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Vampire
Free Worlds League
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Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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 Posted: 19-Apr-2025 12:13 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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It started at trying to make a background for my character a mercenary commander in the 3rd Succession War, and I started researching Battletech lore, and one thing led to the other... and sort of snowballed, and now I'm telling his life like it were flashbacks in a holovid show interview, got some nice action going on in the build-up and the interview hasn't even started yet!
It's a literary exercise of nestled Battletech references, but is turning out as some good reading and I am filling gaps of Battletech lore and making my own contribution.
I did use IA from Grok and ChatGPT to help me research and write it, but this is not IA generated slop, the dialogues and the plot lines are mine, and I use my own style, it's a labor of love not literature but entertaining enough me thinks.
Let me know if you read it and if you enjoy it!
I posted the links in the Fiction section of this forum, but you can start with this first scene
www.tumblr.com/the-outer-topic/781116274818334720/crimes-of-the-black-widow-company-live-broadcast
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 06-Jul-2025 15:56 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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Just so you know I finished my magnum opus "A studio in ComStar"
Completed. I wrote something like "A few good 'Mechs" but turned into a character studio and a reveal like Hercule Poirot in "Murder in the Orient Express"
it's the most entertaining of the works, but the romantic story is perhaps deeper. I have to add a couple final scenes to that one, but it ends well as it is.
Let me know if anybody of you read and liked, please!
Afterthought: "A studio in ComStar" is not finished. There are more stories to be told, without the high stakes drama but still interesting, I hope.
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 18-Jul-2025 08:13 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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on reflection and having sampled Battletech published fiction and fan fiction I am more confident of the merits of this story and its quality. It's a mix of genres, I admit that it's a collection of lectures and essays like this dinner table talk, disguised as a story. It's like the forum postings I would like to have or Battletech nerd discussions about the setting but told by an in universe character. It's in the mold of classic sci fi. Case in point, my model is Falkenberg Legion series first couple books or Starship troopers. science fiction is all about to create a futurist scenario and explaining it why it works and how it works. I am not giving social commentary or author idealistic uthopians like those two mentioned, or Jack London, I am simply explaining a shared universe and filling in the gaps, because that's my niche interest. World building. Just like people devour Middle Earth not because Tolkien story telling but the world he created. Aside from the lectures, I have a romance plot with engaging witty dialogue and a running comedy of jokes that break up the monotony of lecture and makes it feels like a real table talk. I am weaving together different stories and genres. This whole story besides telling us about the Battletech universe is a studio in character, it shows us an interesting and typical character Viktor Starkov, who is detailed and not a cardboard cutout and I show it a study in command: what makes a leader effective, believeable realistic soldiers and their interaction. Now these are my lofty intentions and you are feel to disagree and point out the flaws, but I feel this salad of themes and stories is working well. And the dialogue format though awkward becauses it takes away omniscient narrator and exposition is needed through the characters talk , actually makes it easily readable and engaging. This is not a Battletech history textbook but is delivered through oral story. Viktor and Alina and the rest of the cast are not just names for the author's voice, but they have a life of their own and their romance is the conductor thread. The supporting cast is just hinted at, but they do have personalities, we don't get to know them full but enough to be regarded as acquaintances. I think this works well, we have a "boy meets girl" story but it has its unique flavor because of the setting. And the romance is different in its own way and not like the typical romance novel. Not Anna Karenina but engaging enough in itself to deserve interest beyond the Battletech info dumps. What do you think, honestly?
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Mordel
Mordel.Net
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Joined: 03-Feb-2002 00:00
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| Posted: 19-Jul-2025 08:50 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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You know, I still buy all of the novels that are published, but haven't read one in probably over a decade!
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
Master Bartender
Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 19-Jul-2025 09:06 Post subject: Re: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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| Mordel wrote: | | You know, I still buy all of the novels that are published, but haven't read one in probably over a decade! |
Have you read Hanse's first two books? They were quite good. I think he has others, too.
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
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Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 19-Jul-2025 15:19 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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All well and good, but did you read my story? Anybody?
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
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Location: Spain
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| Posted: 24-Jul-2025 11:57 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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f*!k it all. Please delete this thread. If you can do that.
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Mordel
Mordel.Net
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| Posted: 24-Jul-2025 16:33 Post subject: Re: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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| Vampire wrote: | | f*!k it all. Please delete this thread. If you can do that. |
Why?
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
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Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 25-Jul-2025 04:27 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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Because nobody reads it and the thread is a misnomer it sounds like I am writing an official novel.
If you must know. I screwed up big time in the presentation without realizing it and I don't feel like rewriting it.
Rant follows:
I finally realized too late because of all people some Russian reader bothered to explain to me what the problem is I realized nobody reads my fiction because of the format, I tried to be clever and save work by using a stage play/ screen script format but apparently that's illegible to the average reader. I thought I was doing away with unnecessary descriptions and letting dialogue do the talking.
