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I wrote this a whileago before i got a veriosn of a word processor with a spellchecker instead of just wordpad. I posted it on another site then but that site got deleted by the owner

I'm wonering if i should maybe fix it to try and get it onto the main site Be as harsh as yup like, i wrote it when i was 13 when i only had internet if i was in school

hunting in the woods

cloud and the gang were all in gongaga hunting monsters to train before going on towards the aincient temple. they had been hunting a long time and had run out of many items and MP. "I'm tired" yuffie complained, but Cloud told her to shush as a monster neared. It was a hungry. "Hey those dont live hear" tifa said, and Aeris agreed. Suddenly the thing shrank Aeris and ate her. "Oh no, chase it, we have to save aeris!" Barret yelled, but the hungry ducked into a hole. "Okay split up" cloud said "I and tifa go that way red and yuffie that way cid and vincent that way barret and cait sith the other way" "We could shrink ourselves and follow down the hole!" yuffie said. "No" cloud said "We ran out of MP for our mini materia." "Hey, what about a frog, that could fit" barret realised. "yeah, barret and cait sith, you two get turned into frogs by the touch mes and follow down the hole the rest of us will split up". Tifa and cloud went the way cloud said they would which took them down a spooky path in the forest, and the others went their own ways. Barret and Cait sith tried to find a touch me but only found other monsters which they had to kill. Cid and vincent got lost fighting monsters as well and funnily got turned into frogs first but they were not meant to so they kept on fighting monsters until they were knocked out. Red and yuffie meanwhile finally saw the hungry "There it is, get it!" yuffie yelled, but red saw it has a crossbow. "yuffie look out" he said, but it was too late, the bow was fired and yuffie screamed as the arrow hit her. "It's Gi poison!" Red yelled. "Like what turned your dad to stone?!" yuffied panicked "Dont panic, if you do you just turn to stone faster. It wont be forever a soft will still work but we dont have any just now so stay still" "what? to stop myself staying still forever I have to stay still?" "Yes, now be quiet your legs are already stone to your hips, if you keep talking you'll soon be a rock." As he said this the hungry came back, shrank red, and ate him. "Nooo!" yuffie yelled, then realised her mistake as she turned to stone up to her armpits. The hungry ran away. Barret and Cait Sith had finally got frogged and followed down the hole to find yuffie. "Oh no, shes been hit by a Gi arrow. If she so much as moves now shes a statue." barret said to cait sith. Suddenly yuffie sneezed and turned to stone completley. The two frogged party members groaned, and then cait sith yelled as an arrow periced his frog body and turned him to stone instantly. Barret turned and saw the hungry and someone else "You!" he said. "yes, it's me. Now join your friends!" the other person said, shooting barret with an arrow. Cloud and Tifa meanwhile found the unconcious cid and vincient and put them in their pockets for now, before finding the person and the hungry. "You!" cloud said to Hojo. "So you came back to kidnap aeris and red again!" "yes, I need them for my experiment so i trained an hungry to shrink and eat them and bring them to me there both safe just now, which is more than I can say for you. My little pet will shink and eat you now!" tifa screamed as she began to shrink and cloud did too. But before the hungry could jump, tifa threw an ether at cloud. It ate her, and as it turned to cloud, he cast Mini on hojo, making the evil scinetist shrink, and red and aeris grow back to normal. The hungry leapt at hojo instead "AARGH NO YOU IDIOT I'M YOUR MASTER" but it ate him anyway. CLoud unshrank himself and knocked the hungry out, and fished tifa and hojo out from it before he killed it. he unshrank tifa and then forced hojo to hand over all his items, including softs and maidens kisses "so now you'll let me go?" hojo said. "Not quite," cloud said, and turned him into a frog. "Hop along," cloud said as Tifa and aeris rescued their friends. Hojo ran away ribbiting in terror as the party aimed magic spells at him, and they laughed when he ran off a small cliff. "he'll be back" aeris realised "yeah, but for now let's head the the aincient temple. I think were ready now." cloud said.

the end.

So what do you all think?

It's...weird. It focuses too much on game mechanics, lacks composition and leaves me thinking "What was the point of all that?"
None the less, you should still try and write more - that's how you get better.
Good luck.

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"I fell off the mountain of words at around the 10,000ft mark. Tell my family...they owe me money." -Narratorway

"If you retort against this, so help me God I'll shove any part of your anatomy I can find into some other part. Figuratively, of course." - Josh

"We have more, can deliver tuesday." - Del S

Good old CoN

Uh. Well, it could use a lot of work. For starters, you need to separate it into paragraphs, and add punctuation, and capitals. It also could use more in the way of a plot, and descriptions. Maybe you should read through some of the fanfics on the site to get a better idea of how a properly edited fanfiction looks.

