Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Urgh...grammar.
All in all, thanks for the criticism. I really appreciate it.
So it seems that the general consensus is that I need to improve on description, grammar, expression, and dialogues…which pretty much mean everything. *sighs* Guess I can do nothing but more practice.
By the way, I have several ways to start the story with, but so far the best bets are either some unknown dude’s recount/nightmare of his encounter with a serial killer or a military raid on an abandoned building. Which one would work better?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Well, here goes absolutely nothing. No proofread, no (sufficient) research, all good to go.
03:00 AM. March 3rd, 2022
A UH-60M Black Hawk flew through heavy rain, its dark gray frame and the sound of its rotor spinning hidden, heading toward Hashima Island in Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan. Having flew many hours, the UNCAF (United Nations Counter Augmenters Force) squad of ten, was growing restless. The squad leader, Sg. John Mortensen Shepherd, carefully inspected his troops while checking his own equipments and making sure everyone else was doing the same. While most of them were just checking their equipments normally, two of them were checking their respective weapons in a manner that unnerved Shepherd.
Butch Mac Dowell, an infantryman, was checking his Sebenza by keep flipping it open and closing. Shepherd noticed the utter pleasure with which Mac Dowell stared at his pocket knife and constant low chuckling and assumed that he was imagining new creative ways to kill whoever the squad will have to face.
So how does that work for an opening paragraph?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Okay, I'll do a quick look, although you'll need a second opinion. Grammar changes are in bold.
Wouldn't military time be used? If so, the AM part wouldn't be included.
Maybe split off the last clause to something like "Its destination[...]"
In general, flow should be improved. For example, some of the sentences run-on (a simple sentence can do wonders), while a lot of "to be" verbs are used.
I liked the gist of this paragraph, due to its showing, but flow can be better here too. Maybe one sensory detail somewhere in the passage can anchor the readers a little more. For example, was the plane shaky?
edited 6th Sep '11 2:08:35 PM by chihuahua0
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
I. Have. No. Idea. I just wanted to evoke that briefing sound with typing, you know, ones that shown in many military visual media?
I guess. Ever since my first criticism, a really brutally honest and stealthily sadistic at that, tore me apart on my choppy sentences, I can't help but writing a long sentence. I need to fix that.
Ah, thanks. Hmm, that should work. Heh, thanks for the criticism.
By the way, does anyone know about how a typical squad is formed and all the individual ranks? Only terms I know are Sergeant, marksman, and infantryman. Also, I need to learn some basic military squad tactics because that is needed a lot in this work.
There's a library in my verse that's called, well, the Library, or as dubbed by the mentor of the MC, "Holy Crap It's A Big Fucking Library", which is a library size of small continent, located in a hidden plane of existence that only few thousands people from the protagonists' world knows. The mentor of the main character, Marcus, and a supporting character, the sister of the main crew, has an access to it. They both visit there to find some reference books on particularly virulent plague that wiped out a whole city.
Since Marcus is an immortal (who doesn't act like one) well over 400 years old, it makes some sense that he has an access to it but the girl? She's 14 year old middle schooler who just likes books. How can I justify here having access to it?
Come to think of it, all those ridiculously large libraries in media, how are they maintained?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Magic.
Either that, or a small (read: 1 to 2 million) army of librarians to keep the place in order.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Mmmm, army of librarians...Fucking. Awesome. That sounds like a good idea; an anceint order of knights that has been protecting and organizing the content of the Library for centuries. That would be one hell of a Badass Bookworm Army...led by an orangutan.
I'm also thinking about its origin and how does this sound: Several millenia ago, a powerful magician (from the time before the term Augmenters is invented) donated his Great Big Book of Everything to a library. It turned out that the book has a sentience, assimiliated itself with the library, and kept on growing and growing, magically obtaining every single book that is published, to the point where it became something of an Eldritch Location. The magical and mundane society decided to do something about it, but because of the said (very powerful) army of librarians, they settle with sealing the place in an alternate plane of existence.
You know, I'm pretty sure I can write an entire series just for this one.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
The key problem you have with libraries that contain EVERY BOOK EVER (tm) is that you can find any book, but it's difficult to find a specific book. You'd need some system in place that allows people to find specific volumes, otherwise the library would just get annoying.
