# my first story for FA (in progress)



## furvien (Jun 6, 2010)

ok as the title says I am in the process of writing my first story for FA
this will mainly just be to introduce my character and to see how you will react to how I write.

Plot:
the story will follow a small team of mercs doing a hit on an escaped Nazi doctor turned torturer for hire.
The chase will go across many different country and cause allot of chaos , swearing and gunfire.

but I have a few problems...

1: I don't have a title for it , I have the story all mapped out but I cant think of a title so any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

2: I have never uploaded anything I've written to the Internet before and this computer does not have Microsoft word so if anyone knows of a program similar to Microsoft word that free to download I would be eternally grateful.

3: I'm not sure if I should go into detail or not about certain aspects of the story for example should I just make general terms for guns *he pulled out a sniper rifle* or should i go into detail *he pulled out a Zastava M95 black arrow anti-materiel sniper rifle equipped with a "live feed" scope* because while i do think it will make the story more realistic it could make it boring if i go too far.

and that's basically it just say what you think of the plot and any tips or tricks from all you professionals will be greatly appreciated.

I shall try to finish it as soon as possible and get it up on the net as soon as possible.


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## Mulefa Zalif (Jun 6, 2010)

2) OpenOffice is the only one I can think of.
3) Tom Clancy comes to mind


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## furvien (Jun 6, 2010)

lol


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## Tanzenlicht (Jun 6, 2010)

I doubt anyone will be able to give you help with a title with that short synopsis. Maybe you have a friend or two you can bounce drafts off of until someone says something clever.  I think you're probably in the best position to name it, because you're the one who knows the story. 

Open office will probably do everything you need it to do.  Actually Wordpad or notebook should do everything you need it to do to get stuff up on the internet.

Sniper rifle is plenty of information.  The only reason to go into great detail about the make and model of anything is to highlight a character's obsession with such details.  Otherwise you are writing a story which caters to (and almost entirely to) people who are obsessed with such things themselves.  Now 'he pulled out the sniper rifle' might be a little light on details, but serial numbers won't make it better.


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## Internet Police Chief (Jun 7, 2010)

1. I don't know, "Chaos, Swearing and Gunfire" sounds like a pretty good title. (I'm joking.)

2. Open Office is the only really good one and it's what I use to write. Either that or Wordpad.

3. As mentioned above, if you go into extreme detail of the weapons, a LARGE majority of your readers will have no idea what the fuck it means. For example:



> Zastava M95 black arrow anti-materiel sniper rifle equipped with a "live feed" scope



I'm a target shooter and I own two guns of my own. Even as a gun owner, the only thing I understood out of that description was "sniper rifle" and "scope". The rest is completely unnecessary unless you are specifically catering to readers who are extremely up to date on gun knowledge. If a character mentions it passively (such as describing it while trying to impress another character, bragging, etc), then that's fine, but laying out complex descriptions in the middle of a scene would just clog it up and slow the story down.


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## kitreshawn (Jun 7, 2010)

1) Don't settle on a title early on.  You may want to pick a 'working title' that you use while you are working on a project if it bugs you to not have a title (I do the same).

2) Open Office as people have stated.  You could also just use a program like Word Pad or such, if spelling isn't an issue.

3) (longer answer) This is a judgment call.  One thing that really bugs me about military fiction is that it really bogs down in the details about the weapons and so forth used.  What I mean is they describe a weapon and how it works endlessly regardless of its impact on a story.

Now, to look at your second example:



> he pulled out a Zastava M95 black arrow anti-materiel sniper rifle equipped with a "live feed" scope



It sounds like you got a sci-fi setting here.  What you call the gun in my mind depends on the main character.  A typical person will just call it a sniper rifle and may include the bit about the live feed scope.  A military person will be more likely to refer to the gun more exactly as you have here.

One issue about that though.  Notice how you have the "live feed" scope?  How does that differ from a regular scope?  You need to come up with some way to let the reader know, and if you end up simply telling us what it does then things get dull dull dull because we are broken out of the story for you to feed us this information.  It is much better if you show the reader what it does.  As with most technology most people just take for granted that it will work properly until it stops, so unless having things stop working is critical to the story we don't need to know much about how it works.


