Well, felt like posting a tale, wrote this half asleep so please forgive any spelling/grammar mistakes until I wake up, regret doing this, and fix them.
EDIT: Urgh, this was meant to reply to Bland's post.
This. For some reason I can't see him just handing her over to two unknown men who for all he knows might well be KGB spies. Especially someone like this getting his hands on first real case in forever would latch onto it like a tick.
There's a related point - if he's really *that* good at finding the anomalies, recruiting would make sense as this way, he's gonna get himself killed soon, if for anything for having little access to training materials (think the GOC documents on how to approach).
Also, that paragraph needs a bit of polish - Howard, Fine and Howard from Social whatever sounds like three people.
Uh - Howard, Fine and Howard are not really used with the term "polish" much…
1) It is three unknown men, 2 Agent Howards and one Agent Fine
2) This is past the cold war, so I think the KGB wouldn't be an issue, though I did avoid cellphones to make it a bit more more vague on the time, but as far as things go it was a one of those heat of the moment things where he was overwhelmed by the situation, they seemed to have a better handle on it, so he let them take charge while making sure the girl was kept from harm. Agent Broderick was in over his head on the situation, despite wanting to encounter something, he had no idea how to handle it, then come these three men from what appears to be a mutant witness protection program, so he trusts them based on them behaving like this is standard procedure for them, when he has no idea what even a recommendable procedure for something like this would be.
3) The very reason he is kept in the UIU is his effectiveness, I think the foundation would like the local government agent they have to deal with to be a known factor, and they don't want to risk his replacement being a bit more caviler with a gun on scp's. Also, the fact that as pointed above, he is a bit too trusting, so they want to keep him where he is so they can manipulate him accordingly.
4) please point out anything with a glaring need of polish, this is the first original writing piece I've done in a long time, so any tips on improvement would greatly appreciated
The story is good, but the writing style needs a lot of work.
I was mostly sold by the appearance of Agents Howard, Fine, and Howard of the Social Conformity Program… :)
If possible, could you please point out some of the more glaring points that need "a lot of work"? this is the first original story I've written in a while so I would appreciate any help/tips
Also, the agent's names were because I am terrible with coming up with names, so I used those three as placeholder names but then they stuck. Them working for the Social Conformity Program just seemed to work in some strange sleep deprived way.
I advise perusing Strunk & White's Elements of Style, and/or reading a lot of fiction.
For starters, run-on sentences are not your friend. Hemingway could get away with them, but I don't think anyone here is Hemingway (well, maybe Smapti…). Also, when two characters are conversing, it's traditional to separate their lines into different paragraphs, i.e.:
"My name is Nathan. I'm here to help. What's your name?"
"Megan," she replied, shifting away from his outstretched hand.
Just a beginning, but every journey has to begin somewhere, right?
Thank you, I'l look it up soon. Tonight I'l just get the formatting mess sorted out so its more readable.
I very much like the idea, but a few things turned me off.
The writing style seemed kind of stream of consciousness to me. Like even with the paragraph breaks and grammar, it all just kind of blended together to read like one really long sentence. In addition I think that you added too much detail in certain places and left it out in others such as having the entire encounter with the girl last only a couple sentences, and then spending twice that amount describing the agent walking into the room with her.
I also agree with some of the earlier posters that an FBI agent, especially one in the paranormal affairs division wouldn't just quietly hand over his "first" real paranormal object/human to some random guys with a badge.
Everything else I liked, those are just the qualms I had.
…Also I was reminded of Cyclops from X-men.
Guilty as charged, its pure stream of consciousness. I am going to format it a bit better, and make some more additions to flesh out him calming her down, and the conversation with the agents.
Also, shes not like cyclops, Shes a pyrokinetic who can ignite things the third eye sees. Normally she has more control over it but when shes panicked she loses it. That's why when she really panicked as the guard approached her, she accidentally started to ignite him but managed to focus it more on his clothes than him. I have a vague idea of her past that but to be honest in the first writing of it I viewed her more as a plot device than a character so I only put together her powers and motivations, which is something I would like to fix a bit.