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The Stars Stand Strong
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Well, this definitely takes the image it's dedicated to and runs with it. I don't think I've ever read a story that so tightly adhered to the prompt (art or otherwise).
The dueling perspectives, between the kreen and the boy, are interesting, but I'm not sure they work in a story this short. There's simply not enough time dedicated to each character for me to empathize much with them or their plights. The flashbacks (there are two separate flashbacks in a story of less than 3,000 words) give us some backstory but, again, I feel like their placement breaks up the story just when it starts to get rolling.
The moral, if you will, also feels a bit heavy-handed. You have the Kreen, who greet the newly arriving humans with open arms and understanding. And the humans mercilessly wipe them out. Now, that's certainly realistic, and god knows it's happened before, but what's the point of retelling it in this form? The Kreen main character seems to have an extremely sophisticated and academic perspective on his people's slaughter, mentioning history books and human rights, when it seems to me that one of the last survivors of a small band being driven to extinction would be more concerned with hatred (his or ours), a desperate will to survive, and failing that, a lust for revenge.
But perhaps that's what separates us from the Kreen.
The dueling perspectives, between the kreen and the boy, are interesting, but I'm not sure they work in a story this short. There's simply not enough time dedicated to each character for me to empathize much with them or their plights. The flashbacks (there are two separate flashbacks in a story of less than 3,000 words) give us some backstory but, again, I feel like their placement breaks up the story just when it starts to get rolling.
The moral, if you will, also feels a bit heavy-handed. You have the Kreen, who greet the newly arriving humans with open arms and understanding. And the humans mercilessly wipe them out. Now, that's certainly realistic, and god knows it's happened before, but what's the point of retelling it in this form? The Kreen main character seems to have an extremely sophisticated and academic perspective on his people's slaughter, mentioning history books and human rights, when it seems to me that one of the last survivors of a small band being driven to extinction would be more concerned with hatred (his or ours), a desperate will to survive, and failing that, a lust for revenge.
But perhaps that's what separates us from the Kreen.
So this story falls right into the "Humans are the Real Monsters" Trope. The humans are killing these things because they're there, and apparently because that's 'Just What Humans Do'. In my experience, humans always have a reason for how they react- even if that reason is 'I'm Scared'- and painting them as uncaring kill-bots who also love their children is too simple for something as complex as a human.
The monster in this story doesn't behave like a human- he is a human in every way except for the brief mentions of his physical appearance. Every living thing is a product of the environment from which they evolved. Humans developed hands and brains to survive, so why would an enormous black dog creature evolve in a multicolored jungle? There needs to be more to differentiate these creatures from humans.
Their entire species can also apparently speak and read the human's language perfectly. If the humans just showed up one day and started killing things, as humans apparently do, then how did the creatures get access to the human culture and history?
The boy notes at one point how what he is experiencing is very much different from what a "human from Earth" would experience. This insinuates that 1- these humans came from earth, and 2- they have the ability to move from earth to this planet. This being the case and lacking any apparent magic, why are they using arrows for military action? Especially poisoned ones.
Finally: The Arrow.
A Bit of Realism: I know it's often ignored in fantasy and media, but yanking old-timey arrows out is usually a really bad idea. Those arrowheads were usually secured with a bit of gut or string, and had a tenancy to loosen when whetted by something like blood. This could leave the arrowhead behind to cut the person up from the inside every time they moved. Much more dangerous than leaving a bullet inside someone.
The monster in this story doesn't behave like a human- he is a human in every way except for the brief mentions of his physical appearance. Every living thing is a product of the environment from which they evolved. Humans developed hands and brains to survive, so why would an enormous black dog creature evolve in a multicolored jungle? There needs to be more to differentiate these creatures from humans.
Their entire species can also apparently speak and read the human's language perfectly. If the humans just showed up one day and started killing things, as humans apparently do, then how did the creatures get access to the human culture and history?
