Young Writers Society

(Here's the next chapter of what was originally named Arcadia Online. Taking kitty15's advice I changed the name to Drakonia Online so I wouldn't end up using a name that has already been used countless times in the past by other people. Since the chapter before this was so short I changed it so it would be the prologue and this one would be chapter 1. Again, honest critiques are needed.)


Chapter 1:

A few minutes later Ryan was in the game. He found himself standing in a dark room, except it wasn’t a real room. There were no walls, ceiling or floor. Numbers and letters fell from above in long strands of data. It was like standing inside of a computer.

Ryan felt different as he stood in this empty data space. He felt somewhat hollow. When he lifted his arm he found it had no skin, or anything. It was comprised of data, just like the streams in this room.

An automated voice spoke to him. “Good morning, and welcome to Drakonia Online. Epicom would like to thank you for purchasing this game and hopes you will enjoy your stay in our world.” The voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere.

“This must be part of the registration,” Ryan mused.

The voice continued, “Before you may start playing you must first create your account.” A window appeared in front of Ryan along with a virtual keyboard. “Please enter your E-mail address and the password you will use to login to Drakonia Online.” As he began filling out the designated information the voice explained, “Entering your E-mail address will ensure you will be up to date with everything that is happening in Drakonia Online, such as upcoming events and patch upgrades. Your E-mail address will not be used in any other way by Epicom, as per the licensing agreement.”

Ryan pressed the enter key once all the information was complete. The window disappeared and was replaced by a new one. “Your account registration is complete. Please create your character.”

“There’s a bunch of classes, I don’t know which one to pick.” There were six classes in all to choose from. Warrior, mage, thief, healer, shape shifter and dark mage. “I guess I’ll choose warrior since it’s one of the most easiest classes to use.” He pressed enter once his character’s profile was complete. A new window came up that said ‘Character Name’. “What should I call myself?” he wondered. After a few moments of thinking he chose his name. He typed in the name and pressed enter when the window read ‘Dynamo’.

“Character creation is now complete. Please wait a moment while your character is rendered.” Ryan’s body was suddenly engulfed in blue light. Pixels began to form all over his body as he became Dynamo. He had given his character green eyes and silver hair and had made himself shorter. His character wore leather armor that consisted of a vest, gloves and boots. The rest was just regular clothing. In his right hand he held a blade, too short to be a sword but too big to be considered a dagger.

The last thing to be rendered on his character was a device on his wrist that had a touchpad. The voice explained, “The device on your arm is called the Personal Status Device, also known as a PSD. This device will help you keep track of such things as character status, inventory and equipment, maps, quest logs, party trackers, friend lists and private messages.”

“This thing is pretty cool,” Ryan mused as he took a closer look at the device. It seemed a little too high-tech for the genre of the game. But who was he to complain? He wasn’t the one who designed it.

“You are now ready to play Drakonia Online. Please enjoy yourself and have a nice day.” The dark space Ryan was standing in suddenly faded away until he was standing in the middle of a medieval city. All sorts of people were walking through the streets, buying equipment, talking to their friends or just wandering around. It was easy to distinguish players from NPC’s because the players’ names were displayed over their heads along with their level. Ryan looked up to see his character’s name floating above his head as well. It read ‘Dynamo, Lv. 1.’ “I guess I should be calling myself Dynamo from now on,” he mused.

NPC means non-playable character, groups of code and data shaped into people that interact with players. They may look as real as a regular player but they are integrated with the game’s programming. The purpose of an NPC is to help out players by running shops, handing out quests or just giving advice. It wouldn’t be much of a game without them.

Dynamo looked around for his sister but couldn’t find her. “She must still be registering. Amelia always takes forever creating a character.” He looked around at the city again. “I wonder where I am?” He remembered what the voice had said about the PSD. He decided to see all its functions for himself while he waited for Amelia.

The first thing he chose on the main menu was a button labelled ‘Map.’ The device suddenly flashed as a hologram appeared in front of him. The hologram was a giant black sphere with a small gray spot on the surface. “I guess this is supposed to be a map of the world,” he mused. He squinted his eyes at the small gray spot. “And that must be the city I’m in. I guess the whole map is black because I haven’t gone anywhere yet…” He reached out and touched the gray spot. A window opened in front of the sphere that showed a map of the city. According to the PSD he was in a place called Horizon City, a place where every new character started in.

