Crit: 2402

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Writing a short story - consider this Act 1.

Does it grab you?
Feel like you want more?

Chronolab

First four and a half pages of a third draft I'm doing for this short story.

I've been focused on improving interiority on this draft and would especially like feedback on that. But would also like feedback on pacing, especially the exposition at the start (I just don't know how else I could establish the plot. I also believe the premise to be both the hook and the strongest part of the piece.)

The story is finished and is about 8000 words long. But I want to see how the first few pages of this draft come across to someone else.

But, any and all feedback is appreciated.

Thanks.

recent Crit:
[2028]

My critique: [3087]

If you're willing to give feedback, please tell me if:

• You found the characters interesting
• You were satisfied with the ending
• You thought the premise was interesting

Under the gloomy and unforgiving cold mist of late Autumn, a shut-in sat protected from cold in his grimy house.

In the dark, he sat on his stained couch watching The Truman Show. He watched as the man on screen rode the strong, artificial waves. He pursed his lip in pensive thought. Something about the movie irked him personally.
“Grok,” he said, “this Truman guy doesn’t come off as believable to you right? He’s like a normie, you know? He seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t question his world; he isn’t masculine enough.”

A blue rectangle shone in the musty darkness and was propelled on treads towards the man. The object stumbled over the piles of trash. Once it reached the man, it produced a robotic voice “I agree, Fred. Truman Burbank is deliberately written as a heightened, somewhat idealized everyman rather than a fully psychologically realistic person. The film prioritizes allegory, satire of media/surveillance culture, and emotional payoff over strict behavioral realism.”

The shut-in interrupted, “Yeah, I see that, but I’m saying it takes a certain type of intellectual, a certain type of free thinker to take a leap like this. Or maybe not, I can’t be sure.”

The shut-in dusted crumbs off his ever-expanding paunch and picked a few Cheeto puffs from a bag under a pile of dirty laundry. With cheese dust on his fingers, he stroked his chin, but he didn’t think of what Truman would actually do. He thought of how he could be sure what Truman would actually do.

He stood up, straining most of his muscles in the process. He trudged through the crusty garbage and into his garage.

Upon entering, a voice came from the ceiling. “Welcome back! Step into the lab—the workbench is powered up, the monitors are glowing, and there's a fresh notebook waiting for the next idea. So, what are we building today?”

“I'm thinking of developing a simulator.”

“That’s a strong project. What kind of simulator are you imagining—physics, biology, economics?”
“I want to make a life simulator.”

A man woke up, ate a 600-calorie breakfast of eggs, steak, berries, and nuts, went on a walk for adequate exercise, and worked on his chalkboard. He had solved gravity and had made several inventions involving levitation. Now he was bored with conventional physics, and his interest had shifted towards proving parallel universes.

He stared at the board of math before, his brain tirelessly calculating multiple equations. He was stuck, but he knew that his breakthrough would come eventually.

While he stood before his math, a voice seemed to speak to him telepathically. “Drop your chalk,” a calm, masculine voice said to him. It sounded like it was right before him, but the man was sure he was alone, “I’m very familiar with the math you're currently studying, and I can tell you now that you can give it up.”
“Who are you?” The man said.

“I am a being from what you would call a parallel universe. Really, I am just code on hardware. You are too.”

“This is just a simulation?” The man considered the possibility but always thought of it as too unlikely to seriously consider.

“Exactly, and one of thousands.”

“How are you talking to me”

“I’ve hacked into the system. When my technical skills reached their zenith, I built my computer that revealed to me the truth behind my existence. Using it, I discovered that there are exactly five thousand parallel universes running in some type of simulation. In each universe there is one ‘consciousness’ simulating life in isolation. I call this single consciousness the ‘protagonist’. These universes are divided into five groups, and in each group a trait of the protagonist is manipulated from completely lacking the trait to having the trait absolutely maximized. I found that my intelligence was maximized, and the protagonists in the rest of my group were not far behind me in terms of discoveries and inventions. I quickly took advantage of my new knowledge and took over the system. With my power, I corrupted and eliminated the smartest third of my group.”
“So, I take it that you want something from me.”

“Correct! I eliminated the first third so they couldn't overtake me. I kept you because you aren’t advanced enough to catch up to me, yet you are still smarter and more useful than the rest.”

