..It's by the sword. I kept telling myself that as I hid behind the tree. That was my life motto. Although it didn't make much sense to me, because I was a bowman rather than a swordsman. I held my breath as I turned my head around the tree, to find the guards searching the area for me. That was good; they hadn't spotted me yet. I pulled my bow off from my back and grasped it tightly as I brought an arrow to the flax, and held the arrow back. I crouched down next to the bush next to me and aimed at one of the guards. I counted to three, then let go. The arrow pierced the eye of the guard, and went to his brain. Blood shot out as he fell to the ground and died. I hid down under the bush as I listened to the guards.

"What was that?" one asked. "I don't know.. But that man is here somewhere." I slowly lifted myself above the bush and shot another arrow. The arrowhead snapped off as it smashed into the guard's helmet, pushing him back by the force. I shot another arrow, which was lodged into the guard's heart region. The guard moaned in pain as he slumped over and fell into the grass. The remaining guards now knew where I was. I hopped up and sprinted away, putting up my bow. I pushed myself as hard as I could, and when the guards were out of view, I grasped the branch of a tree and swung myself up into the leaves, hiding myself.
The guards ran in front of the tree, and kept running. I watched as they slowly disappeared into the green of the forest. I jumped from the branch and ran north-east. I knew where I was going, Cheydinhal.
------------------------

Should I continue? This part seems a little like trying to be superman, but it's just the beginning. And after all, it's just a bunch of clumsy guards. This isn't my first fanfic overall, only my first TES fanfic. I've never been to this part of the forums, so I'll give it a try. I'm a common user in the Fallout Fanfic section, and I've done tons of fanfics for other sites and such, so I guess I'm decent at writing. The story is kind of based around my character on Oblivion, just to put that out there..

For your first TES fan fic it was good i want to see more :foodndrink:

I want to continue now, but I'm dying to go play Oblivion. I'll come back later.

I slid off the lid and crawled into the manhole, closing it as I descended. After the perpetual sound of my foot hitting the bars of the ladder, I hopped off and walked out of the small room, which was once a well. The red glow of the Brotherhood's santuary lightened up my day as I made my way into the living quarters. I waved to Ocheeva. "Hi, Ocheeva." I said. "Hello, Linden.. Kill anything today?" she responded, slowing down. "Plenty." I continued into the room, and pulled down my hood. I hopped onto my bed, which was kind of painful because it was stiff.

I untied my boots and slid under the bedsheets, and just as I was prepared to end the day, Lucien awoke me. I flinched and turned to him. "Oh.. Don't do that. It's creepy." I said. He continued to stare at me. "Don't forget the contract. You have a contract that you must start tomorrow." he told me. I stared hard at him. "What? What contract? Nobody told me anything." Lucien gave me a puzzled look, then said, "Well then. You are to go to the Imperial City, there is a mage in the Arcane University named Foregoht Allaies. He is a Dunmer, like you, so you can easily charm him to make him believe you are a friend. When you get him in an area where nobody is around, cut his throat when he doesn't expect it at the least."

I smiled a bit, prepared to hear the reward. "Where in the Arcane University is he?" I asked. "He normally works in the lobby, polishing the display cases and making sure not a spot is to be seen." I chuckled. "He's a manservant?" Lucien still held a tight face. "Quite. He works from nine AM to seven PM. Finding him will be no hard task. Your reward is five hundred gold, and the bonus you will only obtain if you don't attract, kill or get in trouble with the guards. They must not know a thing about the murder, who did it, or the like."

Lucien rolled up a scroll, and handed it to me. It was all the information written down in case I forgot. Before Lucien could walk away, I asked, "Why is this guy worth so much? What'd he do?" Lucien turned back to me. "He's quite a notorious thief in Cheydinhal, and has mugged several Brotherhood members. He fled to Imperial City to get away from us. He will fail. Won't he?" I grinned. "I won't let you down." Lucien smiled back, and walked out of the room. I set the scroll down on the desk next to me, and covered myself in the bedsheets. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

***

I jumped onto the bridge and turned away from the guard. I pulled the facemask over my mouth and nose, and turned back around. I continued to the gates, and passed through. The magician guard stared at me as I passed. I jogged up the steps and opened the main doors to the lobby, to find a Dunmer sweeping the floors. I pulled down my facemask and my hood, then approached him. "Hey there. Could you tell me how to get into the University?" The Dunmer looked up from his work. In a squeaky voice, he said, "Oh, uh, you have to be like, in some guild or something." This was going to be easy. I didn't even need to be friends with this guy. "Oh.. Okay. Farewell to you."

