I like the concept of this piece a lot, would love to read a novel about the cats. Beginning with a prologue about how the cats got to where they are in Chapter One makes sense to me, and if done well, will both pull the reader in and provide background for the events of the novel proper.

What I’m seeing in this version is a case of concept pulling ahead of character. That’s where the emphasis on dialogue is coming from, I think. Linda is the mechanism for explaining the situation. Harold is the foil, to whom the situation is explained. Even when he’s not there, Linda’s internal monologue revolves around her fundamental dislike for him, interspersed with passages of exposition and background.

There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with two incompatible people figuring out how to survive after a spaceship crash, but first a worldbuilding question: Would the people responsible for selecting crews be that irresponsible about this match? Why are these two specific people here, now, on this particular ship?

There’s some mention of this in the draft, including the allusion to cost-cutting, but I think it needs more grounding in background and motivation. It can still be a stupid and wrongheaded decision, but I think the story needs more layers. More reason for it to have happened this way. More complexity in the how and why.

This doesn’t need more explanation in the narrative so much as more grounding in the underpinnings of world and story. That I think would include rethinking Harold: what he knows, how he knows it, how he handles the crisis. As written, he’s very much Linda’s intellectual inferior, and he doesn’t contribute much to the mission. He doesn’t have a compelling reason to be there, except for her to explain things to. We need a middle ground between Harold-knows-nothing and Linda-is-the-smart-one, and more demonstrated competence on his part.

There are various ways to make him a more effective character. He might be her match for knowledge and competence, but there’s an ongoing competition between them, sharpened by mutual dislike. In that case, the scenes between them would be more likely to involve mutual hashing out of problems and solutions, with each taking diametrically opposite positions on everything. Again there’s a hint of this dynamic in the scenes between them, but his lack of knowledge and her position as explainer and sole problem-solver feels unbalanced.

Or, his lack of knowledge and understanding might be a consequence of his rapid aging, which adds a different level of complexity to the situation. Because of what happened during the crash, Harold is cognitively incapable of doing his job. Linda has to take up the slack for both. Or even, if it’s bad enough, consider eliminating him in order to stretch their finite resources for her own survival.

If the narrative takes that direction, would Linda worry about ending up like Harold? Would there be pressure to get as much done as she can before that happens? Would she be tempted to give up? Dive into denial? Suicide?

Rethinking Linda’s scenes might help as well. Rather than presenting the facts of the crash through internal monologue, perhaps a flashback? That would be a more direct experience, and perhaps more effective. Likewise, where she thinks about what Harold is like, could we have a scene that shows it instead? Let us see for ourselves from the beginning, and better understand her problems with him.

I’d particularly like to see more of the cats. Rather than Harold relating an offstage encounter and Linda reacting, then explaining what she did, what if the encounter happens onstage and we also get to see more of Linda’s manipulations via scene and flashback? In short—show events directly, happening in real time (story present or story past), rather than indirectly through expository speeches.

Dialogue is tough. We’re encouraged to think of it an active storytelling technique, a way of heightening immediacy and immersing the reader more deeply in the relationship between characters. But if one character consistently explains and the other reacts, that can actually weaken the impact of the story. Dialogue becomes monologue (and internal monologue often accompanies dialogue-as-lecture), and the real substance of the story recedes from the reader’s awareness. She’s being told what happens rather than directly experiencing it.

Right now, in this draft, we’re still in the blocking-out stage. Linda is setting up the situation, explaining how it works. Harold is there to give her a reason to explain things. If there’s more balance between them—either they’re closer to equals or there’s a stronger reason for him to be her inferior—the story structure should sort itself out as well. More scenes in which things happen, more direct experience of events, and for sure, More Cats!

Will there be less dialogue as a result? Maybe not. But the dialogue should work harder to keep the story moving, and rely less heavily on exposition. Then it will really earn its place in the narrative.

–Judith Tarr