HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

This topic is for posting comments to:

The Great Crusade,Part 1:Whispers
Posted by Zado Zudamee (isnafolsonee@hotmail.com)
26 February 2005, 2:40 AM

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=zado_zudamee.0226050240001.html

[Nick Kang]

On the subject of your Author's Note, it doesn't matter whether or not a story has lots of action. Typically, some of the best fics out there have very little action. If you want an idea of how a good story looks without action, read Jillybean's The Priestess and the Warrior series.

Also, the fact that you didn't put any spaces after your punctuation almost gave me a headache. Always put two spaces after a period, question mark, or exclamation point, and put one space after commas.

You also needed the Code.

It was overall lacking in detail, so try to clear up a lot of things in the next chapter.
_________________
Eighty percent of human wisdom is the desire to not butt into other peoples' business, and the other twenty percent doesn't matter.

[Nick Kang]

Oh, and I almost forgot. What's up with all those '' ? Putting two individual ' is confusing. Just hold down shift and hit the button once.
_________________
Eighty percent of human wisdom is the desire to not butt into other peoples' business, and the other twenty percent doesn't matter.

[MC's Cousin]

Proper command of punctuation is key to writing a good story. Or just a readable one. You didn't even take the time to hit the space bar after your pucntuation. That makes things hard to read, and can actually cause more eye strain then we get from staring at out screens already. So learn how to use letters and punctuation properly and well before posting again. Else you may get one of my "Your goal is not to give your reader a migrain" jokes.

Action - pah! Newer and less experienced writers almost always think that all a reader looks for is action. Action is one of many story elements; only part of what makes it good. And it is not really needed, either. In actuality, trying to incorporate action into your first - or first few - fics can make things worse. It is quite tricky to get right. You don't have to make things harder on yourself by trying to jump the gun.

Whoa. That went by fast. Things just zipped by - not giving me the slightest chance to grab onto them. That is a bad thing. If your story goes by too fast to develop, the reader will not have a good idea of what was going on. Slow down - develop things, flesh them out, explain and describe. Put some material in there.

I wasn't all too fond of the cryo thing. That is distinctly human. And incorporating it into Covie tech just doesn't work for me. Covenant and humans are two very different groups. You must always try to maintain that distinction. You don't want your aliens sounding too human.

Always spell out those numbers. It is not that hard to do, and it makes the reading that much better. Try it.

Separate your dialogue. For one, don't have it connected directly with normal paragraph text. For two, make sure different characters have their speech separated up and not bunched together. Makes things a lot easier to read, follow, and understand.


Overall, this was okay. This story has potential, but needs to be thought out and developed more before it will be solidly coherent. Use any and all advice you are given, and work hard to improve your writing. Your efforts will be rewarded. Good luck; and have fun.
_________________
-MCC

[Caleb the Jackal]

Well I have to say that I no longer feel bad about the length of my stories.

Your story was really good but I hated having to strain my eyes to find where dialogue starts and stops. You need to give it a seperate paragraph for that. And there is a button on your keyboard called shift.

When you hit that button and hit this key' you will get this ". So try to do that.

I dont think that the cryo thing is all that bad. You just need to explain it differently than the human cryosleep. But no matter what race you are I think that you would need something like that(cryo-sleep). Otherwise you they would get really board during a super long journey.

Other than that you have a really good story. Keep it up and practice that code.

Caleb

[SYSTEM]

Heyo. Action doesn't count one bit - it's a tool, and it's not to be the core of a story.

Stories revolve around plot, characters, and settings.

And, please code your work. It makes it easier to read, and it's very professional.

- Dave.
_________________
"Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one." - A child's nursery rhyme.

"When in doubt, empty your magazine." - Murphy's first law of combat operations.

[MC's Cousin]

Perhaps they Covenant would have something like that. But I think something like suspended animation would be more their style. That would be quicker.
Besides; we know Covie ships travel through Slipspace faster. Maybe, most of the time, they don't really have a big need for it since they get to their destination in so few hours/units/cycles.

Anyway; yes, what Caleb was getting at would be the right thing: describe it differently so it does not sound like you are talking about something human.
_________________
-MCC

[Guardian]

spelling check the spelling!

i found a bazillion spelling mistakes. well not really, but i'm fond of the word bazillion.

run it through spell check, many parts i was dumb-founded with what you were trying to tell me as a reader, because of spelling mistakes. Fix them, and the Code the almighty and powerful Code.



otherwise, C+ grade job.

~Shadow