A little something I wrote.

[assassin]

Okay so I'm young and foolish and all that so I thought I'd post something I wrote.
I'd like you to be incredibly critical and let me know what exactly is bad, if not all.


The future had been in many senses, a disappointment.
There were no flying cars, no instant food pills, and certainly no teleportation.
It had begun to dawn on many also that time travel wasn’t going to happen, why else hadn’t they been visited by their future selves bearing next weeks lottery numbers?
Space travel had advanced of course, not greatly, but most definitely enough to allow humans to reach the further planets, and explore the stars.
It had supposedly been then that mankind had realised, quite sadly, that as far as this galaxy was concerned, they were very much alone.
So they had tried to do something about it.
Robotics entered a new phase completely, after so many years, finally making it possible to create almost human machines.
The so called Mechoids were everywhere; everyone had their very own mechoid butler, or cleaner, chauffeur or child minder.
Many people, naturally, had believed that the future would bring war, overpopulation and of course a highly sophisticated and ultimately corrupt government.
Those people had been quite wrong.
The year 2091 seen an end to the last great war, it had been terrible, causing widespread destruction and the loss of whole continents.
Yet what followed seemed to be a golden Era.
For once the government could be trusted, it was secure, strong and righteous, and there were no more wars.
Yet it seemed that humanity had no time for war.
-Time.-
-Mankind’s greatest foe.-
Widespread diseases and famine had killed entire generation’s even cities, as humanity got smaller and smaller, yet still not tiny enough to fade away.
Although they seemed closer now than before , not as distinct as they had once been, as if they were slowly shrinking back to the beginning, before disappearing at last.
That had been about the time when the Drithin were born.
Of course genetically creating hybrids had always been immoral even with animals, never mind humans, but as the world grew old, religion had died, and as religion had died, so had a little part of humanity.
Belief, in anything but the tangible had vanished.
It wasn’t as if good atheists didn’t exists, it was just a lot easier to to be good for a unique promise, or a deadly warning, and many assumed that if they had one life, they may as well do as they choose.
The Drithin were strange creatures, basically humans, but paler, not just a peach colour, or tan, but a withered white.
It was unknown what they had pieced together with, but the result was a slightly more compact human, a lot loss violence and a good bit more intelligence.
They were still too few but generally they made a difference to society, although this angered many humans.
Another change that was creeping up on humanity was that slowly but surely, they were losing the ability to breed.
Each year the birth rate dropped as more and more humans became infertile, it was few at first, but soon, far too many to be good.
So humanity was met with a great fear, that is to say, the possibility of extinction.
It most definitely did not help, by the fact that life spans had dramatically shortened.
When once people had lived to 200 or even 250, now to die at 50 was considered a good long life.
Denise was 42, so in many peoples opinion, she was getting on a bit.
Of course, she still looked 42, even when lifespan’s were shrunk incredibly people never looked that old, because they never got the chance.
Denise forced herself out of bed; it was a new day, a chance to shine, she thought gloomily.
She had been a professional once, back during the mechoid age, she had been well paid, happy, and completely guiltless.
Of course the mechoid age had ended with a crash.
It only took one mechoid; they still called it ‘the murderer’.
He had been doing his usual work; cleaning and gardening, as mechoid were always busy.
When of course, a petty thief had attacked his owner and fled with what remained of her money.
Now the fascinating thing about Mechoids, is that foolishly, they where programmed to learn,Adapt and serve.
Putting these three together was simple for the mechoid, He had learnt that violent battering could result in both death for him and his mistress, he had adapted to this from watching old broken discs and the other humans, clearly he merely had to respond in kind, and the thief would leave. Finally, he must serve humans above all and especially his mistress, so logically he defended her.
Of course a fight had broken out, a quite horrible one; it hadn’t been clear who used the knife, or the gun.
But the Result had been clear, the thief was dead,
Despite inconclusive evidence, the ‘murderer’ was blamed both by the law and his own mistress.
This of course gave the press delightful opportunities, and soon all the world was against the mechoid.
They where beaten to death in the streets, torn apart by their owners or simply cut off from life.
-It had only taken one.-
It was ironic really, the minute their own creations began to show signs of humanity; they pummelled them into the ground.
Denise had been a mechoidologist, that is to say, she designed them, repaired them, improved on them and could possibly make one from scratch.
Now however, her job was not only very different, but very depressing.
Of course after the ‘murder’ was executed it was not long before it was decided that ‘all Mechanical humanoids are directly or indirectly, a threat to the welfare and morality of humanity, and therefore by law, it is the individual responsibility of all Humanoids to ensure their destruction/deactivation is carried out.’
So now, that was her job, the very things she had cherished, and created, and know, she was required to destroy.
It was a simple task, she would go to the home and politely ask the person to step outside, if they refused, she would simply call a squad.
-They never refused.-
And so weepy eyed or greedily counting their money, the Owner would give up their Mechoid and it would obediently march out and be tied down, and shipped off to be destroyed.
Yet all the time, Denise wondered, did they have souls?
-What defined a soul?-
Was it the brightness in the eyes and fascination with life?
Was it the spark of ideas and the ability to love?
Or was it a consciousness, granted only to those that where born of the earth, living flesh, humanity.
She had asked herself many times, but never answered, they were only iron and copper and silicone, had she not moulded them together with her own hands?
She had seen it, and it was perhaps beautiful, but ultimately she knew, it couldn’t possibly be life.
-Could it?-

