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Hello all,

to fulfill my boredom and creativity needs as i have stopped using fpsc and most other game related programs i needed something to do and began to write HMS Diptera the book. Lot's of changes and story improvements as well as much more detail.

If anyone here could give some feedback since I'm definitely not an author and I need help designing a cover, maybe its too early for that but I was thinking of the face of the dogman from model pack 22 (or a similar monster) with space reflecting from its eyes. Basically just give your opinions if you can be bothered to read it and post ideas for the cover?

Just as a sampler, the a couple of chapters are attached to this post.

Thanks,

Ben

Cover-shmover. You definetely should concentrate on text quality.

Interesting. Needs a little work, but not bad at all. I've done some editing of the first few paragraphs - changing some words and rearranging a bit....


There was a momentary silence as I stood waiting for the piercing scream of metal and jolt from meteors breaking the ship's back and splitting it in two. Instead I was greeted by what sounded like hail smacking against the ship's hull. I know that the ship had a defence system against meteors, which basically blasted them into smaller chunks using lasers; however, I had been told the system was almost useless. The muffled rattling continued for several minutes before I became restless and abandoned my trusty pipe pillar to continue with my rounds.
It may have made some uneasy, but the thunk-thunk in the background made me think of the pitter-patter of rain which helped to relax me. I dropped the handle of my rifle letting it hang from my shoulder while I began to lose myself for a second in thoughts of a nice thunderstorm. I continued towards room's exit. I wasn't sure of how long it was until I reached the beginning of my route in the small atrium of the cargo area, where the elevator back to the crew area was located.
The same hallways I made my way through a couple of hours ago were still untouched by anyone else. With my rifle still dangling from my shoulder I started to wonder why our presence here was even necessary. Each of the six trips I made had absolutely no interference.
The sound of the small meteors hitting the hull became louder. I’m still not sure if this was in reality or in my mind to this very day, but it caused me to snap out of my thoughts and re-join reality. I remember the following events very clearly, for they were the one thing which affected my life forever.
The ship experienced a massive jolt, it felt as if the world around me was going to collapse with me inside. I was blown off my feet and launched into a wall lined with pipes and a support which kept the wall standing. My head ricocheted off the support whilst the rest of my body bent the pipes into a silhouette shape. It felt as if the whole Diptera had experienced a huge jolt to one side, flinging anything not bolted down with it, including me.

There are a lot of grammatical errors and flaws in your text. I will however not concentrate on those (except for the one below because that really should be fixed).



I enjoyed reading it, your pacing is good, your descriptions of things is minimal but I was still able to create a good picture in my mind of what was going on.

The jokes you try to make, for instance the 3 headed rat, seem to come out of nowhere. I can't imagine the captain saying something like that in the situation you described. If you're trying to work on his personality then that's fine, maybe he is a captain that likes cracking weird jokes, there's no problem with that. But please, keep it to the captain if that's what you're aiming for. In your text the jokes came from different crew members every time, which just makes it more chaotic to understand the people I'm reading about.

How did the captain know that Mr Reid was helping Miller? Does the captain have psychotic powers? Does he have a tracking device on Mr Reid? You never explain that part.

I think a big problem with your text is the fact that all of the personalities are very generic. You need to add more distinction. You fail to describe enough of their emotions. Mr Reid should be terrified when he peaked up the vent, yet I didn't get that impression. Mr Reid seemed very casual when the monster was trying to knock down the door. He even went up to the door and tapped it, is that really what he would do in that situation? I had no idea how he was feeling during all of that. I'm not saying that it was wrong of him to tap the door, you just need to explain his personality further for me to believe that he'd do something like that. Perhaps describe him as a fearless daredevil? Pump him up with manliness, give him a cigar or something, anything to make him awesome so he would be the guy that would tap a door being broken down by a huge monster and not be the guy that would run away screaming like a pussy.

The doc could explain what he's doing with the highest medical precision. You could make him speak with the highest form of English or something, because he'd be the person with the most knowledge under his belt.

The captain in my mind would be this fearless leader, but still has sympathy and feelings for his crew members. Maybe give him something cool like a fake eye that shoots lasers. You don't have to do that, that's just my imagination going wild right now. But he needs something that defines him.

Enough of my rambling, keep writing it.

TheComet

So if we are discussing text,
Text reminds me of this, but add "I" before each word.


Also there are some WTF's. You really need those?