FanFic: The Difference Between Light and Dark Good and Bad,

[White_Knight]

It was a dreary rainy night on Pioneer 2 as Yami and Kori walked home from their romantic dinner out. Kase was taking care of Black Mage, the little brother to Yami's late ex-girlfriend, so the two had a chance to be alone for a romantic evening out. Kori held her Madams Umbrella up while Yami held her closely as they walked home, Kori had thought to bring the Umbrella after hearing the report of a scheduled shower that night. They were about two blocks from Yami's apartment when a girl in a white night gown, bare feet, blond hair and amber eyes came dashing out of the alley in front of them.

"Excuse me little girl..." Kori says in such a sweet a calming voice. "But shouldn't you be at home right now?"

"Yeah it's rather late for a little girl to be running out and about at this time of night."

The girl turns and looks at them with a look of sheer livid terror on her face of no more than 11 or 12 years of age. Soon after which she shuts her eyes and lets out a scream that forces both Yami and Kori to their knees with their hands over their ears. With a brilliant flash of light that slowly fades into the shape of the little girl she's gone and theirs only a lingering echo of her scream.

"What the heck was that about?" Yami asks as he starts to stand.

"Tell me about it that was weird." Kori agrees as she's helped to her feet.

"We'll have to ask Kase when we get home if she noticed anything unusual out here tonight."

"Yeah." Kori agrees retrieving her Umbrella and shaking the little water that accumulated out of it before returning to the way they were walking prior to the incident.
___________________________

Something that came to me in a dream there's more but I'll wait untill I see peoples reactions to this first before I put more up.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: White_Knight on 2005-11-10 12:37 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: White_Knight on 2005-11-14 08:50 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: White_Knight on 2005-12-05 07:55 ]</font>

[LadyRedComet]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: LadyRedComet on 2005-11-08 18:35 ]</font>

[HUnewearl_Meira]

I'm seeing an odd combination of advanced skills and newbish faults in this. On the one hand, you're making good use of vocabulary, but on the other hand, you've got a few mispellings of fairly common words and the written structure of what you've presented so far could use some work; as LadyRedComet pointed out (and a little harshly, I might add), you just kinda switch from Past Tense to Present Tense without any sort of warning or apparent purpose. Generally speaking, you want to choose a tense and stick with it.

I don't know what format you're writing your work under (though if I had to guess, I'd say you're writing it directly to the forum), but I'd reccomend that you do your writing in Wordpad (makes for good, portable saving and editting over time), and bring it into a word processor such as Word or Word Perfect for spell checking.

I'd also reccomend you consider the criteria of your setting. Perhaps a lot of people wouldn't really think about this (and admittedly, sometimes you take a little license and bend the rules just so you can set up a particular environment), but you've got it raining on a space ship. I'm not altogether clear on this, but I rather anticipate that this doesn't generally happen.

Finally, to prevent confusion, you should be more clear on who is speaking. Generally, you only abandon labelling individual quotations once you've established a sequence of exchange, and even then, generally only when you have a conversation between two characters.


And LRC, a little critique on your work, try to concentrate less on how others are to react to your comments and more on people helpful. The only purpose an "I can't actually help you" post serves is a random bump.

[Xaeris]

Okay, on character introduction; a long winded introduction is not a requirement. However, dumping two characters at the very outset without so much as telling the reader their race (human or newmen?) is a rather...abrupt way of doing it. You should consider an intro that at least presents a few simple features for the reader to base an image around. Height is always a good place to start.

That said, I can't think of anything else not mentioned already. Though personally, I welcome harsh critcism. Spite is among the greatest of motivators after all.

[White_Knight]

As I had said it was just in a dream and needed writing I do have it in word and sorry for the strange tense changes. Here desctiptions.

