Dumping ground

[FullAuto]

Brize Norton is indeed something special. I've got a couple of mates in the RAF and they disagree about what it is, but aye, as far as I know it's command HQ. As for the "Or Eete oo et ack" I didn't notice that but a friend of mine did just before I posted it. He felt compelled to comment on how corny it is, but I left it in. It made me laugh quite a bit.

[Fox]

I copied and pasted your writings so far into a word document and I plan to read them tonight. I tried reading the first installment on the first page, but surprisingly it is very hard for me to follow. It is full of British lingo, and I found myself having to read some lines over and over because it's hard for a "yank" to understand. Your later writings look easier to understand, though.

 

Looking over the comment posts I noticed that you are using characters created by other people. I would venture to guess they are from the UFO character creation section of this forum. You might find yourself worrying way too much about what other people think of YOUR characters. Whether or not they created them you should not worry about other people being mad that their character "isn't being represented correctly". You should be worried about YOUR story and YOUR characters, not others people's ideas being misrepresented.

 

I will hopefully comment on your writing tonight.

[FullAuto]

Thanks Fox! The lingo should be getting easier for non-Brits to understand in the next section, more plain English on the way, honest. If you want any of the words translating, just say & I'll knock up an "Across the Pond" glossary for you.

[JellyfishGreen]

Still with you, waiting for the storm.

[JellyfishGreen]

I'm still mopping up Mark-23/G36 flavored drool at the Rammstein test range, darn it. I had no idea that great depiction would emerge from the "what pistol should we use" thread! And now, some megalomaniac has some lost Russian nukes, and that's NOT the BIG problem?

 

And I'm still two posts behind...

 

update: this is delicious!

[FullAuto]

Thanks JFG. That comes as a bit of a relief, I thought I'd created a monster! Plenty to come yet.

[Skonar]

Wow. Just... Wow.

 

I'm still going through this thing, and a couple of posts behind, but, wow.

 

You're very prolific and, on the whole, this is fairly good stuff. No real specifics I can go into for criticism on a writing perspective.

 

One note, though...

 

-Naturally-, .45 ammunition, AFAIK, is subsonic. Big, heavy, relatively slow round. It's 9mm that needs the specific subsonic ammo, AFAIK.

[FullAuto]

The traditional .45 round, fired by Colt 1911's, Thompson submachine guns etc was indeed subsonic. However, there is supersonic .45 ACP ammunition available, I think +P rounds, which the SOCOM pistol is designed to cope with, is supersonic. So you've got a choice, and obviously using subsonic rounds will be quieter than supersonic rounds, with or without a suppressor. Good point though.

[FullAuto]

Thanks for your comments, Skonar. Much appreciated.

[Skonar]

Hmm. I continue to like it, now that I'm all caught up.

 

On the non-meaningful side of commentary, OMG, WOW! AWESOME! FANTASTI-Etcetera.

 

However. This forum's formatting is -killing- the readibility. =/ Any chance one of the webbies around here can post up the story for you (FullAuto) in .rtf or some similar generally universal format?

 

Anyway. You use a lot of Dialogue, and you use it effectively, which I find interesting. Although, you seem to suffer a little bit from 'Chronicle' syndrome, where almost -everything- of minor consequence needs to be written out. (EG - A lot of the stuff on the planes, etcetera. While it's still good stuff, it detracts a little from the overall plot development/etc in the reading, I find.)

 

Out of interest, what's your writing method? How did you get so prolific? I for one would -love- to emulate you here on this. Outlining methods, perhaps?

 

Overall, FullAuto, positive vibes, man. Positive Vibes.

[FullAuto]

Duly noted, Skonar. The minutaie content will certainly be lowered, as this story is much longer than I thought it would be. The first installment hit about 6 thousand words total, whereas this is at about 20 thou, I think. As for getting it pinned...I kind of doubt that'll happen, only the "official" fics get pinned, and as much as I'd love this to be the "official" agents fic, I can't see it happening.

I wouldn't call myself prolific, not by any means. I've done one post in the main fic (which, thank God, I didn't bugger up), and there's this little beauty that I've got going at the minute. And I'm also entering that End of Story thing run by the BBC when I can think of an idea.

The initial idea for this fic was three or four short stories (5 thou words or so) to catch up with the main fic, then some longer installments as X-com gets up and running, and the Agents move to stop the aliens subverting governments and spot alien bases.

A writing method? Get comfy. That's all I do. Make sure you've got a comfy chair, scream "I'm MUST have SILENCE" or put some music on, whichever you prefer. Just get comfy, and write. The hardest part for me is getting started. I don't plan stories ahead of time. I don't sketch out story arcs (whatever those are). I just get an idea, and write. I know vaguely what's going to happen, but if I tried to set an outline down on paper and then fill it with words, it wouldn't work. I know, cause I've tried, and it came out stilted and crap. That method may work for other people, and if it does, more power to them.

If you take a look at the dates on my posts in this thread, you'll note a bit of a gap between the end of part one and the beginning of part two, simply because I couldn't get started. Then I read a book on the gulags in the USSR and watched...Crimson Tide, I think it was, where some Russian rebels get hold of some nuclear missiles. Voila. Got an idea, started writing. I read shedloads of books, I go to the cinema every week and I rent DVDs every few days. There are ideas worth developing in the worst of every genre. You can get inspired by the most unlikely things, sometimes completely unrelated to what you want to write about. It just needs something to spark a chain of thought.

Grammar, spelling, punctuation are all very nice, but if you've got a good story, they're just icing, really. They help, but if they're not perfect, it doesn't matter much. As long as people enjoy the story, who gives a toss? That, for me, is the central idea.

It doesn't have to be brilliantly innovative, or MENSA-stumpingly clever, it just has to be FUN. Enjoy writing it. Enjoy having your characters nail the bad guy with a hail of lead. Enjoy the bantering dialogue. Enjoy blowing shit up. And hopefully, whoever reads it will enjoy it too.

Here endeth the lesson.

[JellyfishGreen]

"Crimson Tide" was on in the background last Saturday as I sat plotting long-range artillery fire in "Ground Control". (A nice little fully 3D tactical wargame from Eidos if you find it.) And yes, I overheard that a rebel Russian general had seized control of nuclear missiles. And yes, I thought "That sounds familiar...I wonder if FullAuto's team are on the job?"

[FullAuto]

Inspiration can come from anywhere, mate. Ab-so-lute-ly anywhere! And you'll find the Agents will go anywhere. Whether they like it or not.

Skonar, I hope my previous post adressed your question about writing methods, if it didn't then tell me EXACTLY what it is you want info on so I can't get it wrong.

[FullAuto]

Here are all the comments from various threads, soon to be deleted forever. Probably.