ENGL 3330- Exercise 1: Showing
The gears whirred, the catchments clicked, and I rose from my seat. Important documents were spread haphazardly across the oak table before me. I had slept in the frame, and my back segments had knitted together uncomfortably during the night. I stretched as best I could within the confines of my frame, feeling my muscles uncramp. “Display chronometer”. I could feel, more than hear the thrum-thrum-thrum of the generators as they powered on for the day. With a trill beeping sound, a bright red “09:21” superimposed itself on my vision. Little time to waste then. I’ll have to wait until noon adjournment if I want something to eat.
The embassy was only six blocks from U.N. Plaza but I wanted to get there before deliberations began. Ford Foundation Park was lovely this time of year. The grass, lush and green, towered over the earth. At five foot five, I, In turn towered over the grass. The young spruce, spindly and brown, towered over me. Far, far above, New York’s skyline towered over us all, jagged edges and sweeping curves reaching stupefying heights. The sights whirred by at 1.5 meters a second. From inside the cockpit no sensation of movement is perceptible at all, but when I am at my most whimsical I like to imagine the crash of every mighty footfall propelling me forward.
“Hey Zeritq! Do you think we’ll actually make any progress today?”
Losing control of the frame midstride, the craft’s legs crumple beneath itself and the vehicle tumbles to the sidewalk. “Delegate Jerusha! I didn’t notice you sneak up on me!” Thrusting the frame’s upper right limb forward in what I hope is a cordial manner, I add, “A hand would be appreciated”.
“Of course, of course” Jerusha confirms as he takes my frame’s hand. “Switched out for the newest model since we last met I see.”
Regaining my footing I am quick to validate Jerusha’s observation. “Indeed, it is the most realistically human walking frame available. As for you earlier question, I think the Venusians are finally ready to stop stalling. We should have ourselves a trade agreement by the end of the day”.
“Feeling that positive about it, aren’t you? It doesn’t have anything to do with the new frame does it? You know what they say about Venusians…” Jerusha punctuates his words with a gesture I do not quite understand.
At a loss, I choose my next words carefully. “I am not sure I follow you Jerusha. Additionally, please stop staring at my chest. Regardless of where I, myself, am located in this frame, I see out of the cameras in the head.”

What happened to showing and not telling?

In any case though, this is a pretty good effort. I like how you describe a familiar place in a totally alien way to give us the impression of change over time. I personally think it could use more line breaks, but that's a question of style.

So, it seems very sensory saturated in that you focus the majority/near majority of the piece describing what the protagonist hears, sees, and feels, but you're inconsistent in doing it in a way that gives us information about the protagonist. I like how you describe things in that you correctly prioritize what to describe, but if you're going to do it in such a way as to flesh out the protagonist, and the protagonist is not of this world, then you need to commit 100% to doing it.

This is what it means to "show not tell," which, by the way, is generally considered a workshop cliche bc sometimes a crapton of showing is purple, inflated prose no one gives a *&^* about. Hence why I mention your correct prioritization.

To illustrate, the protagonist mention a "chronometer" that's really just a clock, displaying normal earth hours. But the alien identifies himself with the American measurement system as "five foot five," then later denotes his speed in the metric system using meters, and is able to automatically identify an Earth plant without reference or mention of how he knows a spruce, or even grass for that matter, from dogwoods and stunted rhododendrons. He also uses an English cliche, "At a loss." How does he know that? It could be interesting to see an alien appropriating English cliches. But we'd need to be aware of the inner process of that appropriation.

This is confusing.

Additionally, after all that description of what the protagonist sees, the first encounter where we see him interact with another character, he doesn't describe that character at all. If we're dealing with aliens let us see the aliens.

Also, tags. Use them. "Use them," I said. "Because they matter."

You should change the second "whirred" to "blurred."

"Losing control of the frame midstride, the craft’s legs crumple..." Here you switch into present tense.

Overall I liked it, particularly the "joke" at the end

Good advice all round. Except maybe the bit about tags. I only say that because I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you mean the fiction tag on the post listing (in which case I'm not sure which other tags would apply to my story), or is that some writing term?
I definitely should have combed through that to find the least alien aspects. Learn by doing I guess.
Glad everyone seems to like the story.

Tags = he said she said I said you said they said we said it said.

I get that you're pairing action with dialogue, but there's still absolutely no reason not to use them. Since action isn't automatically paired to the next speaker adding identifiers to speech is easy and helpful and never in the history of writing has anyone said they hate how they always know who is talking.

Also, quotation marks bookend punctuation. Hope this helps!

@Tags - okay.
@Quotation marks - Only if you're American.

Not really. See below:



Inverted quotation mark at the end of the sentence.



Inverted quotation mark at the end of the sentence.



Missing punctuation at the end of the quote.



Inverted quotation mark at the end of the sentence.

What can I say? I am a man torn between two systems of writing. Also I had some pretty crap English teachers.