Asking for writing tips

[Oxymoron]

I'm playing a game involving a fair dose of of Roleplaying, and in the context of the game's and my character's background I'm currently writing a story (that's probably going to involve other players if it takes some steam but that's not the subject here), and I would like some feedback on my writing style from people who haven't been contaminated by that game's culture.


What follow is the first part of that roleplay, originally on two posts separated a few days from each other with some things happening in the meantime InGame (the separation is marked by the two lines of ---- ).


Please note that all that follow was originally written in French, for a French(-speaking) audience, and that I have taken some liberties with the translation.

In the twilight of a laboratory, on a nondescript planet.

“Are you absolutely certain of your results ?”

Two people in lab coats.

“I redid the calculations, again and again. I checked again the models and compared the results to the data collected by the instruments. I even asked the Oracle to study the question. And the deviation is still inferior to the background noise.”

Only crepuscular ray of lights coming though venetian blinds highlight the holographic displays layered with numbers and symbols of esoteric meanings.

“By the Creator... Who knows ?”
“Apart from you and the Oracle ? No one.”

A heavy silence.

“We can't keep that for ourselves. It's too... It's too big.” the person take a seat.
“We agree.”

**********

[a quarter of a cycle ago]

The Majestic. Previously a luxury resort, then the headquarter of the Talon Mercenary Company. Now private property of Anna Federowsky.
At the top of the grand tower of glass and steel, in the Great Suite, Anna sits at her desk. On one of its corner, her holo-com is open on the frequency of the Assembly. Silence...

As she get up toward the bar to serve herself a drink, the holo-com stir on the table.

A sigh escaping her, she goes back to answer.

“Anna Federowsky. I'm listening.”

A strange voice, its accent at the same time synthetic and singing. “Oracle, entity Federowsky. We bring somber omens.”

Anna's eyeballs roll in their socket. “What is it, Oracle ? A looming shortage of food for the Assembly's buffets ?”

“At least as dramatic we fear. We are talking of an event of Apocalyptic consequences.”

Sigh. “What are we talking about ?”

“Of an Apocalypse.”
“Beg your pardon ?”
“Your Science opened our eyes to a number of omens. And looking up to the firmament we have seen the answer traced upon the skies. The Horsemen are coming.”

Silence.

“... An Apocalypse ?”
“We fear as much, entity Federowsky. The omens wouldn't lie. Not to Us.”

Silence again.

“... How long ?”
“A little more than two Seasons.”

Anna, silent, seems taken into a painful introspection.

“We are transmitting our omens to your Souless-Brother. So that at your leisure you will be able to contemplate the impending Doom.”
“... Thank you, Oracle.”
“Goodbye, entity Federowsky.”

The holo-com transmission close itself, and Anna stay silent for seconds that seems to stretch to an eternity.
Seemingly coming out of shock, she open a new holographic channel.

The Order's sigil appear.

“Arya...”


---------------------
---------------------


“C'mere and help me move that shit, dickface !”

An astroport's docks.

“I'm coming, you cunt, I'm coming !”

The dockers are busy unloading a freighter bearing the Federation's seal.

“And be careful you piece of shit, these containers have more value than you'll ever have !”
“Fuck you, asshole !”
“You're welcome, love !”

/////

“Remind me again why you're using -my- astroport to transit enough weapons to blow up half a Sector ?”

Overseeing the scenery from the terass of the control tower, a costumed humanoid and an officer of the Federation's armed forces.

“I'm afraid this information is classified.”

The humanoid does not smile.

“Classified ? Not counting the Nuclear and Ionic weapons, with the amount of Apotium you have here, the slightest accident and this whole place is going to get vaporised, along with half of the planet. -My- planet. And I wouldn't even have the right to know -why- ?”

The officer doesn't turn to face him, contemplating the scenery in front of him, the gigantic spaceship offering the spectacle of a beached cetacean getting its entrails emptied by trails of ants – some of them literal as a number of Kyu's Sisters participate in the operations.

“I am not free to disclose these informations.”

