Please critique my story, MARK 2!

[Saruke]

Here's the heavily revised draft of my previous post. It's essentially a different story now.


The Argo was never meant to be a military vessel. It’s first purpose was to be a luxury liner for some rich coreworlder, but the galaxy is a harsh place.
You could still see the original silver hull plating if you looked hard enough. Peeking out from under the bleak grey of the Ceristeel armor plating and EM shielding, it served to make the ship look all the more out of place. It’s feeble offensive systems were torn out and replaced by a fully loaded weapons compliment enabling her to hold her own against all but the most fearsome opponents.

She was the deadliest ship in the entire galaxy, or at least that was what Rivas told people anyway. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn’t. The reality was that spaceships had become an oddity, nothing more than antique relics of a greater age. Even the most populous worlds never saw more than a handful of ships in a year, so consequently jobs were always hard to come by, even if you knew where to look.

Rivas gave a dry chuckle, as The Argo’s Captain, Rivas had been to hundreds of worlds and everywhere he saw the same thing, people, giving up, retreating back into the caves of their ancestors, civilization was now a stagnant pool of water.

And nowhere was it putrid than Mordus. A den full of the vilest and wretched scum you’d ever find. But it was one of the few places left in the galaxy where Rivas might find someone willing to commission him and his crew.

“Hey Cap, We’re sitting on our asses here! You gonna give the go or what?”

Rivas was broken from his thoughts to see Laertes grinning wryly at having caught his captain off guard.

Rivas cleared his throat and managed stern look to mask his embarrassment, “Affirmative, begin landing sequence for Dirge.”

Laertes, The Argo’s navigator, gave a broad smile and swung his chair back to the helm. One of the few humans in the crew, he was barely out of his teens but had proven to be a more then capable navigator and pilot for The Argo in the time since he’d been aboard.

Unfortunately for the crew, Laertes natural skill gave him one hell of an attitude, “Okie dokie we’re rockin’ and rollin’ down the shock chock, fasten your seatbelts people, it’s about to get hot!”

The Argo’s engines kicked in hard, acceleration pressing Rivas into the back of his chair. The muddy brown of Mordus blotting out the stars as they burned towards it’s surface, the ships artificial gravity beginning to fight with the natural gravity of the planet, churning his stomach unpleasantly. The Argo’s hull began to glow with the heat of re-entry, a faint red tingeing the hull which grew steadily as they fell towards the planet until the red glow had become a roaring ball of fire engulfing the ship.

Rivas had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard above the roar, “Brer! Deploy the air brake! Now!”

Rivas’ command was greeted by a devilish grin from Brer, “Aww Cap it was just getting fun.”

Rivas’ temper flared, “Now Brer!”

Brer seemed to hesitate for a moment a small smile still flickering on his lips but after a few moments he gave a little shrug and deployed the air brake.
The air rushed out of Rivas' lungs with the force of the deceleration. The G-force alone threatened to crush his bones and turn his brain to jelly.
But something was wrong, the Argo bucked and shuddered as Brer grappled with the helm, trying to assume a stable descent.

"Rivas had to shout to be heard through the noise, “Brer what’s going on? We’re falling too fast!”

Cliffhanger's a bitch eh?

 

[Dan]

edited for grammar:

The Argo was never meant to be a military vessel. Its first purpose was to be a luxury liner for some rich coreworlder, but the galaxy is a harsh place.
You could still see the original silver hull plating if you looked hard enough. Peeking out from under the bleak grey of the Ceristeel armor plating and EM shielding, it served to make the ship look all the more out of place. Its feeble offensive systems had been torn out and replaced by a fully loaded weapons compliment, enabling her to hold her own against all but the most fearsome opponents.

She was the deadliest ship in the entire galaxy, or at least that was what Rivas told people anyway. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn't. The reality was that spaceships had become an oddity, nothing more than antique relics of a greater age. Even the most populous worlds never saw more than a handful of ships in a year ; so consequently jobs were always hard to come by, even if you knew where to look.

Rivas gave a dry chuckle. As the Argo's captain, Rivas had been to hundreds of worlds, and everywhere he saw the same thing: people, giving up, retreating back into the caves of their ancestors. Civilization was now a stagnant pool of water.

(why is this a new paragraph?)
And nowhere was it more putrid than Mordus, a den full of the vilest and most wretched scum you'd ever find. But it was one of the few places left in the galaxy where Rivas might find someone willing to commission him and his crew.

