Mothership, Chapter 2 [2208]

#PROSE

Overall I'd say I have very little problem with your prose. It is simple yet works—perhaps you can vary the length of the sentences. I mean, don't get me wrong, it works. Its just if you are intending for this to be a novel then it might get repetitive. But for the most part it flows very well so congratulations. It reminds me of John Williams prose. There are some instances in which it can be improved however. Here they are:

twanged

This doesn't flow too well.

dark horseshoe that bled into thick white whiskers

This creates a clear image but in retrospect that image is confusing. Horseshoe? Bled?

Crystal sucked from her straw but kept her eyes on Bud.

“Naval Pilot Ace William Reed Jr. Abducted by Aliens,“ she read out loud. “Claims to have had intercourse with extraterrestrial being. Has strange mark on genitals.” She rubbed the fin of her dolphin and her eyes sparkled. “Must have been quite the story back then.”

These two paragraphs should be together.

<they? Bud

Missing "

Apparently, she didn’t like the UFO story he was selling. That, or she hated the medical prognosis offered by…

Is the news reporter saying this or the clerk?

“Huh.” Bud stirred his coffee and felt that same pain in his hipbone.

“Well, I’ll be damned.”

Who's saying this? The guy serving him? It sounds like something bud would say so I'd suggest keeping his dialogue on the one before. You've this mistake twice now. This is basic dialogue that is essential to learn otherwise readers may get confused as to who is actually speaking.

Like I said you strike a sweet chord with this prose. It is certainly enough to understand and it does place more focus on action and dialogue which is good. Yet still if you wish to continue then I'd suggest going further with the prose. For example, though the prose is sweet, it doesn't offer much. There isn't much depth to it and if you wanted prose that can be remembered and stands out, then this isn't the way to go. (I know I made a John Williams comparison but that essentially meant that it gave off a John Williams vibe...)....)..

#CHARACTERS From this piece alone, I can say that your characters are wonderfully drawn and easy to picture. Your introduction of bud was very well done as was the introduction of Crystal. However, they do seem a little stereotypical. Like, I'm almost certain I've seen a character like Bud plenty of times in media, and it's okay to have stereotypes but your characters lack depth. I can sense that there is depth but the fun, party guy dawning upon the realisation that he is getting old seems quite cliche almost. That's just for me anyway.

There are hints of depth but I would've preferred if it was explored deeper—but as it is, I would've kept reading for another few pages to see where you go with it, as it flows nice and there are hints that the characters have layers.

Great character voices however!

#STRUCTURE

It is structured quite well. Maybe you could shorten the singing at the beginning but that's not an urgent fix as it does establish Dub pretty well.

Crystal seems like she just appears out of nowhere. Hm, I'm not sure about this one.

#STORY

From what I can tell from this piece alone, Bud is some sort of travelling layabout (sorry) and is has some sort of alien equipment and is has something that the goverment dislikes? The story isn't very clear and I know i am supposed to read the first piece for it to make sense, so I did. It was fun (I won't critique as others have already done so) but alone this story doesn't sound very engaging.

I had little idea what was happening at the end so Ieft feeling slightly dissatisfied. Maybe make it clearer. If it's in the details, perhaps make the details clearer. But that's just me. Let's wait for more opinions to roll in.

Overall, well drawn characters but lacking depth and decent prose could certainly pack more of a punch. That's it, thanks for reading and good luck!

I'm not going to leech this, because it's 9 words (or 15, because the story you critiqued is actually 2201 words and your own is actually 2216), but for next time please remember that the story you critique has to be equal to or greater in length than your own submission.

Preface:

I am mostly using voice to text dictation for this critique. Mobile is as mobile does.

Also: I feel like it was disingenuous for you to ask for people to read the first part. It doesn’t really add anything to this part. I think you’re saying alien visitation gives people the power of like an MRI would be enough. They can do medical diagnosis with their eye minds. It’s pretty easy to summarize, and doesn’t actually link in very much.

Dialogue aka monologue:

I know you said you wanted to work on your dialogue, but I think there’s actually very little dialogue in here.

I know it’s going to sound trait, but dialogue to me is two people talking or more could be more than two.

One person talking to them selves, or singing to a group, it doesn’t really do the same things that dialogue does.

And like I think is a back-and-forth where different people are trying to get something out of a conversation.

This on the other hand is mostly one character talking to himself.

In the monologue I think it is mostly effective in breaking up otherwise isolated narration. I think it does give us more about the character of bad. I don’t have huge problems with your use of him talking to himself.

Dialogue:

The dialogue between bud and Crystal Seems off to me in a way that’s hard to describe.

I think part of it comes down to the character descriptions. I just don’t really buy crystal being sexually interested in bud.

They are back-and-forth dialogue seems relatively devoid of tension, whereas I think for bud this is not a low stakes interaction.

I’ll circle back to this.

Character:

Crystal and Bud seem like caricatures to me. I think in the first part the characters were a little more varied and didn’t seem quite so one note.

In part two, I think that the characters like the sort of dance that would make the more interesting, and I think I felt like sort of low shelf stereotypes.

Like if I ask someone in a grocery store “describe to me wastrel who sings in bars, where does he live? Does he have a pet?”

I think the obvious answer is “in a van or an RV. He has a dog. He probably tries to sleep with younger women. He’s got a mustache. I bet he tries to get things for free.”

Bud definitely had some life to him, but Crystal felt a lot more lifeless to me, like she was really only there to sleep with bud and provide expedition.

Prose:

I think light and spare is a very good description of the style of this piece. I didn’t really have any major problems with it, but I can be very forgiving about prose.

No real complaints.

Staging:

In comparison to part one, part two makes a much better use of staging during the dialogue.

Otherwise, during the song, and during the sequence in the RV, the staging was a little bit lacking or confusing.

Mechanics/grammar.

I’ll be honest grammar very rarely bothers me and I’m very forgiving about grammar. Nothing stuck out to me.

Part one versus part two:

In part one I thought the characters were mostly talking heads, with long stretches of dialogue where I didn’t really know who was talking. Part 2 definitely improved upon this.

In part two, use of action beats definitely helped. I also think the characters have more of a physical presence in the pros, whereas in part one they mostly Floated along.