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REVIEWING DJESER'S PIECEDjeser posted:If anyone wants to read over my old gamerdome entry, that'd be great. I'm trying to get the hang of sincere-yet-pulpy action stuff. When I read this piece, I realized I had read it three times. The first time I read it, I let myself wonder if it could have been a real, non-future person living in a dream world, telling a story he lived through one of his characters. It felt as though the narrator had just finished a particularly tricky Bioware game sequence; it could have been revealed to take place in a relatively straightforward part of the world I'm used to and I would have been okay, but no, you had to drag my concept of video games out into a more suspended disbelief. My second time through I had to think about the last time I skimmed through the final few chapters of Ender's Game. The space ship battle whips into gear immediately, the narrator's confidence in Mike never sways, and they elegantly outmanoeuvre some pretty stacked odds. Like the buggers in Ender's Game, the antagonistic Xenogons succumb to their own design; apparently the narrator is worth much more to them alive than dead, and fortunately they haven't invented a handheld Mem-o-drain! Finally, I had to try to answer questions that had crept up. I read it a third time because I wanted to know who the narrator is; it seemed like perhaps I had missed his name somewhere but that added a bit to the unreliability of the narrator, maybe it was left out because he's just not so sure what it is anymore? Djeser posted:"GO!" we shouted together. This bit was both the most solid piece and also the flimsiest for me in this narrative. It does show their bond, and it illustrates how in tune they will be for the battle. I wanted to know, 'is mike a clone yet?' If he is a clone at this point, then that means Clint may or may not actually be out an airlock. If he isn't a clone, then the part where the narrator is rocked unconscious had to be the only opportunity for the Xenogons to make the switch. Are the Xenogons so willing to shoot down their own fighters and fighter pilots to protect one deep cover spy, and are they out to get the narrator specifically? Or are they really quick at swapping into bodies, and only one could make it onto the ship after the battle? The protagonist's internal, emotional distinction between nerd and non-nerd becomes a critical asset, and that's why it's so important to the story - - Mike has to be a goddamn nerd right up until the end, or else he can't be a goddamn nerd at all in the narration's frame of reference. The Good Djeser posted:The ion blasters rocked our ship hard, jostling both of us against our seats. Having them on our ship was like having a cannon on a canoe, but nothing could compare to the blistering green-blue explosion puffing like radioactive popcorn in front of us. The Bad Djeser posted:Mike had his space boots up on the console when I came in. He had Football in his hands, and it bleeped out a rhythm to the swirling nebula right outside the viewport. The Ugly Djeser posted:I shoved my blaster pistol into his temple. "If you were the real Mike, you'd still be pissed off." With a fresh rewrite addressing everything I mentioned, I would definitely come back and read this at least a fourth time. --------- ---------- STOP REVIEWING DJESER'S PIECE Working on expanding my ability to describe physical attributes, would especially love some good pointers on how to show the reader what people look like. After you read the piece, the scar patterns on Dr. Hander's face look like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOtgPZE2lkI in my head, except more geometrical, spirally, and angular. If there is anything i could do to rework his entire description please give me some suggestions! I did my best to preserve the italics exactly as they are in my document but if you have any suggestions on proper italics theory let me know too! --------- ---------- It seemed like the world had turned upside down since Dr. Silja finished her work with the University. Her interests in anaerobic biological processes had earned her a degree and landed her a position with one of the world’s largest research firms. The man standing with her in the elevator had introduced himself as Taga. He kept a bushy white beard trimmed sharp, and the rest of his hair tucked into an immaculate white headwrap. His garb was flowing, almost robe like, and he almost seemed as a holy man rather than a glorified corporate concierge. “You know,” he began, “you have been hand-picked to fill some extremely large shoes.” “I was suspecting it was actually a roulette wheel.” She glanced over at the screen by the door, Shouldn’t be much further now. Just how far underground does this go? “I can assure you, the process was far from pure chance.” He turned his head to look down on her, otherwise his body remained motionless. “I’ve been told, without your particular set of skills, that this company faces an extremely difficult future.” He smiled politely, the dark bags under his eyes betraying the pessimism in his statement. She hadn’t even been through an interview; the hiring process must have boiled down to scraping aggregate data and a stack of papers that all asked her the same question, ‘Can you keep a secret?’ The elevator came smoothly to a halt, and a ping! called Dr. Silja’s attention to the door shifting open. She looked up, and as if he had it timed by heart, Taga had already strode through and was making his way down a sleek, sterile, blue hallway. “You will find Dr. Hander in the lounge,” he called over his shoulder, “just take the first left! You’ll see it!” He took a right, and for the first time since she got off the plane this morning, Dr. Silja was by herself. Standing in front of the door to the lounge, she hesitated. Once she was involved in something, it was easy to forget everything. Uninvolved, an outsider, she could pause and reflect momentarily. Her mother had died earlier that year. Her father was consumed by his own work, a level of obsession Dr. Silja noted in herself. It was definitely hereditary, she had at one point concluded, and it was useless to defy your genetics. Of course, the news of her mother’s death was incredibly distressing, as it caught her between jobs. Once I open that door, she mused to herself, when will i... ‘Entry Granted!’ flashed across the panel in happy green lettering, and the door retracted into the wall without a sound. The smell of sauteed vegetables overwhelmed her senses as she stepped inside. Plush dark green carpet and hanging lights strung from the ceiling evoked sensations in Dr. Silja of a generation she was too young to remember.Three scientists were sitting around a small wooden table, the two male scientists were discussing something intently while the female laughed at their exchange. They were all dressed in a white, short-sleeved uniform. A fourth walked into the room from the kitchen area, across from where Dr. Silja entered. His face was heavily scarred, the left half unrecognizable from the right along with the entirety of his scalp. Dr. Silja never encountered scarring like this, they weren’t burns, or cuts, or like any kind of surgical procedure she had seen. Dull pink tissue zig zagged like tiny lightning bolts; like fractal patterns, they extended and branched out from a narrow area on his neck concealed by his shirt, reaching around his skull and stopping just behind his one remaining ear. The skin around the scars was raised, giving his profile a strange, grooved appearance. “You should see the other guy,” the paralysis in the corner of his mouth made his grin seem more sinister than he realized. Someone in the room made a tuh sound. Dr. Silja swiftly regained composure, “No, I’m not…” she stammered, “I’m excited to be here, Dr. Hander, this is my - -” “We’re the one’s who are embarrassed,” Dr. Hander interrupted, “Taga really isn’t the best day planner, the professional thing to do would have been at least give me ten minutes so I can show you around without my mouth full.” He took the last seat at the table with his colleagues. “You forget to eat sometimes in this environment, so I trust you’ve been around long enough to know how important a good scheduled lunch is.” A flatscreen above the small fireplace in the corner was on the news channel, a scene of bloody violence playing out in some crowded urban street. Dr. Silja took a seat at an adjacent table, her legs stiff from flying all night. One by one, each of the scientists finished their respective part of the conversation, got up with their plate and gave a curt nod to Dr. Silja on their way out. Dr. Hander methodically took his last bite, scooted his chair back, and stood up. “So!” he said, “this is the part I’ve been waiting for, the tour - -” he waved a hand in an exaggerated spiral “of your brand new home!” Chafey fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Jun 9, 2015 |
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Jun 6, 2015 03:56
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