Off-Topic Discussion > Arts & Talents

Short Story "Aftermath of Capella

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ShadowsOfLight:
Interesting concept - it definitely felt to me like you had a short campaign in mind. It sounds like you could keep it to a relatively small scale, so definitely worth a try!

Battuta raised some very good points about the usage of paragraphs, and it is very generous of The E to offer some detailed feedback. If you are looking to improve your skills, and are able to gracefully accept feedback, you should definitely take him up on it.

I would also encourage you to read something by a favorite author, and write some more of your own stuff in the midst of it - you will probably pick up on some techniques without even realizing it.

I look forward to your next short story!

Trivial Psychic:
Walls of text hurt my eyes.  Interesting otherwise.

Trivial Psychic:
Double-post.

Was there supposed to be anything behind the presence of the Centaur class?  The Minnow was an FS1 ship though its fate was not revealed.  I wondered if maybe there was supposed to some sort of time-travel aspect, but I guess not.

The E:
Okay, so since Urbana told me that they want some feedback, here is some.
I apologize in advance for any harshness.


--- Quote from: Urbana on February 09, 2021, 07:18:16 am ---Chapter 1: Awakening.

In the dimly lit and thunderous nebula of the destroyed star we come across a very damaged GTF Erinyes fighter as the pilot finally comes to. “Where am I?” he said. “What happened to me”. As the pilot focuses himself to the noise of all his instruments going haywire he suddenly realizing what had happened. “That’s right, we were fighting the shivans while helping a convoy leave the system then a bright flash of light hit me and I cant remember anything after that”. While getting the instruments under control and doing a sit-rep of the ship and situation the pilot says “Well I’m still alive for now, I cant believe I survived a super nova but I’m in bad shape and so is the ship. I see that the internal subsystems are repairing slowly but the weapons subsystem is destroyed so I will need a support ship to repair that, I just hope that the Shivans also didn’t make it out alive or I’m screwed.” But just as our pilot was getting a detailed analysis of the situation his radar had repaired to a point that he saw a blip on the radar and got worried straight away. “Oh god if that's a Shivan I’m space debris, maybe they will think im a wreck and leave me alone but I guess they aren't that stupid”. Then at the darkest moment to date the pilot hears crackling on the radio and immediately got scared but then calmed down to realize that its a GTVA distress beacon and immediately thought this could be of some help, as soon as engines were repaired to a point where he could at least move he made his way to the beacon point. The beacon was getting closer and the pilot immediately became more calmer as this could be someone else who also survived and was hoping it was a support or capital ship like a destroyer where he could land and get fixed up, but reality is a harsh mistress as it was just a fighter instead. The pilot flew over and once close enough tried to communicate with the damaged fighter. “This is Captain Bryce Madison with the 107th Raven squadron GTD Aquitaine, please identify yourself if you can”. For a short while Bryce only got static and then all of a sudden started to hear a voice and followed with “If you can hear me keep trying to get your communications going”. Then the voice became clear. “Hello this is ensign Louis Tucker of the 53Rd Hammerheads do you read me Captain?”. Bryce heard this and responded. “Ensign Tucker are you doing all right there, please report status of you and your ship”. Tucker then said. “Im a bit banged up but ill live sir and my fighter has seen better days but hanging on... oh my subsystems are all currently repairing at the moment so ill be ready to go soon after that”. When Bryce heard this he then asked Tucker. “how about your weapons subsystem are those still functional?”. Tucker responded with. “My weapons are at 32% efficiency at the moment, is that an issue at all Captain?”. Bryce then explained to Tucker that his weapons subsystem was destroyed and he would have to be the one to do the fighting if any Shivans showed up. “Think of me as an MVP that you have to guard with your life ensign, so do that until we can get out of the system. For now I’m going to re-calibrate my sensors to see if anyone else survived this mess and you should do so too”. Tucker did so and both fighters sensors were repaired and calibrated again they began scanning nearby for survivors and were both met with a green dot on the radar and both started moving towards it cautiously but now with more hope.
--- End quote ---

Let's talk about formatting.
Not in the sense of using paragraphs and line breaks to break up the flow, Battuta and others have already covered that, but in terms of which format you use to tell your story.
You've chosen to kinda-sorta adopt the format of a script for a cutscene or mission here. This isn't wrong, per se, but it does limit you a lot and makes some of the choices you've made in your introductory chapter unnecessarily awkward -- Plus, since you aren't following the formatting conventions of a traditional script, the whole story becomes very hard to read.

