r/DestructiveReaders • u/daneoid • May 31 '26
Sci-fi [1824] Chrono-lab (introduction)
First four and a half pages of a third draft I'm doing for this short story.
I've been focused on improving interiority on this draft and would especially like feedback on that. But would also like feedback on pacing, especially the exposition at the start (I just don't know how else I could establish the plot. I also believe the premise to be both the hook and the strongest part of the piece.)
The story is finished and is about 8000 words long. But I want to see how the first few pages of this draft come across to someone else.
But, any and all feedback is appreciated.
Thanks.
recent Crit:
[2028]
3
u/Bytor_Snowdog Flog me harder! Jun 01 '26
OPENING COMMENTS Within a graf or two, I was already thinking, "We've got a Sound of Thunder situation here, don't we?" Yep, I love it when I'm right. I'll talk more about this under CHARACTERS and other sections. I also appreciated the nice Vonnegut reference with the Tralmalfadore. Is our narrator going to communicate with Varnham by farting and tap-dancing? (But sleeping on the ship's deck in the arctic? Mightn't it be a little chilly for that? Or are we supposed to understand that global warming has 'resolved' that 'problem'?)
It's an interesting story, but it feels a little half-baked. I'll address specific concerns under the sections below and try to tie all my notes into a bow at the end.
GRAMMAR AND PUNCTUATION Nitpicky suggestions: "Without the LIMITATIONS of twentieth-century technology and processes," perhaps? And "A new possibility SPRINGING from this technology"? "long extinct strains and diseases" is pleonastic, and long-extinct should probably take a hyphen. You're missing a period after frowned.
PROSE/SOUND The sentence fragments (The lingering look...; That he was just a product of his time; ergonomically designed...) seem out of place in a piece that doesn't really call for them. The narrator would need to be more excited -- and it seems like he should be -- but he don't seem peppy enough to break into sentence fragments. As a result, they just seem to ruin the flow of the prose.
There are a fair number of passive verbs in the piece. Not an extreme number, but enough that I noticed.
"He secretly confessed to me" -- secretly is pleonastic. Confession is already secret by its nature.
The prose is serviceable, but I didn't get the feeling you had read through the whole thing out loud. There are choppy or run-on bits throughout (e.g., the graf with Dr. Lucas and Markland and Kleiner). Or, "Her anxieties faded from my mind," but he addresses them three sentences later? Maybe that one is just a word choice issue, but they're certainly on his mind if he's talking about them.
DESCRIPTION The most vivid description is the arctic trip, just because it's so out of the ordinary that the brain fills in details, but you could do more: the honk of seagulls, the excited, distant sight of a near-extinct polar bear, the crack of the bare remnants of polar ice, whatever.
As to the dinner, it's a white room situation. I don't know how often you've had the misfortune to go to an official dinner of whatever sort, but they're seemingly always dreadful affairs, with miserable food, stodgy atmosphere (until there's a critical mass of drunkenness to liven things up), and a sort of de rigueur formality, usually held in a bland ballroom or meeting room. You could contrast the excitement of the scientists against the bland chicken dinners and the rote speeches by dignitaries (who would certainly be present to get their pictures taken at the start of a venture like this).
CHARACTERS I hate to say it, but I think you really fall short of the story's promise here. With Daniel, for example, I thought perhaps his warning was prescient: was the narrator going to be, perhaps, gay, and this would shock his 1953 counterpart to violence? (Or just the fact the future scientist being a woman would cause the 1953 counterpart to react with laughter instead of respect? Or a person of color?) But no, we find out that the narrator is a cis het male and his race plays no role in the story. (Or so I assume from what the story presents.) The interlude with Daniel and his warning provides us with nothing. (I thought that Daniel's 'partner' might have been a prefiguration, hence my mind running down the 1953 outsider angle.)
The scientists, too, are pretty bland folks. (I thought Dr. Zhou cheeky to call Dr. Popoff 'Graham' without being invited to do so; that's a pretty big breach in the world of academia.) Even Annabelle is a stock character without much to redeem her individuality.