Dynamo looked back to the PSD on his arm and said, “This thing is pretty cool! I wonder what else I can do with it?” The next thing he chose was a button labelled ‘Status.’ The holographic map disappeared and a new window opened in its place. It showed all his character’s stats beside a picture of himself. He sighed when he looked at his stats, most of them weren’t even in the tens. His character was weak, which wasn’t much of a surprise since he just started. His two highest stats were strength and defence, respectively, although not by much.

There was one button on the window that caught his attention. “‘Skill Tree?’ I wander what this is.” He reached out again to touch the button and a new window opened over the previous one. It displayed a chart that was labelled ‘Dyanmo’s Skill Tree.’ At the top was a box that was labelled ‘Level 1.’ Inside the box were the words ‘Short Swords’ and ‘Leather Armor.’ It was the only box on the chart that was shaded yellow, all the others were gray. Dynamo noticed numbers over all the other boxes. “I wonder what those numbers are for? Are they, like, skill points? Do I have to spend them in order to get stuff on the tree?” All the boxes on the chart were connected, starting at the top with the yellow one.

Dynamo followed the chart with his eyes down to the bottom. All the paths on the chart led to a single box that was labelled ‘Knight.’ “Knight? Is that my next class or something?”

“There you are!” Dynamo jumped at the sound of a girl’s voice. He closed all the hovering windows and turned to face a tall girl with tanned skin and red eyes and hair. She wore a small shirt and tight shorts. Here boots and gloves were made of regular cloth, as opposed to Dynamo’s leather armor. A yellow tattoo snaked down her left arm and a crude looking dagger hung at her belt. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Uhh…” Dynamo looked up to check the person’s name, it read ‘Amber.’ Recognizing his sister’s favorite screen name he said, “Amelia, is that you?”

She made a peace sign with her fingers and said, “That’s Amber to you, brother!” She cocked an eyebrow as she looked down at her brother. “Why are you so short? Aren’t you supposed to be older than me?”

Dynamo crossed his arms. “Just because I’m thirteen and you’re a year younger than me doesn’t mean I always have to be taller than you in these games.”

“But Ryan, you’re a pipsqueak!”

“Am not! And that’s Dynamo to you!”

She giggled. “Alright, Dynamo.”

Dynamo sighed and began to look around. “So, now that we’re here what should we do first?”

“We could always find a quest to do,” Amber suggested.

“I don’t feel confident enough to do quests with a character this weak.” Dynamo suddenly realized he didn’t know what class his sister chose. “Which class did you end up choosing anyway?”

“I chose a thief.”

“A thief?” He gave her an odd look. “But thieves are always weak, no matter what game you play!”

“Yeah, but they’re also super fast. Plus they steal stuff!”

Dynamo shook his head. “Whatever. If you really want to be owned by every monster we fight be my guest.”

“Hey!” She smacked Dynamo on the head. His PSD suddenly beeped as a green bar appeared over his head just under his character’s name. A small portion of the bar was red. “Huh? What’s that?”

“I think it’s my HP bar,” Dynamo said as he rubbed his head. HP was short for health points. If a character’s HP reached zero he or she died.

Amber hit him in the head again, harder this time and causing Dynamo to yelp in pain. The HP bar was reduced a little more, replaced by red. “Cool!” Amber shouted. “Hitting you actually makes your HP go down!”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see if you like it!” Dynamo jumped at her sister but was stopped by her hand on his head. Being as short as he was he couldn’t reach Amber.

“Now, now. You’re not supposed to hit a lady.”

“You’re not a lady, you’re my sister!” Dynamo struggled to get past her arm but Amber moved with him, keeping her hand on his head.

“Oh stop it, people are looking at us.” Dynamo stopped and looked around to see several players looking at them.

He frowned. “This isn’t over.”

“Quit being such a baby,” Amber told her brother. “So, what should we do first?”

“Let’s go to the outskirts of the city and fight monsters a bit before anything else. I want to get a little stronger and get some better equipment before I start doing quests.”

“Lead the way.”

