Feb 2021
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Feb 2021
Feb 2021
cherrystark
Feb '21

I need some feedback on my new chapter. I'm still fine tuning some details, but your thoughts would be appreciated.

Summary

A light flashed. Jamie looked up at the screen.

“Okay, Jamie,” said Joshua Ford. “Try gripping the egg again with your left hand. I’ve tweaked some settings on my end.”

Jamie read the subtitles on the screen. “Okay.” The diodes on her arm turned blue as she reached from the egg. “Almost…” Jamie lightly gripped the egg and CRACK! The egg shattered in her hand.

Jamie took a shuddered breath as she tried to keep herself from crying. She’d broken two dozen eggs during their testing that day and three dozen the day before that.

“This shouldn’t be so hard,” she whimpered, sitting back on her stool. Her body didn’t feel like her own anymore. If she had been able to relearn how to walk on the T.I.M.E. prosthetic leg after the explosion, she should be able to regain the use of her hands. The two cybernetic implants in her arms restored feeling, but they also gave her enhanced strength. She felt like a giant trying to launder tissue paper.

“It’s okay, Jamie,” comforted Joshua. “You’ve gone through a traumatic experience. You are the first human to receive these types of enhancements. There’s going to be a learning curve.”

Jamie laughed dryly. “Yeah, a learning curve.” She pointed to her ears. The explosion had left her partially deaf in her right ear and completely deaf in her left ear. She was scheduled later that day for a procedure to active and fine-tune her bionic ear. Joshua had promised it would completely restore and improve her hearing. “What about my ears? I feel like a lab rat.”

“You just have to have a little faith…”

Another light flashed, alerting Jamie that someone was outside of her lab. “I got to go, Joshua. Someone is at the door.”

“Alrighty,” he replied. “Call me later, and we can keep testing the enhancements.”

“Okay, bye Joshua.” Jamie peeled off the diode stickers as she shuffled to the door of her workshop.

“Hi Daddy.”

“Hi sweet girl,” he signed. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she signed back. “We’ve been testing my grip strength again today.”

Cole looked at the faint, fingerprint indentions on the doorknob. “How’s that coming?”

“It shouldn’t be this hard,” she voiced. “I’m usually can learn things just like that,” Jamie snapped her fingers. “But, for some reason I can’t learn how to grab things.”

“It’s just takes practice,” he reminded her. “It took you time when you were a baby to learn your own strength; it’s going to take you time to learn your strength again now.”

Jamie smiled and signed, “why are you so smart?”

“Because I’m your pa. It’s part of my job.”

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    Feb '21

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orbitkatart
Feb '21

Here are some things that jump out at me:

  • "reached from the egg" seems like it should be "reach for the egg" as it seems the egg in question is something she's grabbing and not coming out of.

  • "She pointed to her ears" comes immediately after she says "Yeah a learning curve" which makes it sound like her ears are relevant to said learning curve. I personally would move "she pointed to her ears" to a new paragraph and continue or re-word the end of that paragraph to have "what about my ears" come before the sentence "she pointed to her ears. This then gives a better opening to the next sentences explaining her deafness. You could also leave "I feel like a lab rat" at the end or possibly have it as a new thought altogether because the two sentences she says , while technically related to each other, are two separate thoughts.
    EX: “What about my ears?" She pointed to her ears. The explosion had left her partially deaf in her right ear and completely deaf in her left ear. She was scheduled later that day for a procedure to active and fine-tune her bionic ear. Joshua had promised it would completely restore and improve her hearing.
    She sighed, “I feel like a lab rat.”

  • "I’m usually can learn things just like that" where "I'm" should be "I"

  • “It’s just takes practice,” should be "It"

Other than these few things, I think it's well written :slight_smile: I would also say, as a chapter, it seems a bit short.

cherrystark
Feb '21

Thanks! There is another part to this chapter, it was just kinda long. I can post that part too. That bit about being a lab rat is helpful!!!

cherrystark
Feb '21

Part 2

Summary

Jamie’s stomach was in knots by the time they’d reached the clinic. She gripped Cole’s arm as the medical staff escorted them into the procedure room. Cole gave her a worried glance.
“You okay?”

“Nervous? I guess.” she signed. “I don’t know what’s going on… They are all talking too fast.”

Cole looked at her ear. “Where’s your hearing aid?”

“In my pocket.”

“Put it in.”

The medical assistant stopped in front of a gray, metal door. “Mr. Carter, you can wait in the next room.” Cole gave Jamie’s hand a squeeze and went into the next room. Jamie nodded and slipped on her hearing aid. “Right this way, Miss Carter. Dr. Faust will just be a few minutes.”

The room was dark and covered with dark gray, soundproof paneling. There was a single chair in the room. It reminded her of a dental chair in the infirmary, except for the thick, leather bindings at the wrists and ankles and a halo-like brace around the head. Jamie gulped as she sat down in the hard chair.

A few minutes later, two assistants came into the room wearing peppy, pink scrubs. The bright color didn’t help squelch the gnawing feeling in her stomach. One assistant looked down at Jamie and smiled. “You have nothing to be worried about,” she said. “The procedure is perfectly safe.”

Jamie nodded as they tightened the restraints. A gray-haired man in a white lab coat came into the room. He talked faster than Jamie could understand and plopped a heavy pair of headphones over her ears. A string of lights around the halo lit up and began to swirl.

The screen on the opposite wall began to count down. The halo of lights turned red. Pressure pounded her head. Tears welled up in her eyes. “Stop,” she sobbed. “P-please… Please!” The halo lights turned blue. She fainted.

