Author Topic: Sept. 21 - Concord  (Read 1486 times)

Flo_the_G

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Sept. 21 - Concord
« on: September 21, 2009, 10:17:44 AM »
My pseudo-chapters are growing shorter and shorter. I wonder if I should be concerned. You tell me. :D

Oh and thanks for reading and all that.

Recovering_Cynic

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2009, 04:00:37 PM »
Flo, so I'm sorry but this is going to be more of a series of questions than a critique.  Mostly I"m curious about what genre you are writing in.  I read the back story you posted in the email, and the backstory made it sound like you are writing military sf.  Much of the chapter I read had the military sf feeling as well, which made me wonder what the parts about Juno are doing.  They do not have a military sf feel at all, but felt more like something out of an Anne McAffery novel, so I was curious about what genre specifically you are going for.  Are you trying to mix genres?  It might just be that I am not familiar enough with the backstory or I could answer all of these questions myself.  Let me know.
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Flo_the_G

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2009, 04:43:10 PM »
I'm not familiar with Anne McCaffrey's books, so I can't really respond to that. I can say, however, that I'm not mixing genres, and that it's indeed supposed to be military SF.

The problem is probably that Juno's part doesn't work very well if you don't know those leading up to it. That may go for her last (few?) scenes as well, but for this one especially, I think.

Recovering_Cynic

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2009, 05:01:28 PM »
Yes, I haven't read the past scenes, so I don't know the backstory.  I guess my one and only critique (other than some minor show/tell and grammatical issues which can be cleaned up in post) would be that Juno feels out of place.  Military sf usually has a harder feel to it, and Juno (at least currently) is very introspective, which may be a turn off for someone who's a fan of the genre.  Take that with a grain of salt though, as I have not read what is leading up to this point other than the brief blurb you put in the email.
this is the way the world ends,
not with a bang, but a whimper
~T.S. Eliot

westwriter

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #4 on: September 22, 2009, 02:59:37 PM »
I liked this chapter, and I didn't notice the length until I read your post.  I think knowing what changes Juno is going through does make her a stronger character.  I'm waiting to see what she changes into... i hope it's soon.   great descriptions and dialogue.
"I limit my writing to those few moments each day when my insanity goes on a smoking break."      greg

RavenstarRHJF

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2009, 04:24:01 AM »
I like how you're continuing to develop Von Bredow's character to make him more sympathetic.  I know I came down hard on him at the beginning, thinking he was just going to be a jerk, but I'm really starting to like him!  One thing, though (and this might not be a problem with the whole book in front of me) is that I'm having a hard time telling the difference between him and Spencer.  I literally read it and thought to myself, "Spencer... ok, he's the one who almost captured Juno... right."  But like I said, probably won't be a problem with the whole book in front of me.  You might want to toss in some more definite description of them both, though (physically, not character wise).

I think you're handling Juno's sections very well.  I see it as a good dichotomy: we've got the hard sci-fi, action bits with Von Bredow, and the internal, more emotional/sensory bits with Juno.  Best of both worlds as far as I'm concerned. :)

One thing I would like to see more of is the way the sections relate to each other- at the moment they do seem strangely separate, like the stories aren't fully meshing.  I think we should be seeing more of Von Bredow and co. talking about/reacting to the presence of an interrogator on board.  I realize Juno's pretty much incapacitated right now, but I'd like to see her taking a more intrusive role in future.  That's a powerful gift of hers, and you need to have her use it.

Good job!
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Flo_the_G

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #6 on: September 24, 2009, 09:35:03 PM »
Truth be told, I hadn't planned on Spencer playing as central a role as he is at the moment in my initial outline. In writing, it seemed like a cop-out to give him scenes only where it suits the plot in concealing what's going on with the other characters, so I thought I'd expand his parts a bit. This one here was actually planned vor von Bredow, so maybe that's a factor. But I also think I haven't spent nearly enough time getting my head around his character, he's sort of evolving on the go.

Juno's more intrusive part is coming up in a while, but not all too soon, so I'll definitely try to emphasise those connections between the stories in future.

And don't worry, she's going to make very good use of her abilities in the course of the story. I'm quite looking forward to those parts myself. ;D

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #7 on: December 10, 2009, 03:23:44 AM »
Just a couple of brief things with the writing: One thing I noticed almost right away was point of view; I had to go back to the start of the second scene just to figure out whose point-of-view the scene was in. The other was that this section seemed to be fairly description-heavy; adjectives and adverbs and those sorts of things.

I'm a little confused as to what Sinclair is on and what he has to do with the whole rebellion thingy that ws happening. He doesn't seem at all surprised to find the captain confined to his quarters, which seemed a little  bit odd. Keep in mind, though, I haven't this for a couple of months, and it's quite possible that this isn't a problem and I've just lost my grip on the political climate. Or this might be information you're planning on revealing in the near future. But I did find myself a little bit thrown off.

You seem to be indicating that the medicine that Juno is so used to taking somehow supresses this ability she's experiencing to read thoughts without trying. That would be interesting...

I don't really have much else to add except to agree with what's already been said. There definitely needs to be some more interaction between Juno and von Bredow's company in the near future...

ryos

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Re: Sept. 21 - Concord
« Reply #8 on: January 26, 2010, 12:37:27 AM »
I've got to say, the story is getting better as it progresses. I'm most interested in Juno's story of the characters we've met so far.

One unresolved question I had was, how were they alerted to the Dauphin's arrival? You correctly depict the effect that light-minutes of distance would have on EMR-based communications, but did not explain how they were seemingly instantly aware of the ship's arrival. The only thing I could think of is that a ship coming out of hyperjump makes waves that propagate faster than light that sensors on the other ship could pick up, or something. But you don't describe any such thing, and it's just my nerd's brain trying to fill in the gap for you.

If you're relying on light to tell them of the presence of the ship, you should know that it would take a colossal amount of luck for them to pick out an object that small at that distance without knowing where to look. There's a reason we still think we might have more planets to discover. I mean, yes, the technology is more advanced, but there are optical limits that technology can't do much about.

Active scanning (think radar) is more plausible, but that would take twice the time for a round trip.

Beyond that, there seems to be a lot of disobeying of orders going around. My impression is that the imperial military is not very disciplined. I'm not sure that's an impression you wanted to give, but there you are. :)
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