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Author Topic: a story i've been working on...  (Read 2155 times)

twwolfe

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a story i've been working on...
« on: August 22, 2009, 11:09:12 pm »

So far both my parents and my writers club leader have read and liked what i have, but i'd like some 3rd party reviews. anyway, here it is

   They came into the town like a tornado. Men and women, caring for nothing but the slaughter in battle and its aftermath, reveling in the pain of those less than they. In their immortality, both perceived and real, they knew no fear, for were they not the finest the Akademy had to offer? And so they came, and so the town began to burn. They did not see the shadows the flames birthed, nor the figures that lurked within them.
   “Reavers.” One of the shadows muttered. “The order must be confident, to send them so far away with so little support.”
   “May haps the Order just didn’t want them in the more populated southern cities, wreaking their havoc and brewing the peasants into rebellion there as well.” said a second shadow, stepping forth beside the first.
   “It matters not.” The first replied. “The trap is set, and now all that is left is to close it.”
   “You don’t intend to take them all yourself again, do you Wolfe? Watching you is fine and all, but it grows so boring when the rest of us have nothing to do!”
   Wolfe smiled.
   “My dear Katt, you know I cannot resist you when you ask so nicely.” He pointed out the man who appeared to be the leader, a 7-foot giant carrying a massive halberd.
   “Leave that one to me. He looks like he might actually provide a decent fight.”
Katt practically jumped with glee. “And we get all the rest?!”
Wolfe nodded.
“Thank you so much! This is sooooo generous of you!” she threw her arms around him and kissed him, then melted back into the dark.
Wolfe sighed, and then, sweeping his cloak around him, stepped out into the street.

O.H. Bull was angry. And to those under his command, that was not a good thing.
He had been ordered by the council to ride out into the rebel lands, and cause however much chaos and havoc as he could. And yet, their search for victims had been singularly unfruitful. Every single town they had come across had been abandoned, or close enough to make no difference. This was the last day he could be out, and he needed to bring back something to show the council that he had done Something!
So when the cloaked stranger stepped into the street, he motioned to some of his underlings to go around, shouldered his halberd, and strode right up to him.
“Tell me, Human!” Bull shouted. “Tell me where have all the rest of you worthless scum gone! Answer me and I shall make you death relatively painless!”
“What makes you believe you can kill me in the first place?” Wolfe replied, his tone indicating that he felt it was a rhetorical question.
“Fool! I am One Horned Bull! The finest student the Akademy has ever produced! No man or beast can stand before me!”
Wolfe snorted in contempt. “Last I heard, reaving was still a position accorded to lowlife scum that the council wanted out of the public eye. So, you are either lying, or else you have had your think head stuffed with so much of the Order’s propaganda and boasts that you can no longer distinguish truth from fiction!” he paused, and then let out a cold laugh. “and if you truly are the finest the Akademy has to offer, then it is no wonder that the rebels have been so successful!” stretching up to his full five-and-a-half feet, he spat in Bulls face. Shocked at this humans sheer audacity, bull let out a roar.
“I will crush you, puny human scum!” he yelled at the top of his lungs.
A shot rang out, quickly followed by two more. Bull instantly checked to see if any of them had hit him, and upon finding that none had, turned back to face the human.
Just in time to see six of his soldiers topple dead from the shadows behind the stranger!
“Back when I was at the Akademy, one of the things we were taught was to never walk bunched up in groups.” Wolfe said as, with one smooth motion, he released the clasp of his cloak and let it fall to the ground. “it seems they have grown either lazy or desperate for more troops.” He looked around “judging from your quality, I’ll go with desperate.”
But Bull was not really listening. He was, instead, caught in the look of the strangers eyes. One was as blue as a deep mountain lake, while the other was the color of fresh-spilled blood. Crossing both those eyes were long scars, starting at his temples and weaving their way through his eyes, out across his cheeks, to cross back along his throat and continue down beneath his shirt. Occasionally, a gust of wind would blow the strangers snow-white hair across his eyes, eyes that, for him, held nothing but contempt! Bull felt a small quavering deep inside of himself, and after a moment, he identified it as what his teachers had called fear. For this was most certainly no human he faced, he now realized. No, that hair and those scars could only belong to another regenerator, and only one of the highest fighting calibers at that! He realized he could take no chances with this one. Still facing the stranger, he motioned to his troops.
“kill him” he said to them.
There was a loud “Phwoooosh!” a burst of light, and a great blast of heat at his back. When he turned around, half of his troops were engulfed in flames, and the other half were far to busy fighting for their lives to assist him.