Name: Yamishi
Sec.ID: Purplenum
Hair: white/silver in a pony tail near top and a bit hanging over right eye
Eyes: green
Age: 22
Costum: Black and red (no8 row 1)
Hand: ambidextres
Aliance: Chaotic Good
Weapons: Sange and Yasha, Double Cannon, Twin Morning Glory, Bloody Art
Height: 6'2"
Weight: 150 lbs
Likes: to be alone except for his love and alies
Dislikes: Guys that don't care for women and think of them as things or people who abuse power
Backround: was an ordinary hunter until he learned to use Megid (back before tech restrictions) when after some strange Megid use he was chosen to be the recipiant of the dark dragon's powers and now keeps them with him in a stone on a neckless hiden from veiw with a dragon's finger for each major compass direction holding a dark red crystal the dragon "shadows" took him away to train and he can still use Megid sence he was away when hunters were forced to have limited techs.
Addithonal Notes: Shadow has a human size and a stadard size (think of the dragon bosses) has individual arms and wings and can turn into a kind of armor for Yamishi when he calls on him the size and form (armor or dragon) changes depending on the way he's called


Name: Kori
Class: FOnewral
Eye Color: Blue
Hair: first with the hat. Icy blue in color
Costume: Blue from first row
Weapons: Twinkle Star, Angel Harp, Mace of Adimantium
Habbits: Never really relizes that she's in battle
Alighnment: Good
Likes: Ice, Shi(although a little shy about it), sunlight
Dislikes: Meanies, anyone that would try to break her and Shi apart.
Additional Notes: Kori is a very happy-go-lucky kind of gal. She never truly relizes the seriousness of most situations. Her spell strength lies in the Ice techs given as she has an inate born ability in them for reasons unknown. She was rescued by Yamishi while being experemented on to find out why she has such skills in the Ice techs. Has had a crush on him ever sence. Is also the Chosen of Ice named Frost same sizeing as Shadows.

Name: Kaseifu
Class: RAcesal
Hair: none same head as Shino (from the seak my master quest)
Costume: Black first row
Weapons: Crush Bullet, Anti-Android Rifle, H&S 25 Justuse
Habits: Quite voice, doesn't question what she is asked to do bye either Shi or Kori.
Alignment: Good
Likes: to clean
Dislikes: an unclean house
Additonal Notes: Chosen of Metal/Mirrors Known as Steel, again it has the same sizing notes as the others.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: White_Knight on 2005-11-09 08:45 ]</font>

[LadyRedComet]

Maybe in the future you could try to incorporate the profiles into the story, rather than posting them separately? It feels very disjointed if I have to read a story and all the detail about the characters is condensed into a "character sheet/profile" at the beginning or end. Needing to put profiles like that may mean that you need to go back and add more detail... and also think about what's really relevant to the story. Do we need to know exact height and weight (mentioning that in a story would make me think the narrator goes around with a yard stick and a scale, which is a funny mental image, but probably not something you want your readers to start thinking about)?

A general rule I've noticed about character descriptions is that you need to give us (the audience) enough information to get a feel for the character, but not so much that your story consists of page after page describing your main character(s). Profiles like you posted are a good thing to have. For reference. They help to build a more consistant character than just winging it, but they also should not have to be posted before or after the story to introduce the characters. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but that's the way I see it.

[rena-ko]

i was expecting a menstruous girl

run a spelling checker on your texts before you post them.

besides that, it doesnt bother if you do not introduce chars at first, but you should at least describe how they look within the first paragraphe. tie that into a description of a motion, for example.

about the term jumping... it depends on if you describe, what happens before or during a scene.

anyway... reads interesting so far, keep it up.

[White_Knight]

Chapter 1: The Start of an Investigation

A few minutes later Yami and Kori arrive at Yami's apartment. Black Mage is lying on the floor in his usual blue/grey FOmar robe, his short black hair slightly messed up due to the hat at his side.

"Kase did you notice anything strange a few minutes ago?" Yami asks after closing the door to his humble abode.

"What do you mean Master Yamishi?"

"I mean did anything unusual register on your sensors, a surge of energy, a loud noise, anything?"

