[Fan Fiction] Todd's Tale

Fan Media
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Ahoy!

My name is, uhm… CrazyCandy. I have been lurking around on the forums for quite some while, but up until this point I have remained silent. Why come out of the safety of my hiding place, you might ask…

Well, the thing is, while I’m not an architectural genius to build immense castles and cities, Stonehearth managed to inspire me in a different way; it made me write. So I wrote, and I wrote, until finally I had many pages of a story in my hands, which I wanted to share with you.

I hereby present the short story of Todd, a young hearthling struggling against the evil that engulfs the world:

Here’s the .pdf version.
Read in your browser
or download:
Todd’s Tale - CrazyCandy.pdf (163.7 KB)

Here’s the .epub format, a link to dropbox since Discourse won’t allow .epub uploads.
Todd’s Tale - CrazyCandy - .epub download

For now I brought these two formats, but if there’s demand for a different format, feel free to throw a comment, and I might try to arrange it.

Be warned, though; the whole thing is roughly 10k words, so it is a rather long read.

Also, if you choose to read this, please don’t shy away from sharing your thoughts about it, as what I am chiefly looking for here is feedback. I need your brutally honest feedback, so I can improve and ultimately write a bit better stories.

It might also worth noting that my native language is not English, so if you happen to stumble upon some grammatical mistake or anything alike, those are welcome, too!

If you liked this story, chances are that you will also like The Invisible Princess, my second fan-fiction.

Enjoy!

Also, don’t forget to leave a comment of your thoughts about this!

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So… im on page 20 of this fan fiction (and I love me some game fan fiction when it’s done well) and I have to say four words. Very. Well. Frickin. Done! I mean it reads like a bestseller. You have real talent, and I am thoroughly enjoying this story and hope that you make a sequel or a prequel. Seriously, it’s that good, and I really hope others take the worth it time to read it and reply to you.

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Thank you for your feedback! :slightly_smiling:

I’d like to claim this opportunity to encourage everyone who read this to share their thoughts about the story.

I’d also like to encourage the use of spoiler tags when going into details of the story.
Spoiler tag: [spoiler]hidden text.[/spoiler]
Result: hidden text.

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@CrazyCandy welcome to the “writing” community on the discourse. I’m glad you have put a lot of time into a fan fiction. I have every intention to read it over the weekend. As soon as I begin I will give you my opinions. Until then, happy writing.

(sorry I missed this initially, I have not been on the discourse for a week or so.)

I have read the entire thing. It is an easy read and it naturally flows from one “topic” to another. The story is well connected in that there is a lot of foreshadowing in the eighth and ninth page that ends up circling around and revealing itself as you read. The characters are simple and lovable, and they are developed well. Although you chose to use mostly direct development, a style I personally don’t prefer, your direct development is very good. The plot itself is a little weak, but since it is in the form of a “tale” probably handed down from generation to generation that is excusable.

Now for some critique. (because of the sheer size of the composition I will not do my sentence by sentence review, but I will discuss some overview thoughts I had while I was reading it)

First of all I think that you should label pages 1-7 as the introduction, since it is exposition and not the actual story.

Next, I noticed some inconsistency in regard to the dragon. When Todd is originally “riding” the dragon, the dragon cannot shake him off. Later the dragon is moving at speeds hard to follow with the eye. On a side note this topic on the subject is very interesting speed - Can a human size object move so fast that it ceases to be observable? - Physics Stack Exchange

But even if you forget the problems of physically moving at that speed, a dragon that can move that fast could easily throw Todd off. Once again this can be “excused” by the fact that this is a tale.

Something I noticed throughout the whole “tale” is that the characters are far too trusting of each other. My primary example is Ikkili and Bagka, when Todd shows up out of the blue and tells them of the wizard and dragon. Ikkili and Bagka would hardly race across the desert based on the hearsay of a stranger. Of course if they are seriously that concerned about the temple they may very well listen to hearsay, it is just difficult to believe. The same applies when the wizard first kidnaps Todd and Letty, the goblins are a little on the trusting side, and they would hardly explain their intentions.

Side note, you may want to put a line in there explaining how the goblins knew Letty was on duty that particular night. and why Ikkili and Bagka were in middle of the desert in the first place.

One last major thing I could point out is the rather outrageous injury Letty receives from stumbling when they are being led to the wizard. Even while I was reading it I was wondering how she could have been knocked out cold, from a stumble. Especially assuming that she is on the younger side.

The only word misuse I’ll quote for you since it popped out at me while I was reading it is “his
arms reached forward, and a fireball flied towards Zambarn” I’m sure you overlooked this, it should be “flew”

All in all this was very well written and as @Rizzano mentioned it does read like a bestseller. You should be proud of your hard work. Do you have intention of writing anything else and sharing it on the discourse?

