Non-threaded

Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

Find proofreaders here, useful resources, and share opinions and advice on story crafting.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

Entry for Bucky's Contest...

 

*Warning, this sort of throws logic out the window for quite some time.*
*Also, any events or characters in this story are fictional and any similarity to real-life is entirely coincidental... probably. :)"

"Oh, From Illogical, Annoying Users"
 aka
A Story to Convince Others to Write in Order to Get Mizal a Video Game in which I Use Poor Humor and the Perspective of a User/Character Who's Actions Are not What Is Proper; However, It Will Hopefully Be Horrible Enough to Make Others Write Since It's Quality is Pretty Low.

There are fives rules to writing:

First, one should abstain from spelling errorss.
Second, one should not plagiarize others works (unless it's really good).
Third, follow the rules of the website in which you are writing (unless you feel that they don't apply to you).
Forth, write something worth reading to at least somebody other than your mother unless it is something like a birthday card as long as the card is addressed and sent to your mother. If sending birthday cards do not apply to you, then disregard this clause present in this forth rule.
Fifth, be sure to follow the sixth rule.

Using this information, you, as a young child who wishes to write the next Shakespearean writer for choose your own adventure stories on a website titled "chooseyourstory.com", which by the way deals with the choose your own adventure genre.

You ponder to yourself for a moment, what shall you name yourself? You shouldn't use your real name. If you do, then you would become immediately swarmed by adoring fans. Anyway, you wouldn't want to use Hrafnhildur Dungworth, which are actually real names and not ones made up by modern-day deranged parents or writers. Obviously, you would choose the name of your favorite book series. As your name, you put "Warrior_Cow_Luvur". That would be a good way to introduce yourself to your soon-to-be adoring fans.

You see other information, like email addresses and such, so you fly by them. Why bother with those?

Then, you decide to introduce yourself to the community. In the Bugs and Problems, you write, "Hey, every1! I'm Warrior_Cow_Luvur! I'm a writer, so I'm going to write!!! Oh, I love Warrior Cows as well! Do any of U!!!" Then, you realize that some people may become jealous of your awesome introduction, so you add, "Oh, be nice as well! I'm new here!" Then, you post your introduction.

Now, it's time to get to work. This one will be long story about Warrior Cows. You think a 9/8 length should be good; therefore, you plan out your masterpiece to have nine pages in total with no more than nine sentences per page... No, that seems to long. That will be almost a 100/8 for length. Instead, you decide that the best course of action would be to have no more than three sentences per page. You've always liked even numbers anyway.

You quickly write your novel in three minutes flat. That must be a record! You suddenly realize something weird. There's a yellow message box telling you that there's a new message to the post you're watching. You click it, and it takes you to a page with a link saying somebody posted in your message.

Happily, you click on it. It's a message from somebody with an elf picture. Her name is Maizul. You become excited since now you realize that you can make a picture for yourself as well, but how do you? Anyway, you read to post.

"Hey," she says, "WC fanfiction has been banned here. Please read the Help & Info articles to get acquainted to our guidelines. Also, @Fiel_Karren, can you move this into the right spot?"

Fury boils within your veins. How could she!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You even asked for people to be nice! You're new here!

Furiously, you type a response. "I hate you!" you say. "You're so mean! Warrior Cows are so awesome and origional." Then, you send it.

Then, you mother calls you downstairs. It is time for dinner. You rush downstairs and eat your chicken nuggets which were unfortunately burnt around the edges, for everybody knows that chicken nuggets are best serves when only slightly browned so that they are crunchy but not dry.

Then, you go upstairs. You see that message box again. You read more messages. One user who has a blue warlock warns you about being civil which is entirely uncalled for and quite mean to you. It would be obvious to any impartial user that it is in fact the elf who is being biased against Warrior Cows.

Another user, named ThanaPears, warns you that any published WC fanfiction would be deleted. Yet another, this one name Shrek11, says "Welcome to the site. I do hope you enjoy your stay here." Well, at least he's nice.