“'Not free' ? Not free ?! Are you kidding me ? I am the Governor of this goddman planet, one of the most powerful people in the Federation, and you, a fucking grunt, you have the balls to tell me I don't have the right to know why you are preparing what looks awfully like -war preparations- on MY. FUCKING. PLANET ?!

I can't believe it. “United Worlds' Federation” my ass. In the end it's still the Mercenaries who old the keys of this fucking house.

And to say I offered my confidence to that who-”

The humanoid is interrupted in his diatribe as the officer, holding him by the collar, lift him from the floor and hold him firmly against the wall.

Looking him in the eyes, he speak in a chilling voice.

“As the Governor of this planet, you benefit from a certain degree of immunity, and as a civil the Federation's Armed Forces have made the oath to protect you. However, finish this sentence and insult the Boss, and by God and my Contract I swear we will be able to read in the papers tomorrow that you suffered an infortunate incident inspecting the astroport's recycling station's grinders.

Have I made myself clear ?”

The governor, shaking, nod his head.

“Good. This being said...” the officer put the humanoid back on the ground, and his uniform back into order. “I am not free to disclose the details or even the goal of our operations on your planet at this time, but I can guarantee you they aren't of a nature susceptible to put it in danger. If you have other questions, address them to my superiors.”

**********

“Have you ever wondered what the Purgatory looks like, Arya ?

I can tell you, for it is where I grown.

Imagine, Arya, a hundred million colonists, arriving in a galaxy alien to them.
Imagine that half of them die on its doors from one of these routine Ionic bombardment we only know far too well.

Imagine now that these colonists, far away from home and having suffered losses that are hard to even conceive, lose contact with the Motherland. Imagine that these colonists, alone and isolated, to survive have no other choice but to take a planet in the blood of its inhabitants.

Imagine, furthermore, that these colonists, alone, afraid and hurt, learn that the Motherland for which they had already given so much, sacrificed so much ; knowing full well the probable issue of their journey had knowingly and voluntarily sent them on what constituted a suicide mission.

And, finally, as this community violated at the most profound level of its convictions and of its Faith is just starting to rise again, imagine that an Apocalypse happened, sweeping away and for a long time all hope of rebuilding.


I could tell you the tales of a ragtag pack of survivors, all descending from an elite armed force, condemned for half a millenium to sell themselves to the highest bidder, to survive days after days.


This story, it is the one of my People, Arya. We have been into Limbos for so long, seeking the light...


When finally I offered my people the opportunity to find peace, when I laid what I thought was the last and final bloody mark of our wandering by taking HQ ; by taking this Promised Land I thought that we would finally be able to put our past behind us. That the mercenaries and murderers we had become would finally be able to find the redemption we had so dreamed of.

Oh, sure, it would have taken a few generations for the old culture to fade out, so that again we could become respectable. But what are three generations against thirty of pain and grief ?


I accomplished so much in so few cycles, Arya. The United Worlds. The Federation. My people, for the first time since it left Songe so long ago, has at least an horizon other than simple survival, and the hope that tomorrow is going to be better than today.

After surviving for so long, for the first time we Live, Arya !


But, this prediction... If in fact an Apocalypse should happen again, when we just finally rose again after the last one ?...

I can not envision this, Arya. I can not.


I may not have anymore political power political power in this Federation I birthed, but I still hold a certain persuasiveness ; and, trust me, being seen a messianic figure by your people has certain advantages.

I gave our scientists a number of orders.


I do not yet know how. I do not yet know how long, the efforts or the sacrifices it will take,

But we will survive, Arya.


We will survive and we will be back, again.


Because it is our Nature.”

Thanks in advance any kind of feedback.

[Dooey Jo]

Well for one thing it kind of reads more like a play or transcript than a text. You start off with a short description of the stage for every scene, and interspersed with long dialogues there are lots of "a moment of silence", which sound like stage directions. People also often "seem" to be in various ways, which sound like hints for the actors into the minds of their characters (which is very bad form to put in a script anyway). To write how things "seem" be and what people "seem" to feel, is quite cliché. Instead of writing how things seem to be, you should write what they are. For example:

Anna, silent, seems taken into a painful introspection.

