Example scenes
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The long distance vessel, set to drop another batch of humans onto Cinova Primus had been traveling at FTL speeds for over eight months. Jaxa and Morren watched the systems come online, knowing even computers could fail in the chaos of FTL, and begin to beam data back to the command station on Earth. Jaxa watched the screens as part of her primary duty, while Morren, who was supposed to be her backup, sat tense and looked tired. His wife and children were evacuating on this flight and the months of worrying had taken their toll.
A few interesting facts about future travel and some emotion, but the narrator tells us all of these things and it doesn't feel as though anyone is truly experiencing them. Let's try it again with some dialogue and a bit more raw emotion:
"What have you got?"
Jaxa jerked in surprise. Morren had walked up and caught her off guard. She took a deep breath and rubbed the pad of her middle finger between her eyebrows. Morren was difficult enough on the best of days, and was even worse today with all his jangly nerves. It's hard to care for someone you don't like, but she felt she could at least be kind to him during such a trying time. "We received a ping from the system boot. If there’s a problem, it would have delivered error logs as soon as the system restarted." Just be patient, she reminded to herself. If it was your family that far out in space, you'd want to know if the ship was still operational enough to bring them out of hibernation.
He sat in the chair next to hers, staring into his coffee cup. She could see the veins in his neck standing out. "You alright?"
He eyes glanced at her and then back to his coffee. "We'll know in a few minutes. They still say it's the safest form of travel, but if you’re that far out and something goes wrong..."
We have dialogue, both internal and external, and we know these two coworkers don't get along. A bit of man vs man with an emotional concern over man vs nature (space). The dialogue breaks up the introspection, providing us with insight into the relationship, a bit of technical background and both tension with a disliked coworker and the need to be supportive at a delicate time. The story could benefit from a little more background, but you get some of the points from the first example.
Let's try it with some action and more open conflict this time:
"What have you got?" Jaxa jerked in surprise. Morren had walked up unheard and caught her off guard.
"You can read the screen as well as I can," she jabbed at the keyboard to bring more receivers online. The first ping had been faint enough she wanted to increase the chances of catching further data transmissions on the first pass.
Morren settled into the extra chair and Jaxa bit off a nasty response about being unwelcome. She took a deep breath and rubbed the pad of her middle finger between her eyebrows. Morren was difficult enough on the best of days, but today he was all jangly nerves and it was catching. She took a deep breath and told herself it's hard to care for someone you don't like, but she could at least be kind to him today.
"We received a ping from the system boot. If there is a problem, it would have delivered error logs as soon as the system restarted." Just be patient, she reminded to herself. If it was your family that far out in space, you'd want to know if the ship was still operational enough to bring them out of hibernation.
He just stared into his coffee cup and she could see the veins in his head standing out. "You alright?"
He glanced up at her before settling his gaze back into his coffee. "We'll know in a few minutes. They still say it's the safest form of travel, but if you’re that far out and something goes wrong..."
Not a great amount of physical action, but the surprise of his arrival creates some tension and her forceful use of the keyboard represents a spillover of frustration before she reigns in her dislike of Morren. That little bit adds a sliver of edginess and provides some conflict and tension.