did you mean to post the same thing again?
76 Matching Annotations
- Apr 2020
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dis.lib.usf.edu dis.lib.usf.edu
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hi everyone
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dis.lib.usf.edu dis.lib.usf.edu
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let’s play uno
just so you know there's a huge chance I axe the uno part cause its useless in this draft (and the previous I guess)
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dis.lib.usf.edu dis.lib.usf.edu
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I like a lot of the changes you've made, as I already noted many times. You've made most of the story really cohesive, built Sesusa up a bit more, and given more context to the major characters. It worked great!
The downside is that it made the things that don't pay off feel even worse. The arcade, arcade kids, and robot talk all feel worse when you've done such a great job making the rest of the story flow together.
This is a bit unrelated to voice, but I think you could do a bit better of a job dragging Sesusa into the story. To the last moment, she's risking nothing and has very little investment. There's no point where everything really gets personal, which I think is what an episode like this needs for tension. I'm not saying Whitney has to die, but they should get beaten up a bit, I think.
Regardless, this draft gives an even better idea of how you want the story to go. The back-and-forth feel of it is more highlighted due to the addition of more useful info in the latter half, which I honestly love. Having the city and the bar slowly evolve over time for Sesusa is really interesting, and is one of the best parts of the story. When you're showing Whitney's evolving relationship with Sesusa and Sesusa's evolving relationships with all the groups in the city while having those two in conflict, the whole story sounds like it's talking about the same thing.
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The One: (They point to the screen, indicating that this could be their next target, since they were supporting the peaceful strikers)
this is a better reason for them to be targeted, but I don't think we got shown Whitney doing any real support? it'd be cool to have Sesusa recklessly drag Whitney into helping out with the strike, and for Sesusa to have to save them when the gang strikes back
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Official: (Aiming a rifle at her) Stop where you are!
also like the Compartment being introduced before the ending! this is really making the ending pay off so much more
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Traveler: One thing the horologist coughed up was that all the victims went on a strike the week before the events took place. You wouldn’t happen to have any record of that, would you?
extremely like the strike aspect being set up well before it matters, but I'm not sure why Sesusa is so confident. imo it'd be better for Whitney to tell her in this scene than for her to assume it.
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Traveler: Why isn’t Eddie allowed out?Lili: I think Dad said that it was ill-eagle, or something like that.
actually super like this whole anti-robot angle, adds bonus stuff to the story and makes the protag stand out and seem more heroic
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Her: (She rifles through her pockets, and realizes she is almost completely broke) Tell you what: in exchange for the guitar, I’ll show you something interesting.The Merchant: Just show?Her: It’s something I can’t just give away.The Merchant: (He thinks about it for a while) Well, you’ve certainly gotten me curious! If you can show me something I have never seen before, in all my years, it’s a-Her: (She lifts her helmet to reveal her face to the merchant)
i like this! works well
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Shit, on the one hand I can’t risk taking my eyes off a suspect, but on the other hand, I can’t just leave a kid in danger.
you have to change this line please
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dis.lib.usf.edu dis.lib.usf.edu
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prima would never kill me
this is supposed to have bottom eyes emojis but they don't work in scalar >:(
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hen does anyone have an idea of what the charity incentive would be? Most tournaments have a prize at the end (right?), but we don’t exactly have much to offer.queercrimespog[18:50] : couldnt it just be for fun? its an uno tournamentPrimajennie[18:50] : the better the incentive, the more donations we get.queercrimespog[18:51] : hmqueercrimespog[18:51] : trent, you have any ideas?TrentFolgers172837[18:51]: It’d be easier if we had more time, but the normal way is to get some big person there… If we could get a governor or someone similar people would go just to network… I could always ask around
this should really end up differently. it fits with what the characters have said so far, but Jenny should know by now that putting it on Townsend will work a certain way.
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TrentFolgers172837[18:35]: Sure… should be fine as long as it doesn’t go too late.
strongly considering just cutting trent. he does nothing for this version of the story.
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DEATH
should be Quail, since that's how they know each other
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you cant say b**** ur not a girl
this joke has less payoff cause of that too :(
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guy
lol forgot i changed her gender
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dis.lib.usf.edu dis.lib.usf.edu
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this story has some flaws, but that doesn't make it irredeemable or anything. there are a lot of parts I like - if the class struggle section was a bit more fleshed out with character action, i'd like it. if the worldbuilding part was more thorough and just an exploration of your idea world, that'd be kinda cool. if the whole story worked the way the ending did, i'd be very happy with that.
but these stories simply do not flow together, you're gonna have to pick one and write it. i'd recommend the last, but in the end it's up to you. there isn't a lot to say given how much you'd be rewriting, but use the world you've made as a start and try to convey your ideas with character discussion, not by simply stating them. give two characters your ideas, and have them talk about why they're good. give one yours and one the opposite, and have them fight about them. give two characters views you disagree with, and show the error of their ways. character growth is so deeply important to stories that, whenever yours changes, it feels odd there isn't a character changing with it.
