Re: Improving our Challenge Stories -- READ FIRST POST
Well, for a first attempt at any writing, let alone a 75 word short -- which as everyone here will tell you is very difficult! -- this wasn't at all bad!! What follows may seem a bit critical, but it's all meant to point you in the right direction, so I hope it helps.
I have to say I was a bit confused as to what was happening -- not helped by "conversation" in the first line. As chrispenycate has noted on the Discussion thread, this presumably is "conversion" -- but I didn't realise that on first reading, and didn't bother to try and puzzle it out either then or afterwards. Although it seems obvious with the word "mitre" I just assumed he was wearing something odd on his head because he was an alien.
Silly spelling mistakes happen to us all, and it's a pity it happened with one which is so important, because I'm sure I wasn't the only one to be flummoxed,** but you do need to be careful.
Anyway, as a story, it's a bit lacking in drama. The idea of an interplanetary missionary ship isn't a bad one, but for those who realised what "conversation" should have meant you've given the game away in the first line, so there's nothing more here. One of my techniques is to mislead the reader, making them think they're reading one kind of story whereas it's the opposite -- but the reader only discovers this at the end. So, for instance, if you'd rephrased the dialogue you could have made it sound as if the two of them had destroyed humanity, and only for the very last line to reveal they are (presumably) messiahs of some kind. And last lines are very important -- yours does very little, I'm afraid.
Another issue which lost you points for me was the point of view or POV -- you'll find this discussed a lot in Aspiring Writers, but very basically, who is telling the story? Here it's one of the two speakers or someone watching them, but it's definitely from their perspective -- that being the case the word "alien" sticks out like a damaged pollical digit. They are not aliens to themselves -- so he is just "The commander". It makes it difficult to get over the fact he isn't human, of course, so you then need to think of a way of showing alien-ness, eg he waves his tentacles, or removes his human disguise or whatever.
Finally, your punctuation does need a bit of work, I'm afraid -- there's a thread called
The Toolbox which will be of help. Punctuation always matters, so it's important to get it right anyway, but in a Challenge a missed apostrophe can mean the difference between an Honourable Mention and a vote!
But, as I say, for a very first attempt, not bad at all. Keep practising and entering the Challenges!
** I see Hex has beaten me to the post and confessed to it, too!
