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Comments for 'The Beginning of Sorrows'



John
12:03 pm | September 16, 2003
Ok, I see your point. Nice, and I appreciate the advice. I am already working on the next section, and I hope i will be done by the 30th, for then I will go Halo PC gold!!!
Wado
6:11 pm | September 15, 2003
Hey John, you're story isn't going to go down the crapper. You are right that the plot seems great and your writing is good too.

As for me reviewing sections, thanks, but I generally am too busy to really take on more stuff to do. I also don't like to edit other's fictional writing until I have read them for a while and get a good idea of their writing style.

I compare this to being a hitting coach in baseball. You can tell the hitter exactly how to stand, hold the bat, and swing. On the other hand, you can let them swing away and give them adjustments that can help improve their performance. I prefer to be the second kind of coach, but when I edit people's writings and I don't know their writing style well enough, I start to feel like the first kind of coach.

Anyway, good luck and I'll try to keep making good comments here, so keep up the writing.
John
1:03 pm | September 15, 2003
Not did well, doing well. I know you you may not think this many troops are that reasonable, but they are looking for something - Something grand and unexpected, I am not releasing what they are looking for - yet. I'll give that info out, nine years into the future of the book (Halo time of course). The Covenant continuously increse their technology - therefore, it is reasonable to presume that their technology is one step ahead still, as you will see in the next episode. I dont know if you gathered this or not, I dont want the story to last an infinity, but they are not only destroying Earth, they are strip minning the system for what they are looking for, be patient, it will come into play. I appreciate those tips Waddo, I wish I could send you sections via email so you can tell me how well they are coming into view, This is a good plot, and I dont want it to go down the crapper - just what you are available for. BTW, you will see these next generation Spartans in action in the next episode.
MasterGrunt
3:45 pm | September 13, 2003
This story was pretty good except that you are making the warthogs and spartans way to powerful. Not even the covenant have the technology to form into a jackal or all that other stuff you mentioned. However, don't get discouraged, I know you are new here and for your first story you did very well.
Vi3tl3l3oi 023(Return of CPT CRAPPER)
2:35 am | September 13, 2003
if ur able to pull this off... ur gonna be one of the best... nice title.
hornet34
5:56 pm | September 12, 2003
Well, Wado took care of the constructive criticism, which means for once I get to say 'Nice Job, keep up the good work' and am done. Yippee.

Seriously, Wado has some good advice. The only thing I have to add is that if you want to make sure you catch most spelling and grammar mistakes, take a break between writing and editing and do something not related to the computer. When you come back you'll catch mistakes a lot easier. Nice first fanfic, though.
Wado
4:19 pm | September 12, 2003
Hey John, I meant no offense by my post so I'm glad you weren't offended. I usually only write posts like that if I think the writer has some good talent.

I guess I didn't word it very well but my intention was to point out the following:

1) With a Covenant invasion of billions of troops and thousands of capital starships, that paints a picture of a grand epic scale. That is awesome but very difficult to write about, especially for a first Fan Fiction.

2) The difficulty exists in how well thought out your story universe is. The grander the scale the more questions arise. Starting with a simple "Why?" Why is the Covenant deploying billions of troops? Is it because they have nothing better to do, perhaps they just have too many warriors eager for battle. If it is for honor, then you stated that they had six times the number of humans on Earth. Even if one tenth of these troops were combat troops thats 60% the population of Earth in front line combat. Far less than that number of humans would be considered combat ready enough for front line deployment. What's the honor in that? If you made the Covenant more prideful, then that might serve as a motive to occupy Earth. On the other hand, on Reach they sent ground troops for specific reasons (take out installations, gather information, etc.) then they got off the planet and glassed it. What would the Covenant be after on Earth with so many troops if they only plan on eventually glassing it?

3) So the bigger the scale, the more important that the strategy and motives of the enemy be presented or at least speculated about.

4) The providing of information to readers becomes a very important issue in writing. Once you state that the invasion force consists of 6 times (for example) the population of Earth, you leave yourself providing key information to the reader but at the same time possibly hurting the story later. If instead you stated that the Covenant invasion force was the largest they had assembled in several hundred years, well anticipated to completely overwhelm any puny resistance the humans could give, then you could later decide just how big it is depending on how the story unfolds and the reader would know no difference.

I hope this is more clear. Good luck on your writing and nice job on your first story here. Keep it up.
John
11:04 am | September 12, 2003
Sorry about the errors, I wrote it in Word Pad. Also, I just finished TFoR - I did screw up on the date, I should have ran that through 'The Flood' before I chose the date. Anyway, the date should have not even been 2552 - I meant 2553. And these are my Spartans so I dont think that I'll screw up that bad - hell, chief Mendez is training the Assault fraction. Also, I didnt fully understand what this meant, I didnt take any offense at anything, I just got lost here:

Anyway John, billions of Covenant and some wild ideas make this story quite grand indeed, however, it also means you picked a very hard topic to write about. You might be giving away too much information too soon. Since the invasion force has not yet reached Earth, you can build up more suspense by introducing information as it is discovered by the various viewpoint characters rather than just spelling out the whole plan ahead of time (like the evil masterminds in 007 movies...LOL).

