Young Writers Society

~please pay attention to the timestamps~



I. Present- Ghasakis III, Traveel City, Hyatt2 Hotel - 06:44 local time


Dawn suffused the sky – slowly, creepingly – until all at once it slid down over the high and crowded city. Aela watched it from her window, the light in the thin clouds and splashed brazenly over the shining skyscrapers in downtown Taveel. She peered down at the traffic as it picked up again after the short lull between the night and morning shifts. Even in the sound-deadened hotel room she could hear the noises of people and motion – shuttles taking off from the transport hub, a door slamming in the hall, the distant whir of ground traffic in the streets below – a white noise reassurance that strangers’ lives went on around her perpetually and at full volume.

Ghazaas was hot, dry and dust-coated. If it had always been that way or if it had once been green and fertile, Aela could no longer recall. She didn’t care. Normally she hated it here, Taveel was too choked with people coming and going, it being the interplanetary port city, and Oasis was too quaint and cluttered up with difficult memories and familial obligations.

Her bones ached. The cold of Korvalis had seeped into her and made her leaden. She loved Ghazakas just then. She pictured herself in her tiny flat in Oasis – making herself a cup of the local spice tea and then standing on her balcony, soaking up the heat until even the memory of ice melted away.

She lowered the blind and came away from the window, the after-image of the city’s quavering glare left her blinking into the dimness. She went and lay back gingerly on the bed. Even after sleeping nearly straight through the three day trip to Ghazakas she her body still felt lethargic and her thoughts slow – muffled.

Kren had hardly argued when she requested leave – in fact he’d been almost eager to pack her off onto passenger transport. Once she was away from the Magpie she found herself aimless and her mind turned to the hot desert planet where she kept a hideaway she almost never used, the planet where her mother now lived a quiet ordinary life, far from the hard-scrabble subsistance of the ‘Yond. Her mother would welcome her back, unquestioning, just as she always did no matter if Aela had been gone a month or three years. Maybe I won’t stay long Aela had thought as she made her arrangements last night, or maybe I’ll stay forever.

The air in the hotel was cool and still, smelling faintly of laundry soap and turmeric. Aela toed off her shoes and pulled the stiff, green bedspread around her shoulders, telling herself just for a minute, I’ll just rest for a minute. I don’t have to catch the train until three.

*

The inistant bleating of the proximity alarm sent her scrambling ungracefully upright – heart pounding and limbs fizzing with adrenaline. She reached over to the bedside table for her pulse baton. It wasn’t there. Her hands groped frantically over the empty table top. So where was it? She was yanking open drawers and about to drag the whole table away from the wall to be sure the baton hadn’t fallen behind it when she came back to herself. This was a hotel in Taveel, not Wolsey’s Landfall. There was no proximity alarm. There was no pulse baton, she’s left it on the Magpie. And the bedside table was probably bolted to the wall.

She sat back on her heels where she was kneeling and leaned her head against the mattress – torn between laughter and hysterics. After a moment she realized the sound that woke her had not been completely imaginary – an incoming transmission, the wall-mounted vid-phone had a light blinking and was chirping politely.

She unfolded herself from the floor, slumped into the distinctly uncomfortable chair in front of the telephone desk and accepted the call. Kren’s face looked back at her on the screen. Maybe she was still bleary from sleep but she couldn’t quite read his expression.

“Hello,” She said, wary and uncertain why he was calling her so soon after they parted ways. Especially since their last few conversations had been less than amicable.

“Aela,” said Kren, “Something’s come up. If you’re interested I can be there to pick you up by tomorrow night.” His manner was businesslike, Aela could tell that he’d phrased it as a question in an attempt at diplomacy, such as it was. This was not a request.

“A job? Kren…”

“We need you on this one, Aela,” he insisted, his voice seemed flat and not just because of the long distance transmission. “Don’t tell me Bess would suit because she wouldn’t. She’s a terrible actress. It’s you or it doesn’t happen.

“Kren, for god’s sake… Three days, I’ve been gone. Three! I just checked into my hotel. Does it have to be now?”

Kren waited this out impassively. A thought struck her - how did he know where to reach her? She hadn’t even known where she was headed when she disembarked, certainly she hadn’t left behind and itemized itinerary for him.

“Yes, it has to be now. We have this argument every time we get hired and you’re not in the mood to –“

“Well forgive me if the ice-ridden hell we just went through made me a little moody,” she cut in coldly.

Kren scowled and then sighed, running a hand back through his short hair. “That was – badly worded.”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause then. Aela heard the murmur of voices and laughter go by in the hall. Her body had calmed from it’s earlier surge of adrenaline but everything felt dreamlike, surreal, something about the day, the room – the glow of sunlight through the roman shade, the small, jealous hope for freedom that kept her from surrendering to the inevitable just yet.

She looked at Kren’s face on the vidscreen as though it were a stranger’s. The strong line of his nose, his clear grey eyes. There was tension around his mouth, she saw – he looked pale, tired. He looked older.

“So this job,” she said, “I go in undercover, I take it.”

“Yes.”

“Is there a mark or do I take a second?”

“You’ll take a second. Not me, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said, his gaze skittering away from hers, a self-deprecating smile lifting the corner of his mouth.

Aela shook her head, “That’s not what I – I wouldn’t…”

“Listen, Aela,” he ploughed on as though she hadn’t spoken, “The timing is terrible but look at it this way – I’ll owe you one, one favor within, you know, a certain amount of reason and you’ll have free license to complain about what a terrible task master I am for at least the trip back.”

She smiled obligingly but with no emotion behind it and sighed, propping her elbows on the desk. Leaning closer didn’t make Kren’s face any clearer it just made the noise in the transmission more evident. She fought the impulse to touch the screen. She knew she was going back and so did he, there was no need for either of them to acknowledge it verbally. “I’m tired, Kren,” she said instead.

“I know,” he said, with a softness in his voice that sounded like ‘I’m sorry,’ or ‘I miss you.’ It made her breath catch in her chest. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait – one thing? How did you know where to find me?”

He gave her a look that said he thought the answer was obvious. “Ghazakas is always your first stop when you take some time. You told me so yourself, once. Took me a little more effort to find out at which hotel to find you, but…” He shrugged.

“Oh. Right.”

“I’ll get in touch with you when I arrive,” he said and ended the transmission.

Aela sat staring at the blank screen for a long time. She would have to call her mother and tell her she wouldn’t be coming out after all to see her. She wondered if she could get her train ticket refunded.

She hadn’t expected to have to face Kren again so soon.

But I was going to have a break, she thought, I deserved it -- And just because I’m accepting a job doesn’t mean everything is simply alright between us.

At least she hadn’t unpacked.




I. Before – Korvalis, Wolsey’s Landfall, Alliance Mining Outpost, -22:53pm local time


We are living inside the skin of a bubble, the universe, the infinite moment. The galaxies are spinning and drifting, the planets orbiting their stars in a constant of subliminal motion and snow is falling on the damp street. You step out onto the quiet sidewalk and watch your breath turn into mist in the air. It’s the middle of the night here. You can already feel the cold beginning to seep through your coat and you can feel apprehension fluttering in your chest. This is not where you want to be but you know the people who are paying you. You know them. They’re people you don’t say no to.

Kren steps up behind you, tugging at his coat and adjusting his scarf. You can see him fidgeting out of the corner of your eye. He shuffles his feet in the snow and you know that he’s thinking of apologizing for dragging you out to this ice ball of a backwater planet and into this mess. But you don’t want him to apologize and if he does you feel you are likely to hit him. Or perhaps you will just turn and walk back into the transport hub and catch the first ship away from here.

“Aela,” he says softly. He’s got this low gravely voice like he’d worn it out when he was younger and this was all that was left. You look straight into his eyes in that way you know unsettles people. He’s shorter than you by a couple inches- just enough that he has to tip his chin up to look at your face. You watch as his expression hardens. Snow clings to his short, graying hair. “Look, Aela, just do as you’re told on this one, okay? These aren’t good people and you don’t want to draw their attention.”

“I can take care of myself,” you say thinking, ‘it’s too late, they already know me.’

“I know you can take care of yourself. I’m not disputing that. I’m just saying, don’t get in their faces. And for god’s sake don’t get into bed with any of them, that’s the last thing any of us needs”

You feel your apprehension coarsen into anger. “’The hell- Kren- How low is your opinion of me these days?” you say incredulous. “I may be female but I’m not indiscriminate, not am I mentally deficient in any way. You of all people should know that I know when to keep my hands to myself. And you should listen to your own advice, I mean, that incident Chernovic, you remember that was you, right?”

Kren took his hands out of his pockets and held them up in a sign of surrender. “Hey, hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just gave Parmir the exact same lecture.”

You pull your gloves on roughly. “Right. Of course. Got it.” You look at your feet in the iced over snow and then at the building beyond the causeway. It’s an ugly graceless city and even the fresh snow can’t quite make up for it, but even this small outpost is better than what lies ahead.

Kren sighs a puff of white condensation and looks away. “Lets get to the hotel,” he says sounding oddly tired. He starts down the sidewalk with crunching footsteps. You glance at the transparent doors of the hub with longing and then follow after him.




