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Author Topic: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)  (Read 51158 times)

SafariJohn

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #60 on: February 04, 2015, 08:49:16 AM »

witch made me skip over some bits

A witch made you skip over some bits!? Man, that was free money! ;)

Not necessarily disagreeing or agreeing with Tartiflette, but I read a variety of stories both in subject and quality as well, and I found your writing to be quite good. Not perfect, perhaps not great, but definitely good.
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Tartiflette

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #61 on: February 04, 2015, 09:38:16 AM »

It only a minor complain really, just something that bothered me after a while. I'm talking these kind of descriptions:
The switch was right in front of her now, and she reached up with her right arm and pulled down clockwise.

It wouldn’t budge.

Shaking violently, she pulled harder and harder, even as the fire burned in her ribs. The captain’s counting on me… I can’t fail now… I can’t let her down… She raised a foot and pressed it against the wall, then the other, bring her entire body weight to bear on the problem. Her arm strained, her muscles howled in protest…

And the switch gave way.

It's the third time in the paragraph we get a description of her having trouble to locate and repair the problem because of her injuries (This first sentence is IMO complete overkill). The way the story is told isn't not really leaving a doubt about the outcome, and I completely skipped this part but for the 2 short sentences. Besides, the whole "I can't fail the captain" is kinda cliché; a "I must do it or we all gonna die" would have been more natural (once again, it's my opinion). Anyway it's quite good already, but I also feel it's this close to be great!
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Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #62 on: February 05, 2015, 05:45:21 AM »

- Ugh. Note to self: proofread more when changing stuff. That "clockwise" is from a previous draft where the switch was a valve, and makes no sense now. (See also: being cold while half a light minute away from a class F star, hee hee)

- I don't think that quoted excerpt specifically is a problem, but you may be right about me overdoing that scene in general with repeatedly pointing out how badly she's injured and hurting.
Though I'm surprised your chosen example wasn't along the lines of "Oh, what did the HVDs do to the target this time? No, no, let me guess." ;D

On that note, are the gestures, expressions and other physical movements the characters make during dialogue fine, or also excessive?

- For battle scenes in future fics I think I'll tend towards writing scenes closer to the character POVs, with less omniscient narration - although my current plans involve a lot less combat anyway.

were every action freeze in bullet time and even a blink need superlatives to describe how the sparkles of the last shot reflected in the captain's cold azure gaze, as her eyelashes graciously accompanied the movement of her hair waving from the recoil of the silver plated 18mm hand-made centuries old gun... I completely exaggerate  ;D
That... that's actually beautifully poetic (even if half of it doesn't make sense) and I want to write something like it every chance I get!  :D
(I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I know full well things like that should only be used once per work)
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Tartiflette

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #63 on: February 05, 2015, 07:16:25 AM »

On that note, are the gestures, expressions and other physical movements the characters make during dialogue fine, or also excessive?

The problem isn't their quality of amplitude, it's their omnipresence. Even when Archer would brush her hair while thinking you would either precise their color or length or texture while it's no longer relevant. In battles, every shot project sparkles, illuminate some hull or another, make shield generator scream etc. The first time is good, and when drama needs it it's also cool, but not everything needs to be grandiose. As I said: when used everywhere it feels like we are reading Matrix's script with every action in bullet time.

So, do continue, but maybe just leave more room for the imagination. (But others might disagree, then don't mind me)
« Last Edit: February 05, 2015, 07:21:39 AM by Tartiflette »
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Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #64 on: December 05, 2015, 02:29:54 AM »

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c0nr4d1c4l

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #65 on: June 26, 2017, 07:43:26 PM »

This was really good! Makes me want to join the League!
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Histidine

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Re: The Marenos Crisis (complete: 2015-01-31)
« Reply #66 on: June 27, 2017, 04:09:09 AM »

Thanks :)

Man, the story feels really out of place now with the new Starsector versions. Two things in particular:

- It was written back when the game was planned to have 1,000 star systems, which seems like sheer absurdity in the current implementation. So you have our heroes cruising around a huge multi-star cluster of independent worlds, when in the "current" setting more than two entirely independent star systems would be considered highly unusual.

- I portrayed the Persean League as much nicer than David ended up doing. Like a modern industrialised-world representative federal democracy, instead of the loose military alliance most notable for the dysfunction of its member polities (Mazalot being the most notorious offender) it canonically is. The sequel fic Crossfire deals in part with a darker side of the League, but here too it depicts the sins of a unified state or EU-style supranational entity, not the "can't agree on what to have for breakfast" gaggle we have (the faction description even indicates League members sometimes go to war with each other, srsly).

Speaking of which, I really ought to sit down and make myself write new chapters for Crossfire. Don't even have the excuse of not knowing what things I want to happen in the story any more :-X
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