You're welcome!! I wish you nothing but the best for your future works :)
Elizard3
Creator of
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Overall: A fun little story that functions very well as a joke (this is not an insult!). Jar's section is the setup and Amariel's section is the punchline. The weakness of the story is in the writing and structure. It's a tricky thing to define, since the clarity of the exposition is okay, but the writing style, use of punctuation, and sentence length make the flow feel a bit stiff. Amariel's section adds some fun novelty with her internal quips, but they feel out of place because Jar's section is "normal", and that section feels dryer in comparison.
Okay, so to prove my point and to hopefully help your future writing, I took Jar's section and split the whole story up, sentence by sentence. (A sentence is defined by at least one word which is ended with a period, ellipses, or question mark). There are 25 sentences in Jar's section. 11 are more than 20 words. This is actually a high density of *long* sentences. There's some consensus in contemporary writing that most sentences should be, at most, 15 words. Don't treat this like a law, just a guideline. Point is, in future writing, try to experiment with more sentence length. Use more kinds of punctuation - remember, the written word is a visual medium - variety is fun!
Here's an article about this. https://www.wyliecomm.com/2022/07/how-long-should-a-sentence-be/
There's also some punctuation issues with possessive apostrophes:
"When the computer came online, it would take over the ships controls and cut the engines"
- Should be "ship's"
"Icons representing Kellians fire appeared on the HUD as he proved his point"
- Should be "Kellian's"
"(camera’s can see it- damn its close)"
- Should be "cameras" and "it's"
Concepts & Originality: 4/5
- Fun stuff here, we've got a doomed heist and a bored gunner who's overqualified for her post. For them, it was the worst day of their lives. For her, it was Tuesday
Flow & Clarity: 2/5
- Explained in the above section. Note that Amariel's section felt better because her internal quips were shorter and felt more natural.
Adherence to Theme: 4/5
- Both Jar and Amariel were working with limited resources creatively. Jar had limited... everything, and Amariel's older turrets actually came in handy to bring down Jar's ship (note, I actually missed the significance of her older turret on my first read. Good job on making that her creative resource, but the issues with flow/clarity got in the way).
Overall: I really enjoyed reading this story. Your dialogue is excellent, as well as actions and "pacing" of human behaviour between dialogue. My main critique is the plot. This story is about one character, Protagonist, convincing another, Tell, about the merit of horses in futuristic warfare. Protagonist argues for the merits of horses. Tell provides an occasional weak rebuttal. Protagonist convinces Tell: they "win". Story ends. It's an entertaining conversation, but the lack of conflict or other character goals leaves more to be desired, especially since you had a couple hundred more words to work with. We also don't see if Protagonist is *right* when it's time to fight, though it's implied they're justified with their (ostensibly honest) history of using horses.
Concepts and Originality: 3/5
- Solid. "Antiquated means of warfare still has a place!" is a a familiar trope, but a fine one.
Flow & Clarity: 5/5
- Despite my critiques on plot/character, it is an engaging and enjoyable read.
Adherence to Theme: 4/5
- I struggled between a 3 or a 4, mostly because we don't see the use of these creative resources, and it's just about the merits of using these resources. I rounded up because I still like the story/premise/tone.