Embedded Files
Characters
Eric Nylund is well known for the way he writes his characters, and often writes his novels in third person point of view. In this emulation, I would like to focus on how Nylund writes his characters to have depth and allows readers to understand what they're thinking, when they're thinking it, and how they're going about certain situations.
Word Choice
Eric Nylund's word choice in his novels is nothing short of perfect. He isn't using an extreme vocabulary in his novels, nor is he being simple with the way he writes and what words he chooses. Nylund uses a perfect balance between the two by using words that add to the story while also not being so advanced that the average reader wouldn't already know the definition.
Setting
In many of Nylund's novels, he writes his settings as more than just the placement of a character. He describes the settings in full detail, providing sometimes whimsical descriptions of the setting. In order to fully emulate Nylund's writing style, I'll have to replicate his way of writing the setting the characters tend to find themselves in.
The smell of fresh gunpowder still lingered in the air. ODST Private Jacksons stepped over the newly-produced corpse of an Elite. The foot-soldier of the Covenant army, Elites were fearsome beasts with mandibles that wore bright purple body armor. Their energy shields coated their bodies so that every inch of them was protected by the .45 caliber bullets protruded by the standard issue SMGs given to the ODST soldiers.
Jacksons had managed to wear down the Elite's energy shields to a point that they temporarily disabled, and got a shot off into the alien's neck in just enough time before the shields came back online. Jacksons continued towards his objective.
Advance on the Covenant forward moving base. Sneak past the guards. Grab the AI. Get the hell out of there.
Jacksons raised his right hand towards the ear-piece placed snugly into his ear canal and activated it.
"Command. This is ODST Private-11203 'Jacksons' to command. Do you copy? Over."
"Copy that Private this is command. You have the go ahead, over."
"I've made it past the second checkpoint leading south towards the hostile forwarding moving base. About a mile left before I reach the base. I'll make next contact when i've breached the base, over."
"Copy that Private. Command over 'n out."
Jacksons thought about his mission. This so called 'advanced intelligence'. Was it really so important that the UNSC needed to risk life and limb over rescuing the damn thing? He had never come into contact with an AI before, but always heard from the others that they're quite the spectacle. However, he needed to see it to believe it.
The lush greens and dark browns of the Jungle planet Palamok put Jacksons' mind at ease. He was always one for nature. The stumps of fallen-over trees had already started to decay and become a new home for the insect population. The dirt was so dense on this planet that it had almost nearly started to stain Jacksons boots. Rainfall was a common occurrence on Palamok, which meant mud had almost always been pathed over any sort of solid ground that might've been taking refuge underneath.
Characters
In order to properly emulate Nylund's writing style, I had to give an insight into the mind of ODST Private Jacksons, which is why I included the segment where the narrator talks about how he currently thinks so little of AI as to never coming into contact with one, as well as the inclusion of the detail of his love for nature.
Word Choice
By using words such as 'gunpowder', 'newly-produced', 'fearsome', 'protruded', 'spectacle', and 'refuge', it accurately emulates Nylund's way of writing using word choice as it shows how he doesn't go too far with his advanced words, while also not being too simple.
Setting
The last paragraph of the emulation goes into how Nylund also uses setting in his novels. He describes the world around his characters in order to remind the reader that there is still life occuring beyond what the reader can currently see.
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