Either that, or you run it on a modified variant of the Dewey Decimal System which uses Cantor Diagonalisation to account for potentially over-infinite quantities of books.
Stop right there, dRoy. Yep, I mean you. Stop right there.
Your ideas at this point are (mostly) fine and dandy, but you are running a huge risk of overcommitting yourself to creating and fleshing out ideas. Not that there is anything wrong with that in and of itself, but you should keep in mind that a story is not just about the ideas. Like someone said before me, ideas are cheap. Like, dirt cheap. Everyone have ideas, some are even better than established writers' ideas.
Then why doesn't everyone become an author? That is because however interesting and innovative an idea is, ideas alone don't make a story. Many ideas started out awesome, but their execution falls short. On the other hand, many other ideas started out mediocre, but since the execution is well done, people still read and praise them. I can even say that for a novel, good execution is far, far, far more important than a ground-breakingly innovative idea.
So here's the thing. You seem to be spending too much time on fleshing out your ideas at the expense of actually writing your story. You know, actual writing that would, even if they are not that good now, serve as practice to correct all the shortcomings in your present work. Like you said yourself - this thread had had how many? Maybe three or four excerpts from your writing at most? Over seven pages? Like I said, you might do better to lay building up your ideas aside for now and begin writing proper. You have more than enough material to work on for the moment, so go ahead and do it.
Then again, this is just a personal advice. Ultimately it is up to you what is best for your writing, but personally I feel you would do far better to start working on actual writing. Right now.
Support Taleworlds!
That Dude With That
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I iz scared. So many big words! @.@
But seriously, he has a point - more than I'd like to admit, for my own novel's sake. Universe Bible be damned, characters are where its at. Problem is, like programming, moving characters like puppets in a scene is hard, so you have my sympathies.
Thankfully, Na No Wri Mo is JUST around the corner, so think while you still can. ^^
(As for the story so far, it seems to be Better Than It Sounds. But, y'know, either you're gonna write this or hand this over to an artist with the Universe Bible...and nobody seems keen on that idea as far as I know, so...yeah. My sympathies.)
Aw puck, Darkwing's on a killing spree again, we guillotin'in again.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
What does that mean?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
That Dude With That
Get an actual writer/artist to adapt the story for you, while you take backseat as an editor to make suggestions and check for continuity errors.
Like I said, this is pie in the sky stuff.
Aw puck, Darkwing's on a killing spree again, we guillotin'in again.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
...No. I rather get start writing.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Then start writing the more mundane parts, while the tone is light-hearted, and save the more complicated stuff for later.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
I guess...
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Okay, now for the real thing. Here's the first quarter of the first episode. I would appreciate if any of you guys can point me out some flaws in tactics, technology, and terminologies. That, and the usual, grammar, sentence fluency, whathaveyou.
I'm going to use quoteblock and if anyone mind it, I will convert it back.
An early thank you for your criticism!
March 1st 2025, 0300 hrs
Hashima Islands, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.
Gray frame of UH-60M Black Hawk flew through the torrential rain, headed toward to the island that has been abandoned for over five decades. Cold late winter’s wind shook the frame roughly and the rain repeatedly tapped against it.
Inside the shaking and dimly lit interior of the chopper a squad of ten troopers sat in silence except occasional clicking sound from their examination of the equipments. Sergeant John Mortensen Shepard exchanged his views from the grey and raining sky outside the chopper and his squad. He didn’t really like the operation that his squad is engaged in. Having to face against such a large number of insurgents in a highly unpredictable terrain in such unpleasant, albeit favorable weather, he couldn’t shake the feeling of grim uncertainness. He repeatedly checked his equipments and have ordered the same to his squad since the ride began and constantly remaindered them, which caused some of the troopers’ unspoken annoyance.
Two of them got his attention more than anyone else. In the seat right across him, sat Butch MacDowell, a brown haired infantryman from Britain. He repeatedly flipped open and shut his sebenza knife and patted his belt, chuckling with his eyes filled with euphoria. Shepard noticed that he only half heartedly checked his gun and wondered if he was going to use it at all in this mission. He has been in many missions, but he always returned with the most ammo with him. Shepard knew that he was far from being an efficient shooter of the troopers even remarked that he uses more throwing knives than bullets.
