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The Time Rift



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Fri Oct 22, 2010 1:07 am
ShaddowSoldier says...



The Time Rift

I was walking through the High Council, on my way to my office. When I was walking through my door I saw the queen. She was waiting for me. She had told me that there was a secret project of making a time machine. The designs were being made by a Quacian scientist. I had just come back with my squad from his destination by finding him lying dead on the ground. We could track the CDs location on the universal map. It was a blank space. “Sir, I couldn’t help over hear your conversation and I know where that location is, it’s Resenov, my home Galaxy.” Renjeff said. At that moment I knew what had happened, it’s the Resanae Empire. A Zetik stabbed him and electrocuted his blood system. “Because this is an important task, my top five squads will come along.” I said.
“Negative, They would’ve taken it to Resanoctia. All ex-resanae soldiers will set off the alarm upon entry.” Renjeff stated.
“Fine, I’ll need 30 butcher knives and a camouflage gauntlet and I’ll go solo.”
Squad 86 flew me over, i put on an air-tight suit and drifted towards the hanger. I turned my camouflage on and went walking through hallways. As i walked past every hostile, i got to one room with machinery. I walked in and my gauntlet stopped working. I saw a type of life form ive never seen before. I snuck up to him, i had a knife in my hand. “hello, can i help you find your way to the prison.” He said. Unfortunately, i panicked. I threw the knife right between his eyes as he turned around. I saw the disk drive and retrieved the disk and get out as a silent assassin.
Ten minutes had passed without seeing a hostile, then i saw two Repugnants. I thought I could take them until; one of their Ancient leaders came around the corner with his two highly trained Zetik body guards. I could never kill an Ancient (being of vast knowledge and lives to 1m
illion earth years of age), according to my promise i made all those years ago. So I sprinted up to the Repugnants, I jumped and put a knife into the back of their necks, and then I jumped off their shoulders and landed on the back of his chair. His chair tipped over and i sprinted out of there. “Sire, are you okay?” the guard asked.
“Arrest the Human!” the Ancient said.
I was sprinting towards the hanger. Dam, that’s really annoying. There was an alarm saying “Human infiltration, alert”, it was repeating over and over. So i ran past the train grounds, dining section and the nursery. I was lost! So I had to call Renjeff for directions. “Renjeff, yeah hi, i think I’m lost.” “ where are you exactly? Make a rifle with a tac-cam on.” “ Okay, T.C rifle.” I said as i held out my right hand and a rifle came out of my glove and grew to actual size. “Alright, turn around and take the sixth right. Okay now take the elevator to the floor above you. Now your first right and continue to go straight and you’ll be at the hanger.” Renjeff said.
The hanger was packed with tanks, drop ships and infantry. I could over hear a conversation of a Ultrabish to some Zetiks. “This is the only time ship we have since the disk was stolen by that Human.” The Ultrabish said. There was only one thing I could do, it was the stupidest thing I could think of. I was going to sprint and take their ship. And thus, i was off i hopped in the ship, started it up and flew out. “Lance, turn around your going the wrong way.” The Queen said. So i turned and was under a fatal attack, so i go to jump through time to escape. When the portal was opening, i could see something flying towards me. It was dark coloured with a bright light. It was the Ultrabish. How was he breathing is what i thought. He was flying through space by sending out too much electricity with his electrosabers like thrusters of a shuttle. He came up to the ship and stabbed it. The electrosaber overloaded the system and warped us both. We were in floating in what appeared to be another dimension. It was yellow everywhere. Just him, the ship and I for what seemed to be an eternity.

The End
Last edited by ShaddowSoldier on Fri Nov 05, 2010 9:53 pm, edited 2 times in total.
  





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Fri Oct 22, 2010 1:30 pm
Tigersprite says...



I was walking through the High Council, on my way to my office. When I was walking through my door I saw the queen. She was waiting for me. She had told me that there was a secret project of making a time machine. The designs were being made by a Quacian scientist. I had just come back with my squad from his destination by finding him lying dead on the ground. We could track the CDs location on the universal map. It was a blank space. “Sir, I couldn’t help over hear your conversation and I know where that location is, it’s Resenov, my home Galaxy.” Renjeff said. At that moment I knew what had happened, it’s the Resanae Empire. A Zetik stabbed him and electrocuted his blood system (I don't understand this part at all). “Because this is an important task, my top five squads will come along.” I said.