“There’s a bunch of classes, I don’t know which one to pick.” [Why does he say this out loud? That seems a little unrealistic. Have him think it instead. Or maybe simply something like 'which to pick, which to pick?'] There were six classes in all to choose from. Warrior, mage, thief, healer, shape shifter and dark mage. “I guess I’ll choose warrior since it’s one of the [s]most[/s] easiest classes to use.” [Again, make this a thought. Put it in italics.] He pressed enter once his character’s profile was complete. A new window came up that said ‘Character Name’. “What should I call myself?” he wondered. After a few moments of thinking he chose his name. He typed in the name and pressed enter when the window read ‘Dynamo’. [And none of us saw that coming, lol.]

“Character creation is now complete. Please wait a moment while your character is rendered.” Ryan’s body was suddenly engulfed in blue light. Pixels began to form all over his body as he became Dynamo. He had given his character green eyes and silver hair and had made himself shorter. [Describe this happening to him rather than stating it. Describe his pixels rearranging themselves and maybe have a mirror appear for the player to examine their creation.] His character wore leather armor that consisted of a vest, gloves and boots. The rest was just regular clothing. In his right hand he held a blade, too short to be a sword but too big to be considered a dagger. [This could be much more interesting if you simply describe Ryan checking his armour and weapons and examining everything. It would also pull your reader deeper into the story.]

“You are now ready to play Drakonia Online. Please enjoy yourself and have a nice day.” The dark space Ryan was standing in suddenly faded away until he was standing in the middle of a medieval city. All sorts of people were walking through the streets, buying equipment, talking to their friends or just wandering around. It was easy to distinguish players from NPC’s because the players’ names were displayed over their heads along with their level. Ryan looked up to see his character’s name floating above his head as well. It read ‘Dynamo, Lv. 1.’ [Does it really? That's a rather unecessary statement. What colour or font type it's in would be much more interesting.] “I guess I should be calling myself Dynamo from now on,” he mused. [This is at least the second if not third time you've used mused. It tends to stick out. Change it to decided or simply thought.]

NPC means non-playable character, groups of code and data shaped into people that interact with players. They may look as real as a regular player but they are integrated with the game’s programming. The purpose of an NPC is to help out players by running shops, handing out quests or just giving advice. It wouldn’t be much of a game without them. [Okay, this feels random. Now, my sister and I had a similar thing in our last novel where we needed to speak directly to the reader every now and then with information. It seems to be quite popular recently. To make it easier, we started typing 'Key Facts:' each time and we had our whole book set out like a science text book as fit the genre. I don't know enough about computer games to really advise you but what might they use? Maybe 'Gaming tips:' or simple 'Hint:' would work? Then it changes it from an info dump to a novelty =)]

Dynamo followed the chart with his eyes down to the bottom. All the paths on the chart led to a single box that was labelled ‘Knight.’ “Knight? Is that my next class or something?” [For a gamer, Ryan sure doesn't seem to know much. Even I could quite easily see that. He should take all of this in his stride.]

“There you are!” Dynamo jumped at the sound of a girl’s voice. He closed all the hovering windows and turned to face a tall girl with tanned skin and red eyes and hair. She wore a small shirt and tight shorts. [How does he feel about the way she's dressed? I know that my brother got very embarrassed the other day when my little sister and I dressed up in skirts and tight tops to play a joke on his friends. He said no boy should ever have to see his sister dressed like that, haha.] Here boots and gloves were made of regular cloth, as opposed to Dynamo’s leather armor. A yellow tattoo snaked down her left arm and a crude looking dagger hung at her belt. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

Dynamo crossed his arms. “Just because I’m thirteen and you’re a year younger than me doesn’t mean I always have to be taller than you in these games.” [This is purely for the reader's benefit and blatantly so. For now, leave it as 'Older doesn't have to mean taller. Besides, you're looking a little tall for a twelve year old' and then have the sister retort with something like 'Did you read your age wrong? Thirteen years old doesn't mean you have to be thirteen inches you know.' But good interaction by the way.]

“I think it’s my HP bar,” Dynamo said as he rubbed his head. HP was short for health points. [Tell me you did not just do that.... have a glossary for the idiots who know no gaming terminology but do not presume the majority of your readers to be stupid. Remember who this is aimed at.] If a character’s HP reached zero he or she died.

