Secant : Page 2 arrives

[Scarletlight]

Im new to this writing stuff so excuse me if its pretty bad.. Just looking for opinions as I might do a short comic project over summer.

Secant
Prologue
Looks like another. That makes three today, should be the lot. As he falls out of the chamber to the floor onto his pale face I wander what his trait is. Excuse me, how rude. I jump right in narrating without any explanation. If I may then.

This is the continent of Fiotallice. Money, electronics, slavery ; the works. Its not slavery in the eyes of a human reaping the benefits of the hard work we mutants are forced to put in. More on that later but in order to continue the telling of events you need to know about the Secant. Secant is one of a number of machines which 'manufacture' mutants without any input what so ever. These things really do make something out of nothing and the Secant is high tech with a difference. Secant is renowned for producing useless mutants.

Judging from the one I see before me this seems meerly to be myth because it has already learnt to stand and is skipping around the Secant like an elf at santa's workshop. I continue to ponder its special trait. Is it incredibly fast ? Would explain the running but..it doesn't look that fast right now. Is it strong? Again would make sense because he is far bulkier than the usual anorexic skeleton that falls out of the Secant. Still its not overly large and so I rule this possibility out. Perhaps I am wrong. It could have nothing going for it. I mean after all it is a Secant mutant. It hasn't produced anything decent for years now.

Before I came to exist the Secant machine did and the researchers that created it were amazingly proud. It was capable of producing human clones which were ideal for the jobs no one else wanted to do. The research team grew greedy however and began to experiment creating new machines generating different kinds of mutant. They had a machine for every purpose, the Cosine which created mutants with additional 'parts' for efficiency, the Cosecant specialized in the creation of combat mutants ; you know the super fast, super strong and super awesome types. And lastly the Tangent made a habit of producing mutants like myself, with psychic power. Each individual mutant regardless of machine tends to come with its own unique trait, like me for example possessing the power to talk into peoples minds much like I do to you right now. It was the perfect slave factory in essence, but eventually the researchers began to alter the Secant machine to see if it could produce such usefull mutants. The problem was what they had done caused the creation of ' super mutants ' whom could possess more then one super trait. These would have been great if not for the uncontrollable genocide they were responsible for. Eventually though they grew tired and left, according to legend they began their own society..but I doubt it and im psychic remember.

Anyway after they left the researcher team began to undo their handywork but came across one problem, it seems before leaving the super mutants installed a forcefield on their parent machine to prevent just this kind of thing. Realising they could not destroy the monstrous contraption they attempted to shut it off using magnetic fields. Altering the magnetic field in the lab was a stroke of genious, but it didn't work. Instead of shutting off, the type of mutants created were alterred and that is exactly how the Secant became known for producing retarded mutants.

This one had learnt to run at only a few minutes old and was even saying a few words. This one is no regular Secant mutant.


This is just the prologue, id appreciate any comments as im new to this entirely. Will post in comic form eventually I hope.

[Fenn]

Well your biggest enemy is grammar; this would have sounded much better with fewer run-on's and wordy phrases. I don't know your age, your first language, or how long you spent on this (no need to tell if you don't want) but you'll want someone to read over your script before you add it to the images.

Outside of that, I see lots of potential in this prologue. You have a very flexible plot to work with. Clearly there is a fantasy theme here since you have machines breaking physics by creating something from nothing (Edward Elrich would be in tears right now).You have an interesting situation here: you can come up with some sort of explanation for how this is possible, but in the end the readers will have to possess some suspension of reality.

The mystery of what happened to the super mutants is a great secret that you can introduce at any time. I suggest you think carefully about the role this mystery will play in your plot; it should be substantial considering you mention it. A good idea is to leave it alone for a while and bring it back into relevance later in the plot.

The mutant concept is useful because you have free reign to create countless original characters. I'll be interested to see what kinds of bizzare characters you devise.

Lastly, you have what every manga needs: a conflict/problem. In this case, it's the mutant-vs-human problem.

[Scarletlight]

Well your biggest enemy is grammar; this would have sounded much better with fewer run-on's and wordy phrases. I don't know your age, your first language, or how long you spent on this (no need to tell if you don't want) but you'll want someone to read over your script before you add it to the images.

Outside of that, I see lots of potential in this prologue. You have a very flexible plot to work with. Clearly there is a fantasy theme here since you have machines breaking physics by creating something from nothing (Edward Elrich would be in tears right now).You have an interesting situation here: you can come up with some sort of explanation for how this is possible, but in the end the readers will have to possess some suspension of reality.