“Let me in there!” Cole roared, as the two security guards tried to hold him back. He could hear Jamie’s sobs as the machine worked. “She’s hurt.”

“Relax, Mr. Carter,” ordered the doctor. “Let the machine do its job. The patient is fine.”

The machine stopped. Jamie blinked her eyes. Did it work? The chair lifted her into a seated position. Through the tiny window, she could see Cole struggle against the guards.

“Please, I need to be there. If anything—”

Jamie cocked her head to the side and listened. In spite of the closed door and thick, concrete walls, she could hear them. She could hear every word.

“Daddy?”

Cole looked up and saw her through the window. “Jamie?” Relief covered his face. “Sweet girl, can you hear me?”

Jamie nodded. “Every word.”

The door to the procedure room flew open. Cole stormed the room. “Jamie!”
With a twist of her wrist, Jamie broke the bindings. Cole pulled her into his embrace. Jamie pressed her ear against his chest. She could hear the rhythmic thump of Cole’s heart. “I can hear…”

“You can hear…”

therosesword
Feb '21
orbitkatart

A couple of things that are my own personal peccadillos so I tend to see them... everywhere... lol

"just" man, I so overuse that word and someone once pointed out to me that they could tell the difference between a male and female writer by how often the word was used because women use it like they use the words "I'm sorry" all the time. Weird. So small and insignificant.

I have this "thing" about constantly using someone's name when people talk to each other. It's the audio dramatist in me. Old Time radio used it a lot because people couldn't see who was talking... but they didn't need to if actors had different voices or were male or female. Anyway... again, it's just me. But she says she has to go and uses his name, then says bye to him using his name again. this is why I don't edit.

@orbitkatart had a point with "from" the egg unless she was reaching from it to another place but it doesn't read that way.

I had no problem with the ear motion because, you know me, I immediately picture things so I could see her pointing to her ear and giving him one of those "ya think?" motions... but that's me.

typo I'm assuming "I'm" usually can learn etc.

Also typo "It's" just takes practice

I'm being nitpicky

Not so sure about sitting back on a stool. Last time I did that I fell off... Although... I was in a bar with a 7-sample flight of craft beers....

Aside from my nitpicking... looks fairly good. There might be some questions but those are basically because this is only a portion of something else so I'm only looking at what's in front of me.

cherrystark
Feb '21

Thanks! I admit some of those are typos, easy fixes.

This story's posing a challenge because I have to find the right balance of history and drive for more character growth. I'm excited to see where this story takes me.

therosesword
Feb '21

I think the fact I only found nitpicky things that have nothing to do with the story means you're on the right track.

a.g.meade
Feb '21

@cherrystark - The first section is well-written, and the points I would have made have been addressed above. One thing I noticed is that Pa and Jamie are signing to each other. If that's unusual in the context of this story, have you considered using <> or italics? It would help differentiate the communication between these characters (or this method of communication) from everyone else.

Section two - again, well written all in all. I might suggest being more descriptive during the scene with the hearing procedure. Pressure pounding, tears welling in her eyes - good sensory details, but those could also describe a bad headache. I think it would be more powerful for the reader if there's a touch more detail about her feeling like her head's about to explode, and it would set up Pa's going-to-tear-down-the-door reaction quite nicely as well. :slight_smile:

cherrystark
Feb '21

Thanks for the feedback. The signing is a new addition to Jamie's character. She lost her hearing in the last story, so she and her dad learned how to do sign. Signing in stories is still new for me. I read that you should punctuate/format it like voiced speech. I'm still learning the details on how to do it properly

cherrystark
Feb '21

Here is another excerpt I could use thoughts on.

Stacks of antique manuscripts covered the library table, silently begging for Jamie to translate them. Jamie rubbed her knee, a nervous habit she had picked up after her surgery. She stared at the table, bored. Jamie ached to resume her normal maintenance work but she wasn’t cleared to work for another six weeks.

Her mind drifted to the others. The museum was too quiet with everyone gone. Felix meowed loudly, demanding attention as he jumped on to the table in front of her.

“Hi Fe. How is my pretty kitty?” The sleek black cat purred happily as Jamie scratched him behind the ears. “Everybody’s gone,” she whispered. Tears threatened. “Serena, Nick, Robin, Dad…” She felt a twinge of guilt as she remembered the bus driving away the day before. “I didn’t even say goodbye to my dad when he left…”

Felix meowed loudly and scampered off. “Felix?” she called. “Where are you going?” A pink, holographic bubble appeared over her leather cuff. “What the…”

Jamie ran down corridor to the computer room. If the computer had located a new artifact, an agent would need to retrieve the artifact as quickly as possible. Alex had disappeared after the incident in New Orleans. Despite Kendra’s relentless tracking, he hadn’t been found. Jamie always worried about the mysterious “them” Alex referred to getting their hands on the artifact.

Jamie punched in a command into the computer. A world map appeared on the screen. The location of every active museum agent appeared on the screen. Cole and Nick’s markers were heading south to Mexico City where they were going to meet Kendra.

The computer began to search for agents within a one-hundred-mile radius. A red X indicated that there were no agents in the immediate area. The nearest agents were working on a dig in northern Quebec in coordination with several First Nation groups.

Her mind went to Johnathan and the mystery assignment that had taken him away from her. She typed in his name into the search field. Jamie gulped. There were only three ways for an agent’s tracker to be deactivated from the map: retirement, defection, and… death.

The thought of Johnathan dead made Jamie feel sick to her stomach. She looked down at the cat, swirling around her ankles. “I guess, it’s up to me Felix…”