Aphelion

Thanks for all your feedback. It's very helpful to get an idea of what works and what doesn't.<br><br> *** spoilers below *** <br><br>

This one was action-packed from the opening gun. Action, adventure, danger, and excitement keep the reader on edge throughout the story.

<br>Thanks for the head expanding compliment. Just before I wrote this story, I read Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man. I am so impressed with the way he gets that story started at such a tremendous pace and wanted to try to capture that sense of urgency. That was the inspiration for this story. In fact, I re-read the opening chapter several times whilst I was writing it.<br><br>

Also, I had a hard time swallowing the ending. The big bosses rarely order hits themselves. They have middlemen do it, just for the very reason to avoid someone blackmailing them. I'm not a big fan of endings where everything wraps up nicely; it just isn't realistic

<br>Endings are so tough aren't they? I reckon they divide people more than any other aspect of storytelling, and not just with prose. I heard Ian Watson talk about the extreme reactions he got for the ending he write to the AI screenplay.<br><br>Personally, I prefer to read a more 'closed' form of ending, and that's probably an adverse reaction to too many recent 'slipstream' or 'urban fantasy' shorts where lazy authors attempt to inject a sense of weirdness by leaving gaping holes in the plot and leaving the reader to fill them in. An open/unexplained ending I read recently, but did thoroughly enjoy, was by Philip K. Dick. Can't find the name of the short, but it was about a test run of a time travel capsule which explodes on re-entry. But the 'temponauts' get a grace period before they die. Having convinced the reader of the cause behind the tragedy, Dick rewinds the events and gives a series of very different explanations for the events. So by the time you get to the ending there are several 'explanations', all plausible but all contradictory. That's not lazy writing; that's genius.<br><br>I wish I could use 'genius' to describe my writing. Instead, my more modest approach was the idea that the mercenaries were the first outsiders to penetrate the secret of Chand's factory and get out alive. I saw Chand as an opportunist, milking the potential of the Time Traveller to create a stock market bubble for speculative high tech stocks (the original title was 'Future Speculation'). Chand's difficult calculation is when to disappear with the loot and how to cover his tracks. With the factory and the Time Traveller apparently destroyed, his stockholders are ruined, but he comes out OK, having converted stock into cash through intermediaries before the event. The focus on the economics and social change was largely dropped after workshopping in favour of the action. <br><br>I also liked the idea of Joel knowing he should get out of the business now this opportunity presents itself, but at the end he can't resist the lure of gadgets.<br><br>Tim<br><br>

Hi Dan,<br>Thanks for taking all that time to write down what worked for you and what did not in this story, and to do so in so much detail. Much appreciated.<br><br>I think the two things for me to take away are, 'work harder on show not tell', and 'set your backstory at the right level of detail for the story.'<br><br>I ditched much of the backstory explanation of why events where happening because it sounded too much like world building for my own pleasure, and slowed down the story. What I tried to do is give the impression that some kind of backstory exists, enough for readers to fill in some gaps if they want, but focus on the action. I found this the most difficult thing of all.<br><br>In case anyone is interested, here's what my original notes said on the backstory.<br><br>The story is set about 50 years from now.<br><br>Miguel is from the 28th centrury. He's here to do sociology study in mid 21st but gets stranded due to malfunction. Specifically, he's researching the division of world economics into free market liberals (Oskar's lot) empowered by liberalization in India and China, and the old-world conservative monopolists.<br><br>Miguel polarizes this divide: the conservatives want him dead, the liberals see him as the harbinger of a great wave of creative destruction (after Schumpeter), Chand doesn't care but thinks he can make some fast money out of him.<br><br>I've never thought of a sequel. Have to think about that.<br><br>Thanks,<br>Tim

Two killers meet, discovering a betrayal on a grand scale.<br><br>As others have noted, the action never stopped, but I think it should have. It was good action, don't get me wrong, but I say it could have been better action if some of it was preceded by tension building or intrigue. For me, a headlong rush is not as enjoyable to read as a story that ebbs and flows, building to the climax in stages. Sustained action for too long numbs the audience, instead of heightening the emotional experience.<br><br>I thought the setting of this story needed to be fleshed out more. This factory contained "robots" in rooms on more than one level that assembled and then disassembled boxes into "geometric shapes." This was hardly detailed. Were these the one-arm robots, or ones that walked around warning of danger to Will Robinson? Were the levels of metal mesh, or painted concrete (and that was why the floor could be overly waxy)? I wondered about this "smart" armor. How did it look? Could it change colors as it flexed and did all those cool things? Donald may have been satisfied with the sensory input, but I wanted more. I like stories to use all the senses.<br><br>Under character development, I usually ask myself if the characters are believable and sympathetic. Joel is, and I liked his character. Oskar I didn't care for. A supposed idealist who wants to kill to protect a political agenda, stopped his own mission against his own ideals because his opponent had a tracking device. That's hardly surprising. A pro infiltrator and assassin, Joel had a lot of gadgets. Oskar had some of them himself. Then, Oskar joins forces to fight against his benefactor, to get at the traveler he was there to protect. Again, not professional or in line with his ideals as I saw them. Although to his credit, I wanted to know how Oskar figured out to use his tracker as a trap.<br><br>Also, I wondered, did these characters grow and change in order to solve their problem. No, not that I saw, or could put a finger on. They formed an alliance, if that counts as change. Regardless, they didn't learn anything along the way that let them resolve their character conflicts.<br><br>I didn't buy this plot. How could Chand be in a position to openly order hits from both sides of the political fence? One or the both of these killers really didn't do his homework. I didn't believe that they could ally themselves so rapidly if they had been exchanging fire 30 seconds before. Given the technical knowledge he showed, I didn't believe the traveler was so helpless that he couldn't have thought some other way out. I didn't believe the pair of killers would just give in and do everything the traveler said if they thought he might be their enemy. <br><br>Then there was the conclusion. I just can't stand it when characters stand around and ask each other what they're going to do next. It makes me itch. That's not closure--that's an author fishing around for a way out of this story instead of writing a satisfying ending. I thought a good closure would have been if Joel killed Oskar (why leave competition alive after they've bested you), forced the time traveler to either give him better tech he could use or killed him, and then collected the pay from Chand before killing him for the double cross. He was a professional killer, after all. Killing is what he does.<br><br>Finally, I didn't care for the voices of these characters. They were interchangeable instead of unique to each. Oskar could have said one line the same as Joel or even the traveler.<br><br>Nate