So the biggest problem here is one of those sorta inevitable contest traits, especially with longer pieces.... it's
juuuuuust long enough that you opened a bunch of interesting doors, but (for obvious reasons) you didn't get to actually take us through very many of them. That doesn't bother me at all in this context, but let's talk about it for the sake of learning things, right? Interesting doors, let's see..... Well there are a handful of visited planets, and only the industrial/prison world of Grouder got fleshed out very much. But even there -- so, so much we could be looking at on Grouder, in terms of world-building. Again, I think it was
very smart to just focus on the events at hand, mainly having a look around the stage and getting on with it -- but my takeaway here is, at some point in the future when you're writing a different story under different circumstances, I would love to be more involved in the setting. Don't read into that, you played it well here, let's change the subject....
Ah! Technology. Again, you wisely confined the technological displays to just the concert and the medical stuff. The medical scene was particularly interesting from a writing perspective, because rather than going into some lengthy description of how much medicine has advanced, you simply woke Cathia up, told her she'd been
assassinated, and she remarks '… I was retrievable! The damage wasn't so bad that the technology of today couldn't repair my body!' Granted, maybe there was a less expositional way to phrase that (when was the last time you referred to your cell phone/mobile as TECHNOLOGY OF TODAY?), but dammit, that's such a clever way to establish just how good science is in this galaxy. "Yeah, I was killed, but it wasn't THAT bad, what gives?" You're saying much more than you're writing in that scene. What was I talking about though.... OH, right, the doors that were opened but never really explored. So in this space-faring galactic civilization, you talked (significantly) more about stage lighting tricks than spaceships.
That's very abnormal! And also very good, in this context. In some other piece, in some other context, you might
need to talk more about the spaceships -- not because they're focal points of whatever story, but just because they're part of whatever setting.
Does that make sense? What I'm REALLY DRIVING AT is, look, the low emphasis on worldbuilding did *not* hurt this story at all, I don't think. If anything I count that as a point in your favor -- you were focused, and that's great. I'm just saying that's not a one-size-fits-all approach, and eventually you may have to (or simply WANT to) build a more robust setting as your backdrop.
Moving on! Let's talk style.
I'm gonna assume you already know what I would say about ellipses. You also probably know what I would say about I-kid-you-not
twelve of them in a row unbroken except by a chapter heading. I get it, I really do, I swear -- there has just got to be a better way you can do what you're trying to do here. OR NOT -- I mean again, this is ultimately a style choice and that means it's totally up to you. If this is how you write a fade-to-black, then so be it. But I mean..... try some other options before you make that your thing. Waking up and looking around for clues about the passage of time? That's something.
Anyway more generally speaking, you still use that ... a whole awful lot, be it in conversations (how should one read a '...' without any actual speech? Do those dots really need to be there?), in descriptions ("They all... loved it" is different, how, from "they all loved it?"), and of course in transitions (Not gonna quote one but trust me they're there). My complaint here isn't that this is WRONG -- I don't usually care about things being 'wrong' -- only that, well, they're not really
doing anything. They're a literary representation of the act of physically doing nothing.
More often than not, when you're using dots, you, in particular, aren't using them
for anything -- that's my complaint. They're just left there, and I can't figure out why or to what end, and that bothers me. It feels almost like a joke without a punchline. "Knock knock -- which reminds me, did you remember to get milk?" THEN WHY DID YOU SAY KNOCK-KNOCK??????? Right? Colorful metaphor, I hope that works.......... it didn't work, did it. Oh well.
That's like three peripheral things without even mentioning the story. Dude, what a
great story. These are fantastic characters. FWIW in my book, Cathia is still a Mary Sue because 'the flaw of being too perfect' is kinda textbook, and I feel like she's totally got that. Your villain had some really good lines, and some depth -- maybe another one of those unexplored-doors you opened, which again, doesn't bother me, just saying you could dive into a character like that more in the future and it wouldn't be a mistake.
All in all, I can see why you're proud of this. It was nicely done, good arc, powerful ending (I prefer the bleak version personally, because I hate that ending more than I love the alternate), good characters, focused, and consistent in style and tone and all that. Great job.
Half Pint
TokyoPewPew
Maksart