You've given me a lot to mull over, thank you!

**MECHANICS - LANGUAGE AND STORY UNIVERSE**

>The shuttle knifed into Titan’s frozen sky atop a column of orange plasma.

Okay, first sentence. Immediately I get a sense of place and movement, and a clear position as scifi, which is great. Except the wording - I’m not entirely sure if the shuttle is coming or going, and the word ‘knifed’ (sharp) is at odds with the ‘atop a column’(flat). So it’s reading a bit like a pile of pretty words without much thought to the logistical picture - an easy fix would be to change the ‘knifed’ to ‘rose’, or ‘hurtled up’ if that is, in fact, the direction. Further down there’s the station above and the moon below but I still don’t know which way they’ve gone until Iris is walking on the ground. Ah, they’ve gone down, which wasn’t what I assumed. So there needs to be a fix for clarity in there somewhere.

The  length of the first four sentences is very similar, and a bit monotonous. Could they be rearranged to be short, long etc?

Bottom of page one, no

Not really going to touch on anything else at this point since I am out of time. However, fixing the plot is going to be the most important part. Everything else is second to that at this point.

&#x200B;

Good luck!

**STAGING & CHARACTERIZATION**

Staging was one of your stronger points. Your characters interact with the setting rather well. The bit about the one girl hanging from a support strut because the gravity on the moon was lower than average was a good example of that. 

You also do a good job of using these little interactions between characters and the objects in the world to describe a very casual setting. It's clear its not some high-class lounge, but a place where a bunch of workers or other 'classes' individuals are sprawled about in their down time. It established a good feel.

Your characters are okay. Not great. But okay.

For example, I don't know who Iris is. She is clearly the main character at this point and so I should have an idea of what her existence entails. She's wandering around from one place to another but... why?

There is a suggestion that she is some sort of courier, bringing messages from place-to-place, but there's absolutely nothing guaranteeing that this is th

**PREFACE**

You say you're not sure what it is missing. I can tell you what it is missing without a shred of uncertainty - a point.

General concept you'll run into in this review will almost always circle back to that. Why do I care about this thing? Why is this important? 

So, let's get into the guts of it.

**MECHANICS**

*Title*

Your title Herald of Joy, Bringer of Woe, gives me no idea what this story is about, and neither does the story. At this point, it does not fit. If it is a place holder? Cool. If not? Hopefully whatever comes next starts to fit. Its a bit wordy and contradictory. Heralding something is akin to bringing it, and this title implies that someone or something brings both joy and woe. Not impossible, but certainly weird.

Fortunately, a title isn't going to make or break a story, but it is also one of the first things someone sees and it is therefore critically important that it doesn't make the brain skip a beat trying to figure out what seems off about it.



CHARACTERIZATION

  
Other than Iris being a courier, I know nothing about Iris. You hinted about where she used to live on earth in the beginning, but other than that, she falls flat. I have no reason to root for her or care about her much at all. Clearly, she has a hard job, but we need more than that. Plot, setting, and imagery are essential to a story, but the characterization is the backbone and foundation of any tale. And I'll tell you why. 

  
The evolution of the human brain was shaped by storytelling. Reading about other people (aka characters) and how they deal with different situations and dangers allows our brain to learn without actually putting us in danger. That's why we're way more likely to put down a book when the main character feels forced and flat. Readers want to know how a character changed between the first page and the last. That's truly the essence of storytelling: how your character's situation changes her from start to finish.    


Right now, your characte

GENERAL REMARKS

Hi! Thanks for sharing this! On my first read-through, I struggled with some confusion around your story theme and some of your language choices. I understand this is science fiction, but I believe you can make things a bit clearer with some revision. My take on this story: A young woman works as a mail carrier on a foreign planet (or moon) and struggles with the emotional intensity of her job. 

MECHANICS

**Title**

The title is fine. It seems unique to me, but I'm not much of a science fiction reader. I think it described your main character well. 

**Hook**

I really didn't see a hook here. Your first sentence is incredibly confusing. I had to read it three times, and it still didn't register with me. So I just moved on.  At first, I thought Titan was a person, and the orange plasma was some sort of bodily fluid. I understand you're trying to describe your setting right off the bat. That's smart, but if you could slow it down and be more descriptive, it would help 

I’m a beginning reader so take what I say with some salt.


So I’m the beginning with the description of movement I think is great. “Knifing into the sky” I’m assuming means they came from somewhere else to the location of this story. It’s sets the pace and feel of the vehicle. One thing I did note is that the setting could be described a little more. In a fantasy story taking place on a different earth or different planet, the world or setting should be painted clearly.

The pacing is a tad fast for me taste but that could be preference rather then any kind of critique. Other than the settings I feel that the characters introduced could be described or brought more attention too, which could ease the flow from its pace. Ex: the workers, the courier, and her outpost.

I like the small interactions between the characters, things like Iris being greeted by the man beside her and her embarrassment from drooling. It helps gives some life to the characters even if they maybe irrelevant. I t

Dude are you just a frickin bot? This is word for word plagiarism

Your comment is being removed because it is copy-paste of u/jay_lysander 's comment. If you feel this is in error please modmail the subreddit.

This story is missing something, but I'm not sure exactly what.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1l6oFKzbD37ZUc-G54uagosAHtL_m-VIQ-0U-nvxiwc8/edit?usp=sharing

Recent critique:

[[2328]](https://www.reddit.com/r/DestructiveReaders/comments/wlcel1/2328_the_grotto/ijsv8gf/)

[1364] Herald of Joy, Bringer of Woe