|
Fast crits are good crits in the Thunderdome and I am taking that mentality here. This reads like a bland documentary, but instead of Lemurs its about an alien. The prose is dry, it is devoid of imagery, tactile experiences, and we are never shown the protagonist's emotions (you tell us that it briefly panics). I do not know what it looks like, I am no closer to knowing why its cohorts are so violent (especially when it almost seems docile, other than eating its dead mom), or closer to any insight into... Anything. The story is pointless. You clearly like the idea, and it might be an incredible idea, but you go out of the way to avoid hooking a reader. With no picture of this thing, with no insight into its emotional state, and with such dry prose I'm not sure what there is that is supposed to keep the reader engaged. Why should I care that a momma-eating alien is gonna be blasted by its big brother or sister? Give me something. Even in documentaries about Lemurs, or Prairie Dogs, or whatever, they try to build a narrative that invests the viewers into the lives of the animals, they try and show us some of their character quirks, their foibles, and they've got something that you completely lack: visual data. I don't think you use one simile or metaphor in the entire story. Maybe they aren't needed, but I want to read some visual information. I want to have a picture in my head. You don't have to give any information about the land as I am capable of providing that, unless that information imparts a tone, which would be A++. One last thing, the information you do provide us is done in a boring manner. You give one line that implies that much of the information the protagonist gains is hard coded into its DNA, which is fine (though I want to be a sperglord about this), but then every time thereafter we are told information has "coalesced" into his mind. You are writing a story, you could represent this information in any manner that you like, it could be displayed to us in a visual way and maybe that would help this story some... Or not, just some other way, and after the first time or two you no longer need to explain this. You need to make the first line about the DNA-stuff more clear, setting up the idea in a precise way, so you can spare us the repetition of his revelations. I lied, I've got more. I am thinking about Arthur C. Clarke, who was not the world's greatest writer but was a fantastic sci-fi author. But even in his trope defying work Rendezvous with Rama we are given details about the lives of the crew, Clarke tries to get us invested into his characters, and then he goes about setting up situations where he knows that we, avid sci-fi readers, will expect terrible things to happen (but they never do in Rama) and he toys with us. He paints pictures. He elicits emotions (even if those emotions are fairly two dimensional). I get the sense you are a Clarke kind of guy, that the ideas of your work are more important than the characters, which is cool, but it doesn't mean you can completely abandon them. Finding a way, within the tone you want to write in, to convey information which will give the reader insight into the lives and the world of your characters is a challenge we all face. You've set yourself into a harder positions by, apparently, deciding to forego most, if not all, of this information due to your choice of tone or voice in your work. In other words you are making this harder on yourself. I hope I haven't been a dick. I am judging Thunderdome this week and I kind of wanted to get my "Judge Mode" on so I don't rate every story there are "Pretty good, guy!"  As a result I might come off as harsher than I intended. I also do not want you to take this and think you shouldn't keep on truckin', cause you should.So thank you for giving me the chance to provide a crit! I hope it helps some 
|
#
¿
Mar 5, 2016 18:59
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 17, 2024 02:20 |
|