Whenever I see threads on forums where someone has written a story, I always hope that reading it won't be a disappointment. Unfortunately it very often is.
But not in this case Dan, I was really very pleasantly surprised by how good both of your installments were. You clearly have some talent for writing, and since I spent ten years writing for a newspaper - still do it as a job now as well as teaching a copywriting course - I'd like to think I know what I'm talking about.
You have a great opportunity here too; whenever anyone is writing historical fiction, especially historical fiction that has to include technical details, there are numerous pitfalls awaiting the author. Not only do they have to consider dramatic structure, dialogue, pacing etc, they've also got to be a meticulous researcher, as one slip of detail in an historical story, and they've broken the spell, and lost the reader.
I suspect that if any errors had cropped up in your story, the rivet-counters would have been on it in a flash! Which means you've probably got some of the best technical proof-readers available to you. So here is a great place to hone your work, and when you've done that, go for the big one - write a novel.
There was always a joke going around the writers at the newspapers and other places I've worked with writers that went like this: There are three kinds of writers, those who are in the process of writing their big novel, those who are waiting to start writing it, and those who sit there thinking 'I bet I could write something better than that', but who never start it. I'm in the former group, having been working on mine for approximately the past three years, largely because it too is set in the past and requires tons of research. :rotfl: So it's nice to see another writer who has got off his ass and actually started doing it!
Keep it up Dan, it's good stuff.
Chock