The Human Cyborg [OC]

[Hesmiyu]

I have started working on a fan fic. This is my very first one so I have no idea how good or bad it is. Here is the first chapter, I do have more written but I want to see what needs improving first.

Okakura Padilla was involved in a serious traffic collision while exploring his new surroundings on his push bike. Now not only does he have to adapt to a new country, but also adapt to these new circumstances and life at Yamaku Academy.


Chapter 1 - The Accident

Beep.... Beep.... Beep....
I groan and try to reach out for my phone which I usually put on the right side of my bed to turn the alarm off. I search the desk next to me but feel something off, I cannot move my fingers. Thinking this is just an odd dream which have been happening quite a lot recently especially since my family and I recently moved from Japan from England. I try to get back to sleep but that damned alarm sound doesn't stop. I slowly open my eyes and notice the ceiling is completely a different colour to that of my room. I put my hand besides me and push down to help me up. I let out a loud yell as there's a sudden surge of pain going through my right arm.

I slump back on my bed and slowly look at my right arm. It takes me a moment to notice something missing, the entire arm below my elbow is completely missing and in it's place is a bandage covering what remains of the arm. "I have no idea how to react to this, surely this is a dream." I whisper to myself sullenly. A deep voice to my left slowly remarks "This is no dream boy, I wish it were though." That voice is that of my Father, Albert Padilla. There's a distinct sound of sadness in his voice as he spoke. "Whe... Where am I? What happened to my arm?!" I say, starting to get anxious." I look at my father and notices his eyes are red from what I assume to be tears. "Calm down!" He didn't shout it but yet his voice still has the same effect. He then quietly says, in an almost begging tone "Please." His voice back at his normal volume "Do you not remember the crash you were in 1 month ago?"

I close my eyes to think back. Crash? 1 month ago? I think back to try remember what he is on about. I remember moving to Japan at the end of Easter and the first thing I wanted to do was cycle around the area and to the town to get my bearings, I remember the sound of squealing tires and the sounds of metal crashing and crumpling together. I then remember the sound of my squeaky brakes and then everything went black. I heard the sound of a hoarse woman with a familiar accent screaming my name and then her scream and then... enormous pain as what I assume to be a vehicle of some kind rolling on my arm and... my leg? I eyes open in shocked and I use my right hand to move my covers then remember no arm, I sigh then use my left arm which thankfully is functioning properly. I look down and see my left leg is perfectly fine minus some cuts, but my right leg... I have up to the knee joint, but nothing after that. Shocked I look at my father who I looking at me with a sad smile on his face. He then slowly says "I'm glad... most... of you... survived that crash." "My arm and my leg... Where are they?" I try to say as calmly as I can. I can feel tears starting to form in my eyes. "The doctors told me that a vehicle had rolled over and landed on your arm and leg. It took a while to clear it to rescue you, but by that time your arm and leg were permanently useless."

"I... was just remembering what happened and I heard a female voice screaming my name?" I softly say. I start to see tears well up in my father's eyes. I then look around and notice my mother isn't here. I hadn't noticed because she rarely speaks. I look at my father again and ask "Wher..." He shakes his head and looks up at me.
He is actually silently crying now. "That voice... that voice you heard screaming... That was your mothers." He chokes up as he is speaking. My eyes widen at I put the pieces together. Not only was I involved in that crash, but my mother was too. "Father, when will I be able to get out of bed and go to her room?" He just looks at me tears running down his reddened face. My mouth drops as it clicks. "You're not trying to indicate that she... died are you?" He looks at me for several seconds. I'm laid here hoping he shakes his head but I have a doubt that he is. He then slowly nods his head with what little energy he has. At this point you could hear a pin drop of not for the sound of my fathers tears hitting the ground or that beeping sound slowly getting faster. I look around and notice a heart monitor next to me. I also happen to noticed the manufacturer is SMT. "First I wake up in a hospital, then I find out I'm missing an arm then a leg and not you're telling my that my mother died in the same accident I was in? Anything else I'm missing?" I try to say calmly but noting a hint of anger in it. I can hear the heart rate monitor getting faster by the minute. "Er... Your bike got destroyed?" A flicker of a smile appears on my father's face but disappears as quickly as it came. "I don't care about the bike, I have plenty of those!" I accidentally shout that. A sharp pain then happens and I hear an almost constant stream of beeps coming from the heart monitor. My vision slowly goes to black as I see the room door open. I do not see who enters before my vision completely blacks out.

I open my eyes and notice my vision is back, I smile to myself knowing that it was a dream. I lift my right arm up and my smile suddenly drops. My arm hasn't re materialised itself meaning what I thought I dreamt wasn't a dream at all. I hear a whispered "How are you doing?" from my side.
"What happened wasn't some weird dream was it?" I sadly ask my father as I turn to look at him.
He shakes his head and responds "I wish it was, I really do. I'm sorry for overloading you like that yesterday. The doctors say you are stable now," he meekly smiles as he says that last part.
"Overloadi...? Yesterday? What day is it?"
"Please, calm down Okakura," my father begs. "I do not want you to internally crash again. There's one thing I want to talk to you about then you can say what ever you want. Okay?" He tries to smile at that last part. Looking confused and intrigued at the same time I meekly reply "O... okay." I listen as my father says that as he drove here he passed a school next to this hospital called Yamaku Academy and that while he was waiting for me to 'wake up' as he called it, he did some research on the school. I found out it is a school catered towards those with disabilities. He mention that they don't take potential students if they are mentally disabled. I put my left hand up signalling my father to stop talking. He seams to know exactly what I am going to say. "You're going to ask me if they'd accept you with your A.D.H.D. and Autism right? I went there last week and spoke to the principle. She said that due to the low requirement your have for it, being none, You are accepted." He finishes. "Wait. You're telling me that I am already enrolled in this disability school? Isn't this miles away from home?" I say with a hint of venom in my speech due to my father not even asking before enrolling me.



