writers_loft | (no subject)

Ok here is Chapter Three of my story, I specifically would love critique on the dialogue since it feels a little awkward to me but of course comments and critique's on the whole thing are welcome and wanted!

Eye of the Storm

That night was long, very long. We still needed to sleep but not nearly as long as regular humans. I was good with three, maybe four hours at the most although I could survive on less, even none, if I had too. Some of us needed a little more, some, for instance Rain, needed even less.

I wasn’t the only one finding it hard to sleep and after a few hours of pacing I reached out with my thoughts to find the others in similar states of restlessness so I pulled them into my mind. We might as well be worried insomniacs together.

Learn anything new? DW asked, mental tone tinged with concern.

Nope, just figured misery loves company. I replied wryly and felt their mental chuckles.

There was a brief moment of companionable silence and then Mandy asked in a teasing tone Still have that headache DW? Rain knocked you pretty good.

We all laughed at the pouting silence emanating from the part of the group mind that was DW but Kestrel was the next one to pipe up. I don’t know about DW but my head is still throbbing thank you very much Whisper. Did you have to drop that last crate?

If I hadn’t you would have thrown it at me.

Excuses excuses, you just like abusing me.

I giggled and then groaned as triggered by Kestrel’s words the memory of what I had seen in the medical intern’s mind floated to the surface of my thoughts.

Eeeew! The mental squeal came from Butterfly, Rain, and Mandy while Kestrel just chuckled appreciatively.

DW on the other hand was outraged. I’ll kill him.

We could all feel the happiness flowing from Mandy at his words and the sudden embarrassment from DW so I tried to shift the attention off of them. How about it Mandy, I think it’s time to reveal our secret love for each other.

But Whisper, you know I love you more! It was Rain and none of us could stop surprised bursts of laughter, the comment unexpected considering the source.

Now ladies, there’s enough love to go around, I say all three of you get together.

Next training session Kestrel you watch, even if you’re on my team I’ll be giving you a headache for a week. DW’s tone was threatening and we all snickered as Kestrel fell conspicuously silent.

You boys should take a lesson from me, just surrender when one of those three pounces and save yourselves a lot of pain. Butterfly advised through her giggles.

Where’s the fun in that? Kestrel asked, his humorous nature not staying suppressed for long.

I don’t know about fun but it’s probably safer. Mandy said with a mental huff and there was more laughter although less cheery than before.

The talking and the humor had done their jobs and helped with the nervous anticipation but once the nerves and adrenaline had worn off other emotions could be felt, the ones we kept buried. Like fear.

Do you think the others are all right? Butterfly asked, her mental voice hesitant and shaky, and we all felt the unspoken sequel to that question, did we think we could get them all out safely?

I fought my own doubts about the situation, carefully shielding my own emotions and struggled to force cheer into my mental voice. Yes I do. It was my answer to both questions, because they were and we would. I couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept any other answer.

After that the mood never returned to its earlier lightheartedness and there was a distinct weary edge to all of our thoughts. After a few more minutes of banter I bid everyone good night and let them go; we would need our rest for the mission ahead.

There was no guarantee we’d be getting more sleep anytime soon, on one particular mission I’d had to go four days without a minute of it, and it wouldn’t do for one of us to make a careless, sleep deprived mistake that cost someone their life.

So I closed my eyes and quieted my racing thoughts and slowed my breathing into that curiously rhythmic pattern that carries you from awake to not awake and at some point drifted off.

For once I was grateful for the fact that they took full advantage of our sleeping patterns and at two in the morning when the lights in my room came on I was already back up and had been pacing for an hour.

Also, for once, I was more than ready for a full complement of weapons, something that not all our missions required of us and I avoided unless necessary. In my experience bringing guns to an encounter tends to increase the likelihood of casualties, on both sides. So other than my abilities I tended to stick with the six-inch throwing knives I kept in nylon sheaths laced around my forearms. If I added a telekinetic push behind them I could hit just about any target without too much difficulty.

For this mission I added a Sig P226 in an ankle holster above my left boot and one on my upper right thigh, plus a ten round Kimber 1911 in a mid-back holster. I also had my standard Kel-Tec P32 strapped to my inner left thigh. This was to be a stealth mission so I had to leave all the big toys here.

For those of you non gun-enthusiasts who weren’t raised in a secret government compound, that’s two high quality handguns with twenty rounds each. The 1911 is a larger handgun with less rounds and more hitting power, if you shoot someone with that gun they don’t tend to get up again. The Kel-Tec is a much smaller handgun, good for concealment versus stopping power.

The others were armed similarly, minus the throwing knives, although we all had different favorites when it came to our weapons. One good thing you could say about the Project; they kept a well stocked armory.

Arming Rain had always seemed pointless to me as she was more deadly without a weapon than we were with one but those were regulations and we all complied. Besides, she was equally as deadly with a weapon; it elevated her from scary to downright terrifying.

She usually ended up using the same guns I did although she included a few larger knives secreted on her person. I have no idea where she hides them; I just know that watching her use them is fascinating in a bone chilling sort of way.

Mandy and Butterfly both preferred their combat shotguns over my 1911, I think they just liked making really big holes in whatever they could get away with. On the rare occasion we went on non-stealth missions they carried more big toys than I did.

Of course Butterfly could create any additional weapons she needed but just as the larger a construct she made the less time it lasted, the same was true of the more complex objects she created; this forced her to be creative in what she made. Then there was Mandy who had no real need of big toys to create big explosions

DW and Kestrel carried two 1911’s each to my one, but otherwise matched my choices very closely. Like us girls they had more weapons available to them than the obvious ones.