"Hey cap, we're sitting on our asses here! You gonna give the go or what?"

Rivas was broken from his thoughts to see Laertes grinning wryly at having caught his captain off guard.

Rivas cleared his throat and managed a stern look to mask his embarrassment, "Affirmative, begin landing sequence for Dirge."

Laertes, the Argo's navigator, gave a broad smile and swung his chair back to the helm. One of the few humans in the crew, he was barely out of his teens but had proven to be a more than capable navigator and pilot for the Argo in the time since he'd been aboard.

Unfortunately for the crew, Laertes natural skill gave him one hell of an attitude, "Okie dokie we're rockin' and rollin' down the shock chock. Fasten your seatbelts people; it's about to get hot!"

The Argo's engines kicked in hard, acceleration pressing Rivas into the back of his chair. The muddy brown of Mordus blotting out the stars as they burned towards its surface, the ships artificial gravity beginning to fight with the natural gravity of the planet, churning his stomach unpleasantly (this sentence has no subject). The Argo's hull began to glow with the heat of re-entry, a faint red tingeing the hull which grew steadily as they fell towards the planet until the red glow had become a roaring ball of fire engulfing the ship (you are mixing tenses in this sentence).

Rivas had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard above the roar, "Brer! Deploy the air brake! Now!"

Rivas' command was greeted by a devilish grin from Brer, "Aww Cap it was just getting fun."

Rivas' temper flared, "Now Brer!"

Brer seemed to hesitate for a moment, a small smile still flickering on his lips, but after a few moments he gave a little shrug and deployed the air brake.
The air rushed out of his (should this pronoun be referring to Brer?) lungs with the force of the deceleration. The G-force alone threatened to crush his bones and turn his brain to jelly.
But something was wrong; the Argo bucked and shuddered as Brer grappled with the helm, trying to assume a stable descent.

Rivas had to shout to be heard through the noise, "Brer what's going on? We're falling too fast!"

Your use of punctuation before quotes isn't the accepted norm. Commas are only normally used when the sentence is something like, Rivas said, "blah blah blah". But if the introductory phrase is an independent clause, you usually use a colon. Your tense changes frequently, and you need to differentiate its and it's. Your use of pronouns is also kind of sloppy; it is not always clear who or what the pronoun represents. As an example, you refer to the ship and the Ceristeel plating both as it without redirecting the pronoun. You also call the ship an it, but also a she later on.

 

[Saruke]

I have microsoft word 2007 and it doesn't correct me but I'll take your word for it.

 

[Pesmerga]

The Argo was never meant to be a military vessel. Its first purpose was to be a luxury liner for some rich coreworlder, but the galaxy is a harsh place.

What exactly about the galaxy's harshness changed the luxury liner to a military vessel? Was there a war? Was the galaxy once peaceful? It stands to reason that something very sudden happened- advancements in technology would quickly make the luxury liner a poor choice for a ship of war.

You could still see the original silver hull plating if you looked hard enough.

Looked hard enough? If one squints at the ship from a planet are they likely to see the original silver hull plating? From what perspective or reference point are we looking at the ship from?

Peeking out from under the bleak grey of the Ceristeel armor plating and EM shielding, it served to make the ship look all the more out of place. Its feeble offensive systems were torn out and replaced by a fully loaded weapons compliment enabling her to hold her own against all but the most fearsome opponents.

Compliment is a strange word to use here. Also "all but the most fearsome opponents" makes it sound like the ship is participating in an arena tournament.

She was the deadliest ship in the entire galaxy, or at least that was what Rivas told people anyway. Sometimes they listened, sometimes they didn?t. The reality was that spaceships had become an oddity, nothing more than antique relics of a greater age. Even the most populated worlds never saw more than a handful of ships in a year, so consequently jobs were always hard to come by, even if you knew where to look.

Strange- in a futuristic galaxy with dozens of inhabited planets, spaceships have become antique? Wasn't Rivas's ship once a luxury liner? Do they make luxury liner for unpopular modes of travel? How else do people get around? Needs some major explaining.

Rivas gave a dry chuckle. As the captain of the Argos, Rivas had been to hundreds of worlds and everywhere he saw the same thing: people giving up, retreating back into the caves of their ancestors. Civilization was now a stagnant pool of water.

