It was a pleasant summer in the year 2076. But those on the Surveyor Vessel TFSV (Terran Federation Surveyor Vessel)Delhi did not know such a thing. They had departed from Earth around 2069 CE in the winter, and 2 years ago their time system went haywire. Well, to them it was likely centuries, but it was actually 2 years. The mission for the vessel was simple enough: travel until you find a planet suitable for colonization. The crew consisted of 30 people and roughly 1000 robotic personnel. This may seem an impossible feat, given that surveyor vessels were not much larger than your average apartment complex. However, the robots were actually in storage under the recent technology of micro-hydraulics. Waiting for the day that their human masters would need them. All this said, the task grew increasingly complex by the ... well, they had no system from which to judge the correct time or any time scale, so by the nothing one could suppose. Again, that being said, the crew got along very well. There were never any disagreements, compromise came easy. Their captain, Davos McCarthy, had led them very well. He aided the crew's morale and kept them at their psychological peaks. His key subordinates Chief Scientist Arthur Claire, Flight Lieutenant Alice Grey, *actual* Lieutenant Kurt Zax and Chief Engineer Ronald Jordan had proven to be very useful to him. They had very personal connections to their own subordinates, thus through those key subordinates the Captain had quite the grasp on his crew. But there was a certain fear among them. A dread. The dread that they would never go back home. The fear of dying on this, this damned ship. They never spoke of it to each other, but as each ... "nothing"... passed, they grew to become gloomier. Psychologically sharp, but gloomy. That is, until one fateful nothing.
Biggest killer is right off the bat: It was a pleasant summer in the year 2076.
First paragraph of any story is huge. And the first sentence is really cliche and boring and overdone. Try to use better diction as well. Try to hook your readers into the story.
Y'know what's really cliche and overdone? Doing something that's not cliche.
Doing stuff that's not cliche is becoming cliche.
You don't need to be non-cliche to be effective.
Take Pop Music. It has many cliches, but for the pop music that has actual instruments (as in, no autotune or computer-generated) it can still be effective. Techniques such as power chords or key changes work just as well as they did 50 years ago when selling to the masses.
Thus I come to the conclusion you don't have to be non-cliche to be effective.
Besides, I wanted to establish right from the beginning that the absence of time will be an important event throughout this narrative or e-novel whatever.
I personally like to write without any format outline or structure at times, and this is such a case. I do tend to think about what I want to write, but often time I do not envision the larger work because I find if the smaller bits adjust then the larger work will be great.
Afterwards, I look and see my subliminal "good moves".
I'm experienced in writing short stories, so I felt it was right to experiment with larger works.
It's alright if you don't like sci-fi. I plan to have this involve sci-fi elements (robots, space ship, future etc.) but my intent is for this piece to be, well, I guess you'll determine for yourself.
I'd give some off-site places where I write, but I don't want warlight plebs and my (undisclosed site) plebs to interact and give even more pleb-like actions.
