HBO Fan Fiction

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Babylon High Day 4
Posted by Shurmanator (dyshurman@gmail.com)
18 September 2009, 12:14 am

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=Shurmanator0918090014341.html

Shurmanator · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:13 pm Post subject:

This one's serious.

In the interest of advancing the plot (an extremely necessary technique I recently discovered I am currently incapable of performing whilst still maintaining a comedic storyline) this chapter of Babylon High is super serious.
And dark. And depressing.
There's still some humor, but minute amounts of it. The comedic stuff is coming back, but I needed some way to advance the plot from random weekly installments of un-related events. Hopefully this is the only time I have to differ from my preferred comedy genre in order to get the story moving, but if its not, expect some more serious chapters later on once my story hits another road block.

So yeah, hope you enjoy. Smile

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Jake Trommer · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 7:49 pm Post subject:

Wait---that's it? Great writing as always, but this was a bit...abrupt, I suppose the correct word would be. I didn't feel any catharsis at all at this having come to an end.
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Shurmanator · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:32 pm Post subject:

O don't worry, its not over yet.
Not by a long-shot... Wink

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Modern Machiavelli.

Jake Trommer · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:39 pm Post subject:

Maybe so, but this seems a both ridiculously abrupt and out of the blue way to end the school arc. Just because kabu advised you add more plot doesn't mean you had to introduce an ONI-brainwashing-scheme that wasn't foreshadowed in the slightest, nor makes the slightest amount of sense. Even sitcoms have plot arcs, but they make sense; imagine if Kramer from Seinfeld had all of a sudden been revealed to be a government agent dispatched to find out the apathy of middle-class citizens in NYC? Does it make sense? No, it does not, and neither does your story.
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Sir Isaac Newton is the DEADLIEST SON OF A BITCH IN SPACE!

eb4642 · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 8:45 pm Post subject:

Shurman - I'm afraid you've fallen into another common trap. What you've done is jumped the shark: i.e. you've taken the plot somewhere completely different in a way that is totally unnecessary, totally unexpected and incredibly unsatisfying. Somehow I doubt this was the original plan.

As usual, your writing, grammar, spelling and punctuation were excellent - however, the elephant in the room is that the plot has now been taken somewhere incredibly bizarre, wild and confusing that jars completely with the slow, comedic feel of the earlier chapters.

As I see it, you have two choices. You can ignore this past chapter, or you can kill the baby. It's your choice... but in my opinion, the bizarre and completely unexpected plot twist simply won't work.

Don't take this the wrong way: you're an extremely, extremely talented writer. However, I think you should consider running your plot plans past people before writing them - it's what everyone else does, and they tend to improve the quality of the writing dramatically. (Personally speaking, without Phae's help, Waiting for the Dawn would have been distinctly average.)

Why not pop into the General Discussion forum or #hboff occasionally? We're not that scary and you may find your plotting will magically improve Very Happy

Bottom line: asking other people for help is a good idea, nothing to be ashamed of, and everyone does it anyway.
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Shurmanator · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:20 pm Post subject:

Yeah... in retrospect... you're right. As much as I liked the idea of this series, I found there was absolutely not direction I could take it other than random weekly segments of unimportant stuff or this ridiculous excuse for a plotline.

So, I'm ending the series here. It's dumb now, and reeks of fail. Thanks for all the support them, and I'm proud that I at least made it this far with my first fan fic attempt. I might move on to more serious stuff; I liked the writing style I used for the beginning of this chapter. Maybe I should delve into psychotic thrillers.

With that, I say I'm done with Babylon High.
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Modern Machiavelli.

eb4642 · Posted: Fri Sep 18, 2009 9:50 pm Post subject:

kabu · Posted: Sat Sep 19, 2009 6:43 pm Post subject:

Ack! Don't leave! We like you!

I think killing Babylon High might not be a terrible idea, but stick around and write something else.
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Shurmanator · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 1:56 am Post subject:

Yeah, I'm not saying I'm done with fan fiction, not by any means. But I think I'm going to move away from writing series and just do random stories every now and then.
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Modern Machiavelli.

(ENS) Rabid_Gallagher · Posted: Sun Sep 20, 2009 4:23 am Post subject:

You know, I really didn't know the whole on why you couldn't just keep on doing weekly stuff.

To be honest, this was really the only series lately I'd bothered to keep up with. Very Happy

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