DW could kill with a touch; he could manipulate existing electricity although he couldn’t create it. Humans have plenty of electrical impulses controlling their bodily functions and stopping those impulses has an immediate and usually lethal effect. Not to mention the usefulness of knocking out the entire power grid of whatever we were breaking into.

Kestrel’s abilities weren’t as offensive in nature but he had learned to adapt; he couldn’t become invisible but what he did do was pretty close. Kestrel was forgettable, unnoticeable, unremarkable, at least when he chose to be. When he used his ability unless he spoke to you or chose some other way to alert you to his presence you would have no idea he was there, and even if he did speak to you, you would forget about it a moment later. That combined with his levitation abilities and the fact that humans never looked above for attacks meant that you wouldn’t know he was there until it was too late.

It was true for all of us really, if you could see us coming then it was probably already far past the time when you could have stopped us and that was if you saw us coming at all.

That’s not arrogance mind you, just confidence. We are deadly and extremely skilled at our jobs, there were times I wished it was otherwise but it’s rather pointless to work against your own nature. On this particular day I wanted to embrace it.

Twenty minutes later we were armed and ready in the back of a jet, waiting for the go ahead. We weren’t coming back without all of our missing teammates.

.

Here are the prior chapters if you'd like to read those first:
Chapter Two
Chapter One
Prologue

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

It has been a long time since I have done a Concrit, and I confess it will be a little shorter. There are some changes I would like to see in your story right off the bat. Anyone else is probably going to ask you for the same sorts of things. First of all, if this is dialogue, skip the italics and go for actual quotation marks. It is extremely distracting and difficult to discern who is speaking or thinking the way you have it now. Even if the communication is by telepathy in your story. You need to enclose the speech or thoughts in either a ' or ". If you want to italicize it since you are dealing with thoughts, that is fine, but give the reader a little clearer guideline.

Some of your sentences are just a little bit cumbersome. For example:

I giggled and then groaned as triggered by Kestrel’s words the memory of what I had seen in the medical intern’s mind floated to the surface of my thoughts.

Just relax and walk around an awkward sentence to see how you can make it flow a little easier.

How about:

I let out a giggle that quickly evaporated into a groan. What I had seen reflected within the intern's thoughts were sobering and Kestrel's reminder brought it all to clearly back for me.

You're doing pretty well with making your dialogue believable. I could actually almost hear people speaking like this. Maybe showing more mannerisms in your characters versus just letting it come out in the dialogue.

Thank you for the comments! You and the others have very good points about the dialogue being a little confusing so I've gone back and edited it to show 'quotes' around the italicized portions, I still want that distinction from the regular speech but I don't want to confuse people so thank you for pointing that out!

I do have a tendency for cumbersome, ridiculously long sentences. Sometimes I catch them and sometimes I don't so thank you for pointing out one I hadn't! :-D

I'm glad the dialogue is believable, I was a little worried about walking the line between regular adults and stuck in a secret government facility adults and somehow meshing that into belivable, realistic conversation. I am trying to bring more mannerisms and personality quirks into the story and in scenes where they're actually in person it's easier. While they're communicatio=ng just in thoughts I can't really show physical tics or anything like that but I'm trying to flesh that out in other scenes.

Thank you very much for the concrit, I love reading feedback with specific suggestions.

Firstly, hello! I really enjoyed reading this, and you're really good at getting across an atmosphere. I have to agree with the above comment about the dialogue, though. It read fine, but you do need to put them in quotations because I had some trouble decided who was talking etc etc.

Nitpicks:

"I could survive on less, even none, if I had too" <-- "to"

"little more, some, for instance Rain, needed even less" <-- "Some" could be the start of a new sentence.

"more sleep anytime soon, on one particular mission I’d had to" <-- should have a full stop after "soon"

"So I closed my eyes and quieted my racing thoughts and slowed my breathing into that curiously rhythmic pattern that carries you from awake to not awake and at some point drifted off." <-- there's too many "ands" here. Separate with commas or new sentences, because this long one makes the end a bit blunt.

Also, the rundown of everyone's weapons and powers was a bit boring. Interesting to hear what they could do, but you can incorporate all that info into your action just as easily, and it won't slow your narrative to a halt.

Anyway, it was a pleasure to read and I shall be checking out the rest of this very soon. :)

Hello! I'm glad you enjoyed reading it, that makes my day!

Thank you for the nitpicks, I love nitpicks because I hate it when I've read something twenty million times and then realize that I had an extra o on to, lol. So it's very nice when someone can point those out to me because my brain took a holiday, I've now fixed those :-)

The rundown is definitely a bit long. I've cut out lots of exposition but clearly have more work to do on the showing versus telling so I'm now working on paring that scene down some more.

Thank you again for the comments and I'm glad you liked it and hope you like the rest as well.

You're welcome! :D

I'll do my best to nitpick as much as possible, in that case! ;)

And yes, that will definately improve this piece - whenever you have information to portray, try and put as much of it into the action as possible. Look forward to seeing your new draft. Will it be on your journal? ^_^

I agree with the others. It is kind of confusing knowing who's talking, so you might want to work on that. Other than that I thought it was great! :) Keep up the good work and keep wirting!

peace.love.happiness.

- Rosie

I don't want to be confusing so I am fixing that. :-D I'm glad you liked it and thank you for commenting!

Hi, again.

I wasn't confused as to who was narrating, personally. I like the details you've put into the guns! Very nice, it gives it an air of professionalism, they knew their tools well.

Looking forward to the mission! :)