Thanks so much for the in-depth critique. It really helped me figure out where to go from here. Your point about the main character’s voice disappearing in the middle is particularly memorable. I originally wrote those scenes so minimally because I wanted them to feel sort of numb and sparse, like the character isn’t even really there themselves, but I figure my approach doesn’t really work here. 

> It makes it sound like the meat of the story has been the MC struggling to emotionally cope with integrating on earth and making it a new home, which none of the previous scenes actually deal with.

Ahh yeah, that’s it, isn’t it?

I’m hesitant to break away from these scenes about mundane life (school, public transportation, secretaries, drunk guardians) because I want the story to feel grounded and showcase the small everyday stresses that stack up for the main character, but the more I think about it, the more I realize there’s a lot this concept has to offer alongside it. I think the wa


**The ending**

\>"What happened on the moon was not a freak accident." Dr. Adamu says this on live television on a local broadcast in South Africa. Her interview with the press has already been translated into 103 different languages, including Korean. I didn't even know she survived the blast before I saw an article covering the broadcast on twitter, of all places. I wonder if she knows I'm still alive.

This is where I felt like the character voice and plot were really starting to come back. It also started to somewhat answer some of my questions about her missing mother, though it still feels like context that should have come earlier. 

On my first read through, it \*really\* caught my attention, because the MC's suspicions about the moon were not clear enough for me to catch on that something was wrong/it was part of the plot. 

This scene is also the only one so far that really has interesting conflict. I am intrigued by the presumed conflict between moon survivors over whether

**The beginning**

You start out with these two paragraphs, which are formatted as their own scene/snippet in the work:

\>Six months ago, if you were on Earth, you might have looked into the sky to see the full moon go dark—a silent explosion that breaks the satellite into two large pieces. If you had also been watching the news, you would have heard a live detailing of the situation: There has been an accident on the international lunar research base, resulting in an extraordinary moonquake. Miraculously, most of the damage seems to be contained in space.  
As for me, six months ago, I was holding on for my life in an escape pod set to land straight into Jeju island.

This didn't work for me until we got to that last sentence, which really pulled it together for me. It's exciting and active and raises questions--but I still have complaints about that first paragraph. This is a very chill description for an \*entire moon being ripped in two\*. Feels like it should have more emphasis, 

(New critiquer here! Feedback on posts is very appreciated)

Okay, before I get into the real critique, the first thing I have to address is the use of Korean. I'm extremely confused by what you're trying to do with it. My best guess, based on how much of it there is, is that this story is for a bilingual audience that I am not part of--if that's the case, please disregard  most of the rest of what I say about this, as that's not my market and I have zero idea what the conventions for that are or what that audience would understand, but from a monolingual english-speaking perspective, it made the entire story very difficult to understand, even with the comment-translations. I could never figure out the purpose behind it's uses or why the dialogue switched in some places between Korean and English, and found how \*much\* of it there was extremely distracting and immersion breaking, which expected my overall experience and ability to judge the story a lot, particularly when it comes to d

> as far as many science fiction writers and thinks can tell, civilians on the moon would be forced by circumstance to be incredibly careful and paranoid. Anything that goes wrong and everyone dies, and there are so many things that can go wrong. It is vastly safer and cheaper to live at the bottom of the ocean or in the coldest places on earth, then on the moon.

You’re right. In earlier versions of this story there was a lot more of an almost compulsive paranoia, along with more detail around the main character’s health issues (due to growing up in a low-gravity environment), the way the city might feel like an assault on their senses, and the constant weight of gravity that they feel. I did away with these details because I wanted to focus on a time after he had figured that stuff out, but now it’s really obvious to me that the reader would (and should) be curious about that stuff.

> I am not sure if the moon would've gone pitch black just because the moon is in two pieces. It migh

>Portraying real/genuine characters with personal histories
So far so good. People know each other, they've been places, they have things they're working on.

I generally view people very negatively and I think Korea is highly corrupt along with most of Asia.... So I more or less expected people to be needlessly mean to young people. Someone with a rosier view would've had questions.

>Creating memorable scenes

Where i live, bus drivers are typically pretty "stand up' people. They get upset and overworked, but they generally at least care a little no matter how bad things are. When the driver was lazy and tried to end his shift earlier, I noticed.

Oh and the long journey to get from point A to point B. Walking places, how things don't work out... Its the process for using public transportation. 

Same with drunken Han, who I do not respect. How long does it take to sober up? Guy was drunk, knew someone was waiting on him, and he want... got drunker?

>Finding a good balance between d

Reddit and my other software are competing to be trash, so I had a hard time backing up my comments.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369004820146814978/932863106722451526/unknown.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369004820146814978/932863221042405386/unknown.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369004820146814978/932863221042405386/unknown.png

I was pasting a name into a line and everything disappeared.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369004820146814978/932866395312627782/unknown.png
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369004820146814978/932866478330482758/unknown.png

I'm used to pasting things okay.

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/369004820146814978/932867998522433546/unknown.png

>Plot

He spends this chapter thinking about how he is going to get answers and then he goes out to try and get some answers. Closure, the obvious noticing that something obviously was planned and conspired? 

