Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-5614678-20180904175226/@comment-5614678-20180905031257

@HopelessNightOwl Thank you for clearing up the rule issue, and thank you for the long, detailed review.

Although, and I don't mean anything rude by this, it kind of seems like you didn't understand the story on the first read-through. That's most likely a mistake on my part (not being clear enough) but it seems like you missed or skipped over some key plot points.

1. I thought that I made it pretty clear what "Shriekers" were: people with psychic abilities who were driven insane by their inability to understand or control their powers, as the doctor says early on. The mention of "alchemy" is proverbial. He says "it creates a kind of alchemy in them." As in, the two things he's talking about combine together to become extremely dangerous.

2. The name of the agency IS given in the story. In entry 5, Dr. Keter (whose name I will definitely change) specifically refers to them as "The Bureau of Psionic Affairs" and this was originally hinted at the very start of the story with the initials "BPA."

Again, this might be an error on my part because of the way this information is relayed off-hand by the narrator. It's supposed to be written like an internal document to be read by other members of the agency. I wanted the world of the story to feel grounded, real and lived in. I can understand if that made things more confusing, though.

Also, the overall tone of the story is meant to be very satirical. It's kind of a dark humor story. The way the doctor describes someone's head exploded like it's just an annoying mess the nurse has to clean up is part of that. I was kind of going for a Robocop type of tone, where there's this amazing futuristic world and the corporate people behind it are very callous and scummy.

I might tone down the jokey nature of the story in the second draft, and maybe try to explain important details better. I just hope with this information you get a better idea of what I was going for with this story.