[Rampage]

Bleh...

PREFACE
   From invasion to adaptation to loss to the death of Captain Keron Wolfgang Huntzmann, the autobiography of Captain Huntzmann, Nothing to Lose, captivated readers for many years throughout the systems governed by the GTVA.  The text has been translated into most of the dialects used by Vasudans.  A popular book for any person with a dream and a mind full of heartfelt vengeance, it showed how a citizen of Meridian, Alpha Centauri – 4 with whose youth was destroyed by Neo-Terran invaders and whose adulthood was filled with a will of vengeance.  It tells a strong story of a young pilot who lost everything and still had “Nothing to Lose”.

CHAPTER I
I lost my mother when I was very young.  I can hardly remember a speck of a detail of her.  I was raised by my father in the Federal District of Meridian, a grand city governed directly by the GTVA in Alpha Centauri –4.  My father, Gilbert Amadeus Huntzmann, never had a stable vocation.  He was quite fond of the drink, and seeing him sober is of a rare occasion.
   The GTVA, through my naïve judgement at the time, never had a direct control over Alpha Centauri – 4.  The recent Ska’al Jet Massacre, now just a myth amongst my fellow wingmen and fighter jocks, where more than 2000 Vasudans were gunned down by federal troops for a flamed-up, non-violent demonstration.  The GTVA responded by sending a telecam message, which mentioned “to quell the uprising by non-violent means” was received by the provincial authorities two standard hours after the massacre.
   Nothing major happened, aside from the Ska’al Jet Massacre, in Alpha Centauri – 4 during my elementary school years.  The recent conflicts between the GTVA and the “Great Admiral” were just a myth kept to telescreens and VR broadcasts.  News of [the Great Admiral]’s conquests from Regulus to Sirius to Epsilon Pegasi greatly interested me.  But again according to my fifth grade teacher Mr. Jon Elson, Regulus, Sirius, and Epsilon Pegasi were just individual star systems.
   I previously never had a speck of an idea that these conflicts would affect me personally.  I could still remember that afternoon where the stillness was broken only by the joy of schoolchildren who walked home after their last day of school and the first day of vacation.  A constant drone suddenly broke the laughter different from that of a shuttlecraft.  It was a cacophonous noise that I never had heard before.  The noise got louder and soon became unbearable.  Suddenly out of nowhere, five military fighters in delta formation whizzed over my head.  The heat from their engines soon pressured upon my tanned body.  Neighbors came out from closed doors to look at the fighter parade.  As I walked closer and closer to my home, the louder the engine drones became.  Something in my sense told me that this is not a normal military parade that most citizens of Meridian had seen before at Cape Hope down at the bay.  There was something “dark” about the commotion, something perplexing.  I finally arrived at my domicile at 27:15 GTVA standard time.  I tried my best to relax and forget the unforgettable commotion when my father suddenly burst through the door screaming “I GOT THE JOB!”  I knew immediately that he had received the plum of shuttlecraft pilot, which he mentioned unceasingly for the past two weeks.  I tasted Vasudan Ale for the first time in my life amidst the commotion.

[Rampage]

Come on... Some comments please.

[Stryke 9]

Homeworld-FreeSpace crossover? No? What the hell's a Skaal-Jet?

...Hmmm... This is a really, really bad format for reading long things in. I could print it out, but I ran out of black ink with those two enlargements...

...Wh-wh-wh-wh-eh? Too many numbers, too many names, particularly for one in the morning.

[Rampage]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Homeworld-FreeSpace crossover? No? What the hell's a Skaal-Jet?

I ran out of good names. (Ska'al Fa + Q'waar Jet = Ska'al Jet)  And plus, they DO sound Vasudan.

This version of chapter one is just a rough draft for people over HLP to criticize.  (I learn my faults through criticism.)  If you don't like Ska'al Jet, I'll think of something else.

