HBO Fan Fiction

[hboff]

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Long Time Gone Part 36
Posted by grylsy (grylsy@hotmail.com)
27 January 2005, 7:29 AM

http://halosn.bungie.org/fanfic/?story=grylsy.01270507290436.html

[MC's Cousin]

Flow. Your wording could have been made to flow a bit more smoothly in places.
Also, details. You seem to be telling us instead of really showing us what is happening. Use more details, environmental and emotional, to get across your setting and characters. Another thing you might try is cutting backon the dialogue. It seems to dominate your stories, and that, not only takes away from detail, but it also takes away from the overall flow.
So, work on that for us.

Try making your characters sound more professional. These guys sound more like pretty-good paintball players in an urban match - not the trained Marines they are up against (I've seen that played, by the way). Watch some war movies (I almost have to cringe at that - I hat suggesting getting material from movies; I would suggest Black Hawk Down, though), read some strategic fiction (of course, I do say Clancy, but there are others), and read some militaristic fics here (by Regular authors; no offense to others) to help you get a good idea of things.

I saw a number of small mistakes. Make sure that you keep proofreading to the extreme. I think it could really help you out if you wrote, edited, let it sit, and then proofread some more.
If you do already, well, do it a little more.


Overall, it was pretty good, but it was still kind of sparse. Fix that. It is your biggest problem. If you were to smooth it out, your stories would improve drastically. Now, don't let me get you down. Everyone needs improvement; so just work hard to do so. Good luck.
_________________
-MCC

[Mr. GotBeans]

Damn dude. Now, I can tell your pouring your heart into this, but some parts just get repetive. I don't like to be a grammer whore, but that was just nasty. And in a BAD way. Also, check the realism. Your saying that your character is useing a 500 YEAR OLD GUN. 500 YEARS OLD! I mean, if you had made one up, thats different. Lets call it the M34, shall we? Now the M34 was used around the time of the attacks on Harvest. Top of the line then. That was I think around 100 years before Halo. Now, the M34 is sitting in a museum, as the FN FAL should be in the year 2552! And I DEFINATLY should not be talking about detail [MCC and Dave know that], but when you're talking about the girl, you said 'She was hot'. Now, to me, Pamala Anderson is hot. To MCC, she might not be.[And I'm not tring to call you gay or anything MC, you were just the first name to pop into my head] so 'hot' wouldn't do it. I liked the story, it just got vauge and repetive in some parts.

The Nearly World Famous Mr. GotBeans scoring system gives it a: 6.7 out of 10

[fallschirmjager]

Well considering I started this story over 12 months ago and that my main source of insperation was the FN FAL. I had been playing JA2 and the FAL was the best gun you could get with a scope, bipod and laser sight. And I was thinking that HALO needed something of similair lines, as the MA5B just didn't cut it at the long range I thought the battles wouyld take place. Christ in the game you had to get almost point blank before you could start doing some REAL damage.

But then that spawned another part of the story on Earth. And I know about the detail, I was reading it from the start and most of it I am ashamed of how crap it is, specially compared with what I know now. Jeez, it took me until the 5th-6th part to learn about indenting, I stiull remember some guys raving - 'INDENT INDENT INDENT INDENT', took me awhile to understand what they were talking about...

But the FAL in my story, by what I think I was trying to say was that they introduced a weapon BASED on the FAL, not an actualy representation of the 1960s varient we all know and love.... Anyhow now I am working on surpassing the BR55s and M7 SMGs in my story with another specialist weapon....

More on that too come, seeya guys later, back to the drawing board...
_________________
We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight.

Will you keep my secrets hope to die?

[fallschirmjager]

Sorry about double psoting but jsut finished a rough concept of the MA5D weapon my ODSTs will be getting to repalce the BR55s and M7s.


_________________
We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight.

Will you keep my secrets hope to die?

[Mark Lieberg]

I liked it. Lot of action. Keep it up. Man 36 chapter...damn..thats a lot. Keep it up.
_________________
Mark Lieberg
#179/1204
"Studying Computer Information Systems (That's Programming for you retards out there)"

[SYSTEM]

Well, internet's been a little more problematic than usual, so everyone knows what this means, right?

Anyhow, about using old guns, well, I've used old guns for effect in old stories that I've never submitted. Sometimes someone would get attached to his personal arm, and not want to trade it for newer weaponry (needless to say, she wasn't a marine.) Another one used an older MA1B (Yes, that's a one!) due to weapons shortages, because they couldn't afford newer weapons.

But, I'll leave it up to everyone else to go around.

MCC, Mark Lieberg, Mr. GotBeans, it's good to see you again.

- Dave.
_________________
SYSTEM | HBOFF Administrator | "Anytime, Baby!"

I apologize to anyone I have not offended yet. I will get to you shortly.

[MC's Cousin]

Well, I heard that there was some banter in the Posting Practice section over that weapon of yours. I'm not gonna go and join that. I don't do posting practice any more. But, I will offer what I think about it:

Initially, I would say "cool" or "neat." However; it is the kind of weapon that sounds cool, and may be cool to describe the use of in combat, but is in actuality kind of impractical.
Shotguns are shotguns and rifles are rifles. It would be hard to mix the two. Now, I could see it as a removable attachment; something that could be placed on it before a mission, in the place of a grenade launcher, for more close-range missions, but to keep versatility. Still, though, that is what having different squad members carry different weapons is all about. It is also what grabbing a different weapon before a mission is all about, also.
For instance, in the upcoming game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory I have heard that Sam can now customize his gun as A) Launcher B) Foregrip C) Shotgun and D) Sniper. You can check out Nov. '04 of OXM for more details

Also, there are actually weapons in development that have mulitple barrels. Ones that have normal barrels for AR (AP or "Shredder" rounds), and a uppper barrel for 20 mm (I think) ammo. The 20 mil would include heavy rounds such as HE. (Technically, though not all that efficient or totally feasable, you could fire a shotgun shell type of thing with this - but it would screw up the barrel.) Plus, there is a launcher that can be strapped onto the bottom for grenades and stuff.
All sorts of possibilities.

Just make sure to keep whatever you create within believable standards and abilities.
_________________
-MCC

[fallschirmjager]

As I said in the other post, MCC. Everyone carried either a BR55 or M7 SMG with a M90 shotgun if they didn't have another weapon. So by combining this I give my soldiers the ability to remove some clutter from their uniforms. And well yes the shotgun is removeable, it is just an MA5B missing the forgrip in place of a special M90 varient...
_________________
We lie beneath the stars at night, our hands gripping each other tight.

Will you keep my secrets hope to die?

[Mr. GotBeans]

Now MCC is famous for his rants. But I have heard of a rifle with a shotgun underneath it. It's called a "Masterkey" and you can check it out in the old computer game "Delta Force" I liked the drawing too, very original