Started writing that scifi story

It starts off as modern astronauty mind of stuff in a dystopian society, but that's really just supposed to be a  segway into the more fantasy/warhammery stuff I have planned for later. Anyways since following links is to much work, here's the first section. If anyone wants to read the rest ill post the link to where im posting all of it.

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Luis could feel his knuckles turning white as he gripped the edge of his seat. He was about as used to the shaking and pressure as anyone could ever get, but it still wasn’t fun. He could see Meixiu’s face through her visor directly across from him, her usual stoic launch face. He could just barely make out the side of John’s helmet to the left if he strained his eyes, and Alyona to the right. It was impossible for him to move his head to see with the restraints in place, but he could imagine John’s eyes, shut tight, with a pained look on his face, and Alyona, trying to smile against the g-force.

               Luis counted down in his head. It would take about four more minutes to escape the Earth’s gravity well. He wondered what his own launch face looked like. Mainly he just looked around at the others’ faces, maybe to make sure they were ok, or maybe just to see if he was the one who was the worst at handling the force. Scrunching his eyes and making a pained face didn’t work to make it more comfortable for him.

               Two more minutes. Two hundred forty seconds more that he got to feel like a damn rhino had parked its ass on his chest. How much did a rhino weigh anyways? Luis weighed 180 lbs, according to the pre-mission physical. The rocket was accelerating at three g, so only a 540lb rhino. That wasn’t so bad.

               He thought back his last time at home. He couldn’t even tell Eileen what he was doing in space, but she had long since accepted being in the dark about her husband’s career. He had been harder pressed to get Jacob to accept the realities of covert cosmic research, so he had had to make up grandiose stories to tell his son about what daddy did in space.

               The rhino shifted a bit. The pressure started to alleviate and the roar of the boosters died down just a bit. Luis started to take full breaths for the first time in eight minutes. A few more minutes went by as the cabin became more comfortable. Luis saw an inkling of relief escaped Meixiu’s confident expression as he felt the shuttle settle into orbit.

               The coms crackled to life “Mission Whiskey Sierra Niner, status please, over”.  The silence was broken.

               John unlatched his helmet and pushed it up, letting it float some way up above his head. “I can’t wait until the space elevator is finished. This launch bullshit was exciting the first time but I’m not going to put up with it forever”

               Alyona’s helmet was off now, too, “Of course not forever, command will send whiney astronauts like you home!” John just glared. No one escaped teasing from Alyona and it was better not to defend yourself from her.

               “Whiskey Sierra Niner, come in, over”. Meixiu made a shushing hand motion and grabbed for the radio.

               “Houston, this is Whiskey Sierra Niner, we have reached orbit and are preparing to initiate docking with the Intranational Station, over”.      

               Meixiu nodded at Luis and he turned to the cabin’s console and began reading the automatic diagnostic on the screen. There were no problems with the launch. There damn well better not have been, he thought, after 100 years after landing on the moon and 30 years after colonizing mars, the least they could expect was a reliable shuttle.

“Roger Meixiu, commence with the docking sequence, Hong Kong port 3 is preparing to receive you as planned, over”.
Luis touched a few icons and typed in some credentials and the ship began to align towards the Intranational Station, only a few thousand meters off, with the help off their precise orbital entry. It was amazing how simple rocket science had become in the last few decades.

Alyona unstrapped herself from her chair and stretched, floating out of her position, “I can’t wait to get aboard Project Freedom Bridge, can you?” A moment passed and Luis looked up, finding a set of bright blue eyes looking back. Alyona had been talking to him. He was bad at this small talk thing. Was he excited to get aboard Freedom Bridge? I guess, he thought. Being chosen as a test pilot for the most important advancement in human history since agriculture should definitely make him feel excited.
“Project Freedom Bridge”. Meant to bridge the freedom of the Earth’s Intranational Coalition to new colonies in faraway Earth like planets. Not that the Earth Intranational Coalition was big into freedom or letting anyone establish independent colonies. Or that the name Earth Intranational Coalition made any sense to him. “Intranational” to emphasize that there was no division between the countries, in fact there was only one country; the Earth Intranational Coalition; the Intranation. But then, what was it a coalition of?

“Luis, are you ignoring me? You know, that is very rude.” Luis snapped out an answer, “yes”. He had failed at small talk again. No wonder Meixiu was chosen over him to make Captain, and lead the mission, even though she was younger and less experienced. He couldn’t lead worth shit and his people skills weren’t much better. The cynical nature didn’t help, either.

Not bad for a rough draft, though I think some better word choice and paragraph structure would benefit your intro a bit. Using He, His, and is first name frequently hurts the fluidity of your writing IMO, you've already introduced your character, so you don't need to use his name all the time.

I'll try to find where I put my last writing bit for Espinu, and post an excerpt here (don't worry metal, it won't be a wall of words like you normally see you literature hating prune lol)

May I ask what the premise is behind this story?

Artimise Flare wrote:(don't worry metal, it won't be a wall of words like you normally see you literature hating prune lol)

?

OK cool.
Although I love books. I read about 200+ pages of Calibans War today.

Metalzoic wrote:

Artimise Flare wrote:(don't worry metal, it won't be a wall of words like you normally see you literature hating prune lol)

?

OK cool.
Although I love books. I read about 200+ pages of Calibans War today.

I take you getting a nook or a kindle is out of the question since you seem to hate digital words lol. Just messing with you man, do you have any suggestions for some good mystery or detective ish novels? Sherlock Holmes is of course a staple in this genre, but I'm trying to find novels set in a fantasy or more feudal/medieval time period.

the premise overall? It's hard to say without it being a spoiler.

