MC's Cousin Mr. 1337

Joined: 30 Jul 2004 Posts: 2142 Location: Here.
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Posted: Fri Apr 13, 2007 3:54 am Post subject: |
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First thing that I noticed was the Coding. Good to see it implemented, but the formatting of the story could have still used some work. You seemed to selectively use indents and paragraph separations. Well, there should be a distinctive structure for those. Use indents at the beginning of every single paragraph, including lines of dialog. Breaking up the paragraphs with spaces is of course left entirely up to you to decide how and where.
I must say, that wasn't bad space battle writing. Not many people have a knack for it. But you did alright. It could use a lot more organization and a lot more details, but the basic concept behind what you presented weren't that far off from what would be expected and believably presented. Good job there, but don't stop yet. As I said, there's still a lot of work to be done with that area, so keep working to improve it. It could very well become your strong suit.
To help improve it, I would suggest a couple things.
First, don't let all of your Human benefiting events seem like complete happenstance. If everything they pull off seems to go perfectly, then it takes away some of that suspense and danger. You want the reader to get attached to your characters, and you want those characters to seem like they are in danger. For instance, you had a random missile from the exploding ship hit and destroy all of the Seraphs trailing the escape pod. A seemingly random occurance that saved them all. Just be careful how you present those kinds of details.
Second, slow things down. Don't just zip from one event to another. Slow it down, add some detail and filler material -- what I like to call, Meat and Potatoes. Add in a little mass and body to accent that flavor of action. Action is great and all, but it can't make up a whole story. You still need details and other material to build the rest of it. So, add in more descriptions and slow down those actions to fully let the reader understand and get a grasp on what is happening and, referencing to the above paragraph, what kind of danger the character may really be in. Don't rush. Believe me, the more you slow it down, the better your action will come across. Instead of being forced to read through the text so fast, the reader will purposely do so.
And actually, I would recommend applying the above to the whole of your story, not just your space action.
Just a couple things to look out for in the future.
Now for a couple more general points:
Okay. Your escape pod pilot, "Officer Adam Depenau." What rank is he? "Officer" is not a rank. There are Officers in the Navy, but that is not a singular rank. I would suggest being a little more specific with those details in the future.
Numbers. Spell out those numbers. Four instead of 4, five-thousand instead of 5,000, etc. You get the idea. Why? Well, I'm not sure quite how to pronounce a digit, meaning, words flow and fit in a whole lot better with other words, so it words with the flow of your writing a lot more of you type those numbers out instead of hitting a few number keys.
Yeah, I know the Covenant suck and all, but it's still proper to capitalize the word.
Overall, this wasn't too bad. Not bad at all. You have several things to work on, but from what I've seen so far, I don't think it's anything you can't handle with some practice and patience. Good luck, and keep writing. _________________ -MCC |
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