HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

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The Mother of All Battles: First Patrol
Posted by Andres (andres_vera2000@yahoo.com)
20 April 2005, 12:03 AM

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=andres.0420050003442.html

[thedarkfire]

Hmm...

Your plot was quite good but one thing REALLY stuck out on me.

I got confused. The story was moving so fast that I had to go back and reread multiple times just to understand what was going on.

There's two really simple fix for this.

1) Reread your story and have somenoe else read it. If you can't see the confusion, which is common because the writer knows what they want to say, then your friend/reviewer will.

2) (this one is the most important) DETAIL!!! Yes it was there, but it could have been way better. Detail slows down a story and made it read better.

Pretty good job there. Just work on that confusion and you'll do fine.

[Azrael]

Wow. I can tell you have an excellent handle on how ship combat works. Your tactical dialouge was some of the best I've read. I was very impressed with this chapter.

That said, there's always stuff to work on, and with a chapter THIS long, it became apparent.

Darky's right, you need more detail. You tried valiantly to describe the bridge, but I just couldn't get a picture in my mind. And I did try. You have to go out of your way to make us see this. Don't hold back.

While your Captain was great, the dialouge "outside the office", so to speak, was average. You tried hard with that whole bit about the coffee, but I didn't get the image or proper sense from it. To achieve that, don't just write the dialouge, show us how he said it. Did he grimace after he took the first sip? Did he rub his eyes? Give us more, man.

Your space battle was good, it could have been great. I got a great image of the slipspace ruptures and entering normal space, but when it came to the actual maneuvering, I was lost. Once again, the detail.

Now, I will pat you on the back when you described your MACs. I got a good image of the structure, and the sounds of the ship were superb. The scene with the missiles firing was excellent. Well done there.

I think you got tired and weary from your gargantuan space battle, because the next two sections weren't that hot. The Marshal scene, though creative with the PJs, had some glaring grammatical, punctuation, and spelling errors. Finish strong next time; you want us hungered for the next chapter.

You ran into a little trouble at the very end of the chapter, when you described the sudden entrance of new contacts. See, I assume they're Covies, but how would I know? You got caught up in your own formidable knowledge of the lingo...but us regular John Q. Readers are going to feel lost. Yes, you tried to make it more clear with your Captain's thoughts, but it was still, in my opinion, lacking.

I've pointed out a lot of the things you did wrong only because you've got the talent to make this great. Take more time with this and really show us the scenes. Paint colorful pictures of your scenes and characters. Make us care about the Cap. The only character I really care about right now is Pommel, to be honest, because that was a novel approach to ship AIs. It was unique and aptly described. That makes me care. Give me more of that.

Keep this up, I promise you I will be looking for your next one!
_________________
...now that's some gritty shizzle.

[russ687]

Good content; like I said, your military descriptions and dialogue are great. I can almost hear the yelling and the tension of being aboard the ship in the middle of such a battle.

Though, numerous GPS errors were still in there. Repitition played a significant role as well. Really keep a close eye on this stuff, and like I said, reading printed material and picking up on proper flow and punctuation placement will be the best thing to get it down. I'm going to assume that the grammer and spelling errors were just missed, so just proof-read, but the punctuation is definently the thing to work on.

Keep up the good work, Andres.

-Russ

[reagan64]

Did you say FLEET Admiral Nelson? Nelson was a Vice Admiral of the White. Whoever told you he was a fleet Admiral? If you mean Admiral of the Fleet at the time of Trafalgar I believe Sir Peter Parker was Admiral of the Fleet.

[Andres]