Novella Completed! (Knee Deep in the Dead)

EDIT: Do not read this thread yet! The novella is finished!

Go here first:
http://sites.google.com/site/theplutoniasaga/Home

Or here:
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4131496/1/Knee_Deep_in_the_Dead

Then come back to post feedback and other comments if you like.

(posts edited after publication)

Excerpt:

I hate space travel. I've been sitting in a titanium ice chest for the last two hours with no TV and no radio, crammed shoulder-to-shoulder with seven of my shift buddies and marinating in a collective body odor that burns my eyes. If I don't keep myself distracted I'll pass out, either from the smell or my starving gut. So I'm finally using my PDA as a personal log. Had it since I arrived two months ago and never touched it except to check for memos from Sarge, or updates from Max about Poker Night. Always wanted to take a stab at journalism.

Feel like a sardine in here. On the outside, the ship looked huge: It's a standard transport shuttle, about fifty-by-thirty feet of bulky titanium hull, six stiff legs and six big lights fore and aft. When docked, it looks like a clunky wind-up tick the size of a small house. But inside it's as cramped as an armored personnel carrier, only so cold your fingertips go numb. Passengers sit with their backs to the walls in plastic-coated seats that I'd bet good money are made of concrete. They strapped me in so tight I can hardly turn my head, and scratching my ass is out of the question. Any other marine would sit back and call it cozy. Color me disillusioned.

Nothing like replying to my own shit. Here's another just in case.

Excerpt:

We're drifting over the south end of Phobos Base where the hangar is installed, designed like an undersized aircraft carrier because cargo ships only stick around long enough for pickups and deliveries. I guess pilots park on the roof wherever they see a blinking white "H" and dump everything onto the landing pad for the lab boys to collect later (including new recruits). But all shuttles need clearance to land, so we're waiting for command control to pick up the phone.

"Command Control, this is Mars Shuttle Persephone. Reinforcements have arrived. Request permission to land. Acknowledge."

I'm told all it takes is Mad Max's hello and the radio guys respond like trained dogs—she may look like a boy, but she's got pipes deep and smooth like Lauren Bacall's that get most fellas stiff after three words.

Excerpt:

As the most experienced grunt on the team, I've been tasked with guarding the ship in the pilot's place. I'm packing my sidearm and nothing else, and I got a hunch it's not just because we only brought eight shotguns. Sarge hasn't trusted me from the beginning—not since he read my dossier and found out why my last superior officer is currently in Alaska with a body cast. Probably been looking for a shit job to give me for two months, but all jobs on Mars are shit jobs.

"Your suit's got four days of air, Corporal. If you run out, just hold your breath 'til we get back."

He always calls me Corporal. It's the rank my beloved country relieved me of prior to shitting me down the galaxy's toilet.

tl;dr
But keep at it!

Too detailed for a forum fiction, especially doomworld, where things move fast. Make it more streamlined on action. Put some talking characters while you're at it. Make shorter posts. If done so, and if you accompany it with pictures and links to special effects, then people's attention will gather.

It's not intended as forum fiction--I was planning to put it on fanfiction.net and my deviantart page when I finished it. I just posted part of it here on the forums for general feedback while I was in the process of writing it. It's geared less toward action and mayhem and more toward horror-thriller and Lovecraftian mental/emotional collapse, but if what you say is true then maybe I should take it elsewhere.

Thanks a mil for the response. Got a little discouraged for a while.

printz said:

Make it more streamlined on action.

Translation: Probably could use some impse.

Don't be discouraged, champ! I'm sure the ones reading in silent awe are appreciating the horror-thriller and Lovecraftian mental/emotional collapse you've taken.

Even if you are taking this elsewhere, it's not going to destory the forum if you continue to post your progress, at least to get it on forum record.

Coopersville said:

Translation: Probably could use some impse.

Aha! I knew it was missing something!

Thanks, Coopersville, I might post another after I polish it up a bit.

Impie said:

more toward horror-thriller and Lovecraftian mental/emotional collapse

If so, then do how you wish. I've read one Lovecraft novella so far, yet it was a bit difficult for me to understand (yeah, hardly any dialogue), especially that I'm not an English speaker. If you mean for that style, go for it then.

Excerpt:
I'm kicking back on the shuttle's roof, listening to the team's chatter and gazing out across the gorgeous Phobos landscape, or what little I can see of it over the lip of the crater. And if it's anything like the rest of the moon's surface, I can already tell I'm not missing anything. Christ, an eternity of dull gray hills, pock-marked with craters of all sizes. I had my fill of gray at Mars Base, so my eyes are screaming in boredom-induced pain. Fortunately I noticed a handful of Martian debris floating off in the distance that's far less oppressive than the ugly sky and relatively interesting to stare at while waiting for somebody to say something.


