Doom 64 Fic: The Staging Area Part 1

[RDMonkey]

Hey guys, i wrote a fan fic a while back called "Doom 64: The last battle" and i wanted to go to the beginning and lead all of events to that point. So here it is and enjoy. Again, some story edits included :3. The Staging Area.
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(*1 hour before the incident*)

You and your best friend, as well as 3 other squad members, were just sent to investigate some murders in the DELTA-3 sector, where the long forgotten "DOOM" project was being held. This did not come to a surprise to you though. On the way you began having flash backs...of the same project which opened a few years ago on the Deimos Facility. But just as quickly as you remembered it, your drop ship landed and the door opened. The cold martian breeze was familiar. The feeling of death.

"Hey! Buddy wake up! You alright?" asked your friend. You snapped your head up in surprise.

You looked back at him and said, "Yeah i'm good. Just some bad memories hittin' me."

"Oh yeah, the Deimos thing huh? Well listen, we gotta mission to do so shape up an lets go." responded your friend.

The door opens and a dark hall is revealed. You and your squad walked in. You turned on your flash light and saw a splotch of blood on the floor...but noticed there was dripping...you looked up and nearly vomited. An indescribably destroyed corpse. The body appeared slashed and burned beyond any possible recognition. However, you did notice a shredded lab coat on the remains of the corpse. It was possibly a scientist (of course it was so gruesome, a lab coat may have flown from a different victim and stuck itself to this body, you can never tell when demonic creatures are involved).

Minutes had passed wandering through the dark and silent halls of the DELTA-3 sector. Almost nothing had happened since the discovery of the dead scientist. Until, a screeching sound was heard from one of the vents. A few seconds of silence passed until one of your squad members vanished. You jerked back in shock as another member vanished before you. Shots were fired in almost every direction. Suddenly, a large humanoid demon had jumped down and threw a ball of fire towards you. You were struck but just barely, not enough to cause too much damage. But by the time you turned back to face it, your whole squad was decimated. Thankfully, your friend survived and shot it about 23 times before it fell with a fading shriek.

"Dude...go...get *cough* *cough*...help...*gargle* *choke*..." studdered your friend. He looked you one more time in the eye, then with his final breath, and said, "f-f-fi-fini-sh- the m-m-mission." His eyes rolled up, then closed slightly. And died.

With tears in your eyes and God as your witness, you vowed to avenge his death and take the task laid before you. Your mission was reactivated...


.....KILL THEM ALL.....


You looked around and found a teleporter which was being worked on by scientists (emphasis on WAS). You were clueless to as how these things worked. You see several sets of colorful button and switches. Fortunately, during marine training a few years back, you remember that to activate a teleporter had something to do with Flipping the 3rd, 6th, and 12th switches, push the EXTRCT, TO, and PNT buttons, and select the cordinates of your destination. You punched in the coordinates, DELTA-3 A-635E. This was the coordinate set closest to the objective. The marines here called this place The Staging Area....

The teleporter throws you into a long tunnel. In reality, teleportation is almost instant. But the past memories of Deimos puts you in a fear-gripped daze. The process felt more like hours than seconds. But when you did arrive, you felt something you've never felt before. You couldn't quite put your finger on it, but it felt a bit familiar. You get a feeling that the rest of this mission wont be as easy as you had hoped. Pistol locked and loaded, you look around and head out.

To Be Continued ~ The Staging Area Part 2!

[Impie]

"Always choose the right word, not its second cousin." -- Mark Twain (i think)

In spite of the frequent violations of this maxim, the fic had the potential to be interesting as far as concept goes. I like the idea of a countdown to the events of Doom 64 -- what happened mere hours before all hell broke loose. But two major flaws killed it in the womb. These two flaws basically encompass everything that's wrong here.

Bear in mind, I'm never out to discourage (though real writers are never discouraged). I always give my frank impression as a fellow writer. Take it or leave it.

1) Between "the feeling of death" and the first bit of dialogue, I feel like there's a whole chapter missing. It's like I was about to go into a flashback, and then my jackass buddy snapped me out of it before it started. I almost ask why I'm deprived of a potentially interesting war-scarred flashback, until I get to Flaw #2 and suddenly find myself thankful for it.

2) I saw and felt nothing. I wish I could pick a passage that stands out as an example, but I can't: every description that might be a paragraph in a normal horror story is reduced to a mere sentence here. There's no emotional investment, no metaphor, no tension. It's a laundry list of summarized stuff happening. I actually considered rewriting one paragraph as a summary of two- or three-word sentences to help drive the point home, but then it hit me that the end result would be so close to the actual passage it'd be borderline plagiarism. You've got to use words to paint images in my head or it just doesn't work. That's certainly not saying flowery, over-elaborate prose is the answer; but there's not a metaphor to be found in this whole thing!

And topping it all off, here's the stick of dynamite that blew the bridge:

"With tears in your eyes and God as your witness, you vowed to avenge his death and take the task laid before you."

I've never been hit with so much concentrated cliche before. I busted up laughing when I read that line. That's not a good sign.

The one good point is that you've upgraded from describing gameplay to trying to tell a story. Now you just gotta work harder at it.

My usual advice hasn't changed: figure out what kind of story you wanna tell and read similar works by other authors. Figure out what they did right and practice it yourself. Wash, rinse, repeat.