Ok...

Now, no excuses, like 'this is just the internet, etc.'

First, you seriously need to work on sentence structure, paragraphs, punctuation and the like.

If you can't get that stuff right when you're writing a story, best to give up now because no serious editor will give you the time of day. Period.

Secondly, go over your rough draft yourself, or better yet, get a friend to do it. That way they can point out things that look rough, sound rough etc. It also helps eliminate the wrong spelling for the correct words.

Spell check is your friend as well.

Add more description. 'Chopped off the arm at the shoulder'. Try spicing it up a little -

With great effort, he hefted the axe, blood and viscera already dripping from the worn metal head, and brought it down with all his might. The Axe bit deep into the zombie's shoulder, cutting through flesh, muscle, tendon and bone.

An animal snarl of rage, intermingled with disgust and fear tore from his lips as he continued to drive the axe home. Again and again the crude weapon bit into the flesh of the undead creature before him.

Doesn't something like that sound better? Read better?

Chris

nope...and if you haven't guessed i don't care for your critique - i whipped that up in about 5 minutes and posted while at work....i type dyslexic and don't give a crap really - if you are so terrific then write your own stuff for revew..and i mean a whoie story or chapter - not a rewrite of my work....then we can see how we like yours...til then....your opinions matter not...and the effort i put in is for fun and not for publishing review....so you can blather on all you want..but i'm not listening..and this is the last time i will comment on your posts...

Posted By JettaManDan on 29 Aug 2009 07:58 PM
if you are so terrific then write your own stuff for revew..and i mean a whoie story or chapter

FYI - he did write a whole story(Mask of the Sphinx). I'm just sayin'.

It definitely  pays to be informed BEFORE you throw down.

I do enjoy the fan fic but one must be prepared to accept critique.  Next, you should be willing to accept the good advice despite the tone of the critique above. 

I understand that you whipped this up in 5 minutes. Maybe, when you get time, you might want to edit it for sentence structure and other potential errors.  Proof read it and ask yourself how you could improve on syntax, grammar and sentence structure.  Sometimes a plain jane boring story can be made into an exciting adventure if one uses the proper sentence structure. (and no thats not meant as a snarky comment on your stuff)

You are off to a good start and if you work on it and make sure it's the best you can make it, you could have a go at maybe becoming an author...if you want to go down that path. You do have the imagination for it. Don't be afraid to use the edit option in your posts. 

Be willing to accept critique.  Critique, even the bad ones, can be a valuable tool to help you in not only your grammar, but also in your story telling abilities.

Ignore anything that you may take as attitude.  While you may not like the tone, the suggestions imparted can be wise ones IF you decide NOT to reject it out of hand due to dislike of the poster. 

Good advice is good advice regardless of the source.  Something you might want to consider...

Another very important word of advice:

Grow thicker skin.

And, I've actually written almost 40,000 words of a potential zombie novel, it's just that to be brutally blunt, the whole industry is becoming satuated with them, just like female supernatural stories.

I personally don't think it's good enough for publishing.

So, I haven't bothered continuing with it. I might in the near future, as I've been working pretty hard on several RPG projects for a tiny little company. Maybe once I'm finished those...

But, if you want a throw down little guy, I'll post the more amusing of the four sections of the novel that I've written.

And, I CAN take critique, especially if it helps improve what I've written.

I don't make excuses, such as - oh, I wrote this in 5 minutes at work, or 'it's just for the internet, so who cares, or hmmm... it's only a fan fiction it won't be used...

And, just FYI, actually two FYI .... I did co-write Mask of the Sphinx, one of the better recieved non pure Mark Ellis novels, and all the stuff I write for, even my work in progress zombie novel, I do actual research.

Like the chapter about the fire fighter, I went down and had a nice little discussion with the fire fighters at the main station in Calgary's city core.

And I had a discussion about some police proceedures with a couple of officers near where I live.

Chris

http://absolutewrite.com/forums/

You can alsways check this out.  They have some good info here on basic writing skills.

Atta boy!