What's a dry chuckle? Are there wet chuckles? Civilization depicted as a stagnant pool of water is a decent analogy.

And nowhere was it more putrid than Mordus. It was a den full of vile and wretched scum, but it was one of the few places left in the galaxy where Rivas might find someone willing to commission him and his crew.

"Hey Cap, we're sitting on our asses here! You gonna give the go or what??"

Rivas was broken from his thoughts to see Laertes grinning wryly at having caught the captain off guard.

Rivas cleared his throat and managed a stern look to mask his embarrassment, "Affirmative, begin landing sequence for Dirge."

Affirmative? This ain't no ****ing government ship, it's a backwater pirate boat. Give it some damn tone.

Laertes, the Argos navigator, gave a broad smile and swung his chair back to the helm. One of the few humans in the crew, he was barely out of his teens but had proven to be a more then capable navigator and pilot for The Argo in the time since he?d been aboard

Is the ship called the Argos or the Argo? I can't tell which one it is anymore.

Unfortunately for the crew, Laertes natural skill gave him one hell of an attitude, ?Okie dokie we?re rockin? and rollin? down the shock chock, fasten your seatbelts people, it?s about to get hot!?

The Argo?s engines kicked in hard, acceleration pressing Rivas into the back of his chair. The muddy brown of Mordus blotting out the stars as they burned towards its surface, the ships artificial gravity beginning to fight with the natural gravity of the planet, churning his stomach unpleasantly. The Argo?s hull began to glow with the heat of re-entry, a faint red tingeing the hull which grew steadily as they fell towards the planet until the red glow had become a roaring ball of fire engulfing the ship.

Rivas had to shout at the top of his lungs to be heard above the roar, ?Brer! Deploy the air brake! Now!?

Riva's command was greeted by a devilish grin from Brer, "Aww Cap it was just getting fun."

Riva's temper flared, "Now Brer!"

Brer seemed to hesitate for a moment a small smile still flickering on his lips but after a few moments he gave a little shrug and deployed the air brake.
The air rushed out of Rivas' lungs with the force of the deceleration. The G-force alone threatened to crush his bones and turn his brain to jelly.
But something was wrong, the Argo bucked and shuddered as Brer grappled with the helm, trying to assume a stable descent.

Rivas had to shout to be heard through the noise, ?Brer what?s going on? We?re falling too fast!?

All in all, it's better. You need to add some tone to your writing, otherwise I'd say it's not bad. The direction is definitely solid, I had a clear idea of what was going on because you stayed on topic and didn't go off gallivanting about one idea or another. Avoid cliches like "the galaxy is a harsh place" and give me something more intelligent.

You can mostly ignore technical form and instead focus on just getting more content out. Also, it just needs to be more interesting. I've heard the gritty space pirate story before, I need some reason to continue reading.

 

[Dan]

I disagree with most of Persmega's criticisms/comments.

 

[Pesmerga]

Really? It's really nice to see what exactly you disagree with. You're so very helpful. Surely sometime soon you can vaguely address your critique with what I'm wearing while not being overly specific about what exactly it is you don't like. Or maybe you're simply too busy confusing Saruke with redundant and obnoxious terms, advice which has zero impact on his actual story telling.

Also, it's Pesmerga. Also, for being such a grammar nazi, you missed a shit load of mistakes.

Just please buy

Both of you.

 

[Dan]

Really? It's really nice to see what exactly you disagree with. You're so very helpful. Surely sometime soon you can vaguely address your critique with what I'm wearing while not being overly specific about what exactly it is you don't like. Or maybe you're simply too busy confusing Saruke with redundant and obnoxious terms, advice which has zero impact on his actual story telling.

First off, correct grammar is essential for any writer. There is such a thing as artistic license, where the writer knows the rules of grammar but choses not to follow them to achieve a certain effect, but it is clear that most of corrections I made to Saruke's work were not matters of artistic license.

Secondly, these were the comments that you made which I did not agree with:

What exactly about the galaxy's harshness changed the luxury liner to a military vessel? Was there a war? Was the galaxy once peaceful? It stands to reason that something very sudden happened- advancements in technology would quickly make the luxury liner a poor choice for a ship of war.

I don't think that it is necessary for the story to answer all of those questions right off the bat. It is often better to hint at the setting of the story, rather than stating it in plain words. It lets the reader indulge their imagination, and makes them wonder about those questions.