Just two seats right from the British sat Seo Chae-Ri, a dirty pink haired marksman turned sniper from South Korea. With a huge contrast to MacDowell her expression was very tranquil, not a single movement on her muscle as if her face was made of porcelain. With a huge similarity to him, however, she checked her equipment, modified CheyTac Intervention M 200, with fierce ferver. She had pulled all the ammo from three magazines, totaling 21, and placed all of them back to the magazines. It wouldn’t have unnerved Shepard and everyone else except MacDowell if she didn’t roll each of the cartridges between her fingers in a slightly sensual manner.
He would have told her to stop such behavior, if he didn’t know that she was Augmenting each of the cartridges with mixture of Wind and Fire attributes. In fact, she was the only Augmenter in the squad of anti-Augmenter force, the fact which didn’t influenced her by a bit. It did help her that there wasn’t actually any stigma against Augmenters, at least not within the anti-Augmenters force.
The two looked as if they could take on entire regimen by themselves. Even though the chopper was crowded, those two had more spaces than anyone else. One trooper, who sat right between them, kept fidgeting and looked at his sides, looking quite anxious. Shepard figured that he couldn’t blame the poor soul and sighed in mild distress. Maybe I should remind them that not everyone appreciates their enthusiasm in battlefield, he thought.
“Ten minutes from the landing zone! “
The announcement of the pilot snapped him out of his musing and he noticed that it had the same effect to the rest of the squad. He looked down the chopper,
He was welcomed with a not quite dense grey forest of decaying buildings. Out of hundreds of buildings, many of the buildings were missing windows and roofs. Naked frame of half constructed buildings were exposed and rusted to brown like old blood. Although grass grew in disorganized manner and occasional spotting of some vines and moss on buildings on shadier areas, he didn’t see any signs of life in the whole island whatsoever. The island as he see it was more suited as a city of malevolent spirits rather than any ordinary human beings and Augmenters. He wasn’t surprised that the drug ring the squad has been tracking for years was hiding in the island.
He cleared his throat.
“Okay, has everyone checked their equipment and made ‘’sure’’ there’s nothing wrong with them?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Does everyone’s mask work all right?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
Seven troopers replied, slightly disgruntled. He sighed and turned to the two who didn’t answer him. He raised his left eyebrows at them.
“A yup!” MacDowell replied, flipping his sebenza open. Chae-Ri cocked her rifle. That was as good as a yes, Shepard figured.
“Good. Lockheart, is the Eraser fully charged?”
The trooper seating between the two troubling troopers perked up, picked up a duffel bag from the floor and placed it on his lap, opening it and checking the device inside it that beeped red light. He opened the control panel of the device and checked all the reading and zipped the bag.
“All good, sir!”
“Five minutes from the landing zone!”
“Good. Everyone put your mask on and turn the vision on. Just because we are more trained with conventional firearms than them, it doesn’t mean that they are pushovers, so stay vigilant. Did everyone get that!”
“Sir, yes sir!” Everyone except Chae-Ri then proceeded to put the Compact Multipurpose Mask, a highly compacted mask with night vision goggle attached on them.
“Good,” The sergeant put on his mask as well and everything looked as if it would in broad daylight, with slight blue color filtering.
Soon the building that contains the objective of the mission came into the view. It was not quite distinguishable other than the fact that it had more windows and overall better maintained.
“The reading is registered on the scale, sir.” The pilot reported Shepard.
His grip on his Carbine grew stronger. Reynold Hoffman, the intelligence officer who holds the key information that holds the key that might find the root of the current rapid spread of UVP, Unconditional Violence Provoker, among the youth worldwide. More important than that, Hoffman was a close friend of Shepard and he would be damned if he failed to rescue him.
The chopper floated a dozen feet from the roof a building right across the landing zone. Chae-Ri placed her rifle into the guncase and stood up from her seat.
“You remember the direction.”
After barely audible affirmation, she jumped out of the chopper and softly landed on the roof with almost no sound, despite the rain puddles. Then the chopper flew higher up and headed to the real destination. The radar hasn’t sensed any sort of movements whatsoever and Shepard assumed that they were sleeping, but he knew better than actually go with that. Soon the chopper was right above the landing zone and started to land slowly and carefully.
‘’Just wait a little longer, Ray. I’m coming to get you.’’ Shepard quietly said to himself.
