Feedback for my second novel pweaseee

Bimbanana

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Watching Dinosaur on Netflix (God bless Morgan Freeman) makes me wanted to create this chapter.
Oh, this scifi story is about a family of spacefarers dragons. With Sugar the little sister, Johny the big brother, and Maya the AI
Please let me know what you think

Oh, i shall call the Review and Tutorial Master of this forum, @Eldoria


Chapter 2: First Contact

Somewhere in Space

Cruising through the vastness of space, cutting a graceful path through a nebula dyed in sapphire and amethyst hues, drifted The Skarlax—a space cruiser belonging to the Erebus family.

Sugar’s family.

From a distance, the cruiser looked elegant.

Its hull flowed in long, predatory lines, like a dragon frozen mid-glide. Metal plates overlapped in patterns that mimicked scales—but also wrong in a deliberate way. Its too smooth to be natural, too organic to be purely mechanical. Veins of draconite ran beneath the surface, faintly luminous, pulsing with a slow, controlled rhythm like a restrained heartbeat.

Engraved sigils crawled across the hull in precise, intentional patterns. When the engines breathed, the markings responded—glowing softly, as if reacting to the power coursing beneath them the way nerves react to pain or pleasure. Where thrusters should have been loud and brutally exposed, they curved inward instead, folded like resting wings, their glow diffused through crystalline vents rather than blasting raw fire into the void.

It was a harmonious fusion of organic instinct and mechanical precision.

True draconic technology—built to deliver any advanced or futuristic need its passengers might require.

---

Inside the Skarlax

Although—

There was absolutely nothing advanced or futuristic about what its passengers were currently doing.

“Pant… pant… pant…”

Under a merciless sun, Sugar was drenched in sweat.

She wore medieval garb—rough, uncomfortable, and impractical—and was manually pushing a medieval plow across a dirt field. Her boots sank into the soil with every step, her arms trembling as she leaned her weight into the handle.

She finally stopped, straightened up, and wiped her forehead with the sleeve of her worn clothes.

WHISH—THWACK

Pain exploded across her back.

“OUCH!” Sugar yelped, nearly face-planting into the dirt.

“NO SLACKING!” the overseer shouted. “KEEP WORKING, YOU USELESS WORM!”

The overseer stood behind her in full medieval overseer robes, whip still twitching in his hand.

It was Johny.

Johny, somehow truly enjoying his role as a historical nightmare.

“Okay! Okay! Jeez…” Sugar muttered under her breath as she gripped the plow again. “One day, let’s see how you like it when you’re in my position…”

“WHAT WAS THAT?!” Johny barked.

“Nothing, master!” Sugar snapped back instantly, posture correcting itself through pure survival instinct.

She resumed pushing the plow, jaw clenched, boots dragging through the dirt as the sun continued tormenting her.

And then—

KRIIIIIIING

A school bell rang suddenly, sharp and unmistakable.

“All right, it’s time to change subjects now, kids,” Maya’s AI voice announced.

Suddenly, everything began to glow.

The fields turned translucent. The dirt faded. The sky peeled away like bad wallpaper. The entire environment shimmered, thinned, and dissolved as the hologram disengaged, reality reasserting itself layer by layer.

Moments later, Sugar and Johny found themselves seated inside what was unmistakably a futuristic classroom.

“Oh thank goodness…” Sugar sighed in relief. “That hologram whip felt way too real.”

As if on cue, their medieval outfits flickered and reconfigured, the rough fabrics dissolving into casual clothes better suited for sitting than suffering.

“That’s it for today’s slavery subject, kids,” Maya said calmly.

“Slavery was fun!” Johny declared without hesitation.

“SLAVERY IS BAD! THEY SHOULD ABOLISH IT!” Sugar snapped back instantly.

“Both of you are technically correct,” Maya said. “Slavery can be bad or fun—depending on which side you’re on, and on the color.”

“Huh?” Johny leaned back into his chair. “What color?”

“Dunno,” Maya replied. “That’s just what my database says.”

Sugar frowned. “Why do we even need to learn the history of this planet called Earth anyway?”

“Two reasons,” Maya said smoothly.
“First: every Draconian child learns this. Even though you both practically grew up in space, your father and I agreed that you still need a standard Draconian education.”

Johny smirked. “Then why am I stuck in the same class as Sugar?” He tilted his head smugly. “She’s still a child.”

“Just you wait, Johny,” Sugar growled, face twitching. “Next century, when I turn seventeen and legal, I promise I will legally kick your ass using my own dragon mode!”

