The Astral Plane by I'aint Asimov - Short, Sci Fi - A rescue mission crosses the many planes of existence. - pdf format

Writer interested in feedback on this work

At first the hard landing (which takes 3 pages) seemed redundant, I was thinking if it would be best to make it shorter. But in the end it actually made sense why we need to spend so much time on it and it doesn't seem so out of place. Though maybe it might have been a bit shorter.

The dialogue seemed a bit movie-ish to me at places, I think it can be improved. I think that dialogue can reflect a character's stance on one issue or the other. For example, when Shaw says,

Quoted Text "It's okay, Will. I'm sorry, but there's nothing we can do. Trust me. It'll be okay."

- it looks like pretty "general" dialogue to me. On the other hand, it would be possible to show Shaw's stance on dying, which could be pretty elaborate, and this way make this character deeper - via just one piece of dialogue. And this can be applied to many other remarks by other characters, which would be especially helpful in such constrained circumstances (i.e., you don't have 120 pages to show who your characters are).

The characters are pretty much similar to one another, with Will perhaps having some personality. There's room for improvement here, for now they look a bit generic.

The story seems quite compelling. One other issue I had with this is its theme. What would this movie tell the viewer? This is something that might be added in a later draft, but maybe there is some message here that I didn't get.

Overall, looks pretty solid to me, I think the author is not new to this, but there's also room for improvement.

Writer,

This sorta zoomed over my head the first go around.  Read it again.  No biggie, I'm a big science fiction fan, but this just didn't grab me.  My main riff, you have three characters, none of whom stand out as interesting or dynamic, they all talk alike, regardless of age, sex, background, etc... JMHO. If I were to close my eyes I couldn't tell them apart.  (”Right. Protocol. Atmospheric testing, adjust our meds, confirm comms, and Bob is your Uncle.”)  I assume this was suppose to be a joke.  That is... what's in Italics.

Anyway, not a bad effort by any means. I just wanted more.

Ghost

Winner of best author name.

Okay - first sci-fi I've read where there was a bit of world building upfront - kudos.

The series of dialogue where the Astral i coming in hot to the planet rang stereotypical to my ear.

I don't like this:

Quoted Text As it tumbles, the hatch opens and Dean is thrown from the shuttle into a rock outcrop. He is a mangled, bloody, mess.

Way too convenient - I mean really? Find another way for him to get mangled.

This is a bad bit of dialogue here:

Quoted Text WILL These are not life threatening wounds and I don't plan on staying here.

I mean he just found out he's walking among the living dead and says that???

Okay -

Ya know, I enjoy your imagination. Despite the nit issues above, you did a fantastic job of world building and I believe I saw everything you wanted me to see.  There is some talent here. But the story falls flat at the end. Like you couldn't quite figure out a clever ending and stopped.

Overall - good effort for the short time period.

This feels like an old episode of Star Trek (Shatner), which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but with characters that seem very similar to each other it's hard to care for what's happening.

The comms not penetrating the atmosphere and then the same atmosphere not working with the drugs, and the drugs themselves (rather than a space suit) all felt like two too many conveniences.

The read itself was fine, formatting etc no issues but I just couldn't engage.

‘…there’s an anomaly that we just can’t see to overcome.’  - hope that’s not going to prove an issue…

A fast read but storywise, like the Astral, it didn’t land for me.  The kind of story that needs room to breathe.  I can’t help but think these ideas are better suited to prose.

So this planet is a barren wasteland unless you’re dead at which point it becomes a lush market town you won’t want to leave.  Fair enough, nothing wrong with that.  But there’s kind of a false beat in the ending.    You set up a sense of happy (there’s an afterlife and it’s awesome) but fade out on sad.  Wouldn’t Will, since he’s now dead, presumably be enjoying the market town with his colleagues?  His body is ‘in a barren wasteland of a nameless planet in space’ but his soul is haggling for tasty space fruit.  Maybe I’m missing the intent, but it seems to work against your own logic.