What you want to say here is that she actually is in a state of painful introspection, but you don't want to say it outright. To get that effect you should write what she actually does, and let the reader piece together what this seems to mean. Like, maybe she clenches her fist, makes a pained frown, puts on lots of eyeliner and listens to a holorecord of my quantum romance. etc. etc.

Now, you could also write it outright "Anna is rendered silent by a moment of painful introspection". It's not as effective at conveying emotions (consider that when we feel empathy or whatever towards people in reality, we do it based on what we observe, not because they have a billboard of "painful introspection" floating above them) or scenes, but it can save time and space in passages where that doesn't matter, to get to the parts that do matter. All "seem" does is that it attempts to disguise such a segment simply telling readers how things are, as a segment showing what they are, except it's just an impostor that wastes space. It adds nothing.

What I want to say is: Forgetting the verb "to seem" will make you write better fiction than every person on the internet.

[Oxymoron]

That was actually helpful. Thanks !


And yeah, I have some difficulties writing like a "novel", and I always end up writing more like a "play". I blame myself being far more visual than auditive.

Just so I know... the "reads like a play" style : good, bad, don't care, whatever ?

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

I think its hard to offer more than 'writing style' based evidence because the post is lacking a great deal in context so its hard to tell what may or may not be missing. And while some stuff (like Dooey Jo's comments about writing it like a script, which I totally missed out on) is useful, its also a bit tricky because we're dealing with an effective translation.

I know you're worried about 'game culture' contamination tub I do think to get the full effect more context is needed.

[Oxymoron]

Okay, so some contextual informations :


The basis of that game, RP-wise, is that you play a character, that is at the head of a Civilization. At least that's the principle of the thing, just a starting point - for me the character is more of a lens through which the civilization interact with others.

My character, originally, at the start of the game, was the leader of the Talon Mercenary Company. At the start of the game, everyone start with just one planet and has to go on from there. I chose to say that they took that planet through the use of military force.

Through interaction with other people (for example becoming part of the "United Worlds" 'coalition'), the Talon Mercenary Company grew in size.

It participated in a few conflicts on the "United Worlds" side, and grew kind of respectable because of that - at least people learned that shouldn't fuck with the people who have the TMC on their side.

It grew in size so much (more than two hundred planets) that Anna Federowsky chose to "disband" the TMC, and create the "United Worlds Federation" (yes, the link/confusion with the 'coalition' is voluntary). The TMC is now the armed forces of that Federation, over which Anna Federowsky has no political power anymore - she handed over her power to the civilian authorities of the Federation.

And these days, the United Worlds Federation is the Guardian of the Galactic Capital - it's in the possession of my character.



As for "Arya", it stands for "Aryakis", which is the name of another player's character my character is really close to.


I may have forgotten some things, so don't hesitate to ask questions.

[Bakustra]

In general, my advice would be to take this, copy it into a new document, and start cutting. Hack away at this till you get to the bones and gristle, and then start building back up. But that's generic advice anyhow. More detailed advice will probably have to wait a bit.

[Oxymoron]

Thanks, I can wait.

[Oxymoron]

I'm working on a (short-)story, and y'all people seems like you can provide some ideas. Here's the thing.


Setting (just so you know what I'm working with) :

- Space Opera. Relatively quick and relatively affordable FTL (I'm not going to describe you how it work right now, as it's currently irrelevant).
- Undetermined amount of time in the future, most probably around a thousand years or more from now.
- AI and humans have lived together for so long that both are in some kind of symbiotic relationship with each other. Most humans grow together with a companion AI.
- Death isn't what it used to be, as mind upload technologies have been perfected for a long time, and it's seen as a fundamental right in most polities for people to be offered free immortality (they revive you for free in case of non-consensual death).
- Genetic engineering and body self-modifications have been perfected to a point such that a number of proto-sub-species have emerged, with their own nascent cultures.
- Due to the rarity of habitable planets, the importance of Environmentalism in human culture and the demography of Mankind, the overwhelming majority of humanity live in space habitats. The Solar System alone is home to more than ten thousand billion people (with only around four billion on Earth itself) ; and the only reason this number is so low is because people keep immigrating to found new colonies in other systems, farther and farther away from The Core.
- "Aliens" exist, and they live among us.
- The human sphere of influence, at the time of the story, is a sphere of roughly two thousand light years in diameter centered around Earth, exponentially densely populated the closer you get to the Solar System. Almost every star in this zone has at least one human colony in it (mostly space habitats, as exposed earlier). And each colonized system's stars are surrounded by proto-Dyson Spheres of solar satellites which convert the suns' light into antimatter, used to power almost all of the infrastructures.
- Surprisingly enough, Mankind hasn't had to develop much space-borne firepower yet in its history. Space is vast enough, there's no need to fight for resources.