-- excerpt from audio log --

ROWLINS: Two people manning the control tower at any given time, right?

KINNEY: That what it says in the manual?

ROWLINS: I thought it was policy or something. There should be somebody here at all times, right?

MAX: I dunno. Shuttlecraft don't land more than once a month. But there should always be somebody mannin' the radio in command control, no exceptions.

MCGEE: Don't forget who's running this circus, Preacher. UAC eggheads got about as much sense—Hell, I could round up a team o' shit-flingin' chimps to call the shots here, they'd still have their act together better than these fuckin' idiots.

SARGE: Can it, McGee.

KINNEY: Hahaha! Waitaminnit, chimps? Where do Petro an' Trog enlist?

PETRO: Shut up, Kinney.

ROWLINS: How many staff members?

MCGEE: Serious. Call the zoo right now.

MAX: Three-hundred eighty employees from all Mars Base branches, divvied up between Phobos and Deimos. I'm not sure the exact number per station. A hundred ninety, two hundred…

ROWLINS: I don't suppose they would all take their lunch breaks at once?

KINNEY: Hey, I thought they was understaffed. We the cavalry, right?

BUTCH: Yeah, I thought we was backup?

MAX: God, I can't think with you assholes talkin'!

MCGEE: Max is so hot when she's angry.

KINNEY: Hahahahaha!

SARGE: Enough chatter! Barrett, sift through those desks for security cards so we don't have to hack every door in this place.

MAX: Yessir.

TRAGUE: Nobody in the bathrooms, Sarge.

SARGE: Everyone regroup. Rec room. Now. Corporal, report your status every five minutes so I know you're awake out there.

Impie,

I dig it man, I love your style and your main character has a good punch to him. I know it's easy to get discouraged but I think you have somethn special here.
Don't give up man, you have at least one adoring fan :)

I like it. I'd like to read a complete story based on what you have. My only suggestion is to continue to stay within the parameters of the game's story. The official adaptations of the game tend not to; both the novels and the movie made the monsters something other than demons.

I guess all I'm saying is you must kill the demons.

Brilliant stuff so far. Keep it going.

Cernel Joson said:

I like it. I'd like to read a complete story based on what you have. My only suggestion is to continue to stay within the parameters of the game's story. The official adaptations of the game tend not to; both the novels and the movie made the monsters something other than demons.

I guess all I'm saying is you must kill the demons.

Oh god, I hated how the novels and movie jumped the shark. Don't worry, I'm not about to do any of that kinda silliness. All I'm really doing is expanding on the story premise.

I'm up to Entry 10, but here's the last entry I'm posting on the forum. Next time I post an update, the novella will be finished.

-----------------

Excerpt:

Phobos was quiet. Dead quiet.

Periodically the radio would emit a weird sound, but never anything identifiable; too distant from my team's headsets to register clearly, but some managed to put strangely specific images in my head. A team of chefs carving watermelons with dull knives. Someone recovering from a grueling workout. A blowtorch exhausting its fuel supply. Feeding time in a kennel. All popping up to break the stillness at random intervals from sixty seconds to a half hour—random enough to jolt me every time. I'd freeze and strain my ears until the silence returned, sometimes for so long my muscles started to cramp. Then, for a while, everything was calm again. No sounds at all.

It must've been shock that kept me from speaking, or the fear that so much as opening my mouth would bring another catastrophe. Phobos Base seemed to wait for a cue; off in the distance, the Anomaly stared at me with its flickering green eyes, daring me to say something, like it would do any good.

They won't respond. They're dead. They're dead and I'm next.

Dude.

Excelent.

Wow.

Would you be so kind as to post periodic status updates as you work on this? I know it might be asking a bit but I really would like to hear that this is being finished. I've been refreshing the page for a few days, if only to see an update. . . Please let us know what's up :)

Thanks! Updates wouldn't be a problem. I'm gonna finish Entry 10 today, and that will hopefully mark the halfway point of this thing. I almost left this story on the shelf for good, but it's serving me as a nice break from my original works. If I'm lucky it'll be done in a couple weeks.

Oh, and if you guys can tell me what's effective and what isn't, and why you think so, it'll help me make sure I don't drive this thing into the ground.

I think my explanation for why Doomguy can run around slaughtering demons left and right is less asinine than the movie's. Hope the readers agree.

They die easy. Even the zombie marines, or whatever things control them, are sloppy and inexperienced. They know how to torture the helpless. They’re not used to combat. They have no heads for strategy or organization. I found out the imps can throw fire like grenades, but they always aim at me and never ahead of me, and I’ve seen about half of them abandon their comrades at the first sign of trouble. They recruited the humans as their muscle and maybe to seize a better understanding of the facility and its technology. Or maybe it’s the other way around and the demons are just pets. I give a shit. They’re all gonna die either way.

