Forums » Writing Workshop » Read Thread

This is a page from my modern-fantasy game (it's like 95% modern though).

Most of us here aren't military specialist. So I'll try to make my writing to be understandable enough for those who have low grasp on military or law enforcement stuff.

Just tell me... is this okay, or too hard to understand for you? If many still can't understand, I'll try to make things simpler.

Everyone who has played FPS games or watched modern action movies should be able to understand.

-----

Friday, 17 May 2015

GRS Delta One Team

-----

The black SUV races through the morning, its tire kicking up water from the rainy day previously. The slippy road does not harass its movement for a bit, largely due to its being a four-wheel drive. The car charges along at fifty miles an hour. It stops at a nearby compound, skidding to a stop away from the front door. The doors open and four men disembark from the vehicle.

The men are contractors of Global Risk Security -- a private military company that focuses on providing security services. They wear olive drab-colored jackets under their tactical armor vests, khaki pants, and load-bearing gears. All of them are equipped with helmets with integrated headsets, tinted combat goggles, elbow and knee pads, and skull bandanas. The four-man team get their primary weapons from the trunk of their car.

The weapons are a HK416 assault rifle, SCAR-H battle rifle, KSG bullpup pump-action shotgun, and a P90 submachine gun. Each man has his own specialization and duty, and their weapons and equipment suit them for their job. The team leader acts as a jack-of-all-trades, the marksman's battle rifle allows him to pick off targets at long range with better accuracy, the breacher acts as the pointman and he has breaching charges and breaching shells for his shotgun, and the mercenary with submachine gun acts as an engineer and has access to several useful gadgets.

The team leader uses hand signals to order his team to form a formation. They form in a tight stack near the entrance, and the pointman reaches forward and tries opening the door. It is locked. The pointman loads his shotgun with breaching rounds and aim the hinges of the door. With two enormous booms, he blows them off and kicks the door. The door falls and the rest of the team rush inside.

Cracks of gunshots ring. The men engage the dummy targets and they do it swiftly and soundly. Targets go down one by one. Within a few seconds, the room is cleared and the team moves into another area.

They move through a hallway. The engineer watches their back with his P90 while the others advance. This is just a training, but they do it very seriously. In a real situation, there are no rooms for errors even for a bit. The pointman blasts the door and the others come in. They proceed like this all the way to the final room.

It's pretty easy to understand. The only thing is have to say that at the beginning...don't be as wordy. For example, use "get out" instead of "disembark. It makes it more concise, gets it straight to the point. Nine times out of ten it's better to use simple words or phrases.

Understood.

It's not that it's hard to follow, but I can't say it really grabbed my attention. Looking at it again, it could just be the way it's worded in places, but I think what it's suffering most from is the lack of a viewpoint character. Right now it reads just like this very dry recital of facts and events the reader has no connection to, with the third paragraph suffering from telling instead of showing.

'The slippy road does not harass its movement for a bit'  --> Slippery, and I'm not sure if 'harass' is the word you meant here. Something like 'impede' or 'hinder', maybe?

''The team leader uses hand signals to order his team to form a formation. They form in a tight stack near the entrance, and the pointman reaches forward and tries opening the door. It is locked. The pointman loads his shotgun with breaching rounds and aim the hinges of the door. '  --> There's a couple of places I thought my benefit from just restructuring the sentences a little to flow more smoothly and cut out excess words, and this was one of them.  

"The team leader silently signals the others into a tight formation near the entrance. Finding the door locked, the pointman loads his shotgun...' etc.

In a real situation, there are no rooms for errors even for a bit. --> Should be, 'there is no room for error', and there's that 'for a bit' thing again. I'm assuming that's some colloquialism, or at least the phrasing seems odd to me. 'In a real situation, there's not even a bit of room for error." would be how I'd personally write that sentence. Though again, that seems like the kind of thing a character would be thinking, rather than having the narrator declare it.

Damn... I'll keep them in mind. Thanks.

It's worth noting that this page is the beginning of chapter 3, and the reader changes to different perspective and character (and gender) as they go deeper in the storyline. GRS Delta One is not the main characters in the chapter. The reader will play a different character after three pages, and he will become the main character of the chapter.

Yeah, I know my writing is shittier than most experienced members. Telling instead of showing, etc. But I'll try to make this at least interesting to the majority of readers.

Along the lines of something I was told, multiple perspectives is hard to accomplish. But really only because attention is taken away from the main character. So if too many perspectives are use the reader loses sight of exactly WHO they're playing as. That being said, If you're confident go for it. Many people have accomplished that stuff before. 

That advice really only applies if you're trying to have multiple main characters. If I understood that correctly them the first chapters would be a prologue of sorts? In which case most of the advice I just gave may be meaningless but, it's there regardless.

I didn't find you're writing bad either just a bit of revisions and it would be pretty interesting.

There are two types of playable characters. The main characters and 'bonus' characters. The main character is the main protagonist in a single chapter. The 'bonus' characters are mostly minor characters, such as an enemy henchman and GRS teams. Minor characters are usually played for only 1-5 pages before the reader switches back to the main character. Minor characters are used to tell the storyline from a different perspective and showing more of their background.

Overall, the main protagonist of the whole storygame is a female character. But other characters have their own spotlights too.

Multiple characters are hard to accomplish? Nah, instead I find this one to be more fun and somewhat easier.

If it works for you then great. As a reader I do like seeing things from different perspectives, but also as a reader I like knowing who I'm supposed to be rooting for. Personally, I'd prefer making decisions as a single individual throughout the whole story. That way it helps me become more emotionally invested in the story. 

To clarify, if you use multiple character perspectives then it's hard to please all of the readers interests. But what matters most is the execution of the story. I look forward to reading it in any case

As a writer I enjoy having another perspective to go back to if I have a writers block with the usual character. Which is why I usually try to use two main characters, instead of one. It's usually more fun that way as well.

There are three main characters in the storygame. Two males, one female. Each of them has different personality and preference. One might be quiet and professional while the other might be more about "being stylish and having fun". There will be more than three chapters, and the female one will start to be the leading character in the fourth chapter and so on despite the first chapter having a male as the main character.

Ok. That sounds good. I really don't have much else to add except good luck. Feel free to ask me specific questions if you want.

Thanks for the feedback. Nothing else.