Apparently I was wrong. I am not cut out to be a writer of standard fiction. My brain is wired differently.I only read books about war and military history, I haven't read fiction since my youth. Traditional omniscient narrator is a drag, or so I thought. Too much work, tedious and cumbersome for writing dialogue, and confusing as hell to track who is saying what.
I am a speed reader, I sometimes read in diagonal, I skip somethings. The character tags that are so confusing to average people I skip, I don't see them. To me words are rather like chinese ideograms, I see the word and I understand what concept it is. I don't realize normal people read left to right, syllabe by syllabe. English it's worse, I never understood why punctuation and line breaks are so important in English while spelling it's optional, when the opposite happens in Spanish.
Also apparently I not only write in a language that it's not my own, publishing conventions are a whole different language and another source of frustration that makes me angry on top of the accumulated disappointment.
Dialogue is marked with quotation marks "", which I find ugly, a sore spot, in Europe the convention is using the em dash — to open lines. I was annoyed by chatGPT over use of them for pauses or trailing of when I would instead use suspensive dots... this is another headache I don't need.
This why I find traditional narration frustrating, because I can't tell who is speaking if they all use the same dialogue line opening characters.
I mean, it's hard enough to write, and write in another language, but then find these little details I overlook as noise, as static, are important for people is jarring and incredibly frustrating. You mean I have to write exactly ****ng way for other people to read it?
If I wrote that way I couldn't revise my text, it's like reading a manuscript spattered with ink drops. I wondered why the AI kept adding those ugly "" quotation marks.I didn't realize that what I see as a flaw it's actually a feature.
Punctuation aside, it's that I'm sort of autistic or something, and I don't perceive reality the same way. For me, a film script format focuses on the essentials, on the dialogue, but I don't realize that people lack imagination and have to be led by the hand. That's why the traditional omniscient narrator prevailed. You have to give them everything pre-chewed, description, punctuation, and everything, because people lack imagination. They need to go step through step to form a mental picture and mind inmersion.
I thought all of that was noise, static. It overloads me. I try to read other people's fiction, and I can't because I get impatient. I struggle to read the whole thing, and I want to jump to the point: Who are they? What's the story about? where's this going? what's happening? Only when the plot has caught my attention I can make the effort to go through the narration.
I am used to military history reading, as it's practically the only thing I read. Strategic picture, troop movements, reports. The closest to literature I get is when I read first hand accounts of combats. That's why omniscient third person narrator bores me and I find first hand narrator voice more appealing.
Seems my brain is wired differently from most people, I am a visual person so I don't have trouble imagining this, truth be told I settled with this script format because I couldn't be bothered with the traditional omniscient narrator, too much work to write descriptions, too much work to write lines integrating and framing dialogue instead of letting dialogue read as if being listened to.
I mean. I have a good command of the two basic elements of a story, I don't know if there's more: description and dialogue.
Descriptions? No problem. I love them. I love purple prose. The fiction I read as a youngster was Tolkien and Lovecraft. Many simple minded readers find works with too much description and not enough talk boring and wordy.
Dialogue? I also can do that. I love witty banter. As in films.
It's fitting them together through the omniscient narrator when I run into a problem. To use a mechanical analogy, I have the engine and the wheels, but I lack the gearbox to make the whole thing move forward.
I do have an inner monologue. I can do introspection, I can describe a narrator thinking. But I feel that's overused and I don't feel like writing every character thoughts much less female characters. I can't claim to understand women, much less what goes through their heads, even if women are simpler creatures than what's usually believed. I would rather skip that part about thoughts and feelings and stick to action and talk.
It's the part about integrating voice into the narration that kills me "he said", "she said". Awful. Tedious. Boring. Filler. I didn't know people actually need that.
The stage play format was also ideally suited for the "Studio in ComStar" drama. I didn't believe it's a interface problem, but an user one. I thought people were just dumb. I mean, come on, I thought I had dumbed it on purpose for easy reading. Instead I was complicating it. Didn't realize.
I am devastated by this, I thought reading dialogue is much easier than
reading traditional prose. I start reading fan fiction and I can't read any of it even if the premise is interesting simply because it takes too much mental effort. I guess I could rewrite the story with IA to have it converted to traditional format, perhaps I am too clever, but I honestly did think the stage format is easier than traditional narration
I just wanted to tell a story and talk with people about Battletech stuff because I don't talk to anybody at work or in the internet, I have no friends and online friends are not what they used to be because people do not chat online anymore. And anyway they are not interested in Battletech so I can't get feedback from them.
Now that I realize how hard is writing because of the need of format, proof reading and endless revisions, I say, screw it, because that's professional work and I am just doing it for fun.
I realize my calling in life was to be a historian, not a novelist. I excel at the things I love, like writing political, historical and technical essays of world building describing how things work. Writing a novel for normies? beneath my dignity. I have the skill set to do it it, I often have the feeling when I read fiction, "I could do better than this", but I simply lack the empathy or the will to write what the public wants. I was mistaken, I thought I was making it easier for people to read. Cut down the filler prose.
