Sallah's Saviour

[Brenda]

This is an... interesting premise. I'm not going to comment much on the plot except for one thing that really bothered me - no one at Landing seemed surprised to see a huge white dragon when on all Pern there were only 17 tiny ones (by 9th pass standards.) Or to see two strangers when there WERE NO STRANGERS on Pern. There should be a lot more chaos and panic.

Some things that would make this easier to read:
Dragon dialogue needs to be italicized.

Check your punctuation. Almost all of the dialogue is of the type that continues, and should therefore end in a comma, NOT a period. Also, several questions ended with a period.

READ YOUR STORY OUT LOUD. There are some places that just sound awkwardly written, and you might get a better idea of how you want to say it if you read it over very carefully.

Now, speculation - I know you wanted Sallah to have a happy ending, but I have to wonder: did she pass out from lack of oxygen, or from blood loss, or both? If it was oxygen they'd have to get there right after she passed out, to be able to revive her; if it was blood loss there wouldn't be much they could do.

I can actually envision a bittersweet ending, where she is unconscious from lack of oxygen, but they revive her, but she is so weak from loss of blood (remember her boot was full almost up to the knee) that she dies soon after reuniting with Tarvi - which would be before the bonfire, and then the ceremony goes as it does in the book.


Hey - DON'T BE DISCOURAGED!!! This is meant to be constructive criticism, to help you improve your story if you want to. It is a very bold move to rewrite a major event like that. I did something similar in my story Dragonsong: An Alternate Tune, in which Jaxom doesn't impress Ruth - Menolly breaks the egg and impresses Ruath. I used a lot of material from the book to make the transition from established story to new story - I noticed you did the same thing with the bonfire speech. You might consider putting something at the beginning too - maybe have Sallah and Tarvi's final moments on the com, then silence, then Jaxom and AIVAS.

[Greenrider Tresa]

I'm going to have to agree with Brenda.
Only thing i'll add is this: there should have been a bit more reaction from Sallah herself, or you can explain her lack of curiosity/fear/confusion as being in shock or something.

[ToDifferentToBeReal]

I'm really sorry about a couple of things, first off the dragons talking I thought I put it in italics but I guess not I know its like that on my hard drive and the quotes and stuff. I wrote this a couple of years ago but had no where to post it, I feel that my writing abilty has greatly improved since then and I was really reluctant to post it and I wanted to rewrite that whole thing and now that I think about it I should have. I got this idea because when I read Dragonsdawn I always wanted Sallah to survive, so I wrote an alternate version where she does survive. I might just rewrite it and post the edited version underneath the first. I don't know, its not either of your fault Brenda of Greenrider Tresa, so don't fret or anything, I've always wanted to rewrite this peice and make it better and I think I should reread that part of the book, too.

[Brenda]

Hey, don't apologize to me! That's what I just told you, read it over carefully and rewrite it a bit! Maybe you could have someone check the punctuation, or do a grammar check on Microsoft Word - that seems to be a definite weak point.

I can't wait to see the improvements!

Oh, by the way - you don't have to post it twice, just edit the first post, remove the old version and replace it with the new version.

If you have trouble with the italics, it's sometimes easier to type the text, then highlight it and click the I on the forum toolbar.

[Anareth]

I'd definitely rewrite if it's a few years old. I have ten-year-old stuff on my hard drive that would NEVER see the light of day without some serious editing. When you do edit/repost, you might want to try putting spaces between paragraphs. Would make it easier to read.

It's a pretty typical fanfic idea for a plot (beloved canon character who dies is miraculously rescued!) but since Pern fic is new in internet terms, it's new here.

On the italics--you can't just copy/paste from Word into the board as it needs coding. For italics, the code is [ i ] [ /i ] without the spaces, and bold is [ b ] [ /b ].

[Brenda]

But like I said, you can highlight it and then click the B, the I or the U and it will put the appropriate brackets around it for you.

You know, I may have to reclaim that idea about a bittersweet ending. It's stuck in my head now - I may have to write my own version...

[ToDifferentToBeReal]

Alright I'm working on the edited version now I'll let you know when it's up!
Thanx:D
---------------
*edit*
1/2 of the edited version of Sallah's Savior now up! I figure I'd just post it now seems how it would be to large to put in on post anyway.

[ToDifferentToBeReal]

2nd 1/2 of the story is up when you read this half tell me what you think thanx bye.

[Brenda]

Much better, but I do have one problem - you seem to have forgotten that the first dragons already existed at Landing when your story takes place. "It looks like a giant dragonet!" doesn't make sense. Ruth is bigger than any of their dragons, though.

I suggest you read through it very carefully, because there are still a lot of little typos - in one place it said "you" when it obviously should have been "to".

[ToDifferentToBeReal]

Really I didn't think there were dragons until sometime after Sallah died. I was trying to be careful about that but I guess there were already draogns and I did catch a few error when I posted it I should have read through more carefully. Thanx.