Far away to the south, a machine began pulling up a sheet of information
---Subject found---
---performing identity check…
---Identity confirmed---
---Subject Name: The White Wolfe, AKA the Angel of Death---
---kill count…
Human: 60 Million confirmed kills, both direct and indirect
Regenerator: Twenty Thousand?
---Subject stats---
Height: 5’6
Weight: 160 lb.
Hair: white
Eyes: 1 red, 1 blue. Possesses infravision

---Pulling Nanotech Data…
Nanotech classification Alpha-Omega, Armageddon class
Nanotech stats:
Strength: Very High
Speed: Very High
Healing: Very High
Body Augmentations:
Explodium Hand tattoos
Subject weapons prefs is unknown, but is highly trained with all forms of combat. Subject is highly dangerous to all personnel. Avoid at all costs


Meanwhile, back at the town…
 “Aw, what’s the matter Bull? Losing your nerve and bluster?”
Bull spun around, fear now clearly etched upon his features.
“Well, then, allow me to introduce myself, that I might send you to your grave with my name on your lips.” Two long daggers appeared in Wolfe’s hands, and he spoke as he moved into a fighting stance.
“I am The White Wolfe, once called the Angel of Death, the Finest Killer the Akademy has ever produced, and the Best it ever will. I was a legend when you were still a mewling babe, suckling at the teat of the whore that sired you. I am one of the most powerful Regenerators ever to walk the face of this decrepit earth. To compare yourself to me is akin to comparing a supernova to a lit match. Millions have died at my hand, human and regenerator alike. ” and he lunged forward.
Bull swung his  halberd sweeping across in front of him, more confident now that he had seen T.W.’s weapons. As long as he could keep him at reach, he thought he could win this fight.
But T.W. was no longer in front of him. Guessing, he swung out behind him, and heard the satisfying sound of his blade biting deep into flesh. But when he looked around, he saw that it had been one of his own troops! Hearing that cold laughter again he looked up to the roof of a nearby building. There was T.W. with a smug little smirk plastered on his face.
“Another thing I was taught,” T.W. said, as he jumped down the fifteen feet to the ground and sent his daggers in a series of measured stabs. “Was to always know where our allies and enemies are!”
Bull worked desperately to keep those daggers away from him, but he now realized just how ineffective the halberd truly was in close quarters combat. As first one blade, and then another got through, he began looking for a way to escape.
“and the third thing they taught us” T.W. said, as he moved, “was to always collect reliable intelligence before venturing into a battle in hostile territory!” and with that, he became a blur. Bull jabbed his halberd forward desperately, and was surprised to hear it connect. Not taking any chances, he charged forward into a wall, leaving Wolfe impaled there.
“Now so smug now, are you, puppy?” he said Wolfe just smiled, raised his hand, and punched the halberds haft.
There was a small explosion, and when the smoke cleared, he was left holding a metal-coated staff. And he realized just how powerful Wolfe was.
The explosive punch had reduced Wolfe’s hand and lower arm to little more than a mangled stump of torn flesh and shards of bone. Yet barely 15 seconds later, it was already completely reformed. Wolfe pushed against the wall, and with a wet squelching sound, he shoved himself of the blade, his body reforming itself as he did, leaving the odd picture of a ragged hole in his clothes against pristine undamaged flesh. He raised one hand, and pointed to a series of wavering black lines threading themselves between his fingers, and along the back of his hand.
“Regenerating explodium tattoos. Very good for fistfights and such.” And he lunged at Bull hands raised. One punch was all he needed.
It hit Bull like a freight train, and he was lifted of his feet and flung backwards into a wall. He felt an odd sensation as his spine shattered, he lost sensation and feeling in his limbs, and slumbed to the ground with a dull thud. He could only watch in terror as Wolfe seemed to gather up a handful of the still raging fire, and strode up to him, bringing a now-flaming fist back for a punch.
“You might as well be a human for all the fight you put up.” Wolfe sighed “and I was so hoping for a decent exercise.” He shrugged “ah well, if the world ran according to my whims, it would be boring” and he drove his fist into Bull’s skull. It didn’t give way so much as disappear beneath the sheer power of fist and flame alike, leaving nothing behind but ash.
“You seem to have gotten rusty, brother.”
The voice came from above him. In it were carried promises of hidden pleasures beyond his dreams, whispers of forbidden fruit and carnal pleasures that might once again be his. Were he not so familiar with the speaker, he might even have been taken in by the promises within the words.
If he ignored those, then the voice spelled annoyance and trouble. Family reunions were never fun, and the cleanup was such a bother. He turned and looked up at the speaker.
“Although that trick with the fire was definitely new. Jennisa must have perfected control of her flames, since you seem to lack the aroma of burned flesh that used to result from your other tries on that with her. But it was very sloppy, I must say. Not to mention that it was sheer overkill at that point.”
She would have been beautiful in any time. She had long black hair that was caught and played with as the wind flowed through the burning buildings. Her skin was, like his, criss-crossed with a multitude of scars, though hers were less prominent due to her lower kill count. Her eyes, unlike his, were both crystal blue, depriving her of infravision but giving her face a symmetry that his lacked. Both were dressed in light, flowing garments that provided nothing in the way of armor, instead relying on speed and skill to avoid harm.
“It’s not my fault I’m rusty, dear sister. I can’t really practice that much when all I have to fight these days is the occasional grunt and human mobs. And Raven, you’re forgetting rule number 43: There…”
“is no overkill, there is only “Open Fire” and “I have to reload” I know, I know, I have the same problem.”
“Lack of practice, or excessive use of overkill?”
“Both. No one has the skills to match either of us except the Beasts, and they don’t spar with the lower ranks anymore. I blame you for that.”
“You blame me for everything. What makes you think this is my fault?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” then she snapped her fingers “oh wait, I do! You nuked the entire East coast region, killing around half a dozen of them, plus a couple thousand of their lesser soldiers. Now they’ve holed up in a bunker Hell only knows where. So I say that yes, it is indeed safe to blame you for this.”
“Touché” he replied with a grin. “So it’s a sparring match you want then? Or maybe something more? Something more ‘Personal’ perhaps?”
Raven replied with a laugh. “I would call that more of an additional benefit than a driving reason.”





