SF's "Write Your Butt Off" II - Return of Writer's Block

[Shoblongoo]

41 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I personally thought that eclipse's story was too confusing. 

I liked that it was confusing because in the context of the a story about V.R. tech generating a simulated reality that doesn't quite have all the kinks worked out, due to the tech operator's youth and inexperience, the confusion made sense.

And I thought it was well-handled as a story element. 

 

38 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

@Shoblongoo there is no bull when I said it would bump to an M if I did delve into the backstory.  

Look for example at what I did in my story, at the part where there's rumors swirling around about how Maribelle got her judgeship.

"The Kings harlot."

"She must have sucked him dry for that commission."

 What am I doing with those lines??? I'm implying some heavy M-rated material (i.e. town gossip says that Chrom and Maribelle were fucking, and that Chrom made her a judge because she sucked his dick)

And if I had elaborated on that point with some additional lines and gone into great detail about the contents of the gossip, I very easily could have crossed the line to [Rated M].

But because I kept it vague and nondescript and just hinted at that subject matter with the briefest of suggestions--I left the rest to the readers imagination--I got that in there, and it didn't derail an otherwise comfortably PG story. 

_________

I think you could have done the same, even with something as nondescript as "Good men feared to even speak of the abominable acts which brought these creatures into existence; such was the depths of their depravity. To be sure--these were creatures of absolute evil, as grotesque and twisted as their vile conception.  That is why they needed to be hunted. That is why they needed to be destroyed."

You needed SOME form of exposition. And like I said--hinting at certain things without outright stating them is a good way to bring a sense of mystery and intrigue to your piece.  
 

Edited August 29, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Jotari]

12 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Yeah, I know it was dragged out a bit by the lore. I guess I just thought the lore might be interesting enough. But since the maximum length allowed was 10,000 words, can you really say it was too long? Also, since Azura does make one appearance in the story, I thought it was fine to tell who she was, at least. I do suppose I could've cut out a few of the other cameos though.

It's less that 8,000 words is breaking the rules, and more that 8,000 words is not the recommended length. Most stories you'll see here will range from 1,500-4,000 words, because everyone who votes will need to read through every story, and if one story alone is the same length as almost all the others combined, well you can see how that might be a turn off. But yeah, if a story needs to be long then the upper limit is good, people shouldn't feel restricted and worrying about word count when they write. But I feel like your story didn't need to be that long It could have been cut down considerably. I don't mean to discourage you by saying that though, as I genuinely think the last quarter or so of your story was great. It just took a while to get to it.

34 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I liked that it was confusing because in the context of the a story about V.R. tech generating a simulated reality that doesn't quite have all the kinks worked out, due to the tech operator's youth and inexperience, the confusion made sense.

And I thought it was well-handled as a story element. 

 

Look for example at what I did in my story, at the part where there's rumors swirling around about how Maribelle got her judgeship.

"The Kings harlot."

"She must have sucked him dry for that commission."

 What am I doing with those lines??? I'm implying some heavy M-rated material (i.e. town gossip says that Chrom and Maribelle were fucking, and that Chrom made her a judge because she sucked his dick)

And if I had elaborated on that point with some additional lines and gone into great detail about the contents of the gossip, I very easily could have crossed the line to [Rated M].

But because I kept it vague and nondescript and just hinted at that subject matter with the briefest of suggestions--I left the rest to the readers imagination--I got that in there, and it didn't derail an otherwise comfortably PG story. 

_________

I think you could have done the same, even with something as nondescript as "Good men feared to even speak of the abominable acts which brought these creatures into existence; such was the depths of their depravity. To be sure--these were creatures of absolute evil, as grotesque and twisted as their vile conception.  That is why they needed to be hunted. That is why they needed to be destroyed."

You needed SOME form of exposition. And like I said--hinting at certain things without outright stating them is a good way to bring a sense of mystery and intrigue to your piece.  
 

Actually that's another thing about your story, I feel the fact that it's based on a Donnel Maribelle pairing should have had a little bit more focus. There's like a single reference(?) to the pairing, when I would expect it to be a bit more a salient fact as to why people are skeptical that Maribelle isn't bias in her position.

Edited August 29, 2018 by Jotari

[TheSilentChloey]

23 minutes ago, Shoblongoo said:

I liked that it was confusing because in the context of the a story about V.R. tech generating a simulated reality that doesn't quite have all the kinks worked out, due to the tech operator's youth and inexperience, the confusion made sense.

And I thought it was well-handled as a story element. 

