A Story!

[Watcher]

Story removed.

[Carnage]

Gonissa, you could really benefit from using less passive voice. For example:

In any case. outside the long window was space. I don't like this sentence. It's almost like a rap. In any c-c-c-case, outside the long window was s-s-space. The Zerg were a big disgrace and blasted Protoss all o'er da place. Break it down now. Uh-tss-uh-tss*10 minute long beatbox session* There were also a couple of Protoss ships outside, I think a carrier and an arbiter. They looked pretty beat up. Little floating gold bits - obviously parts of Protoss spacecraft - spun in the cold void. Some of them had red streaks on them, and from the obvious claw marks on every conceivable part of the metal, a battle with the Zerg surely did all of this. I think I saw a corsair spinning away in the distance.

becomes

A carrier and an arbiter were outside the long window in space.

They looked pretty beat up. Can remove this because the next sentence says the same thing, but much better.

Little floating gold bits - obviously parts of Protoss spacecraft - spun in the cold void. - This is good. Don't tell, show.

Claw marks streaked on every conceivable part of the metal. A battle with the Zerg surely did all of this. I think I saw Saying you think you saw makes the sentence seem less credible. Instead, simply say: A corsair spun away into the distance.

I'll come read/comment some more later, but right now I'm a big fat lazy. So far it's pretty good, but I can't resist my urge to edit.

EDIT 2: Here's a list of my favorite lines.

Over there was where a lot of debris I couldn't recognise floated about like lost, jagged snowflakes.

Wow. I wonder if I can read some Protoss words now.

Instead he talked to me. It's so weird when people change their mind inside your mind. It's kind of like some sort of very soft gear switching around in your head and kind of brushing by the inside of your skull as it spins.

Something beyond my ability to describe properly. It was some sort of computer.

[Watcher]

Yeah, I suffer from passive voice sometimes. Here I figured it would be a little more acceptable since I was using spoken tones -- it's not so much a formal story so much as someone telling it. And not a particularly coherent person either.

But anyway, can you explain what passive voice is? I only sort of half get it.

[Carnage]

Okay, for example.

Active Voice:
Billy and Mandy went to the grocery store. They bought a 24 pack of Mountain Dew. Billy drank way too much, so he became hyper the whole afternoon.

Passive Voice:
Billy and Mandy were going to the grocery store. They were thinking of buying a 24 pack of Mountain Dew, so they did. Billy was drinking it and might've become a little too hyper.

EDIT: I hate how long this forum takes to edit anything or switch a page. If you guys need money to buy another power strip or something, let me know. but I digress.

If you set out to write a story to make it sound like someone was telling a story, you nailed it. But who wants to read a story from someone's point of view who isn't the narrator? Would you read a story by your favorite author if it was re-told by some stranger? I wouldn't.

EDIT2: This story could work a lot better if it was told in third person instead of from the main character's point of view and you took on more of the omniscient narrator stance. You can still keep all the personal observations, maybe even add some from the Protoss or (what'd really be awesome) the Zerg's point of view.

[Pizza]

Okay, for example.

Active Voice:
Billy and Mandy went to the grocery store. They bought a 24 pack of Mountain Dew. Billy drank way too much, so he became hyper the whole afternoon.

Passive Voice:
Billy and Mandy were going to the grocery store. They were thinking of buying a 24 pack of Mountain Dew, so they did. Billy was drinking it and might've become a little too hyper.

Actually that's still active voice, you just moved everything into the past progressive tense (common misunderstanding of the passive voice). Passive voice would look something like this-

The grocery store was visited by Billy and Mandy. A 24 pack of Mountain Dew was purchased. Too much was drunk by Billy.

See how the subject and the object are all switched around? That's the passive voice.

The one thing I would challenge you to do, nissa, is to use less of the word "I". Sure, it's a first-person narrative, but that is no reason for every other sentence to start with the word. Until you show the reader that the narrator is even a character worth caring about, and until you show that the story they are telling is worth reading, NO ONE cares a lick to hear about her talking so much about herself.

[Watcher]

Eh, some other people elsewhere do. I get what you mean, though. I suppose she means more to a writer type.

Carnie, your suggestions are perfectly fine, but the whole point of the narrative was just to be an emotive piece inspired by a specific song. It's not supposed to have alternate perspectives, but just be a piece about a specific person in a specific situation. And it's kinda hard to write in a Zerg point of view when they're a bunch of animals with a limited field of thought, and the thoughts they do have tend to be given them by their cerebrates.

Okay....now I'm still confused about passive voice.

[47]

The writing is pretty solid, its clean and simple mostly. Like a lot of the lines, the nice 1st person narrative, a cool informal account. Connected well as a nice tale to tell.

Not being educated in higher english for the all the technical terms of 'passive' and 'active' I can't comment, however the characters/your personal voice sounded passive.

You said it was an emotive piece inspired by a song, and you incorporated your love of starcraft. I would imagine you be much more emotive in a situation where you wake up on a Protoss vessel, and the theme inspired by the song would have a larger impact, since you just woke up in space. In the koprulu sector. Far From Home sounds like going on vacation to us earth bound terrans, ide imagine the feeling of true helplessness would hit you like a brick in the heart made of the cold emptiness of space.

As for the setting and characters, ive never been a fan of fan fiction, and you've said it's more of an exercise in writing, correct? Loosely though, I always imagined Protoss to be more enigmatic and cold. Cautious, yet steady and eternally alien to us.

Furthermore, I kinda felt like I couldn't take it seriously at the Raynor squee... but then ide do the same thing

[Watcher]

Yeah, it's basically a break from other work. I'm sure I'm being passive here, but since I don't really get the concept, I'm not entirely sure how to correct it. >.< That, and Elise has bad grammar.

I tend to keep my 'Toss a little more..."human", I suppose. They have their things going on, but in the end they're pretty much normal people with normal neuroses, only in a completely different culture.