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emo samurai
Hi, I'm trying to make a 30 page story for my creative writing class. My revised story will always be stored here:
[ Spoiler ]


And here's the original draft of maybe 8 out of the hopefully 30 pages that I'm setting up for your appraisal.

[ Spoiler ]
Draug
Dude. Format it. That huge block of text hurts my eyes. Throw in some blank spaces, and I'll give it another try. wink.gif
emo samurai
Done.
Draug
And time for comments and critiques!

First off, I'll be honest with you. I read the first part, and it was cool. You rather nicely portrayed the guy's what-the-hell attitude. Maybe he should have been a little more scared here and there, maybe not. He's a pro mage, so it's ok.

I don't like that he mentions spells by SR names, though. Takes away a bit of the cool-factor.

I then read a couple of paragraphs or so of the next part properly. I take it there's going to be some sort of middle part here that explains what the hell he's doing in Tir, so I'll forgive you for not explaining what's going on. wink.gif

Then, it turned to raving Harlequin fanboyism, and I started skimming. It's very un-gritty, un-cyberpunky nature. And there are far too many elves for my taste. Basically, the whole thing goes high-fantasy, and I don't like it. Literary quality drops too. I liked the main character better when he was a newly disemployed, scared - and therefore angry and up-to-no-good - mage.

QUOTE
I would have rather seen the trees around it burn, or for the pond to get swallowed into the earth.

This part strikes me as particularly weak. Of course he'd rather see the trees burn. So would I. Who gives a shit about trees, they come back next year anyway. This kind of text underlines what I've said above. It goes, trite, predictable, and...girly. In a bad way (I like girls as much as the next dude. wink.gif)

If you include the unicorn, I think you should include it much more as a lost, scared creature than some sort of cunning schemers. Unicorns are shy things of beauty, and I don't like the pragmatic style the creature immediately presents. I also dislike the monetary reward.

Take Harlequin out of the picture, give the hero a more hairy experience, and insert some more fear/horror/grittiness around the unicorn.

And remember, this is all meant in a friendly, helpful tone. smile.gif
emo samurai
The part about nature turns to meditations on his lack of worthiness; this lack of worthiness in the face of magical nature's beauty becomes a theme later on.

The villain has the Red Samurai kidnap a unicorn because when he was a boy, he saw a unicorn that mind-raped him and told him that he was unworthy. He tries his whole life to get her out of his head, and as soon as there's a unicorn sighting in the Tir, he has the Red Samurai capture it. Having her there to experiment on and to work with gives him peace. Unicorns in my story aren't shy protectors of nature but really distant, haughty, and perhaps foolish creatures.

And the villain isn't going to have some cool-ass final battle with the mage; he'll be found with his head blown open in an obvious act of suicide and a trid chip recording of his last confession. The unicorn will then tell my character to kill her.

As for Harlequin, he turns out not to be as much of a good guy. I mean, duh, he could have saved the unicorn himself pretty easily, right? But he doesn't, because if he himself did it, it would be just him saving a unicorn, but if he helps build up a corporate dropout to legendary status, it's a legend. The unicorn telling the mage to kill it in the end only helps with that ideal that he has of a noble hero struggling against corps. The mage's last encounter with Harlequin is on the rooftop of his building after hearing him play steel guitar. Throughout, Harlequin is completely aloof and uncaring, talking about his sorrow and his experience as if it were a story. In the end, Harlequin just ends up cementing the main character's cynicism.

But you're right... he should be more cynical with regards to the forest. Maybe I'll have him stutter, taking in everything at once, and then coming to his senses and igniting a cigarette.
Draug
QUOTE (emo samurai)
The villain has the Red Samurai kidnap a unicorn because when he was a boy, he saw a unicorn that mind-raped him and told him that he was unworthy. He tries his whole life to get her out of his head, and as soon as there's a unicorn sighting in the Tir, he has the Red Samurai capture it. Having her there to experiment on and to work with gives him peace. Unicorns in my story aren't shy protectors of nature but really distant, haughty, and perhaps foolish creatures.

Forgive me, but I don't like that story.

QUOTE (emo samurai)
The part about nature turns to meditations on his lack of worthiness; this lack of worthiness in the face of magical nature's beauty becomes a theme later on.

Change that to natures magical beauty, and you're developing a better topic, IMO.

Harlequin is - and will always be - Harlequin. Tossing him in and having him pick off Tir soldiers or whatever is unnecessary, and detracts from the main character, IMO. Harlequin, if included, should be much more subtle.

Finally, tighten up your copy. The all caps parts are painful, there are some paragraph errors, and you occasionally drift into very long, strange sentences.
emo samurai
Why don't you like my story of the main villain? It makes him insane, but also a victim. One of the themes of my story is beauty as a subversion of free will. I think I'll have there be a charm over the forest that makes the "hero" worship it. He manages to force it out of his mind. And this is further enforced by the spirit possessing the main character.

The leader of the runner team that he hires is a beautiful chaos mage who has incredibly cynical yet approving views of modern life. After the job, in which they manage to snag a bajillion dollars' worth of paydata, she takes a liking to him. He assenses her and tries to read what she's feeling, and then finds that she has implanted tailored pheremones, too skin-deep to cause magic loss. He turns her down because of his feeling manipulated. Or he doesn't. Maybe he has sex with her and ends up feeling empty and used. I don't know.