II. Present - Ghasakis III, Traveel City, Hyatt2 Hotel- 23:24


Kren shows up at her door late the next night. She holds the door open for him wordlessly and watches as he walks over and sits on the edge of her bed. Her bones feel tight and Kren is still looking at her like he’s being careful. She’s wearing a dress of layers black gauze- Shavellian silk, she’d bought it in the market places just hours earlier, and her hair is brushed smooth. Kren is watching her glimmer darkly.

She looks better rested than the last time he saw her and he says so. She also looks pissed as hell but he doesn’t mention it.

“I’ve had 49 hours of vacation. Enough time for a nap. Not enough time for a tan,” she deadpans.

Kren nods. “You ready to go?”

“Sure. You don’t want me to change first?”

“No,” he says, watching the way the dress clings to her hips. Parmir and Ziv are going to stare at her like she’s a king’s concubine but she wont mind. She is glorious.

“Alright then, let’s get out of here.” She grabs her duffle bag and they leave.

Kren has the shuttle parked in a rented space atop the massive transport hub. Aela looks around at the crowded streets and animated billboards as though she’ll be sad to leave them. He feels guilty suddenly for making her leave. He remembers her telling him once that she could almost see Ghasakis III as home. This is Aela though, so he knows better. There’s just something in her spirit that makes her drift.

He catches her elbow and pulls her aside into an entrance way of shop that’s closed for the night. The air is hot and dry and filled with a strange mix of smells. Warmth radiates from the pavement. Aela looks at Kren with raised eyebrows.

“Am I wrong to be insisting you come back early? There’s still time for me to get Bess out here instead,” Kren asks, not quite meeting her eyes.

Aela’s brows draw together in confusion, “What’s going on here? Don’t you think I can handle myself?”

“That’s not it. It’s just,” Kren shrugs. “If you tell me right now you don’t want to do this, then you don’t have to. You can stay here and, I don’t know, buy more dresses like that one,” he gestures vaguely in her direction.

Aela stands very still for a moment, looking over Kren’s shoulder at the drifting crowds. The she straightens up and she smiles genuinely. Kren wonder’s what she’s thinking.

“I wouldn’t want Bess to have all the fun, now would I?”

“Good.”

Kren starts walking again. Aela loops her arm through his casually.

“Okay, so tell me, what did I just agree to do?”

“Steal 500 Kamaalian orchids from the belly of a ‘Yonder ship-for-hire, while posing as Jess’s wife.”

“But you told me I would be able to choose who I would work with!”

“Tough.”

“I’ve changed my mind, can I stay on vacation?”

“Nope. That twinge of guilt is long gone.”

“You owe me, Kren,” she reminds him.

“So I’ve said.”

Kren looks over at her and is glad to see she’s still smiling slightly. He knows enough to know that she’s nowhere near back to normal, but it’s a step in the right direction. He hopes, though, that she never realizes that she will never be normal while she’s working for him.




III. Present – The Nokwalish, - 10:05 Interstellar Standard Time

Onoh nodded in greeting to Tom across the command deck. “Thomas, just the person I needed to see. We’ve got passengers coming aboard on their way to stellar outpost one dash epsilon- an astrophysicist and a newly-wed couple. I want you to go greet them and show them to their quarters.”

“Newly-weds? Who ever heard of One dash Epsilon as a honeymoon spot?” Tom asked curiously.

“Hey, not my business, not my trouble,” said Onoh briskly. She held up an h-comp in one elegant white hand. “Here are their boarding applications and their room assignments. I expect you to keep them away from my engines and away from the cargo.”

“So basically, I’m on baby sitting duty. Have I committed some particular offense?”

“Nothing worse than being good at public relations and being generally amiable,” replied Onoh, “Though I suppose on Dorvas V that would be considered offensive.”

Tom rolled his eye. “I don’t think there’s anything they don’t find offensive on Dorvas V.” he took the h-comp and skimmed it briefly. “When are they coming aboard?”

“The astrophysicist will be here in an hour, the newly-weds have just requested permission to board.”

“Right. I’ll go meet them then.” He glanced at the h-comp, “Hendry and Sanja Najelder?”

“Hender and Sanya Nasoolly,” corrected Onoh, “They’re Vorash names.

“Vorash?”

Onoh nodded, “Never had Vorash on my ship before. I don’t have anything against them though, as long as they don’t get us involved in their causes.”

Tom nodded. “I’m sure they’ll have other things on their mind besides activism, but all the same I’ll make sure they understand.”

“Good.”

Tom headed off to the docking port. Hender and Sanya, he thought, those are nice names.





I. Before – Much Before


Aela’s father kept a little voyager class ship. It was his home and his livelihood from the day he bought it, already worn and half forgotten from a man who had meant to carve it up for parts, to the day he died. Aela could picture it clearly, him finding it in among the junkers and great hulking shapes of grounded crafts like beached whales. He would have been young then, with him all long and lean and broad-shouldered yet unimposing. A hard worker. An easy mark. But of course he was much more shrew than anyone guessed by looking at him. It had been a hot day on a nameless terraformed moon and he had listened to the salesman try to sell him half a dozen crafts already as he followed quietly along when they turned a corner and there it was. Home. Dusty and outdated and gleaming and perfect.

He bought it right there, immediately, without going home and consulting with Aela’s mother, without giving it more than a cursory inspection because he knew. He just knew.

He loved to tell that story, as much as Aela loved to hear it, as he tucked her into bed at night or when the two of them sat in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate with the future seeming a little uncertain on the Edge. The engine, he’d say, almost didn’t start, and when it did it made great noises of protestation. He’d say, at first half the lights didn’t turn on and it used twice, no three times the amount of fuel it should but it was the smoothest ride he’d ever had. He’d say it flew like it knew where he wanted to go before he did.

When she was little she would run her hands along the walls, feeling the hum of the ship in the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet. She would fold herself in with the extra pillows and blankets in the bottom of the linen cupboard at the end of the hall and listen to the inescapable song of the engines and imagine she could understand what it sang, that it sang just for her. That she could sing back.



~Here endeth the prologue. Thoughts? Crits?

The dialogues were REALLY good, and I loved them. They showed us a lot about the characters, who they were, and what they did before coming into their current situations. Good job. ^___^

The characterization was also pretty good. I got a good gist of the heroine right from the beginning, mostly from the dialogues and the way she spoke.

There were a few typos/grammar errors here and there, but I didn’t pay them much attention. I focused mostly on the structure/content.

I. Present- Ghasakis III, Traveel City, Hyatt2 Hotel - 06:44 local time

Starting with the first scene...

Was the from “Dawn crowned…” to “…curled on her side...” part vital to the story? Can you plug bits and pieces of it somewhere else, expose it somewhere else? In later dialogues, perhaps?

Personally, I feel it would be better to just crop that first part and start with “There was an insistent beeping noise”. That was where the action started, where the tension started. Everything above it was just exposition and pretty scenary. It doesn’t catch the reader’s attention.

There was an insistent beeping noise. Alarm klaxons, she thought, her body tensed for action, her mind was back at Wolsey’s Landfall. She heaved herself off the bed before her eyes were open, and then found herself in the middle of a generic hotel room, crouched in a defensive stance. Not klaxons, she realized, but the alert noise for and incoming communication. Aela walked over and sat clumsily at the desk and hit the appropriate button on the built-in computer. She found herself blinking at Kren’s stern face.

She was asleep in the previous paragraph. But all of a sudden she was tense and her mind was thinking and she was remembering something else? She didn’t even wake up yet… Err… you might want to put a transitional paragraph in between or something. This doesn’t quite work for me.

Also, she couldn’t open her eyes, even when her body was tense and her mind was working well enough to remember something else. That doesn’t feel very right. If her muscles were working and so was her mind, then her eyes should be open.

And when she finally did open her eyes, she “found” herself somewhere – the reader gets the feeling that she had no idea where she was before she opened her eyes.

Then there’s the “sat clumsily” part. Either she’s alert, and wouldn’t sit “clumsily”, or she’s not alert, and would do so. There was so much on her being alert, so it’s not very… logical to put “clumsily” in here.

I. Before – Korvalis, Wolsey’s Landfall, Alliance Mining Outpost, -22:53pm local time

“We” jumped to “you”. When I read “We”, I thought this part would be written in a first person POV. I felt cheated and stupid when it became second-person.


And I don’t get this part. I keep on thinking, “how does this scene relate to the story”? Yes, it answers a lot of the questions posed in the previous scene, but it doesn’t feel vital. It doesn’t add much to the “present”, where the real story is. I skimmed through it, and didn’t read it properly.

Unless you are thinking of running a parallel storyline – then it’s important…

But even if you are considering a parallel storyling, the first paragraph of this part does not catch the reader’s attention. No tension, no problems posed; just pretty prose. I don’t feel the need to read on. So I skimmed past the intro and straight into the conversations.

III. Present – The Nokwalish, - 10:05 Interstellar Standard Time

I didn’t like this. In fact, I pretty much skipped it. I wanted to read more about Aela, and scrolled down this whole paragraph to look for more about her. Your first three sections were about Aela, in Aela’s POV. All of a sudden, you jumped into something NOT in Aela’s POV. It was… a break from the established pattern. The reader feels cheated. This was supposed to be Aela’s story. Aela was telling this story. What happened to Aela?

