Swan's Stuff

From what I call “My Nonsense Poems” on my Hard Drive:

Another of what I call “Nonsense Poems.” That’s all I’ve ever considered them to be, and that’s all they should be taken as. Pure Nonsense:

So yeah, those are some poems of mine. Yes, I totally jacked your idea, Infinity, and made my own topic involving what will mostly be the same kinda stuff. Short Stories, poems, fanfictions, that sort of thing.

Hell, if I ever get way into it, I might post some sprites I might make. :stuck_out_tongue:

Good stuff man, and I can relate to BOTH of those things. Thats what people want. Something they can relate to. I’ma Post my first page of mah shtory now.

Hahaha, those crack me up.

Hm…well, I’ve got a short story that I’m working on. It’s a Left 4 Dead fanfic, believe it or not. Got the first level of the No Mercy campaign down on paper, as well as a little character development. Essentially, two survivors, Tyler and Josh, run into the survivors from the game, and all six of them attempt to make it to Mercy Hospital and escape.

So yeah, tell me what you think. Btw, I have issues with paragraphs. In fact, I’m surprised it’s this separated.

Infected:
Disclaimer: I do not own Left 4 Dead, Zoey, Bill, Louis, Francis, or any of the Infected that appear in the game. These characters and game ideas are property of Valve, not me. All other characters and ideas belong to me. Do not redistribute without my permission.

I popped another shell into my shotgun. ?You loaded?? Josh asked me. ?Yep,? I replied. ?Good, we need to get a move on. I heard about a group of survivors who were headed for the hospital for rescue. We should go with them,? Josh said. ?You know them?? I asked. ?No, but they?re smart and brave enough to head into the subway,? Josh answered. ?Or stupid and lucky,? I muttered as I tore the bandage roll off my arm with my teeth. ?Well, nevertheless, more people gives us more of a chance,? Josh said. ?Point taken,? I said, and we headed off again?

The infection began two weeks ago. In that time, human civilization has been overrun. Metropolitan areas are destroyed. Very few people have managed to survive. Even fewer have taken the initiative to get themselves out. As of this point in time, two groups of survivors are headed towards Mercy hospital, one hoping to meet up with the other. Now both groups have come face to face with the evolving infected. The question is, do they have the ability to fight them?

?Shit?? I said quietly. ?What?? Josh asked. ?You hear that?? I asked. A moaning resonated through the air. ?Crap?? Josh muttered. ?Yep, that?s a witch alright,? I said. Then I heard it; a shotgun going off. ?Josh, did you hear that shotgun?? I asked. ?I sure did,? he replied, and we both smiled. Suddenly, we began hearing shouts and what I thought was a cry for help. ?Dude, I think they?re in trouble,? I said. The moaning brought us back to our situation. An explosion followed by a shriek told us all we needed to know. Josh and I began running towards the subway station. We skidded to a stop and saw four people lying on the ground, all badly injured. A witch was currently ripping the only African American in the group to shreds. The other three were busy targeting the gargantuan tank that was getting ready to pick up a car. ?You take the witch, I?ve got the tank!? Josh yelled. I was already in motion. ?Help! Help!? the man getting attacked by the witch yelled. She was about to strike into him again when my shotgun?s end punched right through her right eye. She looked up for a second, only to have her entire right temple splatter against a car. ?Damn, you arrived in the nick of time,? the man said as I helped him up. ?Tyler! I need some help over here!? Josh yelled. I turned to see him fighting the tank, only to have him thrown against a car. The tank turned to face Josh, and I saw my chance. I quickly dropped my shotgun as I climbed onto the back of the tank, and pulled out my pistols. I unloaded right into the tank?s brain, splattering Josh with its blood. The tank?s headless body slowly fell to the ground as I slid off the back and picked up my shotgun.