And what could be grittier than a psychopathic megacorporate overlord blowing his brains out after giving his psycho-monologue to a camera?

I think I'll keep the caps; it makes the spirit more self-important seeming, and it gets across the exhilaration that the main character feels.

And "magical nature's beauty" is phrased deliberately. In this story, magical nature mind-rapes you.

And how do you suggest I make Harlequin a lot more subtle? I'm thinking he should take a "prod him in the right direction" approach as opposed to an "I'll affect his life in innumerable small, imperceptible ways" approach; I mean, he's trying to make it as much the main character's story as possible, giving him as little aid as necessary.
Draug
The whole idea of a kid who was "mind-raped" by a unicorn is, well, it doesn't get to me. Also, the whole "beauty as a subversion of free will" doesn't work in a cyberpunk setting when the beautiful thing is nature. At least not in the way you present it.

Try reading, or just taking a look at, Philip K Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep". It has some undertones of desire for nature. No mind-raping, though.

QUOTE (emo samurai)
And what could be grittier than a psychopathic megacorporate overlord blowing his brains out after giving his psycho-monologue to a camera?

Did I miss that part, or haven't you posted it yet?

QUOTE
I think I'll keep the caps; it makes the spirit more self-important seeming, and it gets across the exhilaration that the main character feels.

Do as you will. You'll probably loose a point, though.

QUOTE
And how do you suggest I make Harlequin a lot more subtle? I'm thinking he should take a "prod him in the right direction" approach as opposed to an "I'll affect his life in innumerable small, imperceptible ways" approach; I mean, he's trying to make it as much the main character's story as possible, giving him as little aid as necessary.

I was more thinking, as in "not openly, visibly, raping Tir soldiers".
emo samurai
But the thing is, he's trying to force the main character to run to the forest by making it easy for him to do so and at the same time making it impossible to run away from the forest.

Plus, making the villain some kind of psycho who actively hunts down beauty just tickles me.

And what's wrong with the caps? It makes the main character's interactions with the spirit funnier, setting him up as a foil.

Plus, one of the themes of Shadowrun is that nature's come back with a vengeance. Everything we consider "soulful" about human nature has come back militarized and magically armed. Tradition, culture, elven life, etc...

But if it sounds as if I'm actively rebuffing your criticisms, don't be turned away; I like having to reexamine everything I've built up around this story.

And I've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Draug
He can force the character in a lot of ways that are better than direct, violent intervention. You're an imaginative guy, so make up something better than "and then Harlequin kicks ass!"

Psycho who actively hunts down evil is cool. But the way you deliver it becomes trite, especially with the unicorn as such a powerful creature. Evil is enhanced by the defenselessness of its victims. That's lacking here. I have little or no sympathy for the unicorn, because it takes everything in stride.

Caps are a cheap way to enhance urgency, and also seem childish. Italics work much better, trust me. Just read any book where people are telepathic.

QUOTE
Plus, one of the themes of Shadowrun is that nature's come back with a vengeance. Everything we consider "soulful" about human nature has come back militarized and magically armed. Tradition, culture, elven life, etc...

Let's just agree to disagree on this, ok? Plus, I doubt the majority of your class, not to mention your teacher, is very knowledgeable about the SR universe. Your set-up is not newbie-friendly.

QUOTE
But if it sounds as if I'm actively rebuffing your criticisms, don't be turned away; I like having to reexamine everything I've built up around this story.

Sounds like you're defending your viewpoints. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. wink.gif

QUOTE
And I've read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

Rememer the owl? The way he marvels at the frog? That's the kind of nature themes that blend excellently with SR, IMHO. Not the raving power-unicorn, spell-blasting Harlequin, vengeful mind rape thingies. Still IMHO, of course.

Ultimately though, those are storytelling and morale preferences, which vary from person to person. I think your prof's going to care more about style, and grammar. So tighten up your copy, as a guy I know says. wink.gif
emo samurai
Okay, so the unicorn will be sad and helpless, and won't mind-rape people. And Ferguson, the villain, will not be mind-raped, just unable to come to terms with himself on a very basic, inhuman level.

This is my ending.

[ Spoiler ]


Earlier in the story, when he's driving back from the Renraku complex, he says this about the highway: "The empty highway stretches out before me like the corpse of a giant snake. Its innards have rotted away, and its skin has refused to decompose. Nothing grows where it lies."

[ Spoiler ]
emo samurai
Here's the new beginning to my story.
[ Spoiler ]
emo samurai
I'm on my way to writing a really AWESOME novel set in a sort-of SR universe with a really divergent background. IM me if you want to hear my ideas; I'm thinking of having it published, and I don't want to disqualify myself by posting it here. I really, really want feedback.

My AIM's NinjaPhilosopher. My MSN's emosamurai@hotmail.com.
Demon_Bob
Don't know how to put this any other way.

Can you reword the story while leaving out the I, I, I, I?
emo samurai
Actually, everything on this page is pretty much obsolete. The scope of my story's way, way bigger now.
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