The Great History Mystery of Planet Diggon
(Edited 4/24/2014)
If you are a person who isn't me, then you have no idea what this is. I'm not surprised, this isn't a published work. It copyrighted for the next 170 years, but it has never been published, only read publicly once and is a tiny insignificant stain on my childhood.
The Great History Mystery of Planet Diggon is a Star Wars fanfiction in picture book format that I wrote when I was in kindergarten, loosely based on The Phantom Menace... I think.
Even though I had help with this, I was in kindergarten and I'm glad to see how my skills as a writer have improved since that time. Drastically. So, in search for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the bookshelf in my room, I discovered this and decided to analytically critique it because I can.
First I'd like to touch on the artwork. Considering I was 5 or 6 and didn't know anything about perspective drawing, I can excuse the bad quality of the artwork. In fact if I tried to draw the picture on the cover today, it probably would still look like a mutated pistachio. The thing is, the writing quality is so appalling the sloppy illistration actually helps it and gives it the extra push to so bad it's good territory.
So, the story. It's only about 15 sentences, so here it is word for word.
Meanwhile, most of the ships were going toward the beautiful planet Diggon. For one ship had robots on it, some of the robots needed to be plugged in, and some of the robots didn't need to be plugged in. All the robots helped the aliens go on their trip to the planet. For one ship was old and rusty, it only had two propellers and it wasn't that computerized, but it did go, so it could reach the planet. The beautiful planet Diggon was in trouble. A ship had one thing go right out of it. Bang! That one thing that came out of it was a bullet. Just one that was going to destroy the planet's surface. Meanwhile all of the aliens were running around to the other side of the planet where it was safe. Some aliens stayed there to make taller floors with taller buildings that reached the sky. Some aliens were doing a lot of work. They built strong buildings, tall buildings, never before looked and seen buildings. for the asteroid was coming so fast that an asteroid killing ship came along. The ship wanted to get the bullet, so it could rescue the beautiful planet. So it did.
The Great History Mystery of Planet Diggon is a Star Wars fanfiction in picture book format that I wrote when I was in kindergarten, loosely based on The Phantom Menace... I think.
Even though I had help with this, I was in kindergarten and I'm glad to see how my skills as a writer have improved since that time. Drastically. So, in search for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in the bookshelf in my room, I discovered this and decided to analytically critique it because I can.
First I'd like to touch on the artwork. Considering I was 5 or 6 and didn't know anything about perspective drawing, I can excuse the bad quality of the artwork. In fact if I tried to draw the picture on the cover today, it probably would still look like a mutated pistachio. The thing is, the writing quality is so appalling the sloppy illistration actually helps it and gives it the extra push to so bad it's good territory.
So, the story. It's only about 15 sentences, so here it is word for word.
Meanwhile, most of the ships were going toward the beautiful planet Diggon. For one ship had robots on it, some of the robots needed to be plugged in, and some of the robots didn't need to be plugged in. All the robots helped the aliens go on their trip to the planet. For one ship was old and rusty, it only had two propellers and it wasn't that computerized, but it did go, so it could reach the planet. The beautiful planet Diggon was in trouble. A ship had one thing go right out of it. Bang! That one thing that came out of it was a bullet. Just one that was going to destroy the planet's surface. Meanwhile all of the aliens were running around to the other side of the planet where it was safe. Some aliens stayed there to make taller floors with taller buildings that reached the sky. Some aliens were doing a lot of work. They built strong buildings, tall buildings, never before looked and seen buildings. for the asteroid was coming so fast that an asteroid killing ship came along. The ship wanted to get the bullet, so it could rescue the beautiful planet. So it did.
I found it hard to type that.
Right, first, the grammar. Mom, you're an English teacher, why didn't you fix the FANBOYS? Also, synonyms, run on sentences, improper word order, did you even notice that?
So, the actual analysis:
The story starts with what should be the middle of the story when a bunch of spaceships carrying robots and things are traveling to Diggon. I assume that they're doing this as some kind of rescue operation for the citizens of the planet (like that taxi thing that the french did in WWII). This does explain why even the old rusty crap ships are going there, but if this is the case, why are we told that a ship is carrying robots? How is that helpful information? The other thing these ships could be doing is tourism or cargo delivery which would explain the robots, but if THAT'S the case, why are the old rusty crap ships going there? This could be an explanation for the planet killing ship and the asteroid killing ship being in the same place at the same time, but that doesn't explain what those other spaceships are doing. So what are they doing?
