Thread: The Nuva: Biologicals

I'm continuing my story! Any advice or help would be nice


"Biologicals,"

This didn't provoke much of a reaction, as Biologicals were the most common Nuva. They most likely didn't have any exceptional traits before they, for lack of a better word "Changed." What they mutated from, no one seemed to know, but there had been disturbing rumors on the base.

The Biologicals had skin that was a sickly green, the kind you see on a person's face shortly before they vomited. They were strong, but all but the fliers were strong; the main problem was that there was a damn lot of them, millions maybe. Thousands were sighted and reported every day.

But they died, just like a human would, and it didn't worry him unduly.

The others had started shifting though, as the old man flipped through the obligatory slides of diagrams of dissected bodies of Biologicals and highlighted charts of weak points on the body that you were advised to shoot for. It said to aim for the head and heart, nothing non-standard about that. It was just like the old wars that they fought with physical bullets made out of a poisonous metal, whoever thought that one up wasn't quite right in the head, bullets were deadly enough without poison. The old man was still rambling on about the supposed dangers of Biologicals, most of the other soldiers seemed to have dozed off, everyone knew that Biologicals were a minor issue. They were slow, the Change seemed to have strengthened their upper body yet weakened the legs,

Their green skin and shambling walk had led to silly rumors of a "Zombie Apocalypse" at first. The widespread panic was not allayed, however, when it was released that they were indeed not zombies, but mutants. The military had stamped down, tried to isolate the Nuva, but they failed, soon martial law had been declared and America split into small fragments under dictatorial strongmen. Some level of trade still existed, if limited; and the NEI had divisions in every major settlement. People were eager to join the NEI, it had the same prestige the military had used to. Most joined for the honor of the thing, not Arthur. He had joined for three hot meals a day, thought it seemed those days were now numbered

I'm a little confused: you posted the beginning of you story as a "prologue". Is this the continuation to the same prologue, or the opening to a first chapter?
Also, do you already know where you're going with the story or do you just make it up as you go? Just wondering

As a general comment, you need to be careful with punctuation. It seems like a detail, but good punctuation goes a long way toward making the text easy to read and as a result make it more attractive for the reader.

Other than that, there's just this one sentence that doesn't quite work for me:

The Biologicals had skin that was a sickly green, the kind you see on a person's face shortly before they vomited.

Now, I don't know about the people who've seen get sick, but I've never seen anyone getting so green that the color of that person could have made me imagine the skin color of an alien (?). But again, maybe it's just me

Anyway, I'm curious to know where you're going with this, so do post more if you have more

Apparently you've never seen someone get really sick, and it's just continuing the prologue

It's coming along well. I think you will need to be careful about making sure it stands out from the crowd, though. The zombie / mutant / biological weapons apocalypse story has been done many many times, so you'll need to make sure your story has some sort of hook (It's conjuring up images of Starship Troopers for me at the moment).
I found it easier to read than the last installment, with the exception of the last few sentences.

Originally Posted by NicolasBroaddus

...People were eager to join the NEI, it had the same prestige the military had used to.

You need to fix the end of this sentence. Maybe " it had the same prestige the military once had."

Most joined for the honor of the thing, not Arthur.

This sounds ambiguous to me. It could mean that the others weren't joining because of Arthur.

He had joined for three hot meals a day, thought it seemed those days were now numbered...

though, not thought.
Other than that, it's sounding good. Looking forward to seeing where it goes.

You don't have to worry, I've got a beautiful plot twist lined up

I like your style of writing but I do feel that the theme of your story has been done many times and this might be lost in the mix. If you have a clever twist that will make this stand out from the crowd I would suggest that you get to this early in your story and then build on it. The film 'Shaun Of The Dead' was far from a typical zombie movie but didn't insult the genre that inspired it allowing it to have cross over appeal. I'm not suggesting that you turn your story into a comedy, I just feel that a mix of genres would be an interesting approach.

There's plenty of very dry humor. The twist is a doozy, and very existential.