[WMCoolmon]

All the changes below are completely optional. Most of the changes I suggested are to help the story flow better, but it does get all the major points across. Well, except for the Vasudan Ale sentence

it showed how a citizen of Meridian, Alpha Centauri – 4 with whose youth was destroyed by Neo-Terran invaders and whose adulthood was filled with a will of vengeance.

The book exists today (it is, after all, what this is being read out of), so 'showed' should be 'shows'. 'Alpha Centauri - 4' should probably be changed to "Alpha Centauri 4", and a comma should be added after it. Change 'with whose' to just "whose". 'will of vengeance' pales in comparison with 'hearfelt vengeance'; something stronger should be used, perhaps the "fire of vengeance"?

I lost my mother when I was very young. I can hardly remember a speck of a detail of her. I was raised by my father in the Federal District of Meridian, a grand city governed directly by the GTVA in Alpha Centauri –4.

Thisd is a bit repetitious. Maybe write it like "Having lost my mother when I was very long, I can barely remember a speck of detail about her."
Also, you might want to introduce a nickname for Alpha Centauri -4 to add a bit of character to it )

But again according to my fifth grade teacher Mr. Jon Elson...

Should read "But then again, according to my fifth grade teacher Mr.Jon Elson..." 'But again' doesn't make sense.

I previously never had a speck of an idea that these conflicts would affect me personally. I could still remember that afternoon where the stillness was broken only by the joy of schoolchildren who walked home after their last day of school and the first day of vacation. A constant drone suddenly broke the laughter different from that of a shuttlecraft.

That last sentence just doesn't work, as it contradicts itself (The stillness was broken only by schoolchildren. Then the constant drone from a fighter broke it?). It also jumps from remembering in the present to back to storytelling in the past. The use of 'constant' and 'sudden' to describe the drone also contradicts itself. I'm not certain how this could be rewritten, perhaps:
"I can still remember that afternoon. I and my friends were walking home, the stillness broken only by the joy of schoolchildren after their last day of school and the first day of vacation.
Then, suddenly, the sound of an artificial droning-similar, yet strangely different from that of a shuttlecraft- broke through the innocent laughter of I and my friends."

It was a cacophonous noise that I never had heard before. The noise got louder and soon became unbearable. Suddenly out of nowhere, five military fighters in delta formation whizzed over my head. The heat from their engines soon pressured upon my tanned body.

The use of 'suddenly' is redundant, 'Out of nowhere' by itself would be better. The last sentence should probably replace 'pressed' for 'pressured', since I don't think 'pressured' is a word.
This should also end the paragraph started above.

Neighbors came out from closed doors to look at the fighter parade. As I walked closer and closer to my home, the louder the engine drones became. Something in my sense told me that this is not a normal military parade that most citizens of Meridian had seen before at Cape Hope down at the bay. There was something “dark” about the commotion, something perplexing.

The second sentence should read something like 'The closer I walked to my home, the louder...". Also, sentence three should replace 'is' with 'was'-it's in past tense. It looks like it's too long, too-add a comma after 'parade' while replacing 'that' with 'like'.

I finally arrived at my domicile at 27:15 GTVA standard time. I tried my best to relax and forget the unforgettable commotion when my father suddenly burst through the door screaming “I GOT THE JOB!” I knew immediately that he had received the plum of shuttlecraft pilot, which he mentioned unceasingly for the past two weeks.

A comma after '27:15' might make it sound better. Add a "had" in "...which he had mentioned..."

I tasted Vasudan Ale for the first time in my life amidst the commotion.

This seems a bit random. Was there a party? Did you always want to try Vasudan Ale, and were able to sneak away with some while everyone was congratulating your father? If it's the former, (Which I think it is) change commotion to celebration.

[Stryke 9]

[breaks out the red pens and white-out]

[Rampage]

Originally posted by WMCoolmon
Criticism

I will consider all of the suggestions.  About the Vasudan Ale, his father was a heavy drinker, as mentioned above.  They are obviously celebrating his father's new job amidst the people outside looking at the fighters in wonder.