I saddens me that all that hard work in creating the story, refining the dialogue and the characters and the jokes and telling something interesting failed not because it's not good but because "didn't read, lol"
I honestly thought I was dumbing down literature to make it more accesible to the visual oriented generation . I don't feel like rewriting all this again into a traditional narration, If I were capable of writing in that style, I wouldn't have taken the shortcut. I have failed as a writer, I better get drunk with my characters. I was writing this to fill hours of boredom and hopefully engage in conversation with readers, but I failed miserably.
I can write a ten page technical essay on autocanon ballistics or interstellar trade and I would love doing it even if it involves a lot of effort, or hard thinking, and research. But storytelling for normies? I can do it, I can go through it all, the description, the emotions, the purple prose, but it's the scaffolding needed to do it that kills me, to describe how a person picked his nose before replying with a weary voice.
Things like that. I can do it, but do not enjoy it and it's too much work, and I lose interest.
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jymset
Scavenger
in pursuit of LosTech
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: Germany
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2025 17:27 Post subject: Re: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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Scripts are in conflict with any sort of writing, or rather: reading conventions. They are a tool for oral presentation, be it radio, film, or stage.
As such, one basically never just reads a script for leisure. And with that, the chosen presentation becomes a hurdle rather than a crutch.
Besides, I'm not sure many would agree that conversations are the most important parts of literature - at least, very few would agree that anything but the conversations are dispensable.
And it's all a bit difficult to reconcile your commentary in all posts above with
| Vampire wrote: | But don't be disappointed, my writing is light years ahead of official published fic, IMNSHO
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...
If you are interested in writing, then taking the feedback you've apparently received so far and revisiting your own work is part of the journey. Investing more work there doesn't devalue it. Rather the exact opposite, really.
If you are interested in interaction about BT, well, the forums are still here. It's become quiet on Mordel's (but clearly not silent), there's the BT forums, facebook, discord, etc. BT is more popular than ever and there is a huge amount of social activity online.
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jymset
Scavenger
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Location: Germany
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| Posted: 26-Jul-2025 17:54 Post subject: Re: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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Ah right. You've posted these to the BT forums.
I haven't read the stories (see Mordel's comment, above - somewhat applies to me too), but from scrolling through the threads, you did have some readers, especially the Studio in ComStar one.
But when one of them commented in a way that differed to how you viewed your own story, you chased them away.  Isn't a reader entitled to their own reaction to a writer's work? Especially when their feedback was clearly positive? (Which you were either not okay with... or maybe you misread their feedback? It was positive, for sure.)
(BTW, to add to that, when they wrote: "I'm sorry my amusement offended you." that was not a real apology. When you reacted to that as if were a real one, no matter how amicably, that is when you lost them.)
Writing any fiction is pre-programmed disappointment, unless you write it for yourself, first and foremost. Any feedback you get is but a cherry on top. Stick with it, noone will ever be able to take away the enjoyment you got out of your own creation.
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
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Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 934
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 01-Aug-2025 15:27 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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One running problem I find during the revision is that I try to get everything done with European style dialogue marks, the —, but Gemini can't handle that, and even a web browser when translates a text replaces the dashes. I absolutely despise the horrible quotation marks American publishing use "" but since it's a losing battle to try to replace them and AI can't process them, I give up, and the rest of the text will go with "".
The "" marks are an American thing. I don't read fiction, only history and military history, that have no dialogue, and when there's a first hand account usually lacks any quotation marks and my vast collection is printed by British publishers, who use the single ' mark which looks better.
I admit that the only fiction I read with the "" dialogue marks were the Battletech novels decades ago my brother brought from the US. I found them weird and ugly looking and thought it was something from cheap paperbacks, but forgot about that. Honestly I thought the "" is used in the net because of convenience and it's in the keyboard, faster than the Alt 0151 to generate the —
A quick google search finds that American readers find the use of the continental style em-dash used by writers like Joyce or McCarthy confusing. Though I think they are wrong I can see that it's my same problem in the reverse.
Once the brain is used to a pattern, an unfamiliar pattern is jarring.
I now understand and accept that my choice of the stage play or screen script format is also visually bad for most readers. It pains me but I am keeping revising this text to get rid of it and hopefully encourage readers to give it another try. Once I am done, the story might continue, this one is pretty much complete but for "A studio in ComStar" much remains to be told.
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chihawk
Clan Blood Spirit
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Joined: 04-Feb-2002 00:00
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Location: United States
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| Posted: 01-Aug-2025 16:30 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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I have read a significant number of British/Irish crime novels, and the King's English style for quotations is the single mark of 'quote', and only uses the double marks when quoting an additional quote. American English uses the opposite grammatical style. For other punctuation, American English places periods and commas within the quotation marks, and in the King's English, they go outside the marks.
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