thank you for the review, i’m re-posting a second draft, hope you can check it out..
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Sci Fi & Fantasy / Black/White
Falling thru a black hole I see time. It doesn’t appear as a clock or a white rabbit, it doesn’t seem to flow forward as we’re used to picture it. It’s just there, standing ever so still, like a transparent sphere floating in nothingness, made of nothingness. Me; I’m just my eyes, my conscience. I have no bodily being. I am outside time, observing it. Not moving in any direction, not growing old or tired, without any desires or fears. I just watch absorbed the gigantic circle of time. It seems to get bigger, but then I realize it is me who is approaching it. For Time cannot grow or diminish it’s size. As I get closer It is no longer transparent, I can see things moving inside it. I want to know what they are, I try to move in faster, although I see no way to speed up when I don’t have a body to command. Still I get there in time.
In time I have a body and it is falling slowly out a black giant whole. It seems the most unlikely thing to happen, given the fact that black holes ’ have a tendency to absorb all matter that approaches them. But then I realize I’m flying, faster every second, along with millions of other particles of all sorts. We’re being ejected to open space. I don’t understand what force could ever had given me such impulse. I felt it for a moment, the velocity at which I traveled through space, but then it seemed as though I wasn’t moving. I knew I was, because slowly the panorama changed as I advanced. All the matter had dispersed in different directions, I could barely visualize any of it anymore, but when I turned to see the hole that had erupted me I saw it wasn’t a black, but a white hole. Bigger than any star I knew of. Only it’s center was black. Like in a permanent explosion matter flew out of it, causing the bright white glow. Whatever was I to do all alone out in space? Nothing, waiting for death was all there was left for me. Time didn’t even matter anymore. I remembered the visions I had had when I was going thru the hole. I was nothing compared to the universe and it’s length. So I went about wondering through space for years and years. I was sure at some point I would starve to death, but somehow I didn’t. I thought it was impossible for my body to keep on living, but I saw hundreds of stars appear and disappear from my sight, while I felt steadily fixed on the same spot. I thought for sure I would grow old and die a natural death, but I didn’t. My skin was as tight and young as ever. I could perceive no sign of age anywhere in my body. It felt like more than a life’s time, it felt more than fifty life times, and I kept on going. Never speeding up, never slowing down, always on the same path. Forever. And ever.. And then it happened.
-Jack! Jack…- I heard the word, I just didn’t realize it was my name. - Jack, wake up god damn! Look at me. Jack!- I was opening my eyes, I heard screaming and saw blurry figures. It took me a while to focus. Then I suddenly realized it was Capitan Jenkins standing in front of me. What? Where? Who? Hadn’t I just been traveling through eternity?
-Jack say something!- Just like that I knew what he was saying. I hadn’t been able to make out his words.
-What happened?- that was all I could think of saying. The Capitan and the others around me cheered and sighed when I finally spoke. They didn’t tell me everything right away, not until I had been comforted.
- … after the cable broke you were thrown out to space. We didn’t immediately realize you were entering the things gravitational camp. We were setting up a crew to go get you, but then it was too late. You were being sucked in faster than we would’ve expected. There was nothing we could do, or we’d be sucked in too. I’m sorry Jack. We were all sorry as we watched you disappear inside the monster’s mouth. We even called home, asked them to sought out a rescuing plan, Intelligence is all over the case, but they haven’t come up with anything yet. You were gone five days. Then today we spotted you on the heat radar. We couldn’t believe it, it seemed impossible. You were unconscious as we hooked you up and reeled you in. Then we brought you here, and I called you, tried to wake you up. It took me several minutes to get you to open your eyes. What happened Jack? How is this possible?
- I don’t know Capitan. I have been lost in space for what seemed as thousands of years. Is it possible I traveled so far that I have reached my initial spot? Is my luck so grand?
-But that’s impossible, you would have died of hunger in less than three months, of thirst in less than one.
-I asked my self that a million times over the lapse of an eternity.
-Somehow you got out of the hole, somehow you canceled it’s G-force effect upon you and you..
-Does that seem more likely than my story Capitan? And yet you doubt my word. I have no reason to lie to you, I don’t even have a reason to talk to you. Reason left me long ago, as did all the emotions I ever felt. I am tired, I am ageless. I don’t understand how or why. I just need to sleep..- I felt my eyes closing heavily, I felt so warm and cozy as I could ever remember. I was happy. I fell asleep.
