Extract from story about Planet Earth

‘The characters have reached the mighty Marianas Trench...

Sometime later, they reached the mighty Marianas Trench.’

and

‘Back on board the boat, Lucy clutched a steaming mug of tea in her hands as she watched and waited patiently while she and Danny monitored Peter’s breathing and oxygen levels. It was intense work for all of them. Danny was on alert to physically winch Peter and the special mini sub up to the surface should the need arise.

“What’s up,” cried Lucy. The silence on the communication cord was too long. Had anything happened to Peter?

Back on board the boat, Lucy clutched a steaming mug of tea in her hands as she watched and waited patiently while she and Danny monitored Peter’s breathing and oxygen levels. It was intense work for all of them. Danny was on alert to physically winch Peter and the special mini sub up to the surface should the need arise.

“What’s up,” cried Lucy. The silence on the communication cord was too long. Had anything happened to Peter?’

My guess is either time warp or parallel universes…

Hi, Karen!

Mary and Lorraine picked up most of the points that bothered me. But a few comments:

Peter is a photographer. But I assume that he’s also a scientist – or he wouldn’t be allowed to go down there on his own! If it really IS “harder to reach the bottom of this piece of this planet than to land on another planet” (which I certainly doubt: you’ve got Peter monitored by Lucy and Danny – a planet landing would be monitored by dozens if not hundreds of specialised technicians), the authorities aren’t going to allow amateurs to attempt it.

You really need to brush up on your science (including Arithmetics: 11km is slightly more than 1 ½ times 7km, not “nearly twice”) if you’re writing stories like this. The light on the front of a deep-sea sub would not be called a “flashlight”; I doubt that Peter would see total blackness when he looked out: the very deep parts of the ocean are inhabited by creatures that produce their own light (see https://www.google.de/search?q=deep+ocean+creatures+bioluminescent&hl=es-DE&gbv=2&prmd=ivns&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAm6LOvOzOAhUKwBQKHYnlBp0QsAQIFg ). It’s BEAUTIFUL down there!

I would replace “sub” with “bathyscaphe” or “bathysphere”. (Look them both up before you decide.) And I LOVE the idea of Danny “physically winching” it back up! I hope that Lucy gives him a hand! (When she’s finished her tea, of course.)

Lorraine’s point about Everest and Geography lessons. We don’t need to be told how high Everest is. And almost everybody knows that it’s “the highest mountain on Earth”. (Did you know that it’s not the TALLEST mountain on Earth? [More science: the difference between “high” and “tall”. A clue: A midget standing on the top storey of a sky-scraper is higher – but not taller – than a giant standing on the pavement below.]) Why not say:

“You could dump Mount Everest into this trench and it would still be covered by more than 2km of water.”?

You do too much repeating – as both Mary and Lorraine have said. You’re also not precise:

“The characters have reached the mighty Marianas Trench...

Sometime later, they reached the mighty Marianas Trench.”

Well: have they reached it, or do they reach it sometime later? I know that that 1st sentence isn’t part of your story: it’s an intro, substituting past sections of the story. Why not just leave it out? Or replace it with:

“Mary and Peter have had a vicious argument. They’re now back on speaking terms, but Danny – who took Lucy’s side – has still not forgiven Peter. The tension could be cut with a knife… Read on:”

And your repetition of the last 2 paragraphs has me REALLY intrigued. Hanging onto my seat, in fact. Here the tension really COULD be cut with a knife!!! EXCELLENT place to put “(to be continued…)”!

Hello, Karen, thanks for sharing your work.

When you repeat the same words over and over, they lose all potency and merely irritate the reader. Can you have anything 'deep, deep' that isn't depth?

'At its deepest, it was thought to be 11 km deep, nearly double that of the Valles Marineris at only 7 km deep.' - apart from the fact that this sounds like facts taken from a geography book, 11 is not nearly double 7. It is closer to one and a half times 7. When quoting figures as fact, especially as these are supposed to be the thoughts of a scientist, you have to be more accurate than this, even in fiction.

'immense pressure...very high pressure...so much pressure' - too much 'pressure'!

'would have to descend...managed to descend'; also 'went lower and lower' which says the same thing.

'other planets...this planet...another planet' - as before.

Lose all exclamation marks: they really don't add anything, and are best kept for dialogue.

'Everest (the highest mountain on Earth at 8,850 metres)' - again, this is a geography lesson and it's not needed.

'the linking tunnel (just like on the spacecraft)' - is this necessary? The brackets make it seem like the author telling the reader something as an aside. I'd lose it. Is there a technical name for the linking tunnel? There's an air-lock involved in it, certainly. If you are speaking Peter's thoughts, you have to do so in the terms he would use.

'(just like on the spacecraft)...In a way it was like going for a trip into space he thought.' - another good reason for losing the words in brackets. Also, you would need a comma after 'space', though as he's the only person present and he's not speaking, it's understood that he's thinking - there's no need to say so.

'Lucy clutched a steaming mug of tea in her hands' - clutching implies 'in her hands' - I'd leave those three words out.

'Danny was on alert to physically winch Peter and the special mini sub up to the surface' - do you mean 'manually'? Or will he override the sub's own mechanisms? 'Physically' is wrong here.

“What’s up,” cried Lucy. “What’s up?” cried Lucy. It's a question and so should have a question mark.

When writing about something like this, you need to find ways of expressing the actuality of it in different ways. Just repeating the same things doesn't give any idea of how Peter feels down there; nor does it give the reader any sense of being there with him. It's the pitfall known as telling, not showing. You tell us it's deep (many times) and there is pressure (lots) and so forth; but what does any of that feel like? What is Peter seeing and experiencing?

'He gave a jolt of surprise at the range of creatures that met his eye. It surprised him to see so many.' Well, great: he sees lots of creatures. We have no idea what they are because he doesn't describe them, or name any of them. This is one of the most amazing events of his life, and you're passing it off with a slight reference to a lot of creatures.

'He gave a jolt of surprise' - to whom? This is writer-speak; it's not real. When someone is surprised, do you immediately think in these terms? Actually, I don't think he'd be jolted at all - I think he'd be amazed and stunned and overwhelmed.

What's missing here is any sense of being in that mini-sub with Peter. The claustrophobia, the sense of wonder, the knowledge that he's going where no-one else had ever been - these are all missing. All we have is Peter in a Trench (measurements provided). Move away from the facts in the Atlas, and give us the experience.

I'm assuming you've never done this yourself; so watch videos and read blogs from people who have, and learn how it feels, sounds, and smells. You have to know what you're writing about in order to be able to communicate it to the reader. Research is everything - especially if, as here, you are writing about exploration and science and space/deep water travel. Science fiction isn't just fiction - you have to include some sense of the other half of the name too.

Hope this helps.

Lorraine