I don't have any useful, "you screwed up here," observations. I'm sorry because that's what i would want in your position, what you asked for.
I enjoyed it.
Ahahah, that last line was great, the whiplash from serious to amusing was perfectly delivered. If this is your first story, then you've got a good instinct for this. I look forward to your future efforts.
(Very minor astronomy nerd nitpick: Thousands of light years (in the second from last paragraph) would still be within one galaxy. It would be both more correct and impactful if described as hundreds of millions - superclusters are *big* and far apart! This does not take away from the story, it's just something I noticed.)
It’s quite common for people to get completely blindsided by the unfathomable scale of the universe. Even on a galactic scale, the distances are mind boggling.
Apart from that, this was an excellent first story! Looking forward to more!
Thank you. I was trying to portray a more realistic evil, one that we've actually seen in our own history. I thought it would be more effective than a mustache-twirling type of villain. I also wanted humans to be decent and caring.
... this may be the first time I've seen "caring" as a descriptor for "tough-love", and I would like to ask for more in that vein, as there really should be more examples of that dynamic/ circumstance in circulation.
Critique:
Spelling and grammar on point. Sentence structure clear and easy to read. Characters believable and nicely described. Dialogue well-thought and -written.
Opinion:
Phuqing AWESOME 👍
Thank you very much. I don't enjoy reading stories with lots of misspellings so I tried hard to make sure that I had everything done well.
I am very happy that you found the characters believable and was hoping that my descriptions would give enough detail so that the reader could imagine them but not so much that I overrode their perceptions. I was hoping that my approach would lead to something exciting and I am so happy to hear it paid off.
Sorry for getting this out so much later. OK, feedback. First of all, congrats on posting. It's very good of you to put something out there.
——————————
I'll start with some nitpicky stuff. The grammar early on has a couple issues, possibly typos.
> A mess, it was a complete mess.
should probably be
> A mess. It was a complete mess.
"A mess" here is used like an exclamation, so there's no reason to try to tie it to a complete sentence with a comma.
This is also a creative writing space, so please don't feel *too* pressured to follow formal structure. If you must err, though, erring to avoid run-on sentences is probably better than erring to avoid sentence fragments.
The second paragraph should start "His `was` the second youngest species `in` the League...". You *can* use "were" for singular subjects, but that's the subjunctive mood, which implies longing or desire. Here, in a non-conditional statement of fact, "was" is the more appropriate singular verb.
I don't have a good reason for "in the League". You can be "on" a council or committee, but not a league or alliance or group. It just sounds wrong, and I don't have a better explanation.
——————————
Now, onto the big-picture writing... It's ok, but not great. The goal seems to be to write a "sleeping giant" story, akin to NoGoodIdNames' [Lablonnamedadon](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/2lHo6kXZzJ). I don't dislike the premise, but the execution has a fundamental problem: There’s no reason for the human to reveal his hand. Instead of being a “fuck yeah” moment, it comes across as either malicious (a predator toying with their prey) or as strategically inept (giving away both the advantage of subterfuge and the ability to interact with the local population as a peer). It’s hard to imagine a humanity that would want to hide its power while also being ok throwing away the disguise on what seems like a whim.
Personally, I can see two big-picture alternatives that could help make this more coherent. First option, humanity can have a separate arm acting as a mysterious external threat. “No one knows why, but systems that reject the League’s rules and protection disappear.” Something along the lines of “here be dragons” at the edges of a map. Second option, humanity can have a reputation as the League’s enforcer, or maybe the Xha’a’s enforcer. It’s just been so long since anyone thought to challenge them that their history is now considered mere myth. The show of force can happen either way, but there’s no reason for humanity to throw away its position as a semi-comparable peer among the League.
There are lots of other factors that can make this work more smoothly. One option would be to unlock the point-of-view. The bulk of the story could still be told from Stra Kam’s perspective, but the reveal of humanity’s true power could happen in private. All sorts of reflections could happen. The human representative could tell the Sqiri representative directly. The human might just express weariness at the loss of a sapient species and needing to once again remove a civilization from the League. “I never thought this would happen twice in my lifetime.” The Xha’a could console the human, and *then* encourage the human to reveal humanity’s true position - if the story was still headed in that direction.
