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Hello everybody... It' Rattler,

Most of you authors on this site that have read my first story, "The Wild Wild West; An Unchangeable World," and you probably recognize that I am quite new to this site.

Now, back to my story. After finishing my wild western story I received a sizeable amount of feedback and constructive criticism, also, thanks to those who commented on the story. After reading through those comments I realized that every single one of them was helpful. They gave me ideas on how I could improve my writing and not make the same mistakes I made in my first publishment. So, thanks again.

Anyway, I didn't really want to unpublish "The Wild Wild West, An Unchangeable World," as that was not my intention, after some devising I came up with the solution of creating a new story game, it would virtually be an upgrade from the previous, I usually tend to write on 2 devices, my laptop and desktop, well it is an iMac. Anyway, during the creation of my first publishment, I spent approximately 75% of the time I put into writing it on the iMac, and I soon decided to install Grammarly on my laptop. I didn't put it on the iMac however and trust me, I make a lot, and I mean A LOT of Spelling/Grammar punctuation mistakes without noticing, and without Grammarly... It was messed up, I was also too cocky to even think about re-reading my story so... Yeah,

Anyway...

I know have Grammarly on the iMac and am prepared to fight those god damn spelling mistakes in a style that is cool. Not just a little cool, but ripped leather-vest wearing, chain-gun toting, thick golden belt wearing, I drive over robots and crush them in my jet-fuel nitro-powered motorcycle with flames burning in the engine cool.

Okay then, probably a bit of an over-reaction on the Spelling & Grammar... o_o

Anyway, my previous story had approximately 5, 844 words. My next upgrade story, I am planning to have somewhere around 30-100K, right now I am only at 4000 words. Another one of my main focuses this time is to make it good quality writing with a nice flow and story to it. I am also bumping the use of variables this time.

I added this post to see if anyone had any suggestions on what I should do or add on my next story... :)

-Rattler

 

I actually played this game today and left a review. I was honestly impressed by it. For a new author publishing your first story it really isn't bad. And I'm really glad to see that you are taking the constructive criticism you received and using it to make the story better.

I will copy and paste one thing from my review because it was a suggestion and you are asking for them here:

The first thing I noticed was the picture for the gun item. It's a modern revolver, the sight is a dead giveaway as is just about everything else about it. For one thing it is a Ruger revolver, and the company wasn't founded until 1949. I'm assuming that since Jesse James is in this story that the time period is between 1866-1882 so I would suggest using an image for either the 1851 Colt Navy Revolver or the 1873 Colt Single Action Army Revolver. Both of these were fairly common/popular revolvers in that time period. 

I don't know if you are worried about historical accuracy or not. And it's completely fine if you aren't. But, if you do want to go for that authenticity, I suggest being careful about things like that. In the story you also claimed the player character's family had bison on their ranch instead of cattle. Only a handful of ranchers in the late 1800's were keeping bison on their lands and it was in an effort to save them from extinction at the time. I would suggest on reading the topic, because if you choose to stick with that then there is potential there to use it in your story and understanding what was happening to Bison in that time period would open up a lot of writing points. On the other hand if you decide to switch it to cattle, which would have been more realistic it is still a big deal to have bandits come in and steal or slaughter them. Even in present time that could ruin a farmer financially in a way they might never recover from. 

It sounds like you are already working on anything else I can think of. Keep us updated on it. I'm honestly really excited to see where you go with this. :)

Also, I have to compliment you on your story, it's only now that I realise you are the author of "The Secret Of Daphne" I have read that story numerous times! It's great, the reason that I have read it multiple times is because of the fact that I keep ending up in the cave part, hiding under the bed of Cynthia's attacker, with all the photos and ETC (I don't want to spoil the story for those who haven't read it)

Glad to hear you're working on an expanded version. It is a worthy goal. I myself am still planning to do that with...every contest story I've ever done...

I think 30k is a more realistic goal to aim for than 100k unless you have a pretty involved plot in mind and a good idea of how to organize it all. (If you haven't messed with chapters in the editor yet I'd recommend figuring out a good way to break things up among them and get a handle on jumping between them when needed...$DEST will save your life.)

