63 replies to this topic

[DLibrasnow]

Thanks spynovelfan....yes, I do tend to lay it on pretty thick. Yikes, you're really going to notice that in the chapter that I just posted (when Qwerty gets around to moderating it)
But I really do appreciate good constructive criticism, I know there are some typos in there and grammar issues, but you pointed out a couple of issues that I had not considered (e.g. "he thought to himself")
You seemed to pick up on some of the key plot points that I hope to develop as I get further into my story.

[spynovelfan]

Good, good. Looking forward to it.

[Qwerty]

Chapter Two up now!

[DLibrasnow]

Thanks Devin.

[Qwerty]

Not a problem.

[Lazenby880]

Okay Darren, I have read That Predatory Instinct.

Firstly a minor quibble, this is a James Bond story so please change 'millimeter' to 'millimetre' and 'favorite' to 'favourite'. Just a personal issue of mine, but I do think that Bond novels / novellas / short stories work much better when written in British English (I remember being peeved when my first Bond fan fiction Knight of Shadows had been converted into U.S. English on AJB way back).

At first I thought you were taking the hawk / mouse analogy a bit too far, on re-reading it actually works really quite well. I especially like the way you turned that on its head in the final paragraph by drawing a comparison between Bond and the mouse instead.

As far as the violence is concerned I do not think that you went into too much disturbing detail. The only point on which I feel you maybe did detail too much was the description of the weaponry; it was a little militaristic and more reminiscent of the contemporary thrillers. That said, I like much of your prose and way with words. True, some sentences could be cleaned up a bit, such as, "In reality the den was actually a basement ..." Nonetheless as I say I especially liked your final paragraph as well as this: "The spectacle of the hawk

Edited by Lazenby880, 30 December 2005 - 03:20 AM.

[DLibrasnow]

Some really good points there...thank you. Even though I was born and raised in the UK, being an editor in the United States has led me to getting into the practice of using American English spellings. I will try and watch out for these American-isms from now on.
Good point about too much detail on the weapons. This was intentional but I probably did take it too far. The references to the weaponry and even down to the type of pipe Hargreaves smokes in Chapter 1 was an attempt to imitate Fleming's use of product placement (as it were). I actually do a lot of research on the products I mention.
I was in the military for two years (and yes, I drew on my experiences in that sniper position for that description in Chapter 1), but that said I have little general knowledge on rifles and so I did some research on what an agent might use.
I am glad you did not think the violence was too disturbing, I was less concerned about the description of the hawks attack than I was on the more personal violence towards Bond when he is captured. I actually suggested that Qwerty put some warning onto the story alerting people to the use of "extreme violence." I guess in this sense that I am sometimes my worst critic.
As for the style, I don't want to write an EON (or McClory for that matter) Bond adventure unless we are talking about the earlier movies like ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE or FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE. Of course I will never be as good as Fleming but I am not interested in equipping Bond with all those ingenious gadgets, which I feel allow the filmakers to cheat to a certain extent when it comes to Bond escaping from situations - "Oh let me just pull out this magic marker that converts into a mini-hovercraft." As you know in the Fleming books there was The Armourer who equipped Bond with his weapons. That's about the extent of his role in my fanfic.
As for the era...it is most certainly set in the present-day.
Another thing I feel strongly about is location. I do not plan to have my Bond visit a part of the world where I have never been. I live in Maryland and modeled Smith's house on my landlord's (or at least that is what I had pictured in my head when I was writing it.) The one exception so far is the discussion of Zhoran's homeland, which I researched through the written accounts of people who have visited that area. But since Bond was not there and had only read about it too I guessed that was okay.

[Qwerty]

Chapter 3 up now!

[DLibrasnow]

Thank you Devin...some major plot points in this chapter and I'm guessing that the last line will really throw people for a loop LOL.
No matter, that line has always been in the plot, I was working towards it in the first three chapters.

[DLibrasnow]

Lazenby880's quite excellent fanfic (I would recommend everyoe to give it a read) has inspired me to forge ahead with my fanfic, which should see some serious work being applied to it in the coming week.

I had intended on the next chapter taking place in the streets of Washington DC's Chinatowm, but my "location scouting" downtown was interuppted.

[Qwerty]

Chapter 4 - London Calling up now!