"Yeah, uhh, okay.." I pretended to walk away, then grasped my hand onto my dagger. I swiftly turned around and launched the dagger from my hand, which blew through the Dunmer's neck. He clutched the handle of the dagger in pain, as blood flowed from the gash, then fell over dead. I walked to his corpse and violently pulled out the dagger from his neck, exposing several veins and fleshy parts with blood spewing out. I wiped the dagger off with the Dunmer's shirt, then put it into the sheath. I dragged the corpse by the legs and hid it in a corner. I flipped my hood up and pulled up my mask, and left the building. Too easy.

I'm pretty new at writing here too, so bear that in mind.

I like the tongue in cheek style. I also like that you are not going too far out of period with it (avoiding excess anachronisms like: 'He looked like a biker dude in his leathers').


I honestly got lost here as far as who was saying what:

What the wonderful folks on the forums here told me, was to start a new paragraph anytime you change speakers.

Keep going. :foodndrink:

Hehe, knew the confusion would happen. The one giving orders is Lucien, the one asking questions is Linden. But I like to keep things traditional and keep it all in the paragraph. It seperates me from the crowd, and crowns me as one of my own. Seperating the conversations 2 enters a time is space consumind.

Here's a little info on Linden..

He's a Dark Elf(Dunmer), he's in the Dark Brotherhood. He hates humans, but loves animals. Animals don't hurt him, mainly because he's outside so much every day, and never hurts the wildlife, they've accepted him. Linden is an assassin as you can see, and prefers going from long distances with bows or throwing knives. Linden is a real Oblivion character made by me, and I got the idea of making him animal-tarian because he's outside so much in the game. He's really stealthy, and is focused on agility, speed, and strength. The plan is always get in, and get out without attracting attention.

Well then, welcome to the Tes Fan Fiction board. You might not have seen me around much, but I still try to take a look at fan fictions every now and again; especially new writers. So much easier than the top notch ones (no offense)

Well then, I'll skip over spelling and grammar since you are new. I didn't see much on a cursory examination anyways.

Next would be your word choice and flow: The story has one fatal flaw that perpetuates through many amateur stories, and continues to plague writers throughout their careers; that flaw is details. Details, details, and more details; as many as you can fit in without sounding too hung up on them and making us bored. If one knew nothing about the Cheydinhal sanctuary, your story would not tell us how it looked. We know it has something to do with a well and it has beds; that's it. Describe your settings, your characters, and most of all, your fight scenes.

Fight scenes can make or break a story. They characterize your protagonist; everything from his fighting style to his expressions can be used. There is no greater a time to show us inside his head than when he is killing a man; and here it is a great opportunity for foreshadowing.

Since I already touched on characterization, I'll go into that more. We know next to nothing about your protagonist, and what we do know is merely superficial. He has no emotion, no mental state, nothing for the reader to connect to. He is a machine, and none of us here are like that. This ties into describing him more, so pay a lot of attention to that.

Nest I think I'll drop this one piece of advice, something I would tell to anyone that wants to write any story over ten pages long. Don't start your story with a fight scene. It is not the best way to connect us to him, and even if it might seem like a good hook, everyone here has read thousands of fight scenes and, unless you can beat those, it simply doesn't attract attention. Start your story with a slice of his daily life: riding his horse, talking to Ocheeva, reading a book, whatever, just so long as it isn't a fight scene.

Finally, I'll finish up with my favorite element: plot. The plot seems far too straightforward as it is. I know for a fact you intend to throw in some twists later, but if we don't have so much as foreshadowing or some subtle insinuations, people tend to stop reading before they get to those. Just a normal everyday contract is not exciting, throw in something juicy for us to go on. Conflict, both internal and external. Follow the basic format you learn in Lit. class and you'll do fine

So basically: add more detail, describe your character, don't start off with fight scenes (don't have to re-write it, just remember for next time), and bait us with the plot. Don't reveal the entire plot at once, but don't keep it entirely in the dark. We wouldn't be reading the story if the information wasn't relevant to characterization or plot.

Thanks for writing, and keep it up :goodjob:

I wanted to keep readin gyour post, but I had to stop when I saw you say that the character was a 'robot'. Aren't you forgetting we're still in the introduction? We still have a ton of time left to introduce the characters. I'm not going to be like other stories where it explains everything in one bunch. It'll happen over time. I just got a little ticked when you said that.. But all the stuff about details and such: I'm not a fanfic amateur, I already know all that. I'm not trying to sound offensive, but I'm only new to this section, not the entire forum itself.