You'll have to prove this community of haters wrong. You will publish your story. It will be so awesome that they will beg for your forgiveness which you might do if you are in the mood and your chicken nuggets are only browned and not burnt around the edges.

You go you your storygames link and click the publish button. The next page warns you that two of your nine pages have dead end links. That doesn't matter though. You click next. It asks you what category you want to have the game in. Since this is Warrior Cows, obviously your only choice would be science fiction. You put it on an 8/8 difficulty rating since it is so long, and you put it on an 7/8 maturity level since at one point in the story one cow kisses another cow which was very edgy for you to write.

Then, the next page asks what tags you want to have. You put "Socially Relevant" since this storygame will sell a mazillion copies today, you put "Based Off A True Story" because everybody knows WC are real, and you put  "Foreign Language" to make this book appeal to everybody in the world.

Finally, you click "Finish" to publish your amazing story. Just to give people some encouragement, you log onto "chooseyourstory.com" on your i-phone which was given to you by your uncle on your eight birthday. You rate your own story while being logged off of your account and give it an 8/8. In the comments you write, "This is the best story erur! I just love your writtting!"

Afterwards, you read one of your one thousand six hundred and forty-seven Warrior Cow books to pass the time. Did you mention how much you love Warrior Cows? Somehow, nobody else at school likes them, but they are all just Cow haters. They even eat beef!

You turn on your computer again. You check to see how many people loved your game.

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They all hate your game! They are haters and evil and mean people!

One person said, "Free point." What does that even mean? Another person said, "WC fanfiction is banned." Liar! Warrior Cow fanfition will never be banned. Even that evil elf person, Maizul, said something mean. Why is she being so mean to you! She said, "I've already told you that this is banned. Also check out our articles on writing. You'll find them helpful."

Anger swells within your very soul. These people need to be taught a lessen. You decide to send a personal message to each and every one of them.

You say, "Hater! You are the most hatery hater that ever hated anything not worthy to hate! I hate you for hating what I love because it is awesome and nobody should hate it! If you don't like my story, then don't read or comment on it! Plus, it was my first story! Nobody here could have made a good first story! That means you hate even more than the normal haters since you hate something you didn't have to hate but instead choose to hate probably just because you wanted to hate because hating is all your good at you hating hater who hates things that are not supposed to be hated!!!! Also, you are mean."

You send out that message to all five of the users who commented on your story. Soon, they will be begging for your forgiveness due to your inexplicably impeccable logic and argument strategies.

You look at the clock and see that it's 8:37. This is the time you always go to bed, so you go to bed which was quite unexpected. You spend the rest of the night surfing on social media, though the details of what that entails will not be expressed. Do you think that you would actually give personal information like that to strangers? You might even be able to guess your own name...

You go to sleep and later wake up. When your eyes open, an inhuman amount of energy flows through your body. A doctor once diagnosed you with Annoyeryitis which is a physical condition that gives people who are annoying a considerably unnatural, perhaps even supernatural, amount of energy.

You get dressed in your usual apparel and run downstairs. We eat your favorite Warrior Cow cereal and quickly rush upstairs. Since you have a few minutes before you have to get on the bus, you check to see how many adoring fans you have online.

Oh, good! You have four new messages each of which is from one of the users who you sent the PM to. The first one you read is by Maizul.

She says, "You are ignoring site rules. Also, you appear to be the hating one here."

You skim through the others. They are all mean as well. You receive another message. This one is from Fiel_Karren. He says something about a warning, but you pay it no heed. What could one mean user do to you anyway? You log off and head to the bus stop.

You go to school, but the entire day you are thinking about how mean those people were on that website... Well, you thought about it a little. Fine, you sent a few moments thinking about them when you were supposed to be listening to your math teacher.

When you get back home, you watch whatever generic thing children your age watch on the TV for the next hour. It's probably the Disney channel.

Then, you do your homework which takes way too long. Afterwards, you eat dinner which consists of Chinese food despite the fact that it is actually a simple, Americanized form of a highly diversified foreign food.

