HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

This topic is for posting comments to:

Brother
Posted by kr142616 (kr142616@aim.com)
7 June 2007, 11:30 pm

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=kr1426160607072330021.html

[kr1]

This is something I wrote about a year ago, and have been fine-tuning pretty much since then. I thought it was decent, but I'd like to try and improve it, and see what you all think.

[Halo Fanatic 2006]

Very nice, you look like a nice new addition to the site, keep it up! Better than most of my crap anyway but it was a very entertaining read. In fact, reading this shows me what I need to work on. Well done. Didn't see any GPS errors either as a result of that tweaking.

9/10

-HF06

[kr1]

Thanks. I have an idea for a sequel I've been toying around with for a while that I never really worked on much, but if enough people like this I'll probably try to get it finished.

[Halo Fanatic 2006]

I'm pretty sure they might. Let's see what the other people have to think. I think it was enjoyable, to say the least even if it was a bit short (I can talk, my stories are barely over the word count specifications ).

-HF06

[SYSTEM]

You've just won yourself a 'First time coder' award, something I don't give out often these days. Congratulations.

I noticed a semicolon in the first sentence of your story, which isn't something I see very often. I suppose it would've been better than using a comma and splicing it, and it allows me to continue going the way a period wouldn't. Thumbs up to you on that, I like that there. I don't usually see many people use colons and semicolons often, sometimes breaking up sentences that otherwise would've flowed just perfectly otherwise, and sometimes doing comma splices which look absolutely terrible. Double congrats, I'm starting to like this already.

The second paragraph I noticed you immediately decided to change pace and slow down, which added a nice contrast to the semicolon and colon use in the first paragraph. I expected to see suspense build, especially as he gripped his rifle and began getting sentimental. Now, the only problem I noticed was that this short, simple sentence structure continues throughout the rest of the story, making things seem perpetually abrupt and spaced-out. Don't get me wrong, it still sounds great, but when it's done for too long it becomes monotonous, and it really cuts out the action scene, which, instead of hitting like "bam! Fight!" somehow comes along like 'ho-hum.' If 'ho-hum' was the feeling you wanted to generate, that was the right way to do it, by all means, but something disagrees with me: an alien ambush, live-fire, even if you've got a Spartan on your side, and especially when you don't want to fight like that, would hardly come along as 'ho-hum.'

Welcome to HBO. You're on there pretty solid, but need a little refinement. Hope you'll stay around here to finish this, you're off to a good start.

- 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.

[kr1]

Thanks for the comments. I see what you mean about the sentences, they are a little choppy, especially near the beginning. How should I fix them, though? Combine a few together where it makes sense?

And the ambush was supposed to be underwelming. I was figuring that a Grunt patrol wouldn't be much trouble for a Spartan, but I didn't really do much with the marine. I guess I kinda overdid it and ended it a little too quickly.

And thanks for the welcome.

[kr1]

I did a bit of editing, and rewrote and expanded the ambush a bit. I took your advice, Dave, and tried to make the sentences a little less choppy. I don't think rewrites are allowed to be submitted, though, so if you're interested in reading, you can message me and I'll email it, or something like that.