Capitan Jenkins was at his side when it happened. The last thing he said was -I need to sleep-. Then he closed his eyes and expired his last deep breath. The Capitan held his hand and shook his head, everyone followed. Suddenly they were regretful no more, but terrified. The body laying down on the bed began to age. Within seconds it was an old shrunken body. In less than a minute it had completely turned to dust. They sent his ashes back home, to his wife, they thought that was where Jack would’ve wanted to rest.
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estarlight reviewed Version 1 -
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I like the way you treated the issues of time and space in this piece. I’m particularly carried away with the intrinsic nature of the exposition in the sense that I share in some of the sentiments you expressed by virtue of my personal experiences. I believe if fully developed, this piece stands the chance of making waves.
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Elf reviewed Version 1 -
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I never thought of being sucked in and out of a black whole like that before. it would really be an adventure and I wonder if it would really happen like that.
I believe that you portrayed Jacks thinking proses well during his time in eternity. His death is almost shocking, but i am going to venture so say you could put a little more dramatics in to its wording. Are people shocked at all? As I read it I didn’t feel it. I would be if someone turned to dust right before my eyes. I understand there feeling at the end of it, but its almost like all the emotion runs together. Its Jack that lost his emotions, its Jack went threw eternity and learned the meaninglessness to life. (in a manner of speeking) do all his companions share this knowledge and experience?
I really like the idea alot, but it would make it richer if you could separate the mood of Jake…from the mood i am assuming his comrades would be in at least at first.
I hope I made that clear.
eloriane reviewed Version 1 -
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Okay. This is actually an intriguing concept, but your prose suffers from an excess of grandiloquence. Rather like my last sentence. I think you are focusing too much on how you say things, and less on what you say. This is never a good thing, but particularly harmful in a case like this, where you have so may spelling and grammar mistakes. (It’s through, not thru; conscious/consciousness not conscience; hole not whole; its not it’s; wander not wonder; and so on). You also have a lot of passive sentences where active ones would be much more powerful (“waiting for death was all there was left for me” is a good example—try “all I could do was wait for death.”). I think you really need to find yourself a good proofreader, if you can’t manage these sorts of basic edits on your own; unfortunately, publishers see so many manuscripts, they’ll automatically disregard any with these sorts of errors, no matter how compelling the story.
Which brings me to the story aspect. I have to say, I’m not really sure what you’re getting at here (and I’m not sure you do either) but I found myself compelled to keep reading nonetheless.
My recommendation: re-read this several times, preferably out loud, to see where it is most awkward, and think about what you’re trying to say. Then, probably you’d do better with a complete re-write. After all, “Books aren’t written – they’re rewritten. Including your own.”
NoMan reviewed Version 1 -
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Grammar grammar grammar! I know the first half of your story was intended to convey confusion on Jack’s part, but we the readers are supposed to understand that by understanding Jack’s confusion, not by being confused ourselves. Intentionally misusing grammar is a good way to achieve this, but the misuse of grammar in this piece does not seem intentonal.
Also, the point of view shifts seem too erratic. Please re-post this. We will all be here to help.
m_parker reviewed Version 1 -
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i quite like the idea of this, and i think that the ending was very clever. Presumably, the mystery becomes what has caused this to happen to Jack, and this is what his team choose to investigate?
it would help if you had said what was happening to jack physically. what was happening to his senses? was he breathing normally? sweating? etc.
the feeling of isolation that he was experiencing at the start of the chapter came through quite nicely.
i think that this has great potential as a story.
nelson1 reviewed Version 1 -
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I think you have the basis for a very good, Twilightzone type story.
The concept of time existing as something which has size was very interesting. I love that when your not in time you have no body
Errors – line one “as we’re used to picture it” try either as we used to picture it, or as we’re used to picturing it. Thru-through
line-4 Time should’nt be capitalised And i think before For (minus the capital F) should be a comma or semi-colon as this is a continuation of of what was typed before it almost as an aftethought really. You do this several times in the story.
sought- should be sort out a rescue team
This needs a serious editing in order to keep it in the first person narration as you jump from Jack to “Where we were all sorry as we watched you dissappear”, its very confusing at this point to the reader, who are the people saying where all sorry? , then you skip back to Jack. I think in order to work well it needs to be in first person throughout even to his death description
eg, I suddenly felt really tired i looked at my hand and it was withering and dissapearing in a dust cloud, yet i felt warm and cosy, It needs a lot of thinking about. But i seriously think its worth the extra time and effort as its a story
I’m not sure what the crossed out lines indicate but it really messes up the presentation, it could be an urbis glitch, it is easier to type on word document then copy and paste onto this site.