I hope I have given you constructive criticism.
-Turtlesquish

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Thank you for reading, and I’m glad you liked it! :blush: Your feedback is extremely valuable to me, and will come handy when writing stories in the future.

I’d also like to read a bit more about what you and others think about the ending in general, because when I approached the end I had this particular dilemma about how it should end, and ultimately decided that it won’t be a happy ending, and I’d like to hear some opinions about how I managed to deliver it.

Also, I’d like to ask if people would be interested in a sequel to this tale, possibly with a happier ending, or perhaps an even unhappier ending? Who knows! I have a couple of ideas, and I just wonder if there is demand, or if people are ok with the way this ended.

As for my intention of writing more: Yes, I do intend to write more, as I secretly aspire to eventually write something on a much larger scale, on which I am slowly making progress (well, with the unimaginable speed of the snail). Part of the reason why I wrote this is because I needed feedback to improve. However, I am not quite ready to reveal any more on this, yet.

In the meantime, as my time allows, I will write more fan fiction, and will post them on Discourse, and it(they) will hopefully attract more feedback for me. :slightly_smiling:

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I thought the ending was fine. You used a particular style where there is a magical sort of sacrifice that really shows the strength of the character and their values. A similar ending was used at the end of AC3. It always leads to a powerful conclusion, but runs at the expense that sequels become much harder to write.

I’m glad you didn’t make it a happy ending. Happy endings have a place in literature but mostly in nonfiction with a moral. Unhappy endings tend to be more powerful and tend to show the characters full scope of emotions (you see a character in their most “true self” when they are pushed to their limits.)

I will give two answers to this question. On a personal level, this tale was good enough to warrant a sequel, and I would love to read it. So from my personal feeling I would tell you to write a sequel.

From a literary perspective you didn’t leave much room for a sequel in this tale. There is very little that can connect to a new story. So I suspect if you do write a sequel you will have to stretch the story and the character’s, something that is not usually advisable. So from this perspective I would tell you to spend your creative energy on other stories.

I’m super excited to see what else you will come up with and post on the discourse :smiley:

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All righty, my favorite readers! I brought to you this little poll thingy to make things a tad bit more interesting!

As you can see, I have listed four male names, one of which will be given to a very important character in my upcoming fan fiction, which should arrive soon ™, and I want you (my readers) to decide which of the four names below should be given to him.

The second favorite name will also be part of one of my stories (just not necessarily the next one).

The poll will run until I’m getting close to finishing the next fan fiction, and will be closed just before I begin the process of publishing it. (This could be from one week to a couple of months, depending on how busy my things get. There’s also the hopefully low possibility of me getting hit by the bus or something.)

Choose wisely! Enjoy!

  • Brett
  • Felix
  • Seamus
  • Vince

0 voters

Show results

Also, if there’s a specific name that you’d like to see somewhere in my stories, I am open for suggestions! :wink:

Edit: making this edit to encourage y’all to pick your preferred name! :wink:

EDIT2: THE POLL IS NOW CLOSED!

Thank y’all for helping me decide the name of Brett!

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I’m bringing this up with a bit of an update about what was going on in the past month(s), and also to give those who would be interested in reading this a chance to actually see it exists.

Heading to astray TWICE! :sweat::tired_face:
So I had a couple of ideas for a potential second fan-fiction and so I wrote the outlines of the story.

It was about a group of townsfolk who somehow ended up being picked for an adventure by the local lord, and so they went on an adventure to find some old goblin treasure. In the end, as I read through the thing, I said “Wow, this sucks.” It turned out as a generic cliché story… it was so meh. I scrapped the whole thing, and started over.

With the second draft I started out with no particular idea on what should happen, I just wrote a random story, that led to a point from where I had no idea where to go. While I don’t scrap this idea, I have to put this away and meditate on this one a bit more. Who knows, maybe one day I find out how to continue?

So right now I’m on the third draft… I decided to head back to the “adventure” theme. The story involves a beautiful princess, who is a delight for the eyes to look at; unfortunately, she happens to be invisible (she’s also potentially naked). Anyhow, I borrowed a lot of characters I had in the first draft, and a couple of scenes. However, I won’t be able to promise a date for now, because things are busy as always.

Vote for the names!!
The poll just above this post is still alive! You can still have your chance to influence the outcome!

EDIT:

The poll is now closed! Thanks y’all for participating! You can expect to see a new fan-fiction appear on these boards within a few days!

Keep an eye on the forums! There will also be a link in the first post of this thread leading there once posted.

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