Most importantly however, it makes it very hard for your story to build engagement early on. Stories live and die by their openings; a good opening can carry a story a long way.
Let me illustrate:


--- Quote from: Urbana on February 09, 2021, 07:18:16 am ---In the dimly lit and thunderous nebula of the destroyed star we come across a very damaged GTF Erinyes fighter as the pilot finally comes to.
--- End quote ---

This sentence is an awkward synthesis of two dissimilar storytelling formats. The "we" implies the existence of an observer -- in a traditional script, this is usually read as stage direction for camera movements -- but in a short story like this, "we" implies a presence within the story itself.
A rewrite of this sentence in a more traditional "story" mode could look like this:

--- Quote ---Lightning courses through the Nebula, the stellar remnant reacting to residual energies of its own creation. In this primordial soup that once was a star, an Erinyes-class starfighter drifts; its hull damaged, its systems flickering on and off as self-repair routines try their best to restore functionality, alerts clamoring for the pilot's attention as he regains consciousness.
--- End quote ---
Now, what's the difference here? This is pretty much the same as you had written, right, so what's the deal?
The main difference is that, in a script, it is perfectly acceptable to grab the imaginary camera and point them where you need it to point. It's stage direction, it's an instruction to the director and camera operator. In a short story however, I think it's more rewarding if you as the storyteller act in much the same way as a tourist guide would conduct a tour: You point out sights and sounds of interest, and if the reader is interested in what you have to tell, they'll let their imagination generate the imagery for them.
What this also lets you do is inject flavour into your descriptions and scene setting: Note how I made reference to the the nebula being alive with the energy of its own creation? This primes the reader for the revelation we'll come across later. Also note how I made reference to what the fighter is doing on its own: This lets the reader imagine what the scene looks like, regardless of whether or not they know what an Erinyes is or what damage lightning effects in FS look like.

Let's move on.


--- Quote ---“Where am I?” he said. “What happened to me”. As the pilot focuses himself to the noise of all his instruments going haywire he suddenly realizing what had happened. “That’s right, we were fighting the shivans while helping a convoy leave the system then a bright flash of light hit me and I cant remember anything after that”.
--- End quote ---

This next pair of sentences is one of those awkward choices you're being forced into because you're writing this as a script. In a script, people talk to themselves a lot -- Having a character talk through their plans and actions is an easy, if lazy, way to communicate things to a viewer. More importantly for a scriptwriter, it allows the viewer to not pay attention to the screen and still get what's going on: TV writing, at least some of it, is done with the assumption that the viewer won't give the screen their full attention, and not losing the viewer is more important than doing a realistic depiction of whatever it is the character is doing (If you're watching The Expanse, the latter part of its most recent season features one character all alone on a starship -- and it's all done without any dialogue whatsoever. The actress is trusted to express everything physically - and as a result, a lot of inattentive viewers were confused as to what was going on, because they weren't being hand-held through the process).
When you're writing a story, however, you have other options: You can peer into a character's head and tell us what they're thinking. The character doesn't have to talk to themselves; This also allows you to tell us what the character is feeling in the moment.
In this instance, for example, you could use these sentences to describe what the pilot is doing and feeling: The confusion and dizziness, the retreat into the checklists and rituals of getting the fighter back online that he uses to focus himself, the checking of mission logs to jumpstart the memory, things like that.


--- Quote ---But just as our pilot was getting a detailed analysis of the situation his radar had repaired to a point that he saw a blip on the radar and got worried straight away. “Oh god if that's a Shivan I’m space debris, maybe they will think im a wreck and leave me alone but I guess they aren't that stupid”. Then at the darkest moment to date the pilot hears crackling on the radio and immediately got scared but then calmed down to realize that its a GTVA distress beacon and immediately thought this could be of some help, as soon as engines were repaired to a point where he could at least move he made his way to the beacon point.
--- End quote ---

These sentences are a mess. Let's take a closer look at some of this:
You start a sentence of with "Then at the darkest moment to date....". Okay, this makes me as a reader perk up and pay attention. Something's obviously happening now!
It continues: "the pilot hears crackling on the radio and immediately got scared" There's still tension building up I wonder where this is leading.
It ends: "but then calmed down to realize that its a GTVA distress beacon and immediately thought this could be of some help, as soon as engines were repaired to a point where he could at least move he made his way to the beacon point." Oh. Hmm. Okay, not where I thought this was going.

Let's attempt a rewrite! The scene is set. We know the pilot has taken care of any immediate crisis and is just managing the fighter's repair or whatever.
But then:
"The Pilot spends a few minutes to bring the fighter back under control and direct its repairs. The Radar comes back online, but any feeling of elation the pilot might have had turns to ash as his sensors report a contact, close. If that's a surviving shivan, the Pilot thinks, I'm toast -- But as the sensors gather more information and put a friendly marker on the target identifying it as a standard distress beacon, he relaxes again. He immediately redirects some of the fighter's ressources to repairing its engines -- Whatever's at that beacon is going to be helpful, and it beats being alone out here."
What does this do? For one, by moving the dialogue internally and making it part of the narration, I've removed a break in the story's flow. It puts more emphasis on the action that's happening and the pilot's reaction to it; this, again, makes it easier for a reader to follow along and let their imagination play out.

I think that'll do it for this first post (it's already quite long), but there will be others.

Urbana:

--- Quote from: Trivial Psychic on February 12, 2021, 06:48:50 pm ---Double-post.

Was there supposed to be anything behind the presence of the Centaur class?  The Minnow was an FS1 ship though its fate was not revealed.  I wondered if maybe there was supposed to some sort of time-travel aspect, but I guess not.

--- End quote ---

The main reason is simple actually the centaur class support ship was shielded but the newer hygeia class wasn't, i went with that cause at least shields would have helped it survive the explosion a bit

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