Zephyr
Member
Joined: 25 May 2005
Posts: 275
Location: im at ur moms house lol
|
 Posted: Sat Sep 20, 2008 3:13 am Post subject: |
 |
|
| Quote: |
"Alright men stay quiet we've only got one shot at this." The sergeant brought us back to the task at hand. Hours after the covenant cruiser had jumped out of the city and a huge explosion wiped almost everyone out. The marines realized that the covenant in the area no longer had anyone in overall command. The sergeant felt obligated to throw some annoyance their way. With the added confusion of not having a leader the covenant seemed vulnerable to raids, so with the seventy or so hell jumpers left the sergeant banded them together and set up shop in a recently evacuated town. For the next few days we conducted several raids. The raids targeted ammo depots, troop barracks and digging equipment, although it was on a small scale the sergeant figured it was better then sitting by waiting for Covie to come back. |
First paragraph, eh? Well I have some advice. Use more commas. Seriously. They really help with the flow. A lot. You don't want to use too many, but you are in a situation where you're not using enough. You don't want that, it makes stuff really hard to read.
The second sentence is just a fragment. You're also shifting point of view from first person to third; at first you refer to "we" but then you refer to "the marines." Not good.
| Quote: | | The marines realized that the covenant in the area no longer had anyone in overall command. The sergeant felt obligated to throw some annoyance their way. |
Read that out loud to yourself. See how choppy and repetitive it sounds?
I would write instead:
"When we [the marines] (you need to resolve the POV issue) realized that the Covenant forces in the area were shattered, disorganized, and leaderless, the sergeant felt obligated to add to their troubles."
The final sentence in the paragraph is a comma splice; the two clauses should be separated by a semicolon, like in this sentence.
That's a breakdown of the first paragraph; I'm sure that all the regulars and veterans will be able to explain some ways that I was wrong and even more ways you could improve, but that'll do for now.
General advice--run the story through a spellchecker at the very least. If you have MS Word, that will also help you with grammar. You also should read your story aloud to yourself, or, better yet, get someone else to do it for you. This will help with your flow and the other person will pick up errors in your work that you haven't seen. Which brings me back to proofreading. Do it. A lot. There are many kinds of mistakes that even MS Word can't catch, such as using the wrong word (ex: their going to the store).
That's all for now, there were some good sentences in there and you are not--repeat, are not--a bad writer. As with anyone just starting out (and most people who have been at this for years) there's a lot of room for improvement.
_________________
For what is a man profited, if he should gain the whole world, but lose his soul? |
|
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