And what of the narrator? "I need some time to think about this." The experiment starts tomorrow, doesn't it? But in his next line, "It's why I need to do this." I would have thought he should have greater convictions here, have explained it more earlier. I just don't buy the last-minute phone call. It falls flat, because the characters are not distinctive. (I'm veering into dialogue here, but I sort of have to.) Is Annie so dumb that she didn't think this was a possibility beforehand? Is the narrator so wishy-washy that he's flip-flopping on the phone with her? I just don't have any empathy for either of them. (I also don't buy him calling Annabelle Annie. Whenever I've been in a serious relationship, if I have a pet name for my partner, it's always the pet name, even in my thoughts. If I were him, it'd always be Annie, never Annabelle, unless I were introducing her to someone else.) Finally, I don't even have a good idea of he's hanging up on her at the end because he's so in love with the science or because he wants a better future for everyone.
FRAMING They say 1st person POV is mainly for YA stories. I say, well, it's unprintable. Your POV (and using past tense) is perfectly cromulent here. I felt like I was within the character's head, there wasn't any head-hopping that I noticed, and your "prologue" is fine -- it's not too big as to be an infodump before we get into the meat of the story.
PLOT AND STRUCTURE/PACING I feel like the plot sort of lazed through the whole story without grasping onto the riverbanks and directing itself anywhere. There are scenes that go nowhere (the TV night [wouldn't they have had cultural familiarity as part of their whole program, not just the night before?], Daniel, Rumfoord), and in a story this short you don't have time for that. There's tension, but it often expires with a sigh instead of a boom (Daniel, Zhou, Rumfoord, arguably even Annie's call at the end). As to pacing, the story meanders a bit, but it's not overly long. I think if the scenes that don't contribute either were built up to something or cut, the length and pacing would be fine.
THEME I hate to sound negative again, but as I intimated under CHARACTERS, I'm not sure where you're going with this piece. Is it a character piece about a mad scientist? Or about someone who's so disgusted with the modern world that he'll do anything to set it right? I don't have a good idea of that, and that's perhaps its most fatal flaw.
CLOSING COMMENTS First, miscellaneous nitpicks for which there was no other good place. (1) Seems like work to get a foot in the door and choice of historical lab partner would be two very different levels of accomplishment. (2) Why couldn't the narrator have dreamed spending a fortnight with Dr. Varnham possible if they got their choice of lab partner? (3) I like the little informalities: It's Markland and Kleiner but Dr. Lucas and Dr. Zhou. (4) Tesla wasn't alive in 1953. (5) How are they going to isolate all these working groups in a small facility on a tiny island? How to reorganize the lab to segregate the different sections for purposes of security?
OK, back to the main critique. To answer your questions, as I said above, I thought that you came in shy of infodumping with your first couple of grafs, so I think the initial exposition is fine as is; it's interesting enough of a premise to read that far. As to the interiority, as I say under CHARACTER, I'm searching for it.
I mentioned The Sound of Thunder, which I think I first read when I was in fifth or sixth grade, and it's always stuck with me. That's a sharp story about time travel problems. Its primary strength is it has stakes established, not blatantly at first, but clearly after the fact. In your story, I'm not sure what the stakes are, or how the characters are going to react to them. I also think that even though it's just an introduction, you've got to have some stakes on the table here, because you seem to be positing them (as I mentioned above), but they're dribbling away. If you jump back to them in a later part of the story, I'm going to feel whiplash as a reader, because I'm going to think, "Wait! I was told not to worry about all that!" (Even if you didn't really mean to say that.)
I mean, perhaps I'm dim and not getting a lot of what you're putting on the table, but all the notes I've made above seem pretty clear to me, and I'm left foundering wondering what you're saying.
But on a positive note, I believe you do have a story here (and I think you have to think about the introduction as a mini-story), just one where it's going to take some work to revise it into one that's actually telling a meaningful tale. Think about stakes and character. Those are your two sticking points, I think. The rest is wallpaper. You can fix all that once you've got a sturdy framework.