- Oh, and most importantly : humanity is so vast that there's an almost infinite amount of different cultures. And because body-modifications are so easy, if you threw a baseline human from the 20th century into a standard space habitat, he wouldn't recognize half the population as human.


So, my problem ?

See, it begin with a man (captain of an interstellar cargo ship) who discover he has apparently died during his last space travel, as with the rest of his crew. Suspecting that it wasn't just an incident as the spaceship hasn't been found, he start trying to unravel the mystery surrounding what he suspect to be his and his crew's murder - which doesn't mean much by itself at the time of the story, but he suspect there's more to it than it seems.

The question is : where do I go ?

There's a shitton of different possible directions.


Any inputs to offer ?

[Dooey Jo]

You should think about what you want to say with your story, if it has a message or what the theme is, then choose something that fits.

Also, if you are writing a short story, I can't recommend enough to start with the end. That way you always know where the story must go. Later you can add additional scenes where they are needed if you're going there too fast (or better yet, re-write the story once or twice with those scenes in mind to make them fit naturally). If you start at the beginning with no clear goal in mind, it's easy to start writing a few cool scenes and then get stuck on a "well now what?" or go in circles.

[Oxymoron]

Thanks.

I have a few ideas, but I get the feeling I'm running in circles trying to decide the direction in which I want to go.

Isn't helped by the number of hours of sleep I lack, most probably.

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

- AI and humans have lived together for so long that both are in some kind of symbiotic relationship with each other. Most humans grow together with a companion AI.

Reading this made me think immediately (for some reason) of a sort of 'boy and his dog' sort of story. And then I thought of Lassie. The Space AI Lassie.

Or maybe flipper. Or Gentle Ben.

[Oxymoron]

That's interesting.

See, the fact AI and humans live in symbiosis together is one of the center point of the setting, along with its completely "transhuman" [1] aspects. But I hadn't given much thought on what it would mean, in practice, to live in such a society.

Indeed, one of my primary difficulties is trying to portray a fundamentally human story, over fundamentally human concerns (life and death), in a setting where the meanings of those words, and what it mean to be human itself, have been fundamentally changed.

Yes. What would it mean for a kid to grow with a non-human intelligence as a play companion, in a world that forgot the true meaning of death and redefined life ? To grow knowing you will live dozens of different lives, see hundreds of worlds and travel among the stars ?

It is in such circumstances that discussing "technical" things do not detract from the story but in fact can only add to it.



[1] : god I hate this word for all the ways it has been hijacked by the singulitarian wankers.

[xon]

[1] : god I hate this word for all the ways it has been hijacked by the singulitarian wankers.

Amen.

[Oxymoron]

So, I'm trying to flex my writing muscles, and because I'm a bit flat right now, trying to work creativity with some little worldbuilding exercise.

The Theresa star system had been first explored during the first centuries of mankind's expansion. Orbiting a red dwarf, an habitable planet had been found in the system's golden zone.

The planet, almost tide-locked to its star, was not hospitable, most of it being covered in shallow seas and marshes. But still, the first surveys showed it to be home of a number of living species, and most surprisingly, of an amphibian species showing numerous signs of intelligence.

The word quickly spread in the rest of the human sphere, the discovery of a new intelligent species being an once-in-a-generation event.

