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I won't get into too much detail here, but There were a few things I would suggest.
The first is to left jsutify your writing insread of center justify. It just seemed out of place.
Second, trust your spell check. There were some obvious errors that Spell check caught, but were not corrected.
In the last section, you not only switched to italics in portions, but also to a completely different font and a different size. Be consistent.
I also fail to see the technology portion. At the very end a table was mentioned, but nothing about the technology involved in the experiment.
Finally, the transition between the end of the sensual act and the next scene was very rushed and confusing. Almost as though two stories were spliced together haphazardly.
On the plus side, I really liked the concept. There is plenty of time left in the project to complete more edits and turn this good idea into a fantastic entry! Let me know when you upload your final edits and I will give it another read.
Also, the italic font change represents the alien scientists talking. Its experimental for sure, so just run with it.
The terraforming is the scientific possibility, though not central to the story.
Ah, the ultimate sexual power-play... sort of. Would Freud have a field day with this? In college, I took a class on Tough Guys. We covered Bogart from The Maltese Falcon, DeNiro in Taxi Driver, many other male tough guys, but my favorite was the tough dame. The example used in class was Linda Fiorentino in The Last Seduction. This story, which of course couldn't be more different, still brought her to mind.
I love stories that tap into men's fear of/entrancement by the opposite sex. And that's what this is in spades, at least until the final reveal.
I think you've got a great concept. As this story is revised, my advice would be to cut that tacked-on finish completely. Keep this about the male/female sex as war metaphor. Expand on it. The meat of your story is very enjoyable. The act is described vividly.
Some of your descriptions are way too meladramatic. The mind screaming, for example, reminds me of teenage angst poetry and not original, descriptive prose. Also, the beginning feels very expository.
Loved the yellow specks dancing in her eyes.
The centered text does feel gimmicky, but at the same time I see it as a metaphor for their union. If that's what you're going for, it works. HOWEVER, I'd create additional layers of meaning within the story itself, rather than rely on the visual trick. Your story will be better for it. Again, cut the end. It's terribly not clever! :)
Enjoyed!
Hey Andy!
Cool concept with a super creepy ending, and I love super creepy endings. :)
I second Essel's comment about left justify, it's standard manuscript format, and easier to read.
A few things I'd take a second look at:
The expository stuff sometimes yanked me out of the scene, which diminished their juicy power. I think you could cut a lot of exposition and the story would still have a dystopian theme. Less is definitely more.
Keep going!
-g
I liked the idea of this story, its well written. The formatting is a bit off-putting so like others have said, you might want to take a look at that and change it to a more standard formatting. Otherwise I Looooove the creepy ending (because really, Im a sucker for creepy endings) and its a solid story. Nice job!
Thanks for the assessment. The ending just kind of popped into my head at the last minute and gave the entire story a new focus, hence the title. I reread what I had previously written and incorporated little bits into the ending, like the tubes/tentacles parallel.
As for editing the format, I just figured out how to do that and it has been changed.
Ah the false utopia. Truthfully, the only kind of utopia that can potentially exist this side of the grave. I must say that anesthetic has to be some "good stuff" to produce that kind of experience. Oh, and the story has BRAINS! You might like my entry, Implant. (If I say why, I'll give too much away ;)
There were a few things that bugged me about the story:
Looks like most of what caught my eye is formatting stuff. As far as the story itself, Great Job!
I had fixed the center justification once already, but for some reason the bottom half didn't take. It's (hopefully) fixed now.
Assuming you meant for "The dead man was smiling." to be centered, you got it. The formatting stuff was just something I noticed. It wasn't a big enough problem to throw me off as a reader ;)
Too wordy. A lot of the descriptors are unnecessary. You don't need to say human man, just man. Or living quarters, just quarters. And after explaining the terraforming you can simply refer to the red planet as the red planet, you don't have to preface it with terraforming each time. Plus I found the wording very repetitive in places. She looked into his eyes with her eyes. The worm like appendages she carried within her carried him. Her smooth touch, like her smooth skin. A thesaurus could help a lot to diversify the sentences. Some of the sexual talk is a little too vague and sounds a bit immature, like the writer is being squeamish. "Cuddling" took me right out of any sensual thought process and made me think of something much tamer. And lastly, the transition from the love scene to the alien examination was really jolting and lacked a smooth shift. I'm all for surprise endings, but I still felt like a little more foreshadowing was needed. Her "I have a secret" and his "this seems familiar" doesn't tie in too well, it just felt like an afterthought. To make the ending powerful, he has to gain some sort of knowledge of his impending doom, if even for a moment. I know that would ruin the dying with a smile ending, but if he's dying happy and unaware of his demise then why do I care that he's died at all? The payoff for me as a reader would be for the main character’s end to mean something.
Great story. A daring mix of sensual and disgusting--all the pleasure-in-pain stuff had my mind flashing over to Hellraiser.
I don't have a ton to say about this one that hasn't already been said. It needs polish to really make it shine, but to me, the writing here is levels above Maddox (not that the two should be compared storywise). This felt like you guided the plot with a very deft hand, and this is a very satisfying piece of work for me.
Excellent work.
Thanks for comparing this to Hellraiser, Clive Barker is my favorite author and when I was writing this I thought of him, H.R. Giger, and a Deftones song called "Tempest."
Something about a turn of phrase here and there reminded me of something else I'd read recently, and then seeing Ethan's comment I realised that you were also the writer of Maddox. Strangely enough I seem to be going against the flow again here, I thought Maddox was really good fun, but was left cold by this one. It's just not really a story - I'm all for a twist ending, but it did not make sense to me. It feels tacked on rather than a fluid part of the story. I see from one of your comments that it was a late choice and you re-jigged the rest to fit. Personally I don't think it worked, or could have been done better. Perhaps with her withdrawing, and then discussing it with a third party. If you were going to pick one of the two to develop, I'd prefer to see Maddox, but I don't seem to be in the majority here.
Short, but kind of sweet.
You tackle a bunch of steep obstacles here at the same time, and i wonder if your story hadnt gained from culling a few. This is a romantic/erotic story, with an alien, who turns out to be another alien, who really sucks at torturing.
Lose the first or second alien, and your story would be better for it.. I liked the description of the mating process, made me think of praying mantis, where the male succumbs to getting his head bit off as part of the sex act.
Hello Andy! Thank you for sharing your story.
I read through the other comments beforehand and there is nothing I can say to add anything so I won't dwell on formatting and so on.
The only thing which was mentioned briefly, that I could expand on, was that some paragraphs (mainly in the opening 2 pages) seem a bit too summarizing. Try to incorporate the backstory through dialogue and action instead or simply telling it (though it doesn't really matter in a story like this so regard this statement as more of a footnote).
Overall I enjoyed it a lot! I like the romance, the interaction between the characters, and unexpected ending. Even though the story was only about 2000 words I felt the love, it was there, though ever so brief. Well done!
Regards, Fredrik.