Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

Now that you mention it, yeah, Starhawk could use more line breaks too. That or indentation...

If you want your paragraphs indented, you can do so by enabling HTML in your posts and using paragraph tags with indentation style. Since UBB's code tags only seem to show UBB code formatting, not HTML code formatting, you must quote this post to see the HTML formatting.

Here is a brief sample. Unfortunately, you have to make everything on one gigantic line to make the forum software happy...

"Better to fight for something than live for nothing." - General Patton
2402.4
<p style="text-indent: 2em">Lieutenant Commander O'Hara looked on amazed at her Captain. Tanner was so calm it was beyond belief. How did he manage it? He was relaxed. He was untroubled. He was also suffering a vicious head injury she noticed. That would explain it, but what to do? There was only one real option.</p><p style="text-indent: 2em">"Medical team to the bridge." She commanded on the internal comms before striding over to the captains chair.</p><p style="text-indent: 2em">"Sorry to interrupt sir, but your clearly injured and possibly concussed. I can handle the damage control and I would recommend you get treated for that head wound."</p>

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

Indenting OR double-spacing would be fine. Both is a little... excessive. I prefer the double-spacing; its standard on the 'net.

And I think that part of the confusion over what is desired is a conflict-of-terms. In English, if they say double-spacing they want every single line to have a blank line between them; when I'm saying it on the net I want paragraphs to have to lines between them. That more clear? Great job on the last part, BTW. Though there were some... oddities.

Definate grammar error there -- "looked on amazed" doesn't fit.

That sentence broke the flow, and stood out -- I stubbed my mental toe on it, in a sense http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Dunno how you can fix.

"but you're clearly injured"? I might even consider dropping the use of a contraction there -- doesn't feel quite right.

You seem to jump between just leaving thoughts as-is and using something to delineate them from the surrounding text -- unless you have a reason for that, I'd suggest that you pick one route and stick with it. More importantly, try to heighten the difference in feel between each set.

You seem to be dropping punctuation at the end of paragraphs from time to time, and this piece again breaks the flow a little. You need some sort of transition I think between the prior paragraph and this one. Additionally, you dropped a comma -- "Commodore Delap, who had..." Remember, if you're using parenthetical expresions -- ie putting one though inside another -- you need to delineate both sides of it, beggining and end. Just like I do with -- and --, though you may choose another route. If you're wondering, I use -- because a dash is supposed to be longer than a hyphen, but keyboards don't have a dash key, just a heyphen. Two hyphens are accepted as one dash, however (the things you learn in college English...).

Get a spell-checker on manuevering. I think you mispelled it.

Again, a drop in punctuation at the end of the paragraph.

"They dinos"?

This conversation feels slightly contrived. Well, more than slightly. I don't know how you could make it feel more natural, but you might want to look at it.

A) "'Right, lets have a look.' he said to himself."
Above and beyond the missing comma, if he said that you should use " instead of '; if he thought it you need to change the text.

B) "...reams of damage report data."? I don't think reams goes into that sentence right.

Um, what? You have a small grammar error there -- and a dropped finishing punctuation.

"What the status..."? Do you mean "What is" or "What's"?

Um, bad phrasing -- deliberate attempt at humor / effect, or accident?

Rooted? Um, is that a bit of local slang I'm utterly unfamiliar with (in which case it might be a bad choice), or is this just a made-up word to replace a swear word (a common choice in a lot of fiction).

Do you mean "ma'ams"? Ma'am is a contraction, that I know. Just don't ask me what its a contraction of please.

This is the only reason I believed the prior comment was for effect; but I'd still recommend re-doing.

The also doesn't feel right -- it doesn't work with the flow very well. Try combining it a little closer, with a lot less transition between ideas, sense they're so closely related.

I'd disagree with that assesment, personally, but its you're call. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

I like that bit. Its a nice touch.

BTW -- feel free to smack me if I'm being to hard on you, but this is the way I learned, so...

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

"Thet dinos" as in "them black people" to use a comparable term. Plus, I mean, come on, it's people talking you can't very well expect every single word to be fully gramatically correct and relevant.

"Ma'am" = madam = a female superior officer.

Phil, I think you erm..... overdid it a little. I mean, a full blank line after every single spoken sentence kinda takes the tempo out of the story.

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

A new person speaking must be a new paragraph. Paragraphs should be delineated in some manner, either through indentation or line spacing. I don't think he overdid it.

Just how detailed are these reports? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif If there are hundreds upon hundreds of pages of data, it would work.

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

Thus proving you can't make all of the people happy all of the time. The line spacing will probably stay and I think *** to separate sections works. So onto the comments:

Rooted, it's a bit of both really, nice bit of slang which also replaces the swearing the cheif would be doing.

The ships lost several decks, loads of engines and large amounts of extra damage. There's going to be huge amounts of data.

Yeah I wasn't ecstatic with some of the dialogue, especially Delap''s bit. I had a point to make but couldn't make it flow smoothly. Time really is a bit tight so I can't spend as long as I like writing and re-drafting. Bits are sometimes called close enough.

'manoeuvring' is perfect English. You colonials really need to remember how to spell http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

This section was written and then the line spacing added, so quite a few grammar bits probably sneaked in there.

Well thanks for the comments, but don't aim to high with the grammar. I'm not taking this anywhere near that seriously and the only other writing I do is technical reports. Easy rules there: Past tense and never mention 'I' or thinking. You always know or expect. Plus no-one is that bothered by grammar as everyone is equally bad at it.

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

Fallen back to page 4 in 20 days. How time flys...

Anyway I've been busy so this fell on the back burner. When I tried to restart I realised I didn't like where the story was, yeah the next chapter would be OK but beyond that I'm trapped in a story I don't really want to write. So options

1. Fight through the story to get somewhere
2. Write this story off and start again.
3. Jump ahead xxx years and carry on the story with the same background, characters etc.

I don't fancy 1. and don't want to throw away all the back story that 2. would imply I'm leaning towards 3.

But is it the writing style, the characters or what that people like about this story? Hence the question, I wouldn't mind any of the above options so what would people read? If I'm going to write something and post it I would prefer that someone read it. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

Option 2 is a necessity sometimes, but save it fora last resort.

#1 is a pain -- I'm stuck with it on a few stories.
#3 is a double pain, as you have to make certain to keep us straight throught the jump, but quite doable.

Re: Ocelots Rampant (Game Story)
 

Can't face #1 and I am doing this for fun so that's out. Hence I combine #2 and #3. Same back story but a few years down the line and focusing on just a small unit. The grand story happens in the background. Give it a try, see if I enjoy writing it. So away with you, to the new story!