If you can, remove this part. If you can’t, move the whole thing up, and replace the “Before, I” section… or something like that. Just break the first pattern you’ve set – the one where every section was told from Aela’s perspective.

I. Before – Much Before

I don’t get this part either. Is it really vital? Or is it just exposition? Do we need to know this to understand the story? Is Aela’s father going to play some huge, huge role in the story? Or is this purely for characterization’s sake? Can you cut it out and go straight to the “present”, where the story is?




A couple of things about the linguistic style/language flow - it was not as concise as it could have been, and the pace was much too slow. There were places where the same message could have been conveyed with fewer words, and the whole thing could have been shortened.

On a more positive note, some of the imagery were absolutely beautiful. ^_^

The dialogues were REALLY good, and I loved them. They showed us a lot about the characters, who they were, and what they did before coming into their current situations. Good job. ^___^

Thank you! that's really wonderful to hear because I always think I'm horrible at dialogue - to me it always sounds like my characters sound exactly the same ^^;;. Maybe this makes me try harder to make the different characters dialogue sound like themselves.

thank you for your thorough cit/response. I want you to know that I value your resonses, they got me thinking

Starting with the first scene...

All in all, I feel like the first couple paragraphs are improtant. they may not be action packed, they're actually rather lethargic - the character is, to put it simply, depressed and overworked. I was trying to relect that and ease the reader into the world she's in. I guess the question is, will anyone want to read a book where the character spends half of it depressed and overworked? will they identify with it or will it turn people off?

She didn’t even wake up yet… Err… you might want to put a transitional paragraph in between or something. This doesn’t quite work for me.

I understand that. I used to think all that 'woke from a nightmare/fit of panic stuff and threw herself out of bed' stuff was just a bunch of melarky, too. But I can speak from experience to say it can happen. you can be out of bed and down the hall before you become fully aware and awake. I've done it.

maybe I need to expand on my wording to make it more visceral?

But even if you are considering a parallel storyling, the first paragraph of this part does not catch the reader’s attention. No tension, no problems posed; just pretty prose. I don’t feel the need to read on. So I skimmed past the intro and straight into the conversations.

Skimming is the readers perogative .

But I am doing paralell plotlines: Korvalis the Ice Planet, the Ochid Job, and Aela's past before Kren and his business.

the first Korvalis section may be a little self indulgent. I like second person. I like cosmology. therefore they end up in there. but I'm also most proud of that section. I like the way it goes from blow-your-mind wide angle to tight focus on Aela and Kren. (though I know some writing coaches who will tell you to cut all the things you're most proud of...)

Did you get the feeling of forboding at all from it? like, 'it may be all snowy and talky now but stuff is going to go down in the not too distant future'?

didn’t like this. In fact, I pretty much skipped it.

You're totally right about the scene on the Nokwalish. Its dull. I need it but it's dull. Those characters and their perspective have to be introduced but so far I haven't figured a way to do it without it being clunky as all get out.

A couple of things about the linguistic style/language flow -... the same message could have been conveyed with fewer words, and the whole thing could have been shortened... On a more positive note, some of the imagery were absolutely beautiful. ^_^

I'm glad you liked the imagery .

I find it funny you say it could be shortened, because this is already a forshortened version of my writing ^^;;. You're right - the message probably *could* have been conveyed in fewer words and probably a lot less obliquely. I'm being self-indulgent again by trying to write in the style of author that I like, where they use thei descriptions to show the character's emotions and make you work at understanding all the layers of story ect... probably I don't carry it off half so well as they do, but everything takes practice, right? Maybe I am just showcasing style - what do you think, will I just bore everybody to death XD?

(i hope this resonse wasn't to long, and I hope nobody thinks I'm trying to be arguementative, I'm just reacting out loud as it were ^^;;)

Okay, so my original crit of this was pretty, uh, lame. So here's a proper critique. Be warned that it may get really long.

Going over the basics, first.

What was good: The dialogue, oh, the dialogue. I suspect this may be the strongest point of the story, particularly because your dialogue is so effective as a vehicle of characterization. Which brings me to the point about the characters, and how interesting they are. I have to admit, I'm not as intrigued by Aela as I might hope to be, but I really really liked the little that we saw of Tom. And Kren, for that matter.

The story is engaging, but it has a lot of predictable science-fictiony tropes that could take it somewhere very, very unpleasant. (Which is not to say that tropes are bad, but so many used in conjunction with each other = formulaic, and clichés are oh-so-often the road to hell.) So I'm reserving more in-depth judgement until I've read more.

What was not: The mechanics. Because they don't significantly hinder the story, but it's really noticeable on a subconscious level, kinda like a fly buzzing overhead. The structure and flow and basically the nitpicky things, except that the nitpicky things tend to add up and mutate into the phenomenally huge very frightening Nitpicky Thing of Doom.

Plus, you need to work on the way you build tension. Mostly because there are lots of bits in the story that should be tense — sometimes they're one-liners, sometimes they're entire scenes — that read very flatly. I'll point them out when I do the excessively lengthy part of the critique, but keep that in mind.

And, like I said before, the clichés, but it's still the prologue.

Okay, so this is the part of the critique where I go through everything with sort of a fine-tooth comb. Ready? Okay. Here we go.

Dawn crowned the sky and seeped over the rooftops.

Yay, first line! Except for a couple of things.

First of all, a nitpick. Does dawn really crown the sky? It's a lovely image, to be sure, just terribly inaccurate, especially paired with the second part of the sentence. Crowns go on top. Dawn doesn't really crown the sky, which is to say that it doesn't come from the top of the sky — it comes from the bottom. The horizon. And then seeps over the rooftops, as per the second part of your sentence.

Like I said, a nitpick, but these things add up.

Second of all: as a first line, it's not particularly engaging. In fact, it's kind of a generic opening sentence. If I hadn't read this story earlier, I'm not one hundred percent sure I would've kept reading. At the very least, I would've skimmed down to make sure it got more interesting later on, and was therefore worth the while. And if I weren't reading this on YWS (which is to say, if I stumbled across it somewhere else on the Internet, without the option of critiquing it), I almost definitely would not have kept going.

Which sounds terribly callous, but such is the power of the opening. Not just the opening line, but the opening itself, too. Here, you've got atmospheric stuff, spaceships, Aela's plans — and I don't care. I don't sympathize with Aela being tired. I don't know her, I don't know why she's tired, or why she didn't leave Oasis earlier, or wh she longs for peace and quiet. I'm not in any way invested in any part of the opening. The thing is, this segment of the story reads like something at the end of the chapter, especially because it ends with: She was asleep as soon she curled on her side. It's basically the easiest way to wind down a chapter, which is a huge problem, because this is the beginning. Of the chapter and of the story, which means we should be winding up, not down.

(On a side note: why didn't she leave Oasis earlier? I mean, she says that she's going to get a ship out of here as soon as the midday heat subsides, but the day's just begun. Why didn't she get a ship during the night? Or early that morning, for that matter? Why is she lying around sleeping when she could've been on a ship and off of the planet?)

Nothing happens in this first bit. Even as an introduction to the character, it's a bit lukewarm. I'd actually much prefer the There was an insistent beeping noise bit as the beginning of the story, simply because things do happen. Conversation. Plot. Sneaky character introduction ( i.e. the bit about the alarm klaxons, because we learn that she is the type of woman who is constantly exposed to action, but we learn it in a way that is not overly and painfully obvious). I don't necessarily want gun fights and exploding spaceships to start us off — I just want something more. Right now, it feels pretty half-hearted.

She could see the tops of the stalls in the public market below and the bustle of people beginning their business day there. In the near distance to the east she could see the gilt outline of the People's Temple perched like a spiny crown on top of Daliverre's Hill, and in the far distance to the southeast she could see the umber desert that stretched to the horizon line and beyond.

When I said that the mechanics needed fixing, this is one of the things (amongst others) I was referring to. I hopefully don't need to tell you how awkwardly that flows with the repetition of "she could see."

And speaking of repetition:

She could see the tops of the stalls in the public market below and the bustle of people beginning their business day there. In the near distance to the east she could see the gilt outline of the People's Temple perched like a spiny crown on top of Daliverre's Hill, and in the far distance to the southeast she could see the umber desert that stretched to the horizon line and beyond.

I suspect this repetitiony bit was inserted on purpose, but it's totally ineffectual. Also, (a) it sounds awkward and (b) I don't particularly care that the umber desert was in the southeast, and I suspect the vast majority of your readers don't, either. Which is to say that you're going into too much detail but to no effective point. All you've done is added unnecessary mundane information that inundates the story.

I would suggest cutting out the "in the near distance" entirely, and replacing it with, "To the east was the gilt outline," and for the second one, replacing the "far distance to the southeast" with "far away, the umber desert stretched," and so on. Mind you, that's just a suggestion, and obviously, it's probably a whole lot better if you experiment and see what you like best, and if there's a phrase that better suits the story.

Also, re: "the horizon line and beyond," I'd suggest entirely snipping out the "line and beyond." Again, unnecessary. First, the next sentence re-establishes that it's hot and deserty. But secondly, and more importantly, the implication of "the umber desert [stretching] to the horizon," is that the desert goes on for a really, really long time. The "line and beyond" basically sledgehammers in a point that the readers will have already figured out. It's unnecessarily wordy.

