Discovery by Michael Burnham - Short, Sci Fi - The discovery of a lifetime becomes more than one astronomer ever imagined. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

A very fast read with a nice little story arch. I'm assuming the format was for radio plays?

-Spoilers-

The asteroid trajectory towards Earth was not much of a surprise. I could see it coming a million miles away (rim shot). The dialogue was very conversational and could've been ramped up to draw me in a bit more.

Regardless, you followed the parameters to a T, so excellent job, writer.

Liked this, worked well.

It went exactly where I expected it to, so maybe some twist is needed?

Anyway, decent effort.

Straight forward and simple story telling. Obvious ending but enjoyable none the less.
Well done.

Snappy writing, easy to understand, and great execution. Seeing the radio-play format was cool!

Almost perfect, my only gripe is that I wanted more from the ending.
At first I thought- alien space ship. Then I was thinking that it was a normal asteroid that would accelerate faster and faster, and humanity would be wiped out in a matter of hours or something.
There wasn't really a twist, but I think a good one could elevate this quite a bit.

Awesome stuff~

Good stuff. Really enjoyed it.

I was expecting it to be an alien spacecraft, so count me as one who actually enjoyed a bit of a twist.

Definitely the type of thing Don is looking for, too. So, kudos all around.

Not bad.

At one point I thought I was going to read alien.  

Meets the challenge for sure.

Hi writer,

I have reservations that the data of discovery, trajectory, and inevitable contact with Earth would happen within a minute… but maybe it would if AI was crunching the numbers. Imaginative, with interesting well though out, real-time data that seems to be on par with someone who’s an astronomy aficionado, not me… but you seem to know what you’re doing. Works well with the challenge, best of luck.

Another new format (for me at least) and another one that I liked.

The writing is real solid. The story for me is a bit implausible – things happen way too quickly from first discovery to the realization of potential impact. It really needs to be drawn out over a larger time period, IMO. Would be interesting to see a version of this from the realization of impact forward – i.e., folks talking for the last time knowing that it would be the last time.

Anyway – good marks from me regardless. Clever approach – smoothly written.

It's a pretty interesting format to begin with.  Looks like a podcast format that I toyed around with at one time.

The story is good but a bit predictable and plays out just a bit too quickly.  Hard to buy they figure all that out in that short a period and that they know with 100% certainty that it's going to hit earth.  Now a real twist would have been that it was going to hit earth but it hit the moon instead at the last minute. Or it got hit by another passing meteor.  

But overall you really nailed the parameters and it's good solid writing throughout, so good job here and best of luck with it.

Gary

Writer,

Very good. There was definitely some tension there. You would have scored higher with me if you'd given a better ending. Right now it's just -- ok, it's going to hit. So what? You needed more to end this. And not even a lot, maybe just another two pieces of dialogue would have worked.

Steve

Hi writer,

Two funky formats in a row. I know this is standard radio-play format but I'm a screenwriter and that's what I like, just the way it goes.

This one is dragging a bit around page 3 for me, the back and forth is just not sparking any interest for me unfortunately.

I know we could use the option for radio-play format but this would definitely run over the 4 pages in screenplay format. I guess this would have been a good route to go if you couldn't quite fit your premise into the 4 pages.

So this was a slog for me, even at 4 pages I felt it was too long and pretty lackluster. It plays out exactly as you might expect.

Sorry, not for me this one.

All the best.

That was the format I was going to use for mine. I actually started it as well and then changed it to a more traditional format so as not to throw people off,, but I wish I'd put the extra effort to make the action more obvious SFX.

As for the story, it was well written and easy to follow, just predictable. As soon as they confirmed the asteroid it became obvious what was going to happen.

Hi Writer

This was a bit "meh" for me, struggled to hold my interest towards the end and then kinda faded out into predictability.

Still, well written and flowed nicely - Really needs something more to grab me.

Best of luck

Matt

Not bad, just a bit too pedestrian for me.

Maybe do a bigger piece, an offshoot - I'm all for Dave's idea with this:
Would be interesting to see a version of this from the realization of impact forward – i.e., folks talking for the last time knowing that it would be the last time.

Just don't do the Lars von Trier version ala Melancholia.