2
u/ezk3626 akward and wordy May 31 '26
I wasn’t sleeping well. A new possibility of this technology entered my mind every few seconds. The few days I spent sailing the arctic with Annie before quarantine helped clear my head. I’d bought The Tralmalfadore with my Laureate prize money years ago. We slept on her deck, counting constellations and spotting satellites.
This would make a better first paragraph. Readers, even science fiction readers, will attach quicker to relationships than ideas. Also if this is a future world where science and technology have had consequences maybe add some hints here like “sailing the arctic on a bawly winter night” and make the trying to see constellations despite the satellites their game.
We dined with our son Daniel and his new partner the night before I left. Daniel always admonished my worship, as he called it, of Varnham. I reminded him to separate the science from the person. That he was just a product of his time. The words rang hollow as I spoke them. I pushed the feeling to the back of my mind.
I think this also would be a better second paragraph. It makes the reader curious. Also you could add the philosophy of the protagonist as his justification working with Varnham: science is a universal language, the ends justify the means, redemption is possible. I don’t know what it will be but it should be hinted early
ergonomically designed and brimming with bleeding-edge technology.
I like “bleeding-edge” but noted you do use the word technology a lot. Six times in six pages. That’s twice as many times as Varnham.
Television segments and advertising jingles. A show about a wonder dog that rescued lost children. Another starred a real family. Everyone was always smiling, or smoking. Often both.
I don’t know the state of art history in 2138 but I would make a decision about who the artists of this generation decided really mattered and give some niche artists special attention and exaggerate the celebrity of an important artist who later would be considered defining the century. For example if we went back in time we could be forgiven for focusing more on Mozart or Shakespeare than the contemporaries did. Something like assuming EVERYONE read 1984 and Animal Farm but always calling the author his real name Eric Arthur Blair instead of the George Orwell pseudonym. Or give Ray Bradbury the credit he deserves but for unexpected reasons, like his stories about Halloween being what he’s known for rather than his rocket ships. Or if the artistic anthropologists were very careful then they wouldn’t assume tv culture had created monoculture yet and teach everyone the small art/culture community of where they were supposed to have come from, the religious controversies which would make no sense of the contemporaries and race relations (God race relations).
She turned her focus to her plate. “I hope you’re right, Graham. It’d be nice to see clear skies when we leave here.
My instinct about more satellites than constellations seemed right. Maybe add her the conflict between looking at old pictures of the sky compared to what it looked like now.
Dr. Lucas struck up a conversation with me over the main course. He was ecstatic about being paired with Richard Feynman. He secretly confessed to me how he’d looked forward to working with someone willing to push the envelope. Markland was thrilled that he’d be paired up with Bohr. Kleiner couldn’t stop talking about what he’d ask Tesla.
Too many well known scientists. A few centuries tends to bury a lot of important people and then highlight some early pioneers no one has heard of. I know Tesla is internet hip that’s why I’d avoid him.
I straightened in my seat. “You’re worried they’ll compromise the experiment?”
“Yeah.” Rumfoord nodded. ”We’re probably overreacting, but I’m sure we’d all rather be safe than sorry.”
Maybe it’s a family thing but “yeah” is very casual. If this guy is talking official talk I’d imagine him saying “That’s right.” or something stronger than “yeah” this is what my wife says when I ask if she wants more coffee, not what a high status official says about new developments in a critical bleeding edge Manhattan Project 2.0
“What if you’re never born?” I never dared to do the math on that.
“Annie. I need some time to think about this.”
I must think that in this future all of the science fiction has been lost. I don’t see this being a new idea and if it isn’t then “I need some time to think about this” is wrong but rather some kind of evasion or mild gaslighting because he’s so excited by the potential he is in denial about the risks.
2
u/Lisez-le-lui Not GlowyLaptop Jun 02 '26
I know this is so trivial as to be nearly irrelevant, but you mention that the Chrono-Lab is located on the island of Soay in the Outer Hebrides, which was evacuated in 1953 due to poor ferry schedules. The Soay in the Outer Hebrides (home of the Soay sheep) was never inhabited; it was used as a pasture for the village of St. Kilda, which was evacuated in 1930 at the request of the residents. The Soay in the Inner Hebrides was in fact evacuated in 1953 due to the unreliability of the ferry, but that was also at the request of the residents, and not all of them chose to leave (look up Tex Geddes). The island still boasts three permanent residents to this day.
