Young Writers Society

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I spent most of today reviewing this. It was a pleasure to read and I was thoroughly impressed. I've made comments on your document and added my thoughts at the end of each chapter. Great, great, great work.

If you have any questions, feel free to PM me or send me an email. If you post anything else, I would love to take a look at it for you.

Embee

Embee,
Embee... Embee!
Thank you very much for the review. Like almost never I agree with at least 80% of your advice, and come the time for editing I think it will turn out that you'll have helped me quite a lot. Thanx! I'm glad you liked the general idea.

I typed 'planetfall' into google and everyone and their aunt has already used this title, so I can't use it, though you're right, it sounds snappier. Character developement... I think by the time I've written like five novellas based on this concept the characters will come into sharper focus.

And thank you for the invitation to PM about my next projects, on your head be it, haha. I'll do two or three more things in the next month and a half before taking a summer break, and I'll notify you every time one is ready. This works both ways of course, feel free as well...

Hehe, the only thing I found that is using the title I have for my novel is some old music album.

Anywho, so I've started to read your story and have found it very different from your previous works. For one, you've written it in the first person point of view. Tricky stuff, no question about it. Unfortunately, that means that you've left me with just listening to her sometimes annoying descriptions. Sure you sprinkle some nice imagery around, but the protagonist often times feels like an out side narrator telling the story, rather than a physical being a part of her environment. Perhaps I'll get past that minor gripe as I dwell deeper into your short story.

You got me AA, I'm uncertainly experimenting with first person POV. She's an annoying little scamp, ain't she. But you have to admit, the plot develops at a breakneck pace and there's a regular rythm to the piling on of danger and weirdness. I hope

Danger and weirdness are always welcome. But yeah, I'll get back to you with my final thoughts.

Sorry dude; i've been away for a long while. I'll get around to reading this and get back to you asap.

Finished it today. Fun to read, as your work is always, Napal. In particular I'm down with you writing sci-fi kinds of stuff; it's ballin, so to speak. I love sci fi, though I rarely write it. (For some reason I've been on a cyberpunk spree lately reading wise as well...)

But I digress. Generally, the style is similar to Dream Romance, so I'm going to once again assume this is intended for younger audiences. If that is the case, I think it's very good. I don't really see anything that really needs to be corrected, though I'll be a pain and point out that honestly, I think a bit more description could go into this work in particular. Other works of yours had great descriptions and imagery, and really took you places. Latley I've noticed you've been delving into more action-oriented territory. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that at all; it's fine by me. I'm just throwing ideas out here. I think imagery would really improve the story.

otherwise, as always, you've done a great job. Hopefully that was just one small novella and this is gonna be a series or something.

Thanx, Krupp!
you're right of course, this piece is really sparce. It's over almost before it begins I've got a third juvenile minimalist novella cooking, but after that it'll be time for a bigger, more literary project again. It's gonna be another magic-less fantasy epic.
By combining writing naive juve stuff and cynical adult stuff, I might actually be finding a working mental balance
Looking forward to seeing something new from you buddy

I'll just go ahead and use this post to put things about the content and structure of your piece.

Here is an excample of something that I found a bit uneasy on the eyes and mind.

Having said that I looked at the captain with expectation, but someone else asked a question. "Then why are we here?" said Bolanle with his toothy grin, sitting in an exaggerated loafing posture on the fluid white chair. In spite of his loafing and grinning, I knew the answer. "Because this planet is mentioned in two ancient Duganian entertainment videos. The films themselves are fantasy entertainments, but there is a chance that they are based on the real fact that there really was a real settlement here." There I go again, saying the word 'real' like once every half second.

Okay, so this geared toward a younger audeince, right? Well even young adults would find that chunk of text kind of picky.

First of all, you have the dialogue and a bit about hsi actions, the toothy grin, and then you go on with the protagonists thoughts. It feels somewhat like having the perspectives of two people i none paragraph. It can lead to some confusion, espicially in really young readers who may think for a minute taht they are reading about the same charcter. I know this is just an experemental piece of yorus, but I'll treat it as if you were about to submit it to a publishing company.

Here is another moment like that, in the following paragraph too.