There should be an "A" before the Gray frame, unless it's the only one, or somethig. Also, you need a comma bewteen cold and late.
Except the occasional clicking sound and it's equipment. Also, the sentence doesn't sit very well to me. I find "the examination of their equipment" much better.
Uhh, this is a bit confusing. "Exchanged" isn't the proper verb. "From" should (probably) be "between". How about something like: "[his view] went back and forth between..." (or oscillated, if you prefer.)
Was. Delete the against. Uncertainity. Also, the second sentence is kinda long.
Ordered his squad to do the same would be better. Had ordered. Reminded. And the sentence is too long. I'd put a period after the "began". "Caused annoyance to some of the troopers", or "to some of the troopers' annoyance".
Had. The "with him" isn't needed. I guess of should either be "and" or "and some of".
"Making a huge contrast" or just "A hige contrast to Mac Dowell, she...". I'd put a period after tranquil and a comma after muscle. Similar to him sounds better.
I'd put that in parentheses in order to create a kind of pause, as the sentence is a bit long.
A fact. Also, the whole paragraph is full of Augmenters. Try to avoid it or to use synonyms.
It's space, and looking. Of course, this creates "looking at his sides, looking quite anxious." So I'd change the second one to "seeming".
He was welcomed with a not quite dense grey forest of decaying buildings. Out of hundreds of buildings, many of the buildings were missing windows and roofs. Naked frame of half constructed buildings were exposed and rusted to brown like old blood. Although grass grew in disorganized manner and occasional spotting of some vines and moss on buildings on shadier areas, he didn’t see any signs of life in the whole island whatsoever. The island as he see it was more suited as a city of malevolent spirits rather than any ordinary human beings and Augmenters. He wasn’t surprised that the drug ring the squad has been tracking for years was hiding in the island.
That's a period. Welcomed by. Too many buildings in there. Make the third one "them". Frames. In a disorganised manner. As he saw it. Also, I'd add a "and despite the" before "occasional spotting", because as it is now it's very confusing.
To Shepard.
[[quoteblock]]Reynold Hoffman, the intelligence officer who holds the key information that holds the key that might find the root of the current rapid spread of UVP, Unconditional Violence Provoker, among the youth worldwide.[[//quoteblock]]
The key that hold the key which contains the key necessarry to find the key to the k-
Err, yeah. Take on of them out. And why would the Shepard explain the acronym to himself?
edited 15th Sep '11 1:19:06 PM by Dealan
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Okay, thanks for your criticism, Delaan. I listend to your pointers and changed some parts of the last excerpts. Here it is:
March 1st 2025, 0300 hrs
Hashima Islands, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.
A gray frame of UH-60M Black Hawk flew through the torrential rain, headed toward to the island that has been abandoned for over five decades. Late winter’s biting wind shook the frame roughly and the rain repeatedly tapped against it.
Inside the shaking and dimly lit interior of the chopper a squad of ten troopers sat in silence except the occasional clicking sound from the examination of their equipments. Sergeant John Mortensen Shepard’s views alternated between the grey and raining sky outside the chopper and his squad. He didn’t really like the operation that his squad was engaged in. Facing such a large number of insurgents was a far cry from the squad’s previous, small scaled, missions. The unpredictable terrain in such unpleasant, albeit favorable, weather didn’t help his feeling of grim uncertainty. He repeatedly checked his equipments and had ordered the same to his squad since the ride began and constantly reminded them. Although unspoken, this caused annoyance to some of the troopers.
Two of them got his attention more than anyone else. In the seat right across him, sat Butch MacDowell, a brown haired infantryman from Britain. He repeatedly flipped open and shut his sebenza knife and patted his belt, chuckling with his eyes filled with euphoria. Shepard noticed that he only half heartedly checked his gun and wondered if he was going to use it at all in this mission. He had been in many missions, but he always returned with the most ammo. Shepard knew that he was far from being an efficient shooter and some troopers even remarked that he uses more throwing knives than bullets. When Shepard asked him, he just shrugged. It was confirmed when after one of the missions, some of the insurgents were found with knives stuck on them, mostly on necks and eyes.