Basically it's going to involve the main character ending up in some other time/place (kind of like futurama only less silly) and trying to figure out how he got there. Kind of a cliche plot, but i have pretty big spin in mind for it.

Artimise Flare wrote:Not bad for a rough draft, though I think some better word choice and paragraph structure would benefit your intro a bit. Using He, His, and is first name frequently hurts the fluidity of your writing IMO, you've already introduced your character, so you don't need to use his name all the time.

I'll try to find where I put my last writing bit for Espinu, and post an excerpt here (don't worry metal, it won't be a wall of words like you normally see you literature hating prune lol)

May I ask what the premise is behind this story?

So if I shouldn't use he and his frequently or his name frequently what should I use?

Artimise Flare wrote:

Metalzoic wrote:

Artimise Flare wrote:(don't worry metal, it won't be a wall of words like you normally see you literature hating prune lol)

?

OK cool.
Although I love books. I read about 200+ pages of Calibans War today.

I take you getting a nook or a kindle is out of the question since you seem to hate digital words lol. Just messing with you man, do you have any suggestions for some good mystery or detective ish novels? Sherlock Holmes is of course a staple in this genre, but I'm trying to find novels set in a fantasy or more feudal/medieval time period.

Fantasy detective/mystery novels?
Hell yes.

Check out the Taltos books by author Steven Brust. They are actually about a human assassin that lives in a society of in-humans, but each book plays out as almost a mystery/detective/intrigue novel.

Hmm.. You should also check out his prior book the Phoenix Guards which is a political intrigue type novel in the same world, but is an example of how to be a linguistically incredible, completely original writer. Only these original stories are written in the awesome style. The Taltos books are written in normal modern style.

Duck wrote:

Artimise Flare wrote:Not bad for a rough draft, though I think some better word choice and paragraph structure would benefit your intro a bit. Using He, His, and is first name frequently hurts the fluidity of your writing IMO, you've already introduced your character, so you don't need to use his name all the time.

I'll try to find where I put my last writing bit for Espinu, and post an excerpt here (don't worry metal, it won't be a wall of words like you normally see you literature hating prune lol)

May I ask what the premise is behind this story?

So if I shouldn't use he and his frequently or his name frequently what should I use?

I took some liberties with the writing, and it's far from perfect since I did this all on the fly, but I think it should give you an idea of what I mean.

Word choice and sentence structure is important when writing scenario's like this IMO, and of course, things will differ from writer to writer simple because of the changes in style.


EDIT

His world was coming apart, violently, threatening to tear him from his harness, the shuttle bucked and rattled as if in the hands of an over eager child. Luis’s knuckles turning pale as he gripped the edge of his seat, he was a veteran of countless launches, yet it never got easier, be it escaping the gravity well of a planet or re-entering its gravity, the experience was seldom one he would say that he enjoyed. In the gloom of the crafts amber lights he could see Meixiu seated across from him, a mask of stoic control painted across her face, Alyona seated to her right strained to smile, struggling with the mounting G-force as they rocketed planetside.

It was impossible to look to either side of him due to the harnesses they all wore, but he imagined John couldn’t be fairing much better then he, eyes shut tight, grimacing at every quake the shuttle made, he wondered how e may look to his comrades throughout all this, it would be forty minutes before the shuttle would finally break away from Earth’s gravity well, forty very long minutes. Another violent jolt hammered the shuttle. Counting down the minutes didn’t seem to make things better as he Surveyed and monitored his crew; he needed them focused and ready for when they finally reached their destination, it gave him something to occupy his mind, gritting his teeth and locking his eyes shut never seemed to help comfort him at times like this.

The g-forces grew with intensity as they scratched and clawed their way into space

Two minutes, forty seconds

He thought, two minutes and forty blasted seconds that he had to feel as if a rhino was sitting on his chest, threatening to crush him under its massive bulk. Luis wasn’t exactly thin either, he was average to say the least, weighing in at 180 pounds according to his pre-mission physical, however, with the rocket acceleration weighing down on him, he may as well have weighed 540 pounds, not bad for a Rhino he guessed.

His thoughts wandered back home, so far away it was, he couldn’t even tell Eileen what he was doing in space, but she accepted it regardless. It was a necessity given his line of work, however painful it may be for the both of them. Jacob however was a much more persistent case, his sons curiosity was much harder to assuage. The usual cover space research rag would not satisfy him, a little embellishment and stories of grandiose adventures on distant amidst the stars helped to curb his voracious appetite for knowledge of what “daddy” does when he’s away.

wow! I like that a lot. It definitely makes it feel more action packed when something is written like that. I'll definitely try to capture that essence.

Though I don't like how you got rid of the vulgarity; I don't want it to be TOO serious sounding.

But I'll definitely try to compare this to what i wrote and figure out what you did that makes it sound so much better.

Thanks!

Duck wrote:wow! I like that a lot. It definitely makes it feel more action packed when something is written like that. I'll definitely try to capture that essence.

Though I don't like how you got rid of the vulgarity; I don't want it to be TOO serious sounding.

But I'll definitely try to compare this to what i wrote and figure out what you did that makes it sound so much better.

Thanks!

Any time, I just wrote it up real quick, I likely would have tried to stay more true to what you were going for if I wasn't trying to get it up quickly lol.

But you're heading in the right direction, I like how you describe the scenes, all you need to do is change up the words you use and how you use them. A thesaurus is your best friend, I used it several times while writing that.