Alone

[Field Marshal Rakmon]

Sharply inhaling, the man sat up. He wasn’t sure where he was, or why he was here. As a matter of fact, he wasn’t sure of anything. Looking around, he attempted to get his bearings. He was in a… What would it be called? He grasped for memories, trying to recall he slightest detail, but alas, like many things, it evaded him. He was on a patch of some material. He wasn’t sure what to call it. He eventually decided he liked the name ‘Dirt’. He couldn’t tell much of anything around where he was. Getting up, he walked slightly forward, going straight into more dirt. Falling over, he turned around, got back up, and noticed high up, there seemed to be something. He frowned. Taking in what he was seeing, he realized with a start the two appendages attached to him. He was able to control and move them the way he saw fit. Wondering, he began poking the dirt. After sufficiently examining it, the dirt fell to the ground. Intrigued, he learned he could carry the dirt with him. He didn’t really understand why he should, though, and placed the dirt back onto the ground. It morphed from a small pile into a solid shape on the ground. He attempted to walk over it. Tripping, he fell onto the dirt. Realizing something, he began hitting more dirt. After sufficiently gathering a large amount of dirt, he began placing dirt shapes beside him. Tripping, he realized he had two more appendages at the bottom of his body. He could control these as well. He raised one of his appendages onto the dirt. He tried putting force on the dirt with his appendage. In this way, he learned to step. Stepping onto more dirt, the man was finally able to escape from the area in which he had been within earlier. The area around him was entirely different from his old area. This caused an odd feeling, and he found he was- He decided to call it blinking, from the sound it made. Blinking, he was able to get used to this new world. It was entirely made of shapes in the same way as dirt, but these were in some inconceivably way, different. He realized he had one last appendage: this, when he moved it, would show him different things of the place around him. This took in the oddest things from the surrounding areas through a hole in the middle of it. Another hole, closer to the bottom of it, made sounds. “Steve.” He remembered that, for one thing. Steve was the man. He was Steve. He began looking around, and thinking, suddenly realizing: Steve- him- he was the only one. He was alone.This is a nice little story I've been writing. There's going to be more to it, this is the first chapter. How is it?

[Xomeron]

Generic, bland, the same as every Minecraft fic I've ever seen. Minecraft really needs a gimmick to be interesting to read, since most fans would rather play it, especially considering Minecraft 1.0 just now came out.

[Field Marshal Rakmon]

In other words, 'Your story sucks, I'm sick of reading bad Minecraft stories." How about you actually give me a suggestion on how I could better write instead of just criticizing other people's work and leaving?

Edited November 19, 2011 by Field Marshal RMN

[The Lord Of Wednesday]

This is the SSCC Charity review of Alone by Field Marshal Rakmon (review by Proud Stigma).Grammar wise there is not really anything that needs fixing, and I did not have flow problems either.In terms of story, I do see that it is a minecraft story (a game that has no story), however there were some parts of it that my count as symbolism, even though you may or may not have intended them. This could be a sort of meta story where "Steve" is merely copying what the player is thinking and this is how it manifests within the Minecraft universe itself.For example the motions that he makes and the names he gives things could be rationalizations by the player being written from an in-universe perspective (i.e. Player: "Oh, this is supposed to be dirt!", "Steve": "And so I shall call this substance dirt.", for example), aside from the stuff that the player does not pay attention to as it is not necessary for the game (like if Steve blinks). I also go with this interpretation because Steve may be an amnesiac, but he has concepts of what things are and a language that he thinks in and uses to rationalize the world around him, something a being with no empirical memory would probably not have, but the player at his/her computer might.There is some part of this that has hints of Ontological Mystery themes here, or at least foundations for it, which are usually always nice in my book. Another part I like is how I can compare Steve's fascination with dirt even though he does not know why he feels that he must place dirt on the ground to build things, he just feels the need to do it. However I can compare this to even the most simple of human actions and desires.Anyway this was a nice story and we at the SSCC hope to read more of your works in the future.