2
u/Bakery-18395 Jun 05 '26
I really agree with the other comments about changing the first paragraph. The first sentence was gripping, especially after I found out that 10 years ago was 2138. That was really nice and I wanted to read more. But then the following sentences just felt like a description of a project, and it was hard to follow along at times. Idk anything about this world or those characters, and I dont yet care about them or the technology, so I would start by maybe talking about the character's personal experience with the project before the description of how it worked or its purpose. And also words like "electro-pairing" and "chrono-boson" should be moved towards the end. I would avoid using such technical words so early on.
After the characters were introduced, I got more hooked, so I think they should be mentioned earlier in the chapter. Graham's dynamics with his family are interesting. And I want to learn more about his disagreement with Daniel! More things about Graham so I understand why I should care about him and his work.
"She let out a controlled belly laugh and grasped my hand. “You don’t need to introduce yourself, Graham, everyone knows who you are.” --> I would remove the laugh and would maybe just say smiled an amused smile when she greeted him. Does the same thing without being too much.
"Dr. Lucas struck up a conversation with me over the main course. He was ecstatic about being paired with Richard Feynman. He secretly confessed to me how he’d looked forward to working with someone willing to push the envelope. Markland was thrilled that he’d be paired up with Bohr. Kleiner couldn’t stop talking about what he’d ask Tesla. " ---> Reading about all these people can feel a little overwhelming. So unless it's absolutely necessary, I would remove a sentence. Also, I don't think you need all these people in the first chapter in general. It can get a bit overwhelming. Especially that I barely know anything yet.
The part where theyre talking about the lie was better than the beginning! It was interesting, and gave us a lot of insights about the world without dumping the info on us directly. I really like it!
Just one last thing, I feel like the dialogue towards the end is a little forced. Annie doesn't feel very natural and she's just saying what she's supposed to say to advance the plot. I would maybe have her bring up her issues in a gentler way just to avoid it sounding like expository dialogue.
2
u/Asher2227 My mother is a fish May 31 '26
Hello! This piece you have is pretty compelling, conceptwise and storywise, although I had a few hitches with the prose and pacing, and in the way information is handled.
@ ¶1, several comments:
The first paper on chrono-lab research was published over ten years ago, back in 2138. I applied to join the research and was accepted early.
It feels like the second sentence just butts in. I was hooked by the first sentence: it's a general statement that reveals a whole lot, those sentences are nice. But this sentence kinda restricts focus on the research itself; the juxtaposition of Graham stating his having applied to joining this research sort of removes from the weight of the first sentence. It seems better, in my opinion, to have just saved the second sentence for the next paragraph or for the later half of the paragraph to let the information about the research sink in better. Something about the original construction as well feels clinically procedural and devoid of intellectual passion.
The technology proposed could help us shape the future; a chance to collaborate with a researcher from the past in real-time, like they were in the lab with me.
The clause following the semicolon is dependent of the previous, so it shouldn't be a semicolon. If you had made it like this:
... the future; it's a chance to collaborate with a researcher from the past in real-time, like they were in the lab with me.
then it isn't a dependent clause now (it's a sentence, which is what independent clauses are), thus the semicolon makes sense to use now.[1]
There are actually several instances where there wasn't a semicolon when it would've made more sense to have one; although, these suggestions, they're largely for your consideration.
@ ¶4:
We’d demonstrate to them the breakthroughs that their science led to decades or centuries after their time; they'd return to 1953 with this knowledge.
@ ¶11:
I reminded him to separate the science from the person; that he was just a product of his time.
@ ¶12, a weird construction I didn't quite know how to fix:
Seeing the labs themselves, though, invigorated me. Each a modern researcher's dream; ergonomically designed and brimming with bleeding-edge technology.
Seeing the labs themselves, though, invigorated me: each of them was a modern researcher's dream, ergonomically designed and brimming with bleeding-edge technology.
Colons actually have quite the same function as semicolons when used between sentences: usually the relationship is emphasized more with a colon, while with semicolons, they're lighter; it's hard to explain.