The boy notes at one point how what he is experiencing is very much different from what a "human from Earth" would experience. This insinuates that 1- these humans came from earth, and 2- they have the ability to move from earth to this planet. This being the case and lacking any apparent magic, why are they using arrows for military action? Especially poisoned ones.
Finally: The Arrow.
A Bit of Realism: I know it's often ignored in fantasy and media, but yanking old-timey arrows out is usually a really bad idea. Those arrowheads were usually secured with a bit of gut or string, and had a tenancy to loosen when whetted by something like blood. This could leave the arrowhead behind to cut the person up from the inside every time they moved. Much more dangerous than leaving a bullet inside someone.
>>MrExtra
To be fair, the monster might not have that knowledge.
Finally: The Arrow.
A Bit of Realism: I know it's often ignored in fantasy and media, but yanking old-timey arrows out is usually a really bad idea. Those arrowheads were usually secured with a bit of gut or string, and had a tenancy to loosen when whetted by something like blood. This could leave the arrowhead behind to cut the person up from the inside every time they moved. Much more dangerous than leaving a bullet inside someone.
To be fair, the monster might not have that knowledge.
My head snapped left and right looking for and exit to anything, to anywhere.
Gah!
You're lucky horizon isn't here or he'd be very cross with you for having a typo in your opening sentence. The first impression is important in any story, but it's especially true in the writeoff because we have no idea who you are when we click on your story. All we have to go on is that opening line. Make it count!
Moving right along: This is another story that adds its own ideas to a piece of artwork and fleshes it out with backstory and consequences, and this is a type of story I can really get behind. I agree with >>Cold in Gardez that we don't have enough room for the two perspectives maneuver to yield good results, and I also think that this type of storytelling can sacrifice some of the tension in the story. If we had had just one perspective, regardless of who it was, we could have followed along with that character as they're trying to determine what the other character is going to do. Will they attack? Will they help? Will they even speak to the protagonist?
Again, this could have worked with either of them. And when we have both, there isn't much to guess about, because I'm getting to know both characters so intimately. And while the story is structured in a way to imply a conflict between these two characters, I don't feel it because they're both quite clearly the "good guys", so to speak.
This feels like a story that's borrowing ideas from a lot of different places, in other words, the author is inspired by a lot of different stories that they want to try applying themselves. I won't say that's a bad thing, because we're all just practicing here, and it's not like I paid money to read this. But I will say that the ideas that were used in this story didn't feel earned. The characters don't progress so much as they leap from one end of their arc to another. The kreen leaps from full of hatred for humans to saying he'll never forget Caleb as long as he lives (even though Caleb didn't really do anything for him). And Caleb leaps from having basically no knowledge of the situation to asking his father, “Do you think the stars can forgive?” This is meant to be a powerful line, but what's behind it hasn't built it up. It doesn't sound like this scared little boy.
But that's enough from me. Good luck in the contest and thanks for writing!
Thank you all for reviewing my fic!!
This round of reviews felt... tame? I don't know. I think I just braced myself for the literal worst. I really appreciate that you all took out time of your day to review this and, now, time to read this. :D
If the whole 'star' thing seemed shoehorned in at the end-- that's because it was. I've never done this art to fic thing before, so I didn't know if I was doing it right and I assumed that I had to follow the original prompt to a tee.
You all are right that this feels wayyyy too short to make a story like this work. If I could redo this story I would throw out the flashbacks, since they did seem to hold the story down, and replace it with more dialogue to get an idea where all of them are coming from. And add a lot more words.
>>Cold in Gardez
In the original prompt he was about to kill Caleb, the boy, and only stopped because he was so hurt and falls over; I felt that it took up too much time/attention in my short story. :/ I probably should have put it back in there rip.