In a few years, the first settlers came, setting up the self-replicating factories which would, years after years, build the colony's infrastructures : first the array of solar satellites which would produce the AM-fuel the colony would need to power everything and the automated asteroid mining operations ; and then the first true Habitats of the system.

It had been agreed upon in the system's charter that Theresa would be left to the natives. However, the Theresa System had been settled by Uplifters, and they had plans for them.

The Theresan were mostly quadrupedal, and were able to breath above and below water, possessing a set of organs serving as both lungs and gills. The planet, mostly flat and knowing very long day cycles, was continually subjected to heavy storms and tides, the temperatures oscillating between below freezing point during the coldest times of the night periods and suffocatingly high temperatures when the sun was at its zenith. These conditions made the ability to live underwater a necessity. But the shallow waters, in the planet's climate, offered little protection against the storms fury. As a result of these conditions, the Theresan had adapted to a life of constant movement and adaptation to perpetually changing conditions.

I'm trying to find original / interesting ideas on how a society of primitive amphibians might look like.

[Glass Fort MacLeod]

That's interesting.

See, the fact AI and humans live in symbiosis together is one of the center point of the setting, along with its completely "transhuman" [1] aspects. But I hadn't given much thought on what it would mean, in practice, to live in such a society.

Indeed, one of my primary difficulties is trying to portray a fundamentally human story, over fundamentally human concerns (life and death), in a setting where the meanings of those words, and what it mean to be human itself, have been fundamentally changed.

Yes. What would it mean for a kid to grow with a non-human intelligence as a play companion, in a world that forgot the true meaning of death and redefined life ? To grow knowing you will live dozens of different lives, see hundreds of worlds and travel among the stars ?

It is in such circumstances that discussing "technical" things do not detract from the story but in fact can only add to it.

[1] : god I hate this word for all the ways it has been hijacked by the singulitarian wankers.

I just thought it was quirky and different and a nice throwback to the 'pulpy' type of Heinlein novels where you had 'a boy goes into space'. I've always meant to go through and read a bunch of Heinlein's 'younger reader' novels for their Hobbit-esque appeal in a sci fi setting.

[Aaron]

I'd like to see Have Space Suit-Will Travel done in the original pulpy style. Big chunky suit and all.

[Oxymoron]

I love reminding people in wargames why exactly war suck :

Galaxy News Network


Newsflash !!!


Galactic Capital liberated ! End of the nightmare or start of a new one ?



Unbelievable collateral damages

The public opinions of the galaxy are still in a state of shock today after the operations undertaken by the United Worlds Federation to regain control of the Galactic Capital.

Two distinct operations had been launched to retake the planet : a lightning military strike, aiming the planet's strategic military targets ; and a diplomatic mission.

Almost twelve million elite soldiers of the Federation had been mobilized for the occasion, ready to sacrifice their life (and their enemies') so that the Federation would come out victorious of the fight which would be theirs.

But at the same time, more than forty thousand diplomatic vessels, carrying the argument of more than thirty orbital atomic siege platforms, had received the mission to subvert control of the planet from its political elites.

These two operations, held jointly and in parallel, were aimed at ensuring the United Worlds Federation's supremacy in the fight for the Capital.

Unfortunately, the extensive planetary defenses of the Capital, forcing the besiegers to rely heavily on the use of weapons of mass destruction, revealed to be its own worst enemy.

When the United Worlds Federation transferred control of the Capital to the fool who would crown himself as Galactic Emperor, its population was superior to forty three billion people. As its soldiers finished taking back the planet from the planetary defense forces, this number was estimated to be forty billion.

A few hours ago, as the orbital atomic siege platform finished their operations, this number had dropped to thirty two billion.

More than eleven billion dead

The madness of a man, and the radical methods of the Federation are thus responsible for the death of more than eleven billion individuals, almost a fourth of the planet's population.

Preliminary reports indicate a shell-shocked population, and streets full of haggard and disoriented people. We will give you more informations when our teams will be on site.


This was Galaxy News Network, giving you the Truth even when it hurts.

Note : I am the one who play the United Worlds Federation. And no, it isn't inspired from Star Trek. If anything, it hold more in common with a mix of the book and movie version of Starship Troopers.