BSRiter reviewed Version 1 -
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I do like the straight out of Star Trek plot. The numerous spelling and grammer mistakes made it hard to read at times and the shift from first to third person in the end kind of bugged me.I never really got a firm mental picture what was happening to Jack within the black hole. Was he pulled apart and then put back together on a molecular level? Why did his body age in the end?
rsaioxkreual reviewed Version 1 -
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First off, you need to go through this and look for spelling errors. Forst off, You spelt in the first paragraph the word ‘thru’. Most times when writing you do not use that spelling. The next thing, all of your quotes should be in quotation marks “quotation marks” rather than the dashs. All the dashs do is cross out your dialogue and make it hard to read.
The paragraphs are used properly; the second paragraph should be cut up into two paragraphs and the sixth paragraph should be cut up.
You jump around and that creates tension between the reader and the story, not the good tension either. Your sentence structure os a bit bland. Your sentence structure is also lacking in the originality depatrment. Let me leave you with a questiom- Would you enjoy reading a story which has too many run-on sentences, not the proper dialoge, and does not seem to understand the use of showing rather than telling?
I suggest a rewrite. I’m not saying that it is bad, but a lot of the junk and useless things need to be cut and the story needs to be made clearer.
bravis reviewed Version 1 -
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In time I have a body and it is falling slowly out a black giant whole. – out of a black giant. Although giant black sounds better.
seems the most unlikely thing to happen, given the fact that black holes ’ have a tendency to absorb all matter that approaches them. – you really shoe horn in some elementary physics here! This feels a little clumsy. Most readers of science fiction will know about black holes sucking in matter so I’d lose sentences like this where you are trying to educate people. If they don’t know, they can Google it.
The initial section becomes a little confusing. You say you are outside of time but then describe events sequentially and talk about waiting for death? The time concept needs to be applied a little more consistently here. Think more carefully about what one would actually see if you were outside time. Perhaps it would seem as if things were at a standstill, or perhaps you could look at events in isolation – the big bang, the end of the universe, the birth of a star, the same star going inter-stellar – with no definite sequence? Another concept that needs tightnening up at the start is the form of the narrator. You say at the start that you are are nothing but eyes seeing the universe, but later you mention skin? Again, set your mind on who this character is and then stick to it otherwise it becomes confusing. Maybe stick with the nothingness idea and have it as a consciousness perceiving events visually only since it/she/he has no skin/ears to experience things in any other way?
There’s a real shift in style in the second section. The first is quite poetic and then suddenly there are other people and it’s a bit of a shock. Ease the reader into the new scene a little better by having Jack wake up slowly and describe the scene as is gradually comes into focus.
Capitan – Captain
There’s a sudden change in point of view at the end which really confused me. You shifted from the main character Jack to an unseen narrator and I had to reread it several times to realise it was Jack who’d died. Describe his death from his point of view to avoid this. Never switch character point of view mid scene.
Stylistically you need to make this is a little more conventional in the way you write events and dialogue because the way you have written it seems a little impersonal and distant from the action. Use conventional speech marks to indicate dialogue and describe events a little clearer as they happen.
You have some good ideas here, but you need to think more carefully about how to work them into your writing in a way that the reader will follow and enjoy.
Nytefist7 reviewed Version 1 -
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I like the concept. The black hole transmigration is a solid ideal. The stream of consciousness is a little hard to follow though, albeit understandable considering the characters predicament. I think if you start the story before the character gets pulled into the hole, you can establish a baseline of rational thought and a point of reference for the reader. Then when he’s in the hole, the rambling mind-speak will be more relevant.
You should work on your dialogue. The capitan is especially stilted. He should sound more natural and less expository. Find more active ways to get the same info across. The info he imparts is well thought out and effectively detailed, it’s the mode of transmission that is lacking.
Good effort worthy of revision!
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