Star Wars 3601

[tylewis0228]

Hey everyone. I am writing a fanfic, as Mara or anyone who thouroughly reads her name generator knows. This is the Prologue and 1st chapter. Please give feedback. Later, maybe I'll post the rest. Here it is:

Prologue
The galaxy has been thrown into upheaval as the Sith declare their return and the Mandalorians set out to reclaim the planets they believe are rightfully theirs. No one is safe from the effects of this political unrest as the Republic is forced to take the defensive during this time of turmoil.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go to Coruscant” 4 year old togruta, Rhaask Pay whined. “You have to” his father said. His mother then sadly looked into the boy’s golden eyes and gave him a high tech pod full of some meat he dosen’t know the name of, clothes, and his ancestor Shaak Ti’s lightsaber. He looked up at the Iktotchi Jedi who was taking him away, Soronee Paia. He said something about the “force” as he called it. Rhaask, three months ago had used this “force” to hurt a Mandalorian. He swelled up with anger. This guy was taking him away forever! He concentrated and tried to hurt the Iktotchi. “I know what you are doing” he said. “What!” Rhaask exclaimed. The Iktotchi waved his hand and said “Sleep”. Rhaask blacked out




Chapter 1
It was quiet on Rhaask’s ship. The ship was on Belsavis. It was too cold to walk around on. The thought about the incident when he was 4 about the Mandalorian and the Jedi. Rhaask was 26 now. He thought about the Iktotchi, Soronee Paia. He was dead now. Cagnio, a young Zabrak who trained with him, went Sith and killed Soronee. He used the dark side of the force to burn Rhaask’s side. His friend and fellow jedi, a Nautolan named Kordan Ren was asleep in his room. The girl he was protecting, Princess Orabella D’xan, was sleeping on his shoulder. She woke suddenly and looked at him. “Was I bothering you?” she asked. “No” he replied. “Is there anywhere I can sleep” she asked. “Is there something wrong with my shoulder Orabella” Rhaask joked. “It’s cold in here” she said. “The ship has 3 rooms, Kor is in one, there is a room for the clones we brought, and one is empty” Rhaask explained. “You can have the room” she said.
“I am protecting you and you take the room”
“No you have it”
“Lets share the room” Rhaask proposed. “Ok” she said. So they went off to bed. When they got there Orabella kissed Rhaask on the cheek and said good night. “Night Bell” he said. He was happy it was dark because he was blushing. And he could barely see her smiling through the darkness. After a while Rhaask dozed off. In the morning Bell was next to him. Without thinking he kissed her forehead. He grabbed his robe and lightsaber and walked out. The hall was quiet. Rhaask heard a noise and jumped. Lightning hit the spot he was standing in. Rhaask looked and saw Cagnio Palaz. Cagnio grabbed his double bladed red lightsaber. Then, his other one. He was always great with a lightsaber. With 4 blades, Rhaask couldn’t stand a chance. “KOR!!” Rhaask yelled. “I get to kill him to” Cagnio sa respectable maned. “Cagnio stop” Rhaask growled. “That’s Darth Palaz” Cagnio screamed. Kor ran around the corner and drew his lightsaber. Palaz, Kor, and Rhaask dueled for what seemed like hours. Out of nowhere Bell shot Palaz in the chest with a small blaster. Palaz fell to the ground. “How did you do that” Kor asked. “I spent a lot of time shooting- um… targets in my youth” she said. “Why did you stutter” Rhaask asked. “No reason.” She said as she walked into another room. Rhaask quickly walked into her room. Rhaask grabbed the pod that Bell’s things were in and opened it up. Inside was what he feared, a Mandalorian helmet. “Kor” Rhaask hissed. “What” Kor said. Kor saw the helmet and gasped. Kor had been told about the incedent in Rhaask’s youth. “BELL!” Kor and Rhaask screamed. Bell ran in and saw the helmet. “What are you doing” she asked. “YOU’RE A F!@#ING MANDALORIAN!!” Rhaask cursed. “Wait! It’s not what you think” Bell cried. Rhaask grabbed his lightsaber and Kor grabbed him. “DUDE! I know you’re upset but let her talk” he said. “Make it quick” Rhaask snapped pulling away from Kor. “I am the Mandalorian Princess” she said “But I didn’t want to be”. Hearing the last part Rhaask calmed himself. Bell walked up to Rhaask and hugged him. “I’m sorry” she said. “It’s Ok. Bell, I lo-“ Rhaask was interrupted by a loud crash. “WE FORGOT ABOUT CAGNIO” Kor yelled. Bell grabbed her helmet and blaster and ran out, followed by Rhaask and Kor wielding brilliant green and blue lightsabers. They ran up to Palaz and fought him. Bell attemped to shoot but the lightsabers kept blocking it. Then Palaz hit Rhaask with his lightsaber, not deep enough to kill but to burn him. The worst part was that he was earlier burned in this spot. Rhaask screamed. So did Bell. Bell ran up to him. Tears ran down her face as she tended to his wounds. He blacked out.