Also, what's this stuff about propellers? It's mentioned in text once and all of the illustrations have what look like propellers coming off of them. Propellers don't work in space! Is it some kind of space propeller? Does the Star Wars universe have space propellers? How do they work? Is it fuel efficient? Maybe propeller is just slang for something that looks like a propeller, but still... PROPELLERS DON'T WORK IN SPACE.
Actually, I kind of need to thank this book because it gave me some visual inspiration for the warp drives in the novelette I'm writing. My space propellers actually have some scientific logic behind them, though. Why was this detail included in the picture book? It brings nothing to the narrative.
So after that we fall into a veritable orgy of scientific and logical fallacies that I will quickly list off.
1. Projectiles with no payload cannot destroy a planet's crust unless it is traveling too fast for an interplanetary craft to intercept.
2. When the crust of a planet is going to be destroyed there is probably no safe place to be on the planet's surface.
3. If something is coming towards the ground from the sky, you should seek shelter underground instead of erecting tall, free standing structures in which you take refuge.
4. A machine designed to slow the decent of and destroy a chunk of rock would not be able to do the same thing to a manufactured projectile, if it could match said projectile's velocity.
And then of course we get a Deus ex Machina at the end which wouldn't be a Deus ex Macina if these ships were not Mary Sues. None of the sides of this conflict are clearly defined, and we never meet a single character. Whose ship is trying to destroy Diggon? In what time of the Star Wars cannon does this take place? Maybe it's its own independent narrative. Well, that'd be fine except we aren't ever clued into that. This story has no connection to its source material, but more importantly has no emotional weight to it. From the beginning of the story (which is in the middle) we have absolutely no feelings for any of the parties involved because none of them have identity.
Why should we care about Diggon? Obviously it's populated, and the book tells us that it's beautiful, but we have no emotional connection to either of those things. We haven't met any Diggonians and they could easily be a war hungry angry race that happens to live on a beautiful planet. There isn't any tension in the story because we don't know what there is to lose.
Why should we not like the planet killing ship? It is the antagonist narratively (I assume), but why does it want to destroy this planet? Is it part of the Empire? Is it doing this as a public service? Maybe the planet is infested with a plague, I don't know! It could be the good guy for all I know! Apparently the ship wants to destroy it because it's beautiful (like in The Fifth Element), but, like we've just discussed, we don't know what makes this planet beautiful. There isn't any tension in the story because we don't know what they have to gain.
Why should we want the asteroid killing ship to succeed? What side are any of these fracking spaceships on! What is this ship doing? Why is it doing it? Is there any sacrifice involved? It's OK if the antagonist is nameless, faceless, and pure evil (that's actually really intimidating if done right), but we need to have a reason to want the good guys to win. In fact we need to have identifiable good guys. What are the agencies that these three parties employ and abide by? What do they want to do and why do they want to do it? WE DON'T KNOW. There isn't any tension in the story because we don't know anybody's motivation.
Hey! Me from the past! You know, in stage acting, there's intentions and obstacles, right? Oh, you're five? Well I don't fracking care! You could have at least given it a second read through. This doesn't even have any characters! They're just ambiguous forces locked in conflict for even more ambiguous reasons.
See, this is what you have the beginning of a story for. The beginning sets things up, the middle complicates things, and the end shows how things are resolved. This book doesn't have a beginning. It drops you into the middle and hopes that you get invested by fluke of luck. We haven't had any set-up prior to sh*t hitting the fan, and accordingly don't care about the fan, or the sh*t hitting it!
And now, my final point: what's with the title? It states that the book is a "Great History Mystery." Well, that's fine, but what makes it a historical mystery? I suppose it could be a story lost to time that happened thousands of years ago and this is telling what happened, but if that's the case, why isn't the first sentence of this story "This is a story lost to time that happened thousands of years ago and this is telling what happened?"
This book asks too many questions that it never answers, has no characters that wouldn't have personality anyway, is not what it advertises itself to be, and has extremely poor story structure. This is a very good story in essence, it just needs a beginning and better logic. I intend to keep this pad of paper on my bookshelf for a long time to come though, because, who knows? I may visit Diggon again in the future.
Right, first, the grammar. Mom, you're an English teacher, why didn't you fix the FANBOYS? Also, synonyms, run on sentences, improper word order, did you even notice that?
