HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

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Third Marines in Harvest: Chapter four- The woods again
Posted by Andres (andres_vera2000@yahoo.com)
18 January 2005, 9:54 AM

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=andres.0118050954134.html

[russ687]

Whew, that was long!

You weren't kidding when you said large on fighting, Andres.

Okay, here's some things you need to be conscious about. Grammer, Punctuation, and Spelling. Don't just shrug it off and use the excuse that everyone has errors; you really need to pay closer attention. Compared to your first chapter, this is great, but you still have a ways to go to get this squared away. For example, you missed capitalizing a lot of words, namely Covenant, Grunts, etc., and you kept spelling "could" cloud. Things like that are very easy to catch, and they were very repetative (meaning the same error occured many times).

Details were descent, but still somehwat vague. You're covering a huge plot (which I will get to in a second), so I understand you cannot get into too much detail, but pick and choose your situations and elaborate on them.

The plot was really good, and I like the idea behind it, but several things made it hard to follow. First, you have a shit-load of characters in there, and I can only remember a few (yep, maybe my brain capacity isn't that great, but neither are most others). You need to slow down and pick about three main characters, focus on them and their actions, then add secondary characters into it. When depicting these large battles, it can all seem to go by fast for the reader since you never really get into serious detail about certain characters; you simply switch to another character. You have to find who you want to focus on, then let everything else filter through their eyes (don't just tell us what happened through many perspectives). In your case here, focusing on say a Battalion Commander (for the strategic view), a main infantry character (for the tactical view) and then a Tanker or Pilot (for the supporting view) will make it much more simple for the reader to follow. Do you see my point?

Ok, now to the stuff I liked. Awesome technical details, and I your dialogue with your characters seems very authentic. You have a lot of military/equipment aspects that I enjoy, and it really goes to show the details of what a Marine would use in the future; good job. I like how you brought in the perspective of the Tanker and Pilot, which add flavor to the story, but heed my advice in the paragraph above.

Remember, though, that there's more to a story then the action. Be sure to expound upon your characters (or the situation) in a deeper way, other then just having combat rage on. Sub-plots and deeper aspects are essential for a story, because you cannot write soley on the action for long, otherwsie you will start repeating yourself and loose the reader.

Lastly, like I said in the beginning, proof-read to catch G, P & S (Hmm, GPS, I may keep using that). Your story was pretty long for a simple chapter, so consider cutting the size down somewhat and spending more time to perfect your work. Quality is better then quantity, and a story about half that length that is really refined would be awesome.

Keep going, Andres. You have a good story on your hands here, and your writing improves with each section.

-Russ

[Covie_Lover]

Well, I felt that this story is showing alot of promise, and, yes this one was really long...


Keep up the good work!

[sam_fisha]

Watch the spelling errors, I saw you use "Cloud" for could three times in the first paragraph! Thats something a proofread would get.

[Andres]

Dude, the assault on the vity hasn't even started!

[sam_fisha]

Uh, okaaay.

[MC's Cousin]

Combat. You seem to like using it. But, you have to be careful. Do not base your story on it. Use action as an element, as a tool; not as all of your story has to offer.
For one, straight up action will become repdetive if you do not add some differing elements and more developed explenations. A reader can only take so much fighting.
Combat/battles/action should be used to develop characters, exfoliate a personal struggle, lead the reader through a plot point, or make emphasis on something. But it should not be used just because you think you need it. A good story can be written with little to no action/fighting, and still be intriquing and entertaining to read.
Think about that.

I noticed many of the same things that I pointed out in chap three of this series. So do make sure to check out the comment I posted there for you.

Watch your flow and what not. In some places, you structure and grammar and wording just didn't lend itself fully to the overall sucess of your story. You want all of your elements to make sense and fit together seemlessly. So work on doing that more proficiently.

A one-hundred mile radius perimeter? Whoa. That is two hundred miles in diameter. That is . . . it covers like nine-hundred some square miles. To me, that is a really unbelievable perimeter. Make sure that kind of stuff makes sense.

Watch your bigger details. Stuff like "M888B Scorpion MBT" needs to be looked out for. It's M808B, by the way, if I am not mistaken.


Overall, this was pretty good. Really long - almost too long for me. russ seems to have gotten all the other major stuff, so I will leave the imrovements to you now. Get to work - I only want to see the absolute best from you; don't go and disapoint me. Good luck; and keep it up.
_________________
-MCC