"Good," said the captain. "An excellent introduction. Now be so kind to tell us what we know about this planet." Oh-oh. I hate it when he does that. Repeating his question word for word. Means I've totally failed to answer. I felt a heat wave rise up my back all the way to the nape of my neck. What did he want to hear? Of course! Stupid girl! The physical characteristics of the planet.

I haven't read a first person book in a while, so I'm not too familair how often an author keeps the protagonists thoughts in the smae paragraph as the dialogue of one of teh charcters that the protagonist interacts with. Either way, I do feel taht your piece will flow a lot smoother if you separate such things. I know, initially it sounds like it'll make your novella seem like a movie script or something, but the transition between paragraphs wil llet the reader know that the dialogue from another person is done with and they're back in the head of the main character.


For a non-critial reason,

I continued. "Albaid has no moons. The surface is mainly plains, flat. But there are also three major mountain chains. Shadow analysis by telescope reveals that forests are restricted to the mountains and the areas around them, the vegetation in the plains seems to consist of grasses, flowers and various bushes. Rich crystalline deposits everywhere. The veins of crystals are practically on the surface."

Hehe, that reminds me somewhat of Avatar. Actually, the whole SCi-Fi nature of the story reminds me of it.

"Alright, well done," said the captain, raising his hand to show that I could stop the infodumping. "Apart from all this," said, looking at all the assembled crewmembers, "we have just received the data from the two d-probes sent in advance."

Looks like the Captain knows a bit about writing, and hehe, looks like you are doing something similair to me, giving the reader info about the world the book is set in through dialogue. Hopefully it'll be easier to bear than detail after detail in the narrative. Not that I have a particular problem with that, but I have to keep in mind taht not every reader is the same. Everybody has a different attention span limit, so in a sense, we as writers are writing for differnet kinds of unique people. It is by no means any easy task. Writing incorporates many studies, and not just what yo uneed to make yoru story realistic to the source material it gets reference from, but human psychology of people from differnet backgrounds.

Anywho Napalm, I'll be droping by on tjis post to add more periodically.

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, once yo uget past the annoyin gfactor of the main charcter you realize that she is quite likeable. That silly little brat. But what I don't quite understand is why exactly she is on a highly advanced space ship. I mean, even if she is a young prodigy it still seems rather odd for me taht she'd be among an elite group out in space.

like I said, I'll keep stopping by to add more of my thoughts.

Both I and Bolanle were strapped to our chairs, so we didn't float, but my skin crawled as every individual hair stood on end. I felt very lightheaded. In the frontal windows a crescent of space could be seen, an empty gulf with streaks of stars, but most of the view was taken up by the dark planet, which was growing by the minute. It was dark because its other face was turned to the sun right now, and it was growing by the minute because we were approaching it at almost eighteen metrics a second.

That repeated bit of words was noticeably redundant. Just "growing" "enlargening" or whatever, will suffice for the second bit.

"Yes sir,"

You know where your typing finger goofed up there. Just giving you the line.

"But the captain is the captain, he chose you and here you are with me, and soon we will be down there." His finger stabbed at the planet in front of us. "I don't want any trouble. I want things to go smoothly, and for this to happen you will do exactly as I say."

"stabbed" gives the image taht it is a violent movement of his fingers. It is quite comical really, so it isn't neccessarly bad the way you are using it. But if taht is not what you want to go for in that pargraph then something simple like "gestured" will work decently.

"Of course," I said and added, "sir." A 'sir' or 'ma'm' said at the correct moment can make wonders in convincing adults that they are being taken very seriously. Bolanle saw that I was taking things seriously and nodded at me seriously. And then he forgot about me and concentrated on the data feeds.

"WHY SO SERIOUS?"

You made the Dark Knight's Joker sue you with all those repeated "seriously"s.

Oh yeah, wit hthem included like that, I get the impression that the protagonist is a dense. Not the kind of kid I'd want on a space ship.

Everything was dark outside, a bluish glimmer of light huddled near the horizon. It was early morning on this section of Albaid. I realized that what I was seeing was not the real surface, but the cloud layer above it. Then visibility dropped to zero as we entered this layer.

