the original

[blazecon0]

ive wrote more, but id like a little feed back before i share the whole thing i hope you enjoy reading as much as i did writing




The original was a granger, did you know that? It’s true, we were looking for a way to stop the creep, or more, a way to control it. The grangers could gather the creep and use it to make things. At first the granger built eggs. From that egg came more grangers, and the new grangers made more eggs.  But they were intelligent beyond anything we had imagined. They knew that the environment we put them in could only sustain so many of them, so they only maintained a population of about 5 grangers. But that’s not even the best part. They were tamable, and loved humans.

Outpost 652
Many of the people on the station hated there job, I am not one of them. I am an important member of a science team, on a station orbiting earth, studying mans new best friend. The granger! The creep was horrific, and almost uncontainable. It’s swept through continents at a time, consuming smaller mammals and causing humans to lose motor control to the point were they could barely move. It sticks to vehicles and other machinery and holds them in place like a net. The grangers will change all of that.
My job is the grangers. I see to there needs, care for them, treat there injuries, and even play games with them. And it was almost feeding time.
I walked into the green house. The plants grown here were genetically altered to grow amazingly fast. The food they were planting now would be our dinner tomorrow. There were four rows of plants; one for each meal, and one for our grangers. The granger’s row was being planted now.
“You guys are really on it today! Where’s the grangers food at?”
“It’s on the center platform were the rows meet, same as always.”
After collecting the mesh basket of fruits and vegetables, I returned to the windowed room were the grangers are kept. The guard that was always there stopped me before I could enter.
“You can’t enter today, were having problems with the grangers.”
“What? What do you mean? What’s happened?”
“The grangers have made a large structure in the right corner near the boxes. One of the workers went in to give a small amount of creep to them as usual, and when he approached it, the thing attacked him. It didn’t kill him, and it can’t move, but the creep causes you to get tired very quickly so we can’t risk anyone getting absent minded and stepping to close to that thing.”
“It struck him? But that means it must be alive some how! I have to go in!”
“I can’t let you, sir”
“Im sorry, but I out rank you, and these are MY grangers. And besides, I have to give them there food.” He sighed and stepped aside
“Please be quick. I don’t wana get into any trouble.”
I stepped in, the door shut, and the grangers swarmed me. One jumped and landed on my chest, knocking me to the floor. Instantly all three of them were on my face, my chest, and my arms. One of them abandoned my upper areas and began chewing on my shoe. I grabbed the one on my chest and rolled while holding onto it. The other two chased, making the noises grangers make and jumping on me again. Then I remembered the thing that attacked the other guy.
“Ok. Ok stop guys! Ha ha ok you win, please stop.” They all calmed down and eventually let me stand. The playful grangers stayed at my feet and I had to take special care not to step on any. The mysterious structure that they had built had red fangs near its base, had many appendages and the two largest ones had dried human blood on them. It stood almost 7 feet, and had no eyes. One of the grangers went back to work, and a cold chill swept through my spine. It spoke; “I. AM THE OVERMIND”

[BlackX32]

very nice. it's very different from what i have seen in other stories so it's really one of a kind  .

[blazecon0]

thx ^^ ill post the next section tomorrow. or maybe even tonight, depends on how lazy i feel :p

[mooseberry]

On a formatting note, try double spacing at least the dialogue, I think it will make it easier on the eyes to read (not your fault, forums are not awesome places to read a lot of words, but try it out).

[blazecon0]

I've decided I will not participate in the discusions about my story. usualy when I post my work on the net, a good number of people like it and follow it. hopefuly this will be no exception, because if no one is reading it, I won't want to write it. anyway this time I wana try somethin new, the way the story progresses wil be based largly on discussion in this thread.now, I'm not saying that I'm going to do what you say or what you want, but what you think is going on will definatly impact the story.
anyway, I've wasted enough time, on to the next section!!




The Overmind never spoke to anyone except for Roland. And once it was built, the grangers started changing. One of them became extraordinarily smart and advanced; it began to climb walls and built a white grub-looking thing that would eject a liquid onto injuries, causing it to heal almost instantly. This would become the continents of the ‘medipacks’ tha we would carry into battle. Another would lose size and intelligence and became vicious, causing the first granger related fatality. But the last one did something that would change our world forever.


