My first critique request!

[Mirannan]

This is actually all of it.Be gentle with me!


50 Millihelen


It started with a mistake, and ended in tragedy – and triumph.


Helen was a model 3004 GPD AIR (General Purpose Domestic AI Robot) and Bob, Sue and the kids thought they were fortunate to have her. After all, you couldn’t buy one (they were only available on long-term contract) and they were very expensive – but it so happened that Bob was on the design team that was assigned to keep up with and test firmware updates, and so they had Helen in the house for free.


The deal was that the free units were the first to be tested with updates , which were installed during the daily recharge, and the people who had them had to fill out questionnaires about their performance. But anyway, Helen was very popular with the kids and even with Sue; although Helen was modelled on a composite of supermodels and the designers had managed to pass by Uncanny Valley, Sue didn’t feel threatened. For one thing, Helen wasn’t anatomically complete. (The 3069 SPE-X and –Y units were, but that’s another story.)


For a few years, this family did fine with its unusual lodger, who had become a familiar sight in the local stores and was getting quite popular. After all, the model 3004 was designed to learn and change in something like the way people do, and as in the case of people each one was different. She even seemed to have a personality, and some people thought she really did. A rather pleasant one, too.


And then it happened. One day, Sue was out with friends and the kids were at school – and when they came back Helen wasn’t there and Bob was, which was unusual.


Sue was the first to arrive, and straightaway she asked; “Where’s Helen? Needs repairs?”


Bob, looking a bit shamefaced and more than a little sad and very tired, said “No, it’s not that. Something awful’s happened. It’s like this. Two updates arrived at once. Some homemakers’ committee in deepest Jesusland started complaining about 3004 units ‘flirting with their husbands’. And the military demanded a change because 3004 units were causing fights in bars on base, when drunken soldiers started arguing over them. Both updates installed at once, and after that Helen went really wrong. She didn’t look right at all, acted like an animated mannequin, and was clumsy as heck. I looked at her software map, and it was a mess and couldn’t be fixed. I had to shut her down and send her off to be reformatted. Helen’s... gone.”


The kids cried for days. The Press was camped on their lawn for a week. The AI Rights Bill, due for voting the following month, passed by a landslide.


[FONT=&quot]Too late for Helen.[/FONT]

 

[Hex]

Hi Mirannan,

I like the story and your writing is strong but I think you could tell this more effectively. If you got into someone's head (e.g. one of the kids or Sue's or Bob's) then you could make the story far more personal and emotional than it is just now.

I hope you don't mind if I say this reads like a story outline rather than the story itself and I suspect because it's the story in your head you're reading more emotional impact to it than it currently has.

And the thing is -- this is a good story. I would read it. I want to read it.

So -- to give you an idea of what I mean (I'm not rewriting, just illustrating):

Bob, Sue and the kids thought they were fortunate to have her.

"Mum!"

Sue turned from the sink, soap bubbles popping on her elbows. "What?"

"Come and see!" Voices murmured with excitement -- she could hear Bob too. What was he doing home this early?

"In a minute!" She surveyed the massive pile of washing-up and closed her eyes at the thought of the next half hour.

"Muuum!"

She'd take any excuse. She pulled off the gloves and threw them onto the draining board then walked out into the hallway.

"What?" But she'd seen. Right in the middle of the hallway, Bob [and the kids] revolving round it like adoring moons, stood a 3004 GPD AIR...

 

[Warren_Paul]

Hey, Mirannan, and congratulations on being brave enough to put up your first piece for critique.

The writing looks good. I didn't notice any problems with the grammar, and the concept of the story sounded quite interesting. Are you planning to expand it more? Because I think there is potential here to do so, and that's really what it needs; more depth.

The main issue I have with it is the lack of Point of View depth. It doesn't follow the thoughts and PoV of any particular character, instead written as if omniscient, yet even then I don't get any sense for which character is narrating this story. I would have liked it to be a lot more personal. Write it as if one of the family members, most likely Bob, is the person saying all this. Describe it from his thoughts and perspective, and I think it will feel a lot more personal if you did.

You tell us the kids cried, and that Bob was sad. You tell us there is emotion, but I want to feel it. The only way I will be able to feel it though is if you get right into the characters thoughts and feelings, and show us everything that happened, rather than telling us it all in an info-dump sort of way. I want to feel the bond the kids formed with Helen. I want to see the press camping on their lawns, hear the protests that got the bill passed. I want to feel the emotion as they reflect on how it came too late to save Helen.


