A Request from a Writer to the Art Community

Hey great people,

I realize last time I came off a little high and mighty, this time I have a simpler request.

I like writing origin stories and retelling them. But I am a not the best writer in my opinion. I'm trying to get better at writing based off a character I didn't write originally. So I'm humbly asking if anyone will volunteer a character or two to help me sharpen my skills. I'm going to try my best to retell the origin story well. This is just for me to get some practice in and get some pieces under my belt.

I am planning to post a link to the finished story on here when I am done for critique but if you would like it to stay private I can do that as well.

C'mon, you guys are nice......right? I'm just asking for a few musing donations to help me become a better writer. Though you have every right to refuse and tell me I suck. I don't mind.

Any character will do (I need to work on my variety anyways) and I just need a short bio summary and a screenshot. if you just have a screenshot and want me to try to come up with a Bio I can do that if that is what you want.

Thanks for any help you can give an aspiring writer. I would go to the RP boards but somehow this spot seems to fit better, plus I like you guys more.

General Knowledge

Rose Veldt doesn't really have a history beyond the couple lines in her story box. Feel free to try to elaborate; I'm not worried that it has to be canon just because you wrote something. What little we know about Rose is in my sig.

For slightly more guidance, she's American, she obviously has access to a good deal of money to support her hobby (I assume old money but never worried about it), she's single & heterosexual. Her "world", so to speak, includes various creatures of myth and antiquity such as sasquatch, chupacabra, mammoths and megatherium. More cryptozoology than fantasy.

Rose is extremely xenophobic towards aliens to the point where she'd almost rather spend her day with a nun-and-orphan-murdering human psychopath than a Peacebringer. In her opinion, you don't travel untold bajillion lightyears to visit someone unless you're planning on screwing them over and their superior technology and resources means that humans need to deny them a foothold now rather than wake up one morning to find out we've lost our planet to our "friends". She compares it to the conquest of the New World -- some came with straight-up conquest like the Spanish, some wrangled one-sided legal "deals" like the English and some acted all friendly and just wanted to trade, like the French, until the Indians were slaughtering one another to be the one to trade beaver pelts in Montréal. In every instance, the losers were the indigenous people. Earth for Humans!

(I don't RP this aspect of her in most groups because people understandably just want to run missions, not see me pick fights with the Warshade we just invited)

Knock yerself out by taking on the Destroyer of Curls hisself!



A concept/name I've had stuck in my head since tankers got Dark Armor. Ranier Wolfcastle/Schwarzenegger as a superhero grim reaper. The one liners, they make Commando look like Shakespeare! The bio's still a very rough work in progress, but I think you get the point.

Here is The Conglomerate.
Rather than being 1 being, he has about 20 personalities all in that head. Rather than taking control and being one at a time, all are concious at once. The body moves when 11 or more agree to do something. There is a reason for this.

These 20 people used to work at Chernobyl. They were inside the power station when the event happened. As the ground was irradiated, the souls from these people started to fuse into one. The body is also a fusion of some of the bodies of these people, thus resulting in a large scarred body with amazing strength. The radiation lingers around him, giving him the ability to shoot it at his foes.

Since he works via a true democracy in his head, the majority of the personalities did not want to get revenge for the accident. They wanted to help people avoid them, so they became the Conglomerate.

Sounds interesting, I meant to post in your last thread, but forgot about it. You can take a stab and most any of my Burnt Matchsticks except the blaster. Link's in the sig.

Wow, Thanks a ton for the awesome material to work from guys, heres hoping more comes.

Anyways, I just got finished with a retelling for Rose Veldt, Jophiels character. I hope to all my stars that it is up to snuff.

When I read the origin I was reminded a bit of Lara Croft, so a bit of that might have been mixed in. Please let me know any critique you have on it (seriously be a jerk if you have to) and I hope I stayed at least a little true to what you saw in your head Jophiel.

I liked it! I'm not much of a writer so I don't exactly know how to convey the ups and downs of it but I'll give it a shot since I'm sure you'd like better feedback than "liked it".

I thought the tone of it fit Rose. I liked the writing itself which was engaging and easy to read (not that it was shallow but it wasn't overly laden with dense prose that served no purpose). I thought you did a good job of projecting the character. Although you couldn't have known it, I chuckled at the "Most Dangerous Game" line because I actually say that sometimes in game, usually after faceplanting -- "Truly, Malta are the most dangerous game." For a biography and setting of a character, I thought it did a good job.

Critically, I thought mashing the two themes of Rose's hobby & her xenophobia was a little clumsy although I know that was about all I gave you to work with. I think a more developed path about one or the other would have worked out fine. The last paragraph repeats "Not only that" twice, one almost right after the other. You might want to watch for that when you're writing.

I look forward to reading something you do about someone else because I think it might be easier to read/review something I'm not connected to. But I'm sure you were waiting for feedback on this one so I wanted to get something out to you.

Hey GK see what you can do with this.


Agent Collins

I know this one isn't technically someone elses character but I'd still like someone elses view on it. I finally got around to writing an extended origin for my namesake General Knowledge. It's very dialogue heavy so I don't know if that played against me. But I did enjoy this one very much. And hopefully I made somebody chuckle.

Let me know what you think.

That's good, GK! I saw one place where you have the wrong word (correctly spelled) and your last paragraph is a bit of a punctuation train-wreck. I like the determinedly up-beat style, though, making the best of a bad situation.

FYI, I was GM at an online RPing site for a while and had to face a steady stream of angst-ridden emo-children, out to avenge the death of everyone in their family/town/planet. I used to joke that society should scan all children at birth, for excess midichlorians, and Strangle any that tested positive, because it would surely lead to the fire-bombing of Everyone in their family/town/planet.

This, though based in disaster, remains strong and upbeat, with no gut-wrenching monologues about revenge and pain and 'nobody understands me!'

I do think you should let it rest for a little while and then go back over it with an eye towards developing some of the small details a bit more. Focus the end of it on Arthur/GK's determination and hard work in becoming a Hero worthy of appearing on his old show. Let the strength of his good humor and positive outlook shine through, giving support not only to Himself, but the heroes he works with and the civilians he protects.

Be Well!
Fireheart

http://nekollx.deviantart.com/gallery/#City-of-Heroes\

here's a few of mine, if you need more seed info just ask.