Then, you log back onto... wait... why isn't your "my stuff" working? It says you need to be logged in. You enter in your username, but you cannot remember even making a password. You try everything, but nothing works. Maybe, you entered in your password when you were flying by all of the information which you previously thought to be unimportant. You suppose the site made a mistake because obviously you don't make them.

You'll have to make a new username. Yes, that's what you'll do. What should the new username be? What about... "Warrior_Cow_Kid"?  Nobody would suspect that you are in fact "Warrior_Cow_Luvur". You could start all over again and create brand new Warrior Cow games.

No, you would want to have a more original name. What should it be? Unfortunately, your young mind is entirely incapable of creativity at this present point in time. You stare at the computer screen. You do not blink. You hardly breathe. You just stare...

Somehow, in the deep recesses of your mind, an idea comes to you head. Maybe the "Help & Info" articles could help you. You click onto this entirely unknown section of the website.

Aw, there's nothing on there about creating good usernames... Hold on. What is this? It's an article about... Warrior Cows?! You click onto the article by somebody named Daisytale.

No fair, she's another hater as well. Have all of the evil people of the world gone onto this place? You quickly read through the article. It gives only stupid information like proofreading before publishing. Everybody knows that you don't make mistakes when writing.

Angered, you turn off your computer. You're never going back to that website again.

...

...

...

...

Two hundred and eighty-four days later...

It's summer. You are bored. You have the flu, an odd disease for this time of year, and you're alone in your house. You are tired of watching television or surfing the internet. You have nothing to read, for you burned your Warrior Cat books in a massive bonfire in the late winter. You could almost hear the demonic screaming as the books were consumed by the inferno. Oh, why can't you have more choices with your stories? You have only three books...

A memory comes to your head. There was a website that you trolled almost a year ago. They had choose-your-own adventures. You never actually read any while you were there, but perhaps you can now. You search for the website, and it's your first result. You click on the homepage.

On the homepage, there's a few that are supposed to be the best. The first one you read is this one by this guy named Saulaniel. It's short, but touching. The next one you read is called "Magick Academy". At first, you thought it was a spelling error, but it was not. Even though it took you several hours to finish, it was worth it.

You often spend the nights of summer reading these stories.They inspire you to write once again. You have stopped for months now being convinced that you are a horrible writer. In retrospect, you were correct beyond measure. Now, maybe you can do something worth reading.

First, you will have to create a new account. What shall you name yourself? You stare at the usernames at the bottom of the list. They are so varied. You eventually settle on "HereToday", for that is what you are. You are here for the moment. Who knows what will happen tomorrow? You fill out the password being sure to write it down, and fill out the personal information.

Then, you do two things. First, you read all of the articles. Afterwards, you start rating the games. You rate the games you already read, you rate the games that you haven't read, and you rate those new storygames that mostly get taken off after a few days. You shake your head. How could you have been one of those annoying users? You'll have to make it up to the community. You already did a little, for you have rated over five hundred storygames.

You also begin the long process of writing a new storygame. This one has no cows. Instead, it will be a simple game about surviving in the woods. You spend the second half of your summer on that storygame. You polish it, you convert it to advanced editor, and you let some of your friends read it first. You do pay attention to their advice... If only you took the users' advice when you first went on this site.

Now, it's ready. There's one last thing that you want to do. You make a post, the first post with this account. You put it in the "Newbie Central". In it, you write:

"Dear fellow users,
"I am HereToday, and I wish to become a productive member of this community. I have been here once before, and I acted immaturely. I am not that person anymore, and I am going to prove that. For example, I have read all of the Help & Info articles, and I am about to publish a storygame of mine.

"I have been working on it for quite some time. Even if you do not like it, which is not out of the question, then it will at least show that I am more than willing to put out effort here. I look forward to getting to know you all."

You post it. Within a few minutes, a familiar user post a reply. She says:

"Welcome, you don't have to apologize, and I do not remember what you did or who you were. You look like a nice person. If you have any questions, PM me. I'm a mod here."