[DLibrasnow]

Many thanks Devin.
I tried to inject a number of Bondian elements into what is essentially a short phone call, and hopefully my friend who works at the State Department isn;t a little too upset at her being mentioned in passing.

[Lazenby880]

Hello Darren.

I have read over the latest chapter and the whole thing thus far too. If I could pick up on a general point, I did find the American style a little concerning. It is interesting that you are a fan of Clive Cussler as IN SEARCH OF SECRETS does have that sort of a feel. I am not a fan of Cussler, especially of his later works (MAYDAY!, by contrast, is quite good), although I think that there is a discernable stylistic similarity. I do quite like the Dirk Pitt character, if not how he is written, and I think you could handle a Pitt story very well. My only real complaint, other than the few typos and grammatical errors, is that IN SEARCH OF SECRETS does read like American adventure writing, a la Cussler. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with such writing per se (some of it, indeed, is as gripping as British post-war adventure writing) I do query the extent to which it suits Bond.

So, with that caveat, onward. The chapter is quite succinct and, unless this would jar terribly, you might want to attach the fifth chapter to the fourth one during the editing process. I do like Smith's evident hatred of Bond, and this is something that you effectively develop without taking it too far. In the chapter you do build on Smith's character substantially, and that is to be commended. I very much like the way that the chapter ends, clearly you are well-acquainted with the 'thriller' and understand how to keep your reader going, something that is also reflected at the respective conclusions of the preceding chapters. The pace is fine, it is moving along rather nicely and there are no problems with events unfolding either too quickly or slowly.

My advice, however, would be to read your chapters a couple of times before posting them with a pedant's eye for little mistakes like the lack of apostrophes. I have read advice which said to concentrate on the story and not to worry too much about editing since a poor story, no matter how scintillating the prose, will simply not get published whereas a poorly written yet interesting story can be edited and published. I am not sure about this, especially in the realm of fan fiction where you, effectively, are your own editor unless a family member/friend/fellow CBner has the time to do it for you. The little mistakes do hold back from the enjoyment of the story as your reader has to go over the sentence again to understand your meaning. On the other hand, of course, the writing and ideas *are* good much of the time, and I do not mean to suggest that this problem covers every sentence. Just keep a close eye on the spelling and things like commas, apostrophes where necessary and the like.

Moreover, I have to say I am surprised that intelligence agencies nowadays scour the internet, specifically the BBC and Reuters, in order to find out whether there might be an incident that needs dealing with. You probably know a lot about this more than me, however every time I seem to read a fan fiction set in the modern day the characters seem to log on to a website to find out what is going on. Perhaps this is more accurate than I realise but for me it jars; it seems unlikely, to some-one with no deep knowledge of the current internal workings of the secret services, that spies and secret agents use news websites to see if there is anything that requires their attention.

Apart from that, though, keep this going. There are many nice ideas (*especially* concerning Bond's parents) to be developed and I am certainly interested in seeing how this pans out.

Edited by Lazenby880, 10 July 2006 - 03:46 PM.

[DLibrasnow]

I have read over the latest chapter and the whole thing thus far too. If I could pick up on a general point, I did find the American style a little concerning. It is interesting that you are a fan of Clive Cussler as IN SEARCH OF SECRETS does have that sort of a feel. I am not a fan of Cussler, especially of his later works (MAYDAY!, by contrast, is quite good), although I think that there is a discernable stylistic similarity. I do quite like the Dirk Pitt character, if not how he is written, and I think you could handle a Pitt story very well. My only real complaint, other than the few typos and grammatical errors, is that IN SEARCH OF SECRETS does read like American adventure writing, a la Cussler. While there is absolutely nothing wrong with such writing per se (some of it, indeed, is as gripping as British post-war adventure writing) I do query the extent to which it suits Bond.

First of all thank you for your feedback, I appreciate that you obviously put a lot of thought and provided constructive comments on the fanfic so far. I am surprised that my work reads more like a Cussler novel, but I certainly treat that as a compliment because I have great respect for Cussler as a novelist. It

[DLibrasnow]

Posted Chapter 5 - Chinese Whispers

A lot of ground covered, and a lot of plot points developed.

[DLibrasnow]

Many thanks to whichever staff member posted my 5th chapter. I had some changes to make to it which one cannot do while it is waiting for a moderator.

[Qwerty]

Chapter 6 - Domestic Intelligence up now!

