Narwhalz story bit

	PREFACE:
Because you gave it to me for "ripping apart" I'm going to treat it as though you've gone over it to be sure that there are no mistakes. To clarify: Usually when I write REKT posts, I do not go over looking for mistakes and checking flow. I don't usually put that much effort into my posts. Going over for a second pass typically necessitates a third (you'd be surprised how much needs fixed even after a second pass) and I don't usually have that sort of time; people are waiting and I've usually spent the past 2-4 hours writing. (It used to be worse - it used to get up to 6 or 7 solid hours of writing.) In summation: I typically don't put as much time into my work as I'm expecting you to do here. I expect there to be issues in my work. In some cases (for instance, mission briefings, large important events, mission ends, particularly exciting parts) I go back over it, but not usually. It should not be taken as hypocrisy :P I am a lazy ass by nature, when it comes to checking my work. I'm capable of much better than that.


IMPORTANT NOTE BEFORE YOU CONTINUE:
I did my best to be constructive. It's not meant as an attack, or put you down. I actually think you're extraordinarily good for a writer, especially your age. You may very well be a better writer than I was at your age. In fact, I'm quite certain you are.


	>> "Your gun, if you please?" The kerb's smile was smug, confident. The smile of one who had already won.
This line is too long, and you need to find a single word that works for both "smug" and "confident", such as... smug. "Confident" is redundant. You also don't need a break between the second and third sentences. That drags things out. This is supposed to take place in a fairly short amount of time, given the cues. Thus: '"Your gun, if you please?" the kerb asked with the smug smile of one who had already won.' would be sufficient.


	>> Adlin glared at him, a trickle of thin green blood rolling down his forehead. He looked at the kerb's
	>> outstretched hand, at his own sluggun, and back to his face. The stranger was unarmed—his pistol battery having
	>> been drained long before—and yet he stood so close to the muzzle of a loaded sluggun, wearing that damned grin.
Possibly too long. Keep timescales in mind when you write. Unless you have a specific "time modifier" in place ("As your adrenaline kicks in, time seems to slow") a good rule is to try to make it so that when you write on a first/third person level, it takes roughly as long for the average reader to read aloud it as it does for it to actually happen. You can scale this somewhat forwards or back, but you [must be consistent]. If the above is supposed to be drawn out for several awkward seconds, that's fine.

Next, your dashes "—" should not be touching the words they are adjacent to. This is a writing mistake and something a lot of people would take off points for. As you requested a thorough shredding of what you wrote, you are receiving this.

Other than that, this is fine.


	>> "Please don't stall; I haven't all day. If you don't hurry up—" The expression twisted slightly, becoming
	>> malicious. "—I might become violent."
This is another example of the above. Your pause between "hurry up" and "I might become" is too long to justify the dashes you used. Moreover, the polite "Please don't stall; I haven't all day" clashes strangely with the malicious threat at the end, and it seems... disjointed. If this is supposed to be the personality of the character (rapid uncalled-for mood swings), I would emphasize it to become "larger than life" and hang a lampshade on it to make sure that people notice and that it IS intentional.

Ignoring that, personally I would use ellipses instead of dashes ("..." vs "—"), but that's a stylistic decision.


	>> Aldin's finger pressed slightly against the trigger, not quite enough to pull it back. Something wasn't right.
	>> No sane kerb made threats in a position like this.
I have little to offer for this. This is quite good. The only thing I have to offer is in regards to the flow: Don't break it up: "Something wasn't right... no sane kerb made threats in a position like this." This comes down to a stylistic decision. When you write, you train readers to acknowledge specific punctuation in specific ways. The important thing is that you be consistent.


	>> "Come now, let's not do anyth—"
...And this is not consistent. Here, you are using your favorite dash for something that should take place in an instant, where previously you used it for pauses. It's a minor detail but worth mentioning. Using it in the manner above is pretty common - and, in fact, could be seen as "normal".

It is also unclear which character this particular utterance belongs to. This is normally resolved one of two ways: "tags" or "tagless". "tags" is the most common method because, honestly, most people suck at writing. You are a cut above the "average writer" I would say. The average writer sucks. :D Tags are just simpler.

TAGS:
"Look at that!" Diane exclaimed.
"I see it," Joseph said.
"Do you think we can get to it?" Diane asked.
"Maybe," Joseph said.
"Hmm," Diane thought. "Do you think we have a way?"
Joseph sighed. "Maybe, but with this writing style it will be unsatisfactory to readers."
Diane was disappointed. "You're probably right."

Switching to "tagless" is more complicated and requires a better writer for a specific reason: First, you must establish enough of an atmosphere that your reader can easily picture the scene in their mind. This is critical. If you don't, the text will become jarring, nonsensical, detached, or at worst, almost unreadable. Next, you need to start off and make sure the reader knows who is who. Finally, it helps tremendously if the two characters have distinctly different personalities, and it helps if you are able to actually instill this personality into [every thing the character says]. (Ideally, when writing in short form, every single phrase a character utters should tell you something about them - but that's a topic for another time.)

