42.2 by Matthew Taylor - Thriller, Horror, Sci-Fi - Passengers of a Gravity train fight for control of their minds and souls when their maiden voyage through the Earth's core plunges them instead, into the pits of Hell. 89 pages - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

Hi Matthew, I'm chipping away at this, will post notes in a couple of weeks if not sooner..

Hey Matt!

Finally got some time to myself and took a read of the script. I do want to say I did read this all in one sitting, but I am in a bit of a crunch to put my notes down right now, so I may not be able to get everything down, but will finish when I can! Some notes were written as I was reading, and some will be muddled in here and there now that I know how everything ends.

- First off, I love the atmosphere! It really plunged me into the world with the red sky and perpetual electrical storm. I knew this was sci-fi horror going into it, but great descriptions of the Gravity train really got me to put my sci-fi hat on and ready myself to dig into this. (Hi! This is Mark from the future after reading and maybe there weren't enough descriptions as I was getting lost in the settings later on as the action progresses. More on this to come!)

- I like the visual of a jet cemetery converted into living spaces. I'm curious already as how this world came to be.

- 15 pages in and the only little niggle I really have so far is all the characters. It's not that there's too many characters, I feel that they are all needed to tell the story so far. It's that I don't think we know them well enough or we aren't introduced to them enough yet, and just me, but I'm losing track of who's who when we're introduced to them again. I forgot exactly who Benedict was and who Phillip was. I remember their names from the beginning, but I forget which character they were. I'm sure watching the movie it'll be fine as we'll recognize the actor, but as a reader, I feel the characters need a little more work to stand apart from each other. (Even flipping through back through the script at page 50, and as much as on over the top character as Arthur was, I was still confused between him and Jeffrey. When I saw the character name Arthur, I was like, 'Wait. Wasn't that Cecilia's boss?' Of course, eventually I did grasp who's who, but I was doing some flipping back and forth to search character names again that interrupted the flow of the read.

- All right, on Pg. 18, I was so excited to see the launch (or 'drop' might be a better word!) of the Gravity Train. But in the description of it, it was just bleh. It seemed really anticlimactic to me, and it's just my preference, but I kind of wanted to see a little more build-up and even further description of this grand machine making its maiden voyage.


Ugh... Work calls.  I am really enjoying the read at this point, and like I said, the story was a breeze and I was able to read it all in one setting... I will finish the notes tonight or in the morning!

Great job so far!

- Mark

Thank you so much for the read and notes so far. I am extremely grateful.

Glad you are enjoying it up to page 18 - I fear it goes down hill faster than the gravity train after that though lol

I do tend to rush into the action/plot and not give enough time to build and develop some characters - That is definitely something I need to work on.

Very good point about the launch. It really does need a bit more oomph. I'm sure a filmmaker could have a whale of a time doing it, but for now, I need to make it a lot more exciting on the page. Thanks for that.

Thanks again for taking a look, looking forward to the rest of your thoughts.

Hey Matt! Sorry for the delay. Finally able to get back to it today!

All right, reading on and going back and rereading from Pg. 18...

- Some of the scenes seem a little uneven, flow-wise. I understand we're going between different realities and all, but just the set up and then moving around from carriage to carriage is confusing me. Maybe I just missed some descriptors, but are all the carriages connected via a hallway or something? Because what I got from when we first saw the Gravity Train, it read like all the carriages were like a regular train and just hitched together. But it seems like the characters are just moving freely between carriages.

Pg. 48
- Ah. So it's all virtual reality. Of course, the thought in my head was there from the beginning. (Ever since 'The Matrix', that's pretty much my first assumation with almost every single sci-fi flick I come across. And most of the time, it's been the correct assumption.) That explains some of the unevenness of the world you created. And by that, I'm not saying that I'm not enjoying the unevenness of the world, because I am. I rather like that quality in stories, and use it in some of my stories as well!) But, since we come to find out it's all in Cecilia's (Rachel's) mind, would we actually be privy to Phillip attacking Abaddon in the beginning. And would we actually be there for Benedict's and Abaddon's private conversation before we're even introduced to Cecilia, since we're really only supposed to see the movie through Cecelia's experiences? I'm not going to say I feel cheated, because I don't. But I'm interested to see how you handle the rest of the story from here on out.

- By the say, I know I brought up 'Matrix' already, but it's also very reminiscent of 'The Cell' as well, and I was just curious if that was any inspiration for this tale?

- The story seems to be moving along very fast. While I appreciate the brisk pace, I feel like the characters and the world can be delved into quite a bit more, just to make us root for them a little more.

- Some of the dialoge is getting a bit too on the nose, especially when you go out of the way for a quick little one-liner here and there. But when Cecilia exclaims 'Who would've thought hell was real?", that really pulled me out of the reality of this virtual reality. Don't get me wrong... I laughed! It just seemed a little corny and brought me out of the story way too much.

Pg. 55
- I do like the emotional connection of Stanley and Cecilia, though. I got chills when I figured it out. I didn't see that twist coming, and how I didn't put it together.