"Well a few moments ago my sensors did go fuzzy for a short while but other than that I can't think of anything. Why?"

"Because we just saw the most darling little girl that disappeared on us with this loud scream and a bright flash." Kori says after having put her umbrella away.

"That's interesting I didn't even hear anything." Black Mage says looking up from his tech disk.

"Yeah. I'll give Hikara a call. It was light energy that she used to get away I'll see if he felt in and could track her I want to know who she is." Yami says as he puts his hand to his chin in thought.

"Oh I wanna goooooooooooooooooooooooo!" Kori pipes up like a naive little girl.

"NO!" Yami responds firmly.

"Aww. But why not?"

"Because it may get dangerous I don't want you to get hurt."

"I'd ask if I could go but I still haven't finished up at the force academy so I guess that's a no right there huh?" Black Mage asks.

"True. And before you ask Kase you’re to make sure that after I leave tomorrow Kori doesn’t follow me."

"Got it." Kaseifu says bowing her head lightly allowing the black ponytail look alike in her silver pseudohair to fall past her shoulder.

"Well I'll just give Hikara a call and then it's off to bed." Yami says as he pulls out his BEE communicator.

"Hikara here. What’s up?" Hikara's voice chimes though the com link

"Yeah it me Yami."

"Oh hey Yami. What'cha need?"

"Did you feel any strange surge in light energy a few minutes ago?"

"Now that you mention it I did feel something kind of strange in the light energy field thing or what ever you call it. Why?"

"Could you track it?"

"Yeah. But you still haven't answered why?"

"You'll find out tomorrow. Meet me by the transporter around ten."

"Got it. I'll meet you there tomorrow."

"Good. Yami out."

"Well it sounds like you guys are all settled." Kori says stretching out obviously getting ready for bed.

"Yeah we're all set so it's off to bed." Yami says putting the BEE away.

"Ok. Good night you two." BM says as he turns the disk off and heads off to do the various nightly things one must before going to bed.

"Well I suppose we should get ready as well Yami." Kori says wrapping her arms around his neck pulling herself up just a little bit to match his height.

"Yeah." Was his reply as he wrapped his arms about her waist.

They walked off towards their bedroom. While Yami started brushing his teeth Kori changed out of her usual Force outfit that since it was designed for comfort she could where it like a normal outfit as well as a uniform. After which she put on one of Yami's more formal shirts. Long sleeved buttons down the front with a collar and cuffs. Leaving the cuffs and collar, as well as the first three buttons, undone she gently changes places with Yami to brush her teeth while he changes. Yami removes his dark blue shirt, jean pants, brown boots and white socks. Leaving him in just his boxer shorts. He then removes the hair tie keeping his hair up and back and lies down pulling the sheets up to his waist. Kori walks out her bare feet patting lightly on the carpet less floor. She slips in to the sheets pulling them till they level out with how Yami pulled them up.

"Are you sure you don't have any regrets?" Yami asks in a calm soothing voice.

"I have no regrets at all. I've never felt this way before and I'm glad that it's someone like you that I feel this way towards." Kori responds in a similar voice positioning her hands one on top of the other so that they lay close to her chest.

"Alright well then let’s get some sleep it's getting late." Yami says as he wraps his arms around her and pulls her close as they shut their eyes to go to sleep.

[LadyRedComet]

Again, watch your spelling. Are you using a spellcheck (hinthint, you should. That or get a beta reader to check your grammar before you post)? There are some parts where the meaning comes close to being screwed up by the typos. The title, for example. I think you meant "Prologue: The Mysterious Girl," but like Rena said, it sounds more like "Menstruating Girl" or "Menstruous Girl" (is that a word?) than mysterious.

