Got a bit more time to reply to your feedback.  It's good to know the abduction scene was not scary.  Its easy for the author to think its scary when I have the scene playing in my head, but looking on the paper I see how it is kind of rushed and the issues you point out with it.

Thanks for pointing out the plotholes - I had plans on mentioning why he hadn't copied the picture yet, but forgot about that as the story got bigger.  Definitely want to add that in!

Glad the rest of the story more or less worked.  Again, thanks for the feedback!

**1.) Does it capture those emotions/aspects mentioned above?** Let's discuss each of these emotions:

* *Fun*: It is a story about a trip to a supposed "alien temple". A fiery start to the story takes you into the seat of a speeding jeep across a desert landscape. A *fun* situation to be in; maybe a field trip to said alien temple? Maybe exploration and study? Maybe he's planning to **steal** something from it? Ooh that could be *fun*. As you read you'll realise that Roy himself is also having fun on this trip, whatever his intention may be, as indicated by:

> A younger Roy would have been terrified.  Now, he smiled.

And the *fun* wasn't just in the start of the story, it was intriguing trying to figure out the glyph's effects on Roy, if it had any.


* *Mysterious*: The topic of aliens has always been *mysterious* (if done correctly). And I liked this story's slow transition from "no mystery" to "a lot of mystery". What I didn't find enjoyable is how the climax followed, especially

Thanks for the feedback!

I had started the story with the ending in mind (wouldn't it be funny if the aliens were humans?), but it kind of evolved into the more mysterious vibe as I went.  Good to know that the ending does come off as disjointed from the rest of the story.  I'll have to see if I can smooth the transition better or just come up with a completely different ending.

>1.) It is meant to be fun, mysterious, and adventurous with a touch of fear.

I found it to be so, even Lovecraftian at times.

>2.) Are there places that drag or are boring?

Not really but overall it could still use minor editing to smooth things out.

>3.) Does the setting feel realistic? Its not supposed to be any real location on earth, but something that seems like it could exist somewhere. I'm talking about the ancient city, desert, and people in the story.

It mostly felt like an alternative earth, but if it was real earth then I thought it was likely the Australian outback. If you had told me it was real earth I would've assumed it was the future too, since you referenced buildings from a civilization from three-thousand years before.

>Time is being messed with. Roy is sent back far in time to when the city was in its prime.

That's what I thought, though it may have been nice for him to have described a person he saw or something. It was vague in our description and he woul

Thanks for this in-depth critique!  It is very helpful!

I did want the place to feel alive, and so some questions left with the reader, but it sounds like I left too much unexplained.  I wanted more satisfaction at the end.  It's good to know the intrigue lies with the city and temple more so than the later abduction.  

Funnily enough, I did have plans for Roy to bump into one of the natives when he was leaving the canyon.  I ended up scrapping that idea because I wasn't sure how to make their reactions to seeing each other seem authentic, and the story was already growing much larger than I had originally planned.  But I'll consider adding that idea back in!

To answer your question about the potential time jump plot hole: I left it vague on purpose because time-travel gets complicated the more in-depth you go with it.  My hope was just to capture the fun initial rush of thought when the reader realizes it was Roy who was being interviewed on the radio, but you're right that it brin

As a preface, this is my first writing critique, so you can take a grain of salt along with it. These are simply my opinions as a hopeful writer. ~~I will edit this post until the formatting is corrected.~~ **Done!** 



**General Remarks:**    
I felt a sense of Indiana Jones style adventure in a compact time space. I think I enjoyed the story overall, despite the vague ending. That's very appropriate for a mystery despite my personal preferences.
 
**Your Questions:**    
**1.) Does it capture those emotions/aspects mentioned above?**    
	The fun is certainly present. We begin in a dusty jeep barreling towards an unknown location. I think the costumed humans at the end of the story bring a little fun with them as well. The mystery is certainly there (see below). As is the adventure (see below.) The fear is present but very brief.

**2.) Are there places that drag or are boring?**    
	Personally, I felt like the pacing was great. Each point in the story leads to the next without any

No problem!  Again, thanks for taking the time to read and offer your critique.

I was trying to make it *seem* like earth, up until the reveal at the end where the reader is supposed to learn it is not earth but a test planet, one of many.  I'll work on making that more clear.

The fact that it's not earth, but earth-like, could have been made a bit clearer. That clears up a fair few of my problems with the story, but because it's not made 100% explicit, it throws me for a loop.

The last sentence you mention I kind of missed, because I kind of critiqued this at... 4:00 in the morning or so? I was awake, but not as awake as I should have been. My bad.

Hi, thanks for your feedback.

I am aware of the racist origins of "Ancient Aliens," and am glad that other readers like yourself are also aware of it!  To clear up what is happening in the story: the futuristic humans (disguised as aliens) simply appear in costumes and the subjects on their test planets react - pretty much everything they do is by the people on the planet without help from the "aliens".  The "aliens" are just the inspiration for their drawings and monuments...in the fictional story that does not take place on earth.  It seems like I could have made this more clear.

However, I'm trying to understand where you got the notion that,

> but you're still saying 'a more advanced civilization is shaping a culture that could not have shaped itself'

As I am not aware of me saying this anywhere in the story.  Unless by "shaping" you are meaning the inspiration for their drawings?

There is also a line on the radio show where Jet and Ahn talk about "who really built the temples

**1.) Does it capture those emotions?**

I got a bit of fun from it, but not much fear. I was pretty distracted by the spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) errors prevalent in the piece (such as not ending questions with a question mark, proper nouns not being capitalized in places, relatively simple words like 'uninformed' being misspelled) , but I'm especially picky about the technical aspects. Not helping this is the fact that none of the characters really speak in a realistic manner.

That ties into point 2.

**2. Are there places that drag?**

The whole story honestly feels like a drag, because of the way the characters speak.

There's an adage when it comes to media production that ears are easier to offend than the eyes, and poor sound quality will kill anything you make quicker than something like bad video editing or inadequate special effects. The same is true of dialog-- unconvincing dialog will take a reader out of the story more quickly than any other part of a given w

[3607] Alien Temple