Writing wise, you could stand to give us a little more by way of character description - something to scratch beneath the surface of who these characters are.

It’s not a bad idea, but this kind of sci-fi is tricky to pull off for the page count.

Good luck.

Love the opening sequence. Clear dialogue and visuals, fast paced. I was invested immediately. However, the ending falls a bit short. The concept of an astral plane on a barren planet is a very cool, but your story ends at the introduction of said concept. I would have liked to see more of the astral plane, or to see Will attempt to escape it (which in turn would suggest hope of survival, creating more suspense). As it stands, Will leaves this new world immediately after he enters it.

That being said, the writing IS good, and it held my interest, so kudos to that. I think a rework of the final act and some added conflict could be beneficial.

That Will is just all business. Not even shook up? It had me until page 4: good pace and build up but the dialogue...ouch.

It would make a great Twilight Zone episode. I liked the open-ended scene of whether he went on to wherever that was or did he just imagine it all and die alone on the planet.

No complaints on the formatting and writing as a whole. Work on the banter and you might have something.

Good work, writer.

Easy read. Well imagined. But somehow, the ending didn't work for me. Why would someone be sad at the time of death especially when they have seen a happy afterlife? I am sorry if I am missing something but this needs a little more explanation. Great writing though.

The Astral Plane from the title is never really mentioned or alluded to, so if that is what's going on here it needs to be firmed up.

I like the idea of a whole civilization living phase-shifted and the only way to see them is to die there. That sort of story has been done before, there are Star Trek episodes like that, only people don't die to get there, so the afterlife angle is cool.

Considering the amount of time spent on the "meds", they didn't last long enough to even make it worthwhile. A concoction to counter the effects of an otherwise inhospitable atmosphere is interesting, but how did they do that if they couldn't even identify the composition of the atmosphere? Maybe that's why they didn't last long at all, it was a best guess, but that would have been a good thing for someone to point out.

I think another page or two would help flesh this out. It's a decent idea, it just needs a little more intrigue or mystery, or it needs to set up the ending better. Overall not a bad effort though, and I do love sci-fi stories so thanks for that.

Writer,

Nice idea you had here, and decent execution, visuals, so forth. Thought the dialogue was good and the action as well. When he dies at the end I was waiting for him to come back to the afterlife, but you left it bleak, as if we were watching and not from Will's POV. I thought that was a bit of a cheat because it left us thinking Will's death is final when it's not. So it ends on a bad note, and that didn't leave a good taste in my mouth. That was your choice, though, and I get it.

Overall, not bad at all. Just didn't end the way I'd thought.

Steve

Hello,

p1 and 2 – dialogue is massively overwritten. You made the point that they know what they're doing, so no reason to throw such mass of tech jargon at us. Just give it some balance and cut 2-3 dialogue blocks - IMO.

From p3 the story improves tremendously.

First I thought, I'll say that I wouldn't change/rethink any of it. One little thing you could work on though, is, when the pilot explains a bit too much: you dead, you not dead but soon dead. Don't get me wrong, even this part isn't bad, and works as is, but I got the feel you can bring this specific story beat across a little different, with maybe fewer words from his mouth. But, I think you know what I'm talking about…

Very good work and I love that you decided to leave us with a little room for interpretation. Because that's life and fits the topic you tackled…  Great

First off the words "moments later" written a few times in the script, isn't needed. Technically, the action happens as it unfolds. Some of the dialog seemed to be more technobabble, but tolerable.

Were Dean and Will always dead? When we first see their ship, The Celeste, the description is "The craft looks worse for wear. Most markings are illegible and appear as ancient runes" Given the ending, there's at least one person still aboard (Dispatch- would have preferred someone with an actual name other than designation)   Oddly, once Will and Dean find Stan (and,presumably, other crew members from a previous mission) nobody contacts Celeste Dispatch. There's no indication that even in the crash, communications are out. They didn't even try. Also, would the Celeste send other people down the planet?  