This is very confusing, you jumbled a bunch of different tenses together and the effect: a very difficult-to-read paragraph. Go for something like this first paragraph and take notice of my reasons for the changes:

I had just reached my office in the High Council when I saw the Queen, already waiting for me inside on my very own chair. My chair (little quips like this are what makes characters likeable).I bowed, albeit stiffly (she is a Queen, surely he would greet her before she launched into conversation?!) and the guards around her (a Queen needs guards) relaxed slightly; she began to talk. I listened as she told me something about a secret project and a time machine. My interest was only piqued when she mentioned that the secret project was the work of a certain Quacian scientist. I had only recently come back from a mission in which I discovered his dead body.

"As I was saying, General," the Queen continued, "we have only recently discovered these plans. However, as you very well know, the scientist who created them is dead. His time machine, or at least the unfinished project, is missing. We have deciphered codes on one of the plans as to where it might be."

"So what do you need me for?" She gave me a stern look.

"The bearings, Sector 5 Paradigm 1 Segment 2.3 we got show up as a white space on the universal map. We need you and your team to go and search the area, and see if you can find the time machine before pirates or our enemies do. Time is of the essence."

"But Your Majesty--"

There was a knock on the door, and we all turned around. My assistant, Renjeff, entered the room. He literally dropped to the floor upon seeing the Queen, and after she nodded her head in acknowledgement he bounced up again and turned to me.

"Sir?"

"What, boy? You disturb a conversation that is not meant for your ears."

"Sorry sir. But I overheard your conversation--"

"Overheard? You mean you were eavesdropping?!"

"And I recognize those bearings. My home world, Resenov, is located there. I can help on the mission." I looked to him, and then to the Queen. I sighed.

"Your majesty, I accept this mission. I will take my five best squads and Renjeff, we will proceed immediately."

As you can see, even my changing of things isn't very good. You threw your readers into this story too fast; they don't know what's happening, or anything about the futuristic terms you're using. They don't even know the narrator's name, which they should at this stage because he seems to be the main character. You need to go over every inch of this story, because currently it is poorly constructed, with mixed up tenses, wooden characters, a cliche plot (secret projects and time machines? A Queen? Overdone in sci-fi since the advent of Star Wars), bad narration, bad dialogue, misspellings (the greatest sin a writer can commit, if you ask me) and without any sense of direction at all. When you go over it:

a) fix the story in a single tense.
b) correct any spelling mistakes.
c) drop any cliches.
d) either explain your original sci-fi terms (Resenae, Zetik) or don't use them at all.
e) Give your character a name in the first few paragraphs. Some stories don't need to do this, like The Alchemist. Your story is no Alchemist.
f) let the audience like and get to know your characters. Please. If they don't feel for the characters, or respect them or like them (or even hate them because they're really evil) nobody will want to read this.
g) Give the story a point. Yes, even sci-fi has a point.

I can't review anymore, because I'm sorry to say that I can't bear to read much more than the third paragraph. But if my re-construction of paragraph one and my guidelines can't help you, I don't think anyone can.

TIGERSPRITE
Last edited by Tigersprite on Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:44 am, edited 2 times in total.
"A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
Nathan Leopold
  





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Mon Oct 25, 2010 1:12 am
ShaddowSoldier says...



Thank you for the post, i realised by the time of this story, it's a bit hard to realise but the main character is actually supposed to be a human general of an alien army who gets involved in wars, sorry about the confusion. i also want to say that i dont even notice that i change the tences. (only knew of past, present and future) ps Renjeff is his number 1 soldier. pss My teacher says that i over explain things. thats why its like it is.
  





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Mon Oct 25, 2010 7:25 am
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TheBigCheese says...