Just two seats right from the British sat Seo Chae-Ri, a dirty pink haired marksman turned sniper from South Korea. Contrast to MacDowell, her expression was a picture of neutral tranquility. There wasn’t a single movement on her muscle, as if her face was made of porcelain. Similar to him, however, she checked her equipment, modified CheyTac Intervention M 200, with fierce ferver. She had pulled all the ammo from three magazines, totaling 21, and placed all of them back to the magazines. It wouldn’t have unnerved Shepard and everyone else (except MacDowell) if she didn’t roll each of the cartridges between her fingers in a slightly sensual manner.
He would have told her to stop such behavior, if he didn’t know that she was Augmenting each of the cartridges with mixture of Wind and Fire attributes. In fact, she was the only possessor of such skill in the squad that was primarily formed to eliminate someone like her. It never seemed to influence her, not even by a bit. It did help her that there wasn’t actually any stigma against Augmenters, at least not within the squad.
The two looked as if they could take on entire regimen by themselves. Even though the chopper was crowded, those two had more space than anyone else. Allen Lockhart, a rifleman who sat right between them, kept fidgeting and just stared at a duffel bag on his laps, looking understandably anxious. Shepard figured that he couldn’t blame the poor soul and sighed in mild distress. Maybe I should remind them that not everyone appreciates their enthusiasm in battlefield, he thought.
“Ten minutes from the landing zone! “
The announcement of the pilot snapped him out of his musing and he noticed that it had the same effect to the rest of the squad. He looked down the chopper,
He was welcomed by a not quite dense grey forest of decaying buildings. The whole place seemed to be only few more decades from being a complete ruin. Out of hundreds of grey structures, many of them were missing windows and roofs. Some were half constructed and had their frames exposed, which were rusted to brown like old blood. Grass grew in a disorganized manner and some vines and moss covered buildings from shadier part of the island. However, it only made the place even more devoid of any life to his eyes. The island as he saw it was more suited as a city of malevolent spirits rather than any ordinary human beings and Augmenters. He wasn’t surprised that the drug ring the squad has been tracking for years was hiding in the island. He cleared his throat.
“Okay, has everyone checked their equipment and made ‘’sure’’ there’s nothing wrong with them?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
“Does everyone’s mask work all right?”
“Sir, yes sir!”
Seven troopers replied, slightly disgruntled. He sighed and turned to the two who didn’t answer him. He raised his left eyebrows at them.
“A yup!” MacDowell replied, flipping his sebenza open. Chae-Ri cocked her rifle. That was as good as a yes, Shepard figured.
“Good. Lockhart, is the Eraser fully charged?”
Lockhart opened up the duffel bag and checked the device inside it that beeped red light. He opened the control panel of the device and checked all the reading, closed the panel and zipped the bag.
“All good, sir!”
“Five minutes from the landing zone!”
“Good. Everyone put your mask on and turn the vision on. Just because we are more trained with conventional firearms than them, it doesn’t mean that they are pushovers, so stay vigilant. Did everyone get that!”
“Sir, yes sir!” Everyone except Chae-Ri then proceeded to put the Compact Multipurpose Mask, a highly compacted mask with night vision goggle attached on them.
“Good, ” The sergeant put on his mask as well and everything looked as if it would in broad daylight, with slight blue color filtering.
Soon the building that contains the objective of the mission came into the view. It was not quite distinguishable other than the fact that it had more windows and overall better maintained.
“The reading is registered on the scale, sir.” The pilot reported to Shepard.
His grip on his Carbine grew stronger. Reynold Hoffman, the intelligence officer who holds the vital information that holds the key that might find the root of the current rapid spread of UVP, which according to the intel, stood for Unconditional Violence Provoker, among the youth worldwide. He remembered incidents when his family back at the States was assaulted by drugged out teenagers and caused near fatal damage to his old father’s head. Even more important than that, was a close friend of Shepard and he would be damned if he failed to rescue him.
The chopper floated a dozen feet from the roof a building right across the landing zone. Chae-Ri placed her rifle into the guncase and stood up from her seat.
“You remember the direction.”
After barely audible affirmation, she jumped out of the chopper and softly landed on the roof with almost no sound, despite the rain puddles. Then the chopper flew higher up and headed to the real destination. The radar hasn’t sensed any sort of movements whatsoever and Shepard assumed that they were sleeping, but he knew better than actually go with that. Soon the chopper was right above the landing zone and started to land slowly and carefully.
