"Soul mates" the comments. (My first story.)

[Unil stä'nìyu]

Hi!

Now the time has come for me to try out my writing skills. I began only yesterday, on a story, and have made 5 small chapters already. Still, they seem to work, at least in my empty skull LOL

I KNOW already that there are a lot of grammar errors. Please feel free to comment on them, as your comments help me learn.

I'll unleash the first chapter now. Please let me know what you think of it.

Have fun

(Chapters moved to thread, ' "Soulmates" The story. ') Comments in here plz.

Story http://forum.learnnavi.org/fiction-fanfiction/soulmates-the-story-(comments-in-my-first-story-by-newtonavi2010-plz)/msg221770/#msg221770

[Niwantaw]

I can haz more

*sits waiting patiently*

[Muzer]

Quite clichéd, the dream bit, but then again a lot of things about Avatar are clichéd, so it's OK if a fanfic is

Grammar was pretty good - most likely not perfect, but I didn't specifically notice any errors apart from one possible one (I'll come onto that) so that's all that matters - that it doesn't distract you from the story. The one error I did see might just be stylistic - I personally would remove the first comma from "Fighting for reasons, he honestly didn't understand, and didn't care for" - that jarred with me, but I can see reasons for keeping it. Commas are very much subjective things.

There isn't enough there for me to do any more of a review.

[Unil stä'nìyu]

Hehe. Well, it seems i started, at least, something.

I can haz more

*sits waiting patiently*

Sure I'll put up next chapter shortly

Quite clichéd, the dream bit, but then again a lot of things about Avatar are clichéd, so it's OK if a fanfic is

Grammar was pretty good - most likely not perfect, but I didn't specifically notice any errors apart from one possible one (I'll come onto that) so that's all that matters - that it doesn't distract you from the story. The one error I did see might just be stylistic - I personally would remove the first comma from "Fighting for reasons, he honestly didn't understand, and didn't care for" - that jarred with me, but I can see reasons for keeping it. Commas are very much subjective things.

There isn't enough there for me to do any more of a review.

Yeah. I know the dream bit is pretty exhausted. But i really needed that part. Kind of a... Well, you'll see i guess.
Just hit me... Even the movie starts with a guy talking about a dream. LOL

Pretty good? Thats the greatest thing i have heard today Especially when you have in mind that i don't live in a english speaking country. Quite happy that it works for other people, without wrecking the story.

I know about the comma... To be honest, i wasn't sure about it. Another version could have been "Fighting for reasons he, honestly, didn't understand. And didn't care for." But i found that a bit wierd at that spot. But i can easy see "Fighting for reasons he honestly didn't understand, and didn't care for." could work as good as the one with 2 commas, if that was your point.

Anyway. It's nice you took the time to look it over. Thank you for your comment, and i'll try to have that in mind when writing further. Something i find perfect, might actually ruin others understanding of the plot. So it's important for me to get input from anyone, who feels they have something to say about it.

Gonna put up chapter 2 right away.

[Muzer]

This seems like it could get interesting!

Since I specifically looked for them this time I did notice a few more mistakes in the grammar and I'll go through them quickly if you want when I'm next at a real computer (I'm typing this on my phone right now) - if you're anything like me, you'll want me to tell you so that you can learn from your mistakes. But honestly, I had to look hard to notice them - I would have just skimmed over them otherwise - and they don't disrupt the flow of the story one bit, which is more than can be said for some fanfics I could mention that are made by people whose native language is English! (I don't like that sentence, but I'm too tired to rephrase it right now).


One general thing I noticed is that you seem to be using commas a lot of the time where I think most people would leave them out - the trend for quite a long time now has been moving towards a decline in the frequency of commas. But again, this is completely opinion - there are very few times, if any at all, when you put a comma in where it definitely shouldn't be, and I've read a few books that still have this many commas in - it's just become less usual. Again, it's still perfectly readable and doesn't disrupt the flow, so it's up to you try to change. If you do want to try to change, my advice would be to read a few relatively recent books and see how commas are used there. It might not be very good advice, but that's probably the way I would go about doing it - again, comma usage is very difficult to learn by rules alone, you have to get the "feel" for them which might be quite hard.


Lol, that was quite a long rant on commas - I'd like to stress one more time that the way you're doing is perfectly fine and it's a very minor point. It is very nearly as readable as the best fanfics on here (grammar-wise). It's just not the way most native English speakers would use commas; but I have heard of some authors who use lots of commas, and their work is still just as readable as anyone else's.

[Unil stä'nìyu]

Hehe. That'll be cool, if you can/want to find the errors, and explain them to me. As you say, i like to know them, so i can learn from my errors. It's IMO the best way to learn.