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Little

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2009, 11:43:21 pm »

I hate to sound harsh, but I think it needs some work. You main character seems like a Mary Sue and the story overall seems quite overdone.
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twwolfe

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2009, 01:03:15 am »

can you tell me what seems overdone, so i can work on it?

and i know he comes off as sueish right now. that illusion gets broken later on
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sonerohi

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #3 on: August 23, 2009, 09:07:51 am »

The part with the machine pulling up the stats on him seems.. kinda pointless.
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Chutney

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #4 on: August 23, 2009, 02:11:34 pm »

60 million kills...  incredible...
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twwolfe

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #5 on: August 23, 2009, 02:45:39 pm »

60 million kills...  incredible...

yeah, he kinda set of nukes in every major city along the east coast. he was trying to kill 10 of the High ups in the Order.

he got 5 of them

basicly this takes place in the year 3147. Wolf is a regenerator, a nanotech engineered human. the Regens were first created in the yearv 2314 as high class bodyguards, since thier healing meant they could take far more punishment then any human. 

100 years later, they took over, and humans were screwed. at this time, they are a race of vicious, brutal killers, who kill, rape and torture humans for thier own amusement. they also use them as lab rats for new drugs, such as the anthromorph nano's which turn them into animals, or the Regen-virus, which does very bad things to your cells.

basically, if you're a human in this time, your life will suck.

oh, and wolfe and his comrades differ very little from the rest of the regens, except for the fact that they are slightly less brutal(they only torture and kill), and find that humans do have uses as cannon fodder, and zerg rushing.

as to the names, every regenerater name is a color or descriptive word, followed by an object, with the lettering sometimes slightly changed;
The White Wolfe
The Black Katt
The Rabid Hound
« Last Edit: August 23, 2009, 03:43:20 pm by twwolfe »
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bjlong

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2009, 01:31:53 am »

I'll be brutally honest--the plot is mediocre, the characterizations are practically nonexistant, the prose is far too purple or far too disorganized, or both. The story seems to be an exposition vehicle--you really want to tell us about this world you created, but while doing so, you forget that we're really reading for the story. You should really try to take things down to a scene-level, and better yourself there.

