Expanding a space battle scene

For the first paragraph can you have a shouted conversation between Coxe and someone else?
The first explosion was nearly the last for Coxe. He staggered across the wildly girating room.
"Christ Almighty. Smith. Are you alright?"
"I'm ok. Just. But I reckon they copped it in Plasma One."

And so on. It sounded as though you were telling it a bit instead of showing it. In a conversation you can get over a lot more than you can in description. Try it. Make it hugely exciting.

I not sure your targeted audience, but I would have a more swearing. Soldiers and Sailors in general swear like m****r f*****s, and usually with good reason.

I had a veteran read one of my first war scenes year ago and that was is first comment. I said one of the characters had to use the bathroom. And he replied soldiers don't use the bathroom they piss!

Also I might look into watching or reading sub movies / books. I always thought space warfare would be closest to modern day submarine combat.

Yeah, you're telling and not showing. I don't feel that cursing it totally necessary, as we're in space already, so you can fake it up a little, and if you're aiming at a younger audience, Mom may not like Lil Jr reading it after she reads the first 20 pages and the alien cocksuckers are being blown to shit.

And Straka, why self censor when you're encouraging someone else to add that in?

#

John dodged crew mates as he tried to reach the plasma engine room. The general alarm sounded. A missile struck. He dived as the wall shattered into white hot shards, piercing his crew mates.

He rolled to his feet, jumping over the body of Harper, a former friend. Entering the living quarters opened by the blast, he pulled a fingernail sized fragment from his neck. There was no blood. The heat of the shard had cauterized the wound.

The power failed. Total darkness. He moved his eyes to look where he knew the auxiliary lighting would come on, but it didn't.

A message came from [need to know his name], "Fusion One is down. Auxiliary is down. We're going weightless within the minute."

Steve from Damage Control transmitted, "The skipper want it back online ASAP?"

John rolled his eyes in the darkness.

He transmitted, "Is anyone keeping Fusion One from blowing?"

Silence.

[PO] said, "I think everyone's dead over there, John."

"No, because I'm over here."

#

And I'd make pulse charges or something so not only the floor but ceilings fallout, huge cross sections of the ship open, zero-g. And would it affect the plot if John had one half of his face burned off?

Oh, and obviously lose any passive, 'was,' 'that,' etc, as well as smearing a thesaurus on the whole thing.

And yeah, I just freaked out all over it.

Wark said:

And Straka, why self censor when you're encouraging someone else to add that in?

Click to expand...

An amusing point! Conditioning perhaps? I had not considered the irony in my statement.

I suppose I was thinking that perhaps it was more comical to have the reader to figure out it for themselves. Such as when its funnier to bleep out the swear than actually leave it in. (Arrest Development does this well) Another difference that comes to mind is his work creative whereas my comments are just comments and revealing the swear was not necessary to drive my point home.

He transmitted, "Is anyone keeping Fusion One from blowing?"

Silence.

[PO] said, "I think everyone's dead over there, John."

"No, because I'm over here."

Click to expand...

That was a dramatic piece of dialogue, imo! And good advice.