 

Look for example at what I did in my story, at the part where there's rumors swirling around about how Maribelle got her judgeship.

"The Kings harlot."

"She must have sucked him dry for that commission."

 What am I doing with those lines??? I'm implying some heavy M-rated material (i.e. town gossip says that Chrom and Maribelle were fucking, and that Chrom made her a judge because she sucked his dick)

And if I had elaborated on that point with some additional lines and gone into great detail about the contents of the gossip, I very easily could have crossed the line to [Rated M].

But because I kept it vague and nondescript and just hinted at that subject matter with the briefest of suggestions--I left the rest to the readers imagination--I got that in there, and it didn't derail an otherwise comfortably PG story. 

_________

I think you could have done the same, even with something as nondescript as "Good men feared to even speak of the abominable acts which brought these creatures into existence; such was the depths of their depravity. To be sure--these were creatures of absolute evil, as grotesque and twisted as their vile conception.  That is why they needed to be hunted. That is why they needed to be destroyed."

You needed SOME form of exposition. And like I said--hinting at certain things without outright stating them is a good way to bring a sense of mystery and intrigue to your piece.  
 

Had I gone outside of MC's perspective, yes I could have done that exposition however it is secondary to her POV which the entire story hinges on in addition it would have completely ruined the feel I was going for if I did throw in any more exposition than what I had.

 

As far as I was concerned keeping the entery PG was the most important thing.  Also keeping it short was the other equally important factor.  I knew when I finished it had I added more it would have ruined it.  

[Shoblongoo]

9 minutes ago, TheSilentChloey said:

Had I gone outside of MC's perspective, yes I could have done that exposition however it is secondary to her POV

^^^
That right there is why I never like to go full first-person for an entire narrative. And why I think first person narratives are probably the hardest form of creative writing.

You're kneecapping yourself by taking your author's voice for narrative effect off-the-table. 
 

13 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Actually that's another thing about your story, I feel the fact that it's based on a Donnel Maribelle pairing should have had a little bit more focus. There's like a single reference(?) to the pairing, when I would expect it to be a bit more a salient fact as to why people are skeptical that Maribelle isn't bias in her position.

 ... I wasn't going to even mention the pairing at all, because this wasn't really supposed to be a ~ship focused story. 

I added that one line in there just to relate back to the theme of Maribelle not holding any biases in favor of nobles or against the commonfolk.

The one other thing I was thinking of maybe doing with it was having the Hierarch berate Maribelle for marrying below her station and shaming her family when he was giving her the pre-trial lecture about doing her job by-the-letter. Just to further establish that The Hiearch is the villain of this piece and a giant asshole, who the reader should immediately hate.

But I decided against it.  (in hindsight that might have been a neat thing to add)

 

[Anacybele]

42 minutes ago, Jotari said:

It's less that 8,000 words is breaking the rules, and more that 8,000 words is not the recommended length. Most stories you'll see here will range from 1,500-4,000 words, because everyone who votes will need to read through every story, and if one story alone is the same length as almost all the others combined, well you can see how that might be a turn off. But yeah, if a story needs to be long then the upper limit is good, people shouldn't feel restricted and worrying about word count when they write. But I feel like your story didn't need to be that long It could have been cut down considerably. I don't mean to discourage you by saying that though, as I genuinely think the last quarter or so of your story was great. It just took a while to get to it.

Yeah, I can see that. I guess I didn't expect everyone else's to be so much shorter than mine due to the max length. Even Dcat's, and I think hers is the second longest, is only half the length mine is. I just didn't think it a bad idea to go 8000 words because the max length was 10,000, so yeah.

Glad to know the latter half or so was good enough though! Means I do have potential as a great writer. ^^

[Dragoncat]

1 hour ago, Shoblongoo said:

Look for example at what I did in my story, at the part where there's rumors swirling around about how Maribelle got her judgeship.

"The Kings harlot."

"She must have sucked him dry for that commission."

 What am I doing with those lines??? I'm implying some heavy M-rated material (i.e. town gossip says that Chrom and Maribelle were fucking, and that Chrom made her a judge because she sucked his dick)

And if I had elaborated on that point with some additional lines and gone into great detail about the contents of the gossip, I very easily could have crossed the line to [Rated M].

But because I kept it vague and nondescript and just hinted at that subject matter with the briefest of suggestions--I left the rest to the readers imagination--I got that in there, and it didn't derail an otherwise comfortably PG story. 

I actually had to look up "harlot". And "sucked him dry", when I read it, looked like she had taken money from him. But now that you say it, yeah.

