Rilbur

Memories of Eric: Kids Will Be Kids "Outta my way, faggot!" the star linebacker Don Torelli shouted... right after he bowled over Quentin Hearth. Snickers and muffled laughs erupted in the hallway. Quentin, flushing, just gathered up his books as best as he could and slammed shut his locker. Ever since he'd been forced out of the closet, they'd all been like that, every last one of them. All the jocks, all the 'cool kids', the in cliques, all of them. Making his life miserable as best

Everyone stared as the man clutched his head and groaned for a moment, before his eyes began to glass over. He slowly crumpled to the ground, muscles failing him as he fell deeper and deeper under the spell of one word. "Sleep!" he had been commanded, and despite a valiant battle, he was going to do just that. Still, his struggle was sufficient to keep him from going so deeply asleep as to loose all muscle control; a small mercy, to be sure, but still a mercy. The others in the cell re

The pain, the anger, was too great. Jason simply shut down, memories coming in short pulses like photographs etched with the acid of human lives on his soul. One: The figure on the rooftop jerked back for a second, before toppling over the edge. He didn't see where he'd hit him. Two: He'd swung around, pistol still held in two hands. Red hair framed the face, and blue eyes opened wide as the left shoulder became a bloody ruin. Three: Jason corrected his aim and the blue eyes gazed

Memories of Eric: If at First You Don't Succeed "Five-State Teen helpline, how can I help you today?" a woman answered. "I... I don't know..." Tommy answered into the pay phone. "I just... I can't take it anymore..." He couldn't see her, but he could hear her smile at him. "Tell me what's wrong, honey." He cried, he could almost see the loving expression on her face. "I've got a razor... I just can't..." "What's going on?" she asked, concern clear in her voice. "I was g

Time, as inconsiderate as always, ground onward with no regard for the two lover's needs. Wrapped together in a tangled mess of limbs and sheets they slept the night away in the comfort of each other's arms, waking from time to time to fly again before going back to sleep. Alas, all too soon it was morning, and time to wake up. With barely a groan, Eric silenced the alarm clock before it could wake up Jason and went back to sleep himself. Predictably, someone noticed Jason's sleeping in.

The next morning their schedules continued as normal. Ronan spent an hour or two drilling Jason and Paul in self defense, mostly making them work through various moves and styles he'd been teaching them. He'd said months ago, "Either you understand what I've been telling you about the mindset of a fight, or you don't. Droning on about it won't help either way -- only being forced to use the knowledge. Be ready for that day, but rest assured I won't bring it down on you simply to temper the s

Ronan opened a bottle of champaign for the occasion -- ignoring his usual rules on alcohol and minors. "To Jason's acquittal!" he held his glass up high, and everyone else followed suit. Jason just smiled. It had been a long three months. A long, tiring, nasty three months since he'd gone in. As they'd worried, the cops had jumped on him as a chance to close a very nasty case... but they just couldn't make it. In fact, they'd admitted that the DA was screwing up even as they slapped the

Jason stumbled to his bedroom, unable to see, unable to think, unable even to feel. He couldn't take it. He closed the door behind him and collapsed onto the bed, legs pressed up against his chest as tears flowed. He needed to pay and Ronan wouldn't let him do it that way. Now he'd just come in and take it when Jason wasn't ready. Jason didn't hear the door open, but when a hand landed on his shoulder he froze. Ronan lifted him out of bed, effortlessly, then started pulling off his shoes. Jas

Jason Bester has been through hell. Betrayed, ruined, and desolate, his life seems over. Like a biblical angel, Ronan Koken saves him, helps him find himself anew, and heals him. From there, Jason shall become more than he could have possibly imagined, to face things no one could have imagined.

When Jason opened his eyes the next morning, he just about screamed in pain and agony -- such abuse was unthinkable! Groaning as he threw the covers off his body he slipped his legs over the bed, and froze suddenly. Firstly, where was he? This wasn't one of his friend's houses, or his neighbors house either -- and of course, not his own bedroom, he'd hardly expect that at this point. The bigger problem was what was under the covers. He did not own these boxers -- he'd never wear something s

Getting up from his 'worship' of the porcelain god, Jason stumbled out of the bathroom with Ronan's help the whole way, dropping by the sink to rinse his mouth out quickly on the way. Lara was sitting in one of the chairs, looking concerned, but remained uncharacteristically silent, anger rising in her eyes as she looked at Jason. "I'm sorry..." he apologized in a whisper. "Sorry?" the heat in her voice could boil lava, and as she continued the derision could have stripped paint from the wall

I've done some work with it. Specifically, I hand-crafted the .epub version of Guardians. There are programs that will automate the process -- in fact, and automatic conversion process was used when I self-published a version through 'smashwords', which converted from .doc to all possible types for me. Personally, I'm happy with the e-pub version I hand crafted, and while it took a while -- while I normally use HTML, the standard required was strict XHTML, which is 'strict' in a lot of ways, so I had to fix code -- it was well worth the time.