So...why is the ship looking that ragged when we see it? It passed...through The Astral Plane.
;D  Sadly, it's no time loop, and I guess with no warning, no SOS, then the Celeste will send down a couple more red shirts...

Not a bad entry for the OWC though.

Hello writer

Not really sure what to say here - It's not for me, is probably the polite response.

I have no connection with any of it. The only interesting question put to us "why can you see us whilst you're alive" was brushed aside and not explored - then he died, the end.

Writing-wise, not terrible but definite scope for improvement.

Well done on entering

Very good story and solid execution. Reminded me a little of Ray Bradbury’s ”Mars is Heaven!”.

One thing is confusing: Shaw has been dead for awhile, yet he remains around long enough to tell Will everyone he sees is dead, and soon he will be dead too. Yet once Will dies, he doesn’t hang around this astral plane like Shaw did.

I found this strange. The intro was okay and then the shuttle suddenly crashes out of no-where. One guy gets thrown out in a mangled mess, the other guy is perfectly fine and then they start to see ghosts because they are dead, or because they are alive but on meds? The ‘meds’ are way too much like a Macgyver tool and the dialogue towards the end is very expositional.

There’s a great idea here about an astral plane on an alien planet that can be accessed by the living somehow, the execution just needs a lot of work in my opinion.

-Mark

A bit mixed on this one. The writing is clear and clean - not gonna complain here. I think we spend a little too much time on them yelling out technical terms in the beginning. I think I would have preferred, if some of that space had been used for character development.

I really dig the idea behind the ending and, for the most part, its execution. I just think that Will stays a little too calm and matter-of-factly in that situation. Also, I think the bit were the "ghosts" disappear around Will when he dies, could be cleared up a little: it is stated that Will would see them when he's dead, but in his final moments he sees them disappear... Maybe you could make it clear, that they only disappear because we leave Will's perspective as he dies. We wouldn't see them, but Will still would - at least I think that's what you were going for.

Hi writer,

I had a hard time imagining what transpired here. I get the sense that they’re on some type of utopian orb of afterlife bliss, but only when your dead. However, to envision the heavenly scene then have it dissipate and disappear before your eyes tells me one thing; it’s Elysium for some, and hell for others? Hopefully that's on cue.

Astral Planes are the shit, apparently there’s many layers to be travelled on one’s sojourn to becoming a deified creature: Lunar Astral, which can last about 400 to 800 years in one ethereal structure, and Solar Astral, which can last from 4000 to 8000 years in the same ethereal form, which is actually corporeal when your dead… I guess.

That’s going to be about a minimum 400-year life for Will on this desolate planet, bugger. Hopefully there’s another market on the edge of the wasteland, even if it’s rife with one legged freaks, at least he’ll have someone to vent his frustration to.

Clever theme that needs a lot more pages to flesh out a complete idea, primarily a backstory that could explain (or hypothesize) why Dean went one way while Will went the other.

Best of luck.

The writing is OK, it just drags unnecessarily in places. Like:

The shuttle begins to shake and the blackness of space in the view ports begin to glow cherry red.

'Begins and starts' are often unnecessary. Which makes this action line overwritten and passive.

The shuttle shakes and the blackness of space in the view ports glows cherry red.

It's still a slightly strange sentence but at least it is active now and I know what you're going for.

That's it? I was hoping for way more from the build-up. So they're just dead and their consciousness lives on in a bullshit world. It's really weak. And I read seven pages to get there. Most of this story is taken up with technical details that I do appreciate, however, the story needs to match. This isn't even an actual story. It's two-act. A beginning and an end.


Criteria Met (Y/N) – I don't care.
Story (1-5) –  2
Characters (1-5) – 3
Dialogue (1-5) – 3
Writing (1-5) – 3.5
Overall (1-10) – 5.75