Mine had some swearing and minor innuendos I guess? Dunno if you played the source material, but Reyn is a bit of a horndog lol. There's one part where a female character wearing a kind of revealing shirt gets in his face to ask him if her hometown was okay and he freaking stares at her chest for a few seconds. Like you know how in the movie Inside Out where the teenage boy's emotions are running around panicking and the alarm is going off "GIRL GIRL GIRL"? Pretty much that.

[AnonymousSpeed]

Oh look here's some truly trash reviews.

Spoiler

"Finding a Colonel's Courage"

I read it with as much of the British accents as I could, but I honestly didn't get very far in Xenoblade Chronicles so I don't have too terribly much to say about it as a fanfiction of that series. I didn't actually have too strong of an opinion on it either way, to be honest, so I apologize for that. Pacing, perhaps, could be improved, I'm not really sure what the proper period of mourning in writing but it's perhaps longer than in here.

 

"A Dragon's First Mission"

I like that this story tries to build a little world, but some of the exposition is a bit unwieldy. I get that these Sharika train to become Shamen (Sharmen?) who fight monsters, but I'm left with some questions about the races of this fantasy world. Like, these Kakurajack- are they a domesticated creature? What's reptilian about them and what's mammalian about them? Are all the Shamen of a draconic sort? What's the deal with these dragon people anyway? If the vampires aren't really threats to the Shamen, why do they wait to go clear them out? Doesn't that leave the civilian population in unnecessary danger?

Also, what is a cherick? I wasn't able to find out about real things by that name, and while I could infer it's a style of sword, why not just call it a training sword?

Lastly, the story is a bit sparse, I'm afraid I must say. Aside from the aforementioned questions I had, there isn't enough detail to the scenes to give them a proper reality in the reader's mind.

 

"The First Time"

It's certainly longer than the other entries, but because I'm not a little sausage person I'm not going to get upset at someone for using ~80% of their allotted maximum word count. However, I still feel some of the content in it was unnecessary and could have been cut. Sometimes the story includes exposition which already is or easily could have been explained through dialogue. We can tell a family is happy if its members are introduced to us as being happy around each other.

I do approve of some of the dialogue, but there's a noticeable did whenever it's being used as a vehicle to explain background information. Most of the time that isn't particularly relevant and so it just breaks up pacing; We don't really need to know what everyone is up to back in Tellius. If I had to give another criticism of the dialogue it would be that I feel some more descriptions of how character's are when speaking, tone and posture and all that, would be good for both breaking up long quotes and emphasizing emotion.

Sometimes the writing is a little awkward, but to pinpoint a specific moment that stuck out to me:

Spoiler

“Nice! Your dad’s told me a lot about you, Kael,” Ned commented. “You’re the spitting image of him too, wow! The only notable difference is that eye color of yours. That auburn is just like your mother’s.”

“I’ve heard a thing or two from my dad about you too,” Kael replied with a smile. “Nice to meet you! And yeah, everyone always says that.”

The three components of Kael's response are in the reverse order which I would recommend. It's a bit easy to fall into the trap of having these "and to go back to what you said previously" moments in your dialogue, but it's kind of stilted and things should be ordered to avoid them. I'd also recommend that, when a character speaks multiple complete ideas, that the last to be spoken is the first to be addressed. Keeping the same order works for exclusively text-based communication like email, but not so much for dialogue. Written or not, it's meant to imitate the spoken word.

Overall, the story's not always as efficient as it good be, which I'm sure is a plague to all these entries but which grows more apparent as length increases. The protagonists get to where they're going about halfway, which I feel indicates that the story needed a little more focus, especially since the I feel the ending is a bit rushed.

I actually like the fight scene at the end, but things go too quickly after that. There's a very solid idea with remorse and criminals having families, but Kael is perhaps too quick to recover from his trauma and I overall feel that the sister's outrage and Kael talking out his issues could have done with more separation, it would have allowed each to be a bit stronger if they complemented each other instead of competing for the same spotlight so close together.

Misc:

The idea that multiple continents in the same reality have unrelated treasures that are similarly called the Fire Emblem is...kinda funny. Maybe it's a little too meta, though, I think it's played too quickly.

I feel like the treatment of Marc's (it was Marc wasn't it) memory condition is perhaps too lighthearted. While I admit to not having complete knowledge of said condition's extent, I feel like it's maybe not appropriate for characters to joke about.

I haven't played a Tellius game in forever so I can't really speak to how in-character everyone is.

