HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

This topic is for posting comments to:

1Are you completely maimed in the brain!?!?
Posted by dom1 (moberly6@pacbell.net)
25 April 2005, 3:19 AM

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=dom1.0425050319531.html

[SYSTEM]

Hey, what's with your title?

I'm glad to see use of the code (I haven't gone through the whole thing yet, though,) but what's with your title?

- 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.

[Azrael]

Yeah, people aren't going to read your work because of this title. It screams newb. But lucky (or unlucky) for you, the title is not indicative of the writing, which is pretty good.

Don't abbreviate ranks, especially when you first introduce a character. Give us the rank and full name every chapter when you first mention your character. Spell out numbers. You misspelled "Sergeant."

Now, about "whoosh." Yes, onamontapia (I definitely misspelled that) is a tough nut to crack, I myself find wondering if it's professional to write "whoosh" or to describe the whoosh sound. For some reason, I thought you could do better than that, but I'll have to defer to the greater minds on this forum on this matter.

I want to know more about the mission. I want to know the scenery. My mind immediately went to the installation in "Guilty Spark", but how am I to know differently? More detail on setting. You got into your character's mind well at the end, but you can add to that terror by giving us the gory, scary, threatening setting we find ourselves in. Because there wasn't any real sense of setting, I found the death of Crespin unbelievable, not to mention the rip in the space-time continuum? Dude, where the hell are we?

I'm going to be honest about the whole 100 combat forms appearing. No Marine is getting through 100 combat forms. Heck, even the MC would have a bitch of a time. Make this more realistic, and we'll understand you better. Now, when you get to Kaston's slow backwards retreat, that's where you shine. I can imagine the combat forms coming one by one at this point...though you don't say it...and I dont know where he is exactly, but I put this aside when reading this bit.

[thedarkfire]

Problems, yes, but your emotion was pretty damn good.

Detail- I saw some, but you were lacking in the setting and action department. I knew nothing of where he was and how a got to be there.

Did I mention that emotion? Damn son!

I'll think of more later. I'm kinda sick.

[Chuckles]

Nice job Dom. I can see that I will like having you around

Like Azrael said, you set a good mood. You would set an even better mood if you would put some more meat on your story. This chapter could have easily been twice as long without losing any of its pace. The description that you had was good, but you brushed past some things so fast that I was left scratching my head.

For instance, you had your hero running into 100 combat flood forms and just brushed right by it. When you do that, show it. You don't have to labor through him fighting each one, but put some meat on it so that your reader will be able to see in their mind. As a general rule I do not put any of my own stuff on somebody else's thread--it just seems rude. But since that is the easiest way for me to show you what I mean, what the heck. This is an example of how you can have your hero fighting hordes without getting bogged down in endless description. I took this from my final chaper of Ghosts of Erebus. Lexicus is a Spartan, by the way.

[russ687]

Wow, that was a garble of writing.

Good use of the CODE, but this was all very jumbled. It went by far to quickly, and on top of that, a lot of it didn't make too much sense. You character was too invincible, and survived too much in the wake of hundreds of Flood forms (this seemed more like a crazy bad dream than an action/mystery installment).

Uncountable GPS and flow issues in there, you really need to slow down, proof-read, and perfect your piece before submitting. I don't even want to start picking out every little thing, but I'll tell you that it all needs work. Find someone here to help you get your GPS straight, then start working on your next piece.

Keep trying.

-Russ

[LordsFire]

It was a garble, but a GREAT garble.

Brilliance shone through the confusion of inexperience, especially towards the end. I applaud your writers spirit, and in time expect I will applaud your skill as well.

I look forward to the next part.

[Covie_Lover]

Yes, the title does look newbish, but it attracted me by curiosity, rather than repelling me.

Interesting story, but yes, a jumble. And I think the rip in space-time thing was supposed to be a joke about the sudden appearance of hundreds of flood from nowhere. Could be wrong though...

Poor Azreal. No turkey for him...

[MC's Cousin]

I'll be quite honest: When I saw this title, I thought for sure I was gonna be reading a lesser-quality newb fiction, requiring straining of the eyes and a whole lot of patience. Well, thankfully, my assumption was mistaken.