Alienate and insult one of the few people here qualified to offer you legitimate advice on your writing.

You've really been batting a thousand in your judgement the last few days.

Before this descends any further into argument, let me give you a little background on Outlanders that maybe you aren't aware of. Back in '97, before I purchased the JamesAxler.com domain and when this website was called "Overproject Whisper", Chris ran a parallel website called "The Deathlands Web Survival Guide". The vast majority of that website still exists here in the Archive section if you feel like checking it out. In any case, Chris was writing fan fiction on his website and to be perfectly honest it was pretty mediocre. (I think he would be the first to admit that.) But he kept churning away at it, honing his skills, and soliciting feedback from professional writers. More than a few unkind things were said to him about his writing over the years, but he stuck with it. I wish I could finish the story with "...and now he's a big, famous and fabulously wealthy author", but that's just not how these things go. But he has been published, and in the last dozen years since I first bumped into him he has honed his craft and improved dramatically. He has been *exactly* where you are right now, and he has some good advice to give you. Take it or leave it, that's your choice, but don't imagine that he is just throwing stones for the fun of it.

Ron -

Yup, those little bits of Fan fiction sucked.

And as you know, I found that I really did want critique far more than brown nosing because it did help me improve my craft.

It's like those people who show up on American Idol, expecting that they're going to be wisked right through to the finals, and then are devastated when they are out and out rejected...

So many of them say things like 'well, my friends or my mom thinks I'm a good singer'

Of course they do, they don't want to hurt your feelings. The same thing applies when it comes to writing and critique.

A lot of people don't want to hurt your feelings, but brown-nosing and mutual back patting, in the long run will not help you in the least.

Critique is what is needed, like it or not. It's the only way you can learn where you're making mistakes and how to improve said mistakes.

Sure being critiqued more than once made me mad, but I, as I like to say to others 'suck it up buttercup' and took it for what it was worth.

People who told me that my work was great and that they really liked it were good for really only one thing - making me feel good. It didn't help me fix the MANY errors that I had.

It was being told that 'you need to work on your sentence structure, punctuation, etc. etc. etc. that helped me.

And yes I was even 'gasp' REJECTED when I sent in the first chapter as well as an outline for a Deathlands novel about - 12 years ago now?

Do I think I'll ever be published under a major house label? Nah, I'm just not good enough. I admit it and I accept it.

Yes some of the stuff I write IS better than published material that's out there, but you know, I really don't care if I get published or not.

And believe me, I've tried many different things to get motivated to write - the prospect of money, fans, fame, accolades, hell - even revenge... but when it comes right down to it, writing - although something I enjoy, is not a life goal for me any longer. I consider this to be that I'm a realist.

Real life, doing stuff with my family, seeing movies and training Shaolin Kung fu, well, that's more important to me.
Chris

Posted By JettaManDan on 28 Aug 2009 10:59 AM
wrote this quick - thought i'd see what you guys thought of my idea for a story!

whatcha guys think so far?

Dan, if you were looking for constructive criticism Chris gave it to you.  That wasn't insulting, it was informative!

If you are just looking for positive reinforcement don't bother to ask.  Just post n' let rip...seriously, not trying to be snarky.

One of the main points of writing fan fic is just to have fun!

yeah i won't get this to go further - this little bit WAS in 5 minutes..and was for fun..no intent for any other reason than to keep something interesting in the topic is all....good..glad i have the background, and glad i know what you have done....i added 500 words for fun..no thought..no structure...no editing....no thought to further chapters.....is there spell check on this site? nope...was this posted in fan fiction? nope....just how i saw his original post starting into a little story..no thoughts that go on from there...maybe we can keep this thread on topic and not let it decend like others have? i contributed something fun...and now look where it is going....that is my one and only issue....you don't like my writing? oh well...i'm not trying to get published honestly...so nothing matters...finally understand? time to move on..nothing to see here   thanks for the critique - seeing as how i was writing this between my break and my lunch hour i just posted for FUN....that is all

Geez...

mike i edited what i said..so don't bother...re-read and let it go...

