One of the things that makes it hard to track -- for me -- is the format. Not quite pure prose but not quite a comic-script, either. It makes it more of a challenge to tackle the narrative and try to track the action. I'm not even sure exactly I understand your format.

Take the first line of what I thought was dialogue or narration from Xavier at first:

"XAVIER: In the act of discerning, clarity is everything. Sometimes, an act must be made certain with only the most doubtful perceptions. From the core of his being, Professor Xavier becomes a mental mirror to Cerebro, his mutant detecting apparatus, an eye rolling over events of no less than a reality storm."

I thought this was narration or thought balloon from Xavier, until I got to the second sentence, which is narrating Xavier's action in third person.

Confusing, my friend!

Also, the story seems to start in media res. I feel like I've missed the beginning.

Neither of these are necessarily bad, and it is perhaps what you intended. But it is part of what makes the piece challenging to dive into. That said, it is not boring, and it doesn't have the cloying quality of what we think of as "fan-fiction." It reads like something huge and kind of over-my-head, which is cool ... but daunting.

Sorry that slipped in there! 'Twas a caption, splitting his thoughts.

The formatting mess-ups (and a few others) are gone now. I may pare down some of the individual action, though it's hard to choose between characters. The artist would make all the difference in these 'tableaus'.

How 'bout moving the italicized action to the left of the character names, like a movie script?

Storm catches you up at one point; my soldier characters lurked in the original script! I went with in medias res for the sake of ...brevity. Plot-wise,
it begins as a twin to my 12 Days of Defenders, though the stories become very different. That one
concludes a three-parter. I really want to finish with a top=flight comics script, and I think characters
everyone knows and loves help demonstrate my plot. There's a touch of telling where
showing will extend the plot; it's an attempt to stay brief. In the novel version, I'd tease out the revelations into discoveries. This is a good test for how many characters are viable in action; if these colorful icons become hard to follow, I'll have to carefully depict the naturalistic, regular people. In a larger context, they may fair better! Comics requires abbreviation; short-hand. Ouch, and editing.

I also changed the thread title again to dig at our resident geniuses who might think, "eh, I'll bet I have
a better X-Men story than that guy!" and give it a try! Besides...would Stan Lee have it any other way?!?

.

I have to come back, but Xavier's very well written. Everyone sounds like X-Men!

The threat is mind-blowing, IMO. I honestly could feel the fear that there's nothing they can
do and it's so much bigger than all of them. I am curious to see where you're going with Jean. Hank sounds
exactly like Hank. More than x-3!

In fairness to you, Doot---it was pretty rough on the X-Men, too!
Not to mention all the regular people present in the story.

You can see why I needed Charles Xavier and Jean Grey's help.

From the core of his being, Professor Xavier becomes a mental mirror to Cerebro, his mutant detecting apparatus, an eye rolling over events of no less than a reality storm.

Cyclops is formidable here. I like what you've done with his characterization! He's a very credible team leader,
yet I could relate to him more than, say, his movie counterpart. His use of ambient energies opened facets I didn't know about the character.

Charles and Hank might be even better! Their voices are just great.
Craziest use of Nightcrawler's powers? Check!

You really surprised me with Jean, though. And the bit about Tahrir Square and Storm and Cairo, I think Chris Claremont would've liked. Do you really think no one celebrated Storm's birthday all those years? Huh.
You' may never know how John Byrne feels about it, though, because he doesn't give interviews.

The terror of being on the ground for this thing is immense. It does take an awful lot of concentration.
It's dangerous to super heroes, much less to ordinary people. That's how the stories should be!

Yeah, I should say, I didn't mean that as an insult -- this is clearly meant to be a mind-bending happening, and that effect is definitely achieved. I just know that I missed some stuff the first time around. It's not an easy story to penetrate.

But to paraphrase Peter David, there's no rule that says that just because a story is about superheroes, it necessarily has to be easy. (And PAD was talking about Claremont's X-Men when he said that. )

That could work. I'd be curious to see how it would look. It's cool that you're going for a format beyond conventional prose. It's an interesting conundrum, trying to duplicate the effect of a comic-book page using only text. I think what you've done is workable, and in retrospect maybe it was just some slight editorial hiccups that tripped me up, as opposed to the overall format.

I did read through the story pretty fast, because I wanted to get through it and give you some feedback ... I think that was a mistake, trying to breeze through it so fast, because this requires more time.

This was illuminating. Wouldn't my buddy Joe from down the hall my freshman year be "swell"
right here at IMWAN? This, from a guy I hadn't found in almost twenty years! With his permission, the first mail:

X-CHANGES P.o. Box WAN
New Internet, Infinitia (please print: it's okay to post my letter!)


Early X-Men - I started reading the book slightly before then, going over the last part of the fight with Moses Magnum and the first appearance with Alpha Flight. That was a great time to start reading comics! While I haven't had an opportunity to read most of them since college, I'm familiar with that era of the supergroup. Machine Man - not quite so familiar with, save for the 4 part limited series that placed him in a dystopian cyberpunk future (which is a great read). Bearing in mind my general familiarity, I can not go into specific details about where the characters were in that era. Scott loves Jean and vice-versa, Storm still hasn't gone punk, Kitty Pryde is not even a glimmer in the reader's eye...

