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Okay, I may as well apologize ahead of time. It wasn’t my idea.
I was telling my friend about the wonderfulness that is Kingdom Pen and the first thing she said to me was, “You should put the story we wrote on there!” It’s a fan fiction we wrote in our spare time over the course of a month using characters from random book/tv series. Most of these characters died. I like my friend a lot so I wasn’t gonna say no. Instead I said, “Fine, but only one scene and I get to edit it first.” So I did.
I should probably let you know that the only character which is completely an OC is “Ashlynn.” (My friend based the OC on herself. :-)) The other characters in this scene are mainly from the BBC series “Merlin.”
So ladies and gentlemen, a scene from a fan fiction we have christened Warehouse 7.I watch raindrops as they stream down my window. Thunder clashes loudly in response to the lightning flashing in the sky. I remember when I would go out fully clothed and dance in the rain. It felt like an eternity past but really it was only a year ago. I shudder as I hear a large thump knowing it was either Merlin or Morgana. Merlin has only gotten weaker. He can barely stand without assistance and doesn’t eat much. He won’t last much longer, everyone knows it. Even he knows it. He’s my best friend in the Warehouse. He’s dying. Thinking about it made me want to cry. I make my way outside and sit in the rain, letting the rain soak my clothes. As I sit there, I hear shouts coming from inside.
“Ashlynn!” a voice shouts from behind. “Watch out for-” I’m knocked unconscious before the voice can finish it’s sentence.
When I come to, I see people around me. Gwaine is in my face smiling…again.
“Rise and shine sweetie!” He says and I frown at him. I look into the mirror and see blood seeping through bandages wrapped tightly around my head. I got up clumsily.
“What happened?”
“Morgana took out Merlin and escaped. When she ran out she saw you in her way and sent you flying across the yard. Morgana is gone.” Ian explains.
“How’s Merlin?” I ask.
“He’s not good. Arthur is with him. We don’t… We weren’t not sure how much longer he has.” I gasp. “No” I burst out of my room and run into Merlin’s room. Arthur sits by Merlin’s bed with tears streaming down his face. I sit down next to him, tears working their way into my eyes.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” I ask. Arthur ignores me, but in his silence I find my answer. The only person who could possibly save Merlin is Merlin. I nod slowly, trying to work it out in my head. Merlin might die, I think over and over again. Merlin might die, Merlin might die… It wasn’t until the 50th time or so that the reality of it all hit me.
Merlin might die.
I feel tears slowly trace my cheeks, he couldn’t die. I wouldn’t let him.
“How long have you been sitting here.” I asked Arthur.
“I don’t know.” he said absently.
“Go get some sleep,” I tell him, “I’ll have someone come get you the moment anything changes.”
It takes a minute, but Arthur eventually nods and gets up. As he leaves, I take his seat next to Merlin and for a moment just sit there in silence. Then I begin to speak to him,
“Merlin, do you remember the time we pulled that prank on Edmund? You used your powers and made yourself look like the White Witch. You barely pulled yourself out of the disguise before he killed you. Even then he nearly killed you. He does like you, ya know, even if he does pick on you now and again. It’s Peter you gotta watch out for… but don’t tell him I said that.” I smiled. “Merlin you can’t die. Please, I don’t know what I’d do without you.” I continue to cry and mumble to him until eventually I fell asleep.
When I woke up there was a face smiling over me. “Not now Gwaine.” I mumbled, turning over.
“Aaaaassshhhlyyynnnnn…” a voice said. “I said not now Gwaine.” Then it registered, that wasn’t Gwaines voice, it was, “Merlin!!” I said, hopping up and throwing my arms around him. “You’re alive!!!”
“How could I die after that inspirational speech you gave last night? Besides we have a world to save.” He said. I smiled and sat back, content with the world once again.
Merlin began to talk, “You know, I’ve been thinking about that prank we pulled on Ed. And I’ve got an idea for another one, only this time we can be sure we won’t be caught.”If you’re still read this all the way down here, I would like to thank you for sticking with me. I really do appreciate it. Now one more favor. Let me know what you thought. We want at least one thing you personally think we could have done to improve. I know it will be tempting but please don’t say, “All of it.” It kinda hard to work based off that… 🙂
Thank you so much!!! From both me and my friend.@adry_grace
Very good! I did notice a few places where you switched from present to past tense. At the end of the second paragraph, you say I got up clumsily. Also you say we weren’t not sure which I assume means we aren’t sure. But anyway, great job!!!A dreamer who believes in the impossible...and dragons. (INFJ-T)
@ingridrd Well…. that’s embarrassing. Ha!! I can’t believe I didn’t catch that! Thanks!