And last of all: comma after "in the near distance to the east," and another one after "in the far distance to the southeast."

After the height of the mid-day heat Aela planned to hire transport out of the interplanetary port city, Traveel, to the desert city, Oasis.

Comma after "heat." And to reduce the number of commas, I'd suggest replacing "to the desert city, Oasis," with, "to the desert city of Oasis."

She had a little flat there whose rent needed paying and whose closets needed airing.

Okay, so the "whose" is, erm, grammatically incorrect, and should technically be:

"She had a little flat there which needed its rent paid and its closets aired."

Her mind drifted ahead to that time, picturing herself making spiced tea in her kitchen, with the golden sunlight filling the rooms and reflecting softly off the adobe-facsimile walls. She pictured sitting on her small shaded balcony and letting the heat seep into her body as though she were a plant and not a human, unfurling and feasting on light.

First of all, the repetition = not good.

Second of all, I'd like to reiterate that at this particular point in the story, this particular information has no substantial impact. Which is to say, if I knew Aela a little bit better, I'd care — but I don't know her. Not yet. So this is good stuff, but not right now. Not where it's at in the story right now. Again, I'd suggest placing this later on in the prologue (or even later on in the story). It's like, okay, I'm reverting into crappy analogies again — it's like colouring in a picture before you've even drawn the outlines. (See? Crappy analogy.) The colours have no meaning to me as a viewer/reader because I can't see the outline. So, yeah, I'd suggest introducing the actual character of Aela (again, I refer to the second bit of the prologue, with, "there was an insistent beeping") and then talking about her goals and hopes and dreams and all of that sort of thing later on.

Aela was exhausted. The cold of Korvalis was still in her bones, and still fresh in her memory.

Can I suggest cutting out the "and"? It makes the repetition more effective.

She lay back on the double bed with the plain green bedspread and took deep breaths of dry, climate controlled air.

Nitpicky things:

"Climate controlled" should be hyphenated: "climate-controlled."

The "plain" for "plain green bedspread," is entirely pointless, since "green bedspread" gets the point across just as well. This sentence has a lot of adjectives (double, plain, green, deep, dry, etc.) so not only is the added "plain" pointless, it also starts to hinder the flow of the sentence.

It was still the middle of the night according to Interstellar Standard Time and her bodily clock.

It's body clock, not bodily clock. Or internal chronometer.

There should be a comma after "night."

I don't think the bit about the body clock gets enough emphasis here. Which is basically because of the way the sentence is structured, so that the bit about the body clock seems kind of thrown in at the last moment. It's easy for a reader to gloss over a point like that, which is particularly bad because this is a vaguely important point. At least, relative to everything else, it's vaguely important, especially because it has to do with developing Aela's character.

So I'd suggest either rewriting the sentence or separating the body clock bit. Something like this:

- According to Interstellar Standard Time — and her body clock — it was still the middle of the night.

- It was still the middle of the night, according to Interstellar Standard Time. According to her body clock.

- It was still the middle of the night, according to Interstellar Standard Time. And her body clock.

... or something like that. Obviously, you don't have to take one of the suggestions from above — I totally encourage you to experiment and see if you can find something you think suits the story best.

She lay back on the double bed with the plain green bedspread and took deep breaths of dry, climate controlled air. It was still the middle of the night according to Interstellar Standard Time and her bodily clock. She toed off her shoes and listened to them fall on the floor beside the bed. She was asleep as soon she curled on her side.

Okay, again with the awkward flow due to repetition. Here's a suggestion, which may sound incredibly condescending if you already do this:

When editing the story, read it out loud. No, really. It's a fresh perspective, especially because your eyes are used to the words, and they also have an uncanny knack for sometimes skipping words. Reading it out loud (generally) makes you consider every word, and it's often easier to spot awkward sentences when you hear them. So the repetition of "she" or "she could see" or things like that tend to jump out at you — it's very very useful and very very simple.

There was an insistent beeping noise. Alarm klaxons, she thought, her body tensed for action, her mind was back at Wolsey’s Landfall.

Suggestions, again of the nitpicky variety:

- Cut out "There was."

- Cut out the "was" that follows "her mind."

So you now have:

An insistent beeping noise. Alarm klaxons, she thought, her body tensed for action, her mind back at Wolsey's Landfall.

Simply because both phrases are unnecessary and add to the overall wordiness of the sentences.

On a side note: I love Wolsey's Landfall. What an awesome name.

There was an insistent beeping noise. Alarm klaxons, she thought, her body tensed for action, her mind was back at Wolsey’s Landfall. She heaved herself off the bed before her eyes were open, and then found herself in the middle of a generic hotel room, crouched in a defensive stance. Not klaxons, she realized, but the alert noise for and incoming communication.

Okay, I wanted to say that you've got a lot of interesting things happening here, and lots of tension, but none of it is conveyed through the way you've written it. I think that this particular bit would be much more effective if you'd set it up as an action bit and then had Aela calm down and realize that it was just the alert noise. To go all cliché, characters are the windows into the story for the reader, which is probably something I say every other critique, but still. We need to experience what the character is experiencing because otherwise we can't experience the story. Does that make sense? We need to feel her panic, her tension, her readiness for action — we need to experience all of that with her. That way, this entire sequence will have so much more impact on the reader.

So I'd suggest shorter sentences and choppier writing and less description (i.e. "generic hotel room") for this part alone, simply to enhance the mood.

Plus, I'd like to note that regarding the internal dialogue (i.e. all of her thoughts), you're kind of inconsistent in how you punctuate it. There's a part later on in the story, in the Before part, where you've got her thinking about something, and you punctuate it with single-quotation marks. Here, it's not punctuated at all.

I would actually suggest that, if you're going to punctuate it at all, you italicize it (it's just easier on the eyes to distinguish between spoken dialogue and mental dialogue, especially when you're reading quickly — visual writing = yay), but whatever you end up deciding — choose a type of punctuation/identification and stick with it.

Aela walked over and sat clumsily at the desk and hit the appropriate button on the built-in computer.

Aela walked over ... where? You need to finish that, i.e. add a direct object, so it will be grammatically correct and not so awkward.

I'd suggest rewording to "Aela walked over to the desk and sat clumsily."

“Hello, Kren,” she said steadily, but uncertain what he was doing calling her so soon after they parted ways, “Missed me already?”

The comma after "ways" should be a period.

“We need a woman for this one, Aela. And don’t say Bess could do it because she can’t. She’s a terrible actress.”

Comma before "because".

Another thing. You've got lots of tags for Aela, to show her mood and to enhance our understanding of how she's saying these dialogue pieces, but none for Kren. Basically, we've got all of this wonderful dialogue and little idea of what's going on as it's being said. Lots of things — lots of little things — help enhance dialogue, and Kren is such a wonderful character that I think it's a shame he doesn't get any of those. Facial expressions, hand gestures, twitching, fiddling with a pencil, things like that. They add so much to dialogue in so little space.

I point this out especially because, when I first read this (well, the first time re-reading this), I completely misinterpreted the power hierarchy here, which is to say that I completely thought that Kren held all the power. Of course, as you read further on, you learn through Kren's actions that it's actually Aela who controls this relationship. He's very tentative around her, afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing — but this dialogue doesn't convey it. Or at least, I suspect I am reading this the wrong way, and therefore getting an entirely different picture of their relationship.

Like this:

“There’s that winning personality we all know and love.”

I completely imagined Kren saying this with a smirk. Like he knew all along that he was going to get what he wanted to get, and this entire thing was a charade to show her that he cares. But ultimately he'll always win, because he knows he holds the reins, and this smirk was to denote that. He's smug.

Of course, the smirk is entirely in my head, but without directions and guidelines, I will entirely misread the way it's written. So — little things. First of all — how is Kren feeling during this conversation? Is he nervous? Excited? Anxious? Afraid? Decide, and then go from there. Show this through small, inconspicuous actions.

This is not where you want to be but you know the people who are paying you.

Comma after "be".

He shuffles his feet in the snow and you know that he’s thinking of apologizing for dragging you out to this ice ball of a backwater planet and into this mess. But you don’t want him to apologize and if he does you feel you are likely to hit him. Or perhaps you will just turn and walk back into the transport hub and catch the first ship away from here.

More nitpicky things:

"Ice ball" — either one word, or hyphenated.

Comma after "apologize" and "does."

I would suggest making "you will" into "you'll" — it's shorter and the sentence flows better, especially because it's already long as is.

You look straight into his eyes in that way you know unsettles people. He’s shorter than you by a couple inches- just enough that he has to tip his chin up to look at your face.

Again, nitpicky: that hyphen? After "inches"? It should be an em dash. One of these things: —

So, like this:

He’s shorter than you by a couple inches — just enough that he has to tip his chin up to look at your face.

Which can either be denoted through two hyphens (--) or through the proper code, if you're geeky enough (&# 151, except don't put a space in between the "&#" and "151", so it's all one big thing).

“I can take care of myself,” you say thinking, ‘it’s too late, they already know me.’

When I talked about internal dialogue, and inconsistencies, this is the bit that I was talking about. You've got single quotes here but, in the earlier part, you don't use any kind of punctuation.

Comma after "say".