So, the actual analysis:
The story starts with what should be the middle of the story when a bunch of spaceships carrying robots and things are traveling to Diggon. I assume that they're doing this as some kind of rescue operation for the citizens of the planet (like that taxi thing that the french did in WWII). This does explain why even the old rusty crap ships are going there, but if this is the case, why are we told that a ship is carrying robots? How is that helpful information? The other thing these ships could be doing is tourism or cargo delivery which would explain the robots, but if THAT'S the case, why are the old rusty crap ships going there? This could be an explanation for the planet killing ship and the asteroid killing ship being in the same place at the same time, but that doesn't explain what those other spaceships are doing. So what are they doing?
Also, what's this stuff about propellers? It's mentioned in text once and all of the illustrations have what look like propellers coming off of them. Propellers don't work in space! Is it some kind of space propeller? Does the Star Wars universe have space propellers? How do they work? Is it fuel efficient? Maybe propeller is just slang for something that looks like a propeller, but still... PROPELLERS DON'T WORK IN SPACE.
Actually, I kind of need to thank this book because it gave me some visual inspiration for the warp drives in the novelette I'm writing. My space propellers actually have some scientific logic behind them, though. Why was this detail included in the picture book? It brings nothing to the narrative.
So after that we fall into a veritable orgy of scientific and logical fallacies that I will quickly list off.
1. Projectiles with no payload cannot destroy a planet's crust unless it is traveling too fast for an interplanetary craft to intercept.
2. When the crust of a planet is going to be destroyed there is probably no safe place to be on the planet's surface.
3. If something is coming towards the ground from the sky, you should seek shelter underground instead of erecting tall, free standing structures in which you take refuge.
4. A machine designed to slow the decent of and destroy a chunk of rock would not be able to do the same thing to a manufactured projectile, if it could match said projectile's velocity.
And then of course we get a Deus ex Machina at the end which wouldn't be a Deus ex Macina if these ships were not Mary Sues. None of the sides of this conflict are clearly defined, and we never meet a single character. Whose ship is trying to destroy Diggon? In what time of the Star Wars cannon does this take place? Maybe it's its own independent narrative. Well, that'd be fine except we aren't ever clued into that. This story has no connection to its source material, but more importantly has no emotional weight to it. From the beginning of the story (which is in the middle) we have absolutely no feelings for any of the parties involved because none of them have identity.
Why should we care about Diggon? Obviously it's populated, and the book tells us that it's beautiful, but we have no emotional connection to either of those things. We haven't met any Diggonians and they could easily be a war hungry angry race that happens to live on a beautiful planet. There isn't any tension in the story because we don't know what there is to lose.
Why should we not like the planet killing ship? It is the antagonist narratively (I assume), but why does it want to destroy this planet? Is it part of the Empire? Is it doing this as a public service? Maybe the planet is infested with a plague, I don't know! It could be the good guy for all I know! Apparently the ship wants to destroy it because it's beautiful (like in The Fifth Element), but, like we've just discussed, we don't know what makes this planet beautiful. There isn't any tension in the story because we don't know what they have to gain.
Why should we want the asteroid killing ship to succeed? What side are any of these fracking spaceships on! What is this ship doing? Why is it doing it? Is there any sacrifice involved? It's OK if the antagonist is nameless, faceless, and pure evil (that's actually really intimidating if done right), but we need to have a reason to want the good guys to win. In fact we need to have identifiable good guys. What are the agencies that these three parties employ and abide by? What do they want to do and why do they want to do it? WE DON'T KNOW. There isn't any tension in the story because we don't know anybody's motivation.
Hey! Me from the past! You know, in stage acting, there's intentions and obstacles, right? Oh, you're five? Well I don't fracking care! You could have at least given it a second read through. This doesn't even have any characters! They're just ambiguous forces locked in conflict for even more ambiguous reasons.
See, this is what you have the beginning of a story for. The beginning sets things up, the middle complicates things, and the end shows how things are resolved. This book doesn't have a beginning. It drops you into the middle and hopes that you get invested by fluke of luck. We haven't had any set-up prior to sh*t hitting the fan, and accordingly don't care about the fan, or the sh*t hitting it!
And now, my final point: what's with the title? It states that the book is a "Great History Mystery." Well, that's fine, but what makes it a historical mystery? I suppose it could be a story lost to time that happened thousands of years ago and this is telling what happened, but if that's the case, why isn't the first sentence of this story "This is a story lost to time that happened thousands of years ago and this is telling what happened?"
This book asks too many questions that it never answers, has no characters that wouldn't have personality anyway, is not what it advertises itself to be, and has extremely poor story structure. This is a very good story in essence, it just needs a beginning and better logic. I intend to keep this pad of paper on my bookshelf for a long time to come though, because, who knows? I may visit Diggon again in the future.