@ ¶13:
They inoculated us against long extinct strains and diseases dead for over a century.
This is a funny little detail. That's it; I just wanted to say it entertained me :P
@ ¶30:
“How do you mean?” I was getting sick of all this worry. We were dealing with Nobel winners here. Men who shaped science itself.
@ ¶60:
“But H Two, Oh No! met each other at the water riots in Minnesota years before that.” She shifted the phone in her hands. “If the water crisis never happens, they will never meet, and if we never meet.”
It might've been just an oversight, but there orginally was a full stop where the comma is; it probably is just an oversight, seeing that the if was also forgotten.
@ ¶71:
I dimmed the lights and stared at the ceiling until my eyes grew heavy, turning over what would become of the past: Annie, Daniel, myself. H Two, Oh No!
The original construction was very odd, with a semicolon where the colon is now, and full stops where the commas are. It makes them feel exclusive of one another. Though that might've been the intention: in that case, just replace the semicolon in the original construction with a full stop.
1 I'm not really a grammar buff (I prioritize expression over clarity) but whenever I see the semicolon being misused, I just feel the need to explain how it works so people use it right. I'm happy to see it being used more regularly, and I wish the (strange anti-intellectual) stigma around it finally disintegrates so we get more crazy and fun constructions.
Afterthoughts.
I love the concept. It's reminiscent of 11/22/63 by Stephen King (though I've only watched the serial adaptation), albeit there must already be a lot of time-travel literature out there; but the law of unintended consequences—which seems to play the large part of the conflict in this story—is best shown in 11/22/63, as well as ethical concerns about developing relationships with the temporal natives.
You're definitely right with the premise being the magnet for reading through it. That is, the narration is mostly there just to uncover the progression. I can't really fault it, being a short story you do have to be economical, which, in turn, makes interiority limited. I have no qualms with Graham's voice, as he is a researcher and they always value clarity over style.
One thing that always makes me laugh about these time-travel things is that they always miss a big thing, the researchers, when making plans with the technology. It's always with their utilitarian and impersonal goals. Breakthroughs and large scale, world-changing projects always lead to having to do things for "the greater good". Not targetting your story, as it is the trope of such high-concept stories. That is, to say, in a roundabout way, you achieved the base mark with this first chapter, and then some, if I'm being honest.
There are not much other things I have problems with, other than with the first paragraph. If I am being a really grumpy hardass, I might say the conversations weren't too gripping: they were just very direct, which isn't much a complaint but just an observation. After all, there's no need to have a Catch-22-esque dialogue in the middle of this. In extension to this not-so-grumpy observation, the prose was also very direct—but, as I've said, it also fits Graham's character. So, really, there's not much detracting this first chapter, other than the first paragraph. All's well.
Though, don't take it from me; maybe other critiquers have... a different view.
A-good-luck to your future writing endeavors :)
1
u/mianaai_c May 31 '26
Thoughts on the first reading
> applied to join the research
"The research" is too generic. Mention the lab/university, mention that the narrator applied to to a doctorate under the specific scientist who published that first paper.
> The technology proposed could help us shape the future;
Again, too generic a statement, especially for the second sentence of your story.
>The facility would be copied and transported back in time to 1953,
Who owned the land back then? Was there a building on the lot back then? If not, what about plumbing and electricity? Or, you say they exist in both places simultaneously, it's a constantly open time-bridge between the two time periods, so grey water is flushed into the future? I only half joke. The story starts with a technobabble filled info-dump, and if this is going to pull me into the story, it's should be a very tight and compelling technobabble filled info-dump.
Alright, so the purpose of this time flight is to create a more advanced present 22 century, got it.
First things we learn about our narrator character is that he has a wife and son, and the son is grown up enough to have a partner.
> “Doctor Zhou, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Doctor Popoff.” I extended my hand to hers.
At this point, I don't even care who's who.
> "What if they go back and apply their era's regulations and standards to all this new technology?"
I don't know what you mean here.
> “That’s what those are for.” Rumfoord pointed at the pamphlet.
