I've noticed a few people have started fan fiction threads, so here is my contribution to the band wagon. We start with an old throw back to Blackshades.
Chapter One: I See Red People (no, I'm not being a crazy racisist)
Village 1031
Turner awoke with a start. He could see a robot and a clown dancing above his head.
Director: Cut, cut. Now everyone who is not in this scene, out! No, no, out. Right that’s better, now roll again,
Knickers 1031
Turner awoke-
Director: Okay, who switched the caption? Switch it back! Right, and roll again.
Village 1031
Turner awoke with a start. The scent of moisture settling on the grass was strong, irratating Turner's nose. Wisps of fog swirled in odd shapes around his head.
Turner stretched and scratched himself behind his ears with his foot. He got up and looked around. The look-out ruins rose above him, many times his size. The roughly chiseled stone was slippery with the rains that had recently fallen, making climbing up it directly impossible, the side passage however simply involved jumping from the rocks jutting out of the side of the ruins. The only possibility of an accident that way was either over shooting a rock, or slipping on it and falling off the side.
Turner walked into the clearing, passing the slabs of stone imbedded in the ground. As he walked passed them he heard Jack say “Hi Turner,”
“Morning Jack,” Turner replied, walking up behind Jack.
“Turner, could you do me a huge favor?”
Turner made a bit of a quizzical grunt, “What do you need?”
“I hired two guards at Rocky Hall a few days ago, but they haven’t come yet. Next time you’re there could you check on them, see if they’re coming at all?”
Turner breathed through his nose, he might have known. “Lazy bastards. I’ll check, and tell them to get there asses over here next time I’m at Rocky Hall,”
“Thanks Turner!”
“What’s all this about hiring guards? There as never been a problem here as long as I was in charge!” Skipper jumped down from his post on one of the rock slabs.
Turner repressed a groan. Skipper had always been against hiring guards, even now when raider attacks were more common. “The raiders are getting bold,” Turner said. “It couldn’t hurt to have more people around.” Skipper just snorted and returned to his self-appointed post on one of the slabs.
Turner walked into the clearing, his wife was already awake and greeted him. “Our daughter is up on the look-out ruins and refuses to come down.”
“Good morning to you too,” Turner grumbled. “Again? I’ll see if I can get her to come down.”
Turner managed to jump, claw, slip, and bounce his way up the side passage to the top of the look-out ruins. April must have heard him coming because once he was on his own two feet she said “Hi dad!”
“Why do you keep coming up here? This silly tricks are for kids,” Turner said, a bit more harshly then he meant to.
“It’s perfectly safe!” April said defensively. “Besides, I’ve seen you jump down from here all the time.”
“Hey it takes a lot of practice to do that!”
April ignored his comment and instead said “That one guy over there is creeping me out though.”
“What guy?”
“That guy,” she said, pointing off to the west. Turner spotted a black rabbit standing at the edge of the forest. “It looks like he’s just waiting for something,”
“I’ll see what he’s up to,” Turner promised. With that said he jumped off the ruins and landed right in front of the stranger. “Who are you?”
The stranger took a step back. “Is this how you treat all your visitors?”
“No,” Turner said. “But there was a raider sighting near here a few days ago,”
“I’m not a raider!”
“Of course you’re not, how silly of me,” Turner said, trying to sound sarcastic, but he was afraid it didn’t come across that way.
“I’m with a caravan camped farther into the woods. Would you come with me so I can show you we aren’t a threat?”
Turner looked at him warily but said “Alright.”
The stranger led him deeper into the woods, only to stop when they came upon a canyon. A rope bridge was suspended over it, but the bridge was guarded by an old crone, fortunately he was sleeping. When they drew nearer to him however he woke up. The stranger stopped in front of him saying “May we cross this bridge?”
The crone said “Let me ask you these questions three, ere the other side, maybe. What is your name?”
“Frank.”
“What, is your quest?”
“To cross this canyon,”
“What, is the release date for Lugaru 2?”
“What do you mean?” Frank said. “African or English translation of it?”
“I- I don’t know that!” And to Turner’s amazement the old crone was suddenly lifted up and thrown into the canyon.
Frank and Turner crossed the bridge without incident, they had walked a bit farther when Turner asked “Who was that?”
“The old man, from scene 24,”
“What?”
