Subject: ESL writers do better with beta readers.
Author:
Posted on: 2010-07-01 22:31:00 UTC
I don't know the canon your agents come from, so I can't comment on that; but there are lots of people here willing to beta-read spinoffs.
You do a great deal better in English than I do in German, and what you have can be easily fixed.
Rookie PPC member Sergio Turbo requesting permission, sir!
Agents:
Name: Sergio Turbo
Species: Human
Home Continuum: N/A
Department: Department of Floaters
Background: Sergio is an alter ego/clone of a genetically-engineered Author Avatar character. He was somehow spawn when the authors decided to remake the fanfiction from the beginning, but when the plan was abandoned he was left without an homeworld. He joined the PPC, and took care of Corolla after finding her.
Personality: Despite trying to keep a serious and controlled behaviour he ends up wall-banging and using excessive force when the fiction to spork is awful or when his partner has strange ideas... which means all the time.
Skills: He is able to speak English and Italian, and is able to use a wide range of guns. He is also rumored to be very good at driving, but also quite reckless. It means that nobody actually would ask him a ride. His skills are, however, inferior of original Sergio Turbo's ones, that had some Suvian-like abilities.
Weapons: Despite collecting all sorts of guns and weapons previously owned by Sues or bit characters he relies on his Beretta 92FS and a combat knife. Sometimes uses a Random Sue Execution Gun, but also states it's absolutely unreliable.
Appearance: Nearly 6 foot tall and quite thin, has brown eyes and brown hair.
Name: Corolla
Species: Unison Device
Home Continuum: Nanohaverse (Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha)
Department: Department of Floaters
Background: Somehow collected by Sergio Turbo on a mission, she was found with severe wounds that required a long stay at Medical. Since she was not a canon character, but also not a canon-disrupting one, she was allowed to join the PPC and became Sergio's partner.
Personality: Childish and very close to being crazy, she's hyperactive and has a strong will to eat Sue meat and blood, depite Sergio's disapproval.
Skills: Due to her wounds she lost a lot of her magical abilities, such as Unison with a Nanohaverse mage, but the "repairs" made her capable of scanning characters and opening portals without proper devices. Corolla's leftover magical skills allow her to successfully bind and exorcize Author-Wraiths with ease, but are useless to play any offensive role. She was enough lucky to being able to fly again, or her doll-sized body would have been an obstacle to her careeer.
Weapons: None, but she borrows Sergio's knife very often.
Appearance: She has blue eyes and brown hair. Due to her nature, she is only six inches tall, and the wings of magic energy that uses when she needs better flying capability make others misrecognize her as a fairy.
Writing sample:http://rc1587.splinder.com/post/22951812/beginnings-write-sample
(I gave to my blog the RC number I am going to request if I get permission)
First badfic: http://www.scrignodeisogni.it/IM-FA/sarachan.htm WARNING: Background color of the page is something very close to Urple. Painful. And it is written in Italian, so open only if you really want to.
Here, a Sue puts the whole canon in background. The plot is basically the love story between a Sue and a Stu, while canon characters of Card captor Sakura do absolutely nothing interesting and Card Captor Sakura's true plot is nearly forgotten. Use of Japanese honorifics in Italian language, some bad-written phrases, plotholes, and the whole plot is clearly nonsense. And it is the tip of the iceberg.
Two things:
1. Keep working on this weird English language. Mostly you're doing pretty well, but there are a few issues of tense and number agreement--for example:
-- You wanted "Writing Sample," not "Write Sample."
-- "He was somehow spawn" should be "He was somehow spawned."
-- The sentence "It was supposed that everybody here were dead" should be "It was supposed that everybody here was dead," because "everybody" is a collective, which means you treat it as a singular noun. Also, although "were" is sometimes used instead of "was" in hypothetical situations, this isn't hypothetical; it's a statement of what was truly believed by someone.
... I hope that's not too much information to be helpful. ^_^;
Anyway:
2. Please please please use quotation marks for dialogue. I don't know if hyphens are standard in Italian, but they are not standard in English. If someone did that in a fic I was PPCing, it would be a charge. Unless you're James Joyce, you use quotation marks.
Also, do bear in mind that Corolla will be in disguise unless the agents are on a mission to her home continuum. I can't think of any others that would allow a fairy doll thing to go unremarked. Also, is the flesh-eating usual for her kind?
Finally, I'd be interested in what other people have to say before actually granting Permission; maybe someone who knows the Nanoha continuum?
~Neshomeh
I'm still working a bit on the language, Italian has a grammar basis completely different from English, as the use of hyphens in direct dialogue. I didn't knew that hyphens were not accepted in English, and that's quite a surprise, I've got good marks in English (an average 8, that means 80 points out of 100).
Thank you very much, I cannot go sporking if I keep doing those nasty mistakes.
The "fairy thing" is something that would actually happen in HQ, as Corolla would disguise herself as an human (except for the Nanohaverse, as Unison Devices are from that continuum). In fact, Unison Devices are able to change form an "grow" to a child-size one, but this is not widely shown in the Nanohaverse (in fact, only in some official arts), and it can be related to the master's mana (and Corolla doesn't have a master). Not sure about that, informations are very scarce. The only thing I'm really sure it's right is the car-based name, common in the Nanohaverse
Unison Devices actually eat the same things as normal humans do (more or less the ame amount of food that a little child is able to eat), but Corolla's taste for Sue meat is something based of Stu of the day, Sue Souffle and Water served in the cafeteria, and exaggerated for the Rule of Funny. However, she usually eats cooked sue meat, and almost always she instead handles the corpse to the Cafeteria. Considered that Corolla is nearly ax-crazy, I thought it was reasonable. But I can tone it down, if needed.
I don't know the canon your agents come from, so I can't comment on that; but there are lots of people here willing to beta-read spinoffs.
You do a great deal better in English than I do in German, and what you have can be easily fixed.
Being bilingual myself, I know how hard it is to write in my non-native language. All the kudos in the world to you for going for it! My email's thirteenskater@gmail.com, if you're interested, though I would ask you to send me a note via the wiki when you have missions up, since I'm awful about checking my email.
Congratulations on getting permission and may you spork much badfic in the future!
--anamia
Er... As I understood, I didn't get permission yet, since Neshomeh was waiting for other PG's opinions. However, I should be close.
Serves me right for not rereading the thread before I commented. -sigh-
--anamia
Go on, then. Permission granted. Use it well. {= )
~Neshomeh