For those that are interested, I'm adding some more information / advice to the forums I set up for the writing workshop. This tidbit is placed in a publicly viewable folder, but not all the information I intend to release will be. If you want to see all of it, sign up! You don't need to have a story to be involved in the critiquing process of other people's stories -- but putting a story in is a good way to to keep it going! I intend to try and start it off a bit early by posting a 'sample' critique some time in the future. Advice and Suggestions on the Writing of Critiques First off, let me be clear that this is my personal opinion, and that this entire document is aimed entirely at writing critiques for the purposes of this specific workshop. Many of the items contained in it can be generalized, but don't assume all of them can. Additionally, many of these ideas can be used in the writing process, improving the final result. First off, a good critique should be aimed at the length of 250 to 500 words -- approximately one half to a full page, single spaced, size 12 Times New Roman font. Longer is acceptable if you have more to say. If you don't have that much to say, then you may wish to review the story again to find more. Second, a critique should ideally touch upon both good and bad aspects of the story. There is no magic ratio, simply the basic idea that an author likes to hear about what they did right so they can keep it, and what went wrong so they can delete it. Furthermore, these comments should be impersonal as possible -- yes, they are directed at the author's story, and furthermore what that story exposes of their understanding of the craft of writing, but it should not be a personal attack. Your comments may be harsh, "You clearly do not understand the concept of a paragraph. You break stories up into related blocks, called paragraphs, as this improves readability..." is borderline. "You idiot, didn't you ever take English? Let me introduce you to the 'paragraph'..." is completely unacceptable, while a preferable form would be "You failed to properly break your story into paragraphs. Paragraphs should be sections of related text, generally handling a single, specific idea or theme. While there is great variety in their lengths, a good rule of thumb is that in general they should be longer than a sentence or two, and shorter than a page..." Third, try to be general with your critique. Since you're supposed to be handing in a 'marked up' copy of the story, that is where you want to mention specific instances of grammatical errors, exceptionally vivid sentences, and similar items. Your critique should mention generalities, and use specifics only as reference points. At the same time, there may be 'specific' information that doesn't occur at the 'page' level; for example, plot holes might be one sentence in the story, but because they effect the story as a whole, they are valid commentary for a critiques (and the following discussions). As an example, "On page three...you forgot a comma!" would be a specific, but... "When a character stops speaking and you add an attribution, such as '"We can't make it." Mary said.' you should use a comma and make the attributable part of the speech, such as '"We can't make it," Mary said.' ...would be an acceptable generality. So if the author makes a mistake once -- for example, neglecting to start a new paragraph for a new speaker -- don't mention it, but if it's continuous -- they don't consistently start a new paragraph for each speaker -- then bring it up. Don't just say 'you forgot to...'; try to explain the rule as best as you can! Finally, let me introduce various terms, concepts, and ideas that may help with both writing a critique, and writing an actual story. Sometimes you might have to set a story on it's head to understand how a term relates to it, because it's not always obvious, and some of the concepts relate more to one side of the writing / critique spectrum than others (for example, 'triangle' is something you can recognize in critique, but is a technique / idea to help with writing). Plot: Essentially, the plot is the storyline of the fictional narrative. It answers the question 'what happened?' As a concept, plot encompasses many of the other terms discussed here. Setup / Exposition: The start / introduction of a story, where you introduce the characters and 'set up' the story for what is to come. Rising action: Once you've set up the story, you need to introduce the complication (conflict) and start ratcheting up the tension. Something goes wrong, there's some kind of tension, something that helps drive the plot forward. In most stories, this will be the 'bulk' of the story. Complication (conflict): In almost every story I've ever read, there is some kind of complication or conflict, something to drive the story. Very, very rarely do you read a story like this: Chad got up in the morning. He went to school. After school, he went to work. Work was exhausting, so once it was over he went straight home and collapsed into bed. All in all, a very normal day for him. There's no action there, no conflict, nothing to actually interest the reader. Somewhere, somehow, the story has to have a conflict. Climax: The high point of the story, but not necessarily the resolution. This is the time when everything comes together, any dangling plot points are revealed, and everything becomes clear. This is generally later in the story, and can on occasion even be at the end. WARNING TO AUTHORS: be very careful with putting the climax at the end! This does not always go over well and is no guarantee to a 'good' story. Falling action / resolution: The climax is the high point, so it has to be followed by a low point, a time where you let the tension drop away as you tie up any loose ends. Not all stories include this part, but most should. Triangle: This is a writing concept. While you frequently have a direct, one-on-one confrontation in a story, triangles can frequently make the story more interesting and engaging, as a third character / component / idea can help introduce some variability and unpredictability to what might otherwise be a very boring and predictable conflict. And now a few question you should keep in mind, both when writing a story and a critique: What does the character want? How does the character change over the course of the story?