- While there are a fair number of typos and grammar issues here and there in the beginning, I'm noticing there's more and more as the story progresses. Enough now that I feel I should mention as it's impacting the flow of the action and story. (For example, on Pg. 58 - 'Cecilia looks around, no one passengers visible' ?  - I read that 5 times over to make sure I was reading it right.)

- Lol. So after reading it throughout the whole story, it took until Pg. 62 for curiosity to get the best of me and I finally had to google what a canape is! I had never heard of it!

- Definitely need a better description of Barman! I didn't know he was so mobile!


All right. So while I think it's definitely an interesting concept, I really like it... I was severely disappointed with the abrupt ending. It feel like there's so much left to be explained. Granted, you left it perfectly open for a sequel, I just think there's so much more in this story that can be explored! We never even found out how this world came to be!)

- Mark

Thank you so much for the read and comments. I appreciate it greatly.

I’m currently on holiday with terrible signal so will give a much better response when I’m back.

Matt

Quoted Text Hey Matt! Sorry for the delay. Finally able to get back to it today! All right, reading on and going back and rereading from Pg. 18... - Some of the scenes seem a little uneven, flow-wise. I understand we're going between different realities and all, but just the set up and then moving around from carriage to carriage is confusing me. Maybe I just missed some descriptors, but are all the carriages connected via a hallway or something? Because what I got from when we first saw the Gravity Train, it read like all the carriages were like a regular train and just hitched together. But it seems like the characters are just moving freely between carriages.

Yeah I should be more clear with my descriptors. I did rush this a bit.

I envisaged a section at the end of each carriage as a sort of entrance way where toilets are located. Each carriage is hooked together and the characters can move freely between them.

Quoted Text Pg. 48 - Ah. So it's all virtual reality. Of course, the thought in my head was there from the beginning. (Ever since 'The Matrix', that's pretty much my first assumation with almost every single sci-fi flick I come across. And most of the time, it's been the correct assumption.) That explains some of the unevenness of the world you created. And by that, I'm not saying that I'm not enjoying the unevenness of the world, because I am. I rather like that quality in stories, and use it in some of my stories as well!) But, since we come to find out it's all in Cecilia's (Rachel's) mind, would we actually be privy to Phillip attacking Abaddon in the beginning. And would we actually be there for Benedict's and Abaddon's private conversation before we're even introduced to Cecilia, since we're really only supposed to see the movie through Cecelia's experiences? I'm not going to say I feel cheated, because I don't. But I'm interested to see how you handle the rest of the story from here on out.

I am curious if you ended the story believing it was all an AI movie?

Quoted Text - By the say, I know I brought up 'Matrix' already, but it's also very reminiscent of 'The Cell' as well, and I was just curious if that was any inspiration for this tale?

I have seen Matrix, although I didn't consciously use it as inspiration. I have never seen The Cell however, I'll have to look it up.

Quoted Text - The story seems to be moving along very fast. While I appreciate the brisk pace, I feel like the characters and the world can be delved into quite a bit more, just to make us root for them a little more.

Yup, I am guilty of rushing this lol

Quoted Text - Some of the dialoge is getting a bit too on the nose, especially when you go out of the way for a quick little one-liner here and there. But when Cecilia exclaims 'Who would've thought hell was real?", that really pulled me out of the reality of this virtual reality. Don't get me wrong... I laughed! It just seemed a little corny and brought me out of the story way too much.

I try and put myself and people I know into situations and think about how they would react. I really struggled to figure out how the people I know would react to finding out Hell was real. Thanks for pointing out the dodgy line.

Quoted Text Pg. 55 - I do like the emotional connection of Stanley and Cecilia, though. I got chills when I figured it out. I didn't see that twist coming, and how I didn't put it together.

Thanks, I do feel like it's cheating when I use child characters as emotional tools in scripts, but they are great for it.

Quoted Text - While there are a fair number of typos and grammar issues here and there in the beginning, I'm noticing there's more and more as the story progresses. Enough now that I feel I should mention as it's impacting the flow of the action and story. (For example, on Pg. 58 - 'Cecilia looks around, no one passengers visible' ?  - I read that 5 times over to make sure I was reading it right.)

Another symptom of me rushing it. Thanks

Quoted Text - Definitely need a better description of Barman! I didn't know he was so mobile!

Yep, I just looked back and noticed I didn't describe him at all!

Quoted Text All right. So while I think it's definitely an interesting concept, I really like it... I was severely disappointed with the abrupt ending. It feel like there's so much left to be explained. Granted, you left it perfectly open for a sequel, I just think there's so much more in this story that can be explored! We never even found out how this world came to be!)

Thanking you. I'm glad you liked it for the most part.

I purposefully didn't explain how the world came to be to try and leave it to the reader/viewers imagination, but maybe I did that too much.

I am curious though to know how you thought it ended. I tried to create a parallel version of reality so the reader would flitter between the two trying to think which one was real, not sure if I achieved it, also not sure if I achieved with enough clarity which one was indeed real (or again, If I leave that as an open-ender and the reader can decide which one they want to be real?)

Thank you so much for the read and notes though, very much appreciated.

Regards

Matt