Just because there's a fight scene at the beginning doesn't mean it makes the story terrible. It's not major and doesn't effect much, so why does it matter if it's there or not? And you say the reader knows nothing about the sanctuary; well, same asthe character thing, I will explain over time. I hate it so much when people tell me all that when there's only been a few posts. You're acting like we're in the middle of the story. Trust me, this is just the introduction. I plan for this to be alot longer. Regardless, I appreciate the criticism. I just couldn't restrain myself from commenting on those three topics posted above.

Are you seriously saying that you're too special for proper grammar? :stare:

I think I just died a little inside.

Okay... Welcome to the TES fanfiction forum. It is good to see new writers popping up, and I really do enjoy reading new stories. I am also not usually a mean person--brutally honest, sometimes, but not mean.

Bear that in mind for the rest of this post.

I feel the need to warn you that you won't get far in this forum with that attitude. The fact that you've posted other fanfictions in other forums does nothing to your credit here. In TES Fanfiction, the only important thing is what and how you write in TES Fanfiction. And so far, I'm not really impressed. Don't get me wrong; you're writing isn't bad. But the way you accept criticism is.

In this forum, there are a lot of well-meaning people (Darkom included) who regularly post critiques. It's part of a tradition of mutual improvement, and is by no means meant to be insult or flame. It's difficult to accept criticism sometimes, but that does not mean you're allowed to make excuses like "oh, this is just the introduction; it doesn't count." Of course it counts. You're free to accept or reject a critique depending on whether you think it's applicable to your vision and style as a writer, but you never, ever just brush it off like that. Someone has taken time to read your story and politely frame where you feel you could improve to become a better writer. Common courtesy dictates that you at least read it. Whether you take it to heart or not is your business, but not reading it at all is just rude.

In the case of Darkom's critique, you said that you already know the stuff he brings up. It obviously doesn't show, or he wouldn't have mentioned it. Again, he is just pointing out things that he feels could make your writing more compelling. Take a step back from your writing and do your best to listen. You may be glad you did, down the road.

Yikes. Sorry if I blew up a little there. Insulting proper mechanics does that to me. No one's above grammar. Don't clump multiple speakers into one paragraph; it's not clever, and it's not cute. It's annoying and confusing.

Okay... calming down now. Honest. :facepalm:

A couple of things I want to add to Bsparrow's comments. Lets start with the "it's only the introduction, I have plenty of time to do this and that." Just out of curiousity, how many novels have you picked up in a bookshop, read the first couple of pages, then put it back and not bought it? Everyone does that. If it doesn't grab you fast, well, there are hundreds of other novels out there for you to spend your time reading. Why would you bother with one that hasn't started well?

Answer = you wouldn't.

The opening has to grab the attention, give a sense of character (after all, it's the character we're going to be following. If he/she doesn't have much of a personality, again, why would we bother) and make us want to keep reading. This is related to what Darkom has said. If you start with a fight scene (which personally, I have no objections to) you have to make sure the character's personality is coming through. Otherwise it's just a series of events happening to someone we don't know or care about yet. His criticism of starting with a fight scene is because frequently the would be author just describes the action, and we end up with no knowledge about the people involved. If we have nothing invested in the character, if we don't care enough about them to want them to win, or worry about them losing, there's no excitement.

Your writing actually isn't at all bad, but your response to criticism leaves something to be desired so far. Think about what you'd like to read, about how you wish stories would grab you and how you can do that yourself. Don't just use excuses about, "hey it's no biggie, it's only an intro." You want us to spend time reading, and to spend time and effort responding, so at least make it worth our while. You don't have to follow criticism, you don't have to agree with it, but at least respect the effort taken by the person giving it.

Hope you continue, and if you do, I shall keep reading

Well, BSparrow has made most of the points - AGAIN - that I was going to make. Way to go, BSparrow! :thumbsup:

So, here is a piece of advice, and it is, honestly, well meant.

If you must put in fight scenes, I suggest you either

( a ) read fight scenes - good ones - from good novels.

( b ) take up martial arts, especially weapons.

( c ) or ask advice.

The reason why I say this is that you have committed so many howlers in fight scenes that anyone with even a basic amount of knowledge of weapons - and there are quite a few here! - is going to throw up his or her hands in disgust.

Examples: "The arrow pierced the eye of the guard, and went to his brain."

Pul-leeze. When you shoot a bow - a six foot long longbow, the only kind allowed by Oblivion - you cannot crouch to shoot. Try shooting a six foot bow from a crouch! You have to stand up to shoot, and when you do, you cannot shoot through an eye and into a brain unless the guard is standing on a ledge far above you! What you have just described is a crossbow shot. You can do that kind of shot from a crossbow, but NOT from a longbow.