Also, the reason for the Skin graphs is for WITHOUT the suit. When not wearing it, they are vulnerable to frag, white fosfourus, projectiles, human weapons that covies sometimes may use, or a loose explosion. Therefore, they are vulnerable. But the advancements may seem not complete or somewhat inconsistant - this is due primarily to Dr. Halsey being removed from the project not too long after it began. This project, the participies were not to have any possible type of female 'mother' figure present in the project. need more?
John
11:04 am | September 12, 2003
Sorry about the errors, I wrote it in Word Pad. Also, I just finished TFoR - I did screw up on the date, I should have ran that through 'The Flood' before I chose the date. Anyway, the date should have not even been 2552 - I meant 2553. And these are my Spartans so I dont think that I'll screw up that bad - hell, chief Mendez is training the Assault fraction. Also, I didnt fully understand what this meant, I didnt take any offense at anything, I just got lost here:

Anyway John, billions of Covenant and some wild ideas make this story quite grand indeed, however, it also means you picked a very hard topic to write about. You might be giving away too much information too soon. Since the invasion force has not yet reached Earth, you can build up more suspense by introducing information as it is discovered by the various viewpoint characters rather than just spelling out the whole plan ahead of time (like the evil masterminds in 007 movies...LOL).

Also, the reason for the Skin graphs is for WITHOUT the suit. When not wearing it, they are vulnerable to frag, white fosfourus, projectiles, human weapons that covies sometimes may use, or a loose explosion. Therefore, they are vulnerable. But the advancements may seem not complete or somewhat inconsistant - this is due primarily to Dr. Halsey being removed from the project not too long after it began. This project, the participies were not to have any possible type of female 'mother' figure present in the project. need more?
John
11:04 am | September 12, 2003
Sorry about the errors, I wrote it in Word Pad. Also, I just finished TFoR - I did screw up on the date, I should have ran that through 'The Flood' before I chose the date. Anyway, the date should have not even been 2552 - I meant 2553. And these are my Spartans so I dont think that I'll screw up that bad - hell, chief Mendez is training the Assault fraction. Also, I didnt fully understand what this meant, I didnt take any offense at anything, I just got lost here:

Anyway John, billions of Covenant and some wild ideas make this story quite grand indeed, however, it also means you picked a very hard topic to write about. You might be giving away too much information too soon. Since the invasion force has not yet reached Earth, you can build up more suspense by introducing information as it is discovered by the various viewpoint characters rather than just spelling out the whole plan ahead of time (like the evil masterminds in 007 movies...LOL).

Also, the reason for the Skin graphs is for WITHOUT the suit. When not wearing it, they are vulnerable to frag, white fosfourus, projectiles, human weapons that covies sometimes may use, or a loose explosion. Therefore, they are vulnerable. But the advancements may seem not complete or somewhat inconsistant - this is due primarily to Dr. Halsey being removed from the project not too long after it began. This project, the participies were not to have any possible type of female 'mother' figure present in the project. need more?
Wado
8:54 pm | September 11, 2003
Yeah, you need to add the Series name to the title when you submit the story, otherwise it doesn't show up. I've made the same mistake before.

Anyway John, billions of Covenant and some wild ideas make this story quite grand indeed, however, it also means you picked a very hard topic to write about. You might be giving away too much information too soon. Since the invasion force has not yet reached Earth, you can build up more suspense by introducing information as it is discovered by the various viewpoint characters rather than just spelling out the whole plan ahead of time (like the evil masterminds in 007 movies...LOL).

So you have some great ideas and your writing is pretty good. Just be careful what and how much information you give the reader.

Oh, and Sergeant B made some great observatons I hope will help you.

Keep up the writing John, you have some great potential here.

P.S. Oh by the way, if you have flexi-cell plasma gradient system graphed into their skin cells and that is immune to plasma weapons, then of course you have quite a bit of explaining to do if you don't make the battle armor also immune to plasma weapons. You might want to tone down the "immune" to a more reasonable "resistant."
Sergeant B
7:35 pm | September 11, 2003
It's okay, but not that good. But I don't blame you, this is your first FANFIC. You had some spelling errors and maybe one grammar error. Their was also some "messups"
One thing is that in the year 2552, the month Jun., they didn't have Battle Rifles. Second, Jun.22 is one month and 8 days behind the last chapter of Halo:The Fall of Reach. Did you even read it? Well, use spellcheck, and make sure you use the right things in your story.

PS-Don't use Spartans if you don't think you're cut out for it. I know I'm not.
John
4:24 pm | September 11, 2003
Ok, being as this is the first fanfic I have submitted here, I screwed things up alittle. The Series name is The Hall of Echoes, this episode is called 'The beginning of sorrows' sorry for the screw up.


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