This is an especially good example of why italics work better than single quotes when you're trying to indicate thought. You've got regular dialogue and then internal dialogue, and the quotes are a bit of an eyesore. Italics would be easier and simpler and much more effective.

“I know you can take care of yourself. I’m not disputing that. I’m just saying, don’t get in their faces. And for god’s sake don’t get into bed with any of them, that’s the last thing any of us needs”

- Comma after "sake."

- The comma after "them," should be a period, and "that's the last thing," should be the start of a new sentence.

- A period after "needs."

- Again, no indicators as to how Kren is saying this. Now, in this particular case, it's pretty self-evident as to how he's delivering this line (which speaks highly of your ability to write dialogue), but. This could be so much more effective if we could see his hand motions, his facial features, etc. It just enhances the mood.

“’The hell- Kren- How low is your opinion of me these days?” you say incredulous.

Again, hyphens should be em dashes. (I told you I was nitpicky!) And the "how should not be capitalized — em dashes don't end a sentence.

Comma after "say".

“I may be female but I’m not indiscriminate, not am I mentally deficient in any way. You of all people should know that I know when to keep my hands to myself. And you should listen to your own advice, I mean, that incident Chernovic, you remember that was you, right?”

- Comma after "female."

- "not" = "nor"

- The comma after "advice" should be a period, and can I suggest replacing the comma after "Chernovic" with an em dash?

Which would make it:

I mean, that incident Chernovic — you remember that was you, right?

Which adds an abruptness to the sentence.

Also: I don't know if Chernovic is a person or a place (or something else entirely), but it should either be "that incident with Chernovic," or "that incident on Chernovic" (or "at", or whatever).

Kren took his hands out of his pockets and held them up in a sign of surrender.

You switch into past tense, but this entire segment should be in present tense, yes?

You pull your gloves on roughly.

Something that's been bothering me for awhile — you use adverbs a lot, when instead, you could replace them with much more effective verbs. Like, instead of saying "pull roughly," you could say "yank," which conveys the same meaning, but in less (and more effective) words. And then, of course, there's the added awesomeness of verbs that have nuanced meanings — words like "hissed" and "cackled" that have connotations that you can use to your benefit. Adverbs aren't the worst thing ever, but they're bad when you opt to use them instead of other, better words.

You look at your feet in the iced over snow and then at the building beyond the causeway. It’s an ugly graceless city and even the fresh snow can’t quite make up for it, but even this small outpost is better than what lies ahead.

- "Iced over" = hyphenated = "iced-over"

- Too many uses of the word "even," and the last sentence is long in a way that isn't good. Which is to say that the impact of "even this small outpost is better than what lies ahead," is lost by the enormous wordiness of the rest of the sentence.

What I would suggest doing is combining the first sentence with the first part of the second sentence, i.e. up until "can't quite make up for it," and then have the "but even this small outpost," etc. as an entirely new sentence. Like a dun dun dun! moment, but not quite so cheesy.

“Lets get to the hotel,” he says sounding oddly tired. He starts down the sidewalk with crunching footsteps.

- "Lets" = "Let's", with an apostrophe.

- Comma after "says."

- The tired isn't so odd — they've just had a bit of a fight and he's tired, so the "oddly" seems kind of pointless because to me (as a reader) his exhaustion makes 100% sense. Which makes it "he says, sounding tired," and I would suggest replacing it with something that much more effectively demonstrates his tiredness — something like "murmurs." Show, don't tell, etc. — you know the drill. Hopefully.

She’s wearing a dress of layers black gauze- Shavellian silk, she’d bought it in the market places just hours earlier, and her hair is brushed smooth.

Okay, the "a dress of layers black gauze- Shavellian silk" doesn't make sense, and because I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say here, it's hard for me to suggest changes. Are you saying that the black guaze and the Shavellian silk are separate layers, or that the black gauze is a type of Shavellian silk? When you say "layers", do you mean "layered"? I mean, I get the gist of your sentence, but it makes no sense on its own. (An example of how misused punctuation can take you to very unpleasant places.)

Kren is watching her glimmer darkly.

This is, again, a minor nitpicky thing, but I wrote a similar phrase like this and someone pointed out how crazy drunk it sounded, so I'll pass on the favour: how on earth does something "glimmer darkly"? "Glimmer" implies light, "dark" implies absence of light. I can understand if you're trying to say that she's shimmering or, hey, glimmering on its own (without the "darkly") but paired together, that's basically something of an oxymoron.

She looks better rested than the last time he saw her and he says so. She also looks pissed as hell but he doesn’t mention it.

Okay, I'm not sure if this is conscious or not, but you just switched point of view here. Which is to say that before this was all through Aela's point of view, and by "this," I'm referring to both this particular segment (segment II) and the overall story. It's a bit jarring. If you're doing it consciously — why? Too often, POV jumps are used as lazy storytelling, and while it isn't always lazy storytelling (in fact, they can be used quite effectively), just make sure you're aware that you're doing it.

Parmir and Ziv are going to stare at her like she’s a king’s concubine but she wont mind.

Comma after "concubine," apostrophe for "won't".

“Alright then, let’s get out of here.” She grabs her duffle bag and they leave.

I'd suggest a period after "then."

Aela looks around at the crowded streets and animated billboards as though she’ll be sad to leave them.

Again with the showing and the not telling. You tell us that she's looking at this in a sad way, but instead, why don't you actually describe the way she's looking at everything? Is her gaze lingering over every animated billboard and crowded street corner, as if she's trying to memorize it and preserve it in a small corner of her mind forever? Does she pause before entering the shuttle, her hand on the door, hesitating? I know how painfully cliché it is to say this, but I'll still say it, because it's very lovely and shiny advice: Show, don't tell. Let us actually connect with Aela.

He remembers her telling him once that she could almost see Ghasakis III as home. This is Aela though, so he knows better.

Sentence numero unos is a bit awkwardly worded, especially because you've already started the last sentence with "He." I would suggest starting it with: "Once, she told him she could almost see," which flows a lot better.

Also: comma after "Aela." And let me add that I love the second sentence; it's a wonderful insight into Kren and how he tries to justify his actions so he doesn't have to feel horrible about himself. All in eight words. Awesome.

He catches her elbow and pulls her aside into an entrance way of shop that’s closed for the night.

It should be "a shop that's closed for the night," and might I suggest rewording it to "pulls her aside into the entrance of a closed shop"? Less wordy, easier flow, and so on. (Also, a clarification: I don't hate wordy, I just hate unnecessary wordy. Which is to say, I love overwrought descriptions and long flowery prose, but I don't like when there are lots of little unnecessary words that clutter up sentences. Especially when one word can replace six. Anyway. I digress.)

Also, the previous paragraph led me to believe that they were already at the shuttle — there isn't really anything to indicate otherwise. So could you slip something in that confirms that they're walking down the street? Something like, "As they walk down the street, Aela looks around at crowded streets," etc.

Another thing — is there a reason you've switched into present tense for this? Otherwise, it's inconsistent with the rest of the story. I mean, the first part (which is also set in the present) is written in past tense, but for this, you switch back into present tense. Was that accidental, or was there a reason for that?

“Am I wrong to be insisting you come back early? There’s still time for me to get Bess out here instead,” Kren asks, not quite meeting her eyes.

The "Kren asks," should be after the actual question. At its current place, it doesn't make sense, because the sentence that prefaces it isn't the questiony sentence, and so the "asking" has no purpose.

So it should be:

“Am I wrong to be insisting you come back early? Kren asks, not quite meeting her eyes. “There’s still time for me to get Bess out here instead.”

Note the punctuation changes, too.

Aela’s brows draw together in confusion, “What’s going on here? Don’t you think I can handle myself?”

The comma should be a period.

“That’s not it. It’s just,” Kren shrugs.

He's breaking off a sentence, which means that the comma should be an em dash. ("It's just—" Ken shrugs.)

“If you tell me right now you don’t want to do this, then you don’t have to. You can stay here and, I don’t know, buy more dresses like that one,” he gestures vaguely in her direction.

The comma after "one" should be a period, and the "he" should be capitalized.

The she straightens up and she smiles genuinely.

- "The" = "then"

- Take out the second "she".

- I'd also suggest taking out the "genuinely." The fact that, after a moment of serious deliberation, her mood shifts and she's smiling will (in itself) indicate that she's serious about this. The "genuinely" is just superfluous.

Kren wonder’s what she’s thinking.

No apostrophe in "wonders."

Aela loops her arm through his casually.

"Casually," too, is unnecessary, especially because the dialogue that follows indicates that she's being casual.

“Okay, so tell me, what did I just agree to do?”

The comma after "me" should be a period or an em dash.

“Steal 500 Kamaalian orchids from the belly of a ‘Yonder ship-for-hire, while posing as Jess’s wife.”

Again, how is Kren delivering this line? (I would like to point out that, throughout the story, you have unfairly discriminated against poor Kren, and he's never gotten much in the way of dialogue tags.) Is he grim, is he smirking, is he smiling? Is he hesitant? Actions are your friends.

“I’ve changed my mind, can I stay on vacation?”

The comma after "mind" should be a period.

Kren looks over at her and is glad to see she’s still smiling slightly.

The "slightly" = unnecessary detail. It doesn't matter whether she's smiling slightly — it just matters that she's smiling.

He hopes, though, that she never realizes that she will never be normal while she’s working for him.

