The first few months of Rey and Finn training together happened still in the midst of pangalatic chaos. This sentence seems clunky to me — there's a lot going on here, and I'm overloaded all at once as a reader. 'The first few months of Rey and Finn's training happened in the midst of pangalatic chaos.' or 'In the midst of pangalatic chaos, Rey and Finn began training together.' or 'Rey and Finn started training together in the midst of pangalatic chaos.' I get that you want to show the passage of time here too, but I think you do illustrate that in the next line so it's not necessary to add it here.
They built most of their things as they went from debris and junk. Here I think it would be clearer if you could specify what they were building (training materials or equipment?). 'most of their things' to me implies that they did have other equipment that was already pre-made, but if that's not the case, I think it's okay to omit it and, for example, just write 'They built their training equipment as they went using debris and junk.' instead.
So, when the make-up combat training remote was suddenly pulled through the air, away from Finn (with whom, at this point, it was clearly winning) the movement broke it in half. I think the sentence here is quite clunky as well, and it tries to get a lot of things across. I had to re-read it a few times to understand, and I think you can break the sentence up into different components to help your reader see the flow of movement more clearly. From your earlier line, it was quite clear that the items that Finn and Rey trained with are mostly things they've made on their own, so I think you can remove 'make-up' as well. I would suggest a line like 'So, when the combat training remote was suddenly pulled away from Finn (who it was clearly winning against), the movement broke it cleanly in half.' However, feel free to ignore if it doesn't work for you!
'Have I...' Finn was interrupted by Luke's amused voice:
'I think we have just gained another student!' I like how Finn's dialogue is cut off, and it could be him wondering if he has won, or wondering if it was his fault that the remote was broken. I like Luke's observation about BB-8 here, and I think this line tells us a lot all at one go — BB-8 arrived, he's joined the training and wants to be a part of it.
Finn and Rey turned around and saw BB-8 beeping with pride and excitement, the remnants of the remote hanging from his magnet. I think you can change this line to 'Finn and Rey turned around to see BB-8 beeping with pride and excitement, remants of the remote hanging from his magnet.' (so remove 'the', and change 'and saw' to 'to see' as in this case, their act of turning around brings them face to face with BB-8 beeping with pride. Again, feel free to ignore though if it doesn't work for you.
For me I think drabbles are a showcase of an author's word economy, and of course the ideal is that each sentence is able to show or tell as much as you can. In this case, I think shorter sentences might make it easier for you to express more, as you tend to use more words with run-on lines that may not necessarily add on to what you're trying to bring across.
Overall, I think this drabble is really cute, and I like the action and flow of the story. From this I can see the relationship between Finn and Rey, the friendly competition between them, how they're both training under Luke, and the image you paint of BB-8 wanting to join in as well is really adorable. I think the title works for this drabble, as did the tags in telling me what to expect. I was quite surprised that there wasn't a summary for this though because you had summaries for most of your other drabbles. Thank you for writing this!
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2021-05-11 02:44 pm (UTC)The first few months of Rey and Finn training together happened still in the midst of pangalatic chaos.
This sentence seems clunky to me — there's a lot going on here, and I'm overloaded all at once as a reader. 'The first few months of Rey and Finn's training happened in the midst of pangalatic chaos.' or 'In the midst of pangalatic chaos, Rey and Finn began training together.' or 'Rey and Finn started training together in the midst of pangalatic chaos.' I get that you want to show the passage of time here too, but I think you do illustrate that in the next line so it's not necessary to add it here.
They built most of their things as they went from debris and junk.
Here I think it would be clearer if you could specify what they were building (training materials or equipment?). 'most of their things' to me implies that they did have other equipment that was already pre-made, but if that's not the case, I think it's okay to omit it and, for example, just write 'They built their training equipment as they went using debris and junk.' instead.
So, when the make-up combat training remote was suddenly pulled through the air, away from Finn (with whom, at this point, it was clearly winning) the movement broke it in half.
I think the sentence here is quite clunky as well, and it tries to get a lot of things across. I had to re-read it a few times to understand, and I think you can break the sentence up into different components to help your reader see the flow of movement more clearly. From your earlier line, it was quite clear that the items that Finn and Rey trained with are mostly things they've made on their own, so I think you can remove 'make-up' as well. I would suggest a line like 'So, when the combat training remote was suddenly pulled away from Finn (who it was clearly winning against), the movement broke it cleanly in half.' However, feel free to ignore if it doesn't work for you!
'Have I...' Finn was interrupted by Luke's amused voice:
'I think we have just gained another student!'
I like how Finn's dialogue is cut off, and it could be him wondering if he has won, or wondering if it was his fault that the remote was broken. I like Luke's observation about BB-8 here, and I think this line tells us a lot all at one go — BB-8 arrived, he's joined the training and wants to be a part of it.
Finn and Rey turned around and saw BB-8 beeping with pride and excitement, the remnants of the remote hanging from his magnet.
I think you can change this line to 'Finn and Rey turned around to see BB-8 beeping with pride and excitement, remants of the remote hanging from his magnet.' (so remove 'the', and change 'and saw' to 'to see' as in this case, their act of turning around brings them face to face with BB-8 beeping with pride. Again, feel free to ignore though if it doesn't work for you.
For me I think drabbles are a showcase of an author's word economy, and of course the ideal is that each sentence is able to show or tell as much as you can. In this case, I think shorter sentences might make it easier for you to express more, as you tend to use more words with run-on lines that may not necessarily add on to what you're trying to bring across.
Overall, I think this drabble is really cute, and I like the action and flow of the story. From this I can see the relationship between Finn and Rey, the friendly competition between them, how they're both training under Luke, and the image you paint of BB-8 wanting to join in as well is really adorable. I think the title works for this drabble, as did the tags in telling me what to expect. I was quite surprised that there wasn't a summary for this though because you had summaries for most of your other drabbles. Thank you for writing this!