Orion
A large carrier docked on our orbital station, its name is Orion. I had been on it once before, I could never think of a reason for a ship to be so big. No war had been waged in almost a full century. I was in the off-duty room, sipping on a drink I had bought from the machine next to me.
“Hey Roland!” a girl had opened the door and was standing leaned against the frame were the door entered the wall.
“Ava? What are you doing on Niveus?”
“Well, I’m glad to see you too!”
“No, that’s not it, I’m just surprised!” Ava was a security officer, shooting a gun was one of the few things she had the patience to do. We met when I was on Orion while being taken to this base. We kept in touch, but we had not spoken to each other in almost 3 months. She stopped responding to my messages, so I figured she had been transferred off of Orion.
“I’m so glad to see you again” she hugged me tightly, a flurry of old emotions rushed back to the surface.
“I’m glad to see you too, so why is Orion here?”
“Oh like you don’t know. Were here to take the ‘Overmind’ as you called it” she leaned forward as she spoke, and gently poked me in the nose when she said ‘you’
“I heard that it almost killed a man” she continued, crossing her arms.
“It did, that was almost a week ago, and they are only letting me see my grangers once a day. They are all behaving strangely. One of them is getting bigger and is walking on walls. It even started hanging eggs upside down. Another is getting smaller and is turning a rusty orange. Its not trusting me like it used to, it even tried to bite me today.” There was a moment of silence.
“What about the third?”
“What do you mean?”
“You said you had three grangers in one of your messages, what is the third doing?” I paused for a moment before I told her, looking at the ground I said:
“The third one has escaped”

A few moments later we were back at the room were the grangers were kept.
“You know the rules, only once a day.”
“Yes but this is an Orion security officer, she needs to see the Overmind before they try to take it out of here.”
“Alright, let me see some ID” Ava gave the man her shiny silver ID card. Silver indicated officer status. Bronze for enlisted, gold for commanding roles like captain, general, or admiral.
“Fine, please be quick” we entered the room. The advancing granger was in the middle of the room, looking down at us from the ceiling. The evolving granger was on a wall, opposite the Overmind. Ava put her hand on her blaster, and sized up the Overmind.
“Well, isn’t that something.” Ava looked astounded, her eyes were wide and she never took her hand off the gun. She shuddered and turned away from it.
“Have you tried to get close to it?”
“No, but it speaks to me.”
“Maybe you should try, it would make this all easier if you could” she is an ass for having suggested this, but she was right.
I slowly walked towards it, one hand held in front of me. “DO NOT BE AFRAID, LITTLE HUMAN” its low voice rang through my head like a drum in a small rock room. I put my hand on its long arm. It was moving as it made a low beating noise, the sound of moving liquid was clearly audible, caused by the torrent of blood that swept through its veins with every powerful thump of its heart. The monster felt warm, but it seemed to be sucking the heat out of my hand as if it was made of ice. I still couldn’t figure out why it won't attack me, while it tries to kill others. “I SPARE YOU, BECAUSE WITHOUT YOU, WE ARE DOOMED. YOU ARE OUR ONLY CARE TAKER WHO WOULD WILLINGLY PAY ANY PRICE TO ASSURE OUR SURVIVAL. THE REST ARE SIMPLY DOING AS THAY ARE COMMANDED.” The force of its words was unbearable.



EDIT:that was supposed to be double spaced ↑ but my pda hates me
srry :/

srry for the random font changes, I made some small adjustments with my pda (which I am posting this with) before posting. ill fix it when I get to a real computer

[DeathSkull]

On a formatting note, try double spacing at least the dialogue, I think it will make it easier on the eyes to read (not your fault, forums are not awesome places to read a lot of words, but try it out).

This. Also, it's extremely short, hardly any detail, and the endings are very abrupt. To be honest, I have no interest in continuing (personally) because there's nothing to spur my interest. Writing is more than just something to do for the heck of it; it's also a work of art, so make it presentable, intriguing, and worth reading.

Edit: I notice you also use bad writing habits, like saying the following:

'The Overmind never spoke to anyone except for Roland.'

You go on and never explain just who the hell Roland is. Going by what you wrote, it's possible Roland is a granger, a human, or a random child's temporary pet snowcone on another world. At least give us some idea as to what the person/thing is.

I'll edit this later and see how else I can help out, at a time when I'm not dead tired and most of the world has stopped making sense, let alone this story (The Original what?!?).