Well, that is the first chapter done, please tell me what you think of it and what I can do to improve it and the following chapter once they're written. Thank you in advance.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well...
Linguistically it's more or less okay, but to be honest the rest of it is pretty awful.
Most of the problems are internal consistency/plausibility. There are half a dozen places in this short piece where I had to stop short and take time to process what was happening, and in most cases I had to conclude that no, this is not something that would be happening in this way.

Let's start with a minor problem: The name. Okakura is not a given name but a last name - though I question why he would have a Japanese name at all since his father is clearly not Japanese. His mother might have been, though.

Having a foreign student attend Yamaku is a frequent trope, and most often characters like that turn out to be blatant Mary Sues. It's not a problem in itself - it can be pulled off by good writers - it's just a warning sign when starting a new fic.

About the story itself:
Your OC wakes up after one month in a coma? Being woken up by an alarm clock? Not a commonly used way of waking up coma patients. His father being there can be dismissed as a coincidence, but he wouldn't have been able to spend a month at his son's bedside crying all the time.
I'll give a pass on the first thing he remembers being the move to Japan, but when he recalls the accident he recalls the pain after "everything went black" which is kind of strange.
Also his father somehow knows that he heard a woman scream and that that scream was from his mother, even though he didn't talk out loud when remembering the accident.
The dialogue when his father tells him that his mother has died is very stilted and doesn't sound natural at all.
Then, when he wakes up again the next day the first thing his father confronts him with is the new school he'll be going to. Usually when you've lost a leg - or been in a month-long coma for that matter - there would be at least a few months of rehab before that will even be a topic of interest.
And finally you decided to give your OC ADHD and autism for good measure. WHY? He doesn't exhibit any symptoms of autism in his interior monologue so far - not that I think anyone could realistically represent the interior monologue of an autistic person without extensive experience with autistic people - so it just feels tacked on to make the OC more pitiable.

So for now I suggest:
- changing the name to something fitting the background
- if it's not an important part of the story, drop the thing about him being English. It's more trouble than it's worth having to explain how he speaks Japanese well enough to go to a Japanese school.
- change the month of unconsciousness to two or at most three days.
- have doctors present when he wakes up.
- drop the ADHD and autism stuff
- push the discussion about the new school a few weeks into the future.
- for future chapters frequently perform a reality check, i.e. ask yourself if something like that could happen in real life.
- oh and use a few more line breaks.

There is no easy fix for the stilted dialogue. That will have to improve with practice.

I hope my feedback hasn't been too discouraging. As you said this is your very first story, there will naturally be lots of things to improve. You'll get better if you keep at it.

[brythain]

Let's start with a minor problem: The name. Okakura is not a given name but a last name - though I question why he would have a Japanese name at all since his father is clearly not Japanese. His mother might have been, though.

He's got a Spanish last name, apparently. That was a little confusing to me. Then I got to the part about 'internal crash' and I decided it would be a little hard to grasp without waiting for more explanations.

[Hesmiyu]

Sorry I haven't replied sooner, I kinda lost internet for few days.

I will try by best to incorporate the tips that have been suggested. I have changed names to ones I think are the right way round (I'm far from familiar with Japanese names. I have removed the names that was The Human cyborg (It was based on a little joke the OC originally said when he met his class.) Should I repost a thread when I think of a better name? I am rewriting my notes and the bases is more or less the same.

[swampie2]

There is promise here as with most OC stories, but there is some work that needs to be done. I'll only mention what Mirage hasn't

"I don't know how to react to this" This seems really stilted to me. Why would he say this aloud?

Really I would have taken a paragraph here to describe all the OC's feelings and emotions. I made this little thing.

... the entire arm below my elbow is completely missing and in it's place is a bandage covering what remains of the arm. I slowly raise my arm into my vision and twist it, observing the strange stump that now rests where my fore-arm once did. The alarm keeps bleeping loudly, yet I've tuned it out as now all my thoughts are dedicated to trying to remember what happened to me.

I reach out my other arm and attempt to place my hands together, simply waving it through the air above the bandages, making a very painful sensation shoot down where my arm used it be. The area tingles wildy as I begin to observe my surroundings... And so on.

Also look up some stuff regarding phantom pains. If your character has two missing limbs then phantom pains will be a big deal

Try to break up your text a little bit. Whenever you move onto a new topic, sensation or speaker try to make a break, It makes reading easier, and makes your editing easier too.

"My arm and my leg... Where are they?" This seems a rather redundant question to me.

"You're not trying to indicate that she... died are you?" Again, given his state of panic he probably wouldn't use a word as long as indicate.

A.D.H.D and Autism, I know mirage mentioned It but I'd drop those. He already has enough on his plate given his mother and missing limbs, this much will just muddy up the story.

Aside from those things, I think you could go far with this. Try not to think of it as writing a whole visual novel, but writing a bunch of short one-shots that form a story together. Given that thought, do try to plan ahead somewhat, try not to write yourself into a corner (Like I did with my fiction yesterday :doh: )

Keep writing. You'll get better with each chapter!

[Mirage_GSM]

Should I repost a thread when I think of a better name?

You can change the name by editing the opening post.

[Hesmiyu]

I decided to do the hospital scene a tiny flashback scenes. Also the name Akahito Saionji works right? I did try some research but I an not good with Japanese names. Whe I came up with that name (random name generators) I had completely forgotten about Sae Saionji who is in the actually game.

[Mirage_GSM]

Saionji might not be Japan's Smith or Miller, but I don't think it is an uncommon name.
No problem with Akahito either.