Amber hit him in the head again, harder this time,[s] and [/s]causing Dynamo to yelp in pain. The HP bar was reduced a little more, replaced by red. “Cool!” Amber shouted. “Hitting you actually makes your HP go down!”

Overall, I think this was a good chapter and you're developing Amelia's personality nicely though Ryan still feels a little flat but that's okay, you've still got time. The relationship between the two is good and you have an interesting plot but a tendency to throw in unnecessary information. Try to avid that. Readers who know nothing of gaming can still easily appreciate your plot and they'll begin to pick up on the technology jargo or can look it up in a glossary as you would with any other sci fi. Other than that, I think a litle more showing as opposed to telling in places and don't forget the other senses. Does this virtual reality world surprise Ryan? Can he smell the air and feel the breeze ruffling his hair? Show us just how realistic this place is. Maybe have Ryan squint and try to see the pixels that everything is made up of or have him wander around a little kicking his feet at the ground, testing it.

(Here's the editted version. Yeah, I know, who would have guessed I'd use my own name for the main character. Although Dynamo is my favorite screen name. I think I'm going to have a trend in all my books where there's always someone named Dynamo, just like in Final Fantasy there's always someone named Cid.)


Chapter 1:

A few minutes later Ryan was in the game. He found himself standing in a dark room, except it wasn’t a real room. There were no walls, ceiling or floor. Numbers and letters fell from above in long strands of data. It was like standing inside of a computer.

Ryan felt different as he stood in this empty data space. He felt somewhat hollow. When he lifted his arm he found it had no skin, or anything. It was comprised of data, just like the streams in this room.

An automated voice spoke to him. “Good morning, and welcome to Drakonia Online. Epicom would like to thank you for purchasing this game and hopes you will enjoy your stay in our world.” The voice sounded like it was coming from everywhere.

“This must be part of the registration,” Ryan mused.

The voice continued, “Before you may start playing you must first create your account.” A window appeared in front of Ryan along with a virtual keyboard. “Please enter your E-mail address and the password you will use to login to Drakonia Online.” As he began filling out the designated information the voice explained, “Entering your E-mail address will ensure you will be up to date with everything that is happening in Drakonia Online, such as upcoming events and patch upgrades. Your E-mail address will not be used in any other way by Epicom, as per the licensing agreement.”

Ryan pressed the enter key once all the information was complete. The window disappeared and was replaced by a new one. “Your account registration is complete. Please create your character.”

There’s a bunch of classes, I don’t know which one to pick, he thought as he looked through each one. There were six classes in all to choose from. Warrior, mage, thief, healer, shape shifter and dark mage. I guess I’ll choose warrior since it’s one of the easiest classes to use. He pressed enter once his character’s profile was complete. A new window came up that said ‘Character Name’. What should I call myself? he wondered. After a few moments of thinking he chose his name. He typed in the name and pressed enter when the window read ‘Dynamo’.

“Character creation is now complete. Please wait a moment while your character is rendered.” Ryan’s body was suddenly engulfed in blue light as pixels began to form all over his body. It began at his feet, the pixels slowly making their way up his legs. Then his hands began to form, then his arms. His body was next, then finally his head. A mirror suddenly appeared in front of him. “Are you happy with your character’s appearance?” He had given his character green eyes and silver hair and had made himself shorter. One they he hadn’t been able to do during the creating of Dynamo was choose what kind of armor and weapons he started out with. Looking into the mirror he could see his character wearing leather armor that consisted of a vest, gloves and boots. The rest was just regular clothing. In his right hand he held a blade, too short to be a sword but too big to be considered a dagger. He concluded that it must have been a short sword.

Ryan nodded and said, “Yeah, I’m happy.”

“Please wait one moment.” The last thing to be rendered on his character was a device with a touchpad on his wrist. The voice explained, “The device on your arm is called the Personal Status Device, also known as a PSD. This device will help you keep track of such things as character status, inventory and equipment, maps, quest logs, party trackers, friend lists and private messages.”

“This thing is pretty cool,” Ryan mused as he took a closer look at the device. It seemed a little too high-tech for the genre of the game. But who was he to complain? He wasn’t the one who designed it.