Well Done ShaddowSoldier,
You have a fantastic imagination in creating such a vast variety of characters and names for such a futuristic story. You obviously put a lot of time and effort into creating this story and for that you should be congratulated. I love the use of such futuristic terms. The only thing i would do different is perhaps give explanations of the futuristic terms because they can be a little confusing at times. But nonetheless, A brilliantly written story with lots of interesting features.

Well done,

From TheBigCheese

PS: Don't worry about TigerSprite's harsh critizism, I'm sure she was having a bad day.
  





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Mon Oct 25, 2010 8:07 am
Tigersprite says...



PS: Don't worry about TigerSprite's harsh critizism, I'm sure he was having a bad day.


Trust me, I wasn't having a bad day. Shaddowsoldier needs to revise this completely. It's not really a fantastic imagination to create a lot of characters if what they're doing makes no sense. Nor is it fantastic imagination to make futuristic terms, if it was fantasy and sci-fi would not be two of the most overdone fiction genres.

I'm just trying to help so that people will read this, Shaddowsoldier, and you really do need to go over your work. Once you do PM me and I'll go over it again.

TIGERSPRITE
"A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
Nathan Leopold
  





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Tue Oct 26, 2010 7:36 am
Jenthura says...



Hello there, Shadow. Your story is…primitive, to say the least. I’m here to fix that.

I was walking through the High Council, on my way to my office. When I was walking through my door I saw the queen. She was waiting for me. She had told me that there was a secret project of making a time machine. The designs were being made by a Quacian scientist.


Okay, your action is choppy, with a new idea presented in every sentence. You haven’t even introduced the character, or told us his name. The first paragraph is important; the place where you begin with character development, setting, background stories and so forth. Fail here, and you will lose an extremely large number of readers.
Work this out and put more information into it, but slowly.

Also, you name-drop some weird words, “Quacian,” and “Queen,” being two of the many. What is she queen of? Where is he? Earth? And what the fudge is a Quacian? Is it an alien? A type of human? When your reviewer asks six questions in a row, it’s not a good thing.
Avoid info-dumps that can take the reader by surprise.

We could track the CDs location on the universal map. It was a blank space.


CD? What CD? I understand what you mean by this sudden and vague sentence, but very people will want to take the time to follow suit.
As I see it, this scientist developed the time machine, copied the plans to a CD and then was killed and the plans stolen by a Zetik (Whatever that is).
Work out your sentence order, as it tends to confuse as it is now.

“Sir, I couldn’t help over hear your conversation and I know where that location is, it’s Resenov, my home Galaxy.” Renjeff said. At that moment I knew what had happened, it’s the Resanae Empire. A Zetik stabbed him and electrocuted his blood system. “Because this is an important task, my top five squads will come along.” I said.


First off, make a new paragraph at the start of all dialogue. Like this:

“Sir, I couldn’t help over hear your conversation and I know where that location is, it’s Resenov, my home Galaxy.” Renjeff said.
At that moment I knew what had happened, it’s the Resanae Empire. A Zetik stabbed him and electrocuted his blood system.
“Because this is an important task, my top five squads will come along.” I said.


Secondly, when you use a pronoun (they, we, he, it) it automatically means the last person you mentioned. When you say, “A Zetik stabbed him,” I assumed that you meant Renjeff was stabbed. This is incorrect, but it was entirely your fault for having such confused wording.
Next time, introduce the scientist, give him a name and let it be very clear how he was killed. Something like this:

“Sir, I couldn’t help over hear your conversation and I know where that location is, it’s Resenov, my home Galaxy.” Renjeff said.
At that moment I knew what had happened, it’s the Resanae Empire. A Zetik stabbed the Qaucian scientist and electrocuted his blood system.
“Because this is an important task, my top five squads will come along.” I said.


Thirdly, you tend to use run-on sentences. A run-on sentence is when you start talking about one thing and then keep going on and on and putting random, commas every which way and never stop to think about how long your sentence is and that it might irritate some people with its long-ish-ness. See what I mean? Renjeff’s first statement is a complete run-on sentence. Break it up like this:

“Sir, I couldn’t but help overhear your conversation.” Renjeff said. “That location is my home Galaxy, Resenae.”

See?