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Taking these differences into account, they would adjust themselves by reconstructing each other to look more human. They replaced their hard-out core bodies with a type of leather that felt softer to touch. They also replaced their main machinery, that was also harder to touch, with soft substances instead to reflect organs. They made sure to also have their hair grow from inside their main machinery that way this reflected real human hair, instead of wearing glued on wigs that Mike had stuck on.
this part is incredibly strong, and i think this story can gain a lot from making this its emotional core. robots willingly weakening themselves to feel more accurate to humans entirely for the sake of their rulers is VERY VERY GOOD and here it's written extremely well.
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Some have mentioned that the economy has started to build up
the economy is no longer a concern. the world is now owned by an authoritarian corporation that controls the government. these things are not a concern to them
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are struggling to pay any of their expenses
this doesn't actually make sense.
at this point in our story, the revolution has no military might, while Z has robot soldiers and world domination. sure, the people can just stop buying products, but that doesn't need to mean Z is poor - if they're working with the government, the government can just print them money. this is such an important plot moment that it feels bad to leave it to something so unlikely. if Z starts doing bad, it seems like their next step is to annex the US, not try to make do
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much like that of the corporations
id love to know how a rebellion made of unemployed people actively betrayed by their government is as corrupt as the corporations actively murdering them
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fight off the rebellion violently
this is a natural step, but it needs to be built up a bit more. we know later that Z is bribing the government, but we don't even have a hint of that by this point. lay that somewhere earlier
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lower and middle classes
stan solidarity, but again you're treating tens of millions of people as exactly two partitioned groups.
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while they believed that violence could not solve anything peacefully
duh
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He even told them that by launching their businesses and doing the same thing, buying robots instead of hiring people, that they could make a living plus more.
this is actually pretty good as plot movement - it's a business move by Z that doesn't quite work in the real world. it's just that this more than doesn't quite work, as you immediately explain.
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Mike Sickleburg
MAKE HIM MIKE SUCKIEBERG
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They went into this meeting the next day at the top of the Z-tech company building. The middle class
i think this is the weirdest class-character moment. the entire middle class went to a meeting? that's tens of millions of people.
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obviously did not work
extremely glad this is the position the story takes. always down for a good class struggle
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lower and the middle class
this is the start you you treating the lower and middle classes as individual characters, and i honestly don't think it's a good idea. the strength of your story is its position on human suffering, and i don't think that's well served by making the characters amorphous blobs.
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I
ok guess i was wrong, the narrator gets mentioned again. still isn't necessary
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that we have all heard about
if we've all heard about it you don't need to remind us
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Instead of showing any concern for this
good setup for later
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Such a reliance on credit was slowly putting a strain on banks in charge of approving them
almost every house has a mortgage. cars are either on loan or used. how is this use of credit so much more straining than ours?
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yanium
i'm rereading and i dont think this ever got mentioned again? its kinda wacky
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Credit had to be re-established in order to make sure that people had the option to not have to pay upfront for everything, since they now had too little income to put money upfront for housing and other necessities
this is... odd. if the utopia really is a socdem dreamland, how do we fall straight back to standard neoliberalism? if the utopia wasn't that different, how was credit abolished? so much hinges on this line that it should probably be expanded.
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finance liberty and ultimanium
this is way too specific
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It is the year 3000.
i'm actually pretty sure this is a typo or something? cause later you say it's 2050
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My best friend was named Stephanie. I remember we would just spend the whole day talking about what boy was cute, what clothes we liked, what our favorite music was, and other things that just made us happy. Everything was so innocent and happy back then. We didn’t have to even think about tomorrow, because we knew that tomorrow would be another day we would live in peace. We knew that we were in great hands, since we had the resources to support ourselves and the family to encourage us to keep going. It is funny thinking about this now. We all lived in a life that we could possibly even call heaven on earth
good easy start, if a bit overlong.
