Testing Reaction/Reception to a Story I'm working on

[OliviaMyriad]

Teaser
Please read it and tell me what you think!

 

[NiQuinn]

Summary please T_T Please please please

 

[BenJepheneT]

It starts off hitting all the standard boxes. The character is established pretty well, with flaws that expose themselves pretty soon. The setting is bland, but it serves the current plot we're getting well enough. I got a feeling Jean is gonna be a character I'd like to hate, though.

So far, it's nice enough for a nightly read, but it isn't something I'd trip over to catch up.

 

[OliviaMyriad]

The setting is bland, but it serves the current plot we're getting well enough.

Is it uninteresting or blander than the other novels on the sight, or.. what do you mean by bland, more specifically?

 

[Ral]

It is okay.

It establishes the character well enough, though what is established about their character might not be exactly what is needed now. I think such things can be integrated well enough where action actually happens or even later where we have more understanding of the situation.

I don't think starting a story with the character bored out of their minds then gossiping and bickering is good. It is just kinda boring. Also, does it serves some purpose? Is this something like foreshadowing where they end up bickering and failing their tasks? Or something that would count later? Would this develop into some big conflict later on? You do spend a page or so for this. And, as I said earlier, I think these things could have been integrated well in the action or later instead of before it.

The setting is, well, there is nothing much to the setting. Not really surprising considering that what happens here are just people being bored and gossiping over the radio. Similar event could happen in other vastly different setting. The setting just doesn't count much so far.

The is also an As-You-Know-Bob dialogue that managed to sneaked in. This exchange just doesn't sound natural:

“I understand how you feel,” Jean said, his brows furrowing. “I can’t find anything either. Are the Margentians really going to come?”

Vivienne shrugged. “Who knows? Either way, Command sent us here, so we’re here. Until they ask us to go back, we’re stuck here.”

Considering the situation and the apparent length of time their wait have been going, they should have talked about this many times before. Jean is like that child that keeps asking "Are we there yet?" throughout a ride. This is just annoying and paints Jean as nothing more than a device to allow exposition.

It would also be good if you present us a blurb, synopsis, summary or storyline. We really have no idea what your story actually is so far.

 

[OliviaMyriad]

I don't think starting a story with the character bored out of their minds then gossiping and bickering is good. It is just kinda boring.

The setting is, well, there is nothing much to the setting. Not really surprising considering that what happens here are just people being bored and gossiping over the radio. Similar event could happen in other vastly different setting. The setting just doesn't count much so far.

The is also an As-You-Know-Bob dialogue that managed to sneaked in. This exchange just doesn't sound natural:

You make good points. I'll do my best to address them.

 

[BenJepheneT]

Is it uninteresting or blander than the other novels on the sight, or.. what do you mean by bland, more specifically?

I mean it as in a way that I can envision your story taking place in any setting.You have the normal call-signs and ranks for characters (i.e: Commanders and Privates), the usual descriptions for spaceships you'd see in common sci-fi, space themed stories and the names you used for the platoons along with the usage of Roman Numerals. It's probably just a personal nitpick but, at one point in your Teaser, I envisioned Vivienne as Captain Kirk.

What I meant is that it's very common among other sci-fi -in-space stories out there in the market, with very little to set them apart. But since this Teaser is all we got for now, I assume there's gonna be more. If you're aiming for your story to be lore-oriented, then I don't think it'd fare so well. But if it's story-oriented, I'd be very interested as in how you're gonna follow it up because-

-it might be a personal nitpick but I felt like you wrote yourself into a dead-end. At least from one perspective. Vivienne is a no-nonsense, tough, hard-as-nails commander who takes no shit. Jean is an enthusiastic platoon who's new to the scene and is willing to see Vivienne's streak for what it is. Storm is a sort-of veteran who sees things between the lines and depending on how the rest of the story goes, is either an asshole nor a hardened, realistic military man. From the get-go, your characters fell into archetypes. The tough chick, the scared but enthusiastic Private Ryan, the battle-scarred Vin Diesel. Not accounting to the other characters, I could see the tough chick slowly opening up to her team, Private Ryan learning the truth about battles and accepting that there's more beyond, and Vin Diesel either spiraling into his own realistic view of the world in a negative arc or opening up to his touch chick commander.

And, as @Ral said, your story starts off with a half-way expedition. They should be relayed with enough information before take-off, not asking things right now. If anything, if you want an introduction, Vivienne can read off an agenda on a mission statement or hearing the platoons having deep discussions towards possible scenarios, like, depending what kind of a mission they're going, what kind of weapons they're gonna use against the Margentians or their preparation to bring human luxury towards an unknown planet. They could probably swap rumors on how shitty this mission is gonna be or how they're all sent to hell anyway.

As of now, the Teaser remains as what it is, a Teaser. But it's not so much a tease as it is a prologue, TBH.

 

[Yiphen]

For me, the teaser came off as something you would normally find in an action/mecha(At least from what I've read?) novel. The characters did have some personality, but I don't think there was anything that interesting about it for me to latch on to that would make me want to binge read it.