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Jetpack
Review
Jetpack wrote a review · Mon Jul 12, 2010 7:29 pm

Hey, Faust. I think you and your MC were right; you told the story and I'm fairly sure I didn't understand. I'm also confused as to why this is sitting in Action/Adventure Fiction and not the sci-fi forum or even Other, as it seems better suited to the latter suggestions from this excerpt. At any rate, I'll comment on your use of language rather than the plotline.

Firstly, you should watch out for proof-reading errors and space your work out. With something as "heavy" as this in terms of content, you need all the space you can get so the reader isn't immediately lost trying to wade through to each paragraph. There are also a few occasions where you include random words that don't have any place in the sentence. You don't seem to have a solid grasp of commas, either, and on occasion include them where they are unnecessary and miss them out when they're sorely needed. For example:

The planet I speak of is, mostly invisible during the day


No comma here.

actually there are no words just feelings and sensations.


There should be a comma after "actually" and possibly an em dash after "words", because this sentence really needs breaking up.

I find that your vocabulary is verging on unnecessarily complex. You don't need to use the most complicated word you can think of just because of your MC's situation. The images and content is complex, but that doesn't mean you have to hit the thesaurus or avoid using basic words. Again, I'll give examples.

I have traversed there many of times


Well, there shouldn't be an "of" there in the first place, but "traversed" is the wrong word to use in this context. I get the feeling you were just looking for something a little more complicated than "travelled" and happened upon "traversed". In fact, "travelled" fits fine here and there's no point using a more elaborate word when it doesn't quite make sense.

For the third instance, I saw it again in 2010, and ever since.


The whole phrase "for the third instance" is incredibly awkward and again, doesn't quite make sense. The "ever since" on the end is also out of place and doesn't make complete sense when I read the rest of the sentence. Just like it does for proof-reading, reading aloud will really help you here. Awkwardness is often difficult to pick up in your own writing, but reading aloud and hearing the words spoken will force you to confront some of the trickier sentences here.

So much of this piece appears to be an exercise in how complicated you can make your piece and how difficult you can make it for the reader to pick up on anything you mean. That's particularly noticeable in the last couple of paragraphs, when the narrator describes transmuting. I mean, what made you use all of those words? What's the point in using them when the average reader doesn't necessarily even know what they mean? You, as the writer, are trying to convey a message to the reader. Why, then, deliberately try to confuse them?

You rely a lot on the reaction of your reader here, with your description of being free-flowing and your character's dreams to travel. I've come to that conclusion because you've used the second person in some cases, to involve your reader as much as possible. However, that can be patronising and quite condescending, especially when you're using deliberately scientific language and actually acknowledge that you know you're going to lose your reader. This one is probably the worst offender.

This is the interesting part: how I got there.


Don't tell your reader where the interesting part's going to be! Firstly, it should all be interesting if you've done your job right, and secondly, your writing should speak for itself. There shouldn't be these constant interruptions for rhetorical questions. It does read like a science report rather than a story - maybe that's what you intended, but people don't read fiction looking to read reports on experiments.

I'm not entirely sure why you go so far with the science, actually, when you have so much potential for emotional language here.

I mean, let's take the ending. There are a few sentences that take advantage of this new entity your character has become, such as this one:

Do you know what it feels like to be able to swim through rain clouds, burn the sun, and rip through the blue sky?


Notice the lack of complicated vocabulary here, and an address to the reader that doesn't feel patronising. However, for the most part, you're very static in your writing style. Your writing needs to reflect the freedom your character finds at the end of this excerpt. I don't know how you'd want to show that, but probably with some longer sentences, and a metaphor linked to a "free" substance such as water or air. Language is key here in evoking the right emotions from your reader, because if they don't understand the science, what else have they got to take away from your story?

You spend a lot of your writing "telling" us what's happening; like I said, it reads like a report rather than a story. There are a lot of similar sentences and you've divided it very clearly into part 1, part 2, part 3 and part 4, partly due to your spacing but also in terms of what you've decided to tell us. This doesn't help your flow and leaves your story too structured, without any freedom to develop. Again, towards the end your MC becomes something lost and free, so don't restrict your writing to short sentences. A good vocabulary does not equal a good use of vocabulary or a good description.

Your story is so "out there" in terms of what you're describing that you need to bring it back down to the reader's level, with some phrases that are easier to understand and a structure that allows them some leeway in understanding at all. I'm sorry if you feel I've misinterpreted your writing, and it's not that there's anything wrong with complication in writing; it's just that you need to know where it fits and where it's just confusing. You are writing with the intent of being read, after all.

I hope I haven't got the complete wrong end of the stick and this does help a bit. I'm not sure where you intended to post this, because it doesn't really fit here; is it a novel at all? I treated it as such, but if this is Other, I suppose my crit still applies.

- Jet.



I have my books and my poetry to protect me.
— Paul Simon