# Seeking reviews of a sci-fi short story

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-reviews-of-a-sci-fi-short-story/844183>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Created:** [November 29, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-reviews-of-a-sci-fi-short-story/844183 "2019-11-29T23:06:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Sefton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/5daacb/32.png) [@Sefton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sefton)\
**Post date:** [November 29, 2019, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-reviews-of-a-sci-fi-short-story/844183/1 "2019-11-29T23:06:41Z")

</div>

I don’t know if this is the right forum, but I’ve written a short story (~2.5k words) that I intend to submit to a contest. The download link for the PDF is [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1nCiZSnUvDHFl8iBzkoD-7fcXrT66g2PA/view?usp=sharing) and I’d be grateful for any feedback.

Oddly enough, I showed it to a friend and he arrived at a completely different meaning than the one I’d intended.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2019, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-reviews-of-a-sci-fi-short-story/844183/2 "2019-11-30T07:40:25Z")

</div>

> [@](#):
>
> “Dr. Josef Molkar? The scientist?”  
> The man blinked. “That’s right. You’ve heard of me?”  
> “Sure, you’re famous. Hell, you’re the third Josef Molkar I’ve met.”

These should have been the opening lines of the story, you didn’t grab me until then. And you need something more at the end, just a line or two; I feel like you stopped in the middle of a paragraph. It needs a clincher at each end.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\
**Post date:** [November 30, 2019, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/seeking-reviews-of-a-sci-fi-short-story/844183/3 "2019-11-30T07:42:19Z")

</div>

Here’s an ending: “Molkar smiled. This was the second Phelps he’d met, after all, and the third Powell.”