The character descriptions are a bit basic, clothes and coloration might seem like the most obvious aspects of a character's appearance, but they're also the least nuanced and often provide the least characterization.

 

"The First Judgement"

Because this story is the most popular from the round, I feel more comfortable with being a bit harsh on it, so do forgive me for that.

15 hours ago, Shoblongoo said:

I got that in there, and it didn't derail an otherwise comfortably PG story.

I would actually argue that it did. You're right, the story is otherwise quite PG- it has no offensive language or violence or challenging themes, but that really just makes what is, let's be honest, a fairly explicit line all the more out of place. It gets thrown out of the window pretty quickly anyway, so I don't really see why it needs to be there. Instead including rumors about how her husband might influence her decisions would have been a better choice because it actually is mentioned again later in addition to not being a pretty clear reference to oral copulation.

To be honest I didn't really like this story and I kind of found it a bit frustrating to read. There's something about me that doesn't like a smug hero easily winning, and it's pretty cliche.

The piece also frustrates me in its representation of issues that I would consider to be at least a little serious. Corruption in a legal system isn't just some incompetent dunce waiting to be walked over by the young and righteous hero. It's misrepresentative and cheapens an actual issue.

The debate between the letter of the law and the spirit law, regardless of how strongly you take your side, is an actual legitimate debate, and I don't like the way this story brings up this issue only to leave the implication that people who advocate the former position are inhuman hypocrites trying to abuse a system for their benefit. It's misrepresentative and cheapens an actual issue.

A smug hero who delivers a complete defeat with the greatest of ease cheapens the conflict of your own story.

 

"From Above"

This one didn't get as many votes so I'm not allowed to be as harsh, but I wouldn't want to anyway.

Personally, I don't feel the twist works. The story is confusing throughout. I thought it was trying to do some artsy transition in the cave, but it's really just a simulation; Okay, but that's an explanation to something extremely blatant at the beginning of the story, and once it's revealed it just raises further questions, many lost inquiries about cheesecake and what not. A twist should satisfy curiosities and audience already has and reframe the story's previous actions, but here I felt like it was shooting more paint out of an air canon.

I know what events happened, but I had to consciously stitch them together and am still left unsatisfied due to the sheer lack of context.

Lastly, and this might not apply if I read more of your extended universe, but the first time the name "Vincent" is used, I double checked to make sure it hadn't been mentioned before. The name is "revealed" in a scene with a great deal of potential actors who with understandable reason to intervene, so while this might have been part of a sort of twist, I would maybe recommend doing it in a different manner.

On 8/26/2018 at 4:39 AM, eclipse said:

Spoiler

She reached out to slap him, but before her hand made it to his face, he grabbed her wrist and quickly twisted her around, using his free hand to hold her waist and other arm.

"There's a limit of three cheesecake slices per guest, princess," he whispered softly in her ear.  Her delicate floral perfume belied the deluge of curses that came from her mouth, and he desperately wished that he was alone in a hotel room with her, instead of on a beach in full view of everyone. 

Also this bit is very nonconsensual sounding and I do not like it.

 

"Dead Man's New Job"
I'm actually extremely distrustful of religious references or adaptations in fiction, even by Christian writers, even the Christian writers I think have sound doctrine. Surprise surprise that I felt uncomfortable and displeased here. The prose is decent and it has an attention-grabbing start, though. Conceptually I hate it, but on a purely technical front it's alright.

 

 

I look forward to people finally eviscerating my work. With a grand total of 0 votes to its credit, I am glad to see that it was aptly titled.

Edited August 30, 2018 by AnonymousSpeed

[eclipse]

I don't have time to read everyone's stuff (this will have to wait until Sunday, maybe).  Instead, I'll just do my best to answer everyone.

I barely scratched the surface of the world.  Once the voting is over, I think I'll do part 2, which is a story where Captain Pierce yells at everyone.  In the process, a lot more world lore should be revealed - because the concept is fun, in my mind!  Also, Thelma is a lot of fun to write (Arthur, not so much).

@Dragoncat This was an actual screw-up by me.  I'll let the epilogue explain what was supposed to happen.

@Jotari I think you'll like the epilogue, since it should address your concerns.

@Shoblongoo Thanks!  I remember reading the first few sentences of your work, and liking what I saw.  Alas, RL is getting in the way again!

@AnonymousSpeed That was to illustrate Vincent messing up his job.  Assassinations aren't supposed to happen in public!  The entire party ignoring the scuffle should've been a sign that something was really off!

I'll do actual reviews and whatnot when I have time to read stuff.  For now, no vote, since I'd have to RNG it.

