Blogarithm

Ah, good sir... you had my curiosity, but now... you have my attention.

dangit sumiki i was supposed to be the one making the HF reboot >

I never asked for this.

(adam jensen screaming in the distance)

I've never been too fond of gritty reboots of LEGO themes or other franchises I like. They're kind of fun in terms of novelty value, but generally I tend to like or dislike franchises for what they are, not what I think they should be. If I wanted to read a dark, gritty, story, I would try and find one based around characters and universes that are written with that potential in mind.

 

Your story is pretty good though. It deals with grim topics like death, but it's not dark for darkness's sake, at least from what I've read so far. Rather it's just painted with the brush of a police procedural, which I think suits the Hero Factory universe wonderfully.

 

What bothers me about this story so far is that there's not a whole lot of description to help me visualize the characters and universe. It's clear from the prologue that the story has humans, and clear from Chapter One that some (but bizarrely, not all) of the robot characters have been re-imagined as humans. But there are no physical descriptions of them to help with visualization. What does Makuro wear? What color is Preston's hair? What are the rookies' backgrounds, and what do they look like? When you have re-imagined the characters so radically, you can't just count on people being familiar with the characters and not needing any kind of descriptions.

 

Until Breez mentions Australia, I have no idea that Earth has any role whatsoever in this story (yes, it has human characters, but so does Star Wars). Is Makuhero City on Earth in this story, or are the characters just familiar enough with Earth geography to know what/where Australia is?

 

One of my favorite book series is the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, and one of the things I love about it is its theatricality It goes to great pains to ensure you can visualize every scene with ease. Generally, you get a reasonably thorough description of a character as soon as they're introduced — at least enough of a description to form a first impression and know what the character's like.

 

In fan-fiction that tries to fit seamlessly into a universe, this might not be as important. A person reading the story is incredibly likely to be familiar with the characters, just like if the story were the second book in a series. But in fan-fiction that completely re-imagines a universe you don't have that luxury. You have to introduce each character as if the reader is meeting them for the first time, because in a sense, they are.

 

But anyway, you've got some nice ideas going in this story. Lots of potential. Definitely do your best to see this story through to the end!

I'd prefer it if you'd posted this in the review topic, but I'll respond here anyway.

 

I tried to re-imagine the Hero Factory universe a bit like how Christopher Nolan reworked Batman. I'm not comparing myself to Nolan's work in the least, but the realism of his adaptation was remarkable considering that the main character is just a man dressed as a bat.

 

What bothers me about this story so far is that there's not a whole lot of description to help me visualize the characters and universe. It's clear from the prologue that the story has humans, and clear from Chapter One that some (but bizarrely, not all) of the robot characters have been re-imagined as humans. But there are no physical descriptions of them to help with visualization. What does Makuro wear? What color is Preston's hair? What are the rookies' backgrounds, and what do they look like? When you have re-imagined the characters so radically, you can't just count on people being familiar with the characters and not needing any kind of descriptions.

 

How is it bizarre that Zib is still a robot? There's good reason behind this, but that'll come up much later in the storyline, so it's not important right now.

 

I don't feel as if their clothing and hair color are important details. Cram too much into the story and you end up with a problem of pacing, which is something that I'm struggling with in the opening chapters without trying to cram frankly unnecessary details in.

 

Until Breez mentions Australia, I have no idea that Earth has any role whatsoever in this story (yes, it has human characters, but so does Star Wars). Is Makuhero City on Earth in this story, or are the characters just familiar enough with Earth geography to know what/where Australia is?

 

... it's Earth, dude, and it's kind of hard to fit in the explicit idea that they're on Earth into a story without it coming across as a particularly odd detail. See my previous comment about pacing.

 

One of my favorite book series is the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer, and one of the things I love about it is its theatricality It goes to great pains to ensure you can visualize every scene with ease. Generally, you get a reasonably thorough description of a character as soon as they're introduced — at least enough of a description to form a first impression and know what the character's like.

 

I'm a fan of Colfer's work myself, but by no means do I write like him. I try to generate first impressions from dialogue and bits of backstory as opposed to information dumps. I'm not trying to emulate Colfer, and if I did I think I'd fall flat on my proverbial face.

 

In fan-fiction that tries to fit seamlessly into a universe, this might not be as important. A person reading the story is incredibly likely to be familiar with the characters, just like if the story were the second book in a series. But in fan-fiction that completely re-imagines a universe you don't have that luxury. You have to introduce each character as if the reader is meeting them for the first time, because in a sense, they are.

 

Everyone who'd be reading this story is familiar with who the characters are. No one who is unfamiliar with Hero Factory - or simply doesn't like Hero Factory - will even read this. It's a non-issue.