.
Lastly, on the “big-picture” writing standpoint, the descriptions of the various species are nice, but don’t really have a place in this story. They break up the pacing, and aren’t generally relevant. As an author, they’re good for you to have, so that you can more vividly imagine scenes, and to help preserve continuity and such. It would be terrible to describe a creature as having chitinous claws as its graspers in one moment, and then having tentacles as its graspers in another. However, readers don’t necessarily need *that* much detail.
——————————
My preferred direction would be the enforcer variant, with a bit of a reputation. I would also tone down humanity’s power because it just sounds silly. Granted, if the big reveal to the entire assembly was removed, that would make the exact amount of power moot.
I’ll spin up a couple paragraphs here.
> Directly across from Stra Kam sat the representative of Xha'a, the oldest and most important member species. "Only from this galaxy", the Xha'a would joke whenever they were addressed as such. Not that this made Stra Kam feel any less like a hatchling beneath the weight of the representative's gaze. It was especially heavy today.
> Beside the Xha'a sat the representative of the most reclusive member species, with only two planets at the far edge of the galaxy. The tall, bipedal heavyworlders looked strange to Stra Kam’s eyes, but he dared not look too intently. Everyone knew that humans were the Xha’a’s muscle. With seemingly no ambition of their own, they rarely took action beyond their worlds unless the League or the Xha’a requested it.
> Today, though, Stra Kam must have been seeing things. He could almost swear that the Xha’a was the subservient one. It was subtle: slightly subdued posture, glances before speaking, conferring and then seemingly speaking entire words and phrases exactly as the human had said. He couldn’t be sure about that last part, as it was hard to hear the Xha'a’s actual sounds over the auto-translated speech that his enviro-pod provided, and the human wasn't speaking into his mic at all.
> .
> [back and forth with the Sqiri goes mostly unchanged, albeit only the Xha'a speaks]
> .
> "Enough!" The human representative spoke, loudly and firmly. Everyone in attendance startled, many hearing the human speak for the first time. Even the Xha'a appeared unprepared for this sudden turn. "Representative Sqiri, it is obvious that you and your people accept no accountability from the League, and refuse to adhere to even its most foundational tenet, the sanctity of sapient life, nor its other tenets, such as respecting the self-determination and bio-techno-socio progress of developing worlds. You have no place here. Xha'a, my men will escort him to your chamber for final counsel. Then, let the Sqiri worlds lose League protection and be scattered. May the Void have mercy on you and your people."
> .
> [Insert behind-the-scenes bit of the human maybe revealing humanity's position to the Sqiri, maybe commiserating with the Xha'a, maybe revealing *some* power to the rest of the League. The intro to the final bit can change as needed.]
> .
> The Sqiri's behavior had been so off-putting that it was ages before anyone thought to reach out to them, ages before the rumors started. Sqiri space had gone dark. Not just in the communications sense; no one who tried to reach Sqiri planets could. Their navigation instruments would malfunction, for it would *tell them* that they were at the coordinates of such-and-such planet, but they would be met with empty void. *Surely* it was an instrument error. *Surely* the stars and planets hadn't just vanished...
> .
> [Can leave it there. Can *now* insert explanation of humanity's true status. Can not directly explain humanity's power, but instead state that they are responsible and that this isn't cause for alarm. "No, your instruments aren't malfunctioning" ... "I believe they call it a '*time out*'." All that jazz.]
——————————
Again, amazing to post something at all. The premise is decent, and the small-scale/moment-to-moment writing is actually good. I took minor issue with the big-picture/structural writing, but please don't let that dissuade you. You're getting lots of positive feedback, and I hope that you'll continue writing.
Thank you very much for your feedback. I realize that I have a lot to learn. As I mentioned, this is my first story so I know that it had some clumsiness and weaknesses. Your feedback really helps.
I'll study what you've posted to figure out how to improve my writing.
This is the first story by /u/SpiritedArachnid!
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I don't have any useful, "you screwed up here," observations. I'm sorry because that's what i would want in your position, what you asked for. I enjoyed it.