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## furvien (Jun 7, 2010)

K first thing I'm gonna say is that I'm loven all the feed back and Ill see about this open office thing

and as for the gun descriptions would it work if you were to go into detail only about "special" items like say me main chars signature gun or something and not go too far into the whole models thing or anything like that E.g. "he pulled a druganov sniper rifle out of his leg bag it had a large scratch on the left hand side and the woods shine had faded a little, he then pulled out..."



kitreshawn said:


> 1)
> One issue about that though. Notice how you have the "live feed" scope? How does that differ from a regular scope? You need to come up with some way to let the reader know, and if you end up simply telling us what it does then things get dull dull dull because we are broken out of the story for you to feed us this information. It is much better if you show the reader what it does. As with most technology most people just take for granted that it will work properly until it stops, so unless having things stop working is critical to the story we don't need to know much about how it works.


 
a yes the "live feed scope" this is basically a custom piece of kit my main character has so as his technical support can help him to identify targets because of a problem developing with his eyesight ill explain more in the story but its pretty much a regular scope but with a miniature camera rigged up to it so as others can see what the scope see's.

don't worry though if I decide to introduce anything else like that I will explain it first.

so again thank you


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## Tanzenlicht (Jun 7, 2010)

Personally I feel that obsessive details about objects are only acceptable if their purpose is to tell us about a character.  If you are in heavy pov of a particular character and he loves that gun and he knows all it's technical specs then including such details along with the reverent way he removes it from the case and lovingly adjusts each part can be a worthwhile storytelling technique.

If the point is just that a guy is pulling out a sniper rifle and he's going to shoot someone,  if he's just getting out a tool to use, then he doesn't care that it's a drugonov with a scratch on the left hand side and your readers don't either.

On the subject of titles, the working title for 'Flowered Hills' was 'Smoochikin's Last Stand'.  You'll come up with something workable by the time you're ready to share.  It doesn't have to be spectacular, I rarely buy a book based on the awesome title.  It's the name of the author and the blurb on the back (ok, and the cover art, so I'm shallow).


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## M. LeRenard (Jun 8, 2010)

Just think about the pace of the story at its different points.  If he's pulling out the gun to shoot someone, chances are it's taking place in a tense moment (like a battle or something), so you wouldn't want to slow down the action by describing the gun in detail.  If you feel you really have to get all the info on it out, save it for the slow moments, like while he's sitting down cleaning and oiling the thing and talking with some friends, drinking coffee, whatever.  Just make sure the amount of detail you give corresponds to the pace of the scene.
Maybe think of it in terms of what's going through the character's mind.  If he's pulling the gun out to shoot someone, is he going to take the time to gaze at the details in the wood, the make, the bore size, yadda yadda yadda?  Realistically, no.  He's just going to whip it out, plant it, and start getting a beat on someone.  And the reader should ideally be on the same mental playing field as the character, else it'll feel awkward to read.


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## Internet Police Chief (Jun 8, 2010)

furvien said:


> and as for the gun descriptions would it work if you were to go into detail only about "special" items like say me main chars signature gun or something and not go too far into the whole models thing or anything like that E.g. "he pulled a druganov sniper rifle out of his leg bag it had a large scratch on the left hand side and the woods shine had faded a little, he then pulled out..."



Again, in certain situations. This does slow down the scene, and so you want to use it in a slow scene. If the character is in the middle of fighting and suddenly you whip out descriptions of guns, well, people will get bored.

Maybe the gun is important to the character, and you want to show that it is very worn, likely by the guy using it. In that case, you need to work on the way the description flows. "He pulled a dragunov sniper rifle out of his leg bag. It was rough - several scratches littered it's body and it's shine was long gone" reads a lot better than what you posted. The EXACT location of the scratch doesn't matter. Which part of the wood is dull doesn't matter. What DOES matter is that the weapon is well worn, and that you feel it is necessary to show that. Basically, if you need to, go ahead and describe it, but keep it short, sweet and to the point.


> "live feed scope" this is basically a custom piece of kit my main character has so as his technical support can help him to identify targets because of a problem developing with his eyesight ill explain more in the story but its pretty much a regular scope but with a miniature camera rigged up to it so as others can see what the scope see's.



Just so you know, this isn't really a "custom" piece. These do exist, but I don't know the name of them. I know some SWAT teams use them in real life.


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## Volpino (Jun 8, 2010)

Not much to add by this point. 

IBM has a streamlined version of Open Office available here http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home

I wanted to emphasize though, that most people so far have answered your question about details as if they were the target audience. Determine your target audience first and then ask if those people would rather hear "sniper rifle" or "big long detailed make and model sniper rifle." If this is your target audience, then you have a pretty good idea.

Realize too that if you're referencing real things and you don't have the knowledge to consistently use accurate terms, you're better off going with less detail. Along the lines of your current example: if you reference a 50 caliber sniper rifle with a six inch long barrel and no kick-back, you might have just destroyed any suspension of disbelief you had up to that point.


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## reian (Jun 14, 2010)

I'm currently using AbiWord right now which is similar to OpenOffice but you have to really look over it in the end and make sure it is formated to your liking.

Also, watch the details...using to many can stop the reader from seeing it in their own way rather than you forcing an image on them.  It is useful if it is something that adds to the character or adds to the even that is going to happen.  For example, I don't need to know that there are faded and weak threads on a dress unless you are going to later make the dress tear or fall apart on say the dance floor or if it is to describe a character's humble background.  That is all I can help you with ^^


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