And, as a final note, either give a sweeping overview of something (A tornado had come to the south, and its name was Bull. Before it, people fled or were consumed.) Or paint a scene. (Bull smashed his foot into the pavement of the town, smashed it in and drew himself foreward. His soldiers kept up, but he paid them no heed--he needed them only to herd the humans towards him.) Don't try to do both, like in your first blurb.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2009, 01:34:11 am by bjlong »
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twwolfe

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2009, 09:31:19 pm »

I'll be brutally honest--the plot is mediocre, the characterizations are practically nonexistant, the prose is far too purple or far too disorganized, or both. The story seems to be an exposition vehicle--you really want to tell us about this world you created, but while doing so, you forget that we're really reading for the story. You should really try to take things down to a scene-level, and better yourself there.



yeah, i do better at writing histories than individual stories.

thanks for the help all of you.

Can you tell me what parts(if any) you liked in it?
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bjlong

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #8 on: August 25, 2009, 08:46:40 am »

Not very many, at all. The only thing that sticks out is the use of explosive punches--but it seems like that would require quite a lot to recover from (In terms of sheer mass and energy required to rebuild the arms) and would only really work in hand to hand fighting. Which is a pretty big weakness--we build weapons for a reason.
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sonerohi

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #9 on: August 25, 2009, 11:09:38 pm »

Also, you may want to reconsider naming conventions. Using generic Bob [noun][verb] as a style can work for a couple names, but if it's the same for everyone, it will seem very uninspired.
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Fishersalwaysdie

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #10 on: August 26, 2009, 09:51:18 pm »

Too verbose.
Usual " Man, can't wait to kill heaps of bad guys" attitude that plagues all mary sue written by people who don't take killing seriously.
Main character is annoying, everything he says is  clever in tone. Not so in content.
Classical mary sue multicoloured eyes, also white hair and scars.
All too much anime, horribly unsubtle image the character has. How about giving his appearance some traits that can actually use the potential of the prose, instead of our classical anime character with no facial characteristics?
"Phwoooosh"
What was the use of the machine printing us his character sheet? How is this important to us? Sounds also like something taken from an anime.
"Akademy"
"T.W."
"Rule 43" more like rule 34 amirite? Mang, referencing Internet culture is clever, yo.

It's your classical anime imitation, just find someone who can draw and make it into a webcomic. Reading it is painful, putting images of big eyed characters across it would label it so that people thirsty of mary sues ( and they never quench the thirst somehow) find it more easily, and the rest of us avoid it more successfully.
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twwolfe

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #11 on: August 26, 2009, 11:21:46 pm »


"Rule 43" more like rule 34 amirite? Mang, referencing Internet culture is clever, yo.




But I was referencing Shlock Mercenary's "seven habits of Highly effective pirates" :-[

Too verbose.
Usual " Man, can't wait to kill heaps of bad guys" attitude that plagues all mary sue written by people who don't take killing seriously.
Main character is annoying, everything he says is  clever in tone. Not so in content.
Classical mary sue multicoloured eyes, also white hair and scars.
All too much anime, horribly unsubtle image the character has. How about giving his appearance some traits that can actually use the potential of the prose, instead of our classical anime character with no facial characteristics?



man, i suck :'(

i took a character that got a 10 on the mary sue litmus test

http://www.springhole.net/quizzes/marysue.htm#Part4

which meant he could have a little more sueishness with safety

and apparently added way to much :'(
« Last Edit: August 26, 2009, 11:26:16 pm by twwolfe »
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Jackrabbit

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #12 on: August 27, 2009, 05:53:36 am »


man, i suck :'(


I'll admit I didn't read it, but don't sell yourself short. This piece is apparently pretty bad, but that doesn't mean you can't improve.
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Fishersalwaysdie

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #13 on: August 27, 2009, 08:42:41 am »

man, i suck :'(
At least this is your first work, it's not like you were doing it for ten years never realizing the problem. (*cough* webcomics*cough*)
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IndonesiaWarMinister

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Re: a story i've been working on...
« Reply #14 on: August 27, 2009, 09:29:58 am »

man, i suck :'(
At least this is your first work, it's not like you were doing it for ten years never realizing the problem. (*cough* webcomics*cough*)
Wait, Fishers, does not flame-baiting?

Ü_╞
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