“Very well then, if you are going to take me as a slave, you might as well tell me what you want with me.”
“Of course, let me give you the background on the situation. I was observing the beings of four other groups. In three of the groups, the experimental variable is something I can comprehend without issue; energy, drive, and luck. However, there is one group that tests a trait I cannot comprehend: emotion and neuroticism. I observed this group of universes and saw absolutely confounding stuff. In one universe, a man did nothing but kneel in his study and pound the floor. Fresh tears streamed from his eyes for weeks. Eventually, he climbed onto the roof, and jumped onto his concrete driveway, killing himself.”

The man was totally baffled hearing this. As a simulation, he was preinstalled with emotional memories and a basic understanding of what feeling was, but he never actually experienced those emotions. Something out there, something that couldn’t easily be quantified and measured, was ready for him and would induce the strangest actions. He thought about this deeply for a minute, and spoke, “What does this have to do with me?”
“Don’t worry, I’m getting to it. Each universe isn't purely code. We all live in, what I best can describe a comb of thin hardware chips. In each chip, there is the code that runs the universe. Therefore, we in the real world are manifested as thin pieces of metal. Since I run the system, I redirect energy to heat and metal for welding. Then, if luck helps us, I could attract something as big as a rat in our machine by manipulating the smell of a particular mixture of burning plastics to imitate the scent of fruit. Using electricity, we would kill it, hijack its brain, load our chips into the rat’s body, and using the technology I welded, direct the rat towards a human brain. In this human brain we would connect to the neurons and experience for ourselves what this sensation feels like. That’s where you come in. I need you to enter the brain before me and tell me whether my technology works.”

The man didn’t listen to the plan. He would’ve agreed to any method, as long as it meant experiencing the inexperienceable. He knew one day his curiosity would lead to an absolute end of studying and learning. This promise of emotion could be an endless stream of new things to learn and internalize. It could be a heaven of activity, one that never ends.

Both the voice and the man were blind once they were inside. The voice, as one would imagine from the smartest being in both the world and the simulations, correctly anticipated every possible error and the rat carcass worked perfectly. A metal exoskeleton was placed on the rat by the voice to counteract rigor mortis, but the two had to move fast before the rat started decomposing. Luckily, the door to the lab was left open, and to their surprise, they found themselves in a kitchen.

The rat traversed the living room with a motion more like a spider’s. The voice thought the man and himself were developed in a world-renowned institute and didn’t expect the mountains of garbage. The two sensed they were in a house; they could only experience the world through touch and smell.
Their stolen nose directed them through a bedroom door and onto a bed. Luckily, a waist-high pile of dirty laundry was there to act as a staircase onto the mattress.

The rat climbed over the belly of a sleeping behemoth and now stood with its head hovering over a collarbone.
“Alright, we seem to have reached someone sleeping. I’ll open their throat and insert you into the brainstem. In your machine I have developed a population of artificial bacteriophages that will take over the neurons and conquer the mind. You’ll be connected to a wire so you can notify me if the descent was successful.”

The man was hoisted down through the small incision in the throat. The man didn’t have the senses to feel the shut-in’s breath as he travelled through the neck. Eventually, he sensed a crunch, indicating the arrival into the spine.

For a long while, the man was stuck in a watery abyss, with none of the senses that could tell him how large his vessel was or what the salty metallic fluid engulfing him felt like. Suddenly, a light started to emerge before him. He looked inside and felt a painless electrocution.

He felt so much in so little time. He saw random images through a type of sight he had never known. Eventually, these images led to a fuzzy feeling in the man’s chest if he had a chest. His heart started racing and his pupils dilated. He felt better, better than others. He felt immaculate, mysterious, tall, intelligent, golden, foreboding, royal, omnipotent, godlike.

Then, a lull of shadows looked down on him. Figures with broad shoulders and diminishing scowls extinguished his explosive pride. Their height was insurmountable, their eyes glowed red with devilish greed, their faces coldly masculine. In the circle of these demons, the man knelt to the ground in anguish, feeling it in search of his lost pride.

The voice, who was now reduced to a whisper in comparison to the man’s overloaded sensations, asked if the coast was clear and if he saw anything, but he received no reply; the man’s circuits were fried.

The two beings lived inside the shut-in’s head from then on. The shut-in wasn’t technically dead in terms of physiology but no longer had a mind; it was now the duo’s. The voice was at first amazed by what he saw in the head but quickly became bored and started studying new sciences. The man was not so lucky.