Awkwardly worded sentence, especially in conjunction with the last one. It's the "though" that makes it especially clunky, but the sheer volume of wordiness (especially the repetition of "she") makes it even clunkier.

“Thomas, just the person I needed to see. We’ve got passengers coming aboard on their way to stellar outpost one dash epsilon- an astrophysicist and a newly-wed couple. I want you to go greet them and show them to their quarters.”

There should be a period after "Thomas," and "one dash epsilon" should probably be capitalized, especially because you (sorta) capitalize it in the next sentence.

The hyphen after "one dash epsilon" should be an em dash.

"Newlywed" is one word. No hyphen necessary.

“Newly-weds? Who ever heard of One dash Epsilon as a honeymoon spot?” Tom asked curiously.

Both "newlyweds" and "whoever" are one word only, and the "curiously" after "asked" is so superfluous it's not even funny. Obviously, if he's asking, he's curious. The "curiously" adds nothing to the sentence, except an extra nine letters.

Tom rolled his eye. “I don’t think there’s anything they don’t find offensive on Dorvas V.” he took the h-comp and skimmed it briefly. “When are they coming aboard?”

I suspect that should be "Tom rolled his eyes," unless there's something about dear Tom that we don't know yet. Also, "he" should be capitalized.

“The astrophysicist will be here in an hour, the newly-weds have just requested permission to board.”

The comma after "hour" should be a period.

“Right. I’ll go meet them then.” He glanced at the h-comp, “Hendry and Sanja Najelder?”

The comma after "h-comp" should also be a period.

“Hender and Sanya Nasoolly,” corrected Onoh, “They’re Vorash names.

And again! Comma after "Onoh" should be a period.

Onoh nodded, “Never had Vorash on my ship before. I don’t have anything against them though, as long as they don’t get us involved in their causes.”

...and again. Comma after "nodded" should be a period.

I'd suggest cutting out the "though," for sentence flow.

Tom nodded. “I’m sure they’ll have other things on their mind besides activism, but all the same I’ll make sure they understand.”

Again, sentence flow: cut out "all the same."

Hender and Sanya, he thought, those are nice names.

Again with the inconsistency of internal dialogue punctuation. Italicized or single quotes or nothing at all?

The comma after "thought" should be a period.

I. Before – Much Before

Is there a reason this is "I", and not "IV"?

It was his home and his livelihood from the day he bought it, already worn and half forgotten from a man who had meant to carve it up for parts, to the day he died.

Whoa, run-on sentence of doom. I like the different ideas you're presenting in here, but there's too many all at once. The run-on sentence you've got right now isn't the good kind of run-on sentence, which is to say that it's awkward and clunky and way way too long. (Also, "half forgotten" should be hyphenated into "half-forgotten.")

I would suggest keeping the first thought, about it being his home and livelihood from the day he bought it to the day he died, in the first sentence. And then, somehow combine the bit about "already worn and half-forgotten," in the following part of the paragraph, where you talk about how he went about buying it.

Aela could picture it clearly, him finding it in among the junkers and great hulking shapes of grounded crafts like beached whales.

"In among" should be replaced with "amongst."

He would have been young then, with him all long and lean and broad-shouldered yet unimposing.

I'd cut out the "with him," and just go with, "He would have been young then, all long and lean and broad-shouldered." I'd also split the "yet unimposing" into a new thought, something like, "And yet — unimposing. A hard worker. An easy mark." As always, though, it's up to you.

But of course he was much more shrew than anyone guessed by looking at him.

- "Shrew" = "shrewd". Actually, instead of "more shrewd," it should be "shrewder".

- Instead of, "He was much shrewder than anyone guessed by looking at him," how about, "He was much more shrewd than he looked"? Or something less cumbersome?

It had been a hot day on a nameless terraformed moon and he had listened to the salesman try to sell him half a dozen crafts already as he followed quietly along when they turned a corner and there it was.

Again, run-on sentence of le doom. I'd suggest breaking it off into a couple of smaller sentences.

Home. Dusty and outdated and gleaming and perfect.

I'm having flashbacks of a particular Firefly episode ...



Seriously, though, I like this.

He loved to tell that story, as much as Aela loved to hear it, as he tucked her into bed at night or when the two of them sat in the kitchen drinking hot chocolate with the future seeming a little uncertain on the Edge.

More run-on! Ahh!

Also: there doesn't need to be a comma after "that story."

Seriously, though, run-on sentence = not good. Too much in one sentence. Break it up a little.

The engine, he’d say, almost didn’t start, and when it did it made great noises of protestation. He’d say, at first half the lights didn’t turn on and it used twice, no three times the amount of fuel it should but it was the smoothest ride he’d ever had. He’d say it flew like it knew where he wanted to go before he did.

Simply for the sake of commas, and not having so many, I would suggest more sentences and less of the run-on. I mean, in this particular case, the run-ons could work for you, simply because this is pseudo-dialogue. But. You're going to have to overload on the commas if you want this to read in any kind of coherent way, because as it stands right now, you're missing a lot of them.

So this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to bold in commas where there should be commas, ordinarily. Like so:

The engine, he’d say, almost didn’t start, and when it did, it made great noises of protestation. He’d say, at first, half the lights didn’t turn on, and it used twice, no[/b] three times the amount of fuel it should, but it was the smoothest ride he’d ever had. He’d say it flew like it knew where he wanted to go before he did.

Obviously a lot of commas. A whole lot of commas. Enough commas for my eyes to bleed out, and hey, I like commas.

So I'd suggest somehow breaking up the sentences, just because otherwise you'll have way way WAY too many commas crammed into one sentence. And you need those commas, because they preserve the pauses and general flow of your sentence. The commas are your friends and they must stay.

When she was little she would run her hands along the walls, feeling the hum of the ship in the palms of her hands and the soles of her feet.

Comma after "little."

She would fold herself in with the extra pillows and blankets in the bottom of the linen cupboard at the end of the hall and listen to the inescapable song of the engines and imagine she could understand what it sang, that it sang just for her.

More running-on, more excessive detail that inundates the sentence and swallows your original point, so that the focus of your sentence is completely and utterly lost.

The biggest offense is of course, "the bottom of the linen cupboard at the end of the hall," which is so unnecessary it makes my heart cry. Honestly? It doesn't matter where the extra pillows and blankets come from. It doesn't matter where the linen cupboard is. And, okay, you could add it for the sake of atmosphere, but not in this sentence. Not when it's already so bogged down with detail that every further snippet of information makes it sag a little more.

Plus, the sentence is structured ambiguously, so that the reader could make the assumption that Aela was actually in the linen cupboard. Which is a bit crazy (unless, y'know, she really is in the linen cupboard), but it's the way the sentence is arranged.

So the linen cupboard? I would suggest it goes away. I suggest it goes far away.

...aaaaand, that's it. I'm done the exhaustively long part. Done. Really.

So, all in all:

I like what you've got here so far, despite what the 15+ pages of lengthy critique might suggest. I really do. Especially because of the ship and the passengers (which adds a distinctly Firefly-ish flavour to the story) — in fact, for me, that's the selling point. I'm not 100% sure I would be so taken in with this story if it didn't promise lots of fun hijinks with Tom and company.

So, yeah. This is lovely stuff so far. You've got some really gorgeous descriptions (I think my favourite part, in terms of that, is the last segment, especially the "great hulking shapes of grounded crafts like beached whales". I really do enjoy your dialogue — it's lots of fun, and well-written, and you use it to great effect. And that's awesome.

I hope you won't be deterred by the exhaustive length of this, and I really do hope you write more, and soon. Comparing this one to the last version, off-hand, I'd say the only thing that's different is the very last bit, which is a teensy bit depressing — hopefully, there's more, right? Right?

Also:

I hope nobody thinks I'm trying to be arguementative, I'm just reacting out loud as it were ^^;

Feel free to debate things. I know I always need to discuss things with my critiquers, just to clarify things and so I understand their points better. So I can totally sympathize. Feel free to ask any questions, and I'll try to help out as much as possible.

Whew. Okay, I'm done now. For real.

Goodness that's a long critique O_O. Seriously. You may have more time analysing my teeny prologue than I spent writing it - well, not really, but still ^^. Thank you for putting so much time and effort into it.

First off, I want to say you covered a lot of ground with punctuation/grammar/rewording crits, and to be absolutely honest I skimmed some of it because I'm getting over a cold and my brain is fuzzy and I'm not quite feeling up to a punctuation mark by punctuation analysis.

I will say, though, in re punctuation: there are many view on comma use &c... books have been written, vigorous debates have been had in many a forum, and for the most part it comes down to artistic preference as to how the author wishes to populate their work with punctation marks. I aknowledge that in a site like this, it can be difficult to tell who is genuinely bewildered in the ways of grammatical corectness, and who is taking grammar out and having their way with it for artisitic purposes (or just plain fun). With my current work I am experimenting with alternate modes of puntation, styles used by authors whoes work I respect, althought it's still just another branch of internet fiction.

(for a peek at some of the things that infulenced me see http://www.sparkgirls.com,[http://www.sparkgirls.com/oddsmakers, http://appelsini.tripod.com/august.html and http://www.circlegirl.com for a brief survey.)