And LOLz about the commas. I know i use them alot, and i just put them where i find it right, for the flow of the text. Trying to "break" a sentence into pieces, so i don't end up with a 200 word one. I think it might be an old fault in my grammer. I'm 33 years old, so it's possible that i learnt english when commas was blown all over the place.
I'll try to cut down on them if i can. No need to put them, if the result is easier to read without them, i think.

And yes. I think it could be interresting, if it's the storyline you refer to. I haven't seen (yet) this angle of approach in any of the other fan fics i have read here. (Then again, only read 4-5 of them)

I hope! That i don't screw it up too much. ATM i'm a little stuck between chapter 7 and 8. Missing something i can't find right away. But it'll be there in time.

Think i'll skim chapter 3 now, and if i find it alright, post it in a few minutes.

Cheers

[Muzer]

OK, here goes! If I don't quote a bit, I haven't found any errors in it. Again, it may look like a lot here, but most of these are very minor errors that are barely noticeable - and many of them are just optional, just what I think would "sound better".

I KNOW already that there is a lot of grammer errors. Please feel free to comment them, as your comments help me learn.

There are a lot of grammar errors. "There is" becomes "there are" if the thing is plural.

Please feel free to comment on them, as your comments help me learn. In English, for some reason, you comment on something, you never comment something (unless your programming, but that's a whole different topic ). I'm not quite sure why, but there you go - English is a strange language.

Every time he woke up just before hitting something, he only "knew" was there, but haven't yet seen in his dream.

That should be "hasn't yet seen", because it goes "he has", not "he have".

The dreams began to get on his nerves.

That should either be "were beginning to" or "had begun to" - if it's "began", it sounds like they just began to get on his nerves at that point in the story (that is, specifically after he had lit his smoke) - unless that is what you meant. I have no idea what the official grammatical name of "were beginning to" would be, but I know "had begun to" is the pluperfect (or past perfect) tense, which is used to talk about something that's happened before what you're talking about, when you are currently talking in the past tense. For example, "I walked into town. Before that, I had got dressed and had breakfast". You form it with the word "had" followed by the past participle of the verb.

And they didn't progress from the first time he had those dreams.

Again, it would be a good idea to use pluperfect/past perfect here - "from the first time he'd had those dreams". Though unlike the previous example, this one still means the same without. Out of interest, when pronouncing something like "he had had", you usually give much less stress to the first "had", so it sounds like "he hud HAD" - or, of course, you just use "he'd had".

Seemed so long ago when he said goodbye to her in the RDA complex. That was the last time he saw her. He was a soldier, back then. Fighting for reasons, he honestly didn't understand, and didn't care for. Orders were just that. And they were to be followed without question. When his sister left earth, he decided that he was done with orders. Done with the killing of people, and risking his ass in the process. Ironically, he got a job at RDA, when he decided to leave military life and start a new life as an engineer. The same company that "took" his beloved sister away from him.

The pluperfect is only used to establish that you've gone back in time, after which you normally would change back to ordinary past tense (though staying in the pluperfect would also be fine, it seems more natural to me to switch back to the past - some people might disagree). So, if you wanted to integrate the pluperfect into this, you would only use the pluperfect in the first sentence (which you don't HAVE to do as it is obvious what you mean, but again, it's a good idea). So it would be "when he'd said goodbye to her", and the rest would be as it is now. It's good that you reinforce the fact that you've gone backwards with "back then", for example.

As long as he could remember, she had been doing research, as the scientist she was. Many thought of her as a "nerd". Never had time for anything else. But she had always been there to tease him, make fun of him, kick him, and talk to him when he was down. Things that siblings do. But now? Now she was too far away to be there for him... And he really needed to talk to her. He needed her to drag him up, from that hellhole others referred to as his life. Or what was left of it.

This is also good - you've already used the pluperfect in the first sentence of this paragraph, and in the sentence before the one where you go forward again to when the story is taking place, but nowhere else. I would say that is what feels most natural for me. So, no errors here.

And they still didn't know what was wrong, other than his lungs was in a bad state.

His lungs were in a bad state - lungs are plural.

Again it was hard to breathe, and he felt that burning sensation of fire in his chest, that send him down on the floor last night.

The past form of "send" is "sent". And again, you could optionally use the pluperfect here (but again, it's obvious what you mean because of the "last night") - that would be "that'd sent him down on the floor last night".

despite she was in her late thirties.

Despite takes a noun as an object rather than a whole clause, so you would do something similar to what you do in Na'vi in these situations: "despite the fact that she was in here late thirties", or, if that seems to formal to you, just use even though: "even though she was in her late thirties", and skip the whole mess with the word despite.

They just completed the project

Pluperfect is strongly recommended here - "They had just completed the project" - otherwise it sounds like it actually happened right there in the narrative.

He's should be a "god" in lung diseases I've been told.

