Hi Theruler,
Congratulations on your first story to the Plaza, it was very creative. It sounds like you already discovered what most of us know, reading your story after it’s posted to the site is the best way to see everything you did wrong. That’s okay, use it as a teaching tool. Read your story from the site and take notes as you go.
I’ll offer a couple of tips for what it’s worth. After you finish a story put it aside for a couple of days, then reread it, out loud if possible. Your speaking rhythm will identify clumsy sentences and natural places for punctuation, as well as issues like drifting from third to first person narrative during the process of putting Cassandra into the x-frame. I’m sure as you got into your zone writing the scene you just wanted to be Tim, who wouldn’t.
Also, every story has a beginning, middle and end. It’s up to the author to decide where a story starts and stops. That doesn’t mean going back to ‘let there be light’, but as I read the first third of this story I couldn’t help feeling I had missed part 1. I’m sure most of that would have been solved with a little revision.
Overall I enjoyed the story. Thank you for taking the time to write and share your work with the Plaza community. I sincerely hope you keep writing and I look forward to enjoying more of your work in the future.