X-COM THINK TANK (Out of Character Discussion about X-COM and the Series)

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Rocketbottle

New Member
My character is fairly ordinary. Will he not stand out enough to be chosen?
Well depends I think chris will pick interesting stories but hopefully he will be logical and not have a story be picked about a guy or girl who haves no experience and was like a fisher who only shot a gun to hunt animals or something stupid like that.
 

Thenlar

Active Member
My character is fairly ordinary. Will he not stand out enough to be chosen?
Ordinary or not, you also wrote in reasonably good English, with line breaks, good spelling, and proper grammar. I think that kind of thing is underestimated. We're going to be doing a lot of writing if selected, and if your character entry is difficult to read or understand, who is going to want to read multiple journals that are difficult to get through? So I think you get bonus points for that, at least.
 

UltimaNamir

Member
Ordinary or not, you also wrote in reasonably good English, with line breaks, good spelling, and proper grammar. I think that kind of thing is underestimated. We're going to be doing a lot of writing if selected, and if your character entry is difficult to read or understand, who is going to want to read multiple journals that are difficult to get through? So I think you get bonus points for that, at least.
To piggy back off of Thenlar. Unless you just did the bare minimum, like just posting your name, age, gender, and the pledge then you should still be accepted as long as your literacy is good enough, but probably not as early as the people who made a character with a back story.
 

Thenlar

Active Member
To piggy back off of Thenlar. Unless you just did the bare minimum, like just posting your name, age, gender, and the pledge then you should still be accepted as long as your literacy is good enough, but probably not as early as the people who made a character with a back story.

He actually wrote a character who has been persecuted through much of his life for an unusual last name. None of the other entries has anything like that, it's a pretty unique aspect.
 

Rocketbottle

New Member
After reading some of the other apps. I feel mine might have been to simplistic.
Me too I wanted to be basic on my application so I don't break any rules and be allowed to join but looking at others it looks like im out of my league. However I can make that up in journals if im accepted.
 

Meaningofbread

Well-Known Member
With lots of new people ready and geared to write, there is going to be a lot more competition to get in. You're application doesn't have to include super detailed things, but has to be well written and at least hint at a good story coming up.
 

Gahlo

Active Member
I think the first ones to die early in the season should be the ones to be able t get those spots since they don't really get a chance to be part of it otherwise.
That's the price you pay for being a soldier. The glory of being in the videos isn't without it's drawbacks.
 

Brian

Active Member
After reading some of the other apps. I feel mine might have been to simplistic.
It really doesn't matter as long as you used grammar and had a little bit of backstory,that at least hints toward an interesting story.
But looking at the longer applications,I felt that I needed to make it as long as possible.....afterwards,I realize I just needed to be creative.
 

Adrammalech

Well-Known Member
A few things I notice straight away: you should always place a space after any punctuation, not just periods. Also, use ellipses (...) sparingly, and only ever use three periods in them. You should also press enter twice for line breaks on these forums, so there's a visual break in text.

i.e. Jacob Johnson liked the following things: board games, pickles, tricycles...and some other stuff.

Jacob's love of other stuff influenced the path of his life intensely, which is why he became a scientist, eventually being appointed Executive Scientist of the XCOM Project.

Other than a few little mistakes, it's clear you put a lot of effort into it, you paint a decent picture of his personality between dialogue sections and synopsis, and you have a lot of directions available when it comes to writing the journals. The only major thing I see when it comes to the creativity of it is that the first section is from the POV of who I presume is an XCOM recruiter writing a report for the Commander, and it seems a little iffy at times (a recruiter generally shouldn't be pausing on paperwork, he should be confident of what he's reporting or not mentioning it). This isn't an issue now though, since you'll only have to write as your character if you're accepted.

The best thing I find to do with writing is to just go for it first, get all the creativity onto the paper, and then run through it again to make it proper and pretty. Practice makes perfect, you may find things that can be improved the second time you read it. Another good tip is to preview (by pushing "More Options", if you didn't know) before you post future long writings like journals and see if it looks like it would be easy to read or skim so it gets more attention.
 

Thenlar

Active Member
Hey,I was wondering if people could take a peek at my application. If you do,tell me what you think about it please. :)

http://graylinesgaming.com/index.ph...ithin-recruitment-centre.469/page-9#post-4816

Adrammalech gives very good advice regarding punctuation and grammar that I won't repeat, as well as tone.

To me, it feels a little... disjointed. It seems like you decided on three major tropes and just threw them together as a history. Step 1) Childhood trauma. Step 2) War hero. Step 3) Framed for a crime he didn't commit. In the future, I would suggest working on better transitions between them. Rather than a straight narrative, if the report-writer is focusing on major events, you could break them up into sections and label them. "Early Childhood." Then next would be "Military Record" and last would be something like "Current Status."
 

Adrammalech

Well-Known Member
I like the way you critiqued that. Maybe you could critique mine as well?
Yours is great, I only saw one typo (named instead of name in the first line) and the format is pretty solid. The only thing I'd say is to separate and label when the biographical description stops and the dialogue begins. I like the idea of Angel and Odd bonding over their weird names. :p
 

Brian

Active Member
A few things I notice straight away: you should always place a space after any punctuation, not just periods. Also, use ellipses (...) sparingly, and only ever use three periods in them. You should also press enter twice for line breaks on these forums, so there's a visual break in text.

i.e. Jacob Johnson liked the following things: board games, pickles, tricycles...and some other stuff.

Jacob's love of other stuff influenced the path of his life intensely, which is why he became a scientist, eventually being appointed Executive Scientist of the XCOM Project.

Other than a few little mistakes, it's clear you put a lot of effort into it, you paint a decent picture of his personality between dialogue sections and synopsis, and you have a lot of directions available when it comes to writing the journals. The only major thing I see when it comes to the creativity of it is that the first section is from the POV of who I presume is an XCOM recruiter writing a report for the Commander, and it seems a little iffy at times (a recruiter generally shouldn't be pausing on paperwork, he should be confident of what he's reporting or not mentioning it). This isn't an issue now though, since you'll only have to write as your character if you're accepted.

The best thing I find to do with writing is to just go for it first, get all the creativity onto the paper, and then run through it again to make it proper and pretty. Practice makes perfect, you may find things that can be improved the second time you read it. Another good tip is to preview (by pushing "More Options", if you didn't know) before you post future long writings like journals and see if it looks like it would be easy to read or skim so it gets more attention.
Thanks.Next time I'll make sure to make corrections like that :)
 
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