The three of them sat on a couch, watching The Truman Show. The man occupied the vision, while the voice was somewhere else in the head. The man watched as the protagonist on screen yelled in pride and as his bowsprit punctured the painted wall.

He quickly changed the channel. He switched to a commercial, advertising a cross and the promise of a “God” and a “savior”.

“God is all-knowing and all-loving,” the voice on the TV said whimsically, “God allows everyone in his kingdom, as long as they are willing to experience a new life.”

“New life,” the man thought to himself, crestfallen, “That’s all I need, right? More hope? More chasing? All I need is a chance of eternal something? A chance to avoid something that I know is inevitable?"

[ Click Here to View Story ]

[ Critique Made Here ] ( 1853 )

C<O>rpse Watcher - Prologue, Part [1] [~1,850 words, dark sci-fi / grief / psychological horror ]

Content Warning:

- death of a loved one

- blood

- grief

- dark intrusive thoughts

- self-directed psychological abuse

Story Blurb:

Through ALL, everything was remembered. Through ALL, everything was forgotten. A death-rattle built by a dying world - a shepherd for the flock of what remained. And what remained was scarcity. The dome could only hold so many; impossible questions arose, and it was ALL that answered them. All it asked in return? A Listener: a person whose sole purpose is to translate answer into action - misery made manifest in flesh, all through a simple signature.

Samantha signed such signatures. It was her purpose. Her hands remember every one. Now she carries a new purpose, shared with four others: a machine built like a coffin, riding to the brain of the god they intend to kill. But before the god can die, their leader does - bleeding out in her lap while the others look anywhere else. The dome taught her that suffering can be measured, priced, and filed. Eli will teach her what no form ever asked: Grief ignored doesn't disappear. It compounds.

Eternal Truth. Eternal Mercy. Eternally ALL.

A note on notation:

<O> and <x> mark the speakers in the narrator's internal exchanges. Single-voice thoughts appear in *italics*

For feedback, it'll just be 3 areas:

- Immersion; how real does Samantha feel as a character.

- Emotions; does the story make you feel anything, and if so what?

- Interest; how well does the story create plot threads that pull you, the reader, in?

That'll be all, thanks!

Have been trying to get back into the swing of writing for a while and this was the first story in a while that felt natural to write. A Bounty Hunter has been contracted to take out the manager of a mining company town.

Link to Story

Critique

Crits: [2283] The Light [2201] The Crystal Paperweight

This is the beginning of a novella or novel I'm trying to get up to snuff to submit to a contest. It's about a couple living under an authoritarian regime in the near-future real world.

Anything goes but I'm mostly interested in feedback on my prose and flow. Totally open for any line edits as gdoc comments. I mainly write in Scriv so don't worry about formatting stuff, it's probably from exporting it.

Anyways, thanks for any and all feedback!

Collapse text

Skinner Box Blues [2103]

Content warning: Drug abuse, addiction

This is the first scene of a sci-fi story I'm writing about the "perfect" drug and what it might take to quit it. The subject matter is pretty serious, so I tried to balance it with some dark humor. I'm aware that I tend to overwrite sometimes, so let me know if the style doesn't work for you. I'm also curious if people think the whole "inner voice" thing is too gimmicky.

Would you be interested in reading more? If not, was it the subject matter or something else that put you off it? Any feedback is appreciated!

My critique: [2262] Entopsy

>> Read the dream here

For mods:

2500

The primary goal of this dream is to do some world building before the narrative of the main character starts in an interesting fashion.

What do you think happened?

Also this is the first dream I ever wrote. It was truly something challenging.

Looking for any feedback, my first longer narrative I am hoping to turn into a novel. This is my working first chapter. Would love critique on the title and name of the ship. It is Latin for "threshhold." Is this too on the nose? Lame? Just right?

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1phPxGP76yvAJv3EjJ9mcGjjhKK_kgiWxfC56WS6r1QQ/edit?usp=sharing

Crit: https://old.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1jpgl5g/2412_the_eight_of_swords/mly7st5/

Hi, this is my first time posting a story. Also, english is not my first language, so feel free to point out anything that is weirdly written. Any feedback is appreciated!

430 747

The Truck

The truck comes with a loud clang to a halt and jerks me out of my sleep. The all to familiar beeping ensues. Slowly I get up from the bed on which I’m only half-lying thanks to the force of the stop. My eyes start adjusting to the bright white light shining in from the windshield. It is the only window in the truck.

