Breakdown Boy wrote...
Good morning Mirimaniacs!
I just finished my first chapter (ever) of my fanfic, please check it out and read authors note before commenting.
http://social.biowar...4530/blog/3420/
Be gentle......
All right....
First, I can't comment much on the language since English isn't my native language as well. But I think it would be good if you ran your fanfic through a grammar and spell checker. Not that I could see many mistakes, it's just that this helped me very much when writing my own story.
All in all, I like the way you try to portray both characters, as far as can be determined from this one chapter. I do have one major point of criticism, though: there's too much thinking and internal dialog going on without adding to the mood of the story. For instance, when Shepard is dying, the calm analyzing and reporting style when he thinks of Terra Nova seems a bit inadequate. IMO, short, disconnected images would be better, and don't let Shepard analyze them but leave that for the reader. The same with Miranda later when she goes over Shepard's history in her mind: it reads as if she was reading a report. But she knows all that already, so it would be better to go over it like through a checklist, with the facts coming almost in a staccato, short and with little to no additional exposition. For instance, the details of exactly how he held his position during the Skyllian Blitz are superfluous here and better left for later, when someone has a better reason to think about them.
This is, of course, all IMO. I hope this comes across as constructive as intended.