You smile, for you're glad that Maizul has risen to this status. You type a short reply thanking her for her offer of help.

Then, another user posts a reply. It's Shrek11. He says "Welcome to the site. I do hope you enjoy your stay here." Oh, that's nice of him... though it does remind you of his other post to you.

Several users greet you that night. You respond to them all. One even offered to beta-test your storygame. You accept. In the time in which the user- who's gender was not specified- tested your game, you posted on the forums. You decided to not speak much, but you always tried to say things that were spelled properly and logical.

You submit your storygame after the Beach Boys loving user was done and you fixed those errors. Your story had more good things than bad said about it. For the bad, you did not get angry. Instead, you fixed the few problems existing.

In a few weeks, you entered a newly created contest by the other new mod of the site, Antlery. You will spend countless hours on your new storygame, but first you write a personal list. You call it the new five rules to writing.

First, one should abstain from spelling and grammatical errors.
Second, one should not plagiarize others works.
Third, follow the rules of the website in which you are writing.
Forth, write something worth reading to your intended audience.
Fifth, be sure to be a positive influence.

You will follow those rules when writing on this site from now on. Perhaps, on day, it will make up for the great sins that you have committed when you were one of the many annoying, childish people who inhabit the virtual world. However, from an annoying, illogical user... you became a relatively good user.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

EDIT LOCK... Well technically, a mod could switch the story around, but y'all get the point.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago
Highly amusing.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

ThanaPears..? 

This was pretty humorous, bravo indeed. :D

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

A touching life story that has played out many times on this site. Made me laugh, but...I would totally read a story about warrior cows. >.>

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

A warrior cows story needs to be written now!

From someone other than me.

 

Anyways, that was funny.

Wish it would actually happen more >.>

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

Yeah, I think a Warrior Cow story wouldn't work as a storygame. First, I might get a mod frustrated (which is not on my to-do list). Second, a whole bunch of WC fans might start making "Warrior Lions", "Warrior Tigers", or "Warrior Bears" storygames which would be horrifying yet slightly entertaining.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

I didn't say storygame xD

I said story!

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

My mistake. :)

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

I mean, if anyone could make a good Warrior Cow storygame, go for it.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

I saw one that was basically 'warrior dragons' not too long ago. It was about what you'd expect.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

Ah. I read that one.

It had medicine dragons...

And the names...were basically edited Warrior Cat ones...

 

Wait. Found it. Had to backtrack through my points a bit.

Was it this one?

http://chooseyourstory.com/story/a-dragon%27s-journey

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

@WouldntItBeNice, here's your feedback as requested.

Overall thoughts: This is a light, amusing story that accomplishes what it sets out to do, so good job! Opening and closing with the five rules establishes some nice symmetry, too.

Since this is basically an extended joke, it's a little hard for me to critique it in as much detail as I'd like, but I'll do my best. As I read, I looked for trends that might indicate room for improvement. Nothing here was a major issue for the story as it is, but it would be good to keep these things in mind for a more serious work.

1. You're familiar with "show, don't tell," right? Most of this is telling, which means you're summarizing what's going on instead of giving us the key details to let us figure it out ourselves. Here's a page that goes into more detail and has examples:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/showing-and-telling-the-basics.html

2. Related to the above, most of the events of the story aren't anchored in a strong sense of place, and a lot of the scene breaks are fuzzy. Telling was more permissible in ye olden times, but having crisp, immediate imagery is in vogue in modern fiction. Basically you want us to be able to picture the events of the story in our heads like a movie. You can improve this by adding more details about where the protagonist is and what's going on around them. But don't stop the action to do this; instead slip in descriptions around the story events.

3. You could strengthen the causal relationship between events. Basically, the difference between a series of events and a plot is that in a plot, everything that happens is a direct result of the previous thing that happened, and ideally it should be because of the protagonist doing something or making a choice as often as possible. If you wrote out a summary of the story, it shouldn't be "this happened, then this happened, then this happened," it should be "this happened, therefore this happened, therefore this happened." The protagonist acts, then things change in response to the action, then the protagonist acts again.