I find it interesting that people seem to like my dialogue, I always thinks it's my weakest feature. just goes to show you that you can't acurately judge your own work.

in re the first section, Ghazakis III-whateverl, I've just read through the prologue, the whole thing and thoroughly, and realized that some of the older sections need to be seriously revised. I went over the dialogue with a fine tooth comb, but the rest of the first section is practically just as I set it down a year and a half ago. Suffice it to say: It needs work.

On a side note: why didn't she leave Oasis earlier? I mean, she says that she's going to get a ship out of here as soon as the midday heat subsides, but the day's just begun. Why didn't she get a ship during the night? Or early that morning, for that matter? Why is she lying around sleeping when she could've been on a ship and off of the planet?)

??? She wasn't going to leave the planet, she was staying in the port city because she got in in the middle of the night and couldn't get a lift out of town until the next afternoon - she was going to go to a different city on the same planet (where her appartment is). I thought that was clear but obviously not.

Another thing. You've got lots of tags for Aela, to show her mood and to enhance our understanding of how she's saying these dialogue pieces, but none for Kren. Basically, we've got all of this wonderful dialogue and little idea of what's going on as it's being said. Lots of things — lots of little things — help enhance dialogue, and Kren is such a wonderful character that I think it's a shame he doesn't get any of those. Facial expressions, hand gestures, twitching, fiddling with a pencil, things like that. They add so much to dialogue in so little space.

I point this out especially because, when I first read this (well, the first time re-reading this), I completely misinterpreted the power hierarchy here, which is to say that I completely thought that Kren held all the power. Of course, as you read further on, you learn through Kren's actions that it's actually Aela who controls this relationship. He's very tentative around her, afraid of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing — but this dialogue doesn't convey it. Or at least, I suspect I am reading this the wrong way, and therefore getting an entirely different picture of their relationship.

A) you're right, Kren got the fuzzy end of the lollipop with this one. His side of the conversation could definately be filled out, they should be reacting to each other since it's video communication. I wrote this conversation back when I thought Kren would just be the grouchy-boss-guy/prerequisite patriarchical authority figure to be used as a peripheral. I realized pretty quickly that he would be a lot more important, a lot less prefunctory and a lot less paternal than I had first envisioned.

And B) I find it interesting that you read those two aspects of Aela and Kren's relationship as being mutually exclusive. You read it right both ways (I'm glad that it shows). When it comes to work, Kren totally owns. It's his ship, and he pays the salaries. Aela gets that. They may do banter but she almost always defers, in action at least, to Kren in 'work' situations. Where it gets all murky for them is when it starts to be 'personal.' Without giving away too much, I will say that it's complicated and they've both got bagage involved and people can be different ways with each other in differant situations.

Something that's been bothering me for awhile — you use adverbs a lot, when instead, you could replace them with much more effective verbs. Like, instead of saying "pull roughly," you could say "yank," which conveys the same meaning, but in less (and more effective) words. And then, of course, there's the added awesomeness of verbs that have nuanced meanings — words like "hissed" and "cackled" that have connotations that you can use to your benefit. Adverbs aren't the worst thing ever, but they're bad when you opt to use them instead of other, better words.

I like adverbs. I take a lot of flack for that. I know some people flat out hate them and most people dislike them and look on them with scorn. But I don't think I *overuse* adverbs, and I *like* them. They're polite. Also? "Better words"? like, "the whole Number of Verbs and three fifths of all other Verbs?" (http://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/constitution.articlei.html#section2) .

The tired isn't so odd — they've just had a bit of a fight and he's tired, so the "oddly" seems kind of pointless because to me (as a reader) his exhaustion makes 100% sense. Which makes it "he says, sounding tired," and I would suggest replacing it with something that much more effectively demonstrates his tiredness — something like "murmurs." Show, don't tell, etc. — you know the drill. Hopefully.

I told myself I wasn't going to go into quibbling with you on every little rewording thing but this one I need to say something about. Because 'oddly tired' (another one of those vile adverbs i know) is *exactly* what I meant to say. that wasn't a fight, not by their standards - Aela was just being over-reactive and defensive and Kren not understanding why.

The word "murmurs" has connotations of intimacy that are entirely inappropiate for the setting.

(I will save my rant on the evils of that oh, so popular 'Show Don't Tell' for a different and more appropriate setting )

and this

I can understand if you're trying to say that she's shimmering or, hey, glimmering on its own (without the "darkly") but paired together, that's basically something of an oxymoron.

A) the oxymoron was intended

B) something *can* 'glimmer darkly' -100% black cats and black silk velvet for exapmle, something about the way they absorb light and yet still have a sheen... the physics of light refraction (which I hardly grasp to be honest) are a damn fascinating thing my friend ^^.

The only other thing I'm going to say about all the rewording crits you made is that, in writing a story in this kind of style, you can't just change one sentence here or there, if you start rewiring, the whole paragraph, sometimes the whole section has to shift around. to use my own crappy metephor - it's like sudoku, but with words and metephors, everything depends on everything else. Also? I think you kind of missed the point with some of this.

Okay, I'm not sure if this is conscious or not, but you just switched point of view here. Which is to say that before this was all through Aela's point of view, and by "this," I'm referring to both this particular segment (segment II) and the overall story. It's a bit jarring. If you're doing it consciously — why? Too often, POV jumps are used as lazy storytelling, and while it isn't always lazy storytelling (in fact, they can be used quite effectively), just make sure you're aware that you're doing it.

Again I go to point by point format XD
A) the switching around POVs is a style thing, put quite simply. It keeps the readers on their toes and it lets me show various moods and perspectives. Do you always think in *exactly* the same way all the time?

B)in that section, it's not a shift. that section was written in omniscient with a leaning towards Kren. Omniscient means you get to see into everybody's heads.

I'd also suggest taking out the "genuinely." The fact that, after a moment of serious deliberation, her mood shifts and she's smiling will (in itself) indicate that she's serious about this. The "genuinely" is just superfluous.

and

The "slightly" = unnecessary detail. It doesn't matter whether she's smiling slightly — it just matters that she's smiling

now really, I know you don't like those pesky adverbs but there's no reason to go stripping away some many necessary modifiers. Have you never seen someone smile *disingenuously*? there's a big difference between a genuine smile and a false one, or a tired one or a tolerant one or a cringing one - modifiers help us add detail to the picture in invaluable ways.



Just to note: the whole segment on the Nokwalish has been ripped to shreds at this point on my version, it's dull the way it is here and it's going to be practically unrecognizable when I'm through with it. Enough said.

I'm having flashbacks of a particular Firefly episode ...

yeah. I guess this section has to be tweaked just a bit so it's a bit less obvious of a *blatant* ripoff - because, seriously? Plagerism is bad on a massive scale, "...great writers steal outright" or not.

Again, run-on sentence of le doom. I'd suggest breaking it off into a couple of smaller sentences.

and

Seriously, though, run-on sentence = not good. Too much in one sentence. Break it up a little

The short version? No.

There is poetry in long sentences, a natural rhythm. You say you like some long sentences and some wordiness, and yet you haven't approved of one single instance of it. I could cite many, many, brilliant, respected, classic authors who use so-called run-on sentences (Kafka, Austen, Virginia Wolfe, Shakespeare, so on and so forth) or I could cite thousands of years of story telling and oral history all over the world, or I could just say, there is more than one way to write.

More running-on, more excessive detail that inundates the sentence and swallows your original point, so that the focus of your sentence is completely and utterly lost.

The biggest offense is of course, "the bottom of the linen cupboard at the end of the hall," which is so unnecessary it makes my heart cry. Honestly? It doesn't matter where the extra pillows and blankets come from. It doesn't matter where the linen cupboard is. And, okay, you could add it for the sake of atmosphere, but not in this sentence. Not when it's already so bogged down with detail that every further snippet of information makes it sag a little more.

Plus, the sentence is structured ambiguously, so that the reader could make the assumption that Aela was actually in the linen cupboard. Which is a bit crazy (unless, y'know, she really is in the linen cupboard), but it's the way the sentence is arranged.

So the linen cupboard? I would suggest it goes away. I suggest it goes far away.

And I revert once more to bullet points
A) She *was* in the linnen cupboard. She was little, 3/4, 5 tops. It was her *hiding place.* her mother was rather cold and distant and her father was very busy and a lot of his business was taking on passengers or hauling cargo with the help of an ever changing array of temp workers and she needed a safe, small, quiet place away from all that. So yes. In with the quilts in the cupbord indeed.

B)I will also defend "at the end of the hall" because yes it does matter. This is me starting to build a picture of the first of the two ships where Aela will spend a lot of her life.

C)maybe it is saging under the weight of minutiae and my defence for this is very weak - I. Like. Minutiae. I *love* reading books filled with 'unecessary' details about the environments and the characters' pasts. You may say they don't advance the story, but they do, they make the world real and the emotions real and the imagery stronger. Context is important. Context is life.

So many people spend their lives *assuming* things, they don't pay attention to their surroundings and they think they're seeing everything but they're not.

