Subject: Well...
Author:
Posted on: 2010-10-12 02:37:00 UTC
Not my real name, friend. Pseudonym. It's also only my second plug. I can't participate as often as I'd like to, but I guess I wouldn't be much of a regular poster anyways.
Hello, I'm here to shamelessly plug a videogame fanfic I'm co-writing with a friend. I believe it is a very good one, but of course I'm biased. it's called the Zero City Saga, look it up on fanfiction.net or jiust follow the link. (beware our profile; I haven't written my half of the description yet.)http://www.fanfiction.net/u/2522873/ZC_Founders
It's rather painfully obvious that while you spell-checked the thing, you blindly hit "replace all" rather than making sure the word made sense - even just the first chapter is full of homonym fun. Technical errors abound - sentence fragments, misuse of punctuation, just straight-up bad wording and so on all call your fic home.
On a more systemic level, this story has no storyline to speak of. It seems a random compilation of events only connected by the fact that they appear one after another on a page, much like a line of traffic that's gotten impact-welded together through the process of getting rear-ended by a Saturn V. Say what you like about post-structuralism, I'm a post-post-structuralist, and will continue to complain about it. There is no pacing, no breaks larger than your sentence/paragraph breaks, and nothing whatsoever to make it anything other than a torrent of liquid blah - certainly a nicer torrent than if it had no paragraph breaks, but only marginally so.
Your characterizations are just plain wrong at multiple levels. On the factual, Gordon Freeman is a physicist, not an artificial intelligence researcher. There are miles of difference between the two. Cortana... I'm not going to touch that one with a ten foot pole. "Darryl" screams "self-insert".
Also, what do you have against Yahtzee? Was he hard on a game you liked? Are you just mad that people want to watch him riff on stuff?
There's a rule that applies in almost any storytelling medium: Show, don't tell. Stories flow much better when readers are allowed to experience what happens, rather than being told that "The AI's next energy projectile wiped out the wall to the right of the Brit".
Your chapter lengths are all over the place. Each chapter should be about the same length and advance the story about the same amount - and hopefully be long enough to fill more than one screenful of most monitors.
Speaking of high-level stuff, your in-line authors notes are jarring and distracting. Your condescending tone and cute names for readers are entirely unnecessary and make me even less interested in continuing to read. I have good books I could be reading - Gibson's Difference Engine, Stephhenson's Diamond Age, Doctorow's For The Win - and they all contain a far better story without the stupid attitude.
And finally, there's something you might want to look into called "tone". Subtle variations in word choice, sentence structure, and careful use of metaphor can give a reader an impression of the character of a work. For example, in the paragraph where I talked about storylines, post-structuralism, and Saturn V rockets, I relied on elaborate, highly visual metaphors to invoke Yahtzee's reviewing style. Your work reminds me of nothing more than that which my little brother was writing when he was about ten years old. Suffice to say, this is not a favorable comparison.
Actually, I'm a huge fan of Yahtzee. Needless to say, it's been somewhat difficult to capture his trademark style. Those author notes... this is embarassing. Those were to my co-author. I meant to delete them, but apparently I've missed quite a few. As for plot structure... you definitley aren't the sort of person into anthologies or related shor stories, but I guess that's a matter of preference. When ZC is complete, I'm sure many (including myself) will look upon the first chapters as intersting--if amateurish--beginning steps.
Nice try, sherlock, but a well-written short story is a rather good thing. I've got a pair of big sci-fi anthologies on my shelf and would love to add a third.
The point is, short stories don't free you from structure, they make it even harder to write. Structures that you would normally be free to spend chapters creating have to be constructed in paragraphs, without interrupting the flow of the story. It's very difficult to do well, and I am quite appreciative of the works of the real masters in the field.
Good point; the central premise of the fic is the lives and adventures of the characters in Zero City. There will be major story arcs in the future. Maybe I wasn't too clear.
Since I likely won't have time to fix it, the 1st chapter homonym extravaganza will remain. I regret nothing... except THAT chapter. I think you know which one.
Okay, a few things.
1) It's not smart or safe to use your full name online around random strangers. While everyone here is nice (and are hopefully not of the criminal element), it's not the same for everywhere else. Your parents, if anything, would probably not be very pleased to find out you're leaving personal information all over the wild internet for people to find.
2) Repeated plugging is rude, and annoying. Esp. if you are not a regular participant on the board.
But more 1 than 2, really.