>>MrExtra
I've read these tropes before and I never expected one of my stories to fit in there. I know that humans always have a reason and the ones in the story were supposed to be too done/lazy with diplomatic relations because they had done so many in the past with 'inferior' people. I know this absolutely did not come across in the story and I'm sorry about it. ':)
If you'll see by my previous comments I thought that I had to follow the prompt exactly as it was. I attempted to ignore the arrow and just give the humans some very poisonous ones. I did, in fact, know that ripping one out was most likely worse for you than leaving it in and, like what Cold mentioned, the beast didn't know. What I didn't know was that old timey arrowheads could just... fall off. I did read the article you gave me and it was pretty interesting lol. It was interesting that some arrowheads could twist when given the right circumstances hmm..
>>Miller Minus
I SCREAMED when you showed me that sentence. I looked over my story a couple of times for grammar mistakes but, sadly, I didn't get that one. ;-;
The last few lines of my story still make me cringe. if you have read previously you should now know that I tried to force the sky to be stood against by forcing that last bit in there.
I don't think that the beast was angry at Caleb, more at his kind in general. Caleb, though, has too quick of a character arc for an eight year old, let alone anyone. Thanks for the review, though. <3
This round of reviews felt... tame? I don't know. I think I just braced myself for the literal worst. I really appreciate that you all took out time of your day to review this and, now, time to read this. :D
I don't think I've ever read a story that so tightly adhered to the prompt (art or otherwise).
If the whole 'star' thing seemed shoehorned in at the end-- that's because it was. I've never done this art to fic thing before, so I didn't know if I was doing it right and I assumed that I had to follow the original prompt to a tee.
You all are right that this feels wayyyy too short to make a story like this work. If I could redo this story I would throw out the flashbacks, since they did seem to hold the story down, and replace it with more dialogue to get an idea where all of them are coming from. And add a lot more words.
>>Cold in Gardez
when it seems to me that one of the last survivors of a small band being driven to extinction would be more concerned with hatred (his or ours), a desperate will to survive, and failing that, a lust for revenge.
In the original prompt he was about to kill Caleb, the boy, and only stopped because he was so hurt and falls over; I felt that it took up too much time/attention in my short story. :/ I probably should have put it back in there rip.
>>MrExtra
humans always have a reason for how they react- even if that reason is 'I'm Scared'- and painting them as uncaring kill-bots who also love their children is too simple for something as complex as a human.
I've read these tropes before and I never expected one of my stories to fit in there. I know that humans always have a reason and the ones in the story were supposed to be too done/lazy with diplomatic relations because they had done so many in the past with 'inferior' people. I know this absolutely did not come across in the story and I'm sorry about it. ':)
A Bit of Realism: I know it's often ignored in fantasy and media, but yanking old-timey arrows out is usually a really bad idea.
If you'll see by my previous comments I thought that I had to follow the prompt exactly as it was. I attempted to ignore the arrow and just give the humans some very poisonous ones. I did, in fact, know that ripping one out was most likely worse for you than leaving it in and, like what Cold mentioned, the beast didn't know. What I didn't know was that old timey arrowheads could just... fall off. I did read the article you gave me and it was pretty interesting lol. It was interesting that some arrowheads could twist when given the right circumstances hmm..
>>Miller Minus
My head snapped left and right looking for and exit to anything, to anywhere.
I SCREAMED when you showed me that sentence. I looked over my story a couple of times for grammar mistakes but, sadly, I didn't get that one. ;-;
The Kreen leaps from full of hatred for humans to saying he'll never forget Caleb as long as he lives (even though Caleb didn't really do anything for him). And Caleb leaps from having basically no knowledge of the situation to asking his father, “Do you think the stars can forgive?” This is meant to be a powerful line, but what's behind it hasn't built it up. It doesn't sound like this scared little boy.
The last few lines of my story still make me cringe. if you have read previously you should now know that I tried to force the sky to be stood against by forcing that last bit in there.
I don't think that the beast was angry at Caleb, more at his kind in general. Caleb, though, has too quick of a character arc for an eight year old, let alone anyone. Thanks for the review, though. <3