Hm… the biggest problem to me seems to be the rushed flow of it @adry_grace. Also, the characters have zero personality. You know ’em because you’ve seen whatever it is they’re from, and it’s cool to you to have them in these situations because you know them and it’s fun to think how they would react, but I as a reader not familiar with the story am left stranded without a single clue to ground my perception of their personalities. Maybe that’s a fanfic thing?????
The punctuation could also use a little attention, as could the word choice. Just spice it up a bit— instead of plumping for the obvious words (he said, she said, he got up, she took his seat, etc.) try a more visual approach. He whispered, she exclaimed, he rose wearily to his feet, she slipped into his seat.
It’s Peter you gotta watch out for… but don’t tell him I said that.”
Love that. 😀
@kate-flournoy Thank you so much! I love getting this kind of feedback!
I have always struggled with punctuation (seriously, just ask my proofreader aka my mom). Word choice… ah yes. The bane of my existence. This entire thing is basically a movie that goes on inside my head, so I forget that I know exactly how it happens but my reader does not. :-/
I was, however, dreading the character feedback even though I knew it was coming. I complain about the same thing when I read fanfics and I realize now how hard it is. I am sure there is a way to avoid it if only there a genius out there to find it!! I will totally work on that.“Ashlynn!” a voice shouts from behind. “Watch out for-” I’m knocked unconscious before the voice can finish it’s sentence.
Maybe here you could describe how the character was knocked unconscious more…for example, you could say, “I felt something hard strike the back of my head, and everything went black.” Or something like that. 🙂
I got up clumsily
This would be “I get up clumsily” here since you’ve used present tense for the rest of the passage. 😉
Merlin might die.
I feel tears slowly trace my cheeks, he couldn’t die. I wouldn’t let him.I really like the emotion in this part!
until eventually I fell asleep.
Again, this would be “until eventually I fall asleep” ’cause the rest of the story is present tense. 🙂
Merlin began to talk, “You know, I’ve been thinking about that prank we pulled on Ed. And I’ve got an idea for another one, only this time we can be sure we won’t be caught.”
Haha, I like the ending line. 😀
Great job on the story; I liked it a lot. Just a couple things: watch out for tense changes and punctuation and maybe try to make the characters more emotional…if that makes sense. Overall, though, it was really good! Nice job. 🙂
Other than just having no idea who these characters are and their back story, I think the main problem was a scattered and rushed scene structure. There’s some slowing down that needs to be done and that includes describing the details of setting, facial expressions, feel in the air, etc. I get the sense that you are skipping back and forth between thoughts and actions. Of course, this is normal in one sense, but problematic in that it doesn’t blend. The reader should get the sense that action and thinking are all part of the same moving feeling world (if that makes any sense). To slow down your scene and still maintain a sense of purpose and progression of the plot, you are probably going to need to give your characters extra small scene goals.
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@gretald I am so glad you like it! Thank you for the criticism! It helps a lot! I am beginning to realize that the tense thing is something we struggle with through out the entire fanfic. Oops… Haha. Yay!! Someone likes the ending line. I have no idea whether it was me or my friend that wrote that particular line, but I was pleased with it.
@daeus Yeah. That makes sense. Because this was a project that was born of boredom (not to mention its kind of a tag team effort) the flow of it is kind of shaky. But I am a writer thus I have no excuse. I’m pretty sure at this point in our writing we were still trying to figure out where the heck we were going with it. And since we weren’t quite sure what the goal was the story became rushed and also somewhat pointless. Amusing to write, difficult to read unless you know what’s going on ahead of time. I’m gonna have to go back and edit this thing like crazy.
Thank you so much!Nice writing! Same problem as a few other peeps with having pretty much no idea who anyone is. (Except Arthur and Edmund. 😛 )
I’d say to change the beginning. To quote KM Weiland: You want your readers to keep reading because of a question and “What the heck is going on?” is not a valid question.
It’s good to hold off telling everyone exactly what’s going on. But when I’m still clueless as to what’s happening a couple of paragraphs in, the chances that I’m going to skip into skim-for-info mode are pretty high.As far as good stuff… I don’t know about other guys, but I can usually tell by the way it’s written how the author feels about it. And I can pretty easily see that you really like the characters and was writing that for that reason. Keep that and you’ll probably be able to polish it to a lovely sheen of fanfic! 🙂
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