The clearest example of this is around the timeskip. There's no real reason the protagonist changed their attitude towards the site aside from getting older. Again, I think this is fine for what you're doing here, but in a more serious story it would be better if they changed because of some event that happened.

4. The story in general doesn't have a lot of structure, but this is a really big and complicated topic, so I don't want to get into it in great detail. If you want to look it up, I personally like a four-act structure, but there are other good choices.

5. You could stand to have more emotional variety in the scenes. There's a good high-level change in mood between the first half and the second half, but ideally you want a series of good things and bad things happening, like a rollercoaster.

6. Some information is repeated. I understand you can't cut it from here because of the word minimum for the contest, but next time, look out for areas where you make the same point multiple times. For example, the protagonist wrote two terrible stories, but nothing really new happens the second time, so we didn't need both.

7. You asked for input on dialogue, but there's not really any dialogue here, so it's hard to comment on. It's mainly just excerpts of people's posts, and there are no back and forth exchanges. I think the style is fine for what you're doing here. I would suggest not using dialogue tags like "say" on things that aren't actually said, though.

In general, it's a cute story that executes its joke well and was fun to read. Good work!

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago
Only one nitpick, the second story was definitely necessary in this case, as a Warrior Cow writer would absolutely write a second Warrior Cow story that was exactly the same as the first. That's just being true to the characterization.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

First and foremost, I sincerely thank you for taking the time and effort to do this. It was very nice of you. :)

1. Thank you for the link. Quite frankly, I sometimes get in a hurry and simply tell in order to progress the storyline. In this instance, I was both rushing (slightly) and having a difficult time showing from the perspective of a WC fan.

2. Yep, establishing a sense of place is one of my shortcomings as a writer. I'm working on it... slip in descriptions... hmm...

3. I've been reading your posts on outlining stories. I've come to a realization that better outlining my stories would cause them to be much better overall. It would be significantly easier to have a better connection between events. Also, I should have expanded the reason for linking CYS again. I just couldn't think of a better reason other than joining us in our disdain of WC .

4. As with number three, I outlining would help in this regard as well. Sometimes, not even I will know what happens next.

5. Yep, that's me being lazy with my character. Making her a WC fan caused unexpected problems in order to make the character seem... um WCish? I was afraid that some people would say things like "You made her too nice."

6. Steve nailed this one. I was just mocking how Wc fans just make another storygame anyway. It's static character development, but I was trying to stay in character. In hindsight, I could have made it a bit less monotonous and have bit more character development here.

7. I always go back and forth on how much variation I should use for dialog tags. I seem to either overdo them or not use them enough.

Again, thank you for your rearview. I sincerely appreciate it, and (unlike a WC fan) I will heed your advice.

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

1. Yep, I understand. No one's expecting perfection in a couple weeks, of course!

2. Yeah, a lot of it comes down to being specific. Something I do when I'm editing is look for places I can use more specific words for a stronger image. Like instead of saying "the ground," say "the dirt" or "the concrete" or "the linoleum" or whatever. 

3. Cool! You should definitely try to outline more.

5. Well, I don't just mean in terms of characterization but in terms of the events happening. You could find ways to alternate between good and bad events while maintaining consistent characterization. For example, she's upset that people are mean to her, but then she gets a new WC book as a present and she's excited, so she writes another story about it and is crushed by the feedback again. Something like that.

6. Yep, I think having it happen twice was fine from a pacing perspective. It's just I would have found a way to make the second one different somehow. Like it could take the feedback from the first one and applied it in a stupid way, for example. Something to understate how clueless the character is in a way more poignant than just repeating the same mistake.

 

No problem! I'm glad to help. :)

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

Ahahaha very nice. Although Mizal would be a lot more cruel :D

Present for Mizal... Continued

7 years ago

B-But, it was a present! (Though, writing a story where "Maizul" trolls the WC trolls would be quite fun to write or read.)