You have the potential for a good story here, but it is one that deserves to be fleshed out much more than this. Add dialogue, have the family going around their daily lives, show us how Helen was involved in their lives and why they loved her.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Well done for putting it up.

50 Millihelen




Helen was a model 3004 GPD AIR (General Purpose Domestic AI Robot) and Bob, Sue and the kids thought they were fortunate to have her. After all, you couldn’t buy one (they were only available on long-term contract) and they were very expensiveso if you can't buy one, why are they expensive? Do you mean they couldn't afford to buy one due to the expense? – but it so happened that Bob was on the design team that was assigned to keep up with and test firmware updates, and so they had Helen in the house for free.


The deal was that the free units were the first to be tested with updates , which were installed during the daily recharge, and the people who had them had to fill out questionnaires about their performanceI think, maybe, some of the information doesn't add to the story: it's important you know that it makes sense and there is a reason for it being this way, but I would have read on happily enough without knowing this.. But anyway, Helen was very popular with the kids and even with Sue; although Helen was modelled on a composite of supermodels and the designers had managed to pass by Uncanny Valley, Sue didn’t feel threatened. For one thing, Helen wasn’t anatomically complete. (The 3069 SPE-X and –Y units were, but that’s another story.)that made me smile. I quite like the narrator's voice.


For a few years, this family did fine with its unusual lodger, who had become a familiar sight in the local stores and was getting quite popular. After all, the model 3004 was designed to learn and change in something like the way people do, and as in the case of people each one was different. She even seemed to have a personality, and some people thought she really did. A rather pleasant one, too.I'm not sure about this paragraph, it seemed very long to tell me a couple of years had passed and the robot was very nice.


And then it happened. One day, Sue was out with friends and the kids were at school – and when they came back Helen wasn’t there and Bob was, which was unusual.


Sue was the first to arrive, and straightaway she asked; “Where’s Helen? Needs repairs?”


Bob, looking a bit shamefaced and more than a little sad and very tired, said “No, it’s not that. Something awful’s happened. It’s like this. Two updates arrived at once. Some homemakers’ committee in deepest Jesusland started complaining about 3004 units ‘flirting with their husbands’. And the military demanded a change because 3004 units were causing fights in bars on base, when drunken soldiers started arguing over them. Both updates installed at once, and after that Helen went really wrong. She didn’t look right at all, acted like an animated mannequin, and was clumsy as heck. I looked at her software map, and it was a mess and couldn’t be fixed. I had to shut her down and send her off to be reformatted. Helen’s... gone.”


The kids cried for days. The Press was camped on their lawn for a week. The AI Rights Bill, due for voting the following month, passed by a landslide.


[FONT=&quot]Too late for Helen.[/FONT][


I smiled at a few bits, didn't have much to do about grammar. As Hex says, though, it reads more like a story introduction than an actual, complete story. What happens next? What was the fall out? Did Helen lead an AI revolution? It's a nice start, which could be built on. I see both Hex and WP have said about pov closeness and using one person to tell the story, which I would normally agree with, but I actually rather like your narrator's voice, albeit with more showing needed.

 

[Cosmic Geoff]

Yes, it's an entertaining story, but it could be filled out a lot more by dramatising various scenes, rather than just having a summary as the author has done here.
I'm not sure about the family having the robot for several years. That would be the case if robots were a mature product, like microwave ovens, but at the moment they're under rapid development. So are other high-tech products such as smartphones and computer tablets, which consumers don't keep in use for long.

Why would the press camp on this family's lawn for a week? Does Bob's robot get the updates in advance of everyone else?
Some people never learn to back up their data before it's too late (grin)

 

[JoanDrake]

How does Helen feel about what happened to her? She is, after all, the only one who overtly changes and the main character the story is about.

As it stands, it's very interesting and well written, revealing you to be a talented writer IMO. I think we all look forward to hearing more from you soon

 

[Mirannan]

How does Helen feel about what happened to her? She is, after all, the only one who overtly changes and the main character the story is about.

As it stands, it's very interesting and well written, revealing you to be a talented writer IMO. I think we all look forward to hearing more from you soon

I obviously didn't make it clear enough; Helen, at the end of the story, has essentially been mindwiped. The situation being a little like the one with computers; sometimes the only answer is to reformat and reinstall. Of course, anything that makes that particular copy unique is gone.

Anyway, thanks everyone. I thought it worked quite well as a "short short"; but perhaps what I've written leaves too many questions unanswered.

