Young Writers Society

Another old peice of work....reading though them is like, wow....I thought that was good?


Modern Marco
When Marco Polo was six years old, His Father, Niccilo and his Uncle, Maffeo had lost contact and disappeared two days after leaving the earth on their spaceship “The Explorer”. Marco’s mother assumed that he would never come back, deserted poor Marco to go live with her boyfriend in France. Some good friends of Niccilo came all the way to Venice from their home in Finland to live with Marco, leaving him in good hands.
Marco grew up around the space stations-at first waiting for his father-but then he came just by his fascination of anything to do with rockets. He learned to launch and guide and handle the most complicated ships just by skipping school and hanging around the stations.
One day at his favorite spot he saw an unregistered ship blast in to the ocean nearby. It was oddly shaped and all crashed up and dented, like it had been in a car accident. It was minuets later that a man in the outfit worn by the employees told him that his father and Uncle had returned.
Later that night after a great spaghetti dinner his father, bathed and fed told him a fantastic story. “We blasted out of our dear earths orbit, and all was going quite well, until one of our many tracking started going haywire. It showed a rip in our galaxy, not accounted for on any of the maps we had been shown. The lights flickered, and our communication device and our camera went dead. We sat in the dark, feeling our rocket being pulled into the tare in our beloved galaxy.
“All of the sudden bright florescent lights flashed around us, nearly blinding me. But soon we saw well… I guess you could call it grass, although it is pure gold. Gold, silver, gems, crystals! On the houses, the peoples clothes, their primitive shelters. Everywhere, even in the weather! For when it snowed, great feathery crystals fell, and the light came from nowhere, it just shone gold dust! We met the people from this land (very strange, with writing of some sort covering where their mouths should be) with the one camera that we had that still worked (a crappy disposable one) I took a picture…Here it is:
Anyway, after a few repairs we managed to get the ship up and running. I hope I will never set eyes on that place again.
Well, after a few years Nicolo got arrested for keeping jewels in the house because, how on earth could an astronaut get wealth like that! No one believed his story, They laughed and said, ”Fine, if you got this wealth on a different planet then you can go back up there and bring us more. Then you won’t get arrested.”
This time Marco decided to go with them. Upon arriving they went to see the ruler. It was the custom to never look at the face of the ruler and Nicolo and Maffeo knew that. Marco didn’t, and because of his unceasing curiosity it wouldn’t have mattered because he would have looked anyway.
The “fofolito,” or king, was intrigued by this strange boy from another country. He made him his special messenger who would go back and forth between all the countries he ruled and bring back stories of their doings.
This went on for several years until the father and the uncle plucked up the courage to complain that they wanted to die back on their dear earth. The fofolito would not let them go. He needed his special messenger and was used to getting his own way.
Eventually Marco decided to say that he would escort the fofolito’s daughter to marry the fofolito of another planet. Of course, after escorting her to her destination he ran off and went back to earth. Upon their return home, no one believed them, but they thought they were great stories. A book was published and Marco became world famous. He never would admit that his stories were lies. His family begged him to admit it, at least for his soul’s sake, but he never would. The last words he ever spoke to his family—“Every word of it was true!”

Green = Comment/Correction
Blue = Suggestion
Black = Review

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Hello!

This is not historical fiction, it belongs in science fiction. Also, use spacing as this is all a solid block at the moment.

On to the critique:

When Marco Polo was six years old, His (‘his’ should not be capitalised) Father, Niccilo and his Uncle, Maffeo had lost contact and disappeared two days after leaving the earth on their spaceship “The Explorer”.

I thought you jumped into the story without any background to suggest that Marco’s father and uncle were astronauts. Plus it makes little sense. I have an example of improving the above:

When Marco Polo was six years old, his father—Niccilo—and uncle—Maffeo—launched into their spaceship The Explorer and left to search for (new planets/moons?). Two days later the men lost contact and seemed to have ‘disappeared’ into space.

It says, almost, the same thing and I’m sure you can do better than that.

Marco’s mother assumed that he would never come back, deserted poor Marco to go live with her boyfriend in France.

Another sentence that needs a little bit of help:

Marco’s mother, assuming her husband would never return, deserted her son to live with a boyfriend in France.

There are other sentences like this and you’ll find them when you re-read this.

I thought the story was rushed. You have an interesting idea here but because you ‘zoomed’ through it not much of your ideas were able to be explored. For example, Marco learned about ships but how was he able to skip school and why did the employees even let him into the station (how old was he then?).

Then there was the picture Marco’s father brought back. You didn’t even describe what was in it or Marco’s fascination (if he was) and why didn’t his father show the picture to other people? You could have had people saying it was a fake, this would make your story more realistic. Did Marco doubt his father’s story or was he overwhelmed to see him that he would believe anything? Was his mother even aware of her husband’s return?

You also missed out on the journey back to wherever Marco’s father had been. Did they go through a rift to another galaxy, etc? And why did Marco chose to leave that world if he was a king’s messenger and a liar on Earth?

Now you know what to think about when editing this story. Good luck!

-- Myth

Thanks for the tips!