Standard caveat: All opinions strictly my own. Feel free to
ignore at your discretion. In the end, it's your story, and the most
important thing is to tell it in a way that's fun for you.

	However, with that said, let's begin the diatribe.

	Taking the advice given based on the previous incarnation,
you've put your bird on a diet and pared-down it down to fighting
trim... Now you need to make it -sing-. Your first three paragraphs
especially still need work.

	Once we've gotten past the first three paragraphs, the dialog is
decent, and the balance between dialog and exposition is acceptable.
However, the first paragraphs of a story are -critical-. They are the
"hook" that you use to capture the attention and interest of potential
readers, and convince them that they want to stick around and see the
rest.

	For that reason, they need to be in a form of prose, and so far,
these are not. You are stating things in a very dry, straightforward
manner. Prose is a type of poetry, and the purpose of it -- as far as
storytelling goes -- is to paint a picture or evoke emotions in the mind
of the reader.

	With apologies to DB for grabbing some of his text as an
example, let's look at the first three paragraphs of "Yardwork" as an
example of a pretty good hook:

"A piercing cry shattered the peaceful morning air, the tranquil moment
of perfect serenity shredded irreparably by a vile cacophony composed of
howls of anguish that rivaled any suffering in the long ended war. It
tore at the very basis of the soul and threatened to extinguish hope in
the clarion call of primal anguish. Or at least that's the way it was
perceived to the subject the sudden burst of noise had assaulted.

The raucous din straight from the pits of Hell ended abruptly as the
hand of Relena Peacecraft slammed into the top of her alarm.

"Vile cacophony composed of howls of anguish?" she mumbled through a
cottony mouth as she roused herself from the lingering traces of sleep.
Gods above, that was terribly melodramatic. And all of that build up for
turning off a lousy alarm? Frankly, it sounded to her like a standard
misdirection ploy that talentless hacks that pompously considered
themselves genuine authors would use."

	And here are yours:

They had fled from the old universe to the new one
hoping to escape
the enemy who'd ground the human race into dust. The
mass jump
transit had been completed successfully and Flag
Admiral Reynard
Arsu, the commanding officer of Operation Salvation,
stared
contentedly at the plot that lay stretched in his
mindeye, an
advanced virtual reality interface that allowed direct 
interaction between the ship's computer and the human brain. 
His fleet of eighty nine thousand ships, comprising sixty 
thousand warships, twenty five thousand colonies and four 
thousand mobile bases was not the biggest that Terra had ever 
assembled, but it was the last remnant of that once proud race.

    Arsu, like most living Terrans, had never walked
on a planet. By
the time he was born, the Darwon had reduced all
Terran colonies to
nuclear embers. He briefly wondered what the soil on
Terra might have
felt like under his feet, but gave up the task as
hopeless. It made
him feel as if he were one of the blind men in the
story of the blind
men and the elephant. Instead, he let his mind wander
and naturally,
his thoughts went to the nearly three hundred million
men and women
on the other side of the now closed gateway who'd
sacrificed their
lives so that he and a precious few could escape with
their lives.

    He felt cheated. His place was with those men and
women who'd
given up their lives screaming in defiance one last
time in Darwon's
face before being consumed alive by the purifying
fires of nuclear
weapons. His duty lay with keeping safe those few
who'd managed to
make the journey, however, and if there was one thing
that was
constant about Arsu, it was that he did not shirk his
duty.

	Notice the difference? Your paragraphs don't paint pictures. His
do. Plus, in those three paragraphs, we learn that a: it's a comedy, b:
it's about Gundam Wing, and c: nothing in it is to be taken seriously...
all without him actually saying any of those things. That's not to say
that overly-flowery language is necessary; he exaggerated the language
deliberately to set up the fourth-wall joke from Relena. However, what
-is- necessary is to be evocative with your use of words. You have to
communicate what your story is going to be like right up front, but
without blurting it out directly. Stating baldly that "My character is
Admiral Moses, and he's leading his people to the promised land" is fine
if you're writing a textbook, but to truly shine out as a storyteller,
it really, really helps to learn to use words in a poetic manner.

	Hope this advice helps a bit.



     Ja mata,
     Larry F

     The Lost Library of Florestica
     http://rakhal.com/florestica/

     La Biblioteca Perdida de Phantasia
     (The Lost Library of Phantasia)
     http://phantasiaca.tripod.com/ 

     Nuke 'Em 'Till They Glow!! The Early Years
     http://nettg.simud.org/


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