You nitpicked about "dawn crowned the sky" saying that crowns go on top and dawn comes from the bottom - I'm going to nitpick that. 'Dawn' come from the Earth rotating to face toward the sun and the first thing that happens is the light flaring and refracting in the upper atmosphere, thus permeating the sky with the 'pre-dawn' glow that steadily gets stronger until the Earth turns more fully to face the sun, etc. etc. we've all seen the dawn, (and I personally have seens a few too many of them) but how many times do we really pay attention to it? (I'm not even going to touch the way 'top' and 'bottom' don't apply in the way you mean here, Earth being *round* and the 'sky' being a gaseous layer between us and hard vacuum).

the point? Context is good.

(a few novels that demonstrate this principle beautifully are: the Time Traveler's Wife by Audry Niffenegger, the Magicians Assistant by Ann Pachett, Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver and An Equal Music by Vikram Seth and anything by Jhumpa Lahiri)

D) I have tried not to be bothered by it, but your 'bantery' condescention leaves me increasingly offended. it feels smug and meanspirited to me and I often over react but it was hurtful. I have tried to keep my tone neutral in response but it was increasingly difficult as I read on.

you may think you were being cute, but I would advise you - if you're going to post massive crits you might try to keep your tone as respectful as possible or writers are going to feel derided and feelings are going to get bruised.

I like what you've got here so far, despite what the 15+ pages of lengthy critique might suggest. I really do. Especially because of the ship and the passengers (which adds a distinctly Firefly-ish flavour to the story) — in fact, for me, that's the selling point. I'm not 100% sure I would be so taken in with this story if it didn't promise lots of fun hijinks with Tom and company.

So, yeah. This is lovely stuff so far. You've got some really gorgeous descriptions (I think my favourite part, in terms of that, is the last segment, especially the "great hulking shapes of grounded crafts like beached whales". I really do enjoy your dialogue — it's lots of fun, and well-written, and you use it to great effect. And that's awesome.

I hope you won't be deterred by the exhaustive length of this, and I really do hope you write more, and soon. Comparing this one to the last version, off-hand, I'd say the only thing that's different is the very last bit, which is a teensy bit depressing — hopefully, there's more, right? Right?

I'm glad you liked the story, but I think you've somewhat misinterpreted it. I can warn you right now that there's not going to be as much wacky hijinks as you're probably hoping for (or at least not in the sense you mean) I may have been inspired by Firefly and Farscape, but I take a more serious view on crime and violance. One of the big themse of this story is 'Everything has consequenses.' But I will hope you keep reading it anyway, and that you try to understand what the story is actually about.

I find it discouraging that most, in fact almost all of your crit was about format rather than substance. I'm writing this story to try to prove to myself and everyone that you *can* have substance - and emotional content and character driven narrative - in the sci-fi setting.

two out of two reviewers have not even touched on that, so I guess that means that either I lose at substance (which is possible, even to me this story reads like Sara Mchlaughlin rather than Leoard Cohen) or I picked the wrong audience.

This *is* only the prologue though. A setting the scene(s), a beginning, a setting in motion.

'Lo Sabine.

I'm afraid I've been back, numerous times with the title catching my eye, and yet have never read through...or responded. To be honest, smaur's novel-length lecture and your response got me in the end to read through slowly.

I enjoyed the piece, as it was. Incomplete, I don't want to go into too much depth - a beginning, a prologue ishard to judge. But to be honest, what truly involved me was the style and structure - it's rare to find a writer who will dare the long sentence, or even a casual adverb - I suppose it comes of a tendency to short story pointedness and brevity. But the start-stop, twist-at-the-end, pop-shot prose (not to be deprecating of such in entirety) needn't be the rule; and it tends to be.

Dawn crowned the sky and seeped over the rooftops. Aela watched as Traveel began to stir after the lull between the night and morning crowds. She could see the tops of the stalls in the public market below and the bustle of people beginning their business day there. In the near distance to the east she could see the gilt outline of the People’s Temple perched like a spiny crown on top of Daliverre’s Hill, and in the far distance to the southeast she could see the umber desert that stretched to the horizon line and beyond.

Ah, this beginning caught me - it presents a vivid place and atmosphere.

[As a note: I think that the previous critiquers may have a point in some of their worries over helping verbs and such. But it's more an issue of precision, not sentence-length or adverb applicability. A few times, it's merely verb tenses at odds in one sentence... I'll try to point it out, later on, if I catch it again.]

Anyhow, you've expressed a certain contentment, to put it vaguely, with the structural comments you've gotten. ^_~ So I'll try to focus on content and character, interwoven with the aforementioned. (They usually compliment each other when neatly done.)

Character - Dialogue?


In dialogue...they tend to sound a bit too similar. In description, they have their own looks, even their own ticks/affects. But in diction, structure? Same. I'd like to hear some of Kren's gravely voice (though the gravel might not come through). He sounds like a sort who would have some distinct idioms.

You've set up a solar system, or a universe, and doubtless some, if not all the characters, come from their own planet/system?

In the final 'piece' you describe some of Aela's background. I think that - though she's described fairly neatly - you might give her more depth with language. Some questions that came to mind while reading her dialogue in particular were - Does she speak the way she did when she was young? Does she speak differently half-asleep than wide awake? Does she/has she lost/hidden an accent?

Pardon me if they seem extraneous. I'm rather OCD, at times, when it comes to the linguistic aspect of characters, diction, dialogue. ^_^

On that subject, the world/universe seems quite colourful enough to house a sky-full of idioms and oddities. If any of it were half as clear as the first paragraphs description, you'd have some bloody brilliant characters/dialogue - more than simply intriguing. ^_^

Here's the one instance in which I thought I heard a bit of Kren's character in dialogue:

Listen, if you do this, I’ll owe you one. One favor, within, you know, a certain amount of reason, as well as your share of the profit.

It was the 'one favor...' bit.


Then Aela dialogue that sounded rote, as if her role demanded it and she repeats, half-hearted -

Aela sighed. “Fine, fine, I’ll do it- But after this I’m taking a real vacation, somewhere no one will be able to reach me and bribe me back into service. For now though, let me go back to sleep.”

...though I like the 'let me go back to sleep'. It, by all previous narrative, seems perfectly in-step with character and situation.

[Another note: For precision's sake - dialogue is not concrete-hue same throughout. Rather, it felt off-on for character[isation]. ]

Character - Type?

I had the increasing sense, as I read, that I was encountering excellent types - some of my favourite, really. (I think smaur, or someone, mentioned Firefly?) A good thing, on one count. After all, with nothing new under the sun, everyone fits into some type. I don't want to reiterate the obvious - but naturally, a good story sets up type and super-imposes a more defined character over - and I felt that the characters at this point might still be slightly hazy, and so type shows through.

There are hints of the idiosyncrasy of living, breathing human beings in Kren and Aela without a doubt. It came through most clearly and most engagingly in the 'piece' written in second person. With how much detail you manage, the relationship of these people/characters seems more concrete, and on more levels. ('Twas my favourite bit of this, by the way.)

Kren steps up behind you, tugging at his coat and adjusting his scarf. You can see him fidgeting out of the corner of your eye. He shuffles his feet in the snow and you know that he’s thinking of apologizing for dragging you out to this ice ball of a backwater planet and into this mess. But you don’t want him to apologize and if he does you feel you are likely to hit him. Or perhaps you will just turn and walk back into the transport hub and catch the first ship away from here.

Here (and following with the note about height) I get a defined sense of two people, with thoughts, emotions, habits, fears. ^_^

I won't go on further. This is a prologue, after all? With the pacing, even, it seems natural that info won't fall out of the stars detailing every facet of these people.

My only thought is that you likely should know it; it will come through in tone and description (has) and they'll be silhouettes rather than three-dimensioned people. It's the small things - like Kren's scuffing his feet in the snow; like idioms in dialogue; like Aela's inclination to deck her companion or run, and not doing either.


Plot/Action

So far, you're on the set-up. It's classic, doubtless, and isn't harmed in the least by form. Again, what drew me in was the place and the flow of the narrative. I think, if you've as steady a sense of what's happening as you have of sentence pace, it all will come out well.

...and finally, in brief...

Structure/Punctuation, etc.

There was an insistent beeping noise. Alarm klaxons, she thought, her body tensed for action, her mind [s]was[/s] back at Wolsey’s Landfall.

'Was' seems to turn things back to past when the sentence begins so presently.

There are a few points, throughout, that the flow and readability feel impeded by something like the above. I didn't mind the use of 'was' - so often dismissed as merely passive - in most of the (paste tense) narrative.

Smaur talked about show/tell, action? It's a reminder that tends to be put dogmatically. I'd only caution you to keep things tight in that they agree with each other, whatever the sentence length.

As far as adverbs? For the most part, they didn't pull the attention away from story to themselves, and so I've no complaint against them.

Here, however -

“Newly-weds? Who ever heard of One dash Epsilon as a honeymoon spot?” Tom asked curiously.

...'curiously' stuck out, as it seemed softer than a scoffing remark. He is incredulous, yes? It may be me. But the dialogue in this case spoke for itself.

---

Your descriptions of the setting are lovely, involving - though they became vague on senses other than sight and hearing, I think. Still, that was withot a doubt, what engaged my attention most. If your characters become as vivid as the place [so far] by later chapters, you'll have something amazingly complete. I want to see the tension caught more firmly in/with the characters; and I think it will show through better with dialogue that comes to more of a point.

...And I'm doing this on the run, so I hope it's both helpful and lucid. Feel free to ask for clarification.


IMP