What did ya'll think

[Rugs]

Well now...

That was uh....




In all seriousness, you might want to slow the pacing down. Explain things. Your readers can't read your mind, and even if you only hint at things, you have to lead them a long in some fashion so what you're writing doesn't seem like a confusing pile of random. I honestly have no idea what was going on or why xD There's the basis for something, but without proper set up, it just feels... well, random and confusing.

[tylewis0228]

Instead of saying IT is random and confusing, tell me WHAT you found confusing. It dosen't help that much just saying IT.

[Lemur, The Kool-Aid Guy]

I think by 'it' he means the whole thing.

[Deleted]

I'll try to elaborate on what our friends here have said. I only got up to the first line of speech in chapter one.

Firstly, try and avoid using digits when writing. The initial load of sentences make no sense, go into more detail on each of those memories (were they memories?), and try to use commas to break up the text, as opposed to constant short sentences.

When it comes to speech, break it down to paragraphs to how a person would normally talk a sentence, instead of a full on block, where it becomes hard to define who is saying what and with what context.

Try to remember too, when someone looks over one giant wall of continious text its rather daunting and deters the reader, paragraphs are needed to break things up.

What you have is a good basis, but reads more as a blurb or plot line.

Hope that helps.

---
Edit: Check out the layout of Kiwi's A Story for a bit of a better idea....

[Moonfire]

Mandalorian... Princess?...

[tylewis0228]

Dawgy. To answer your question, the prologue is memories. The reason I made the first part kind of short is at that age (26) you wouldnt well remember being 4. And moonfire, Mandalorian Princess is more of a title- she is not ACTUALLY royalty. By feedback I meant more of a nudge in the right direction. Maybe you could help as I am like a judge you are like a jury. I have 5 questions.
-Who is your favorite character?
-Who is your least favorite?
-How could I make that character better for you?
-What is your favorite part?
-Any Ideas for a later or current peice of the story?
By the way thanks for reading this and responding. I'll revise and repost another version L8er

[Deleted]

Yeah... Dood, before people can answer those kind of questions, like what and who is their favourite, you need more, there isn't enough there to make a decision on that kinda of level, as least thats how it stands for me.

As suggested, make it easier to read and expand on those short sentences, give the characters more depth and the story a bit more length and then you might get those questions answered.

[Jenno]

I’ll throw some advice together for you if you’d like.

Let’s take a look at the prologue. Well, I thought I recognised the first paragraph, and then I realised that was because I wrote it, which is something you can’t really do. I mean, exploring the same situation/scenario/ideas is all good, but you have to reinvent a story in your own way, so I would recommend redrafting that bit, partially because the style of it when I wrote it is very simplified and very quickly paced.

The following paragraph at this stage just strikes me as an issue of structure. First of all, like Rowe said, you need avoid using digits for numbers. Instead of putting in 4 and 3, it needs to be four and three; using digits instead of letters stands out to a reader and can detract from them getting roped into the story as much as they would have otherwise.