This doesn't seem to make much sense to me. You can't have "is" and "should be" together - use one or the other. Though personally I think you should use "is" here (He's a "god" in lung diseases), otherwise you're implying that he should be, but he actually isn't.

Hmm. Yeah. Guess he was 'available' when the economical situation demanded the hospital shutdown.

If you were intending shutdown to be a noun here, use "demanded the hospital's shutdown" or, better (in my opinion), "demanded the shutdown of the hospital". Alternatively, if you intended to use shutdown as a verb, first of all I would separate it into two words (shut down), and you should also add a "that" after demanded - "demanded that the hospital shut down". Shutdown as a verb seems to be only used in computing, and then only occasionally. Most of the time, if it's a verb, you should use "shut down".

Although many probably had figured it out by them selves.

Themselves is one word, otherwise it doesn't make much sense.

Those were but a faint fog in Jim's memories of the PR propaganda, RDA had managed to pull off almost a decade ago.

There should probably be a "that" in there - "the PR propaganda that RDA had managed". Again, good use (and disuse) of the pluperfect in this and the following few sentences.

She knew what happened back then.

This would sound better in pluperfect, but again, it's not necessary in this case because of the "back then".

I wasn't 'leftover' from anywhere, except my education.

Leftover, like shutdown, is the noun - when it's a verb like in this case, it should be "left over".

When she met him, almost 5 years ago, he was all laugh and fun to be around.

Again, pluperfect would be better here but not required because of the "almost five years ago" - "when she had met him".

and his ability to make her mood chance to the better when she had a bad day.

You usually say "change for the better" rather than to, although you use "to" (or "into") for most things other than "for the better" and "for the worse". Again, just plain weirdness of the English language




There - that's everything I could find, and most of those are optional changes.

[Unil stä'nìyu]

Thanks. What a nice way of commenting on my grammer. I like what you do, with examples of what it should've looked like.

Some of the errors, i spotted right away, when i read your comments. But others require a bit more "thinking" on my part when writing

Example is the "he had had" or "he'd had". Honestly i didn't even know it could be like that in the first place. Having 2 times "had" after another. That might actually be a fault in my "real" language (Danish), as this would be very, if not completely, wrong in every possible way. LOL

Need to make a "native language shutdown" i think

Again. Thanks for your comments. I'll see to it that my errors will be corrected, at least in my "source" file.

BTW. Apart from grammer stuff. How do you like the story so far?

Cheers

[Muzer]

Yeah, "has had" and "had had" are both legal in English, though the first has/had is usually either contracted (he's or he'd in my example earlier) or pronounced differently as I said.

I'll read chapter 3 before commenting on the story, though from what I've read so far it looks like it could be an interesting story.


EDIT: Yes, just read chapter 3 - it's progressing quite nicely, I'm interested in seeing what will happen. I think I might be able to see roughly what's going to happen though as far as the main character getting to Pandora goes - but that's no bad thing.

[Muzer]

OK, it's NOT how I thought it was going to work out, so never mind

Still good though.

[Unil stä'nìyu]

ROFL. Yeah, i didn't expect anyone to see that coming. I had some thoughts about it though. Dragging Grace into this thing, and telling about a brother of her. But i kind of liked the idea, so i moved on.

We haven't seen the last of her. Yet. Hehehe

[Niwantaw]

it might be worth editing the name of this thread

[Unil stä'nìyu]

I see you. LOL

I have made a new thread for the story only. Comments in here still. That ok?

Cheers

[Unil stä'nìyu]

I'll read chapter 3 before commenting on the story, though from what I've read so far it looks like it could be an interesting story.


EDIT: Yes, just read chapter 3 - it's progressing quite nicely, I'm interested in seeing what will happen. I think I might be able to see roughly what's going to happen though as far as the main character getting to Pandora goes - but that's no bad thing.

and

OK, it's NOT how I thought it was going to work out, so never mind

Still good though.

I'm courious. What DID you think was gonna happend? (PM me about that plz. It's nice to see what people expect, readin it )

[Muzer]

Ooh, so I was (at least partially) right - after you posted chapter 4, I thought the whole thing was going to be just him in a coma dreaming about Pandora... Evidently not.

[Unil stä'nìyu]

Hehe... Far from it. But you'll see.

Almost done chapter 9 now... Gonna post one more, before i hit the pillow i think...

[Niwantaw]

* recommends getting a laptop and posting from pillow*

[Unil stä'nìyu]

LOLz. I AM using a laptop. But i think my wife will be prettry annoyed, if i dragged it with me to bed Thinks i'm using too much time with it as it is ROFL

But Chapter 6 is up

N-Joy!

[Unil stä'nìyu]

Chapter 7 is up

Have fun

[Tsamsiyu92]

Krrpe tsun oeru livu volvea hapxì?