“Negative, They would’ve taken it to Resanoctia. All ex-resanae soldiers will set off the alarm upon entry.” Renjeff stated.


Renjeff, as the MC’s inferior, would not address him in this way. (MC means Main Character). Rather, if it was a smart and rapping galactic army, he would have said, “Negative, Sir…”
Plus, “They would’ve taken it to Resanoctia” does not explain why ex-resanae soldiers set off random alarms.

…Resenov…the Resanae Empire…Resanoctia…ex-resanae


Please, choose one name and stick with it. Not only is it hard to keep up with, you’re just confusing us.

“Fine, I’ll need 30 butcher knives and a camouflage gauntlet and I’ll go solo.”

Oh, please, not this Chuck Norris crap.

Squad 86 flew me over, i put on an air-tight suit and drifted towards the hanger. I turned my camouflage on and went walking through hallways. As i walked past every hostile, i got to one room with machinery. I walked in and my gauntlet stopped working. I saw a type of life form ive never seen before. I snuck up to him, i had a knife in my hand. “hello, can i help you find your way to the prison.” He said. Unfortunately, i panicked. I threw the knife right between his eyes as he turned around. I saw the disk drive and retrieved the disk and get out as a silent assassin.


I counted seven lowercase ‘i’s. Fix that
Also: “hello, can i help you find your way to the prison.” sounds lame enough to be a sappy catch-phrase. Why would an alien life form even speak English? Just cut this since it’s so bad.
I could never kill an Ancient (being of vast knowledge and lives to 1m
illion earth years of age), according to my promise i made all those years ago.


You shouldn’t have cut this so strangely.
Also, how does having a long life span and lots of brains make this Ancient so hard to kill? Oh wait, it’s not that at all, it’s some random and obscure promise you made “all those years ago” that somehow managed to jump forward thirty years and land in our laps. Please, not so sudden, you’ll give us all heart attacks.

train grounds, dining section and the nursery


Nursery? Is that where they train the little baby aliens?

The ending, thankfully, was good enough. Suspense, plausible action (except for the alien who could obviously breathe vacuum) and a nice big The End sign.
Unfortunately, The End is nowhere in sight for you.
Get down to work and strip the nuts and bolts of this story off. If you don’t, you’ll just have a crappy story on your hands. If you work hard, you’ll still have a crappy story, but plenty of experience as well.
So, my advice to you is this: work, work harder, work again.
Jenth.
-ж-Ж-ж-
  





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Thu Oct 28, 2010 9:15 am
RepublicOfCoter says...



Greetings ShaddowSoldier or may I call you SS? Wait! I take that back, I should never had mentioned that...well, I'm the RepublicOfCoter but people generally call me R.O.C. *offers hand out*. I do hope that you enjoy your time here on YWS and that you post and review many things! I must say CONGRATULATIONS on your first post, I do hope there are many more to come! Now onto the review...

There really isn't much to say. Everyone has beaten me to it. This science-fiction story REALLY needs some revision. I will just reiterate what other people have mentioned to reinforce the importance of it all:
1) The title - very doctorwhoish; my piece of advise: your an author, you have a license for creative writing *shakes you by the shoulders*. This is also to do with the plot.

2) Grammar - you don't have the best grammar. You MUST go through the entire story and change every single i to an I. Honestly, this is probably Prep/Year 1 stuff (Australian)

3) Tense - you change tenses way too often; you make it very difficult for the readers to understand and keep up with what's going on. And yes, you are right, the tenses are Past, Present and Future but you change these nearly at every sentence or you change it in a sentence which I didn't know was even possible!

4) Spelling - as mentioned before, misspellings could be considered the worse sin (possibly mortal) that an author could ever commit

5) Storyline - very, very cliche. TIGERSPRITE nailed this right on the head. It is way too heavily used.

6) Suggestion - use the rewritten section TIGERSPRITE wrote; it's very good and makes a lot more sense.

7) Quick question - why would you bring all these butcher's knives if you could get a rifle from your wrist band thingamajig?

This is a list of things that should really be taken into consideration when you rewrite this...