‘’Just wait a little longer, Ray. I’m coming to get you.’’ Shepard quietly said to himself.
edited 16th Sep '11 12:07:58 AM by dRoy
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Well, drat. No criticism.
I recently started to really consruct Marcus, the main character's mentor and more or less the most active and important character's personality. It currently boils down to how much more emotional scarring can I pile on top of him without being Deus Angst Machina.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Well, triple posting and a necro. Shame on me.
I should actually work on this rather than fanfic. :/
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
*hrrrrrk*
Er, why does your guy have 2 last names?
It bothers me that you have a soldier who apparently favors knife-throwing over just using his gun. The gun's faster, deadlier, more accurate, and cheaper to use, why does he bother. A bullet travels something like 1,200 km/h, can he throw a knife that fast? On top of that he's chuckling like a crazed axe murderer. If I was his superior officer/employer I would kick him out of the force, or take disciplinary action, or something. I don't know what the military would do. But I doubt they'd tolerate that sort of nonsense since it's likely to endanger the other soldiers and this guy apparently is a nutcase. I could get behind knife-throwing as a Chekhov's Skill, but not as a favored method of fighting for a professional soldier.
So you have two nutcases with unprofessional tendencies in your army. Okay. Oh, there's magic involved. So there's one unprofessional nutcase.
Overall I have no problems with the prose, except where it started to get strange near the end.
edited 16th Oct '11 11:08:08 AM by Merlo
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Holy shit, a valid criticism, THANK YOU!
@ Prose - Yeah...when it comes to description, I'm not quite fluent yet. I will get to it. Well, still needs a WHOLE lot of practice, I guess.
@ Knife throwing unprofessional nutjob - Haha, I know that. 
It's a story where a helicopter can shoot down dragon with laser guided missiles and people blow up werewolves head with shotgun. You'll see in the later part of that chapter that he is a very stealth/close combat-focused soldier. Yes, gun>knife, that much I know, trust me on this, I've done research on that. Also, I consulted Major Tom and showed him this bit and he said their behavior was acceptable enough, even the preferrence of knives.
I'm confusing on exactly which perspective I'm trying to use and that must've caused you some of the confusions.
Do you think I'm portraying Shepard as Only Sane Man well enough?
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
*hrrrrrk*
@ Knife throwing unprofessional nutjob: Well, if you say so. Just letting you know, if I was reading this for enjoyment you'd have lost me at that part.
I can't really get Only Sane Man vibes if only 3 other characters are described. For all I know the other grunts are just as normal as Shepard.
I'll get back to you on the perspective thing in a bit.
edited 16th Oct '11 4:33:17 PM by Merlo
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...
Professional Writer & Amateur Scholar
Yeah, you are right, on both regards. Some people may not realize that I have actually done research on this and taking some liberty on it. Also, now that I think of it, you, it's just those two who are token madmen.
I'm a (socialist) professional writer serializing a WWII alternate history webnovel.
*hrrrrrk*
Okay, on the perspective thing: I assumed Shepard was the POV character, since the narrative seems to be focusing on his thoughts. So I assumed everything was filtered through his perspective.
If this wasn't your intention, I don't know how to fix it, sorry.
Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...
OK. A friend directed me to this thread and asked me to help critique your opening section on Page 4 of the thread. I went through it sentence by sentence and pinpointed a number of issues, many of which I am fairly sure have already been identified by other people here anyway. So what I have written below is basically an overall comment on what you could improve here. Please keep in mind that I myself am only an amateur writer, and anything below is purely my own opinion.
Work on your grammar. Work on being able to describe emotions, while also being able to describe settings in a way that, while detailed and interesting, isn't laughably melodramatic . Try to visualise the scene, and go through each action of every character step by step as described by you to make sure that you aren't making any mistakes. Also, try not to use so many cliches. Most importantly, make your protagonist likeable, unique and memorable right off the bat. Everything they say or do should showcase their captivating personality. Make sure you know your characters well enough to describe their thoughts and feelings accurately and in depth. Don't ever write a generic hero unless you a) have other viewpoint characters, b) are deconstructing or parodying said hero, and/or c) are confident that you can pull it off. At the moment, I'm just not feeling your hero.
That being said, I've seen much, much worse. I do believe that with time and practice you could work through these issues and write an engaging, well-structured story. Good luck! ^_^
Anyway here's Blackwall