[blazecon0]

the first part didnt have any names in it, that was my mistake. it didnt see any need to at the time because that was suposed to be it, i didnt really intend to do more until after i wrote it. no i dont have many details, thats because im just geting started. by the end of this series, you will know everything about all the chars, and the environment they are in will become more detailed. yea, its kind of slow starting off. if you have ever read great works like 'To Kill a Mocking Bird' than you know that not every story has to start of with everything crashing down to earth. give it some time, i still have 1 more char to introduce, and then the fun begins.
also, because your apparently a bit confused about who Roland is, the overmind spoke to the narrator, and Ava referrd to the narrator as Roland. combine that with the fact that this is writen in first person point of view, and logic would say...

And thanks for the input by the way, surprisingly enough you gave me some ideas :p

[blazecon0]

Ok, here we go again. Death, I took your advice and made it more descriptive. I also quit waiting till midnight to do my writing
Anyway I’m much more satisfied with this than with the other 2 sections, I hope yall like it too ^^





Moving the Overmind proved to be very difficult, it was taller than the door frame, and it was attached to the ground by creep. Because the Overmind didn’t attack Roland, he would be the one who cut the creep. We put it on a hover table, and Roland followed us the whole way to the ship. He spoke to it randomly, assuring it that all would be fine, that it was in no danger, and that being dropped on accident was no reason to kill us all.  Eventually we succeeded in getting it on Orion, but that was just the beginning of our mistakes. Unfortunately, Roland would be forced to fight for everything he loved sooner than he ever imagined.

‘Things are getting out of hand’ I thought. ‘Too many people are getting involved in this.’ This was Orion’s 3rd and last day here, and things were rapidly spinning out of my control. Yesterday, the evolving granger finished its transformation and attacked us. We were all, about 5 of us, in the granger room after the Overmind had been moved. It suddenly exploded, sending green liquid everywhere. No sooner had we turned around than it was on us. It jumped and landed on one of the Orion solders and tore a softball sized hole in his chest. Everyone pulled out blasters and began shooting at it, while I ran across the room and scooped up the other granger so that it would not be shot. Between three skilled security guards, it was put down quickly. Now there was a representative for every important man in the universe here at the outpost, and they were all giving me hell for the accident. They still want to put the other one down.
Ava had asked for me to meet her in her quarters on Orion, I had about 15 minutes left before I would go. I walked in to my room and collapsed on my hard bed. My room was grey and cold, same as always. And to think this is one of the better rooms. It had the basic necessities, a lamp, a desk, closet, ECT. The only remarkable thing about it was that it had a bathroom; almost everyone else had to use the public one in the hall. I dragged my exhausted body off of my bed, walked into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. I smacked my palms down on the counter and put all my weight on my arms, I was so tired and stressed out. The mirrors lack of height, only 6 feet from the ground at the top, forced me to bend slightly in order to see myself. I ran my fingers through my coarse black hair, it was kept short like everyone else’s. I decided my uniform needed changing. My tight blue shirt had red fruit stains on it from the grangers feeding time; it had gotten a bit excited and jumped on me, sending the basket to the floor and crushing a tomato between us. An action that almost earned it a bullet from the security guard that was required to be in there with me. My blue jeans were not part of my uniform, but given my line of work, I could usually get by with it, but I decided to exchange them for the official black pants anyway. My wrist watch started beeping, indicating it was time to go meet Ava. I quickly changed and went out the door.
The walk was short, but my thoughts filled with old memories and feelings.
I knew better than to fall in love with her, my closest friend, but love is impervious to logical thought. Ava put me through hell without even trying. Leading me on just to shut me down. Building me up with no purpose but to tear me apart. The subtlety of her actions was horrific, so simple were her words, so innocent to the observer of my anger. Even now I wonder what was real and what was a clever illusion.
“ID please” a man in a black Orion uniform stood before me. I blinked, and was pulled back to reality; I had walked the whole way in a dazed stupor. I pulled out the silver card and gave it to him.
“Well, I know who you are, but this card can’t get you in. sorry, rules are rules.”
“But I’m supposed to be meeting with Ava.”
“For what reason?” he raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s right, this man would be one of Ava’s subordinates.’
“She never told me, she just said ‘meet me in my room in an hour.’”
“Right.” He didn’t look convinced “well sorry but I can’t let you through” I pulled out my communicator and loaded the message “I can prove it, look.” He took the device, read it, slid the screen back over the keyboard, and returned it.
“Alright, but Orson will need to escort you”
“That’s fine, I don’t know the how to get there anyway.” He turned around and punched in a few buttons, and the air lock opened. I stepped in, and he raised his com unit and pushed another button at the same time. The door hissed as it shut and gasses were pushed into the chamber with me. Shortly after, the door behind me opened. I turned and met a wall. I looked up to discover that the thing I had run into was not a wall, but a man. He was grinning as he looked down at me. And I though ‘he’s like a damn bear!’ He held out a meaty hand. “My name is Orson.” His voice reminded me of the Overmind’s. I grabbed his hand, and attempted to shake it, but his grip was like having a car roll over you. I had to resist the urge to pull away and scream in terror at my horribly disfigured hand. He smiled, jerked me up and down once, and released. “Alright, let’s go” as soon as he turned around I doubled over and held my hand, silently mouthing ‘FUUUUCK’.
We walked quickly and without speaking a word. We arrived at Ava’s room in moments. He struck the door with his fist and said “Ava, visitor!” she opened the door and we walked in. “will you please wait outside Orson? Thank you” he nodded respectfully and backed out of the room.
“So what’s this about?” I said looking around the light-blue room. She had many nice things here. Her computer was gone, however, and our picture had been replaced by a picture of her and a man I had never seen before. Ava crossed her arms and spoke to the floor
“Well…someone has suggested that you be removed from the granger project.”