The mystery of what happened to the super mutants is a great secret that you can introduce at any time. I suggest you think carefully about the role this mystery will play in your plot; it should be substantial considering you mention it. A good idea is to leave it alone for a while and bring it back into relevance later in the plot.

The mutant concept is useful because you have free reign to create countless original characters. I'll be interested to see what kinds of bizzare characters you devise.

Lastly, you have what every manga needs: a conflict/problem. In this case, it's the mutant-vs-human problem.

My this is embarrassing. Being 18 years old with english as my first language and living in england having my grammar knocked is..pretty bad haha Never been my strong point I must admit. Now you point it out though I will be sure to rework the grammar as best I can.

Yeah fantasy stuff is my hole deal I guess.
Thanks for taking the time to help me out, I have noted down the things you said and will be working on developing the ideas tomorrow.

[Fenn]

My this is embarrassing. Being 18 years old with english as my first language and living in england having my grammar knocked is..pretty bad haha Never been my strong point I must admit. Now you point it out though I will be sure to rework the grammar as best I can.

Yeah fantasy stuff is my hole deal I guess.
Thanks for taking the time to help me out, I have noted down the things you said and will be working on developing the ideas tomorrow.

I wouldn't take it too harsh, I think more than anything you fell victim to train of thought. When people are excited about what they are writing, they tend to run on and tend to forget punctuation and other breaks that help the reader. For example:

Before I came to exist the Secant machine did and the researchers that created it were amazingly proud. It was capable of producing human clones which were ideal for the jobs no one else wanted to do. The research team grew greedy however and began to experiment creating new machines generating different kinds of mutant. They had a machine for every purpose, the Cosine which created mutants with additional 'parts' for efficiency, the Cosecant specialized in the creation of combat mutants ; you know the super fast, super strong and super awesome types. And lastly the Tangent made a habit of producing mutants like myself, with psychic power.

should read more like:

Before I came to exist, the Secant machine did, and the researchers that created it were amazingly proud. It was capable of producing human clones, which were ideal for the jobs no one else wanted to do. The research team grew greedy, however, and began to experiment, creating new machines which generated different kinds of mutant. They had a machine for every purpose: the Cosine, which created mutants with additional 'parts' for efficiency; the Cosecant, which specialized in the creation of combat mutants (you know, the super fast, super strong and super awesome types); and lastly the Tangent, which made a habit of producing mutants like myself with psychic power.

Really it's just commas and making sure your verb tenses all align. If you say "this thing which," and follow it with, "and that thing..." you need to say "that thing which." That's really it, that and commas.

My first post probably didn't indicate this, but I'm very interested and eager to see where this goes.

[Scarletlight]

Thanks for all the help fenn. Glad you like it, hope ya drop in again
So I decided to run this as a written novel over on a writing forum that I just joined to improve my writing. Buttt since this is MT I thought I would give it to you guys in the comic form.
Here is the cover art :





As I said, I have worked on the script but am deciding to deliver it to you all in manga form so it will be a little slower than the script writing.

[Fenn]

Badass cover right there.

[Evil_Cake]

cool

[Scarletlight]

Thanks, the two of you.

Well heres the first page. Tried my hand at digital toning for the first time ever. Pretty tricky stuff huh.


and a shot of the original art work before editing :


Any crit would be appreciated as I'm trying to improve here .
I might post the novel version here too depending on how I feel..

[Tsig]

It's looking great =) The plot seems interesting and like it has a ton of potential. And like Fenn said, it's "flexible" too, which is always a good thing. The art is unique, attractive, and the details really set the mood for the story and seem to fit it flawlessly. The cover's awesome, and I definitely want to read more ^^. I don't think I really have any critiques so far haha so keep up the good work!

[Fenn]

Visually, it's great, stunning even, save the woman in the last panel. Her head looks a little too long and puffy. I haven't seen her head-on yet, so it's possible she's supposed to look heavy-set. But even then, her chin is too big and her eyes and nose seem too high on her head. Her arm is also in an unnatural position.

You have a typo: "Looking at him, hes incredible pale." Damn apostrophes lol. Y'know, if you are comfortable with spoiling the dialogue you can post the script for a page before you add it--or PM it to me--and I'll edit it. I consider myself a pretty good editor. If you're interested let me know; if not I won't be offended in the least.

Looking good, keep it up!