However, there is a point to what I thought: other people probably will think that, too. A book has a cover, your story has a title. You want to make it good to make it look good. Else you'll get these great assumptions like mine. Sure, it didn't hurt your story - but some people may be inclined just to skip over this because of how your title looks.

Remember that.


Anyway. Onto the actual writing.

No, I don't really think it is really professional to use sounds. Sure, if done in a certain way, it could be a lot more presentable, but, generally, it is a good thing to just describe instead of tell with a word.

Whenever you have a thought, you don't have to use any form of quotation marks. You used singles. Just leave those off entirely. It won't hurt anything, but it will look cleaner.

Don't abbreviate your ranks. Spell them out. Do the same with minor numbers, by the way. Both of them look better when put into a word. I could go on, but I think, in this case, simplicity will not hurt anything.

This went by, as has been mentioned, extremely quickly. There was very little description, and so your scenese passed by without the reader being able to get a picture of the environment. Work on that. Slow things down. To do this, expand and develop your writing. Add more meat and volume to it. Don't just write this short little paragraph telling us that he randomly had 100 Flood forms pop into his path, and that he then made his way through them all (how, by the way? - watch that realism); show us where the Flood came from, and how he felt when encountered by them, what struggles he had to go through to reach them and so forth.

Now, from what I read, I believe this was a Marine escaping Halo after it had started breaking up. Well, I won't go into how I think that possible on different bits of ring. What I will say is that there would be no Marines left alive on the surface of the ring. It states at the end of H:tF that the pressure wave generated by the POA's explosion completely sterilized the surface of the ring. That means it would have killed anything out in the open, or in any shallow tunnels. And, after that, there would be little in the way of landscape features to run on.

Avoid the use of multiple punctuation marks in dialogue. No "!?" or "?!" or "!?!" in there. Just use one. For emphasis, just italicise it.

You said he, after running out of ammo, started using melee attacks to put the Flood down. I find that hard to believe effective. Even MC with his augmentation has to hit one a few times before it starts to go down. I doubt a Marine could pull it off.


Overall, this was pretty good. Don't let all that criticism get you down. You have potential, so make use of it. Use this advice you have been given, and work hard to improve. Good luck.
_________________
-MCC

[dom1]

Yeah, sorry about it looking rushed, but I had an idea from earlier, and if you add that to having to go somewhere, and you don't get a very good story. But, thanks for enlightening me on all my problems. This is technically my trial by fire.

Sorry about the turkey, but I have to tell you, he didn't eat the finger, just the ring.

Anyways, thanks for liking it as much as you did. After all, I'm only 13.

[Commander Demitri Wolf]

[dom1]

'Ey.

I can just never seem to say enough in my posts. (sigh)

The title wasn't my idea. My (extremely overrated group of expletives) friend, came in on my computor and totally moffed it up, so he figured he'd give it a (another group of expletives) title. Believe me, I'd have more common sense than to put that as a title.
I guess I'm havin' prime ribs tonight.

P.S. You can post as many times as you want in any forum discuusing any of my stories. It doesn't bother me. You can do it until you feel EVIL!! , or until the rules state otherwise. But not off topic.

[SeverianofUrth]

You wrote this pretty much stream-of-consciousness, eh? Just let the words flow out?

I don't think I can add to anything the others have said- just make sure that you don't jump into the meat-and-bones of the story too quickly. Its always tempting to just go straight through the blood and gore and battles, because, hey, that's all the cool part, right? But as great as guns and rockets are, they are so much better when supplemented by pages of quality writing that build a foundation for the battles and the Flood-munching goodness.

Good luck, dude. Now, time to go (finally) write a comment for Archangel's story...

[Conrad Lauf]

Not bad for a thirteen-year-old. Not bad at all. But yeah, don't use age as a reason. I tried it a while ago...and MAN did I feel so dirty after I did.
Keep it up, just work on your setting and you'll be all good!
Good luck,
Connie

[sh4rk]

First Post what a newb!
Anyway. Keep writing, i'm not going to comment on you're style, its not my place. but you've got some quite impressive people liking your story. also keep reading, its the best way to improve. if you haven't read them before here is a list of good series.
Long time Gone
Minutemen
Ghosts of Erebus
Priestess and a Warrior (think thats right, its by jillybean)
read them and look how they write. it'll help.
Ps does anyone know when longtimegone chapter 42 is coming out