“Here we are,” Frank said, stopping in a clearing. But there was no caravan, or in fact any one else there other then them.
“What do you mean? There’s no one here!”
“Exactly,” said a voice. It belonged to another rabbit, this one about a half-head smaller then Turner, but he carrying a knife.
“Shit,” was the only thing Turner could think of to say.
Director: Cut, cut, good one lads, take an hour to rest and review your lines.
Frank: But sir, the world will end in thirty-four minutes, twelve seconds.
Director: Shut up!
Fan Fiction? Decide for yourself!
Fan Fiction? Decide for yourself!
Last edited by Kalexon on Mon Jan 15, 2007 6:54 pm, edited 5 times in total.
Re: Fan Fiction? Decide for yourself!
Aren't we supposed to put a bag over our heads or something?Kalexon wrote: But sir, the world will end in thirty-four minutes, twelve seconds.
Director: Shut up!
Seriously, though folks, this is well written, even if it is derivative. And I'm not knocking derivative; it's a perfectly acceptable way to start writing, and almost everything I write is derivative. I just don't have enough experience yet to write without a source to steal from.
And this is technically a pastiche, so it's spot on to steal cliches to set the tone and mood. Yet it makes T seem like a real person, using and expanding dialogue from L1.
But the writing is clear, and the pacing is good. Grammar and spelling are fine; there are a few typos, tho certainly not as many as some posts and fanfic here.
There is a sequence near the beginning that has far too many commas, and turns into a brainfull of concepts and a run on sentence. That's easily fixed, though, because the thoughts are clear and well-structured.
It also has one very important thing that almost all posts and fiction on this forum lacks, and which seriously degrades their quality and readability: paragraphinatenalerationism. OK, a joke word, but using short sentences in paragraphs to tell a straightforward story is always the best. K does this superbly.
Of course, the context (or conceit) of the piece is a shooting script, but that's an excellent approach to take to any descriptive writing. Imagine you're writing a movie script: you have to describe the scene and action, and also incorporate the dialogue, in short, pithy bursts. Then remove the script directions and you've got a short story.
My opinion: B for originality, A for writing and structure, A+ for overall effect. Good job, dude!
PS: You could have put this into my thread; I'd like to see bits from every writer there, so we can work together to identify best practices and improve our writing.
I didn't because I'm planning on writing a series of these, not just this single story, although I think that the rest will have a lot less Monty Python and Donnie Darko take-offs in them.you could have put this into my thread; I'd like to see bits from every writer there, so we can work together to identify best practices and improve our writing.
P.S. I fixed some of the errors
Sorry for the double post but here it is! After months of doing nothing and two days of writing, the second chapter of a never ending series.
Chapter Two: Well, it took them nearly three years to get through pre-production
Light shone through the cracks in the blinds covering the window onto Turner’s face. He stirred, opening his eyes a bit, squinting at the light. Turner groaned, dragging himself out of his bed. He stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the shower. After letting the water heat up he staggered into the shower let the water splash over his face. After a brief soak he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Turner dropped to all fours and shook himself, sending thousands of water droplets in all directions. Now fully awake Turner went into back into his dorm room to find a pair of pants. After a brief search for a clean pair, camo pants in place, and cell phone in his pocket, Turner grabbed his script and left his dorm room. He walked down the hall, went down several flights of stairs to the ground floor and quickly found the café for the cast and crew.
For breakfast Turner got and plastic wrapped sandwich and left. He ate it on his way across the studio campus and stopped at the helicopter pad where everyone was waiting. “About time,” the director said. “We need to get two scenes done today. With only a month left to shoot and wrap this we’re going to barely scrape inside the deadline.”
“Ask David for more time,” Turner responded.
“Can’t, I already asked for another week and I had to wring his arm to get that much.” The conversation was cut short however, the crew had finished loading all the equipment onto the chopper and all the cast started to get on board. Turner stepped onto the helicopter and found a seat.
After a few minutes the door was closed and the copter started to lift off and head for the location.
Every sense was working over-time, adrenaline pumped through his body. And what did he do with that? Well first off he smashed the Frank with a double fisted blow aimed at his head and stomach. Frank litterly flew back, reeling from the blow. Hearing footsteps behind him Turner turned to his second assailant. Wielding a knife this rabbit made a stab, trying to bring his blade down on Turner’s head. Turner grabbed his arm in mid-swing, catching it with the knife inches from his face. He forced the knife away and to the left of him, causing his elbow to clip his assailant’s jaw, then groin kicked him. The brown and white rabbit coughed and started jerking around. Turner released the knife arm with his right hand and brought it around to seize the rabbit’s neck. With a vicious jerk he snapped it. Using his left hand he plucked the knife from the corpses’ limp hand and let the body drop to the ground.