I saw the man I save helping up another one of his friends, and I noticed that the only female of the group was the last one on the ground. ?Here, let?s get you ready to go,? I said as I helped her up. ?Thanks?? She muttered as she pulled out a bottle of pills. ?You guys have pain pills?? I asked. ?Only a couple,? the woman replied. ?Eh, that?s fine. I?ll live,? I said, scratching my bandage. We all heard the rumbling noise that began to get louder. ?Shit?? I muttered with the older male of the other group. ?It?s them! We gotta go! Get to the subway!? Josh yelled. We immediately began running into the subway station and saw an open door where the wall had caved in. I noticed a room that looked like it had been boarded up at one time. ?There!? I yelled as I pointed towards the room. We were about to make it into the room when I heard a scream. ?Help!? the woman cried. I noticed that a Smoker tongue had latched onto her. She was being dragged to her doom. I dropped my shotgun and ran back for her. As I reached her, I pulled out my machete that I had found in a gun shop, ironically. I chopped the tongue off, and the woman rolled out of the death grip. ?Here,? I said as I handed her two pistols. I quickly picked her up and ran for the room. I heard pistol shots going off, and could feel the wind right next to my ear. I also felt one nick my ear. ?Watch it!? I yelled. ?I am!? she yelled back. I sped up, and slid into the room, me and her sliding in just as Josh and the biker from the group began to shut the door. The African American was in a corner, taking care of a bleeding leg. The older man was busy killing off a couple of infected that were in the bathroom. ?We need some help over here!? I heard Josh say, and looked up to notice that the door wasn?t shut all the way, and that many infected were pushing up against it. I got up, and slammed my shoulder into the door, which shut it. We quickly pulled the brace into place, fixating the door no matter how many infected pushed against it. I grabbed a nearby Uzi, and unloaded on the infected reaching into the room through the bars on the metal door. ?Die, you sons of bitches!? I yelled as I killed off a few more. The rest of the infected must?ve realized that it was futile, and began wandering around just outside the door. ?We made it,? Josh said. ?No,? I replied. ?This is just the beginning??

Some of your wording is really awkward. I’ll elaborate after I get back from my Composition class (how appropriate :astonished:).

I knew it was. That’s the problem with most of my writing, or at least, the problem I hear the most about from my peers.

But yeah, some help with that issue is welcome.

I’d like to throw out some criticism that kind of undermines a lot of the writing:
Zoey, Louis, Bill, and Francis have 4 very distinct and interesting personalities/manners of speaking in the game. Both of the characters you introduce speak exactly the same way - like you would, presumably. If they’re both nerdy white dudes, it doesn’t really work. You need to give more thought to their backstories, IMO.

Part of the awkwardness of your wording is related to that - you haven’t established a personality for your narrator/main character. Here:
“As of this point in time, two groups of survivors are headed towards Mercy hospital, one hoping to meet up with the other.”
vs.
“?Yep, that?s a witch alright,? I said.”

These are two very different styles of speaking, I feel, but it’s supposed to be the same guy speaking. First is artificially technical, good for a nerdy type kid who’s kind of iffy at writing but is trying to make this autobiographical memoir thingy sound good. The second one is really casual - would Nerdy McWhiteyPants really say that if he heard the (to me, at least) terrifuckingfying wail of the witch?
The only way it would really make sense is if the narrator made up all of the storytelling part to sound tougher than he actually is, which I don’t think was your intent. Also cut down on the ninja shit wtf.

List of awkward wordings:
“The moaning brought us back to our situation.” Just sounds weird.
“A witch was currently ripping the only African American in the group to shreds.” 1) currently is redundant 2) this is something your character notices in the first .5 seconds of laying eyes on the scene. did he really check the race of every single person in the group and note that the person the witch was ripping into was of african descent but an american citizen? I realize that you’re trying to fit a description in discreetly, but it sounds really strange this way.
“I turned to see him fighting the tank, only to have him thrown against a car.” Reads as “I turned in order to see his fight with the tank, but instead caused him to be thrown against a car.” You need to keep verb forms consistent in the sentence. For instance: “I was turning to see him fight the tank, only to be thrown against a car.” or “I turned to see him fighting the tank, but only getting thrown against a car.” The "ing"s need to match up, in short.
“As I reached her, I pulled out my machete that I had found in a gun shop, ironically.” 1) Another case where it’s unsure which parts of the sentence match up. You pulled it out ironically? 2) Another case where you’re jutting too much detail into one sentence. You want to justify your owning a machete. You can put that into two or three sentences. “As I reached her, I pulled out a machete. Ironically, I had found it in a gun shop earlier.” Something like that.