MWAHAHAHA!
-R.O.C.
"As I lay down on my bed, I look up at the sky, the stars and the moon, and I think to myself: Where the hell is the ceiling?" Unknown

"The fun is in the chase, never in the capture" Agatha Christie
  





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Thu Oct 28, 2010 11:58 pm
ShaddowSoldier says...



okay everybody, i know there are alot of faults in my story and it's a bit ahead in the story line which makes it hard to understand, thats why I am going to post another story soon to make this one make more sence. i'll try to use your advices if i can. (except futuristic terms) Another thing, the Queen is the queen of the universe and Quacian is the name given to someone of the Quacia Galaxy. Each galaxy has a council that reports to the High Council as you'll see things like this in future stories.(not yet posted) also i wrote all my stories on word an it doesnt fix up my i's to I's, so i had to fix it up when i copied it over. also guns can get quite loud and he would want fight a massive army and probably die. seriously who would go behind enemy lines and fire, get caught and die or get tortured
-ShaddowSoldier
  





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Fri Oct 29, 2010 1:13 am
TheBigCheese says...



I agree with ROC,

The story needs better grammar and better descriptions,

otherwise it tends to get confusing.

Brilliant imagination though, and great story plot.

TheBigCheese
  





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Fri Oct 29, 2010 9:34 am
RepublicOfCoter says...



also guns can get quite loud and he would want fight a massive army and probably die. seriously who would go behind enemy lines and fire, get caught and die or get tortured


There are silencers for guns and most people who fight behind enemy lines would carry a firearm with them. Anyway, he did spark a fight even without the use of a gun, I just think it's a bit odd for a person to not have a gun with him when he's fighting an enemy. Also, technically it's not "behind enemy lines" unless two groups are at war with one another; but as they are just enemies, he is simply infiltrating their base.

MWAHAHAHA!
-R.O.C.
"As I lay down on my bed, I look up at the sky, the stars and the moon, and I think to myself: Where the hell is the ceiling?" Unknown

"The fun is in the chase, never in the capture" Agatha Christie
  





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Fri Oct 29, 2010 10:39 am
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Tigersprite says...



Shaddowsoldier, I still don't think you're listening. Before you follow this up (which I advise you not to) you need to show us a revised version so that we know you are taking our advice. Even in the posts you have made so far your grammar is bad, which doesn't hold much hope for any future posts. So take the advice first and improve instead of making excuses that your work is difficult to understand. And Word does turn an i into and I. I use it myself.

As I said before, PM me when you revise this completely.

TIGERSPRITE
"A superman ... is, on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He is not liable for anything he may do."
Nathan Leopold
  





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Fri Nov 05, 2010 9:39 am
ShaddowSoldier says...



yeah, um, my friend told me to just drop it and move. so i will, for now.
ps: you put a 'd' where its not wanted/needed. (please tell me whats the better word to say)
  





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Thu Nov 11, 2010 10:49 pm
CaptianRandom says...



Hey ShaddowSoldier, CaptianRandom here.

I don't want to to be mean, this story was confusing. my advice is to read over the story a couple of times and let a friends read over it after, i always read over my posts a couple of times and make adjustments to it. if you would like help PLEASE ask, remember there is no such thing as a stupid question!.

-CaptianRandom
-Many crystals with many emotions
"Do not allow people to dim your shine because they are blinded. Tell them to put on some sunglasses"

"I don't want my whole life to be real, so i chose for it not to be"

"You have to not care about the goal, you hgave to love the process"
- All from Lady GaGa
  





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Mon Nov 15, 2010 1:47 am
watchmeburn says...



Hi ShaddowSoldier,


Um well, I really don't think you should drop this story. What I think you should do is use TIGERSPRITE to correct and change your story to make it something that people will want to read and enjoy reading. Having said that do I agree with R.O.C, TIGERSPRITE, Jenthura's comments completely, so maybe you should ask them if you should continue improving it or not. (Since they are the ones who corrected your story.)

Keep working on it and don't give up...


Thanks,
watchmeburn
"The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese."
  





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Wed Nov 24, 2010 1:11 am
ShaddowSoldier says...



Hey WatchMeBurn,

thanx for the review. :D
-ShaddowSoldier
  








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