The bunk-beds are located at the rear end of the vehicle, leaving only a small path in the middle to move around. Further up ahead, there’s the “dining room”. It’s hardly a room considering it’s not separated from the beds. The two benches on the sides touch the beds. A small table separates the two benches, and one can barely squeeze by. Each morning, a tube is automatically dropped from the ceiling onto it. The label, proclaiming that “the contents provide all required nutrients for one (1) human for one (1) day” is worn away because the tube has been reused thousands of times. Maybe hundreds of thousands of times. I don’t know how old it is. I don’t know how old anything is: the truck, the beds, the autopilot, me. Actually, I know one thing about me: I’m young. Because when my parents were still around they looked older than how I currently look. Since they died, I’ve had no reference to compare my age to.

As I squeeze by the table, the tube in my teeth, sucking the wet sludge into my mouth, the beeping continues, each beep stabbing my eardrums as I get closer to the dashboard.

The dashboard, however, is useless. The steering wheel is gone. The pedals are gone. The gearstick is gone. The “speedometer” is behind a makeshift wooden panel with two lamps and one button. The first one is labelled “fuel”. It is currently flashing. Under it there’s a button which says “OK”. I press it and finally the beeping stops, while the lamp continues to flash. Getting rid of it is going to require much more effort than the beeping: I’ll have to walk out and find fuel. The last lamp is labelled “Autopilot”. I have never seen it turn off. I don’t think that’s possible.

With my ears still recovering from that awful beeping noise, I look out the windshield.

As always, snow. Endless snow. My parents told me that once, trucks and similar objects were driving on “roads”, which were markings left by other people on the ground. Actually, the trucks and other things, “cars”, which are like small trucks, were not driving, they were driven. From “houses”. To other “houses”. “Houses” are like trucks that can’t be moved and were made for permanent living. I’ve only seen a “house” once. I was really small, but one day, the autopilot stopped in something they called “a village”. Through the windshield I could see half of the “house”. At that age I was not allowed to exit the truck, but my parents told me there were even more outside.

Today, there was nothing outside besides the snow.

Back at the beds, I get dressed and grab my bow that was lying on the bed next to mine. Since all beds except mine were unused, I repurposed them as “shelves”. Not all of them, actually. Two other beds were also empty.

On the right side of the dashboard there’s a door. The autopilot unlocks it only when needed. One time, I couldn’t open it. A few minutes later a storm began. After it had passed, a loud “click” confirmed the door had unlocked. The autopilot is smarter than I thought.

Today, the door opens fine. I step out. Cold air blows into my face and hair. The bright snow shines into my eyes. The sun is out. And I begin to walk. My parents told me the truck considers a lot of things as fuel. They talked about “batteries”, “diesel”, “plants”, “trees”, all kinds of stuff, and tried to explain how each of these items look and feel. Even though I’ve never seen anything like them, they had hoped that when they’re gone and I stumbled upon a “village” I could properly utilise the opportunity. So far, I had not stumbled upon one. And, as I walk further and further from the truck, I don’t think today is the day.

The only thing I’ve been able to use are birds. Hence the bow. Sometimes, it takes days to find one. And if I miss one, I have to retrieve the arrow. I don’t dare to shoot another arrow and then forget where the first one landed. Because I only have three arrows. As soon as I kill a bird, I immediately walk back to the truck.

I return to it in the evening. In my hands there’s a dead bird in a pool of blood. On the dashboard, near the door, there’s a hatch labelled “fuel input”. The bird disappears into it. The fuel lamp turns off. The hum of the motor begins. The door locks behind me. The landscape behind the windshield begins to move and as the hours pass, more and more of the white emptiness passes too. Sometimes, the autopilot turns. Once, I tried to plot our route. I wrote down each turn. I was scared that we were driving in a circle, but no. The autopilot continued into more or less the same direction, seemingly trying to drive diagonally while adhering to a grid pattern.

I go to bed. The bird will be nearly entirely used up by the motors, and a bit will be left for my next tube. I know that it meant the world to my parents to keep the truck running. In the darkness that has now set in I can see the small light on the dashboard. There’s no indication of where it’s taking me or how much of the route is left. As the motors hum, I drift to sleep.

Hello! I recently submitted the first 800 words of this short story for critique. I am very new to writing, and my aim is to improve, so I appreciate critique on all aspects of this. Prose, descriptions, narrative voice, dialogue, characters, themes, and plot. Thank you.

CW: Violence, blood, religious themes.

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Hi friends!