“You are now ready to play Drakonia Online. Please enjoy yourself and have a nice day.”

The dark space Ryan was standing in suddenly faded away until he was standing in the middle of a medieval city. He was amazed by the quality of detail in his surroundings. It was easily mistakable for real life. The buildings were dulled with age, the ground felt like real dirt and birds were even flying over the city. The wind even felt real as it wisped through his hair. This place really is amazing…

All sorts of people were walking through the streets, buying equipment, talking to their friends or just wandering around. It was easy to distinguish players from NPC’s because the players’ names were displayed over their heads along with their level. Ryan looked up to see his character’s name floating above his head as well. It read ‘Dynamo, Lv. 1’ in a light blue font. I guess I should be calling myself Dynamo from now on, he thought.

(Gamer Tips: NPC means non-playable character, groups of code and data shaped into people that interact with players. They may look as real as a regular player but they are integrated with the game’s programming. The purpose of an NPC is to help out players by running shops, handing out quests or just giving advice. Although they don‘t always play direct roles in MMORPG’s the game would be very boring and less realistic without them.)

Dynamo looked around for his sister but couldn’t find her. “She must still be registering. Amelia always takes forever creating a character.” He looked around at the city again. “I wonder where I am?” He remembered what the voice had said about the PSD. He decided to see all its functions for himself while he waited for Amelia.

The first thing he chose on the main menu was a button labelled ‘Map.’ The device suddenly flashed as a hologram appeared in front of him. The hologram was a giant black sphere with a small gray spot on the surface. “I guess this is supposed to be a map of the world,” he mused. He squinted his eyes at the small gray spot. “And that must be the city I’m in. I guess the whole map is black because I haven’t gone anywhere yet…” He reached out and touched the gray spot. A window opened in front of the sphere that showed a map of the city. According to the PSD he was in a place called Horizon City, a place where every new character started in.

Dynamo looked back to the PSD on his arm. “This thing is pretty cool! I wonder what else I can do with it?” The next thing he chose was a button labelled ‘Status.’ The holographic map disappeared and a new window opened in its place. It showed all his character’s stats beside a picture of himself. He sighed when he looked at his stats, most of them weren’t even in the tens. His character was weak, which wasn’t much of a surprise since he just started. His two highest stats were strength and defence, respectively, although not by much.

There was one button on the window that caught his attention. ‘Skill Tree?’ I wander what this is... He reached out again to touch the button and a new window opened over the previous one. It displayed a chart that was labelled ‘Dyanmo’s Skill Tree.’ At the top was a box that was labelled ‘Level 1.’ Inside the box were the words ‘Short Swords’ and ‘Leather Armor.’ It was the only box on the chart that was shaded yellow, all the others were gray. Dynamo noticed numbers over all the other boxes. All those numbers must be the amount of skill points I have to spend in order to get the skill. I wonder how I get skill points in this game? All the boxes on the chart were connected, starting at the top with the yellow one. Dynamo followed the chart with his eyes down to the bottom. All the paths on the chart led to a single box that was labelled ‘Knight.’

“There you are!” Dynamo jumped at the sound of a girl’s voice. He closed all the hovering windows and turned to face a tall girl with tanned skin and red eyes and hair. She wore a small shirt and tight shorts. He could feel heat rushing to his cheeks from the sheer skimpiness of the outfit. Here boots and gloves were made of regular cloth, as opposed to Dynamo’s leather armor. A yellow tattoo snaked down her left arm and a crude looking dagger hung at her belt. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“Uhh…” Dynamo looked up to check the person’s name, it read ‘Amber.’ Recognizing his sister’s favorite screen name he said, “Amelia, is that you?”

She made a peace sign with her fingers and said, “That’s Amber to you, brother!” She cocked an eyebrow as she looked down at her brother. “Why are you so short? Aren’t you supposed to be older than me?”

Dynamo crossed his arms. “Just because I’m older than you doesn’t mean I have to be taller than you. Besides, you‘re looking a little tall for a twelve-year-old.”

“Did you read your age wrong?” she asked. “Thirteen-years-old doesn’t mean thirteen inches high, pipsqueak!”