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I had an old signature. Now I've changed it.

this sucks.

Moderator Edit

I try to cut you some slack knowing that maybe you're not the sharpest pencil in the box, but I'm getting tired of your trolling. You'll soon find yourself bounced from any creative-based forums if you keep it up. -R51

This post has been edited by Rangers51 on 7th November 2006 20:05

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moetsuki
moetsuki
motoranai yakusoku no basho
jouzu ni habataku watashi wo mitsumete

Agreed w/Elena99, and also I'd like to add that you should have paragraph breaks. Those big blocks of text kill my poor eyes.

I was left feeling kindof disappointed by the story, though I think you show promise. Keep writing and posting your work! I'm interested in your progression.

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Join the Army, see the world, meet interesting people - and kill them.

~Pacifist Badge, 1978

Hmm, well a lot of people seem to say i should try and space it out, so i will. Alot of the stuff on the site is really good though, so is there anyone in particular i should look at to help make it better? I can't decide whos fics are better to look at.

Quote (Green Mage @ 8th November 2006 18:26)

Hmm, well a lot of people seem to say i should try and space it out, so i will. Alot of the stuff on the site is really good though, so is there anyone in particular i should look at to help make it better? I can't decide whos fics are better to look at.

Probably people like L.Cully, CChan, manapriestess, and Lothar Goldfist, as well as Elessar's fic Vision of Peace, but everyone who has a fic on the site is a good place to start to be a better writer.

Your work, as has been said, does need some severe revision. Paragraphs and better spacing would be very helpful to the reader.

In terms of plot, it's not too descriptive. They're out training, levelling up. That's a flaw, because it's using game mechanics too closely. What it needs is to translate them into real life, or at least the real life as applicable to the game. Like, instead of them running out of MP, why not have them too tired to be able to focus on a materia, and have ether restore MP by making someone more alert? Also, I feel this fic could be better off aimed as a light hearted comedy fic. I think you were aiming for that anyway.

If it's set before the Temple of the Ancients, by all rights, they should never have seen a hungry (IIRC, you only meet them in one area and most people completely miss them.) so it might be best to just describe it and say they hadn't seen it before, like "an unusual small, fat blue imp-like creature, sticking it's tongue out and looking somewhat ravenous. No one in the group had ever seen such a creature before and nor did they think it native to Gongaga"

Regarding the psuedo-chase part of it all, I think they should just have anyone try to get through the hole quickly if they have to resort to that, but they should look for a way around, then maybe think of giving up, then try and think of another way around first before someone suggests the transform materia. Trouble is, it looks like Yuffie and Red XIII find a way round, so that makes the whole frog part redundant, which might be for the best unless you want to work that in later to weaken the party.

Can a little thing like that even hold a crossbow? And where did the bow come from anyway?

Maybe explaining your interpretation of the gi poison and by default the sort of gradual petrification would be advised, because it seems kind of inconsistent. Yuffie seems to become a lot more useful (as a paperweight or a conversation piece, for example. Goodness knows she's not worth much else) quickly, but slows down oddly.

If it was after Red XIII as well, why didn't it get him earlier? Were you trying to make it look like the creature was doing a hit-and-run set of attacks, like a sort of guerilla eater?

Just having "a person" attack feels odd. Maybe having "a familiar, sinister figure" attack would work. You could even put him in different gear from normal, like jungle fatigues or something. He'd also probably have some hired help, maybe mercenaries or just local goons, whatever would work. That could extend the action a bit by having Cloud and Tifa take the redshirts out of play before finding Hojo and the hungry.

As for the two captured characters, maybe you should mention them actually being seen, maybe in jam jars or something, because as I said earlier, making this a more light hearted comedy fic gives it a better purpose and two shrunken people in a jamjar? It's kind of expected IMO.

Hojo should probably monologue more before he unleashes his "pet" on cloud and tifa, and they should probably fight for a while more than they do before the climax.

How is Hojo controlling this thing anyway? Manipulate materia? Maybe him getting shrunk lets him lose control of it?

It might be better to let Hojo make some daring escape rather than be let go. Gets rid of the cheesy "hop along" line too.

Still, you seem to say it was written a long time ago, and you can only get better with practice, so fix it up and repost it in this thread.