Up to entry 13 I think. I lost count.

Must...have...MORE!

"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by." - Douglas Adams

Novella's still in the works, but school's trying to get in the way, so it'll take longer than I expected. Here's a piece from a later point in the story, reflecting on part of the original storyline:

After the shooting spree that resulted from Carlyle’s trip through the 'hole, the eggheads on Phobos and Deimos got curious about the innards of their newfound galactic shortcut. The Deimos guys modified one of their security bots and sent it through to Phobos, hoping to document everything it saw during the trip. The video came out all scrambled to hell, and even with a team of techies on it round the clock they couldn’t make it any clearer. I watched it a little while ago; it looks an awful lot like the red static I saw in command control and a number of the TV’s in Phobos Labs, but—and the eggheads were equally puzzled by this—despite the portals’ instantaneous transporting effect, the video is clocked at one hour and twenty-six minutes.

Well, funny things started happening after that experiment, some which I consider awfully terrifying. Apparently Sarge did, too--enough that he saw fit to leave them out of our briefing.

According to Hall’s email correspondence with Deimos’s chief eggheads, technical problems swarmed Phobos’s brother base two days after the probe went through the gateways. Electronics went on the fritz all over the installation, mostly insignificant crap like monitors frizzing out, radio transmissions cutting off abruptly, and lights flickering for no reason. One email made mention of odd red lines on the televisions that chilled my blood.

The malfunctions reached the Anomaly and became much worse. I found a radio transmission from a shaken Deimos security officer who claimed something had come out of the gateway. He wouldn’t say what. The TDG had activated itself and something came out and dragged one of the engineers through the portal. They’d pulled the plug and sealed off Deimos Anomaly, but heard all sorts of activity going on in there—footsteps, metal banging, whispering. Eventually all was quiet, and they unsealed the lab to find everything exactly as they’d left it. After that, Deimos didn’t send out any messages for a while, so everyone figured things were back to normal.

One morning Phobos called Deimos to arrange the next probe experiment and nobody picked up. They weren’t even getting a return signal, like the radio on Deimos was off the hook. That’s when they got the call from UAC-Mars. They couldn’t get through to Deimos, either: the entire moon had vanished from the sky.


I think I'm a few entries away from the end of the first draft, and then it'll be time for the first major edit. Might clock this at under a hundred pages or so. I can't remember the last time I stuck with a story of this length 'til it was finished.

Project's still alive, just delayed thanks to school. I have a lot of writing courses this semester that are keeping me in a writing spirit, so with a little luck I'll get back to the novella this weekend. Still developing the storyline in my head as I type this.

Current status: 15 Entries, 52 pages, 15000 words, and body count on the rise....

Son of a bitch!

Hope you get them done soon!

Well I've made it to the 16th "chapter", and I should be able to get a couple more written by the end of next week. I'm doing more school research this semester than ever, and it's gotten a bit annoying. But I'm set on finishing this damn thing, and I've been working on it every week, little by little.

Maybe I can turn it in for extra credit....

EXCITING UPDATE (for the few of you who are still following this)

I was joking about doing this story as Creative Writing homework in my last post, but my teacher tells me he's cool with the idea. So the first draft finally has a deadline: I'm finishing it by the start of Spring Break and once I get it back, depending how serious the needed edits are, I'll have it published the week following the break (or the week after).

So sit tight, folks.

March 10th is on the way--the first day of my spring break. This damn thing might be finished soon, so stay tuned.

Rest assured, at least one fan is eagerly awaiting :P

I've read up to #4 and so far it is a great story! Well above the average, and at least as good as the first DOOM novel. Please keep up the good work, Impy, and take your time to make it as detailed and polished as you wish.
I'm glad I stumbled onto this forum. This thread alone makes it worthwhile. Thank you.

The story itself is finished. Now it's time for the painful editing process to make it readable.

26 entries + prologue + epilogue = 101 pages = 20,760 words

Don't worry, we're (somewhat) patient around here.

There comes a time when a writer has to put down the pen and kick his offspring out of the nest. I decided today was that time.

Knee Deep in the Dead is finished, published, and ready for whatever praise or flames come its way. You can find it here:

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/4131496/1/Knee_Deep_in_the_Dead

And by all means, write a review on the site, or come back to this thread and post your comments, be they supportive or hateful! I like to know what people really think of my work.

This is the whole enchilada, by the way. I didn't divide it into chapters because of their sporadic lengths, but you can skip to where you left off by using Ctrl-F and punching in the chapter number.

Final word count clocked in at 21,188 (104 pages).