page 124-125 from On Writing, a memoir of the craft.

of course, this is from the guy who says that adverbs pave the way to hell....
EDIT: just fixing tyops ^.^;

[This message has been edited by Brecca's Sister (edited November 15, 2005).]
 

[This message has been edited by zetars (edited November 16, 2005).]
 

Perhaps you should also refrain from telling us that something is "very good", because that's a subjective judgement. By all means tell us that you think it's the best thing you've written, but don't tell me it's good, because I reserve the right to disagree. For example:
1). We have unattributed pronouns, no name, no chance to identify meaningfully with a character, so we are less likely to care when something terrible happens to him.
2). If he is lying on his stomach and wants to get up, he's more likely to use his hands first, not his legs.
3). "Slowly shadows emerged from the walls, encroaching upon." Emcroaching upon what? The sentence just stops.
4). There's nothing vivid here. He's in a "space vessel". There's a console. There's an "unknown planet", which he sees through the front window, not on any sort of sensor display. It's flat. It's dull. And it isn't good.
But that's just my opinion, and it's no more or less valid than anyone else's.
 

I had the same thought as tchernabyelo - he would try using his hands first.

I have to agree on the adverbs thing. I think you're holding back - not trusting yourself to do a good job describing the action, and therefore relying on adverbs to do it for you. Swallow your self-consciousness and have faith in yourself! See if you can rephrase things so that we get a sense of what's happening by the actions themselves. If your first few tries at this sound overdone, that's ok. I'd rather have a life raft that's over-inflated than one without enough air in it.

I get the sense that he's been captured, wakes up and doesn't exactly know where he is or what's going on. If that's the case, how does he know the entire vessel is empty? Is it a one-room vessel? He can't see 360 degrees around him because he's restrained, so he doesn't even know for sure that the room he's in is empty.

How does an alarm flash?

If he's lying on his stomach, arms and legs tied down, can he really crane his neck up enough to see the console and the window?

Who is 'he' anyway? I would feel more engaged in his personal struggle if I knew his name.

Like I said, don't be discouraged. This is what we writers do: we act as skeptics of our own work, asking questions, then more questions, then more. Why this, and why that? I do this ALL DAY LONG (argh!!) with my own work. Cooking dinner, mailing a letter, walking back to my office from lunch...always asking, "But why is doing that? How did that get there? How come they don't know this?" All these questions you've generated from us are GOOD because that's how you get at the meat of the work.

Take heart. We're all in the same boat.
 

The proper way to respond to a critique is to say "Thank you." And leave it at that.