[OUTSIDE WORLD] "Federation" Day

[Stifled Voices]

...Except there's no Federation.
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March 1, 2014
11:50
Youkai hunting team
Wells Fargo Building rooftop
Los Angeles, CA, USA
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The three youkai stood on the roof of one of the skyscrapers in the city, as it rained hard through the night. But they coudn?t think about the weather, they had to focus. They were looking at another skyscraper across the street. A helicopter flies overhead and lands on the helipad, the side door opening up. Coming out were two humans.
?Just aim at the face of one of the humans getting out of that object, and press the button, Crossbone,? the lead youkai told one of her companions, a youkai with a white skull-shaped cap, respecting that she didn?t know what a helicopter was.
Crossbone shuddered and blushed in frustration at that nickname, but got to work on the scanner, which looked like a pair of advanced binoculars.

Since the lead youkai knew that Crossbone doesn?t know how to handle it properly, she had it connected to a wrist-mounted screen, which she could use to guide Crossbone. The crosshairs were aimed at one of the humans, and the facial scan was underway. Midway, though, the man ducked his head under his arms, running from the rain, obscuring his face and disrupting the scan.
?Don?t stop. Keep it steady,? the lead youkai told Crossbone.
Rain?s doing no one favors.
Eventually, despite complications, the scan completely, turning up a negative.
?Nope, try the other one.?
The youkai could see that the crosshairs moved to the man beside, who had an umbrella. The scan completed without problem, but it also came up a negative.
?Dangit. Well, we?re going to have to get back to Gensokyo before disbelief catches up to us, and try again another day.?
Well, for me, disbelief doesn?t matter, but it does for them. We?ll try again...
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I think it's best not to disrupt Oscars going on there now...

[Iced Fairy]

You've been putting a lot of story starters up, so I figured someone should give you a bit of commentary/critique.  Unfortunately I fear this is going to be a lot more of the latter.

Firstly, and really most importantly, your segments are too short.  This looks more like an idea then an actual story, and there's really no hook for the reader.  There's just not enough story to make any commentary of judgement on.  You need to build up a much larger introduction passage before you can start drawing in readers.  And your readers need more words in order to tell you what they like and dislike.

Secondly from what I can see, your structure needs a lot of work.  Paragraphs should be separated by at least one line.  As they are they're a blurry mess that destroys any flow you might have had.  In addition you switch viewpoint styles far too quickly.

Thirdly your stories rely far too heavily on OCs and out of Touhou references.  While neither are bad in and of themselves, you just assume the reader knows and cares about both just as much as you do.  Outside readers drop in to see very short works, featuring characters they aren't familiar with in settings they don't know about.  On a board that is aimed towards Touhou fanfiction that is going to cost you interest.  You need to work much harder to regain that.

Hopefully these will help you work out your writing better.  Story development might start by throwing ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks, but when you post it for the world to see, your audience wants a little more.

[Stifled Voices]

Well I sat through that pretty well... Anyhow, thanks for the advice! Maybe I can specialize in stories that touch on the outside world one way or another?

I should wipe the slate clean to make way for refined writing...

You've been putting a lot of story starters up, so I figured someone should give you a bit of commentary/critique.  Unfortunately I fear this is going to be a lot more of the latter.

Firstly, and really most importantly, your segments are too short.  This looks more like an idea then an actual story, and there's really no hook for the reader.  There's just not enough story to make any commentary of judgement on.  You need to build up a much larger introduction passage before you can start drawing in readers.  And your readers need more words in order to tell you what they like and dislike.

Secondly from what I can see, your structure needs a lot of work.  Paragraphs should be separated by at least one line.  As they are they're a blurry mess that destroys any flow you might have had.  In addition you switch viewpoint styles far too quickly.

Thirdly your stories rely far too heavily on OCs and out of Touhou references.  While neither are bad in and of themselves, you just assume the reader knows and cares about both just as much as you do.  Outside readers drop in to see very short works, featuring characters they aren't familiar with in settings they don't know about.  On a board that is aimed towards Touhou fanfiction that is going to cost you interest.  You need to work much harder to regain that.

Hopefully these will help you work out your writing better.  Story development might start by throwing ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks, but when you post it for the world to see, your audience wants a little more.

...that said, I still wish to salvage this story. For a start, what would you say I could do to start refining this idea?

Maybe I should hop onto AO3 for my more ambitious stories, while writing the more Gensokyo-based stories (with hopefully refined writing) here.

[Iced Fairy]

...that said, I still wish to salvage this story. For a start, what would you say I could do to start refining this idea?

To put it bluntly, you don't actually have a story here, just an idea, so I can't tell you how to refine it.  The only thing I can tell is that it's obviously very closely based on something, because of the way your flow in some areas matches a movie/videogame text interpretation.  Since I don't know what you're referencing and there's no character interactions to interest me, I honestly don't have any interest in the idea.

If you want to salvage the idea and turn it into a story you need to,
1 - Make it accessible to people who like Touhou instead of whatever you're referencing.
2 - Write enough for it to actually be a story segment.
3 - Format the story enough that it's readable.

[Stifled Voices]

To put it bluntly, you don't actually have a story here, just an idea, so I can't tell you how to refine it.  The only thing I can tell is that it's obviously very closely based on something, because of the way your flow in some areas matches a movie/videogame text interpretation.  Since I don't know what you're referencing and there's no character interactions to interest me, I honestly don't have any interest in the idea.

If you want to salvage the idea and turn it into a story you need to,
1 - Make it accessible to people who like Touhou instead of whatever you're referencing.
2 - Write enough for it to actually be a story segment.
3 - Format the story enough that it's readable.

> Make the story revolve around a youkai hunting party looking for a certain human in the outside world, while making the references secondary (make it so they don't need to know it but if they do they can appreciate it)?

> That's a matter of me writing up enough content. Gotta push myself.

> Paragraphs, transitions, viewpoints, whatnot.