Also, it’s a bit odd, in the prologue and a large part of the first chapter, you don’t structure the speech properly, you have two or three people speaking in a single paragraph. Then at one stage in the first chapter you do it properly here:

“I am protecting you and you take the room”
“No you have it”
“Lets share the room”

And this also one of the times you avoid the entrapment of adding tag on lines to speech which is what the vast majority of people do, things such as ‘he/she said’, ‘he/she yelled’, ‘he/she whispered’. You tend to find that people use these too much; sometimes people use them on every line. But how you’ve done it in the above quotes is one of the best ways to do it. Why? Because you’re simply letting the characters speech, you need to get to the point where you can have the people speak and the reader know who is saying it and how they’re saying it, simply by word choice and character voice. It’s not easy, it takes a lot of work, but it really helps define characters. But at the very least, structure wise, whenever someone else speaks, you have to start a new line/paragraph, otherwise it gets very confusing regarding who’s saying what and then it gets messy when you try and clarify by typing who says what.

Also, typically you don’t have spaces between paragraphs and such, given how the forum naturally puts everything quite close together it just makes it seem like a big block of text, for which I recommend spacing out things a little bit, having a line between paragraphs and such, just because it helps the reader out more than anything.

Other than structure, which is something you gradually get told about/used to the more you use it. The main thing I picked up from the prologue bit that you probably want to keep an eye out for a little bit is not blatantly throwing out information. Obviously you need to let your readers know what’s going on, but if you throw facts at them, it will turn them off. So for instance, let’s take this part:

“Mommy, I don’t want to go to Coruscant” 4 year old togruta, Rhaask Pay whined. “You have to” his father said.

Now, I’m going to propose one way in which this could be edited a bit in order to run just slightly smoother.

“Mommy, I don’t want to go to Coruscant!” The young boy whined.
“You have to Rhaask.” His father said.

Now, the thing was that with the part where you said ‘4 year old togruta, Rhaask Pay’, this was crammed full with information. At this stage you don’t have define his age specifically because it’s not greatly important for the reader to know this, they just need to know he’s a child. I left the togruta mention out at this stage because it’s not crucial to know this fact in the first real line, it’s a significant aspect of the character, so it should be played out and described a bit more naturally. And the use of first name and surname usually stands out a little bit, and when it’s used like this it’s just to tell the reader the character’s full name, but you can divulge this much more naturally throughout the course of the prologue.

Whilst not going into the first chapter overly, I’m just going to make something of a slight general observation. If you’re writing a fan fiction then there’s one thing you have to remember, you have to research. It’s like writing pretty much anything else, research is an important part of it. It’s just that there are a couple of things slightly off, one of them being the Mandalorian Princess thing, because I’m pretty confident such a thing doesn’t exist. And if it wasn’t referring to an actual position and more an informal title for her part within her clan, then it seems weird to use it to an outsider without explanation because they wouldn’t know what it meant other than royalty, and neither will the readers. Also, quick thing with the Shaak Ti lightsaber, you say she’s his ancestor, but 3601 BBY is thousands of years before the Clone Wars so if they were related he’d be her ancestor, but that would really have any relevance in the story.

I hope you’re not discouraged by all of this, writing’s not an easy scene to break into, it involves a lot of development and editing. But don’t worry, because all writers have to go through it, so long as you’re willing to try and take things on board then there’s always hope.

If you make edits and you want me to make some more insights just let me know. If you don’t want me to type things any more for fear of another really long post then also let me know ;D.

[tylewis0228]

Thanks Jenno that helps. Everybody try to keep things a bit shorter from now on because right now im started draft 2.

[tylewis0228]

Thanks Jenno that helps. Heres another draft.
Star Wars: 3601

Prologue
The galaxy has been thrown into upheaval as the Sith declare their return and the Mandalorians set out to reclaim the planets they believe are rightfully theirs. No one is safe from the effects of this political unrest as the Republic is forced to take the defensive during this time of turmoil.

   “Mommy, I don’t want to go to Coruscant” the young boy whined. “You have to Rhaask” his father said. His mother looked into the boy’s tear filled golden eyes and gave him a high tech pod full of some meat he dosen’t know the name of, clothes, and his ancestor’s lightsaber. He looked up at the Iktotchi Jedi who was taking him away, Soronee. He said something about the “force” or something like that. 
   Three months ago, a mandalorian tried to take him and he used the force to push him, nearly killing him. He swelled up with anger. This guy was taking him away forever! What if the four year old with tears in his eyes was the last his mother saw of him! He concentrated and tried to hurt the Iktotchi.
“I know what you are doing” “What!” Rhaask exclaimed.
   The Iktotchi waved his hand and said “Sleep”. Rhaask blacked out.