Word count is less important than having a complete feeling story though, so basically just make it as long as it needs to be.

I'll try and take a closer look at your story at some point this weekend, I originally looked it over on my phone so I wasn't doing the most detailed reading.

Thanks, Mizal and Simplesabe! (I might just call you simple from here...) Simple, I have actually started having bison in the new story this time, and they will be a considerably large topic in it, for example, they will be valued and admired very much by virtually everyone living near them, and I plan for bandits to be a very immense complication. Anyway, Mizal... My first punishment is quite an easy read and I'm quite sure you will not have much trouble reading it at all, it lacks in a lot of areas, such as character development, plotline, ETC.

>My first punishment

Freudian slip?

>is quite an easy read and I'm quite sure you will not have much trouble reading it at all, it lacks in a lot of areas, such as character development, plotline, ETC.

Don't forget punctuation! :D Glancing at it again now and remembering this was a story I'd meant to go back to in more detail, my first impression had been you having potential but mainly just falling victim to a lot of newbie mistakes.

How much Western stuff have you read? A couple of weeks ago I finished Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry and aside from the author kind of obviously rushing to wrap things up at the end it's an incredible book with loads of characterization and setting detail, about a cattle drive from South Texas to Montana. It covers a lot of what day to day life was like.

Even just burning through a half a dozen Louis L'Amour books or watching some Clint Eastwood movies might put you in the right mindset. I'm kind of in agreement with Simple about the bison thing though, when just a nice herd of normal cattle would be enough to kick off most plots. There's enough real life incidents and outlaws you could look up involving cattle rustling, which was a bad enough offense they'd hang people for it all on its own.

I've been putting considerable amounts of effort into this story, I have had invaluable support from many users and I want to thank everybody first. Right now, I am at around 16600 words, the game starts off at 1862 but years can pass by. The American Civil War is involved and the plot is based in the town of Amarillo, Texas, USA, which was a state on the side of the Confederacy for most of the duration of the war. Most of the story involves doing certain jobs for your family and doing various things in the town. Still haven't got everything perfect yet.

Thanks again

-Rattler

Now, I am at 17040 words. Man, I am going fast! I have added links in which when clicked, they will take you to a page that gives a description on certain protagonists, ETC. Not completely necessary for the story, but it just gives an insight into the characters history and life.

I just tried out the sneak peek of this game.

There are definite improvements to this compared to the original. I do suggest doing a bit more research on the time period. There's a point in the story where you talk about money but you are using modern standards. $20 in 1860 would be equivalent to $570 in present day.

Here is an inflation calculator

Also with how you are writing the speech patterns of the people, stay consistent. If you want to reflect the Texas Drawl as you currently are, that's fine. But remember these people likely wouldn't speak overly formal and you can achieve the same effect by simply describing them as speaking with a drawl.

I also would suggest lowering the age of the protagonist. You reference him as 25, but much of his dialogue and actions matches the maturity level of a 12 or 13 year old. Changing the protagonist to be 12 or 13 wouldn't have to effect your story much. Teens in that time period were expected to be much more mature than they are today.

Overall good work. It's an improvement and that's great! Keep up the good work!

Sorry about the late reply, I have got some ways to make the text sound like a Texas accent on this Reddit thread I came across. https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/47cfkf/writing_in_a_texan_dialect/

Also, I am aware of the huge inflation difference of the money, I've been so for a long time, I just thought that $20 would be about $150, but I was definitely wrong. I will make the protagonist a teenager, I will increase the maturity in his speech, ETC.

Thanks again for the feedback!

-Rattler

Aaaand I'm back... After about 5 months.

*That is just Depressing*

But the good news is I am going to start the recreation of the Wild Wild West unchangeable world story which most likely has been forgotten about and secluded from the rest of this website...

Anyway, it should be done within the next few months...

 

I've seen him on every now and then since he posted this. 

Hello Again, it's nearly been a year and I've found this story quiet overloading to complete. Well to its plots fully planned extent, which I'm guessing is around 35-40,000 words. I think I will have to motivate myself to move it to this extent or just cut it off with a shorter ending. Considering it's been 10 months I would like to take the easier path but I'm still considering.

Rattler