CLIFFHANGER
comments and (constructive) criticism are welcome

[BlackX32]

very nice. you picked a very good cliffhanger. most other good stories pick some of the worst times to cut off. but you do a good job in that area. overall the story is very good. it seems like a different from the things i'm writing and others are. keep up the good work

[DeathSkull]

I'm sorry, but that is NOT a good cliffhanger. This is a story, not a script for a television show. When it comes to reading your 'chapters', all I'm left with is an abrupt ending to some rather awkward, badly formatted writing. Surely you can offer something better than this?

[blazecon0]

  dude why do you have to bash? maybe you just dont like my style of writing, and maybe i dont care, but if your not going to offer any advice, improvements, or anything useful, than just stfu. i understand that you are a more popular writer here, but that dosnt give you the right to shoot down everything i do.

[BlackX32]

  look death you are one of the best writers i have every seen but man everybody has there own style of writing just like different lifes. if you want to give advice say it in a nice way instead of being a basher. if you don't like it don't read it. Do like what you did with windpoison if you're trying to give advice.

[DeathSkull]

I apologize, I really do. I'm not intending to sound cruel or overbearing in any way, but I'm just offering constructive criticism in short bursts. It's not so much that I'm attempting to bash you in any way either. Any criticism that is negative in any manner looks bad simply because no one really likes their work to be judged that way, including myself. I didn't really start out writing on this forum (thank goodness) or the negativity of the place probably would have scared me off and made me doubt my writing abilities or writing future in general. Thankfully that didn't happen!

So how about we all go back to square one and start new, eh?

I'll do what Black suggested and do what I did with Windpoison, with small re-writes and such for examples. I generally don't like to offer tips in that manner very often because I feel like a douche doing it, even if I have good intentions. Eh, what the heck... might as well try and help!

All right, for starters we'll cover something I'd say we both suffer from: the misplacement and overuse of commas. Consider the following:

Moving the Overmind proved to be very difficult, it was taller than the door frame, and it was attached to the ground by creep.

Commas aside, this sentence could be better written in general, especially since it's the intro sentence. Let's play with it a little bit:

~~~~~~~~

The task bestowed to Roland (that being the detachment and movement of the Overmind itself) on the last day before departure would only serve as a sort of precursor to the problems that were to come. In a way, it wasn't unlike Dante approaching the Gates of Hell, not knowing what horrors he would have to face by taking one simple step over the threshold of Death itself. To start with, the strange alien structure was attached to the ground by something that we called 'creep': thick, lengthy tendrils that were very similar to the roots of a plant. It didn't help matters any that the thing was nearly too big to fit through the average door. Why didn't we just leave it alone?