The plot is very obvious, but then again, w

**Before starting**

Before starting I have the title and a sentence about what the story is about. I'm not sure why "sci-fi" is given with a question mark. I presume its because the author is having trouble pinning down a sub-genre or we're going to see some fantasy elements. "Lunar Orbit" sounds more like a story about astronauts trying to survive in orbit, or trying to get into orbit (Perhaps like a retelling of the events leading up to the moon landing, but without the landing, just an orbit).

Oh and I notice that for some reason there space after paragraph is on, but so is having blank spaces between paragraphs. Odd, it causes the paragraphs to be strangely far apart.

**Six months ago, if you were on Earth, you might have looked into the sky to see the full moon go dark—a silent explosion that breaks the satellite into two large pieces. If you had also been watching the news, you would have heard a live detailing of the situation: There has been an accident on the international 

I don't mean it in a missing half the story kind of way - it should still probably make sense in the English - but like, when you translate something, a shade of meaning is lost. So that little extra bit that maybe introduces an ambiguity or just some more color. I like to write bilingual stories too, so it's something I think about lol.

I do think that the dialogue not adding much is a legit problem tho, whatever language it's in, and it being in Korean just happens to highlight starkly how many words you have that aren't furthering the story.

Lyrical is a nice word for it. Funny enough, I started writing this story the same way I would write a song—breaking up lines wherever I felt like it and going with the flow of the words. 

It certainly would be interesting if I had written something into the Korean dialogue that changes the atmosphere of a scene entirely... although I'm not sure if I'm so experimental that I'd write a story where most of my readers may be missing half of the story. I'll definitely keep the idea in mind, though, as I develop this.

Actually, now I'm wondering what would happen if I purposefully mistranslated something that the main character misunderstands. Hmm...

Anyway, thanks for the notes! I'm glad you enjoyed it.

A bilingual story is always so interesting! 

I didn't realize at first that the comments had translations, so I read it at first without knowing what the Korean parts said. I like the additional layer of alienation from the narrative this adds for me as a non-Korean speaker; I feel it fits the theme. That said, once I went back and read it with the Korean translations, I was a bit disappointed to find that the meaning of that additional dialogue doesn't really add anything to the story. Like, it's cool that his mom calls him Galaxy, but that's about the only thing that 1) wasn't obvious from the context, 2) wasn't just random stuff that doesn't carry a plot or emotional punch. I'd love for the dialogue to be more targeted.

Aside from that, this feels very much like a "lyrical" piece, even if there is ostensibly a plot. Maybe I missed something, but at the end nothing changes for the character - he was miserable and trying to get along on Earth, and he's still miserable and trying to 

Hey, this'll be a story critique because I find that looking too closely at line edits i get distracted, and plus, I don't think I'm the best at it. 

&#x200B;

**Characters**

  
Your main character and all your side characters suffer somewhat from the same issue, which is that there’s very little characterization in either their actions or dialogue. Dr. Han is a bit better, because he has a bit more to him in terms of personality, but everyone else feels quite underdeveloped, with very little allowing them to stand out, and a couple missing descriptions altogether. Like, the secretary hasn’t gotten a name or description, and then disappears as soon as Dr. Han appears. Even the main character doesn’t get much description, which, to be clear, doesn’t need to be a whole paragraph or anything just enough so we know for sure what he looks like in relation to everyone else, like, is he Korean? I’m only 80% certain because we never get any real confirmation. He could just speak Korean beca

Hi there, this is my first critique here, but I've been writing for 20 years so I hope to bring some fresh thoughts.

First off, I love the premise of the story. The fact that he grew up on the moon, and then is forced to come to Earth where he finds everything unlike what he's used to... to me it sounds like a refugee story... someone who is forced from their home, and forced to live in a foreign society - perhaps unliked, perhaps scared, perhaps lonely. Unfortunately, I don't get any of this from the main character. It seems that the main character has quickly adapted to the ways things are done on Earth. They go to university... ok, how old is this character? Did they do high school on the moon? Are they super smart and got into university early? The answers to these questions would go a long way in rounding out the character and making them more believable.

I have got to address this, which is a huge issue for me - the moon breaking into two. I think you undersell that part of the

Hi. I've been sort of lurking on this sub for a while now. Excited to have a story now that I'd love to get some critique on.

The story: [Lunar Orbit](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w5FuGUxopSL4G41cCoq77aJJ7kK5nZyIDyF0zef9VrE/edit?usp=sharing) (placeholder title, for lack of better ideas)

This is a short story about a kid that grew up on the moon, his forced migration to Earth, and dealing with it all.

I'd appreciate notes on any concerns you have about the story. For specificity's sake, here were my main goals while writing:

* Portraying real/genuine characters with personal histories
* Creating memorable scenes
* Finding a good balance between detail and leaving things to the reader's imagination

Here's my critique: [\[3016\] His Feet Shall Not Touch the Ground](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/qp2aqe/3016_his_feet_shall_not_touch_the_ground/) Hope it's not too lacking.

[1887] Lunar Orbit