[DLibrasnow]

Chapter 6 - Domestic Intelligence up now!

Thanks Devin,
I have made some minor changes to the chapter to clarify a couple of points.

[Loomis]

Good stuff, Darren. A few random observations: the ketamine business reminds me of the bit in "Moonraker" where Bond reads about a Japanese murder drug that's taken off as a recreational substance among the young - dunno whether or not it was an intentional wink to Fleming on your part; either way, it's the kind of thing that spices up a story and shows a welcome spot of research by the author. Talking of in-jokes, well, I'm reasonably sure that the following may just possibly be one:

"It struck Bond that this mammoth Chinese opponent reminded him in stock and demeanor of a film character he had seen once who killed people with a steel rimmed bowler hat."

Very Gardner's Bond watching "a favourite actor of his" in THE UNTOUCHABLES, but more original and funnier.

I like the characters, especially Zhoran. Reminds me of a Chechen separatist in Eric Van Lustbader's "The Bourne Legacy" - this is not an accusation of a ripoff, of course, and obviously I've no idea whether you've read it, but the fact that you've managed to create a character who's alluring and menacing in such a way as to trigger a reminder of a "professional"'s work is impressive.

I take it that "head of Chinese intelligence operations in the United States Wen Ho Lee" is not supposed to be the same Wen Ho Lee who is, as his Wikipedia page puts it, "a Taiwanese American scientist who worked for the University of California at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was accused of stealing secrets about the U.S.'s nuclear arsenal for China". Or is he? To be really picky, "tai chi chuan" would be written as "taijiquan" to get closer to the Mandarin, although given that most articles still refer to "Mao Tse-tung" instead of the more Mandarin-esque and "correct" "Mao Zedong" (while trying, inconsistently enough, to be faithful to modern Mandarin with other names), it's hardly a problem at all.

I'm impressed by the research you've put into this, Darren, and the way it helps bring to life a location like Washington's Chinatown. And also stuff like:

"The cover for Beijing's espionage operations in North America include the 1,500 Chinese diplomats operating out of 70 offices, 15,000 Chinese students who arrive in the United States each year, and the 10,000 Chinese who travel in some 2,700 visiting delegations each year."

As with the ketamine bit, it's the kind of thing that shows the reader that the writer knows what he's on about - when writing Bond, this can give off that wonderful "authoritative" quality that Fleming had. Overdo it, though (which you don't), and it's just.... well, dull. You seem to have the knack of sprinkling it sparingly, which IMO is the only way to do it.

"Leaving the Shenyang station within five minutes of its scheduled departure shortly after 9 a.m., the landscape had evolved from urban residential and industrial areas to the alien landscape of rural China, a vista composed of small buildings, dirt roads, and little mechanized farming. Canut had noted that most of the work was performed by humans with the help of horses and mules with only a few small tractors and garden tractors peppered throughout the journey."

Yep, bang on.

[DLibrasnow]

Good stuff, Darren. A few random observations: the ketamine business reminds me of the bit in "Moonraker" where Bond reads about a Japanese murder drug that's taken off as a recreational substance among the young - dunno whether or not it was an intentional wink to Fleming on your part; either way, it's the kind of thing that spices up a story and shows a welcome spot of research by the author.

Thank you for your kind words Loomis.
I

[Qwerty]

Chapter 7 - The Nightingale Sanction up now!

[DLibrasnow]

Thanks Devin.

Now that a key plot piece has fallen into place and most of the principal characters have been introduced I have put together a "blurb" for the novel:

[box]
A British agent fleeing capture falls into the clutches of Russian intelligence.
A United States Senator is assassinated in his home, his personal papers stolen.
A Chinese agent sets in motion the plan to defect to the West, and
In the corridors of power a high-level traitor plans the destruction of James Bond

All four events will propel Britain

[DLibrasnow]

Icephoenix has put together a great cover art for my fanfic:

 InSearchOfSecrets.jpg   724.32KB   38 downloads

[Joyce Carrington]

Very nice indeed.

[Robert Watts]

Very nice indeed.

Very nice indeedy.

[Hitch]

I believe you dropped this emoticon:

[Icephoenix]

Thanks for the compliments guys I just hope the cover compliments Darren's good work

[Qwerty]

A very cool cover!

[Icephoenix]

Cheers Qwertz

[Qwerty]

Chapter 8 up now!