Looked hard enough? If one squints at the ship from a planet are they likely to see the original silver hull plating? From what perspective or reference point are we looking at the ship from?

I don't think that it is necessary to state what perspective the phrase refers to. I found that the imagery worked as he intended, and I think that most of the general readers would form a similar image.

Compliment is a strange word to use here. Also "all but the most fearsome opponents" makes it sound like the ship is participating in an arena tournament.

Subtly implying analogies is a very effective tool for creating atmosphere. It is not necessarily a bad thing to suggest that this ship is like a fighter in a fantastic tournament.

Strange- in a futuristic galaxy with dozens of inhabited planets, spaceships have become antique? Wasn't Rivas's ship once a luxury liner? Do they make luxury liner for unpopular modes of travel? How else do people get around? Needs some major explaining.

The story already implied that the galactic economy is on a collapse, and the resources for maintaining luxery liners no longer exists. I disagree with more explanation being needed.

What's a dry chuckle? Are there wet chuckles?

A dry chuckle is a common phrase. It refers to a raspy voice, like someone with a dry throat might have. It also implies age and seriousness. A quick check of Google Books brings up 661 published examples of this term.

Civilization depicted as a stagnant pool of water is a decent analogy.

I think that the word water is superfluous. Saying stagnant pool would convey the same meaning. Better yet, cesspool contains all the meaning of those four words in a single word.

Is the ship called the Argos or the Argo? I can't tell which one it is anymore.

The ship is called the Argo.

All in all, it's better. You need to add some tone to your writing, otherwise I'd say it's not bad. The direction is definitely solid, I had a clear idea of what was going on because you stayed on topic and didn't go off gallivanting about one idea or another. Avoid cliches like "the galaxy is a harsh place" and give me something more intelligent.

I think that the general direction as a whole is very cliche. I would suggest a topic more relevant to your life.

P.S. I'm sorry if correcting Saruke's grammar offended you. He posted his story asking for critiques, and I assumed that grammar was an essential part of writing, so I offered him the most basic of critiques to begin with. Please tell me where you think I went wrong here.

P.P.S Why did you just recommend Saruke a book of what you just called "redundant and obnoxious terms" which confuse him and have "zero impact on his actual storytelling"?

 

[Pesmerga]

First off, correct grammar is essential for any writer. There is such a thing as artistic license, where the writer knows the rules of grammar but choses not to follow them to achieve a certain effect, but it is clear that most of corrections I made to Saruke's work were not matters of artistic license.

I didn't mean to imply grammar wasn't important, just not paramount for first time writing. Any B- college student can edit a paper.

I don't think that it is necessary for the story to answer all of those questions right off the bat. It is often better to hint at the setting of the story, rather than stating it in plain words. It lets the reader indulge their imagination, and makes them wonder about those questions.

He uses a poor selection of words. "...,but the galaxy is a harsh place" doesn't "hint" at anything, especially it being attached on the end of a sentence as some sort of qualifier. Maybe if he separated it and put it on the end of a paragraph in its own sentence it would achieve the sort of dramatic exposition he was looking for.

I don't think that it is necessary to state what perspective the phrase refers to. I found that the imagery worked as he intended, and I think that most of the general readers would form a similar image.

Obviously he gets the idea across, but it's rather boring. When I read it, I saw someone peering very closely at the ship while it drifted in space, as if though it had some grand significance. Again a poor selection of words makes the whole sentence a crappy one as it distracts and otherwise confuses the reader.

Subtly implying analogies is a very effective tool for creating atmosphere. It is not necessarily a bad thing to suggest that this ship is like a fighter in a fantastic tournament.

If you're going to go that route, than you might as well say it like you just did. I automatically related "fearsome opponents" as a terrible video game cliche or something you'd hear while watching Dragonball Z.

The story already implied that the galactic economy is on a collapse, and the resources for maintaining luxery liners no longer exists. I disagree with more explanation being needed.

Luxury liners, maybe, but transports and cargo ships? Surely if our dear Rivas is taking up jobs, and infact the very idea of galactic travel has become academic, then even the most populated worlds in the system would receive more than "a handful" of ships every cycle of the seasons. There is massive amounts of money to be made in transporting crew and materials between worlds. It doesn't make sense for the Argos to be one of a tiny amount of ships, considering he's just there to do some rim world jobs.