“And second,” Maya cut in immediately, before the siblings could escalate into open warfare, “because Earth indirectly played a role in both your Erebus family history—and current Draconian history.”

The surface in front of them—what looked like a whiteboard but was clearly a monitor—lit up and began playing a recording.

A massive Draconian explorer ship appeared onscreen, cruising through space. Its design was noticeably different from the Skarlax. It wasn’t sleek or elegant—this one was utilitarian, bulky, and unapologetically industrial.

In the background, the ship passed a familiar red planet.

Mars.

“It all started during your great-grandfather’s era,” Maya narrated. “Yuri Gigarin Erebus. Back then, the Erebus family corporation discovered wormhole technology that allowed us to travel many, many galaxies away.”

Inside the ship’s cockpit, three Draconian astronauts sat in their full dragon forms, clearly excited

“Damn, dawg… that spaceship is huge,” Johny muttered.

“They don’t even need to transform,” Sugar added, impressed.

“Captain,” one of the astronauts on the screen asked, “what do you think their technology level will look like?”

“We don’t know for sure,” Yuri Gigarin replied. “Our long-range sensors only tell us their atmosphere is similar to our home planet, Dracon. That suggests the lifeforms there have a high chance of being intelligent like us.”

Ahead of the ship, a blue planet appeared—accompanied by a gray moon.

“There! I see Earth! It’s so beautiful!” Yuri exclaimed. “Hal, begin landing sequence!”

“Begin—” the ship’s AI responded, then suddenly glitched.
“—sshk landi—krrk shhk—quence.”

“…Uh,” Yuri muttered. “Hal?”

---

Earth Surface

It was a beautiful, calm, and sunny day on Earth.

The sea stretched lazily toward the shore, waves rolling in with no urgency, no concern, and absolutely no idea about the incoming cosmic guest.

Then—

THOOOOOOM

A thunderous atmospheric shock tore through the sky.

From above, a fireball screamed down from heaven. A mountain-sized spaceship—roughly ten kilometers wide—punched into the atmosphere at more than twenty kilometers per second. The sky ignited. Air compressed in front of the descending mass heated beyond sanity, hotter than the surface of the Sun, turning the ship into a blazing spear long before it ever reached the ground.

Then—

KABOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM


When it hit, the planet itself seemed to flinch.

---

Classroom

Sugar and Johny stared at the monitor, eyes wide, jaws slack.

“Whoaa…” Sugar muttered.

“That’s so cool…” Johny whispered.

“Oh, right,” Maya added casually, “This was happening sixty-five million years ago—if we’re using Earth’s time standard.”

Maya continues, “Or about twelve thousand years ago using Draconian standard, because of time relativity.”

On-screen, the gargantuan explosion continued to unfold. Shockwaves ripped across the globe. Mega-earthquakes split continents. Volcanoes erupted in chains. Mega-tsunamis shredded coastlines that no longer mattered.

Dinosaurs burned.

Dinosaurs screamed.

Dinosaurs died.

---

Earth Surface

The recording continued.

The once-sunny world was gone, replaced by darkness and choking ash. The shallow ocean had vanished entirely, replaced by a colossal crater—two hundred kilometers wide and ten kilometers deep.

At its center sat the Draconian spaceship.

Perfectly intact.

The massive doors slid open with a smooth mechanical hiss. Three Draconian astronauts can be seen inside.

Yuri Gigarin took the first step onto Earth’s surface, and say:

“…Ooops.”

---

Planet Dracon, Erebus Inc. Headquarters

The screen shifted to Planet Dracon, where dragons and machines freely roamed the skies, weaving between towering spires and industrial megastructures like it was just another workday.

“The whole Dracon was pissed,” Maya’s voice continued. “Finding a planet that can support life is already hard as hell. Finding one with lifeforms that look even remotely similar to Draconians? That’s borderline impossible.”

The view zoomed in on a massive corporate building bearing a glowing logo:

EREBUS INC.

Outside, the streets were packed with angry dragon demonstrators. Massive wings flapped in agitation as protestors hovered and marched, holding signs that read:

PLANET KILLER!
NO TO ENVIRONMENTAL HAZARD!
ECOCIDE CRIMINAL!

And many other words that required several layers of censorship filters.

“And then your great-grandfather messed it up,” Maya added, her tone sharpening, “by being stingy on the software budget, which caused the landing failure.”

She huffed.

“Hmph. That’s what you get for using a freemium AI.”

Inside the building, a press conference was underway.