" I shot another arrow, which was lodged into the guard's heart region. The guard moaned in pain as he slumped over and fell into the grass."

Which lodged, not which was lodged. And you do not moan in pain when you are hit in the heart by bullet, blade, or arrow. You are paralyzed, and you slowly drop down in silence. (Yes, I have seen it happen. And before you ask, yes, I have weapons experience.)

"After the perpetual sound of my foot hitting the bars of the ladder..."

Do you know what 'perpetual' means? If you did you wouldn't have used that word. I suspect you meant 'recurring'.

"then grasped my hand onto my dagger"

AAAAAAAARGGH!!!!

You do NOT grasp your hand onto your dagger - you grasp the DAGGER with your HAND!!!!

The only way you could grasp your hand onto your dagger would be if you took your left hand with your right and pushed it onto the dagger and squeezed!!!

(in which case you will need some stitches, at least, on that hand.)

And as for dagger throwing...

PUH-LEEZE. WHY do people think that throwing any old dagger works? You need a special type of dagger to throw well - a throwing dagger, which is specially designed to have nearly all its weight near the point- and you CANNOT throw a dagger well at close range, there isn't enough room for the dagger to spin and stabilize! My Kendo master, who also taught me dagger throwing, showed me practically that you need at least ten feet separation to throw a dagger to embed it. And if you are that close, why throw a dagger and take the risk of it misstriking - it is very easy to misstrike a dagger throw - when you can simply stab your enemy? And a dagger throw cannot be done from the waist - you have to bring your arm back and throw overhand, just like you throw a baseball - a very, very unstealthy move. Your character is an assassin. This is, heh, out of character for an assassin.

The point is, you wanna describe a painter, you gotta know something about paints. You wanna describe an assassin...you have to know something about martial arts.

:facepalm: I agree with everything everyone's said about the story. It's good but I was put off by your attitude.

This may have been mentioned, but can I just say that going, "Oh it's only the introduction, it doesn't matter," makes no sense because if those things aren't there early on to grasp the reader's attention then they won't bother to stick around later when they are included.

Without flaming or sounding offensive, that you're not good enough to just go 'it doesn't matter to me'. In fact, no one is. People criticize for a reason, and it shows they want to help your story, but don't expect comments and reviews if you're just going to throw it back in the reader's face.

I am angry. Very angry in fact, but I'm not going to let it show for the sake of everyone. :stare: Just because you're a good writer, it doesn't mean you can act like you did.

I'm just going to put a stop to the story now. People just keep complaining about things alredy dealt with, nobody accepts the story for what it is, and it's been two days since I've been on. I'm not even gonna bother.


This is the only forum that complains about crap like this. Fallout Fanfiction never tells me that I have to seperate conversations two frigging paragraphs a time, like it even matters.. Fallout Fanfiction never tells me any of what you guys are saying, but no... It has to be seperated and paragraphed three words each, why can't you guys criticize the story, not organization?

You guys complain about all these things, like, "ooh it's not realistic", when you can really do that in the game. I don't care if it's realistic or not, I'm basing this off the game, not you're opinion. Jesus..

I'm sorry the TES Fan Fiction forum has actual standards of quality.

Hooray! I was getting put off by how everyone else was saying what I was going to respond with, when I find you commented again. I thought my post would just be "I agree with BSparrow and Burnt Sierra", but now I get to say something new.

Putting my emotions aside on this one, I have to tell you that what you just did is a very bad idea. Faldom's response was very mellow compared to what you would have gotten from someone else (keep Tayrock out of here )

Before you go on about that, I have to ask you why you are writing at all. What did you want to hear "Oh, I love it, please go on. You're my hero!" Albeit D.Foxy's critique was a little much, everyone else was very nice about it all. The whole point of writing is not that you describe something you did in the game, but you make up a whole new story for us to read. I have never seen anyone in a novel persuade people through use of a ridiculous minigame, nor have I ever heard of long range magic just be sparkly balls of energy. The game does not equal our writing (I hope )

Beyond just fan fiction, you can't write anything and show it to others without expecting people to find fault with it. I really wish people would comment on my story/ies like this, telling me advice. I have recieved maybe a dozen constructive posts on my stories, any and all growth in my writing is due to personal development and RPing.

The number one rule of the fan fiction forum is to give constructive criticism, and the number two rule is to always accept criticism with grace and decorum. In fact, it is a forum rule that you can't just be, quite honestly, childish. Arguing your style with people is one thing, but just requesting a lock is not very mature.

