HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

This topic is for posting comments to:

Long Time Gone Part 35
Posted by grylsy (grylsy@hotmail.com)
18 January 2005, 5:27 AM

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=grylsy.01180505273035.html

[monitor101]

Since you last post I've been going back and reading this series. PRetty good so far. The only other story I know that is this long is "Shadow's of Archon" by Wado.

[Covie_Lover]

Nah, the Shadows of Archon series was shorter, but it also had less chapters. I don't think they had limits of the size a story could be then. This guys takes up about 35 pages in size 4 font with two columns. Wow. Thats alot of story. But, no offense intended grysly, I like the archon series better. It was more of a...novelty

[fallschirmjager]

Heh, I just put it ALL into winword yesterday to see how long it was. In size 12 font...

167 Pages, 74,000 words, 300,000 characters (no spaces)

I just had good insperation I suppose....
_________________
We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight.

Will you keep my secrets hope to die?

[monitor101]

Shadows of Archon was one shorter than this series. It was 35 chapters. if you count those as chapters.

[MC's Cousin]

Actually, fallschirm/grylsy, this could have been made much longer. Though, there is danger in continuing with a series for so long.

I thought, kinda an afterthought actually, that this could have been made more emotionally and story-line-ly expansive had you hinted to an included more of a mystery element. You know, include small references to a darker secret, or ONI's real plans, or something like that. It just give the reader more of a purpose to continue on for.

Good. You are beefing things up well. Very good. I'm glad you are taking my advice and putting it to good use.
But, now that you ahve done that, try smoothing things out and working on making your details more pointed. Good writing should have a certain grace about it; a feeling that leads the readers eyes on, pulls them with it; not to fast, but quickly enough to be interesting. The kind of feeling when you are reading a good book - it doesn't even have to be all that suspenceful for you to not want to put it down.
Try working on giving your own work that touch.

Emotion. Try to add more of it. And not the lovy-dovy stuff. I mean emotion pertaining to what these people are feeling about what they are doing. You hinted on it, but you could have used some more details to get into the personality and heart of the characters. Something to have the reader relate to.
Have you ever read Tom Clancy's Without Remorse? I suggest you do if you haven't. Good stuff. And it will give you a good example of emotion that gets to the reader.

Be careful with those transitions. If you don't format them correctly, it seems like you are throwing us over a gap that is a tad to large. Make things smooth and consistent. Don't jerk us from one place to another. And if you do, at least give us warning before, and something to cushion us on the other side.
That is called a smooth transition.

I noted some small mistakes througout. Things like misused words. Small grammar. You know, small trvial stuff. So, just be more diligent in weeding that stuff out. And I do use the work "weeding" for a reason. Sometimes you have to look carefully to find them, and sometimes it can be more complicated then you think to pull it out. Try that.

Watch those numbers. Always spell basics out.


Overall, this is better, but, of course (did you expect different?), it could still use some work. But, it is getting better. I see the effore you are putting into it. Don't let me down - don't stop now. Keep it up.
_________________
-MCC

[fallschirmjager]

Only Clancy books I have read are Clear And Present Danger, Mission Of Honour (OP-Centre) and Cold War (Powerplays).

Other authors I read have been some, Dale Brown (Razor's Edge), Chris Ryan (Tenth Man Down) and Matthew Rielly (I've read all his books, he is my favourite author)


But yeah. You're right about the hint of evil thingy. I kinda thought that if it jsut came out of no where it would be more like the ONI, deep and secret. Trying to portray this as a bunch of grunts doing the dirty work...
_________________
We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight.

Will you keep my secrets hope to die?

[Scott D]

Well guys I appreciate all your input, and I must admit I might have lost some of my touch in cutting my chapter down to fit the 32kb size, it really annoys me when I have crucial information and then extra description of reactions and have to decide which ones to leave in. From now on I'll simply post the chapters in their entirety, no matter how tedious it becomes to lengthen and shorten to make sure everything fits. Oh and as comment on emotional reactions, during the action sequences(much of which were trimmed) they're supposed to be lacking in response, because when fighting anyone or anything Scott 079 feels nothing. In other chapters there's a great deal of description going on about how the transition in his personality happens, looking behind his eyes and such. And in this chapter I omitted that because I'm a moron and forgot my most powerful literary device. Secondly, most everyone else is in shock, and I did a dreadful job with cutting out Jorge and Kyoko's reaction paragraphs and the trimming of the escape. Suffice to say chapter 14 will be out soon and will probablly be longer, more in depth and hopefully with less grammatical errors.
And on a side note, run on sentences in the thought process of my main character are for the express purpose of him not being able to over analyze. It's author's voice and my choice to make him more complicated. The story does have an end, and it will probablly be at its end by Chapter 20. As always, anyone who wants a full copy of the story, unabridged, can email me and I will be happy to oblige them sending them the original document with all the chapters as I originally wrote them. Some chapters suck, some are good, and one of them definitely needs a rewrite. But hey, I do it for the love of the game, and thanks once again to all of you for reading.

[MC's Cousin]

Well, that's all well and good, but I think it would have been more effective had it been posted on the right thread.
_________________
-MCC

[fallschirmjager]

I was thinking I couldn't remember typing that... And I couldn't remember when I changed my name to what ever the fuck his is....
_________________
We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight.

Will you keep my secrets hope to die?

[Mark Lieberg]

I know this is OT...But i have a Halo 2 story thats 114 pages long.
_________________
Mark Lieberg
#179/1204
"Studying Computer Information Systems (That's Programming for you retards out there)"

[Ark Night]

I like thiat story!!!! Maybe you should um... Do more of it!!!