MattyK
Ugistered Reser
Here follows the first part of the first chapter I've written for my story. It's not very long because I've been very busy at work and don't get much time to work on it but since I worked out the beginnings of a plot I thought I'd get a start and then post it here to see where I need to improve. I'm after the works please! Any punctuation, grammar and writing styles **** ups (I expect there'll be a few) I want to know about them.
If it makes it any easier to analyse it, I tend to find writing dialogue a lot easier so I seem to end up writing most of the dialogue and then going back to write any descriptive bits.
Any way, I offer it to you to pick apart, it's not a lot so far but I hope you enjoy it.
“Dammit, Luce! It feels like that laser blast from the Zargon battle cruiser just knocked out the aft deflectors!” yelled Tim as he pitched the ship into a double roll and underneath the next barrage of fire.
“What’s a Zargon battle cruiser?” Replied Lucy. “And how many times do I have to tell you, space ships don’t fire lasers. This isn’t the future, you know.”
“Maybe not for you!”
Tim piloted the Peach Princess, their moderately-sized freighter skilfully between the dogfighting ships, as much to his own amazement as to that of anyone else on the crew. A star fighter silently exploded in a brief orange bloom as the small amount of oxygen was consumed in it’s fiery demise and two more ships zoomed by so close that he could make out the intense expressions on the pilots’ faces.
“Fair enough, but you also mentioned something about shields, which cargo freighters don’t have. Plus, those ‘Zargons’ of yours aren’t even firing at us, they certainly didn’t hit us.”
“Well what made the ship go all shaky like that then?”
“The only thing shaky around here is your piloting. Did you forget about the horizontal stabilisers again? Now get us out of this fight and back on course. If you want to see a space battle so badly then just watch that Space Wars film of yours. Stop flying into them whenever you see them.”
“It’s called Star Wars actually. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it!”
“Why would I have heard of it? When did you say it was made, the twentieth century? How many seven hundred year old films have you seen recently?”
She had a point. Being inexplicably transported six hundred years into the future left Tim with many concerns but strangely, none bothered him quite as much as the fact that his once dazzling repertoire of pop culture quotes and references were now about as well received as his constant questions about all manner of ‘futuristic’ technology that had yet to be invented.
“There, I found the paddles, we are officially out of s**t creek.” Said Tim as he made a few final course adjustments and took his hands off the controls.
“Stop talking like that!” snapped Lucy.
“What, the swearing? You’re thirteen. ‘S**t’ isn’t too taboo for you is it?”
“No, I mean the phrases. The stupid twenty-second century phrases you come out with. You sound so old fashioned. Just say we’re out of trouble or something normal.”
“I can’t help it, I’ve only been here a few months. I’ll adjust, just give me some time. What was that back there any way? Some sort of inter-stellar civil war?”
“I don’t know what that was and I don’t really care, it was nothing to do with us. Probably some pirates or bandits or something like that. As long as they’re behind us and not following I’m happy.”
The usual quiet calm returned to the flight deck which included the distant, slow and somehow warm thrumming of the engines and an extraneous clattering sound from somewhere below deck that was so intermittent that Tim never seemed able to fully relax. Lucy, however, could sleep like a baby on the deck should she ever decide to do so, having lived her entire short life on the Peach Princess. She loved the background noises of the ship as much as any other bit of it, especially since her father had caved in after months of her begging to change the name of it from Camalus’ Hammer. This was when she was just five years old and even then it was more of a home to her than anywhere else in the solar system. Now she was getting older she was beginning to regret her choice of name but since her father’s sudden disappearance the previous year she resolved to keep it, partly due to her fears that she would never see him again.
If it makes it any easier to analyse it, I tend to find writing dialogue a lot easier so I seem to end up writing most of the dialogue and then going back to write any descriptive bits.
Any way, I offer it to you to pick apart, it's not a lot so far but I hope you enjoy it.
Chapter One
“Dammit, Luce! It feels like that laser blast from the Zargon battle cruiser just knocked out the aft deflectors!” yelled Tim as he pitched the ship into a double roll and underneath the next barrage of fire.
“What’s a Zargon battle cruiser?” Replied Lucy. “And how many times do I have to tell you, space ships don’t fire lasers. This isn’t the future, you know.”
“Maybe not for you!”
Tim piloted the Peach Princess, their moderately-sized freighter skilfully between the dogfighting ships, as much to his own amazement as to that of anyone else on the crew. A star fighter silently exploded in a brief orange bloom as the small amount of oxygen was consumed in it’s fiery demise and two more ships zoomed by so close that he could make out the intense expressions on the pilots’ faces.
“Fair enough, but you also mentioned something about shields, which cargo freighters don’t have. Plus, those ‘Zargons’ of yours aren’t even firing at us, they certainly didn’t hit us.”
“Well what made the ship go all shaky like that then?”
“The only thing shaky around here is your piloting. Did you forget about the horizontal stabilisers again? Now get us out of this fight and back on course. If you want to see a space battle so badly then just watch that Space Wars film of yours. Stop flying into them whenever you see them.”
“It’s called Star Wars actually. I can’t believe you’ve never heard of it!”
“Why would I have heard of it? When did you say it was made, the twentieth century? How many seven hundred year old films have you seen recently?”
She had a point. Being inexplicably transported six hundred years into the future left Tim with many concerns but strangely, none bothered him quite as much as the fact that his once dazzling repertoire of pop culture quotes and references were now about as well received as his constant questions about all manner of ‘futuristic’ technology that had yet to be invented.
“There, I found the paddles, we are officially out of s**t creek.” Said Tim as he made a few final course adjustments and took his hands off the controls.
“Stop talking like that!” snapped Lucy.
“What, the swearing? You’re thirteen. ‘S**t’ isn’t too taboo for you is it?”
“No, I mean the phrases. The stupid twenty-second century phrases you come out with. You sound so old fashioned. Just say we’re out of trouble or something normal.”
“I can’t help it, I’ve only been here a few months. I’ll adjust, just give me some time. What was that back there any way? Some sort of inter-stellar civil war?”
“I don’t know what that was and I don’t really care, it was nothing to do with us. Probably some pirates or bandits or something like that. As long as they’re behind us and not following I’m happy.”
The usual quiet calm returned to the flight deck which included the distant, slow and somehow warm thrumming of the engines and an extraneous clattering sound from somewhere below deck that was so intermittent that Tim never seemed able to fully relax. Lucy, however, could sleep like a baby on the deck should she ever decide to do so, having lived her entire short life on the Peach Princess. She loved the background noises of the ship as much as any other bit of it, especially since her father had caved in after months of her begging to change the name of it from Camalus’ Hammer. This was when she was just five years old and even then it was more of a home to her than anywhere else in the solar system. Now she was getting older she was beginning to regret her choice of name but since her father’s sudden disappearance the previous year she resolved to keep it, partly due to her fears that she would never see him again.