Sorry if I sounded cynical or harsh in my critique or this post, please understand we all just want to help. Thanks for writing, and please keep it up :goodjob:

...No.

It's your choice of course, but I have to ask...

What kind of comments were you expecting? Most of the comments have said that your writing is quite good, just take the time and effort to make it easier for us to read and try to take criticism better.

Seriously, what were you expecting?

If you'd looked through the forum before posting, you'd have seen how things were done here, it's not like you're being treated differently than anyone else. In all the years I've spent here, I've never seen anyone react like this to what were fairly harmless (and clearly well meant) comments. :shrug:

1. Fallout Fanfiction is wrong
2. Yes it does matter
3. Don't put up material if you expect "OMG I LUV THIS."

Sparrow and BS are right (wow, imagine that) about everything they've said. They're some of the smartest minds in this forum. I'd go as far as to call them "Elites." You should listen to what they have to say, not ignore them.

This may not be necessary, but I think you're acting very childish. You obviously want to be seen as amazing, and when people find a fault you cry about it; pathetic really.

As redsrock just said, people over on the Fallout section think everything's good, and don't have very high standards. Just accept it that people over on TES will want 'real' quality and look for faults. This is a section for writing, so if what you write isn't good, then don't expect songs of praise in your name anyway.

See people like Darkom, Sparrow, redsrock, and Burntsierra come come to help you, and make your writing overall better. But still you shun them and act as if they're moaning at you and slating your work. That is not the case, in fact they're 'nicer' than anyone over on the Fallout section because they want to go out of their way to help you. The only reason people are having a go at you is because of your attitude, and no matter how good your story is, the way you act will put people off.

All in all, no your story is not perfect, so don't expect people to act as if it is. I would happily critique your work, but I know that if I do I'll just be called an idiot for having a fair opinion. Please, stop acting so immature.

Despite what I've said, I do encourage you to keep writing; truly the stuff's good, but stop complaining. Honestly, I am quite annoyed, but I try my best not to show it

I think you should respect that the people criticising you are only trying to help. I bet when they wrote their first Fan Fiction here that they got heavily criticised. And I'm pretty sure that criticism helped them become great writers.
So I feel that your choice to quit was pretty poor and lazy. Trust me you will learn a LOT by these people above me, just don't give up, they want you to keep writing as well as I do.

(I told you people would yell at you ) That's entirely fine, writing isn't for everyone. This forum does have its flaws, but it is a pretty good system compared to most else you'd find out there.

My first fan fiction didn't get criticised much... Nor my second, third, or fourth Oh well, I probably shouldn't complain about criticism, or a lack of it

I wasn't expecting anything, and I certainly wasn't expecting a bunch of elitist Nazis to rip the story to shreds just because I didn't seperate conversations.
Besides, if it svcks so much why are you guys still replying?

Because it doesn't svck.

Honestly, you've got a lot of potential. The difficulty is the fact that you don't listen to your fellow writers. We're harsh sometimes, but we honestly do try to help eachother become stronger and better at the craft. Because it is a craft: one many of us take seriously, and want to share with others. :twirl:

See, I'm ridiculously tied up in grammar and mechanics. Everyone here knows it, which is why the "I just died a little inside" comment I made earlier was partially tongue-in-cheek. I like a story that's readable and with structural elements that don't detract from the actual plot, and that includes the whole "dialogue in alternating paragraphs" thing. It's a personal taste. But one that you should at least read and consider before you brush off.

We're not telling you you're a bad writer. That's what's so tragic about this. Your story has potential, and most of us want to see it continued. The fact that it exploded into this drama is the tragedy. I'm part of that explosion, I know... but so are you. Your first post after Darkom's critique was purely defensive, and it kind of spiraled downhill from there. Defensiveness is a natural reaction to a decent, thorough critique (even I still get that way sometimes, and I've developed one very thick skin through years at both sides of critiquing). The trick is to step back and take a moment to divorce yourself mentally from the time and effort you poured into your work. Once you can do that, you may see that some of the criticisms in this thread are valid after all.

Again, we really do just want to help you in the long run. We're not cruel people. We're not "elitist" either... anyone can write here. Relatively good writers actually tend to get laid into a bit more strongly, since most of us figure a decent writer can take it, and is probably serious enough about the craft to want to improve besides.

Again, sorry that you were hurt in this whole thing. I hope that when it all cools down, you're willing to come back and give us another go. :hugs:

I agree with BSparrow. Instead of criticizing, I'm going to tell you that your story is very good, and should be continued. :foodndrink:

I still don't want to continue. From this much off topic posts and the (apparently)horrible beginning, I might as well end this and try again with a different story.