Frictional Games Forum (read-only)

Hotel
Smoke, an old building was his destination. A car stopped in front of the old
hotel. A car door opened, and a man came out. Footsteps were heard as the man
made his way to the entrance. The door opened with a loud creak. He looked
around, and saw no one. The place looked deserted. He took four steps, and felt
something wasn't right. He couldn't tell what it was, was it the floor creaking
with each step? Was it the strange silence? The man decided to ignore it, and
continued making his way to the front desk. He found a note, it was for him. It
said that his room was room 206, on the first floor to his right. He lifted his
eyebrows, and thought ''Whatever''. He just kept walking, until he reached the
stairs. ''This must be the way to the second floor.'' He thought logically. He
walked up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he looked to his right.
There was a door, open. He felt suspense. And walked towards the open door. The
door said ''Room 206'', his room. He quickly looked what was behind the door.
Nothing, only an old chair, bed and a desk.


The man was
Melvin van Dutch, an ex-detective. He came here to investigate some rumors,
disturbing ones. Rumors of murder, monsters and ghosts at night. It was day, so
Melvin van Dutch decided to sleep until it was night. He landed on his bed,
closed his eyes and fell asleep faster then he would've expected.


He woke up
having a headache. ''It sure is dark here, I can barely see.'' He spotted a
note, and barely managed to read it. He decided to take a look through the
dark, deserted hotel. He heard footsteps, but saw no one. He felt an arm over
his shoulder, but no one was there. Was his mind playing tricks with him? Maybe
it were the ghosts, and maybe that rumor was true. ''No that can't be right,
what the hell is going on here?'' he thought. He heard a loud groan, and
something was approaching...

Do you like this story? Let me know in the comments!

(10-01-2012, 05:21 PM)Robosprog Wrote: [ -> ]So you wrote a story to basically advertise your custom story.

nah if you see it like that, I'll delete that part. It's just that I came up with it while making the custom story.

You named the protagonist and the main location after your forum alias...gooooood. Your writing skills could use some work too. Use basic imagery and stop overusing the short sentence; it's good for building suspense in your writing, but when used for every sentence it really limits the amount of information you can put out. Work on your diction as well.


OT (kinda): If you want your mod to be popular, put plenty of time and effort into the mapping and scripting so that it resembles the original game (or better); posting gimmicky stuff like this won't improve the quality or its appeal to the community.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it.

I thought Hotel Smoke sounded pretty cool and yea I named him after me because he has my voice in the custom story

But it's not about my mod/custom story, it's about this little story I've written. Heck you could change the name to John and the location to Hotel dingadong if you think that sounds better.

If I posted it for my mod it would be in the Custom Stories , TC's & Mod Development section.

But I appreciate the tips, I don't want to spoil much about my custom story so yea... The only thing that I will say is that it has a twist if you know what I mean.

Quite interesting if you ask me.

(10-01-2012, 07:07 PM)KingWolf Wrote: [ -> ]Quite interesting if you ask me.

This.

i can dive under another thread and fish out a story chapter i did, to show you how to craft a story well and give good description if you want melvin. just give the word man. i should mention its action, not horror though.

@Thedarkside It's ok if it's not horror. And I would like that.

I don't know much about storytelling itself, but years of learning english as a second language (writing essays and whatnot) have at least provided me with some understanding on how to craft sentences. So maybe I can try and give you some feedback on your style of writing...

First of all I'm with andyrockin123 - I think some longer sentences here and there would make your style more flowing and more pleasing to read. In many cases you could simply combine two or even more of your sentences into one.

Secondly I think you could try to avoid listing minor details. Try to give vivid descriptions of interesting things like the location, thoughts, sounds etc. instead of describing every step the character takes. This is especially apparent in this part:

Quote: He lifted his eyebrows, and thought ''Whatever''. He just kept walking, until he reached the stairs. ''This must be the way to the second floor.'' He thought logically. He walked up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he looked to his right. There was a door, open. He felt suspense. And walked towards the open door. The door said ''Room 206'', his room. He quickly looked what was behind the door.

Could just be something like this:
The stairs were creaking under his weight and each of his steps rose clouds of dust into the dry air. The second floor consisted of two rows of identical green doors, dimly lit by what little light came through a small window at the end of the corridor. One of the doors was openend slightly, the number "206" barely visible under a layer of dirt.

Well, maybe a bit flowery, but you get the idea Often its more than enough to imply that something has happened. For example the reader will already assume that the man is going to go to his room, so you don't need to tell that explicitly and can use the space to create atmosphere instead.

(10-02-2012, 04:27 PM)Hirnwirbel Wrote: [ -> ]I don't know much about storytelling itself, but years of learning english as a second language (writing essays and whatnot) have at least provided me with some understanding on how to craft sentences. So maybe I can try and give you some feedback on your style of writing...

First of all I'm with andyrockin123 - I think some longer sentences here and there would make your style more flowing and more pleasing to read. In many cases you could simply combine two or even more of your sentences into one.

Secondly I think you could try to avoid listing minor details. Try to give vivid descriptions of interesting things like the location, thoughts, sounds etc. instead of describing every step the character takes. This is especially apparent in this part:

Quote: He lifted his eyebrows, and thought ''Whatever''. He just kept walking, until he reached the stairs. ''This must be the way to the second floor.'' He thought logically. He walked up the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he looked to his right. There was a door, open. He felt suspense. And walked towards the open door. The door said ''Room 206'', his room. He quickly looked what was behind the door.

Could just be something like this:
The stairs were creaking under his weight and each of his steps rose clouds of dust into the dry air. The second floor consisted of two rows of identical green doors, dimly lit by what little light came through a small window at the end of the corridor. One of the doors was openend slightly, the number "206" barely visible under a layer of dirt.

Well, maybe a bit flowery, but you get the idea Often its more than enough to imply that something has happened. For example the reader will already assume that the man is going to go to his room, so you don't need to tell that explicitly and can use the space to create atmosphere instead.

Nice! It's things like this that inspire me Thanks