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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

Hear is my fixed story i hope you like it better. I didn’t change some things some people said because i liked the first way i done them better.

Cloud and the gang were all in gongaga hunting monsters to train before going on towards the ancient temple. They had been hunting a long time and had run out of many items and were tired. "I'm tired" Yuffie complained, but Cloud told her to shush as a monster neared.

It was a hungry, but no one had seen one before. "Hey whats that, ive never seen one hear before." Tifa said, and Aeris agreed. Suddenly the thing shrank Aeris and ate her. "Oh no, chase it, we have to save Aeris!" Barret yelled, but the hungry escaped by going through a hole no one could fit into.

"Okay split up and look for another way around" cloud said "I and Tifa go that way red and yuffie that way cid and vincent that way barret and cait sith the other way" he said. "We don’t have time to do that, we need to get though it now if only we were smaller" Tifa said "We could shrink ourselves and follow down the hole!" yuffie said. "No" cloud said "We cant use our materia were all too tired." "Hey, what about a frog, that could fit" barret realised.

"yeah, barret and cait sith, you two get turned into frogs by the touch mes and follow down the hole the rest of us will split up". Tifa and cloud went the way cloud said they would which took them down a spooky path in the forest, and the others went their own ways. Barret and Cait sith tried to find a touch me but only found other monsters which they had to kill. Cid and vincent got lost fighting monsters as well and funnily got turned into frogs first but they were not meant to so they kept on fighting monsters until they were knocked out.

Red and yuffie meanwhile finally saw the hungry "There it is, get it!" yuffie yelled, but red saw it has a crossbow. "yuffie look out" he said, but it was too late, the bow was fired and yuffie screamed as the arrow hit her. "It's Gi poison!" Red yelled. "Like what turned your dad to stone?!" yuffied panicked "Don't panic, it works by turning you to stone the more you move or the more you are scared, if you move too much or are too scared you just turn to stone faster. It wont be forever unless you were stone more than a day a soft will still work but we dont have any just now so stay still" "what? to stop myself staying still forever I have to stay still?" "Yes, now be quiet and calm down your legs are already stone to your hips, if you keep talking you'll soon be a rock." As he said this the hungry came back, shrank red, and ate him. "Nooo!" yuffie yelled, then realised her mistake as she turned to stone up to halfway up her body. The hungry ran away.

Barret and Cait Sith had finally got fogged and followed down the hole to find yuffie. "Oh no, she's been hit by a Gi arrow. If she so much as moves now she's a statue." barret said to cait sith. She had panicked so much her body was stone except her head. Suddenly yuffie sneezed and turned to stone completely. The two frogged party members groaned when this happened, and then cait sith yelled as an arrow pierced his frog body and turned him to stone instantly because as a frog he is smaller and the poison spread out faster. Barret turned and saw the hungry and a person he knew "You!" he said. "yes, it's me. Now join your friends!" the other person said, shooting barret with an arrow and turning him to stone as well.

Cloud and Tifa meanwhile found the unconscious cid and Vincent and put them in their pockets for now, before finding the person and the hungry as well as three men. "You!" cloud said to Hojo. "So you came back to kidnap aeris and red again!" tifa yelled when she saw he had 2 jars one with red in it and the other with aeris they were both unconscious. "yes, I need them for my experiment so I trained an hungry to shrink and eat them and bring them to me there both safe just now, which is more than I can say for you. My little pet will shrink and eat you if you cant beat my mercenaries!" he said and told the three men to attack.

The three men all had swords and attacked cloud first, but this was a silly thing to do because that meant tifa could attack them. She punched one so hard he was killed and the other two panicked and turned to attack her, but when they did cloud cut their heads off. They quickly grabbed a few items the bad guys had dropped and prepared to fight hojo.

Hojo now had his crossbow and he fired his last arrows all at once at tifa, and turned her to stone instantly. "perhaps I'll just sell you to a gallery some ware, and let my pet eat your boyfriend!" Cloud had stolen a soft though and he threw it turning tifa to normal .

"impressive but now my pet can eat you and keep you eaten!" hojo said and pointed at them, and the hungry attacked. tifa screamed as she began to shrink and cloud did too. But before the hungry could jump to gobble them up, tifa threw an ether at cloud that she had managed to steal from one of the mercenaries but before it had an effect on him the hungry was right beside her. It ate her, and as it turned to cloud, he cast Mini on hojo, making the evil scientist shrink, and red and aeris grow back to normal though they were still unconscious . Hojo was using manipulate materia to make the hungry fight for him but being shrunk surprised him and he let the creature go by mistake. The hungry stood puzzled for a second, and cloud ran to hide.

