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I have completed my first Balto fan fiction!

"Reason: A Balto Story"

Synopsis: Balto shares a sad life story with Jenna; a story that nearly changed the fate of Nome.

The story is (currently) awaiting approval by the Balto Source moderators, but you can read it now on DeviantArt ( http://xarcticgx.deviantart.com/art/Rea ... -350554567 )

Inspired by the art of Oha. (Shown here: http://oha.deviantart.com/art/Everybody ... -350646229 ).
Written with permission from Oha.
Cover Art (c) Oha.

Your story deserves more attention Arctic!
You have worked on it so hard. And it nearly gave me tears :')

<3

I have printed it out and am going to be reading it today. The cover art is very touching, and I anticipate a worthy story to flow around it!

Okay, Arctic, I read it...and I am very impressed! You crafted an emotional short story which weaves well through its narrative, and is practically grammatically flawless. Very nicely done!


I found the story to be very touching and bittersweet, with a good dedication to the canon material and the characters. I only noted one minor flaw in the entire piece: when you had Boris thinking out loud in Russian, but you transcribed it phonically into Roman letters (I would imagine so that your readers could at least make out what the words might sound like), and then didn't provide either a translation or else any indication of what it was he was saying. So it is left a mystery. The only notion that the reader can garner, from the surrounding material, is that Boris is worried.


I have seen, on occasion, writers use a trick to show that, while a character is speaking in their native language, what the reader is seeing is English...capped on either end by the following quotation-style marks: << >>. This is especially used a lot in graphic novels (comic books). And while most readers in the Balto fandom are probably either too young, or not nearly well-read enough, to know what the use of those marks mean, an editorial note could clear it up. I just personally think that would work better than phonically transcribing Russian words which still have no contextual meaning to an audience which, for the most part, doesn't understand or speak Russian.


Other than that, this was a fantastic story! You've earned a new follower of your yet-to-be-released material. Great job!

JerseyCaptain
Very thoughtful and well-written commentary!


Actually, the translation of the Russian phrase was at the very bottom of PDF file. :3
I'm not sure if you have a copy from Deviantart or BS (they may differ a little bit, perhaps) but inside Deviantart version there is definitely a translation, along with some other additional information.

But perhaps Arctic should make it more obvious and reachable? I believe it may be hard to find.

Thanks, Oha.


My thinking is that maybe, at the very least, he could provide a footnote mark (superscript number right after the Russian phrases which could then indicate to the reader to expect a footnote). Presuming, again, that most readers know what the heck a footnote marker even is.

Or an editor's note in brackets and bold type. Those are possibilities...

Honestly, I didn't even see the note at the end. It simply wasn't obvious enough. I see it now in the print-out I made.

I was a little worried about my method, but it seemed a footnote or author/editor's note would be out of place, considering there are no other footnotes in the entire story. I do like your idea of a superscript though. Thankfully it is not hard to make a PDF, but the Balto Source version will have to be placed in brackets. I'll get on that.


EDIT: The error JerseyCaptain mentioned has been solved. Rather than a superscript, I elected to mark the translation with a "dagger" (†) character (I've always liked that one). It appears after the Russian dialog, and before the translation credit at the end of the story.