Welcome to Gaia! ::

This an excerpt from my currently unnamed novel. I want to post a sample before I start posting paragraphs, just to get a sense of what everyone thinks of my style. Sorry for all of the spaces. You know how Gaia is with indents.

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They entered a lobby much like the one back in the engine compartment. But the door in this one had an extra blast door in place. The marines were at least relieved that they were almost out of the labs, “We’ve made it! We’re home free!” John yelled in relief.

“Don’t get your hopes up. We aren’t out yet. Any of you marines have any explosives?” Kyle asked.

“I have some C4, sir.” One marine replied, pulling a block of plastic explosive from his backpack. He gently handed it to Kyle, who immediately stuck it to the bulkhead, “You all may want to take cover.” He advised.

The squad jumped behind the desk in the lobby, and plugged their ears, preparing for the blast. The marine set the charge to blow, and jumped behind the desk. He pressed the trigger, and ducked. The charge blew amongst a din of whoops and cheers as the marines leaped up from their cover, only to have their hopes crushed.

On the other side of the cloud of smoke was a very surprised looking group of at least thirty alien soldiers, all reaching for their rifles.

“Take cover!” Kyle yelled, reaching for his rifle and ducking under the volley of enemy fire. Several marines were caught off guard, and fell lifelessly.

“You two, get the prisoner to safety!” Kyle yelled to the two marines who were leading the captive alien, who had just gained consciousness from the blast. They pushed him back through the door they had come from.

The marines were barely able to look over the surface of the desk to see what to shoot at. The aliens were firing a relentless volley of fire over their heads. But Kyle knew that they would, eventually, have to reload. Sure enough, the fire mostly ceased for a few moments, just long enough for the marines to make an attack. The marines leaped up, returning fire with everything they had. Several marines lobbed grenades at the enemies, causing them to scatter into the hallway they were guarding.

“Charge!” Kyle yelled, vaulting over the desk. He sprinted for the door, running straight into an alien as he entered the hallway, knocking it onto the floor. The rest of the marines poured into the room behind Kyle, as he wrestled with the alien. This alien was at least a foot taller than him and was at least one hundred pounds heavier. Kyle punched him in the eye, and reached for his sidearm. As he pulled the weapon up to the aliens face, the alien knocked it out of his hand. The alien pushed Kyle off of him, punched him in the stomach and reached over Kyle for his sidearm, which now laid three feet to the side. Kyle brought his knee up into the creature’s exposed stomach, knocking the wind out of it. He pushed the alien off of him, and stood up. He once again punched the creature in the face, knocking it onto it's back. Kyle picked up the sidearm, and shot the alien in the chest three times, killing it.

He then turned to his right, where a marine was struggling to get out of an alien’s grip. He took his knife and sunk it into the creature’s back. The creature let go of the marine with a yelp. Kyle shot it once in the head and it fell. He then opened fire on an alien taking cover behind a crate ten meters away. He shot it once in the shoulder, wounding it. He fired two more shots, missing its head narrowly. He then sprinted at it, leaping onto its chest as it held its shoulder in pain. It shrieked in pain, and tried to squirm away. Kyle shot it three times in the head, killing it.

The remaining aliens had fled into the endless hallways, and left their dead behind. The marines dragged the dead enemies to the side, and began counting their own dead.

“Report, Lieutenant. What are our losses?” Kyle asked, closing the eyes of one of his fallen comrades.

“All in all, twelve of us are dead from gunshot wounds, stab wounds, and blunt force trauma. Four are wounded, but will survive.”Golding replied.

Kyle reloaded his last .45 clip into his pistol, and replaced it in its holster, “Lay them down over by that wall. Let another squad pick them up. How many aliens are counted?”

“We got about eighteen of the bastards. We took ‘em completely by surprise. Most of them immediately fled.” Golding said, slinging his rifle onto his shoulder.

“We need to find somewhere else to be. I wouldn’t be surprised if reinforcements are already on their way.

Okay, well, I don't want to be too harsh, but I've got some notes (I'm not going to go too in-depth on this)

This is a military story, right? I think it needs to be either more fast-paced and explosive - I mean, you have a bomb! Or, as it's from the point of view from trained specialists, perhaps it needs to be more mysterious and charasmatic - think Bond... or something a bit more clinical or planned.
For example:


If this is the opening of a chapter or the story, it needs to be a bit snappier, to engage the reader. If not, I would advise making that all one sentence, with a comma. This is a recurring problem. Try saying it out loud and examining the flow, pausing for all the full stops. Maybe try and be a bit more diverse with your grammar.
People "entering" isn't the most interesting thing to describe. Maybe think about other verbs you could substitute.


Advised sounds forced. Think about how he's actually saying it. If that's supposed to be sarcastic, maybe you could go a bit further and say "He noted" or if it's not, it needs to display something about the situation or the character. You should say he muttered, or he breathed, or he called, even. This is similar to the the sentence earlier:

It doesn't give us anything about the character, or how he's feeling. It's okay to do that once in a while, but in such an active scene like this, you really want to involve the reader.


Again, try reading your stuff out loud. "Immediately fled" sounds a bit awkward; "Fled immediately" would be better. Or even make it even more casual, and say "Fled right away".

That's pretty much it, I suppose you can get the gist of it. These are just examples of things that occur all through the passage. But, I think it's an exciting story, and would work well as a novel, as it'd have more character development and plot. Just try and work on your pace and flow, and you'll have a real explosive book right there!

First of all, I'd recommend doing some researchabout how marines speak to each other and some of the procedures and reports made before during and after an encounter. being former Navy and working often with marines, you are a little off base on the dialogue.

Secondly, You have an incredible opportunity to add color to this part of the piece. Just saying "the marine" and "the alien" repeatedly makes for a disconnect between the reader and the action. Get descriptive! Also, use this opportunity to further establish supporting characters - even extremely temporary ones! You'll find that more 'color' will enhance scene and give more depth to your action and characters.

It moved much too slowly. But you have already received some criticism on that and there's no need to repeat it.

Which draft is this from? Just curious.

Good luck with your story.