There’s a couple more, but I feel as though I’m being nitpicky anyway.

the awkward wording made me lol
especialy the first one Tim picked out xD

Both of my rewordings suck for the tank/car thing in retrospect >_>

Thanks, Tim. A lot of that makes a whole bunch of sense. I will reword accordingly.

See, the issue I have right now is that I’m not sure who I want the main character to be. Do I want him to be the typical tough guy, the white nerdy guy, etc. I’m not sure yet, and thus, character development is an issue.

I will cut down on the ninja. Sorry, didn’t think about how ridiculous some of that stuff is.

Thanks for the input, Tim. It helps a lot.

Hah, no problem! Always glad to rip on someone else’s writing :stuck_out_tongue:

As far as Fan Fics go, thats pretty good. I’ve seen some really crappy crap before. Like a 3 year old wrote it. I didn’t have much of a problem reading it, but it seemed to go to fast for all that happened. Detail is key.

Swannie, I’m gonna print out a copy of that work today and show it to the Writing Center staff today, and see what they say about it. They’re probably much more qualified than I to give opinions about writing :slight_smile:

I hope you don’t mind.

Go for it, Tim. Any and all criticism is welcome. As long as it’s, y’know, constructive. If someone says “This is shit!” then I’m probably not gonna care. :stuck_out_tongue:

Okay so I went to them and they were like “THIS IS SHIT!”.
You get an EFF MINUS MINUS MINUS MINUS.

(I haven’t actually gone yet <.<)

Lolz?

Yes, UTA. lolz.

Anyway, I took the advice you gave, Tim, and edited a little bit of everything in the story. Cut out the ninja shit, thank you. White nerdy guys can latch onto things, not climb them (you’ll see what I mean :stuck_out_tongue:).

I specifically edited the awkward writing, and made it sound, well, realistic.

I also tried to differentiate the two character’s (that I introduced, of course) personalities, making the main character seem hesitant, while Josh is the tough guy.

Fixed some of the tone and wording of other parts to fit that idea as well.

Oh, before I forget, don’t expect to see this thing updated too often. It’s a side project, if anything.

So without further ado, here’s a link so people don’t have to scroll through a long post again :slight_smile:. Enjoy!

EDIT: Is it just me, or does every single story on the Fanfiction.net Left 4 Dead page involve some idiot teenager or some stupid romance between characters? I mean, my story seemed pretty ridiculous from the moment the idea popped into my head, but some of those fanfics sound disturbing…in more ways than one. Btw, I’m looking at the M rated stories for Left 4 Dead (which mine is, just in case I feel like going into detail with the gore or language. It’s not unnatural to say the word “fuck” a lot when the world is overrun with zombies).

EDIT 2: I see a story involving Chicago Ted. This I’ve gotta read. Here, you read it too. Yes, you, the one at the computer desk.

Hee hee!
It’s much better, IMO.

I found the last paragraph a bit difficult to read, though. Lots of details, and it’s hard to picture what’s going on with everything happening all at once. I think part of it is that since you haven’t given the survivors names yet (the main 4), you’re forced to refer to them in a kind of confusing way. I don’t really have a good idea to solve that, but I think it makes things weird, especially near the end…

Minor things:

  1. African/African American still sound kind of silly. “Black dude” should be fine.
  2. “We picked up the pace, and ran into the room, her and me getting inside just as Josh and the biker began to shut the door.” should be "“We picked up the pace and ran into the room, getting inside just as Josh and the biker began to shut the door.”

Yeah, I’m not really sure how to get around that weirdness. It’s sort of necessary. It doesn’t make sense for them to introduce themselves while running for their lives.

However, the first thing any of them do in “Chapter 2” is introduce themselves and develop character-wise.

I’m probably going to take some liberties with the four original survivors in terms of personality, however, those liberties will be very similar to what the characters distinct personalities are/should be. i.e. I’ll accentuate their personalities rather than change them.

Still not sure on the real personality of the main character and his partner, but I’m getting an idea of what they will be.

Btw, Fanfiction.net sucks ass. Trying to get the edited version of Chap. 1 to show up, but it shows the unedited version. God.

10 minute interval here

Well, finally got it to work. Here is the edited version according to your added revisions, Tim. Thanks for the input, it definitely helps.

Defiantly better. I give it an R. For Retardedly Good. Serious though, good writing.