NOTE:  I wrote this at 11:00 at night.

For generations, my family members were all MPCs (Math, Physics, and Chemistry People) and had absolutely no knowledge whatsoever about art.  So this is actually my first shot at writing something - nice.

MORE CRITICISM!  I LEARN FROM CRITICISM!

[Stryke 9]

Mostly, I think the problems you seem to be encountering are stylistic ones. You aren't sure what you're doing, so your writing is kinda confused when it's not encyclopedic. Only way to fix that is to read a ****load of the sort of book you want yours to be like. And don't pretend to yourself that you want it to be completely different from any other book- find authors you like, and read their stuff. You'll pick up on some techniques unconsciously (and rather quickly, with practice).

[Rampage]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Mostly, I think the problems you seem to be encountering are stylistic ones. You aren't sure what you're doing, so your writing is kinda confused when it's not encyclopedic. Only way to fix that is to read a ****load of the sort of book you want yours to be like. And don't pretend to yourself that you want it to be completely different from any other book- find authors you like, and read their stuff. You'll pick up on some techniques unconsciously (and rather quickly, with practice).

Math, physics, and chemistry (MPC) are my forté.  I'm like - new to writing stuff.  So therefore this is like my practice run.  After reading several books (I usually read science magazines and the news articles my church sends me about the friction between Christianity and the government today.  When it comes to novels and short stories, I prefer science fiction over anything else.)

School starts in less than a month.  And when school starts, I gotta teach US History that former high school Freshman class I dislike.

This just occured to me:  If my ancestors and I are [basically] all MPCs, then WHY AM I A HISTORY TEACHER????  I should REALLY teach math or science.

[Stryke 9]

Has exactly **** to do with heredity, unless you were raised as a math person. My parents are a sculptor and a programmer, and I can't do a line of code or turn a hunk of wood into something interesting. But I CAN write. A lot. And, according to others, well (I disagree, most of the time). I also have an unholy amount of familiarity with computers, but that's probably because I grew up around them, not directly because of the programmer thing.

Read FICTION. It's completely different. It's no wonder your stuff is like an encyclopedia, if almost all you read is science literature. If those guys knew how to write, they would have followed the infinitely less profitable field of liberal arts. If you don't like the genre you're writing in enough to read the stuff fairly regularly, than you don't like it enough to write it, and if I were you I'd take a good look at your motivations for writing it. We could revamp this whole thing for you, probably, stylize it and make it quite readable for a few dozen pages, but it would still suck. Because it wouldn't be yours, it wouldn't be ours, and it would be a work designed by committee. So ask us to fix grammar mistakes, spell-check, look for logic holes, etc. Don't churn out a piece you aren't really interested in and ask us to tell you how to write.

[Rampage]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
Has exactly **** to do with heredity, unless you were raised as a math person.

So ask us to fix grammar mistakes, spell-check, look for logic holes, etc. Don't churn out a piece you aren't really interested in and ask us to tell you how to write.

Hmm... My father majored in computer science and my mother in engineering.  They are both math and science wizards.  For many generations my family was centered around the logical realm.  We never even TOUCHED the realm of the arts.

I can clearly remember when I was young my mother would push my younger brother to play the piano.  I liked science magazines and science news articles when I was young.

I received poor marks for writing.  That kept my high school GPA from being almost perfect.  I am determined to cut the trend of being a MPC and enter the realm of the arts.  Maybe I couldn't completely assimilate it, but my posterity can.  And they will.

I do not ask for fame from my first draft of a fiction.  What I do want is to learn the art of writing.  I know it's beautiful but I still can't perceive its beauty.  I want the members of HLP to give me as many criticisms as they can.  Again, we learn from our mistakes.  I am on a quest for near-perfection in the realm of the arts.  This quest will affect my posterity in a way I can never imagine.