Yuri Gigarin and several Erebus Inc. executives—all dragons in tailored business suits—stood on stage. In perfect synchronization, they performed a deep, Japanese-style apologetic bow toward the reporters.

Camera flashes erupted nonstop.

“It was the first ever corporate cosmic environmental disaster,” Maya continued. “Erebus Inc. was pressured to clean up their mess.”

---

Planet Earth – 5000 BCE

“So,” Maya went on, “after gathering enough funds for a while, Erebus Inc. spent their entire CSR budget helping Earth and paying for their past mistake.”

The footage showed another Erebus spaceship, this one parked safely outside Earth’s atmosphere. From its underside, dozens of smaller pods launched and scattered toward the planet’s surface.

“They learned their lesson,” Maya said. “Never land the whole spaceship on a planet again.”

The pods streaked toward different continents.

“By the time the CSR program arrived,” Maya added, “sixty-five million years had already passed. Again. Time relativity.”

She paused briefly.

“So everyone was hoping the Earth giant lizards had recovered. Maybe even started a civilization.”

---

The video cut again.

Several dragons—Erebus CSR program employees—stood frozen in place.

In front of them was a human village.

Tiny huts. Dirt paths. Smoke from cooking fires.

The dragons’ massive forms completely dwarfed the settlement.

The humans screamed.

They ran in every direction.

“Why the hell are they so damn small?!” the Erebus CSR director shouted in disbelief.

A CSR staff member beside him checked a holographic display.

“Unfortunately,” he said carefully, “Yuri Gigarin’s first contact left a stronger impression than we originally thought.”

He swallowed.

“It changes the planet atmosphere and killed all of the Earth giant lizards before they could even start a civilization like ours.”

Nearby, one of the village elders—too old and weak to run—collapsed to his knees.

He bowed.

He prayed.

Other villagers saw this.

They stopped running.

They followed suit.

“And a new lifeform called mammals thrived and replaced them,” The staff continued.

The humans began chanting, prostrating themselves repeatedly before the towering dragons.

“So what now, director?” other CSR staff member asked.

The director sighed.

“…Nothing changes,” he said. “We still help this planet’s inhabitants grow.”

He looked down at the worshipping humans, and sighed even longer.

“Big or small.”
 
Last edited:

Eldoria

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Dude... what kind of POV are you using?
Is it limited third POV?
Is it objective/cinematic third POV?
Is it omniscient third POV?
 

Bimbanana

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Hmm, never think so much about it.

I guess its more of the omniscient third POV written in cinematic style thingy
 

Eldoria

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Hmm, never think so much about it.

I guess its more of the omniscient third POV written in cinematic style thingy
Hmm... I see your chapter's POV leans more towards cinematic third-person perspective. This is demonstrated by the narrator describing events objectively as an outside observer.

As a reader, I can see what's happening in the scene following the narrative camera that moves between scenes from outer space, the conditions of the spacecraft, the conditions in the classroom, and even hologram video footage to show how vast the world is.

It's okay if you use an objective third POV. However, I still see issues related to the use of POV. In objective third-person perspective, you need to have a visual anchor that the reader follows so that the scene feels fluid.

This visual anchor can be anything. For example, to depict conditions in space, you use the spacecraft as the narrative camera.

Then to depict conditions in the classroom, you use the central character as the visual anchor.

This visual anchor is not static but dynamic, following the logic of the film camera regarding what scene you want to show the reader.

Here's the problem, because visual anchors are dynamic, you need to provide neat and smooth transitions between scenes. You need to avoid sudden visual anchor changes to avoid confusing your reader.

For example, when the narrative camera follows Sugar, you can only narrate as far as what Sugar sees in the scene. If you want to move the narrative camera to another character, such as Maya, then you need to make Sugar interact with Maya.

Sugar sits in the front seat. Her eyes reflect the image of a woman standing next to a hologram.
"Children... now we are learning about Earth's history." Maya stands on the tiled floor. Her finger points to the hologram beside her.
A hologram emits a blue light. The light displays a documentary video of Earth's history.
(Then the content of the Earth's history scene broadcast)

Notice how the scene moves according to the visual anchor:

Maya's seating position -> what her eyes see -> teacher standing in front of the class -> teacher teaching through the hologram -> hologram state -> Earth's history scene.

Thus, your scene will feel neat and smooth. The reader feels as if they are being taken to see the story world using the narrative camera.

Well, your chapter has a third objective POV that is not smooth. You need to be more disciplined in applying visual anchors as a narrative camera. If you tidy up the narrative camera, your chapter will feel more cinematic.

Well, this is a little feedback from me.

Regards.
 
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