His personal and religious position should reflect in his works, agreed. Which is why I find it interesting that it doesn't. 'Bugger' is obviously derived from 'bug' (insect-like hive culture, their implied insectoid appearance, preference for 'cramped' underground tunnels) -- sorry, I just don't buy the sodomizing reference without some evidence past the similarity in terms. You'll need to provide additional proof. The standards you're using could be used against almost any author or work to twist and distort them past recognition. Look! The Guardians is about a group of people who guard against this evil thing! Obviously they're guarding -- and then destroying -- homosexuality! Because the family values council consider themselves the 'Guardians' of American decency! Sorry, this logic doesn't fly. Look past his Ender's series to the the Homecoming series, where you have an openly gay character whose only 'fault' is that he can't provide for the genetic continuance of a micro-community, which causes him and his 'inevitable partner' to be shunted aside as second class citizens. Which isn't an anti-gay diatribe; it's a reasonable result of the circumstances presented.

Thanks to you, the last day and a half has vanished downt he drain... because I knew I had to re-read the story before starting on this absolutely wonderful and amazing chapter. Huzzah!

“Hey JB,” Kode said as Jared walked into his day-cabin. The marine who had escorted him there saluted, and then closed the door with himself on the other side. “You wanted to talk?” Jared asked softly. This conversation had been coming for the better part of a week now, and both of them had been avoiding it. Jared had to deal with his sons, and Kode had to deal with his superiors less-than-pleased reactions to getting the Federation into a shooting war with the US. So far neither side had

Jared grinned at Mathews. “Loud!” he said over the roar. “Assault shuttles coming in at maximum burn usually are!” Mathews shouted back as the noise started to drop. “The fun part is that only half of that noise was them doing a combat sweep over the area; the other half is pure engine noise. Those things are noisy!” “Combat sweep?” Richardson asked. “Well, I'm sure as a security guard you have a different meaning for the word, but an advanced element of a few specialized shuttles di

The blotchy surface of the ceiling above them didn't hold any miraculous revelations, but Jared could see beyond it in his mind’s eye to the sea of stars. Space, once called the final frontier. Technically, it still was, but no one bothered to call it that. It just... was. A place of awe, mystery, and wonder. Space. Cold, unforgiving, hostile, and mankind's salvation. Even Jared, mere 'grunt' as he was, knew how important it was. The great asteroid mines overseen by the Federation prov

Jared was tired of this damned hole in the ground. Damned tired. "General, I'm not asking for permission to move out permanently. I'm asking to take my sons out for a birthday party, a day trip to a local amusement park." "Sergeant, I'd love to give it to you," General Thatcher sighed. "I actually fought tooth and nail with my superiors, but they won't budge. I'm sorry." "The same God-damned 'security concerns' that have kept me locked up in here for the last sixth months?" Jared aske

“So, that's the story,” Jared finished. “You can figure out the rest, you probably know plenty of it. It's just... now that you know...” “Fuck,” Captain Mathers shook his head. “I'm not sure what to make of this. You're right, it changes... it changes everything!” “I hurt him. I hurt him a lot,” Jared said, pain in his voice and unshed tears fogging his eyes. “But... it wasn't all my fault. How else could I have... once my feet were on this road, an act I had no choice in, how else c

“Alright, Jared, now try and activate the C-HUD,” a doctor ordered, a voice over the speakers in the gym like room. Jared focused on the martial artist they'd brought in and tried to do as he was ordered, but it just wouldn't happen. “It's not working,” he complained. “The system is designed to try and learn about you, and how your mind works,” the nameless doctor reminded him. “I don't know why the shadow mind isn't taking care of this automatically-” “I told you guys, it seemed to s

“What's going on with my son? Oh, and while we're at it with me!” Jared demanded. “I have no clue. He shouldn't still be awake, but clearly he is,” Major Williams said apologetically. “I have, literally, no clue what the hell is going on. We've lost all but the monitor feeds to his augmentation, and most of those are being routed through you. And that simply should not be happening! And I can't explain how the bloody hell you're hearing the software like that. Maybe later it could inte

“Dad!” David screamed with a volume level only a thirteen year old boy, his voice cracking as he screamed out a single word louder than any adult could hope for, could possibly hope to manage. “Davey!” Jared cried out, tears in his eyes as he fell to his knees. “Dad, oh Dad!” David cried, throwing himself into his father's embrace. “They said you were gonna die, then they said you weren't but I couldn't see you, and then they said you were gonna wake up and they let me see you and you loo

Jared would have screamed, if he could have controlled his mouth. Every part of his body hurt, hurt bad enough to cut through the haze of morphine and other painkillers to wake him up. The worst part of the problem was that he wasn't lying in bed. He was sitting up and looking around the room with an unnaturally keen eyesight. He was staring, for the moment, at a screw in the wall opposite his bed; and he wanted to scream. He could see the top of the screw as clearly as if it were three i

Sergeant Major Jared Brent Warren bit his lip and forced himself not to snarl. His kids couldn't see the white knuckles he was getting from gripping the steering wheel too hard, but there was no doubt in his mind they'd notice and understand that their parents were fighting if he gave in and tore that bitch's head off. And maybe not merely in the figurative sense, either. If it weren't for the kids, he'd have hurt her long since. "And Angela has this simply wonderful diamond ring her hus