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It wasn’t too long ago, that we were living in a place that I could call heaven
i think first person is an odd choice here, given you never again refer to yourself in this story and it ends with humanity being destroyed. just make it third i think
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A Loss of Humanity and the Takeover of Technology
guess it's time for b i g d o u b l e a n n o t a t e (will btw didn't know if my username would be my display name or not)
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dis.lib.usf.edu dis.lib.usf.edu
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overall, i'm a pretty big fan of this story, but it's a bit hard to say how it works. i don't ever get a sense of theme, and i'm rarely hugely invested in any given character. this isn't terrible, and as a more ambient piece about the city itself it's interesting, but there isn't enough worldbuilding (🤮🤮🤮) for that to really work.
i think the key for the next draft is a real emotional throughline. our protagonist in this version is above it all, easily solving problems she has no real investment in and with no sense of danger. she never loses and she never grows. it's difficult to have a story like that be really engaging, and it mostly makes the more tedious parts (fight scenes cough) downright annoying.
but that's not as bad as it might seem! you have a lot going on already. you have a perfectly reasonable whodunit, and that's always good for easy emotion. i can't tell you what themes and emotion to put in a story - that'll be up to you. but it wouldn't be difficult to make this a story worth pondering and relating to, which would be pretty exciting.
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Whitney: (They’re in the backroom, holding a backpack they took from the basement. They scour the shelves, placing multiple books inside the backpack, but as soon as they reach Gravity, Galaxies, and Wormholes, they realize they can’t take them all. Slowly and methodically, they return the books to their respective places, scanning each from cover to cover before doing so. Then, they out in their pack Gravity, Galaxies, and Wormholes, the journal, and, opening the shelf of the nearby desk, a picture of them and Whitney that she took when he first arrived. They step to the door of the room, and, taking one last glance, turn off the lights and leave the room behind.)Later that night, in her ship, Sesusa prepares for bed once more. As she takes off her helmet, she hears a knock on her door.Sesusa: (She walks to the door, and, opening it, sees Whitney on the other side with a backpack of belongings) Hey, Whitney.Whitney: (Seeing her for the first time without a helmet, Whitney is a bit surprised to see her reptilian yet oddly humanoid face. Regardless, they bow)Sesusa: (She returns the bow) Welcome aboard.They sit down in the main hold, and they stare at each other silently for a bit. Sesusa pulls down her guitar from the shelf, and, plucking at the strings, sings,Sesusa: ♩ Brass helmet, she wearsDark cloth, she dons all aboutA blaster, she bares.A robot she meetsFrom the planet, they fly outTheir journey, offbeat♩Whitney: (It covers its ears at the song, implying that more than just their journey is offbeat)Traveler: Hey, I thought it was good!
this ending has a lot of callbacks to stuff that was dropped earlier, but i'm not really sure it's worth it. these things don't actually impact the story - the guitar, the scales, the book, they're all just stored to the end to be things that end up happening. i can't say it's bad, exactly, but these callbacks don't have any emotional weight and throwing so many back-to-back feels a bit off.
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bare
this one should be bear too
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They’re
lol maji talking about ignorance but doesn't know they're/their cmon rustbucket
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I’ve heard something
this feels like a kinda minor payoff, and i think there's a way to make it matter more. treat this as relatively privileged information, and Chrys knows it because of his job or something. it means more when he tells Sesusa about it, so it doesn't feel like she just spend multiple pages carrying a child around for a newspaper clipping
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The cases appear to be moving closer towards a center
this is one way of giving Sesusa direction, you never actually give a reason for the bots to move inwards
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This morning, we were assaulted by these three bots here. The night before, they were in a factory, attempting to kill one of the workers there in the exact same way they tried to kill Whitney. Judging by the M.O, I’d say these were the Dead-Metal you were looking for
money please! :)
very good payoff for her detectiving. makes her look cool
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She leaps at him, and, in one swift roundhouse kick
is this... possible? personally i'd go with some wacky jump kick. don't you need ground torque for a roundhouse kick?
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They point to the screen, indicating that this could be their next target, since it is run by a robot
no mention of the fact they were working inwards beforehand, which makes that whole revelation feel a bit silly. they made a plan to use exactly six times?
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Since they are already shushed, the request is non-applicable
tee hee
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The Two: (They let go of the worker and start running to join the third)Worker: (It flees for its life)Traveler: (She aims a roundhouse kick at the head of the third)The Third: (It only slightly recoils upon impact)Traveler: (Dodges backwards as the two join the third). Hard-headed, I see.The Third: (It kicks the pole back into its arms)Traveler: (Pulling out her blaster again, she aims at the third’s head)The Third: (It swiftly strikes the blaster out of her hands with its pole, breaking the blaster)
easily the worst combination of parenthetical action and fight scene. i just can't handle this bit :(
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Traveler: Farewell. (They are now out of earshot. She turns to leave and grabs her blaster on the way)
this section is sooo long, and the only use is a) robots got neutered and b) mentioning the razers again? idk
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A multi-factory strike? Looks like a fairly large crowd
stan bots
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They did a pretty good job of leaving little to no evidence behind as well
see this goes with what she said before, but i really have no idea how she knew what back then.