[Dragoncat]

@AnonymousSpeed YES the British accents. I was going to read yours today but the wifi went down. It's still down. Will read it as soon as I don't have to use my phone. On the period of mourning: maybe it would be longer if this wasn't a busy military force? Idk.

[Anacybele]

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

It's certainly longer than the other entries, but because I'm not a little sausage person I'm not going to get upset at someone for using ~80% of their allotted maximum word count.

Thank you! I was a bit irritated at people telling me my entry was too long despite it following the word count rule we were given. Glad someone doesn't mind the length for once. When you're given a length of 10,000 words, you should brace yourself for the possibility that someone's entry could be 8000 or 9000 or even right at that 10,000 mark, not complain about it later. No offense to other people here, this is just how I feel. I appreciate all the critique otherwise.

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

but there's a noticeable did whenever it's being used as a vehicle to explain background information.

...Huh? I have no idea what you mean by this.

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The three components of Kael's response are in the reverse order which I would recommend. It's a bit easy to fall into the trap of having these "and to go back to what you said previously" moments in your dialogue, but it's kind of stilted and things should be ordered to avoid them. I'd also recommend that, when a character speaks multiple complete ideas, that the last to be spoken is the first to be addressed. Keeping the same order works for exclusively text-based communication like email, but not so much for dialogue. Written or not, it's meant to imitate the spoken word.

I'm confused here too. I don't see what the problem is...

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The idea that multiple continents in the same reality have unrelated treasures that are similarly called the Fire Emblem is...kinda funny. Maybe it's a little too meta, though, I think it's played too quickly.

Some people theorize that all the FE continents are in one world. lol Not really a stretch to say two in the same world have a Fire Emblem. :P Sometimes people come up with the same names/nicknames in real life too, so...

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I feel like the treatment of Marc's (it was Marc wasn't it) memory condition is perhaps too lighthearted. While I admit to not having complete knowledge of said condition's extent, I feel like it's maybe not appropriate for characters to joke about.

Yeah, it's Marc. What joke are you talking about though? If you mean Cameron's line about "forgetting ten seconds later" that's not a joke, he actually meant it. Maybe exaggerating a bit on the ten seconds part, but Marc really does forget rather quickly. I lightly based him on Dory from the Finding Nemo/Dory movies. Thought the short-term memory loss thing would be an interesting quirk to add to an FE character.

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

The character descriptions are a bit basic, clothes and coloration might seem like the most obvious aspects of a character's appearance, but they're also the least nuanced and often provide the least characterization.

Of course they're basic, you're not going to want to spend more than a couple sentences or so describing characters. Otherwise, it's too much and too boring. xP Because as you said, it provides the least amount of characterization.

As for the ending, I did my best not to rush it, but I didn't want it to get any longer than it already was, as I was afraid I'd go past that 10,000 mark. Having a word count limit is a bit pressuring even though it makes sense to have one.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Anacybele

[Shoblongoo]

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I look forward to people finally eviscerating my work. With a grand total of 0 votes to its credit, I am glad to see that it was aptly titled.

...alright...since you went out of your way to sodomize mine...sure...

1) Proofread your work; frequent technical errors right-off-the-bat don't start you off on the best footing when you're trying to get into a story. Knew=/=new. Where=/=were (you did this one a few times).  First line of Paragraph #2 is missing a word and needs a preposition to form a complete sentence... 

2) A handful of typos aside--its actually a very well written and well developed piece. Your word choices, vocabulary, pacing, and story structure all show the hand of a skilled writer. 

3) If this were a different theme/challenge, I probably would have voted for you instead of eclipse. Your story itself, I don't really have a bad thing to say about.

4) The big problem I cannot overlook and the reason why i cannot give you my vote is that I do not feel your story was responsive to the thematic challenge.

5) The theme was show the first time a character or group of characters went through their new job. You wrote a heist piece and chose to use as your main character a seasoned crook who was not new at his job--he's very clearly an experienced gangster--with the new job theme being relegated to ...some of the guys in the MC's party are new crooks and have never pulled a heist before.    

6) Almost nothing in the story actually winds up bringing into focus the experience of the newbies as first timers and what its like for them doing their new job for the first time, due to your decision to make the experienced gangster your MC. The whole thing just comes off as a heist piece following the story of the experienced gangster, from recruitment to completion of the heist. With the newbies, as you refer to them at one point, appearing in the background of his story as "the other two."  