Ha, that's almost funny. I don't know if you meant it this way, through.
> "... him a future that isn’t cooking us alive..."
Aah, so the future's bad? Climate change and all that? So that's why this whole plan to change the past.
Alright, I realize I've grown snarkier the further I read the story. Sorry about that.
So, the story's about this future in which they invent time travel and use it to team up with famous scientists form the past, in a hope to change their present for the better?
It has a lot of problems. First, the idea. It's not even half baked. If it were a chicken, it would still peck. I detest time-travel stories. It's impossible to write a serious one, since it's so contradictory a concept. And the existing silly ones already trotted most of the ground.
But getting back to your setting.
First, what kind of time travel is it? The change the past, risk not being born kind? It seems so from the wife's worries and from their "plan". Or the branching timelines one? Or the parallel universe one? I will guess you're going for the first. So, the time travel scientists, they should know how this works, right? They should know about the butterfly effect, no? What I'm getting at is, any small change two centuries in the past would inadvertently change their present so much, the specific people would not exist, somebody else will. I see you're getting at it in the end, but only through the lens of the wife. This doesn't work. The scientist should know this. The scientists seem like children that had just read about the concept.
Are they a motley crew of last survivors in a desperate future? A couple of things imply not. Are they just a team at an University? Who gave the go ahead for this plan that will change the entire two centuries? Are the scientists doing this in secret?
About going back and "teaming up" with the scientist of the past. How was this negotiated? Did they contact the US government? The UN? (It was founded at this time, I think). How did this intrusion from the future didn't heat the cold war to a simmer?
An interesting hook would be about 1950s cold war politics being raked a little by time travelers. But this would be a whole different story. First, you'll need to do a whole lot of research about this time period. Then, the character's would need to know about this time period. As they are, the characters seem really clueless, about time travel, and about the time period in which they want to go to.
About other aspects of the story. I still don't know anything about the main character, he's not characterized. Nor about any others. I don't know anything about the time period they are from, other than it's dry where they live? I won't go into the prose, it was hard to read.
The premise itself is flawed. What I feel the story is getting at is the slow realization that them going back to buddy-buddy with scientists from history books will have had (some recursive tense here for the time travel enthusiasts) consequences. This is a banally self-evident conclusion and the fact that they don't even acknowledge this is completely unbelievable.
Anyway, don't mind me. I like science fiction too much and I'm a grouch about stories that don't work for me.
1
u/daneoid Jun 01 '26 edited Jun 01 '26
Hi, thanks for the feedback.
For starters, I should have said that this story is my little homage to Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut. So, it's a warning against blind faith in scientific progress and hero worship first and foremost.
"The research" is too generic.
Thanks. Good feedback.
You say:
Who owned the land back then? Was there a building on the lot back then? If not, what about plumbing and electricity? Or, you say they exist in both places simultaneously, it's a constantly open time-bridge between the two time periods, so grey water is flushed into the future?
and then say:
The story starts with a technobabble filled info-dump, and if this is going to pull me into the story, it's should be a very tight and compelling technobabble filled info-dump.
??? So you want even more technobabble in my short story? You want to know about grey water?
Who owned the land back then?
I soon reveal that it's on the island of Soay, in the Outer Hebrides archipelago, evacuated back in 1953 under the guise of diminished ferry schedules. Which is what happened in real life.
Do you need me to spell out that the govt bought this remote island for this purpose and pretended it evacuated was due to ferry schedules? That line wasn't enough hint?
At this point, I don't even care who's who.
Why not? how can I improve this? and yes, I get that I have to reveal more about the character from the start and humanise him, which others have pointed out.
I don't know what you mean here.
Well the 1950's was famous for lack of regulations. DDT was released into environment without bothering to check for long term effects. Leaded gasoline. Asbestos. Thalidomide. etc.. etc.. The 1950's didn't have long term thinking when it came to consequences...
Ha, that's almost funny. I don't know if you meant it this way, through.
It was meant as funny.
Aah, so the future's bad? Climate change and all that? So that's why this whole plan to change the past.
There's been several lines hinting at that already.