Well this thread is interesting!! One of my fav movie and book genres in the zombie stuff. As another writer who has been published by a very minor, now defunct RPG company, I can promise that there are many things you can do to get better at writing but one of the most important is to write a lot!! Read Stephen King's "On Writing" - very informative and interesting reading for any aspiring author. Interesting that the female superhero and zombie genres are getting overcrowded – had not considered that – not that I was considering writing in either genre. Writing something especially if you pour your heart into it and getting rejected can hurt and can be a painful and frustrating experience. Usually you get no kind of feedback why your manuscript was rejected and if you are lucky you might get a few notes from the rejecter suggesting some improvements. I have been kicking around a DL novel idea for a while now and while I have no publishing aims – I may follow Dan and post it here as Fan Fic just for fun. Sure I might get flamed, called a phony again, or some other odd thing but I bet I might learn something. I know that my wife who reads most of the drivel I write, tells me I obsess with the weapon details to the point of losing the story – so I need to work on that and my sentence structure is for shite. Of course the weapons I chose for my DL characters are ones that I am familiar with – AMD-65, Ruger GP-101, etc but might make a reader pause and wonder what kind of weapon that is apparently something not desirable in escapist fiction.

Anyone here play this:

http://www.urbandead.com/map.cgi

its a simple yet adictive zombie game. Its free to play as well.

I've been playing for about 2 years now and still go back every day to play out my days 50 action points.

More info here:

http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Main_Page


Jim

Thanks for reminding me about this. I found this online about 6 months ago and my wife and I were going to play it. I had forgotten about it. It's sounds zombie-tastic.

Thank you for the site Jim! I must admit, it is a little slow for me... but it is pretty cool for a browser based game... also because of your recommendation I happened to run across a really cool site "www.deadfrontier.com", very fast paced flash style game! It is free to play, all you have to do is update your flash player and you're ready to go! Oh... and did I mention it was free? lol...

Sun

The zombie site is a little too slow for me too and the last thing I am interested in is another MMO.

If there are any more zombie fic out there would be nice to read some more. I like the Morningstar Strain and how the virus was intelligent enough to put the zed into a catatonic state until some food was around sparing the body from rotting too quickly like they did in 28 Days.

Mac, now hunting Big Foot with my brand-new Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator!!

Posted By Bury The Sun on 22 Sep 2009 07:44 AM
Thank you for the site Jim! I must admit, it is a little slow for me... but it is pretty cool for a browser based game... also because of your recommendation I happened to run across a really cool site "www.deadfrontier.com", very fast paced flash style game! It is free to play, all you have to do is update your flash player and you're ready to go! Oh... and did I mention it was free? lol...

Sun

It suits me perfectly. I get around an hour a night to "play" on the computer and a game that takes around 10 minutes tops to use your 50 AP's for the day is perfect.

Like all games not everyone is going to like it -but with 24722 active players (as of this evening) I guess it has some attraction for a few folk. I've been playing around 2 years now and still not bored with it.

I tried dead frontier but didn't like it, I guess I'm an old school "Klunky" game fan at heart....

Was reading this thread, and went over to the Fan Fiction Archive section. Chris (Outlanders) pretty much had it summed up on the page,

"A note from the author. I have left the stories in their original format, unedited and un-revamped. The reason I have done this is because it is an interesting study in the evolution of a writer."


Writing assignments when I was in High school was bad enough.  Still, I've tried writing stuff, certainly not even expecting the thought of submitting, as it sometimes is a way to get stuff out of your head; even when you lack imagination, which is in my opinion a good part of being a writer. One thing I did learn was to save and seperate the changes if I went back and toyed with anything. Helps find mistakes.

In looking at the list of stories sitting in the Fan Fiction Archive, I still like "The Blackjack Chronicles" and even tried emailing the author some years back to see if there would be any sequel. Of course, there were none. Come to think of it, I may have copied it and worked at editing it (errors like spelling, correcting run-on sentences kinda thing) just so I could read it offline and better enjoy the story.