7) I feel like for this challenge, you would have been better served making one of the newbie crooks who had never carried out a heist before your main character. Making the opening scene HIS recruitment--not the experienced gangster's. And following the heist from his PoV

8) This last one is more of a nitpick--but I don't like it and I think it weakens your piece when you have a title that's unfitting or misleading, or otherwise doesn't really relate to whats going on in your story.

The Title is the point of first impression; that first thing that grabs your attention.

You punted super-hard on that title and didn't even TRY to lure the reader in. Right away--reading that--the expectation you're setting is that we're about to read something  awful.  (and it wasn't awful--that wonky title undersold your story)

It didn't have to be anything fancy, but you could have out some small effort into giving your story a real title. 

A  title should in someway relate to the actual content of your story; (CONTENT: a bunch of gangsters get together and go pull a tower heist, because a crooked politician isn't paying his agreed-upon $$$ to the crime boss that put him in office) 

If that's your story, something in your title should evoke or relate back to that content.
________

That's all I got.

Its not a bad story by any stretch of the imagination--its quite good--and for a different challenge it could have worked.

I question the title, and I question the decision to present this particular story for the theme we were instructed to write about in the OP. 
 


 

Edited August 30, 2018 by Shoblongoo

[Anacybele]

Hmm, we're gonna need a tiebreaker, @Shoblongoo. It's between you and I now. :P I think yours is better since as people pointed out, mine is dragged out a little by lore and things I could've probably found a way to reasonably cut out, and I don't really see much wrong with yours at all, it's just great. But may the best writer win! :)

I would like to give out some reviews myself, but... I'm not that good at it. Still, I suppose I ought to try.

Shoblongoo - I just said I thought yours was great and you did a good job at pretty much all aspects. It's a little short and I think I saw a couple typos, but who doesn't have typos. :P I don't know what I'd improve about it at all otherwise though!

I already told Dcat my thoughts on hers through PM.

@TheSilentChloey Pretty much like others said, you didn't explain much and you left me asking too many questions about some things. And as Dcat pointed out, the battle against the vampire queen could've been the best part if it was written out.

@eclipse I said this earlier, but you might not have seen it: I was just confused about what was going on and what the job in it is supposed to be. Otherwise, it's well written.

@AnonymousSpeed I like Spiderman! I didn't recognize any of these characters except Hammerhead, but you have an interesting thing here with the job being a crime. Not bad. Though I was confused during the actual heist part about what exactly was going on at times.

@SirNicee I have to echo what AnonymousSpeed said and say that I don't like religious themes and whatnot either, since I also get rather uncomfortable with them. That being said, it is an unexpected idea, making it rather original.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Anacybele

[Rapier]

So, I just got enough time to review the stories.

Shoblongoo - I like the concept of your story, even if it feels sort of straight and to the point, which isn't too bad but cuts on the suspense and curiousity the reader may have about how the characters will solve the problem. It also tells us too much about how the characters are feeling versus showing, and your narrative is too direct at what you want to convey and for the characters' intentions. It's good, but could use some polish in these regards, imo. I also don't think they should be saying "Chrom" that casually, since he is their King and they need to mind formalities.

Anacybele - I think you wanted to write to your heart's content, and that would not be a bad thing for a fiction... except, for an one shot, there's a lot going on and plenty of character exhibition that would've worked much better if split into chapters two, three and so on (which, I know, is impossible for this contest). It makes it harder to read because there's simply too much the reader needs to mind about, and this isn't just about the word count, but the amount of characters, references, lore etc.). The dialogue is also very self expositive and it feels like the characters like to talk for minutes.

Eclipse - It is well written description and narrative wise and I like the idea, despite the story being confusing due to the plot twist you were hinting at all this time, making things feel more random and out of place than they should. The goal of the character is also not clear, it is vaguely mentioned on the intro and left at that. Basically, it suffers on execution.

Uh, so, reading is hard. Time to play videogames or something.

 

[SirNicee]

I definitely understand if anyone feels turned off by the religious theme of the story, I've thought that way about a lot of things. I just figured it would be an interesting framing device for what I had planned. That said, it's probably not something I'll attempt to write again. 

[Anacybele]

3 hours ago, Rapier said:

Anacybele - I think you wanted to write to your heart's content, and that would not be a bad thing for a fiction... except, for an one shot, there's a lot going on and plenty of character exhibition that would've worked much better if split into chapters two, three and so on (which, I know, is impossible for this contest). It makes it harder to read because there's simply too much the reader needs to mind about, and this isn't just about the word count, but the amount of characters, references, lore etc.). The dialogue is also very self expositive and it feels like the characters like to talk for minutes.