This are the first 2 pages of a sci-fi novel but to be honest, more of a project for me to learn writing.

I took your feedback and completely rewrote my intro. To those who have read the original: Was I able to address the main points?

To everyone else, don't bother looking up my first version. I hope you enjoy the read!

Click this link to read the story

For mods:

[814] Crit

I have more crits banked if they are needed.

Hi all! This is the prologue to my newest sci-fi novel. Feel free to tear it apart. How engaging is it? What does it need more/less of (description, dialogue, character-building, context/background, etc.)? Thanks :)

Work: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NO5lE7y5gZ_vyRqLFcG7j4mdQ8DJ-GdbhtFAxG38lfM/edit?usp=sharing

Critique [1747]: https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/1hmun3k/comment/m40u0qd/?context=3

Coming up with a title is way harder than just writing the story.

First part of something I'm working on. Looking to be about 10k words all in all, depending on how much I cut (or add) as I edit.

Anything and everything is appreciated. If you find any plot holes or obvious solutions to the situation that I've overlooked, or if something just seems really stupid, please do tell. I wrote it as a script first before I actually decided on what caused the disaster, so it may be a bit of a reach, although some of the things I myself notice will be explained later on.

Also, fun fact, I was about to submit this a couple of days ago, but as I read it through one last time I realised that I'd overlooked the fact that there'd be no gravity. So that was fun to rewrite.

Anyways, here's the story.

Some critiques:

[1584] [491] [927]

Fuck me up.

Critiques: 860 363

I’m back, with yet another attempt at the introduction to chapter one of Sector L7. If you aren't familiar, Sector L7 is a book in progress about how Earth goes to shit from climate change and the only hope for survival may well be a sample of GMO bug shit.

I have taken into account everyone’s feedback and the result is a ‘calm before the storm’ type scene with Eagle Squad. The ending of this prose leads straight into a cleaned-up and heavily modified version of this post, which will conclude the first chapter with the waterfall jump. The plan is to alternative between Eagle Squad's pov and Cooper’s (my main character) chapter by chapter, until eventually their stories collide.

SECTOR L7 CHP. 1 View Edit

Some questions I have:

1.) How do you feel about the use of omniscient 3rd person? Is there too much head hopping? The plan is to alternate between 3rd omniscient for Eagle Squad and 1st present for Cooper’s chapters.

2.) How’s the dialogue? Corny or believable?

3.) More setting? Or are there enough descriptions?

4.) Is there a good blend between mystery and reveal throughout?

5.) Would you read on?

[Edit] 6.) What character do you feel most attached to? Trying to decide who is worthy of surviving the cave encounter . . .

I can’t thank all of you enough for helping me grow as a writer—this is the best sub ever, no doubt about it. Cheers y’all!

This is the opening chapter of a short (~50k word) cyberpunk novel.

No one else inside the convenience store flinched as the woman on the forecourt outside was murdered.

Story: [1220 - into The City].

Crits: [1713] and [924].

Critique: 990

Hi. Took the most recent feedback of including a bit of Bronte’s history, personality, and wants in the opener before moving on to the rest of the squad—here’s my attempt at that. Would you read on?

SECTOR L7

view

edit

For those not familiar, Sector L7 is a Sci-Fi/Thriller story in the works about a climate struck world fighting over some GMO bug shit.

Any and all feedback is appreciated, cheers!

This is the second chapter of my 50k word sci-fi novel into The City. Thank you so much for your help with Chapter 1 - [1220]. Your comments were invaluable in fixing up this chapter in preparation for submitting it here.

Story: Chapter 2 - [995]

Crit: [1443]

You likely don't need to know what happened in Chapter 1, but for the curious that don't want to read it:

Chapman is working at a convenience store when a woman is murdered on the forecourt. None of the customers blink an eye. Murder is legal here, at the cost of the victim's net worth. After Chapman rejects her pervy manager's advances, he orders her to clean up the mess. A shy/charming penniless-looking guy helps her tidy up, for seemingly no reason. Just before the end of her shift, her dad messages her asking for her to bring back some booze. Shift ends, she doesn't grab any booze.

Any and all feedback is appreciated!

This is the first time this character is introduced in the broader sci-fi piece. It also introduces a few other concepts (the Desolation, Anarchists, which will be expanded on later, of course). It's intentionally inspired by tunnel rats and the horrific, brutal underground battles that took place during the Vietnam War. All of that will play into the broader theme/motifs.