Dynamo huffed, “Whatever,” and began to look around. “So, now that we’re here what should we do first?”

“We could always find a quest to do,” Amber suggested.

“I don’t feel confident enough to do quests with a character this weak.” Dynamo suddenly realized he didn’t know what class his sister chose. “Which class did you end up choosing anyway?”

“I chose a thief.”

“A thief?” He gave her an odd look. “But thieves are always weak, no matter what game you play!”

“Yeah, but they’re also super fast. Plus they steal stuff!”

Dynamo shook his head. “Whatever. If you really want to be owned by every monster we fight be my guest.”

“Hey!” She smacked Dynamo on the head. His PSD suddenly beeped as a green bar appeared over his head just under his character’s name. A small portion of the bar was red. “Huh? What’s that?”

“I think it’s my HP bar,” Dynamo said as he rubbed his head.

Amber hit him in the head again, harder this time, causing Dynamo to yelp in pain. The HP bar was reduced a little more, replaced by red. “Cool!” Amber shouted. “Hitting you actually makes your HP go down!”

“Oh yeah? Let’s see if you like it!” Dynamo jumped at her sister but was stopped by her hand on his head. Being as short as he was he couldn’t reach Amber.

“Now, now. You’re not supposed to hit a lady.”

“You’re not a lady, you’re my sister!” Dynamo struggled to get past her arm but Amber moved with him, keeping her hand on his head.

“Oh stop it, people are looking at us.” Dynamo stopped and looked around to see several players looking at them.

He frowned. “This isn’t over.”

“Quit being such a baby,” Amber told her brother. “So, what should we do first?”

“Let’s go to the outskirts of the city and fight monsters a bit before anything else. I want to get a little stronger and get some better equipment before I start doing quests.”

“Lead the way.”

Looking into the mirror he could see his character wearing leather armor that consisted of a vest, gloves and boots.

I wouldn't say 'that consisted of'. You just don't see it too often in actual stories. I'd phrase as:
Looking into the mirror he could see his leather clad character, wearing a vest, gloves, and boots.

The rest was just regular clothing.

Sorry, not descriptive enough for me. Maybe you could say:
Beneath the armor he wore a dull blue tunic with matching trousers.

“This thing is pretty cool,” Ryan mused

You like the word 'mused' don't you? The thing about it is that it stands out since it's so descriptive, and you can't use it too often. Once a chapter is a lot, and twice a chapter is way too much.

It seemed a little too high-tech for the genre of the game. But who was he to complain?

You could combine these sentences with a simple comma.

“I guess this is supposed to be a map of the world,” he mused.

... Again? You really, really like the word 'mused'.

Here boots and gloves were made of regular cloth, as opposed to Dynamo’s leather armor.

You mean 'her' not 'here'. Also, never refer to things as 'regular cloth'. It's not very descriptive and no one really knows what 'regular' is. If in doubt, say cotton, wool, or even silk if you got a high class character. I wouldn't use wool for more common times in real life, but in your story it would be fine.

A yellow tattoo snaked down her left arm and a crude looking dagger hung at her belt.

This may just be me, but if she's really tan, a yellow tattoo won't show up that well.

“Oh stop it, people are looking at us.” Dynamo stopped and looked around to see several players looking at them.

You don't need to repeat that people are looking at them. The dialogue does so enough.

Other than that:
1) The sister came off a little unreal with all the exclamation points used in her dialogue. She'd exclaim stuff that would be more realistic if said normally.
2) Why did the Dynamo make his character short? It doesn't make sense.
3) They seem like they've played the game before even though it's supposed to be their first time. Dynamo knows right away he isn't ready for a quest, and he knows exactly where to go to fight monsters.
4)Dynamo talked to himself too much. You should try to keep some of it in his head.
5) When Dynamo appears in the town you should do more to describe the immediate area. For example, he could have appeared in a secluded corner with a portal behind him that led to other areas. There could be steps leading up to it. Or he could appear in the middle of a busy area in a market. If you can't picture it in your mind well enough to write it on paper you could try drawing it. Then describe what you drew. I do it even though my drawings suck.

Overall? I liked how you handled the beginning of the game during the character set up and I found the whole thing interesting. Overall I liked it. I might review the next part when it comes out if I have time.