Yeah, since the word count limit was 10,000 I just wanted to take advantage of that. But I do know there was a bit too much lore. I admit I love lore. xP Tellius got me into it because that world is so deep and well written and I wanted to try my hand at building a world that deep with the continent of Altarais sitting across the sea to the west. Next time I really will try to limit myself in how much lore I throw into a oneshot.

I'm not sure I get what you mean by the dialogue thing though. Sometimes people start talking about stuff for minutes in real life, you know?

And the tie breaks. :P I'm not disappointed though, Shoblongoo deserves the win if he does indeed get it.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Anacybele

[Jotari]

@AnonymousSpeed You captured the characters and universe well (which is a major plus, Spectacular Spider Man is a fantastic show), but I feel there was a lack of focus. Who is the protagonist of this story? Montanna seems like the likely candidate, but we start the story from Hammerhead's perspective and he never appears again. Fancy Dan and Ox also seem to be the ones on their first job per the prompt but they seem to be second wheelers to Montanna. There needs to be a more unifying perspective and, well, narrative. Stick to the one character throughout and give us a better idea as to why it matters to the protagonist. Why are we hearing about this job as opposed to the countless others Montanna has presumably done?

@SirNicee So second person narrative is strange for antying other than a choose your own adventure. Characters need to be much bigger blank slates to be used as projection, so lines like this  "clearly masculine yet not to the point of being grotesque" which are odd to begin with, become doubly so as it's meant to be me thinking that, which is something I'd probably never think. Even references to things like valedictorian take me out of it as that's not something that exists in my culture yet the story is directly referring to me as the protagonist. That aside, you made the idea seem fresh enough and I was curious to see where you'd go with the morality of it, but then the story sort of just ended without digging too deep. There wasn't really any cases of people who were legitimately bad and good at the same time. I'll commonly be criticizing stories for being too long here, but this is a case where I think the idea could have been fleshed out a bit to leave with a more satisfactory ending.

Edited August 31, 2018 by Jotari

[Dragoncat]

@AnonymousSpeed My wifi is back up of course, do you still want me to read yours and give you feedback, or are you okay with the feedback you've gotten? Can't guarantee my feedback will be any different than what's already been said.

Also, if anyone else has any comments on mine, I'd love to hear them.

[AnonymousSpeed]

On 8/30/2018 at 10:48 AM, Anacybele said:

...Huh? I have no idea what you mean by this.

Sorry, "noticeable dip." There are times when the dialogue is being used to deliver background information in a way which seems kind of awkward.

On 8/30/2018 at 10:48 AM, Anacybele said:

I'm confused here too. I don't see what the problem is...

I just think the exchange would sound more natural if Kael opened his response with "I get that a lot," and then replied to the other things that Ned said.

On 8/30/2018 at 10:48 AM, Anacybele said:

What joke are you talking about though?

People kind of seem to chuckle about it, forgive me if I've misremembered what I've read. I feel like the more severe the condition, the less appropriate that sort of light attitude is. I don't specialize in family psychology or anything like that, but it's how I perceive the matter.

On 8/30/2018 at 3:24 PM, Anacybele said:

I like Spiderman! I didn't recognize any of these characters except Hammerhead, but you have an interesting thing here with the job being a crime. Not bad. Though I was confused during the actual heist part about what exactly was going on at times.

How can you not know about the greatest and most fearsome villains of Spider-Man history, the Enforcers? I was actually surprised to hear these guys showed up in comics past their debut issue.

 

On 8/30/2018 at 11:41 AM, Shoblongoo said:

...alright...since you went out of your way to sodomize mine...sure...

That seems like a bit of a strong word...right?

 

On 8/30/2018 at 11:41 AM, Shoblongoo said:

Proofread

Better Focus

Actual Title

17 hours ago, Jotari said:

Yeah man that's some pretty rusty focus but it didn't bastardize the show which is cool

Much appreciated and very useful criticism.

Ox would have made a better central character for this prompt, and you two are certainly right about the scattered direction. I got a bit too attached to the idea of keeping Montana as the central Enforcer (since he is the most central one in the show) and didn't properly consider such an idea until things were put in better perspective here.

 

To criticize my own story a bit, I think it sort of "skips" from introduction to conclusion, which upon review I also think is part of the issue I had with @Dragoncat's story*. A better format would have been Team Formation -> Failed Mission -> Successful Mission.