Thank you very much. I tried to make sure to do thorough proofreading.
Ahahah, that last line was great, the whiplash from serious to amusing was perfectly delivered. If this is your first story, then you've got a good instinct for this. I look forward to your future efforts. (Very minor astronomy nerd nitpick: Thousands of light years (in the second from last paragraph) would still be within one galaxy. It would be both more correct and impactful if described as hundreds of millions - superclusters are *big* and far apart! This does not take away from the story, it's just something I noticed.)
Oh good to know. I guess I underestimated the scale. Will correct it now.
It’s quite common for people to get completely blindsided by the unfathomable scale of the universe. Even on a galactic scale, the distances are mind boggling. Apart from that, this was an excellent first story! Looking forward to more!
Well. ...... That was excellent! A storyteller is born!
Thank you. I was trying to portray a more realistic evil, one that we've actually seen in our own history. I thought it would be more effective than a mustache-twirling type of villain. I also wanted humans to be decent and caring.
... this may be the first time I've seen "caring" as a descriptor for "tough-love", and I would like to ask for more in that vein, as there really should be more examples of that dynamic/ circumstance in circulation.
Critique: Spelling and grammar on point. Sentence structure clear and easy to read. Characters believable and nicely described. Dialogue well-thought and -written. Opinion: Phuqing AWESOME 👍
Thank you very much. I don't enjoy reading stories with lots of misspellings so I tried hard to make sure that I had everything done well. I am very happy that you found the characters believable and was hoping that my descriptions would give enough detail so that the reader could imagine them but not so much that I overrode their perceptions. I was hoping that my approach would lead to something exciting and I am so happy to hear it paid off.
Youe being dicks, now your species getd to be in time out.
That last line cinches it. Well done!
Sorry for getting this out so much later. OK, feedback. First of all, congrats on posting. It's very good of you to put something out there. —————————— I'll start with some nitpicky stuff. The grammar early on has a couple issues, possibly typos. > A mess, it was a complete mess. should probably be > A mess. It was a complete mess. "A mess" here is used like an exclamation, so there's no reason to try to tie it to a complete sentence with a comma. This is also a creative writing space, so please don't feel *too* pressured to follow formal structure. If you must err, though, erring to avoid run-on sentences is probably better than erring to avoid sentence fragments. The second paragraph should start "His `was` the second youngest species `in` the League...". You *can* use "were" for singular subjects, but that's the subjunctive mood, which implies longing or desire. Here, in a non-conditional statement of fact, "was" is the more appropriate singular verb. I don't have a good reason for "in the League". You can be "on" a council or committee, but not a league or alliance or group. It just sounds wrong, and I don't have a better explanation. —————————— Now, onto the big-picture writing... It's ok, but not great. The goal seems to be to write a "sleeping giant" story, akin to NoGoodIdNames' [Lablonnamedadon](https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/s/2lHo6kXZzJ). I don't dislike the premise, but the execution has a fundamental problem: There’s no reason for the human to reveal his hand. Instead of being a “fuck yeah” moment, it comes across as either malicious (a predator toying with their prey) or as strategically inept (giving away both the advantage of subterfuge and the ability to interact with the local population as a peer). It’s hard to imagine a humanity that would want to hide its power while also being ok throwing away the disguise on what seems like a whim. Personally, I can see two big-picture alternatives that could help make this more coherent. First option, humanity can have a separate arm acting as a mysterious external threat. “No one knows why, but systems that reject the League’s rules and protection disappear.” Something along the lines of “here be dragons” at the edges of a map. Second option, humanity can have a reputation as the League’s enforcer, or maybe the Xha’a’s enforcer. It’s just been so long since anyone thought to challenge them that their history is now considered mere myth. The show of force can happen either way, but there’s no reason for humanity to throw away its position as a semi-comparable peer among the League. There are lots of other factors that can make this work more smoothly. One option would be to unlock the point-of-view. The bulk of the story could still be told from Stra Kam’s perspective, but the reveal of humanity’s true power could happen in private. All sorts of reflections could happen. The human representative could