I think that the word water is superfluous. Saying stagnant pool would convey the same meaning. Better yet, cesspool contains all the meaning of those four words in a single word.

Fair enough.

I think that the general direction as a whole is very cliche. I would suggest a topic more relevant to your life.

The thread isn't about what he should write about. If it was I could go on and on about how he should write about something he personally knows a lot about.

P.P.S Why did you just recommend Saruke a book of what you just called "redundant and obnoxious terms" which confuse him and have "zero impact on his actual storytelling"?

Because it eliminates both the need for Saruke to "take your word for it" and a slew of other self-righteous posts correcting his obvious failure as an editor.

 

[Saruke]

I feel I should chime in here to clear up some issues.

grammar is something I can fix on my own but what I want from you guys is fresh eye to look at the story elements and help me improve upon it.

As for the objection that I'm not giving you enough backstory I completely dismiss those comments because I'm not writing a history book, I'm writing a fictional story and explaining everything all at once would make it boring.

I would rather not spoil the plot line but if you want me to give you a brief description for each character I'd be willing to put my thoughts about them to paper.

P.S. The ship's name is The Argo, any place where it says Argos is where I forgot to put a '

P.P.S. I use the phrase opponent because in this universe there are so little spaceships that it would be exceedingly rare for a fight to ever be more than one on one.

 

[Pesmerga]

Opponent works, Saruke, it just doesn't work well.

Most of my complaints stem from poor vocabulary and poor word choice. Again, I'm confused how a once great civilization composed of a multitude of different intelligent species somehow was entirely depleted of the vast majority of their spaceships. I mean, come on, what's up here? It doesn't make sense. I shouldn't have to read something confusing and then later become informed about it.

P.P.S. I use the phrase opponent because in this universe there are so little spaceships that it would be exceedingly rare for a fight to ever be more than one on one.

From this sentence alone I can spot all the obviously horrendous word choices. It should read something like this...

"I use the term (phrase usually comprised of multiple words) opponent because, in this universe, there are so few spaceships that it is extremely (pick adjective of choice here- exceedingly means "beyond necessary" which doesn't make sense in this context) rare for a fight ever to be more than a one on one"

 

[Saruke]

But remember I'm telling it from the point of view of Rivas and I have to stay in character. And there's always the chance that he doesn't know.

He's not omniscient and I can't allow him to know things he shouldn't.

 

[Pesmerga]

Your story is very blatantly third person limited.

She was the deadliest ship in the entire galaxy, or at least that was what Rivas told people anyway

Rivas gave a dry chuckle, as The Argo’s Captain, Rivas had been to hundreds of worlds and everywhere he saw the same thing...

Rivas had to shout to be heard through the noise

There are things you need to fix and defending what you've written it isn't really helping you write better.

 

[Saruke]

I agree with you and hope you will continue to give me such valuable insights.

(You really have helped me alot even though you do it without much tact )

 

[Laivasse]

Before I dive into reading the quote wars, isn't 'so consequently' a tautology? I also believe you want to use 'complement' of weapons, not compliment.

Edit: after catching up on the thread I'd say I agree generally with Dan's critiques, but both and disagree with some of Pez's.

Your subject matter is somewhat cliched and generic, but if that's your chosen direction and it's what you enjoy writing then you should persevere with it. The problem atm lies mostly with the lack of grammatical polish, redundancies, etc. which make the story appear even more amateurish than the derivative subject matter would on its own. There are many things that MS Word won't fix for you and I think you need to focus more on this.

On the whole I'd say that I don't agree with Pez's calls for further exposition in the opening section describing the ship and whatnot. There are a few places where you could perhaps make a better choice of words, but the difference is marginal and in any case you'll find that happening naturally as you mature as a writer and your vocabulary increases.

Where I do think you need a little more exposition, however, is the part where the characters enter. What is Dirge? Who is Brer?? This all depends to an extent on how long you intend this story to be. The backdrop of the story can be revealed slowly as it progresses, but if you're not writing an entire novel then you can't really afford to go for long without delineating many of the other elements you're introducing.

I think your dialogue is also a touch too cliche. Again, this is something that will improve with experience, but if you can work to make the characters say something other than the obvious, or to mention details that would bring more depth to the world, improve suspension of disbelief, etc., then all the better.