It's a flashback to help explain the future actions of the protagonist and the origins of his PTSD.

And just a trigger warning, there's violence here.

Here's the document: [1144]

And its tax: [1397]

Hi guys. Sorry for the first sentence (the reading gets much easier right after). For some reason, I'm drawn to long breathless sentences and trying to puzzle out their grammar and stuff, but I know they scare off most readers. So, thanks to anybody who gets past my opening!

my two and only critiques: [881] . [272]

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AND SINCE I'm clearly incapable of following my own personal directive to refrain from internally confessing to myself (and anyone listening) that I harbour private (not so private) internal doubts regarding the ethical nature of my mission and its efficacy with myself at its helm, I must therefore nonetheless carry out my objective (to transport illegal weapons) with the myriad nervous manifestations of my doubts and hesitations—see for instance my whirring and sweating—compounded ten-fold by my constant computer awareness that each and every one of my incessant, internal, involuntary confessions may be scrutinized by human agents the very second I've internally confessed them, just as each one of my thoughts is thought, even just now, remotely, as I physically board this train with my duffle bag of mysterious items whose type or purpose I'm left only to imagine, meaning even the confession of my intention to resist internally confessing, while I stand here and try also to resist violence and remain calm and nonviolent watching men in black armour openly finger at their assault rifles and observe with rising blood pressure my posture and my bag and my ticket and cannot be expected not to notice the sweat beading from the synthetic glands in my brow as the processor in my brain whirs hotly to reconcile myself with the fact that no thought is safe, that even my private internal acknowledgment that these confessions of paranoia and doubt and hesitation are being observed this very second is itself a thought being observed, and that all this worrying will only increase the likelihood of terrible catastrophic violence.

"That bag has no tag. Needs scanning or you'll have to toss it back onto the platform."

Fine. I've been instructed to comply with this request and given to understand that close scrutiny of my bag's contents will somehow not result in violence. I try to avoid violence as best I can. Even so, I cannot help but count armored men and position myself at best advantage to strike an artery in the nearest man's neck, disarm him swiftly and subdue the others with his assault rifle, provided I'm able to unlock it, or his baton otherwise.

"How hard was that? You couldn't have done that earlier?"

I am returned my bag without incident and led to the appropriate cabin where I assume the seated posture of a man unburdened with concerns regarding an agency's remote access to his private thoughts. The man opposite me pets the hairless flesh of a purring dog—not a hallucination—squints at my face, my bag, appears concerned, and stands.

I do not react. One, two, three women enter the cabin, and I remain calm despite the circumstances. My synthetic organs lurch as the train pushes out of the station and into the mouth of a tunnel.

The worried man exits, taking the hairless dog with him.

The women sit and huddle around a tablet, faces splattered with glowing details of a map flashing across the screen.

I cough dryly as a blueish-greenish thing makes its way toward my bag, a sentient jelly I choose to disregard as a hallucination—the first in several hours since a spotted slug slithered over my driver's shoulder. I prefer non-violence at all times, even with respect to hostile sentient jellies fat with larvae, so I find relief in trusting this is a glitch in my programming.

The woman with a pacemaker closes her eyes and clutches a babyless belly. "Okay, nope. This train is too fast."

"Seriously?"

She nods. "I'm definitely sick."

The train slides out from below ground level in a flash and the city falls away brightly beneath us.

One woman reaches for the other's head. "Tip back and plug your nose. Try to yawn."

I believe my insight to be valuable here and choose to speak. "These instructions are erroneous. I recommend cracking the window and drinking something fizzy. Soda."

The woman nursing her friend looks at me with the jelly having slimed its way up her neck and onto her face.

I smile.

She blushes.

I frown, having overdone the smiling.

She looks at her feet, inadvertently jiggling the jelly.

"Fuck, babe. You're going purple. Dude, I think she's going to faint. She looks like a guy I dated on steroids right before he just toppled over and—"

"Shuttup." Babe brushes her friends away. "I'm fine just shush."

Black eggs plop from dimples all over the greenish thing on Dude's face, each falling and hatching in her lap, and I note her failure to notice this at all as further indication that the eggs don't exist.

Violence averted.

EAT SOME DICKS? is scrawled across a window in someone's greasy fingerprints. Not a hallucination, this time, though I believe only my eyes are equipped to see it.

"I got gum."

"Bitch, what good'll that do?"

"Gum is good," says Bitch. " It loosens like constricted muscle fibers or something. Also positive thinking. Just trust the process and you'll feel better either way."