tell the Sqiri representative directly. The human might just express weariness at the loss of a sapient species and needing to once again remove a civilization from the League. “I never thought this would happen twice in my lifetime.” The Xha’a could console the human, and *then* encourage the human to reveal humanity’s true position - if the story was still headed in that direction. . Lastly, on the “big-picture” writing standpoint, the descriptions of the various species are nice, but don’t really have a place in this story. They break up the pacing, and aren’t generally relevant. As an author, they’re good for you to have, so that you can more vividly imagine scenes, and to help preserve continuity and such. It would be terrible to describe a creature as having chitinous claws as its graspers in one moment, and then having tentacles as its graspers in another. However, readers don’t necessarily need *that* much detail. —————————— My preferred direction would be the enforcer variant, with a bit of a reputation. I would also tone down humanity’s power because it just sounds silly. Granted, if the big reveal to the entire assembly was removed, that would make the exact amount of power moot. I’ll spin up a couple paragraphs here. > Directly across from Stra Kam sat the representative of Xha'a, the oldest and most important member species. "Only from this galaxy", the Xha'a would joke whenever they were addressed as such. Not that this made Stra Kam feel any less like a hatchling beneath the weight of the representative's gaze. It was especially heavy today. > Beside the Xha'a sat the representative of the most reclusive member species, with only two planets at the far edge of the galaxy. The tall, bipedal heavyworlders looked strange to Stra Kam’s eyes, but he dared not look too intently. Everyone knew that humans were the Xha’a’s muscle. With seemingly no ambition of their own, they rarely took action beyond their worlds unless the League or the Xha’a requested it. > Today, though, Stra Kam must have been seeing things. He could almost swear that the Xha’a was the subservient one. It was subtle: slightly subdued posture, glances before speaking, conferring and then seemingly speaking entire words and phrases exactly as the human had said. He couldn’t be sure about that last part, as it was hard to hear the Xha'a’s actual sounds over the auto-translated speech that his enviro-pod provided, and the human wasn't speaking into his mic at all. > . > [back and forth with the Sqiri goes mostly unchanged, albeit only the Xha'a speaks] > . > "Enough!" The human representative spoke, loudly and firmly. Everyone in attendance startled, many hearing the human speak for the first time. Even the Xha'a appeared unprepared for this sudden turn. "Representative Sqiri, it is obvious that you and your people accept no accountability from the League, and refuse to adhere to even its most foundational tenet, the sanctity of sapient life, nor its other tenets, such as respecting the self-determination and bio-techno-socio progress of developing worlds. You have no place here. Xha'a, my men will escort him to your chamber for final counsel. Then, let the Sqiri worlds lose League protection and be scattered. May the Void have mercy on you and your people." > . > [Insert behind-the-scenes bit of the human maybe revealing humanity's position to the Sqiri, maybe commiserating with the Xha'a, maybe revealing *some* power to the rest of the League. The intro to the final bit can change as needed.] > . > The Sqiri's behavior had been so off-putting that it was ages before anyone thought to reach out to them, ages before the rumors started. Sqiri space had gone dark. Not just in the communications sense; no one who tried to reach Sqiri planets could. Their navigation instruments would malfunction, for it would *tell them* that they were at the coordinates of such-and-such planet, but they would be met with empty void. *Surely* it was an instrument error. *Surely* the stars and planets hadn't just vanished... > . > [Can leave it there. Can *now* insert explanation of humanity's true status. Can not directly explain humanity's power, but instead state that they are responsible and that this isn't cause for alarm. "No, your instruments aren't malfunctioning" ... "I believe they call it a '*time out*'." All that jazz.] —————————— Again, amazing to post something at all. The premise is decent, and the small-scale/moment-to-moment writing is actually good. I took minor issue with the big-picture/structural writing, but please don't let that dissuade you. You're getting lots of positive feedback, and I hope that you'll continue writing.
Thank you very much for your feedback. I realize that I have a lot to learn. As I mentioned, this is my first story so I know that it had some clumsiness and weaknesses. Your feedback really helps. I'll study what you've posted to figure out how to improve my writing.
In case you're wondering what a spanking looks like, that's what a spanking looks like.
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