I will start off by saying that the best characterizations you have are of Hank McCoy, the Professor and Cyclops. I never got a handle on Cyclops as a character at that time in my life, but what you present seems very consistant with who he was at the time, a veteran of X-Man wierdness, but someone who seemed to be easy enough to relate to on a human level. Hank and the Professor - both intelligent characters with brilliant minds, but I saw a distinction between the two in personality to keep them distinct. The Sub-Mariner cameo made me chuckle because his voice was spot on, which never ceases to amuse me. Nightcrawler, Wolverine and Colossus also kept the status quo for the most part, which is important in a period piece like you've written - with an epic plot that covers so much ground and introduces so many different elements, it is important for the reader to have an anchor to remind them that they're reading an X-Men comic.

The plot itself is very ambitious and fast-paced, perhaps a bit too much at times. The old addage of "less is more" comes to mind considering the sheer number of characters involved. At times, I was wondering who was going to show up next and how the current characters fit in and who was part of what scene. I think a portion of my confusion would have been dispelled if there'd been consistant formatting throughout. It sounds nitpicky and technical, but once the reader starts questioning what is going on, then the flow of a story is interrupted and the reader has to start up again.

To continue on the same vein, I had trouble figuring out what was going on during scenes because the story read mostly as straight dialogue as opposed to a comic book format. I've always had the idea that a comic book is just a movie that hasn't been filmed yet - the process of putting the scenes together visually is called "storyboarding". While the styling of the artwork is up to the artist, setting the scene and describing what is going to happen is part of a good author's duties. In television scripts, the "narrative notes" are located on the left side of the page, connected with a box to the dialogue on the right. Put together, these describe what is going on during a specific instance. Furthermore, it helps organize the elements of the story to flow correctly and smoothly while adhering to the author's ideal of what the story is supposed to be. Since you're not quite writing a TV/movie script, let me put it in a way that might be more relatable -

Imagine that you're reading a comic book to a blind kid. You'll find that reading only the contents of the word balloons doesn't quite capture the experience of a comic book. That's because comic books are much more than mere dialogue, right? But how to convey all the hard-hitting action, the subtle foreshadowing, and the heart-pounding drama of every single the artist passionately rendered? Break it down to what is happening frame by frame and describe what's happening and enjoy the process. With that, you get pacing, continuity, greater depth, and a myriad of other details that largely go unnoticed when crafted by a master.

The one thing that I thought served to undercut the plot was that everyone was explaining everything, rather than finding answers during the plot itself. "Show, don't tell" is the other axiom that I try to live by when writing and in so doing, stay true to the characters. All things mutant, Cerebro and psychic are the domain of Professor X. Literature, loqutiousness and science (genetics in particular) are the hallmark of the Beast's knowledge. Each and every character has something that they are good at, but are truely challenged when they are outside of their realms. Finding the answers or to find someone to tell them the answers, can enrichen the plot in ways that you never quite considered before.

Overall, the story was an ambitious homage to the X-Men. It had a lot of very intelligent concepts that I think could have been more effective with a bit more narration, perhaps a bit over the head of a 13-year old kid, but what kid reads comics these days ; ) I admire your ability to put your script out there and your love of superheroes.


I have to wrap it up because I have to get ready for bed and have some quality time with my wife, but if you choose to follow my advice and do another pass at it, I'll be more than happy to read and critique again. Perhaps I'll even take a stab at it and let you critique my work.


Your friend

- Joe Braband

My thanks goes to Joe again! What an awesome way to reconnect.

Some version might be a good film script; I'd love to write one that gets picked, for sure! The insights into movie script writing alone would be worth the trouble of making one.
I also gained some insight into writer/ artist divisions and think of how, say, Neil Gaiman or Alan Moore lavish good descriptions to inspire their artists. Write like you're inspiring someone to really see, and you can fly towards any ambition you wish.

I've combed over the first part, again, for errors. If there's anything hanging anyone up,
I'd listen and try to change for clarity. I really do believe in this story!

I really enjoyed that story. I thought it got stronger as the story came along...I wonder what happened to PVT Holt afterwards. Now that might make an interesting story I felt it ended strongly and I would love to see the action drawn out for all to see...hmmm...if only we could find the time.

RAY (in Old Norse):
RAY :
Då vi er levande igen, för den förste gång i busund ár *

That's cool!

*Then we are living again, for the first time in a thousand years.

NICOLA: You! Gospodin, do you understand now my language?
COLOSSUS: Da, Before, I could not, but now you are speaking some early form of Russian. I am not well versed in these things.


CYCLOPS: And what of you, Machine Man? If you’re unlike any before you, surely you are some mutation in the truest sense?

MACHINE MAN (sitting cross legged, spot-welding himself): Possibly, with the environmental damages done, all of humankind will have to mutate some way to survive. I’m model x-51, so I was a born X-Man, except mutants have parents. Let’s just say, my birth certificate would make a run for President kinda tricky!

viewtopic.php?f=29&t=71279 (technically, it follows the Defenders version, chronologically)

Damn over a thousand hits! I wonder if this is one of those things visitors pick over to see if it's any good?

You need some art to go with this.

Bump for being Mad Ambitious.

OH, awesome, thanks. It's very hard to write serial characters without the benefit of serialized sub-plots! Then, you want to take the reader on a hell of a ride!