Skul
Member
Joined: 16 May 2005
Posts: 199
Location: UK, Scotland
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 Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2007 2:52 pm Post subject: |
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When I saw the title, I thought it was some kind of rip-off of Contact Harvest with Captain 'Johnstone'. Johnstone could be a character in Contact Harvest, I don't know; I haven't read the book, yet.
Onto the fic:
Hmmm. It's apparent straight away you didn't use the Code. If you wrote this in a word processor that allows formatting (like MS Word or WordPad), then you have to know that all submissions are written in plain text -- formatting doesn't automatically transfer over; you have to put the Code in manually. A little tedious, yes, but it really pays off when it's posted.
There are no indents, italicised text, or bolded timestamps. No timestamps to speak of, actually. They're not mandatory, but it can help people know where the action is taking place, at what time and in what year. It all helps build the atmosphere and draws the reader into your story more.
There were a ton of GPS (Grammar, Punctuation, Spelling) mistakes. I'm guessing you wrote this in the submission form. Don't do that. Ever.
Johnstone should be capitalised. Since we're on the subject of 'Captain Johnstone', why did you only refer to him as 'the Captain' from that point on? Why not use 'Captain Johnstone' or just 'Johnstone'? The word 'Captain' appears thirteen times in this fic (fourteen if you count the initial introduction). I also found it strange that a nameless, description-less character 'dialogued' (did he shout? Yell? Say?) "Sarge!" and the Captain reacts. 'Sarge' is not a way of addressing any senior officer, only Sergeants.
Another thing to mention -- capitalise the ranks and never shorten them (Captain, not Cpt. or cpt. and Cadet).
One thing's leading to another, here...
Capitals should always be used at the start of sentences, dialogue and proper nouns (names, important places, important things).
I'm glad you put a new line when somebody started talking. Too bad you didn't tell us who was speaking, except for Johnstone.
Here are a few GPS mistakes that could have been caught out with a spelling checker or simple proofread.
bloob -- I'm sure you meant 'blob'.
with out -- A grammar error; without, all one word.
hace -- Hace? Don't you mean 'have'?
loude squawking -- Loud squawking.
cocenant -- Come on, you should know it's Covenant!
vary bright light -- Not a spelling error, but the wrong word; very.
There are many more, but it would take ages to list them all and tell you the corrections.
Lastly, the story went by too quickly and was pretty bland. There are hardly any descriptions. I had to force myself to keep interest more than once.
At least you spelled out your numbers. You've got that going for you.
Don't think I'm going on at you -- I'm telling you this so you will (hopefully) be more careful in the future.
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Fanfic Currently Working On: Finally continuing Inferno. Slow going. | XBox Live Account: SkulY2K |
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