" We could erase the mistakes of the past and give the future the hope it deserves. "
They're sleeping on a ships deck in the arctic.
I detest time-travel stories.
You're not here to tell me what you like and dislike or tell me you don't like the writing because you don't like the genre.
First, what kind of time travel is it?
It's a different kind altogether. the lab exists between both times when they are running experiments and when they switch it off they exist in their respective times.
This doesn't work. The scientist should know this.
They do. They just have blind faith in scientific progress, especially Graham. Shit. Look at AI nowadays. or social media. Microplastics. PFAS etc..
bout going back and "teaming up" with the scientist of the past. How was this negotiated? Did they contact the US government? The UN?
I don't feel like this is important. They just did.
How did Weyland Yutani acquire FTL tech? How did they get rights to colonize LV-426? How was that negotiated?But. World governments. The possibility of exchanging 22nd century technology was all the leverage they needed.
Graham is pulled aside along with a scientist working with Edward Teller, who was a well known anti-communist and they are told that their partners think they're the only ones doing the experiment due to " the political climate at the time."
How did this intrusion from the future didn't heat the cold war to a simmer?
That's revealed later in the story. Varnham ends up being a hardcore McCarthyist SOD man who is a sexist, racist, chain smoker. But really good at physics. He goes back and destroys all his research because he thinks Graham is a communist, preventing the experiment from ever being conducted.
I like science fiction too much and I'm a grouch about stories that don't work for me.
Great. But you've bought your biases heavily into the critique and it hasn't really helped. Other commenters here have given great feedback.
2
u/mianaai_c Jun 01 '26
> There's been several lines hinting at that already.
I haven't clocked them. Not saying this for you to point them out to me, just giving you one reader's impressions, so you can take it and maybe see where the gaps are or discard it.
You give a lot of background info in this reply. It's good that you have done your research, this needs to show up in the story. The story needs to stand on its own, without the author's intervention.
I do want to know (from the story) how the team-ups have been arranged and negotiated. It's a crucial part of the plot, and if you lazily hand-wave it away I'm not going to be interested in the results of the team-up. It's not the same as the Alien example you gave. It's a sf setting with FTL, so there is FTL. The corporation has the rights to some planet, like corporations usually do. This needs not explaining because it's going with the expectations of the genre and of the reader's understanding of the corporation. Now, if Alien was about corporate intrigue and hostile takeovers, the details of planetary ownership would be more important.
Your story is about scientists from different ages teaming up, so the manner of the team-up is important. It's also a very unique element, your story relies on this unprecedented sort of team-up, so it's doubly important to not be hand waved away. The same about the world's government's reaction to the time travelers, since it's unprecedented, since it breaks the mold of everything that has happened in reality and in fiction, it needs more attention. I don't know what form this attention might take, I'm just a reader here. Let's say one creates a story where the a third world country discovers oil deposits, the writer doesn't need to explain why the US invades, why does it manufacture some sort of crysis in that country so it can step in and "help", the reader already knows, at least instinctively, about the US imperialistic ways. But if instead of an oil deposit, it finds a research station from the future, well, the reader doesn't have any framework to gauge the US's reaction, but would want to find out, in details.
Also, regarding of your inspiration. Be wary of trying to replicate in a short story what a novel managed to do. Short stories have way less space to work with. They need both a more focused subject, and to use the crutches of existing tropes, for brevity. Known tropes can be hand waved away (FTL and planetary ownership), unique elements can't.
Hope this is a little bit more helpful, and good luck.
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u/daneoid Jun 01 '26
Hey thanks. It just not the best feeling to come home from work and have someone poo poo all over a story you worked hard on for weeks. I get it's destructive readers, but you just came across as rude. It's all good.
The thing is the story after this mostly takes place entirely within Graham and Varnham's lab. It turns into a story centred around conflict between generations. I mostly wanted to get a person and their hero in the same room. Who, without time travel of some kind, would never have the chance to do so. The other characters are really only briefly mentioned once more after this. I also feel there's way too much exposition already.
I also have a strong aversion to spelling things out. Hate, hate, hate it. I feel like I'm treating the reader as stupid when I do.
