I was given my first English Comp I assignment last night and it revolves around Creative Non-Fiction, where the story has to be cemented in reality but I am allowed to twist the perspective and other things around so I can make it actually interesting.

When perspective was said, it hit me like the banhammer. What if I twist the perspective so it was me playing Fallout: New Vegas, but from the Courier's perspective? I would describe everything that was happening as if I was the Courier (actually, immersion is fun, I can't believe it), where going into V.A.T.S. would be described as making the decisions of who and where to shoot within a split second, being shot would be described with what I thought the pain would feel like, and the ending would be the Courier proud that he was able to destroy the power structure of the Powder Gangers (I do it all the time since I always play goody-two-shoes).

To make it still "cemented in reality" I'll finally explain at the end it was a merely a video game, and having it finish up with:


Anyone got any ideas on whether or not this is good enough to cement it in reality?

I like it!


As long as it does actually do what the assignment tells you to do.

It would make for an interesting read, but you may have a hard time selling it as Non-Fiction to your teacher.


One thing you need to know about English teachers, they all want you to think outside the box as long as you think inside their box.

I could see there being a problem in that whoever is assessing it most likely has never played New Vegas. Sure, everyone here (myself included) would probably love to read it, but we understand what is happening. Someone ignorant of the Fallout universe would probably have no idea what was going on ("What the hell is a Powder Ganger? Or a radroach?") and wouldn't appreciate it fully.

It's a good premise though. Perhaps if you set it in a video game the average person would have more knowledge of - Call of Duty, Need for Speed, etc. Even Oblivion would be viable, as most people are pretty familiar with generic fantasy staples.

Yeah, I know. That's the whole reason for the ending, to clarify that this actually happened to me, it was just in a video game being played on an Xbox.

Let me clarify: I actually discussed this with the professor after class, and she said that just as long as I could cement it in reality, it would be fine. I really want to know if that is good enough to pull the story out of the video game world and back into reality, or of you have any better ideas.

You might want to spoiler any plot ruiny bits in your OP, and yeah I'd not class that as non-fiction. What you're planning on doing isn't very far from just randomly thinking up something, and starting it with "One day I was sitting on a chair, and I had a thought . . . ".

You'll be setting yourself up for a fail if you write something like that, IMO.

This too. I've always hated the ending "and it was all a dream" to be honest.

Also, if you were to take events from New Vegas, and had it in as your own work, wouldn't that be plagiarism? I'm not too sure, as I've never really looked into what plagiarism constitutes too closely.

In order to cement it, after you have let the reader know that it was a video game you could add some kind of ways in which the game is also an anology of you and your life.

^

Failed my first english comp 1 assignment however I learned from that mistake by learning about my teacher and what she liked. It's best to write up the story then judge it from your teacher's perspective if you have gotten to know him/her throughout the course. If you have enough of a basis like that then you can make changes as necessary. From what i'm seeing in the OP of the thread what you've written might be spot on grounding it in reality where a person experiences something in RL yet it's just a dream they had with the person waking from that dream. The waking up portion being the actual reality and the person realizing it was just a dream.

While what you're saying is technically grounded in reality, it sort of feels like cheating. You're telling a fictional story, and only at the very end letting the reader know it was just a dream videogame. I know the teacher said you could as long as you tie it into reality, but doing it via a line in the last paragraph isn't enough imo. Plus, the non-fiction elements of the story just consist of you sitting and playing the game. It'd be better if you could tell an interesting, non-fiction story as a sub-plot to the fictional story in the videogame.

What can I say? My life is incredibly [censored] boring. I figured that this way it would be at least a somewhat decent storyline. "The incredible story of how I was able to print a comic on time" would be a total joke and an insult to me, my professor and anyone that read it.

The plagiarism comment earlier is the only thing that would really worry me, so I might send an e-mail to my professor and ask her weather or not she thinks it's a bad idea.

Short answer: Not a good idea.

Longer answer: First, in my experience, English teachers dislike the "it was all a dream" endings. I also happen to dislike them highly - they basically tell the reader "Oh, what just happened doesn't mean anything!"

Also, your teacher will, I believe, greatly dislike what you are trying to do - you are, in essence, taking a fictional situation (New Vegas) and trying to write about it from a non-fiction perspective. Basically you're trying to shoehorn in fiction writing and try to add non-fiction window dressing in order to make sure you meet the guidelines of the assignment. I can about guarantee you that you will get a bad grade on the assignment if you do this.

IF you're worried about not being able to write anything interesting, just make something up that sounds realistic. Only a few people have such familiarity with your life to call you out on it, and your teacher isn't one of them.

Personal Experience: Not a good call, it it always winds up biting me in the ass. My professor told me last time that I was able to write it so vividly, that it was like reading Tom Clancy in four pages (a nice complement, but it didn't help with the F I got for failing to recall something that actually happened to me). It's one of the reasons I'm repeating English Comp I in the first place.

Ouch. What in the story tipped them off that it was fake?

The part where I hung upside-down from the roof so I could shoot three guys with an airsoft TAR-21 through a window.

UPDATE!

My professor just emailed me with this:



So in the end, the people that said "'It's a game, FU' was a bad idea" were on to something. But I do have something that is malleable here; all I have to do is restructure the Introduction to indicate it's a game (and possibly that I tend to get svcked into them a little too easily) and say that "every player has their own story in some games, and this is the beginning of mine."

But the doesn't seem to be any issue regarding plagiarism, especially with the new way I'm going to write this mess (I'll wind up introducing the actual game into the beginning or end of the story).

And lastly, I REALLY need to read the date on my assignments *whew*.

I still really advise against this. But hey, it's your assignment.

I think that if you are going to introduce the fact that it is a game from the get go, you may want to weave in and out and correlate real life challenges (homework, chores, bills, etc.) with in game challenges so that you are telling two narratives that tell one story.

So you made things a little to amazing to believe.


To keep things "cemented" in reality you could occassionally reference clicking/pressing keys (or pressing buttons if you're on console) with some silly adjective in order to give readers an idea of whether or not your stressed and keep things grounded in the idea that you are playing a game.

You advised against going "oh lol, yeah, that was just a game I was playing", not telling the reader off the bat that this is what happened when I played the game. No cookie for you :3

Normally, I write my own fiction, but this time it had to be somehow anchored to reality. The first idea was to do "this is a story I wrote this one time," but I didn't need outside opinions to know that I just came up with the dumbest idea ever for getting around the reality anchor. It also reminded me of Inception (as a story within a story), which made the idea svck on a whole new level.

I was able to do it against targets. Hurts my quads like like hell though (I think they were my quads...)

I was playing with the idea of writing my character to death and the game over music starts playing. Then it reloads, which I then refer to as my "second wind". This would be done once.

Could you ground it in reality by writing about how some experiences in the game remind you of experiences you have had in real life? You have obviously never had to defeat a swarm of cazadores or foil an assassination attempt. But maybe you visited a desert or a casino. Had to haggle while on vacation to Egypt. I don't know what you have done in your lifetime but there should be some more mundane things in Fallout New Vegas that remind you of an experience. Getting lost somewhere for example.
I don't know if this helps but as others have said the "and it was all a video game" ending is not enjoyable to read.

I haven't had that many experiences other than the time in Utah, the only haggling I ever did was on a port in Jamaica, and the airsoft fights I was in as a kid were the closest things to actual combat. I am REALLY trying to stay away from the idea of going into "it reminds me of this one time" experiences; I have trouble with those every single time.

Also, you're kind of late with complaining about how I was going to end it. My professor herself said it was a bad idea (in addition to everyone else) and I'm now working with how to bring up a few constant reminders that this is just a game.