I like that you've tried to incorporate appearances into this...but you're not doing it very well. It sticks out like a sore thumb when you say things like "his usual blue/grey FOmar robe." And you've dedicated a whole paragraph to describing the characters getting ready for bed. I believe I suggested before that you should provide more detail, but you should also analyze it and make sure the details you're giving us are important. I cited exact weight and height as things that don't need to be explicitly stated, but things like "Yami removes his dark blue shirt, jean pants, brown boots and white socks. Leaving him in just his boxer shorts" are extremely awkward (not to mention boring) to read. Try, perhaps, just saying that he removed his shirt, jeans, boots, and socks. Is it really important that we know the color of each item? Not really... Description is hard to do, I'm not sure what I can point out that was done really well in that aspect (you seem to be overcompensating now for lack of detail in the prologue), but it helps that you at least tried to explain more what they look like. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that you should find something important about their appearance, and tell us that. It's usually not important what clothes they wear, and I'm especially not seeing how it's useful to detail that they're wearing (for example) Force uniforms now. How about hinting in a battle scene that a character is a force? Or even just mentioning messy hair from wearing a hat would give a good indication that a character is a Force. As I said, "blue/grey FOmar robes" are very awkward to read about, especially with the slash there. If you want to say it like that, maybe you should put "and" between blue and grey rather than a slash.

Speaking of punctuation, the comma exists for a reason (Sorry to be harsh, but I'm bitter about comma neglect). There are dozens of sentences in this chapter alone that need commas. For example, all dialogue that looks like this:

"That's interesting I didn't even hear anything." Black Mage says looking up from his tech disk.

Needs commas. It should look like this:

"That's interesting (. or ,) I didn't even hear anything," Black Mage says, looking up from his tech disk.

Basically, anywhere you end a spoken sentence with a period and follow it with "he/she said/replied/whatever," you need a comma, not a period. Yay for weird grammatical rules! Also, you need a comma everywhere there would be a small pause in spoken language. Take, for example, this paragraph (with added commas and fixed punctuation!):

They walked off towards their bedroom. While Yami started brushing his teeth, Kori changed out of her usual Force outfit. Since it was designed for comfort, she could wear it like a normal outfit as well as a uniform. After that, she put on one of Yami's more formal shirts - a long sleeved shirt with buttons down the front, a collar, and cuffs. Leaving the cuffs and collar, as well as the first three buttons, undone, she gently changes places with Yami (in order) to brush her teeth while he changes. Yami removes his dark blue shirt, jean pants, brown boots and white socks, leaving him in just his boxer shorts. He then removes the hair tie keeping his hair up and back and lies down, pulling the sheets up to his waist. Kori walks out, her bare feet patting lightly on the carpetless floor. She slips into the sheets, pulling them till they level out with how Yami pulled them up.

There are people out there, I'm sure, that will disagree wholeheartedly with this last point, but: Don't write a long story in the present tense, please. It makes it more difficult to read. I understand that this came from a dream, but there are ways to maintain a dreamlike quality (such as word choice, the amount of detail that is given, etc.) without keeping to the present tense. Now, present tense works well when used in a dream sequence that is part of a larger story that occurs in the past tense. But a whole story in present tense? Maybe it's just my brain that can't handle it, but it sounds just plain weird to read a chaptered story in present tense. I'm still stuck on the first paragraph of the prologue being in past tense while the rest of the fic seems to be in present tense.

I like the word "pseudohair."

[CupOfCoffee]

LadyRedComet x2.

Honestly, my biggest gripe was the (lack of) commas. It makes it increasingly difficult to take in and understand, much less care about, the details of the story when there are simply no commas used where they should be. Your eye is less inclined to stop at important places and more tempted to just slide along the line of text without really taking it in since there's no punctuation until the very, very end.

Also, I've long cringed when I see characters in PSO fanfiction referred to by their class names (FOmar robes, a tall HUmar with silver hair, etc). The point of writing down a story is usually to craft it in such a way that people who go in not knowing their left from their right can learn everything there is to learn about your characters and plot. Even though most everyone here probably knows what a FOmar is, it just comes across as tacky to call one of your characters a FOmar.

Aside from the mechanical problems, I think the plot is pretty good. Keep it up, homie.