~~~~~~~~

Ok, so that was a lot longer than I'd intended, but either way it gets the idea across. Generally when you start your chapters you always want the first line or paragraph to suck the reader in, like a worm on a fishhook. Of course you want to keep the reader entertained the entire way through, but if you don't offer an enticing morsel for them to chew on at the beginning, they won't settle down for the whole ride.

Blaze, you did a good job on adding more detail to your third chapter, but there's a few spots where you've either got too much detail or it's just worded awkwardly. Let's go down to the Narrator's room area:

I walked in to my room and collapsed on my hard bed. My room was grey and cold, same as always. And to think this is one of the better rooms. It had the basic necessities, a lamp, a desk, closet, ECT. The only remarkable thing about it was that it had a bathroom; almost everyone else had to use the public one in the hall. I dragged my exhausted body off of my bed, walked into the bathroom and stood in front of the mirror. I smacked my palms down on the counter and put all my weight on my arms, I was so tired and stressed out.

Ok. This isn't the worst passage in the world, but let's touch it up a tiny bit. I'll explain why I did what I did when I finish with a number system:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1)I walked into my room, the quiet hiss of the door closing behind me the only noise to interrupt the silence. I hadn't even accidentally left my little bedside radio on this morning. Rubbing my eyes, I moved past the closet to my right and headed right for the bed itself, collapsing onto it with a sigh of relief. Not even the stiff, unyielding mattress could rob me of all the comfort I felt right then. Opening my eyes after a moment or two, I discovered that I had left something on after all: the lamp on the desk across the room. I'd been filling forms out till past the witching hour and I'd been too tired to hit the switch before sinking into oblivion, nor had I taken the time after getting up to notice it. Groaning, I got up and pulled the plug on it, cursing it under my breath. Way to waste power.

I suppose I shouldn't complain. There were men here that had far less than I did, but still, I couldn't help but feel that I could be doing better, at least room-wise. (2)The only remarkable thing about mine was that it had a bathroom; almost everyone else had to use the public one in the hall.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(1): What I did here was not only explain the actions of the character in greater detail, but I also painted a picture of the room to the reader without shoving the knowledge into them, so to speak. You don't have to be a perfectionist about it, but try to describe the world your character is in in a way that makes it seem to flow almost casually. One thing I know I dislike about any piece of writing is using words or writing in such a format that makes it seem like I'm on a road full of potholes instead of a freshly paved one. You want to try to make everything seem smooth, more or less.

(2): Besides changing one word to fit the example better, I left this like it was. Perfectly good line there if used in the right context.

I'm going to call this post off in a second or two, but one last thing: space out your stuff some more. This forum makes for some sucky looking posts in general (it's not exactly story friendly ) so we've got to go the extra mile to make things look pretty. Here's an example (you'll always want to start a new line when someone new speaks, which you seem to have done flawlessly):

I knew better than to fall in love with her, my closest friend, but love is impervious to logical thought. Ava put me through hell without even trying, leading me on just to shut me down and building me up with no purpose but to tear me apart. The subtlety of her actions was horrific, so simple were her words, so innocent to the observer of my anger. Even now I wondered what was real and what was a clever illusion.

“ID please,” a voice said, apparently belonging to the man in the black Orion uniform that stood before me. I blinked and was pulled back to reality, suddenly realizing I had walked the whole way in a dazed stupor. Sighing, I pulled out the silver card and gave it to him.

“Well, I know who you are, but this card can’t get you in. Sorry pal, rules are rules.”

“But I’m supposed to be meeting with Ava.”

I made a couple of changes here and there, but structure-wise this passage is pretty much a-ok in my humble opinion. I like the use of details regarding his emotions as well as how he describes the relationship between Ava and himself. Just work on that spacing and you'll be doing that much better in a heartbeat.

I hope this was a lot more useful to you than what I'd said before. Again, I do apologize for my earlier posts. It's no excuse, but I was having a pretty crappy day yesterday and I guess some of my negative emotions seeped out. 

Good luck in your future projects and take to heart whatever you will. Best writing rule, IMO: try to do it right, but always have fun with it in the end.

Ciao!

-Death

[BlackX32]

bravo Death. Most people wouldn't find it offensive if you go about doing that very carefully. Post some like you did giving small tips (except in a nicer way) and then do that if you fell they need an extra nudge.

[blazecon0]

that was much better thank you ^^
im not 1 to hold a grudge so ill accept your apology.
in kinda stumped for ideas so my next 1 may take a while :p