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Outside, they see a small group of worker robots marching down the street
i picture a small group as, like, 10, especially if they're marching. that could just be me tho
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and wants to make sure they can kill without being detected
woah where did this come from?
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They nearly jump back at the sound of this
poor whitney :(
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You read my mind, Whitney
stan whitney
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Razers: (They get up from the table and enter the small clock shop)Razer 1: We’ll tear you apart! (She charges ahead of the rest, with 6 others following behind her)Traveler: (She dodges Razer 1’s charge and trips her, causing her to fall onto the ground)Razers 2 and 3: (They charge at her from each side)Razer 4: (He charges at her directly ahead)Traveler: (She grabs the arm of Razer 2 on her left, redirecting him into Razer 3. Using this momentum, she lands a flip-kick on Razer 4, knocking him out and rolling back uprightRazer 1: (She lunges at the traveler from behind, landing a strike on her back)Traveler: (Recoiling, she aims a kick directly behind her, planting Razer 1 into the wall and knocking them out)Razer 5, 6, and 7: (They pull out knives from their back pockets)Traveler: Make those out of “scrap” too?Razer 6: We’ll scrap you! (He lunges at her)Razers 5 and 7: (They both charge at her, following closely behind Razer 6)Traveler: You know how weak that sounds? (She aims a quick kick up, knocking the knife out of Razer 6’s hand, then brings her leg back down on his head to knock him out.)Knife: (Reaching the pinnacle of its flight, it starts falling back down)
i find no redeeming value in these fight scenes. they're too long, but more importantly they just don't work with the medium. what am i getting out of watching this fight?
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Horologist: Not lying.Traveler: And I’m not believing you.Horologist: It isn’t me.Traveler: But you know who it is.Horologist: I don’t.Traveler: Has anyone claimed to be Dead-Metal?Horologist: Tons have. No proof though.Traveler: Is there no proof because they’re just covering for Mr. Rand?
surely you can cut to a line describing emotion at some point. short line back-and-forth just looks weird
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Traveler: Thank you. (She walks to the right wall, and peruses the shelves for a moment, slowly making her way closer to the horologist. She stops approximately within two arm lengths of him and picks up an iron watch from the wall, inspecting it.) What’s this watch made of? (She extends her arm so the horologist can see).Horologist: Scrap metal.Traveler: (She retracts her arm and holds the watch in front of her face, pressing the side of her helmet). Tell me something.Horologist. Yes?Traveler: How do you get away with scrapping robots?
very strong section, along with the rest of this paragraph. the investigator-y bits of this really shine
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Swiftly turns off the safety and fires a shot into the ground next to his feet
how irresponsible
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My friends, we must discuss this sad state we find ourselves in. I ask you, how do you earn your meals? Do you work for it? Do you toil, knowing that you are providing for your family? I doubt you do. The privilege to look after our families has been stripped away from us by the scrap-heads. These rust buckets have entered into our workforce, taken our jobs, and left us to waste away, clinging to our government allowance as the last reminder of who we once were! I ask you, friends, is this the life you truly want? Do you want to spend your days idling away, letting this meaninglessness burn through your very soul, leaving nothing but a husk of a man? No! No, we do not want this! If we are to take control of our lives, if we are to fight for our families, and the future of our families, we must fight against the machines! They are our enemies! We must challenge our government, we must step up to them, we must stare them straight in the eyes, and we must say, NO!
this seems worth making more prominent? as it stands it's relevant to the ending, but doesn't really inform it in any way. it's a pretty major bit to leave dangling in the search for clues. rand gets mentioned again, but it's a waste to give a red herring the major tie-in with the setting
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I SAID NOW (He punches the camera, hard enough to break it)
based
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Youth: If yous hasn’t nohiced, there ain’t exactly a lot of work to do ‘ere. Either you find somethin’ fun, or you just… don’ do anythin’.Traveler: You’re saying that this serial-vandal is doing it for no other reason than to have “fun”?Youth: Couhd be, couhd be they’re mad a’ the bots for taking the jobs. If you wanna work, all tha’s left is the government an’, well, ain’t enough room for everyone.Traveler: How do people pay for things like (She notions to the arcade around them) this, if they don’t have income?Youth: Are yous daft? We all geh income for nothin’.Traveler: That’d explain why there’s so many people here during the day.Youth: Of course people are gunna come ‘ere, where else couhd they go?Traveler: What do you mean?Youth: Ohh, you really are daft!Traveler: Humor me.Youth: Most of thuh buildin’s are apartments! Got a loh of people around these parts, so city’s just been makin’ places for them to live. They dohn’ care abou’ entahtainment.