Chapter 1
   It was quiet on Rhaask’s ship. The ship was on Belsavis, and it was too cold to walk around on. The thought about the incident  about the Mandalorian and the Jedi. The Mandalorian had tried to take him off to become a bounty hunter. Rhaask was 26 now. He thought about Soronee Paia. He was dead now. 
   Cagnio, a young Zabrak who trained with him, went Sith and killed Soronee. He used the dark side of the force to burn Rhaask’s side. Rhaask had held him off and nearly killed Cagnio. He died off those thoughts before he cried. His friend and fellow jedi, a Nautolan named Kor was asleep in his room. The girl he was protecting, Princess Orabella D’xan, was sleeping on his shoulder. She woke suddenly and looked at him. 
“Was I bothering you?” 
“No” 
“Is there anywhere I can sleep” “Is there something wrong with my shoulder Bell” 
“It’s cold in here” 
   “The ship has 3 rooms, Kor is in one, there is a room for the clones we brought, and one is empty” Rhaask explained.
“You can have the room”
“I am protecting you and you take the room”
“No you have it”
“Lets share the room” Rhaask proposed. “Ok” she said. So they went off to bed. When they got there Orabella kissed Rhaask on the cheek and said good night. For four months he had dreamed of this. “Night Bell” he said. He was happy it was dark because he was blushing, which now that he thought of it wouldnt show against his red skin. After a while Rhaask dozed off. In the morning Bell was next to him. Without thinking he kissed her forehead. He grabbed his robe and lightsaber and walked out. The hall was quiet. Rhaask heard a noise and jumped. Lightning hit the spot he was standing in three seconds ago. Rhaask looked and saw Cagnio Palaz. Cagnio grabbed his double bladed red lightsaber. Then, his other one. He was always great with a lightsaber and with 4 blades, Rhaask couldn’t stand a chance. “KOR!!” Rhaask yelled. “I get to kill him to” Cagnio snickered. “Cagnio stop” Rhaask growled. 
   “That’s Darth Palaz” Cagnio screamed. Kor ran around the corner and drew his lightsaber. Palaz, Kor, and Rhaask dueled for what seemed like hours. Out of nowhere Bell shot Palaz in the chest with a small blaster. Palaz fell to the ground. “How did you do that” Kor asked. “I spent a lot of time shooting- um… targets in my youth” she said. “Why did you stutter” Rhaask asked. “No reason.” She said as she walked into another room. Rhaask quickly walked into her room. Rhaask grabbed the pod that Bell’s things were in and opened it up. Inside was what he feared, a Mandalorian helmet. 
   “Kor” Rhaask hissed. “What” Kor said. Kor saw the helmet and gasped. Kor had been told about the incedent in Rhaask’s youth. “BELL!” 
  Bell ran in and saw the helmet. “What are you doing” 
“YOU’RE A F!@#ING MANDALORIAN!!” 
   “Wait! It’s not what you think” Bell cried. Rhaask grabbed his lightsaber and Kor grabbed him. “DUDE! I know you’re upset but let her talk” he said. “Make it quick” Rhaask snapped pulling away from Kor. “I am the Mandalorian Princess, or thats what my clan called me But I didn’t want to be a Mandalorian. I can wish I wasn't a Mandalorian but it wouldn't be any more afective than Rhaask wishing he wasn't a togruta”.   
   Rhaask calmed himself. Bell walked up to Rhaask and hugged him. “I’m sorry” she said. “It’s Ok. Bell, I lo-“ Rhaask was interrupted by a loud crash. “WE FORGOT ABOUT CAGNIO” Kor yelled. Bell grabbed her helmet and blaster and ran out, followed by Rhaask and Kor wielding brilliant green and blue lightsabers. 
   They ran up to Palaz and fought him. Bell attemped to shoot but the lightsabers kept blocking it. Then Palaz hit Rhaask with his lightsaber, not deep enough to kill but to burn him. The worst part was that Palaz hit the same spot with lightning years ago. Rhaask screamed. So did Bell. Bell ran up to him. Tears ran down her face as she tended to his wounds. He blacked out.

Better?