. Well done on coming up with such a fresh idea!
The first thing that I would suggest as an improvement would be to spell-check any story that you are going to publish. For me, even an amazing story will be severely detracted from if there are spelling mistakes or poor grammar. It makes the story harder to read and not "flow", as I tend to get stuck on the misspelled words.
It is a short story and there is not a lot of room to flesh out the details, but who is your target audience with this story? If it is intended for readers with an interest in sci-fi I would recommend reading some recent science fiction and perhaps even some scientific articles about the topic of space arks etc. Details such as Bruno just pushing a red button to launch a large, complicated space craft are not believable for a science fiction story. Just as a hint, a ship that large would probably have to be ferried to space in pieces and assembled there - it would never get off the ground as a whole ship .
Another thing I was left wondering is why is Bruno the captain of the ship? Even though he had the original vision, the monk then had the main vision from the statue, and it is not made clear that Bruno should be any part of it. Unless it is made clear that Bruno is destined to be the Captain in the story or it is delivered in the monk's vision, it is hard to imagine the Vatican allowing a taxi driver even onto the ship when so many high-ranking clergy would probably be clamouring for a spot.
I would really love to see the idea developed and written as a much longer story. There are some amazing ideas and concepts for that development - I'd really like to see how nuns and priests are going to colonise another planet and grow the population! There are some great opportunities there for exploring the ideas of Priesthood/Nun celibacy and religious views.
I hope the review has helped in some way, and I really look forward to reading more of your writing and hopefully seeing more of this story!
cheers,
Jeff
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. For me the 2 long paragraphs regarding the background of Alec break up the flow of the rest of the story, up until that point the short, punchy paragraphs really flow well. Don't get me wrong, it really helps to flesh-out the character by having his background in there, just the long paragraphs is the issue.