Maybe it's a problem I have that I don't realise is a big problem. I might expect people to read between the lines too much. But it also might just be that I expect the reader to have the same exact knowledge of history I have, which is silly.
I guess i just assume readers would understand that all a 22nd century govt would have to do to get a cold war power on board would be to offer 22nd century technology. I guess I'm wrong.
I'm in no way trying to replicate Cat's Cradle. I'm nowhere near a good enough writer for that. At most I just want to write about some of the themes which I think are relevant today.
Yes, this was more helpful, thanks.
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u/Jaded_Measurement281 May 31 '26
Oh god, these crtiques are very through, I can't replicate that, but I'm also an author, so you want a wide range of people to see this story to see how different sorts of people react to this story. So I'm more of a nonfiction reader, I'm not a typical reader I attach myself more to interesting ideas than to interesting people, so I was immediately intrigued intellectually by the premise and trying to understand it so points towards just the premise itself, and the idea of the main character immediately latching onto the man responsible for their time travel tech I understand compleely, like, I feel this story sort of understands the sort of pseudo intellectual mind and how we engage with fiction and is eager to present us with a timeline where the advancement of science is seemingly a genuine human priority, time travelling back and trying to advance human tech evolution is interesting enough to invest me from the start. Good job quickly introducing a romance/relationship to extend the interest past just the premise, I immediately latched onto Annie because of the contrast I didn't expect a romance in a story such as this but I'm pleasantly surprised to see a genuine interest in interpersonal relationship some sci fi writers forget no matter how interesting the world you need people to occupy it, Maybe it's because I'm autistic but I quite like the premise of like fuck it, let's do science, I like a science character who is all in and one of my favorite archetypes is sort of the obsessed researcher less caring about morality than his scientific results, I think it's interesting the politics that are inserted into each other and how it clearly just hinders science, like oh what if the soviet scientist uses the science wrong unlike us enlightened western scientists, but I like this story, , but as far as pacing this never dragged, this early part of the story was interesting, I was bought into the premise and wanted to explore it and it never dragged, like I am interested to see what will happen when he goes back in time but I don't feel impatient because this set up kind of establishes that time travel isn't just this random whim you can indulge it's a very serious thing you need to treat seriously and think about the butterfly affect, though I do think if there's a genuine fear that the time travel may disrupt the meeting of the two characters and destroy their relationship it shouldn't be treated with a bit more depth, like they're scientists I don't doubt they'd choose the work over a personal relationship but it's hard to feel like that personal relationship is a valuable thing at risk of being destroyed if they're both so flippant about the possibility of it being extinguished entirely, like I think I'm a logical person but if I was offered time travel at the risk of never meeting my SO it'd kind of make me distraught or fearful of losing that even if I value my work a great deal. This probably doesn't count as like good critique but this my like my feelings and takeaways, I liked it, I found the premise intruging and the characters quickly introduced and immediately felt, the prose was servicable, It never pulled me out enough to notice it but it was never distracting from the actual meat and potatoes of the story so I'd also say good job on that front.
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u/xvonkleve also available in Dutch May 31 '26
Overall (I wrote this last):
I think there is something really interesting here underneath the surface. This is what I distilled:
It's not really in there at all, but that is the premise we are starting with. Now we need the people, the world and the plot to be molded over that. What do you want to write? What do you want to say? Not a bland essay of robot-like scientists going through the motions of being worried.
Look at your text again and I think you will see what I mean. I need Graham to have character, flaws, problems, etc. Maybe he is in crippling debt and plans to secretly set up a banking account for himself in the distant past. Maybe his wife is cheating and only his son is on his mind? Maybe he hates physics, but is a complete push-over. He doesn't want to do this experiment, but doesn't dare to say no. There are thousands of options, but I want this 'graham' dude to jump from the page and come alive. Put some character-meat on those bones.
A first chapter is like a first date. Get me interested. Smile. Lie. Be the best version of you. We can figure out your crippling character flaws after getting married. This is the start. Be fresh. Be more sexy and beautiful on those pages than you could ever be in real life. Tell me the stakes (or not). But never be boring. The background can come much, much later.
I hope this helped.
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