personally i hate worldbuilding, and this paragraph never really comes back so I think i can call it that. it works as an explanation of why the parents were in the arcade, but it should really play into something
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Dead-Metal
obviously making dead-metal a payoff means it's odd everybody else knows about it, but maybe they only know the stuff is happening but not the name? all the people later who are more related would recognize the name so it isn't useless. idk maybe it's too big of a rewrite for how little it's worth
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I couldn’t just leave her alone, could I?
goteem
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Now that’s one of the few mandrels I got, so if you lose, I can’t get you back in.
yeah is she lying here or did she just waste 99% of her money on a guitar
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Dorian Generational Board
haha siri (probably worth cutting)
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Lili: (She looks up) I think there’s something up there!Traveler: (She looks up too, shining light on metal sheet platforms, stretching from building to building) What is this????: (Faintly, thumping sounds like footsteps can be heard on the metal platforms high above)Traveler: I think I hear people. Maybe that’s where your parents went.Lili: Maybe?Traveler: (She looks around on the ground level and notices nothing. However, scanning over the bottom of the platform, she notices one piece of metal that seems to be on a pair of hinges) Hmmm. (She pulls a small coin out of her pocket and throws it at the suspicious sheet)???: (After a few seconds of silence, the sheet opens up, and a metal ladder falls to the ground with a clang)Lili: Woah…Traveler: (She picks up her coin)Lili: Could… could my parents really be up there?Traveler: One way to find out. If you don’t want to go, I won’t go either.Lili. No! I gotta find them!Traveler: You’ve got courage, kid, I’ll give you that. Come on, I’ll go first, you follow close. If anything happens in there, stay right behind me, and I’ll protect you. Got it?Lili: Got it!Traveler: Repeat what you’re supposed to do.Lili: I stay right behind you, and if anything happens, I stay close!Traveler: Good. Let’s go. (She starts climbing up the ladder)Lili: (She follows)
this whole paragraph is a pretty good buildup!
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Hate to give a fake name, but I doubt she could pronounce my actual name
this needs to be formatted another way. by the time i got here i was already ignoring everything is parenthesis, so i assumed she was just being a condescending jerk to a toddler
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Definitely ain’t the best, but don’t know what I expected from some wires
wow racist i dont think humans are supposed to say the w-word
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Bartender: (It places the bottles on the shelf and turns around to face her).
i think this is the first place where using the same formatting for action and dialogue fails. eventually it ends up much more annoying than any individual part, and I'm wondering if there's any better way to format it. i don't really know what screenplays look like
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Her: (She rifles through her pockets, and pulls out a single metal coin) Would this cover it?The merchant: (Surprised, he takes it in his hand and inspects both sides). Yes, this’ll more than do.
i'm not sure where you end up going with this. (all annotations are after having read the whole story)
Sesua implies later that she's fairly poor when she wouldn't be able to get another continue for Lili. that could be false, but... why lie to a child?
more importantly, this exchange sets her up as meaningfully rich - she can just keep-the-change this hugely expensive coin for a luxury item. it makes the reader suspect she didn't need the bounty at all, which again is possible, but there's such little payoff for this. when it's set up in an otherwise unreferenced early paragraph, it feels more important than it maybe should be
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The merchant
i think merchant should be capitalized
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The TravelerYear: 3056, Planet: PraedarAs our friend walks down a vacant street, she feels as if she’s been down this path before. Is this the third street she’s crossed? The tenth? The hundredth? She couldn’t tell anymore. It’s easy to get confused when you’re surrounded by apartment complexes reaching well over twenty stories, each with the same fluorescent glow and a mechanical whir. Her: At least (She thought) I’m heading the right way.Stealing her attention, a piece of ash floats down near her, which she. Reaching out with a gloved hand, she pulls it close to her face, pressing the side of her helmet to scan it, and after analysis, pulls a grey cloth pouch from around her neck and stores the ash within. After it settles with other ashes like it, she stows the pouch away again. As she continues walking -???: (Strumming on his guitar as he sings)♩ Brass helmet, she wearsDark cloth, she dons all overA blaster, she bares - ♩She notices a colored merchant stall across the street, decorated with various string instruments and manned by a messy character holding a guitar. She crosses the abandoned road and sits before the ragged figure.
very good start! love the atmosphere here.
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