Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-10502460-20180221231815/@comment-26399604-20180228143931

Hi Hopeless,

This story was a nice little read. Aside from stories dealing with angels and demons, I really enjoy space stories just as much, especially when they incorporate advanced technology. The fact that this "undiscovered" moon houses an environment similar to Earth (schools, buses, etc) is a nice revelation. To review the story, I broke up my thoughts into three sections: Good, bad, and overall.

Good

What I like the most about it is how the abduction is not what we're expecting: instead of your classic "character gets abducted and experimented upon" we get a strange and unique moment where a student is taken and essentially becomes (what the inhabitants refer to as) "an exchange student". This actually opens the doors for almost an endless possibilities.

I liked how the protagonist is just dumbfounded throughout the beginning as they're being transported to these different locations (with tidbits of advanced technology showcased), and eventually to the school. Right off the bat, you can tell this isn't first time something like this as ever occurred. Through his eyes, we get an idea of where he's being shuttled, but like him, we're waiting to see how it all unfolds, what awaits at the ends of this "road", so to speak.

Bad

However, I must mention some of things that hold the story back. The first thing was Luna. The character herself was fine, but I felt she was bit underused. Here we are on a foreign planet with a native young girl eager to talk, but the protagonist does little to nothing to pick her brain. Obviously, he/she is shocked by everything unfolding around them and I understand it, but I'd figure at some point, they muster up the courage to ask at least one question: "How is it possible that you live here?", "How long has the place been going on?", "Why do the teachers wear sunglasses?", etc. These questions are for the character, but more importantly, he's basically asking what we want to know. This brings to my next point.

Why are the teachers wearing sunglasses? I don't think it's dumb idea to include it, I actually like it, but it never amounted to anything. Honestly, I thought it was foreshadowing a dark revelation behind them, which I think would've been an awesome way to drop a bombshell -- possibly some horrifying side-effect from not being born out there or something. Yet, that aspect was never explored; it was more of just an observation rather than what I expected to be a major plot point. You could've left it out and the story wouldn't be any different.

You also seem to go through each class which at first was cool to see the comparisons, but really after the first, you could've quickly summed up the events. I felt we lingered too much on the actual class material and I was ready to move on. This is short story and these parts took up the bulk of the story's focus. That time could've been better spent expanding more on the moon's lore or having some new event.

Overall

I don't think the story is bad by any means, but because of the abrupt ending, it feels short-lived and leaves many questions unanswered, especially the bit about the school suddenly being abandoned -- it felt shoe-horned like a cheap way to play around with the idea that it might've never really happened. Moreover, based off the last sentence, it seem like the highway and school were the only structures on that planet. If that's the case, does that mean no one actually lives on the moon? If so, where does Luna live -- it's obviously not Earth based on her curiosity.

I can see some of things being ambiguous like the overall history and what not, but since nothing was really answered (or happened), it causes us to essentially question everything else: If the parents are all from Earth, why do they choose to go to this planet? Who on Earth gets to decide, who can "populate?" the undiscovered moon? At a certain point, do the kids get to live on Earth? Etc. I would've preferred these questions sort of hover around mysterious, but again since nothing was given to us, I don't know what to question or what to just accept as a scary reality. Again, I really feel like the sunglasses bit was a missed opportunity or Luna perhaps.

These are my thoughts on it. Hope this sheds some light.