Hey Nightshade. I usually have something to say before I start, but I can’t think of anything. So let’s get started!
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Part 1:
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
Centre of Oceanography and Nautical Research, Alaska, USA
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This is not something you need to fix per say, but rather a suggestion.
Since it takes place in the USA, I think it would make sense to use to American version of ‘center’. While I don’t mean you need to use American spelling throughout the piece, since it doesn’t matter, I thought it might just make sense for this since it’s the name of the place.
Only a suggestion though. I don’t mind to say it’s wrong.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
…questions that revolved around the field of marine technology and machinery.
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I feel like there’s something in this I’m missing. Does this mean he’d really rather be answering questions about something else, or that he just wants alone time? If it’s the latter, I think you can cut everything after ‘questions’ out. We know he’s the director of the place, so it feels kind of redundant to say that he’d be getting questions about the area.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
“Dr. Granger?” The director suppressed a sigh and replaced his glasses.
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I think “The director suppressed…” should be its own line, only so there’s no confusion as to who’s asking the question and who’s sighing. While it can be figured out, we don’t really know the character(s) well enough yet to make this kind of assumption without worry we got it wrong.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
“Good evening professor Ralston…
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Since Ralston is named, I think ‘professor’ needs to be capitalized.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
Director Richard Granger sat straight-backed in his chair and placed his interlocking hands on the polished surface of the desk.
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I really love this sentence. I just needed to point it out.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
He’d always admired her...He’d often wondered…
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I’m confused as to why there’s ellipses between ‘admired her’ and ‘He’d often’. I think they would work fine as two separate sentences.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
“Well, you see…There have been a number of anomalous readings showing up on the North Atlantic sonar monitors.
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Usually, when using ellipses between words there is a space after them. The only time I don’t usually use a space is when the ellipses are in between the same word. I.E. “w…what?” and “Well… you know.”
I didn’t point it out in the rest of the piece because I figure if you do change this you know where your ellipses are. =] (Also, I’m lazy.)
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
Make sure that nobody - and I mean nobody interrupts the experiments.
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I think you’re missing the second dash. If you meant to set ‘and I mean nobody’ apart from the rest of the sentence, you need to put a dash after the second ‘nobody’.
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Part 2:
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
… his crop of grey hair just about visible above the leather chair.
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I was under the impression that ‘grey’ was in reference to sadness, like an emotion, and that ‘gray’ was the color. I could be wrong about that though.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
...Director!...”
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I don’t understand why there are ellipses after “Director!”?
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
The office was silent.
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I feel like I’ve read this sentence a lot. Could it be changed up a bit?
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
“Richard..?”
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You forgot a dot for the ellipses here.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
Her head was spinning wildly but her eyes…
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I’d put a comma after ‘wildly’ since there’s a ‘but’.
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Originally Posted by ’Nightshade
Thick droplets of crimson dripped from a crystal tumbler like a spilt drink.
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This is the best sentence I’ve read all day. <3
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While I like the dates and times at the beginning, I’m curious as to what they actually are. At first I thought maybe they were records from Richard’s point of view (be it a diary or whatnot), but when it switched views to Rachel, I wasn’t sure anymore. Do we ever find out what they are in the piece?
Otherwise, holy Lord I love this. I really, really hope you write more out. You really had me hooked by the end. I did not see that coming
at all.
May I be a motivator? Write it please! <3