Turner slowly turned around, transferring the knife from his left hand to his right while doing so, back to Frank’s direction. Frank was walking towards Turner, blood dripping from a corner of his mouth and both nostrils. Turner jerked the hand holding the knife back until it nearly touched his left pec, and then jerked it forward letting the knife fly. It struck Frank right between the eyes.
Leaning against a tree, Turner allowed himself as much time as he dared to catch his breath. After a minute Turner dropped to all fours and sped off across the woodlands. The hours of travel on biped foot was compressed as Turner almost flew among the trees. He was so bent on reaching the village he didn’t even notice that the canyon and the bridge were gone (they edited out that scene) By the time he was back to the village, even having shortened his journey it was sunset. The sunset hanging onto the land for it’s life in the distant sky (cliché) was as red as the blood covering every stone, shrub, tree, cloth fiber, and blade of grass (even more cliché) in the village. (normal)
Chapter Two: Well, it took them nearly three years to get through pre-production
Light shone through the cracks in the blinds covering the window onto Turner’s face. He stirred, opening his eyes a bit, squinting at the light. Turner groaned, dragging himself out of his bed. He stumbled into the bathroom and turned on the shower. After letting the water heat up he staggered into the shower let the water splash over his face. After a brief soak he turned off the water and stepped out of the shower. Turner dropped to all fours and shook himself, sending thousands of water droplets in all directions. Now fully awake Turner went into back into his dorm room to find a pair of pants. After a brief search for a clean pair, camo pants in place, and cell phone in his pocket, Turner grabbed his script and left his dorm room. He walked down the hall, went down several flights of stairs to the ground floor and quickly found the café for the cast and crew.
For breakfast Turner got and plastic wrapped sandwich and left. He ate it on his way across the studio campus and stopped at the helicopter pad where everyone was waiting. “About time,” the director said. “We need to get two scenes done today. With only a month left to shoot and wrap this we’re going to barely scrape inside the deadline.”
“Ask David for more time,” Turner responded.
“Can’t, I already asked for another week and I had to wring his arm to get that much.” The conversation was cut short however, the crew had finished loading all the equipment onto the chopper and all the cast started to get on board. Turner stepped onto the helicopter and found a seat.
After a few minutes the door was closed and the copter started to lift off and head for the location.
Every sense was working over-time, adrenaline pumped through his body. And what did he do with that? Well first off he smashed the Frank with a double fisted blow aimed at his head and stomach. Frank litterly flew back, reeling from the blow. Hearing footsteps behind him Turner turned to his second assailant. Wielding a knife this rabbit made a stab, trying to bring his blade down on Turner’s head. Turner grabbed his arm in mid-swing, catching it with the knife inches from his face. He forced the knife away and to the left of him, causing his elbow to clip his assailant’s jaw, then groin kicked him. The brown and white rabbit coughed and started jerking around. Turner released the knife arm with his right hand and brought it around to seize the rabbit’s neck. With a vicious jerk he snapped it. Using his left hand he plucked the knife from the corpses’ limp hand and let the body drop to the ground.
Turner slowly turned around, transferring the knife from his left hand to his right while doing so, back to Frank’s direction. Frank was walking towards Turner, blood dripping from a corner of his mouth and both nostrils. Turner jerked the hand holding the knife back until it nearly touched his left pec, and then jerked it forward letting the knife fly. It struck Frank right between the eyes.
Leaning against a tree, Turner allowed himself as much time as he dared to catch his breath. After a minute Turner dropped to all fours and sped off across the woodlands. The hours of travel on biped foot was compressed as Turner almost flew among the trees. He was so bent on reaching the village he didn’t even notice that the canyon and the bridge were gone (they edited out that scene) By the time he was back to the village, even having shortened his journey it was sunset. The sunset hanging onto the land for it’s life in the distant sky (cliché) was as red as the blood covering every stone, shrub, tree, cloth fiber, and blade of grass (even more cliché) in the village. (normal)