In conclusion, I ask for your help on the style of my works.  Grammar and spelling I can do, but style I need to learn from the many talented writers here at HLP.

"With the birth of the artist came the inevitable afterbirth of - the critic."
- History of the World Part I

[Stryke 9]

Style you can't learn from anyone telling you. Even if there was an adequate way to tell you how to style your piece ("Use lots of metaphors, and put hyphens between all compound words, as in: 'ass-plunger'), you'd be mimicking someone else's style. Which, first of all, is a writer's sole claim to anything in the field of writing, and, second of all, which you'd suck at emulating. "Style" isn't something solid like grammar. It's something you make up for yourself as you go along, little idiosyncracies like misspelling certain words or spelling out odd accents distinctly. It's the closest thing to a soul on paper, and there's no way to learn that by instruction. So I'm telling you how to learn to improve your style. Read. Write. In particular, read. Those books you see on your local library shelves are by PROFESSIONALS, people who do this their whole LIVES. And, a good deal of the time, they're fantastically good. So why are you sitting here complaining because an amateur hack who's hardly even been published, much less paid, isn't going to teach you half of what you can learn from reading? You're complaining that you can't see the beauty of literature when you don't read? Tell the man who hasn't opened his eyes his whole life about colors; tell the man with rubber plugs in his ears about the sound of a car passing by.

Like I said, you either like your genre, or you don't. If you're really all that opposed to reading the much better sci-fi you have open access to, maybe you're better off writing science articles, anyhow. Simple choice. Nobody's gonna do it for you, 'cos there's no need.

Come back when you've decided that this is what you want to do. I think I can speak for much of the forum when I say we'll be happy to pick at your work, when you've actually gone and made the slight effort learning to write entails. Or, stick to math, if that's what you decide you really want. This modern world needs no end of mathematically-oriented sorts.

[Rampage]

What you say, unlike mathematics or science, cannot be accomplished within several months.  It takes YEARS to become an adequate writer.  You were right when you said that those people whose books are stacked at the library wrote books their entire lives.

I'm 37 and have teenage children.  I'm just starting.  My father once told me that writing at first takes emulation.  One who wants to write must at first take style from someone else and then make up his own style when he's well acquainted with writing the specific topic he's used to write.

I'll keeping writing at my own pace and at my own level.  But maybe I should just do what I'm BEST at:

Sine, Cosine, Cosine, Sine.  3.14159  :wink: (Say the phrase out loud in English. )

[Stryke 9]

You're right. It takes years. Better get started, 'cos if you think having someone else rewrite your stuff for you is a fast way to learn, you're dead wrong.

And if you want us to essentially write your stuff FOR you, I think this ties back into HLP's work story on modding: Everyone who can do it can do their own stuff, and is much more interested in doing their own stuff than doing it for someone else. It takes a long time to master modeling, too (took me three years to get where I am, and I'm still not that hot), and a lot of effort. Having someone take  a noob's first few attempts and turret, texture, and detail them does the newbie no good, and doesn't exactly motivate anyone to learn how to, either.

[LtNarol]

my family:

-mother: realestate agent, book worm in Chinese almost illiterate in english.

-father: computer nerd who is a few years behind the times

-step father: the only one who's remotely cool, he's an amateur programmer and builds radios too...quite the book worm as a kid.

then theres me...I'm a failure at school trapped in all the smart kid classes who spends his spare time either writing or modding.  Not like anyone in the family, they see writing sci-fi as a waste of time; i do it anyway.  So heres my point: be a rebel, do what they didnt do, be different if you want, yet learn from them and others; particularly the mistakes

[Rampage]

Originally posted by LtNarol
my family:

-mother: realestate agent, book worm in Chinese almost illiterate in english.

I see...  I like Chinese songs...  Chinese propaganda songs!

The one I like is "Kang Hai Hang Shin Kao Gou Shou"