 

[RVM45]

.....Personally, I found your little exposition tolerably interesting- but that's exactly what it was- EXPOSITION. You have to be somewhat leery of too much exposition at any point. Putting that much in the first few paragraphs just invites those with limited attention spans- large portions of the readership nowadays- to put your story down; and go looking elsewhere for entertainment.

......Much of that info really didn't need to be on the first page. Make the reader DIG for it.

.....We don't need to know about the Drithin until one enters the story- even then, parcel out the information about them, bit by bit. Let the reader work up some curiousity about them.

.....If I were writing the story, I'd say that Denise pried herself out of bed. She's a real well preserved 42; even though she's close to the current maximum life expectancy of 50- down recently; and inexplicably; from a high of 250.

.....She used to enjoy crafting and building Mechoids. Since Mechoids were outlawed; her job description has changed to being the one responsible for their orderly detruction.

.....Then put in her reservations about whether a Mechoid could be sentient or not.

.....See, we haven't even given an unambigous statement what Mechoid is- although context and the name itself imply some sort of robot/android. We haven't explained why they're all being rounded up and destroyed. Hopefully the reader will be just dying to find out.

.....Might have stuck in an aside that with the current World population hovering around 400 Million(or whatever) and the fertility and birth rate slowly but steadily declining year by year; the Earth is going to seem even more empty without the Mechoids.

.....See?

.....RVM45

 

[alternicity]

hi Assassin,
I liked it, but personally I would consider starting it at 'Denise was 42' and keeping it character focused. Use the material that comes before this as source, and reveal it through dialogue and drama.
Show don't tell dude

 

[The Ace]

They're right, you're telling a story in a single page and pumping out too much information at once. The basic premise is good (beyond minor spelling and grammatical points) but a story should develop naturally, not be dumped on the overwhelmed reader in one go.

One thing I disliked, nothing personal, but I hate misuse of apostrophes. Plurals don't have them.

 

[Kahnmark]

Trying not to repeat or reinforce earlier critiques, I must only recommend that you write numbers with words. "Forty two" instead of 42, for example. Numbers interrupt flow, and using words boosts your word count.

I would call what you have here a meta-outline. All of your general ideas are compacted. Expand it, fill it with meat, introduce character development and you have a good begininning.

 

[assassin]

Thank you very much! I shall take that into account.


so rvm 45.
You are basically saying,

-take what I have and streach it out with an actual story filiing the gaps?

-Explain things slowly/slower
and finally

-concentrate on characters?

 

[mactavish]

Hummmmm......

Alternatively, rewrite this in the first person. This could be interesting.

Bear with me.

To me, the future has been, in many ways, a disappointment. Let me list them. There are: no flying cars; no instant food pills; no travel to other worlds; and certainly no teleportation.

It has begun to dawn on me also that time travel isn't going to happen. Why else haven't we been visited by our future selves bearing next weeks lottery numbers? And where are the aliens? It's beginning to look, quite sadly, that as far as this galaxy is concerned, we're all alone.


I quite like that as a hook. Just thinking aloud.

Mactavish.

 

[assassin]

Yes but considering that people don't normally see the present as the future it would make little sense.