*- To clarify, I don't think "failed mission" would be necessary as an in-the-middle-struggle for Dragoncat's story, I think it actually would have stood to benefit from more warming into the role of training troops and doing paperwork. That way you get this sense that Reyn at first has difficulty as a troop leader which is resolved by their victory in the end.

 

6 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

My wifi is back up of course, do you still want me to read yours and give you feedback, or are you okay with the feedback you've gotten? Can't guarantee my feedback will be any different than what's already been said.

If you don't have anything to add, then I wouldn't worry about feedback. I would appreciate it if you read over it, though, just for the sake of the competition and more fully informed voting.

[Dragoncat]

2 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

To clarify, I don't think "failed mission" would be necessary as an in-the-middle-struggle for Dragoncat's story, I think it actually would have stood to benefit from more warming into the role of training troops and doing paperwork. That way you get this sense that Reyn at first has difficulty as a troop leader which is resolved by their victory in the end.

This is a good point, I could've added more I suppose. As far as paperwork goes, I really am not that knowledgeable in what paperwork exists in the military, although I could've done some research to remedy that.

The ID 10 T forms are an actual irl military prank though xD Another one is making privates take exhaust samples from vehicles, which I wanted to add, but didn't work out in the end.

Also a guy in school had somebody throw his sock in the urinal in gym class...so that's where that came from.

[Anacybele]

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Sorry, "noticeable dip." There are times when the dialogue is being used to deliver background information in a way which seems kind of awkward.

Oh, I see. But that was my way of trying to show some things too, not just tell. "Show, not tell" is an important writing rule. Compare these:

This was important.

"This is important!" Kael insisted.

I like the second way better, because it's showing that something's important to a character, not just telling. The first just says "this is important" and that's all, regardless of whether it'd actually be important to the characters or not.

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I just think the exchange would sound more natural if Kael opened his response with "I get that a lot," and then replied to the other things that Ned said.

Oh, okay. I feel the opposite, honestly. Your way sounds more backwards while mine feels more natural.

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

People kind of seem to chuckle about it, forgive me if I've misremembered what I've read. I feel like the more severe the condition, the less appropriate that sort of light attitude is. I don't specialize in family psychology or anything like that, but it's how I perceive the matter.

They're chuckling at Cam's little exaggeration and terminology, not really at his dad's disability. Or at least, that's what I was meaning to go for. But I do admit that sometimes Marc's forgetfulness results in amusing scenarios. After all, I did say he was lightly based on Dory and she's meant to be the funny character in her movies. Marc's so humble though, he doesn't mind anyway. :P

9 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

How can you not know about the greatest and most fearsome villains of Spider-Man history, the Enforcers? I was actually surprised to hear these guys showed up in comics past their debut issue.

Well, I don't know them. xP And I always thought the "greatest and most fearsome" Spiderman villain group was the Insideous Six.

[AnonymousSpeed]

12 hours ago, Anacybele said:

I like the second way better, because it's showing that something's important to a character, not just telling. The first just says "this is important" and that's all, regardless of whether it'd actually be important to the characters or not.

 

I agree, but especially with regards to some of the information on how the rest of the Tellius cast is handled, I don't think that information was necessarily necessary.

 

12 hours ago, Anacybele said:

Well, I don't know them. xP And I always thought the "greatest and most fearsome" Spiderman villain group was the Insideous Six.

Certainly no match for a big dude, a small martial artist and a guy with a lasso.

 

22 hours ago, Dragoncat said:

This is a good point, I could've added more I suppose. As far as paperwork goes, I really am not that knowledgeable in what paperwork exists in the military, although I could've done some research to remedy that.

 

I don't think anyone here is going to be too distracted if the paperwork in Xenoblade isn't an accurate recreation of the US military's. The training would probably be the better addition of the two.

[Dragoncat]

22 minutes ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

I don't think anyone here is going to be too distracted if the paperwork in Xenoblade isn't an accurate recreation of the US military's. The training would probably be the better addition of the two.

Yeah, but researching would still help me come up with stuff. Because I had no ideas when I wrote it, just that there was paperwork. Thinking on it now, I guess...roll call, who's patrolling where at what time, inventory of the cafeteria, etc. That'd probably be the extent of it.

Training and the drill from the beginning kinda overlaps I'd think.

[AnonymousSpeed]

1 minute ago, Dragoncat said:

Training and the drill from the beginning kinda overlaps I'd think.

Yeah, but Reyn isn't leading that training.

[Dragoncat]

14 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yeah, but Reyn isn't leading that training.

True true.

[Anacybele]

I see the poll is closed now, so that means Shoblongoo is the winner. Congrats, you deserved it!