I have another problem with this. As might be obvious, the story is set somewhere in the USA - a future version of it, natch. Unfortunately, I've never lived there so making local colour work is going to be difficult. I'll have to think of a workaround. The bit about "Jesusland" may have to go, unless I make it clear that "Robot Corp" (placeholder name!) is a multinational.

Hmmm... given myself work to do...

 

[AnyaKimlin]

The writing is good, funny, sad and the story imaginative. However, at present it reads more like the synopsis than a story.

The suggestion to make it a series of interactions from the POV of one of the characters would really help with this.

 

[kromanjon]

If that was the entire story, what was the triumph hinted at in the beginning?

Besides that I liked it as a concept but agree with everyone else that it needs more meat. You need more scenes depicting the characters and the events. Also the ending seemed a bit rushed and lacking in conflict. I would like the family to get to know about the comming mindwipe and perhaps getting a chans to fight against it or come to terms with it.

But as I said, the story could be very exciting with a bit more work on the pacing.

 

[Bowler1]

I don't have much to add, it was author narration and to be fair, entertaining enough. I would perfer the story coming from a character, so I can live in their world and get a feel for their world. Develop the plot and tension, etc, it felt very rushed.

Not bad for a first post, mine looked like a crime scene after all my writing errors had been corrected with red ink.

 

[Mirannan]

If that was the entire story, what was the triumph hinted at in the beginning?

Besides that I liked it as a concept but agree with everyone else that it needs more meat. You need more scenes depicting the characters and the events. Also the ending seemed a bit rushed and lacking in conflict. I would like the family to get to know about the comming mindwipe and perhaps getting a chans to fight against it or come to terms with it.

But as I said, the story could be very exciting with a bit more work on the pacing.

Really wasn't clear, was I? The triumph was "rights for AIs."

As I've said, all comments taken on board; I'll work on turning it from a synopsis into a story.

 

[JoanDrake]

I obviously didn't make it clear enough; Helen, at the end of the story, has essentially been mindwiped. The situation being a little like the one with computers; sometimes the only answer is to reformat and reinstall. Of course, anything that makes that particular copy unique is gone.

Anyway, thanks everyone. I thought it worked quite well as a "short short"; but perhaps what I've written leaves too many questions unanswered.

I have another problem with this. As might be obvious, the story is set somewhere in the USA - a future version of it, natch. Unfortunately, I've never lived there so making local colour work is going to be difficult. I'll have to think of a workaround. The bit about "Jesusland" may have to go, unless I make it clear that "Robot Corp" (placeholder name!) is a multinational.

Hmmm... given myself work to do...

I did understand that Helen, basically, died. What I was suggesting was that it might have had more impact if we had gotten into Helen's head a little more

This rather reminds me of Episode 3 of Ghost in The Shell, Stand Alone Complex, which is one of my favorite shows and very original IMO. Very good.

 

[Beef]

I feel sorry for Helen!

I agree with others that this seems a little too summary, and would certainly benefit from development and expansion.

This reminds me of Asimov's short story, "Robbie"

 

[J Riff]

T'isnt bad for a shortshort, but they arent so easy to write are they?
I'd go to hell and back to have HElen back. *

 

[Glisterspeck]

For me, the narrator has a charming sort of voice. (I think this comes from phrases like, "after all" and "but that's another story.") I think if that voice gets attached to one of your POV characters, it will bring a ton of depth to the story. Otherwise, if you want to stay with the omniscient narrator, I think the voice needs to be more neutral or the narrator be given some sort of frame story. Like a sic-fi Mark Twain short. (The voice kinda reminds me of his stories.)

 

[Bakerman]

I also think this would be far more effective if dramatised. Or even if told dramatically, as if it had happened to you and you were recounting it to someone else.

I'd recommend reading some early A.C. Clarke short stories. There are many in this style - a short treatment of a funny idea, a character, etc. They're very lively without taking up much time or space - great reading as well as, hopefully, instructive!

 

[Mirannan]

I also think this would be far more effective if dramatised. Or even if told dramatically, as if it had happened to you and you were recounting it to someone else.

I'd recommend reading some early A.C. Clarke short stories. There are many in this style - a short treatment of a funny idea, a character, etc. They're very lively without taking up much time or space - great reading as well as, hopefully, instructive!

Thanks. Working on it. I've had some ideas related to Frank Herbert's work in Dune, too - snippets from fictional future reference works. However, I much doubt that I'm good enough to pull it off.

BTW, I am flattered beyond words by being compared to Mark Twain!