Action Adventure / Arctic

You do a really good job describing the scenery and over all atmosphere. Some of the lines were kind of lame like the whole “good night” thing. But whatever. You should write plot-lines for first person shooter video games.

Good job.

It’s difficult to make a sensible critique of something that is a work in progress.  It’s a bit “barebones” as it stands and could benefit from abit more descriptive background to flesh it out.  

Where does this go in the project?  Is this an Introduction, or the beginning of a chapter?  Either way, it’s really good, with a solid opening sentence, great dialogue, and plot-driving details in just the right places.  (“Cloud of pink,” “wisps of fog drifting,” etc.)  It’s short, to the point, and very effective.  It would make an excellent prologue.  Thanks for letting me read this.

This was great, a lot of the action/adventure stuff never has enough action/adventure, so I did not find this lacking. This was good, and it had a mournful tone at the end, but is this a short story or part of a novel? It would make a great novel.

Try to avoid passive sentences:

’...is all that can be heard…’

As this is from your first sentence, I’d rewrite it for maximum impact, eg:

‘Sergeant Joe Hudson and his eight-man Special Ops team head for the snowy tundra of the Alaskan interior beaneath the bone deep “whump” “whump” of helicopter rotors.’

Better? I think it is and it certainly reads better starting with the subject of the sentence rather than the more obscure helicopter rotors. You’ll notice I’ve added ‘helicopter’ because I think some folks might find rotors confusing – a lawnmower perhaps?

You also do the passive on the next sentence:

’...headset Joe was wearing.’

and here:

‘A thump is heard as his round is fired.’

I’d also try to write for brevity and you could edit this line to make it shorter and therefore punchier – which is what an action adventure piece is all about. Eg:

“Five minutes out.” Says the co-pilot.

Then, if you want, you can mention the headset.

Whooah, this line is not good at all:

‘He holds up his hand fingers spread to relay the message to his team.’

‘Hand fingers’? That is a very odd expression! Why not say:

‘He holds up five fingers to his team.’

You don’t need to tell us he is relaying it to his team – with a hand singal in a small and nosy helicopter we can figure that bit out.

Try to write short sentences when it’s concerning action. Long sentences slow events down. Here’s my rewrite of one longer sentence:

‘The Blackhawk helicopter hovers at the insertion point and Joe dives out.’

We don’t need open doorway.

Same approach here:

‘His team land next to him and take up defensive positions until the Blackhawk departs.’

Do we NEED to know about ‘the eastern ridge of the valley.’? If not, cut it.

This is a good line:

‘The silence is crisp and almost visible with wisps of fog drifting by on the cold air.’

Decription is often neglected but the odd line here and there can convey a lot to the reader. In fact, your piece could so with more – show us the snow covered mountains and blinding sun and the gale around the troops etc. You are trying to write a scene which feels real, so let the reader experience it.

‘he moves out along the bottom of the ravine’

Try and be specific with action. ‘Moves’ is neutral, which is exactly what you do NOT want. You want to use words that tell us HOW he moves. If he’s moving slowly or stealthily, use words like ‘creep’ or ‘pad’ (if on snow) or perhaps even ‘scuttle’ etc. The exact choice of words may seem minor but they convey the atmosphere WITHOUT stopping the action. Work on this.

Again:

‘looks through his scope’

‘Looks’ tells us nothing. What about ‘peers’ or ‘squints’ through the scope (if blinded by the sun).

This isn’t bad but it’s not exciting enough for an action adventure piece. Partly this is because of your passive writing but also because you choose neutral and bland words and also don’t convey the scene to me enough via description.

One of my favourite films is ‘Where Eagles Dare’, with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton. Watch this (it’s mainly set in the snowy Alps) and describe the film: how the snow sounds underfoot; the jagged mountains; the sun high in the sky etc. Then use these descriptions in your piece here and it will read more convincingly and hopefully should be exciting too.

You have a great description in your first line, but that feeling needs to be spread evenly throughout the rest of your piece for it to be of maximum effect.

I like this version much better.  You’ve done a good job of really detailing the setting so that we can get into this scene more.  I could clearly see what was happening much more so in this version than the last.

The info-dump regarding what Opfor was after at the end seems a little forced and awkward.  I think that showing us the symbol is enough for us to figure out what they took.  This special ops team wouldn’t be privy to the information either if their main objective was just to prevent an ambush of the convoy.  They would be on a need to know basis only.  You could throw in Joe’s thoughts as to what they were their to protect etc. but coming right out and saying it seems a little much.

Nice revision.

I am really hoping that you are going to expand on this piece. I think that it is a good start but you can do so much more with this piece than what you have done already.

I feel like it was lacking specific details about the equipment in the rush to simply use the specific nomenclatures, model numbers.  What condition was the gear in?  What did the HUD display?  yes the m203 was attached to his m4, so what?  Why should I care? was the SGT uncontentious checking to make sure it was secured properly? That’s what I used to do with the m209/m-16.  I’d always finger it while standing around.