Since yo ualready used "layer" something like:

"the mist." would work better, plus be a bit more visual, passing through clouds I assume.

I almost gave a startled yelp, managing to stop it just behind my front teeth. The thud which went through the shuttle and into my bones meant that we had landed. Dammit. Bolanle was leaning back, visibly in higher spirits.

Seems randomly placed. It doesn't quite add anything to the paragraph, as I see no reason why the situation calls for the swear. And I could be wrong, but I could swear the spelling is "damnit".

"What is your status?"
"We have landed without problems, I repeat, without problems."
"Acknowledged. What are your readings?"
"Similar to the probe's. Radiation levels compatible with human life. Toxic elements in air minimal. Biomass traces."
"Specify."
"There are protein molecules in the air. Not only plants. There is animal life here too."
"Proceed with caution."
"I always proceed with caution. Over."
"Over."

Hehe, I love those pesky radio voices. Nice.

Bolanle turned to me. "You heard the captain, junior explorer. We will proceed with caution. And let me tell you what this will mean. This will mean that you will be alert, aware, you will not daydream. You will be always on the ready to do what I say, when I say it. If I say duck - you duck. If I say shoot - you shoot. If I say jump - you jump. Am I making myself clear, junior explorer?"

Another great moment. Light-hearted, yet serious.

Bolanle pointed a hand. "The location of the first possible settlement is there. Half a mile away. Follow me." He stepped off the metallic stairs and onto the grass. I followed. The door behind us closed. His voice still sounded a bit fuzzy, although we were out of the shuttle. The monitors on my visor also weren't very clear. And the high definition wasn't all that high. When we get back I'll have to raise the question about new helmets.

Hehe, that little gnat.

"They've got my legs!" I almost shouted, but controlled myself. "Vines!" I explained and pointed at the flowers, "they are pulling me over there!" Bolanle glanced at my ankle and saw that my assessment was correct. Then he stood up, took aim, and shot at the flowers. A chunk of grass a foot across by the flower's edge flared up and disappeared, leaving a burnt hole in the yellow sea.

When in danger, people typically use contractions. It sounds like a horrible young actress playing fright with "they are".

"Bolanle!" I shouted once, before being choked off. Bolanle took aim again, and this time the whole patch of flowers disappeared in a burst of light. The vines went limp immediately. With rubbery fingers I disentangled myself.

Dude! The situation calls for a word like "disintegrated".

"Leah, are you alright?" he said, slowly shifting his feet to prevent the grass from getting too firm a grip on them. "I'm fine sir," I replied, also slowly dancing.
"Tell me your theories junior explorer."
Ah, ever the calm rational Bolanle. It was kind of soothing in fact. "Well sir," I said and pointed at the nearest crystals, "perhaps the photons of the sunbeams interact with the crystals producing some sort of energy field which kills our equipment."
"Yes, that's a reasonable assessment. Suggestions?"

I find it rather odd how the guy would suddenly start lookin gat the girl as if she knew more than him.

Been pretty busy in the past couple of days, but I haven't forgptten about you. I've just been busting my head off studying for an upcoming test thingy at a college. I'm only worried about the math sections. Anywho, yeah, I'll be back.

"I'll be back,"- The terminator guy.

Math... I hate math! It stopped making sense after eighth grade and I've never managed to jump on that wagon since. It was always touch and go with me scraping up the minimum grades for this dscipline haha. I can tell you a weight fell off my chest once I graduated high school and went to do my social science stuff in uni. There was one math examination there at one point, but I wrote a letter to the rector begging for a substitute test so that my grade avarage doesn't plummet and I was granted a test on social statistics instead And I kept the grade avarage high and got some scholarship cash and all sorts of wonderful stuff. Math, this dark nemesis, this bringer of sorrow ..
Anyway, good luck!

Okay, the college thing is done, so I can now return to this.

Thanx for being so dedicated dude But! I'm on the verge of finishing a different juve novella, so how about waiting for that instead? The planetfall is old news now, Brain Storm is coming to your local YW forum this summer...

Duh to technical dificulties I am no longer able to access my account: AspiringAuthorA..M. so until that is settled I'll be this guy.