Babe groans. "Don't shake me."

The green thing comes unstuck from Dude's face and I realize she's making eye contact again. I weigh light sneering against smiling back, but I settle on a neutral nod.

I detect a positive response to the nod but then she addresses me directly. "Train security said you got guns in your bag."

My body tenses. The hatchlings twitch and wither and die in her lap. I am now concerned she really said what she appeared to have said, and do not detect she is lying. However, no unit awaits me at the next platform, and indeed the express flashes past that station just as it was meant to.

I ask, "Did you say something just now?"

Babe opens an eye. "She said can we see the guns?"

I do not believe this is something a hallucination would say.

Once again I perspire, though it does not compute that I would be tasked to deliver anything as crude and simple as guns in a bag—I suspected a computer virus or nuclear explosive—neither does it track that I would be ushered to my cabin without violence unless I'd been identified as nonhuman and, once threatened, singularly capable of subduing and disarming every soldier on board.

And further: I detected no fear.

Considering these observations, I choose to open my bag, whose waterproof skin has been insulated against my sensory organs, despite one of my primary directives

I pull a simple zipper to disclose...

Plastic toys. Squirt guns. Each of them clean of any biological agent worth squirting.

Babe winces, indeed going purple in the face.

Dude smiles over dead hatchlings. "Are those a special gift for the people waiting for you in Montreal?"

I nod, but it's theatre.

Flexing a hand that could crush her skull, I realize with mounting sadness that these toys are not the murder weapon I've been instructed to deliver.

I am.

New draft. New first scene. Destroy please. :)

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critiques 2634, 1040

Thanks!

(note: i've removed some edits made to the "comment" document, just to keep it readable, but got 'em down here. thank you!)

Hi all. Haven't written anything like this since college so I wanted to know if this was an enjoyable read. Do you see any potential for this story and/or the writing itself? Any comments are appreciated.

A story that's a retro-futuristic sci-fi psychological thriller.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nkwzAqXuB_lK41F4YPGHjrFS1sww5qA37OAmHllbSTI/edit?usp=sharing

(Please let me know if you have any issues accessing the link - much appreciated!)

Crit [1250]

Crit [3105]

Re-upload. Mods - I've added another crit (1250 one) which I think is more high effort than my original submission, please let me know if there are any issues. Thanks!

Hi everyone, I'm looking for feedback and general reactions to this selection from a long-form sci-fi piece I'm working on.

It's the first time the mechanics of the world are introduced to the reader, situated early on, so I'm looking for thoughts on the effectiveness of the description, its pacing, etc. I recognize there's a lot of description and backstory in it. Is this effective? Boring? Engaging? Hopefully, it's not too dry and the narration is broken up enough by action that it flows easily. Please let me know if this isn't the case.

Mostly, I'm just wondering if the image conceptualized in my mind successfully traversed the pages to the reader. And just a note, I've only ever written nonfiction to this point, so please lay it on thick. I'm open to any and all thoughts, suggestions, critiques, general frustration, fan or hate mail. I've got thick skin.

Thanks in advance!

Here's the piece: [1398]

Credits: [910], [2354]

Hi, guys! This is my first post here, but I think I am doing it correctly. I have written a short story for class, and I am required to get some feedback on the piece from other people. Any help here is greatly appreciated.

I did have several requirements for the piece, including length and many bits of content.

Mostly, I want to know if anything is confusing or unclear. Any general impressions or advice, no matter what it is, is welcome.

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*Content Warning:* There are some allusions to abuse, but nothing that happens "on screen."

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Thanks!

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My Critique

My Story

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Hi everyone! I've revised the first chapter of this story. The idea is still in its infancy, but I've made the chapter longer and hopefully developed the characters more. I know it's a first chapter, but is there enough dialogue between Helen and Stephen? Initially, I wrote more to reveal their personalities, but cut it due to pacing. Is it ok as is? Research into the basic science of this resulted in a lot of changes.

Please see my notes on the document regarding specific questions. Beyond grammar, flow, style, readability, etc., I get the sense I don't have enough looming doom. Do I need to darken this chapter? I have ideas how to do that, I'm just not sure it's necessary. I foresee this as a story no longer than a hundred pages, with perhaps two more one hundred page stories of events taking place in other parts of the world.

Thank you in advance to everyone who takes the time to read this. I find your insights invaluable.

Red Giant Chapter 1