The hungry realised it was not on the path above the ancient city but also that it wanted something to eat, and when it saw the shrinked mad scientist it leapt at hojo instead "AARGH NO YOU IDIOT I'M YOUR MASTER" but it ate him anyway. CLoud unshrank himself and knocked the hungry out, and fished tifa and hojo out from it before he killed it. he unshrank tifa and then forced hojo to hand over all his items, including softs and maidens kisses "so now you'll let me go?" hojo said. "Not quite," cloud said, and turned him into a frog. "Hop along," cloud said as Tifa and aeris rescued their friends and woke up cid and Vincent, then turned them to normal with the materia. Hojo ran away rib biting in terror as the party aimed magic spells at him, and they laughed when he ran off a small cliff. "he'll be back" aeris realised "yeah, but for now let's find the others." They soon found the other three and rescued them with softs yuffie was happy she was not going to be a statue for the rest of her life.

"what now" Aries asked as they all left the forests. "I think we should head to the ancient temple after we have been to an inn. I think were ready now..." cloud said, then saw that nearly everyone but him was falling asleep "that is if we don't fall asleep in the middle of no ware"

Names should always, without exception, be capitalized. Aeris's name is never spelled, 'Aries'. You should probably work on some spelling, as well. 'No ware' =/= Nowhere. When a new person speaks, you start a new paragraph. 'I and Tifa' sounds kind of strange. It should probably be 'Tifa and I', or even 'me and Tifa' since it's in dialogue and things like that would depend on how the character speaks. Sentences start with capitals and end with periods. You're missing quite a few commas. Try reading other fanfic that appears to have a good grasp on spelling and grammar or published fiction and pay attention to what they do.

There are probably more grammatical errors, but that's just what I got from skimming your story. If you fix those up, more people will be able to read and enjoy it.

This post has been edited by Celes of Blades on 14th November 2006 21:06

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Come with me so I can show you how to live
Burning the candle at both ends
I’m gripping at the walls around me
Don’t complicate it
I’m addicted to this life
I’ll be your token of attention
All my lies come down to this
-Orgy, "Beautiful Disgrace"

Oh dear. This fixed a little, not a lot. If you seriously intend on submititng this you're going to have to basically do what Celes of Blades suggested and read other fanfics on CoN again and look at how they do things, and see what they do, that you don't.

Your spellchecker program may also have an option for grammar: Look for the spellchecker options under a menu usually called tools IIRC, or just start the spellchecker and look for a checkbox for grammar. It should say something like "check grammar also" or something similar. It's by no means perfect but it'll be a start.

Add in character's names as valid words too under the same sort of option, like Tifa, Aeris, Barret, and so on. Doing this will stop them being spelling errors, and if your autocreect is like mine, prevent that Aeris/Aries mistake. Type out all the names you can think of that will be spelling errors, and then, use the spellcheck, and click "Add word" or whatever option you have.

Finally, remember that if at first you don't suceed, try, try again. Try and really look at other things to get clues on dialogue, maybe go to a library and take out a book you wouldn't usually read, even watch DVD's with the subtitles on and see how they write it out in relation to how the character on screen is saying it to get hints on how to express emotion in a simple line of text. All we can really offer here are little hints: It's only through keeping on trying anyone can improve, and only truly through your own endeavours you can get better: And it's all the more satisfying for it.



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"Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato."
-George Santayana

"The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..."
-Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony.

okay okay i'll try all that.

I ran your piece through Word's spelling and grammar checker. Even then, the story requires more work. At the end of the day, your writing is immature. You need experience and there's no easy way to get that.

I believe you must read more. Not fanfiction (the quality there is too inconsistent), but the entire gamut. From textbooks to fantasy novels, every book you read will help you better understand the quality of writing out there. Take the time to read a couple articles in the morning newspaper, crunch through some online publications like the New York Times. Subscribe to email lists that you have interest in. Read read read.

As well -- I doubt I'm making an undue assumption here -- you should become good friends with your English teacher. Tell him/her that you have interest in creative writing. Learn from the red marks on your assignments. Essay writing is highly beneficial towards creative outlets, since it improves clarity, concision, and really hammers in the use of outlines.

There's been a lot of good advice given above. With dedication and persistence, I'm sure your writing will improve.

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Visions of Peace - Four Generals, One Empire, and the Returners caught in the middle.