Mark Twain is particularly good at switching to tagless writing. It's something he did quite often. If you're curious, you might try looking at some of his stuff.

In short, you haven't set up enough of an atmosphere yet to use this. I can assume (I think?) that it was said by Smug Guy, but I don't really know much about Smug Guy other than that he's smug. I don't know where they are - either by environment, or where they are in relation to each other. If you can set all of this up prior to this scene, you're doing all right. If no, as in this exerpt here, you are making a grave mistake. Almost anyone that reads this will stumble on this phrase and the next:


	>> His finger twitched.
I have only applause for you putting this on its own line. Trying to shove something like this into another line is a rookie mistake. Doing so would be both grammatically incorrect and lessen the impact of him pulling the trigger.


	>> A surge of energy raced from the sluggun's capacitor, flowing through its coils and pulling a heavy canister
	>> down its barrel. As it exited, it tore apart, revealing dozens of small spheres. In the split second they took
	>> to reach their target the air was unable to brake them significantly.
Here, everything you've worked up to falls apart. Remember what I was saying about timing? You thoroughly and utterly discard that notion to the wind here. "A split second" you say, but it actually takes about 10 to 12 seconds to read out loud.

I understand what you're going for, I think: You want to do a slow-motion movie-like thing. (If that isn't what you want, then shame on you - you really messed up the flow quite badly in that case!) If that's what you want, you need to have a "tell" beforehand - "tell" here meaning something like a poker "tell" - something small where the audience can intuitively guess that you're switching to slow-motion movie mode.

If you didn't, and you just wanted to tell how your gun worked, this is the WRONG PLACE TO PUT IT. Stick it far earlier in the story, when he's looking at the ammunition or the weapon itself and examining it - at some point in time when there isn't really anything going on. Then, you can shorten it to what the bullet actually does to the target.

If you have it there to increase the impact (on the reader, not of the bullets on the person's face) then you'll want to keep it and try to show it's a slow-motion movie thing. I'll leave that to you to figure out. It needs to happen [before] the event, because waiting until the "split second" part to drop that cue leaves two full lines where the audience thinks the gun is just firing slowly - two lines they'll have to reread when they realize you're trying for a slow motion effect.

Grammatical nitpick: You should have a comma after "target".


	>> As they impacted, the stranger's flesh yielded just a hair's breadth, a ripple radiating from the impact site.
	>> As it rolled around his body and met behind, a flash of fire blasted from his shoulderblades, burning twin
	>> holes in his suit. The shot, adhered to his skin, sank in slowly.
This all relates to the slow-motion movie thing. It's also a bit clumsily written - "rolled" around his body? Are they rolling on the surface of the body? Are they spinning in the air and missing him entirely? Where does the flash of fire come from? These are all peculiarities of your gun that we've never yet been introduced to, and now is [not] the time to be explaining it, unless you're Douglas Adams and have a habit of pausing things in the middle of an exciting part for a [whimsical (emphasis on whimsical)] exposition about something thoroughly unrelated and anecdotal. This style works because explaining how something works right in the middle of an exciting part that lasts 0.02 seconds (or however long) is a silly thing to do... so being silly rather suits it.


	>> "—ing you'll regret," he continued, unphased, as a blue-white glare flickered from deep within his chest.
Don't split up this line ("ing you'll regret"). It's "weird", and by the time you've gone through all of that, you've already forgotten what smug guy said to start with, so you need to go back up and read. Backtracking while reading is a thoroughly bad thing. In games it can be okay. In a novel, it is never okay.

Finally, is he unfazed because the hole in his chest doesn't hurt him? Can he not feel it? Is he immune? Does he not notice it? These are questions your audience is asking. If you wanted to leave a sense of mystery, this is not the way to do it. If you really want to leave a sense of mystery, answer THOSE questions, and leave open "Why?" "Why?" "How?" and "Where?" are good questions for the audience to ask - they provide intrigue, which is the entire reason anyone reads a story to begin with. (It really is!) "What?" is [not] a good question for your audience to ask, and neither is "When?" - because both show confusion in things that should already be solidly stated. "...wut?" is okay to ask, but ONLY if you answer it very soon afterwards, or at the very least, make a promise to answer it - and then answer it within the next few chapters. If you make a habit of not answering things, people will pick up on it and lose interest, because it means their questions - the intrigue - will never be "satisfied".

At the end of this passage, I am asking, "Wut?"

Final note: It's "unfazed", not "unphased".


That's all I have, I think. Your vocabulary is excellent. (Another rookie mistake is repeating the same words too often and too close to each other. You have no problem with this whatsoever. That can be a difficult thing to master, and you should be proud of yourself.) Unlike the flow of the story, the flow of the text itself is also good. Your grammar and usage of puntuation is mostly on-point. The only thing you really need to work on, honestly, is timing - "story flow" - how "fast" you tell the story related to the events occurring [in] the story.