Workshop: Transformation Central

[Philomel]

Name of Completed Thread:Transformation Central
Name of Authors: BlackAndBlueEyes
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 15 Posts
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: 10/01/2014 (10th January)

Critique Guidelines:

1.) Standard rules for etiquette apply. No spamming or off-topic posts, no personal attacks or trolling. Focus on critiquing the thread, not the writer. Use constructive criticism and try to speak in terms of "strengths" and "weaknesses". For example: "Your story was strong, but the action seemed a little weak. Try using more adverbs to describe actions or use a thesaurus to spice up your word choice."

2.) Likewise, those who have asked for a workshop should take criticism gracefully. Use it to better yourself. These are not intended to offend or belittle, only show you opportunities to grow.

3.) If at any point you notice improper conduct, contact an administrator immediately. Bullying of any kind will not be tolerated. Arguing will also be regulated heavily. Polite, constructive debate is permitted within reason.

4.) In order to receive EXP & GP for your feedback(see Workshop Guide), a critique must be helpful, elaborate, and considerate. It is suggested that the review be at least 3 paragraphs and focus on strengths, weaknesses, and overall content. You may use the Althanas Rubric as a guide.

5.)Those that leave an exceptionally detailed review with plenty of constructive advice may be eligible for double rewards. This will be up to the posting judge's discretion. The authors of the thread may request the additional reward be given if they found a review to be particularly helpful. The request must still be approved.

[SirArtemis]

Firstly I'll say it was nice to actually read some of your work, as I don't think I ever have. And I apologize that my notes will be general/vague but feel free to PM me for more detail.

Firstly, there are points where your writing style doesn't feel like it flows as much as it strikes (like the hammer of a smith), in the sense that you're listing out sentences with details in a way that reads like a bulleted list. It isn't all over your writing, but there are times. I'm not sure the reason. It happened at the start and then sporadically throughout.

Second, there was a point where Maladim said: "hook you up with a new body." That felt so out of character that it actually made me cringe a bit while reading. Nothing in my mind connects a long-lived demon that collects knowledge and stories with someone who would choose to articulate himself by saying he will "hook you up" with absolutely anything. Nor would I see a demon saying: "Everyone in my employ is gifted a slate of fun and cool things"

There were some general flow/mechanical slips, though few. Example: "At like I'm not like a lot of the others." or "maintaining an humble" (an shouldn't be used there). A few others I didn't list.

Overall this was an interesting read. With how little I know of your character I'm both intrigued and worried. With such a high-level and strong character you seem to have chalked up (though at times forced) a means of rerolling your character while still being permitted to keep your power threshold. There's a lot of freedom that lets you design your character around an abstract and undefined book of possibility. And I can't help but see your character as truly immortal now, in the sense that she will just be sent back into the world with a new body each time that has slight variation, but with limitless parallel planes, you will never be permitted to die while in servitude to Maladin.

With that in mind, I think there's a challenge in the future of a character such as this. With life not being really at risk, it leaves the suspense/conflict to have to come in another source. How does one write a character with some tension if any failure can really just be wiped away and you get a do-over every time? It's a consequence-free existence. Unless someone traps your soul and prevents Maladin from embedding it into your character. I also think there's a tremendous opportunity to incorporate flaws/consequences of this deal into your character, but you did give Maladin his "weakness" of fairness. So we'll see.

Let me know if you have any questions, as I said. I hope this was somewhat useful.

[Bard]

Storytelling:

Even though I knew some of what was planned in this story ahead of time thanks to conversations in chat, it was still an enjoyable and easy to listen to thread. I liked that you went full circle with the scholar, having the story begin pretty much in his house, and pretty much end in his house. Very tautological, I liked that indeed.

From that launching point I could easily follow how events unfolded, as everything nicely came out from the previous element in the sequence.

For the most part your setting was succinct. You provided the reader with more than enough for the scene to be captured in the mind’s eye, but were not overly excessive about it. Two of my personal favorites were:

“All around me, there were endless shelves, stories tall, and packed with books.

And when I say endless, I literally mean the very concept of endless. I was sat at the intersection of several rows, and they went back as far as my eyes could see. There was no end to them. It's... incredibly hard to describe, really. Outside of overwhelming, anyway.”

And

“I took a deep breath, and immediately choked on a horrid stench. Dudic Friedlander's rotting corpse laid in the center of his floor, his body decomposing, his blood solidified on the carpet. "Oh gods, that is rancid," I managed to sputter while covering my nose and fighting back the urge to vomit. I had to get out of here before someone else discovered what had happened to him. I hoped that the odors of decay hadn't seeped out into the streets of this hostile little slum.”

Character:
As one of the major driving forces of this chapter/ thread, for the most part you handled communication rather well. The dialogue between Maddy and both the scholar & Maladim Karunungan, felt for the most part very natural, being by and large believable, there is one comment I shall make on this later. The use of what appears to be mostly Spanish for the representing of the Dheathain subdialect was a nice touch for the summoning ritual; and of course the internal dialogue served as a good bridge to unify events.

Your characters actions made total sense and worked well within the story. The little mannerisms with such things as the coco were a nice touch.

As I said already with communication the internal dialogue of Maddy’s thoughts really helped keep things moving in a steady progression, and helped unify parts of the narrative, and they all seemed to fit Maddy’s general personality based on what I understood of maddy. Furthermore, they served to explain a lot, the removal of the arm for instance. The internal dialogue of post #10 was one of my personal favorites, as it not only showed hidden desires, but overriding practicality as well.


Prose:

I’ll admit I didn’t give this aspect as thorough a scrutiny as perhaps it deserved, but having said that I did notice a few minor errors. “An” instead of “a” when describing the suit for instance. Otherwise, the thread seemed clear to me, I never had to guess as to what was going on, or re-listen to anything. I liked the use of the repeated “a burning question I had to have answered.” As a stylistic element to build tension.

Wild Card:

The only problem I had with this thread, and I’ll admit I might be nitpicking, is the use of the phrase Science Fiction. Unlike with the “truck” incident, this one fly’s past with not even a comment from Maddy, when it should most certainly elicit one. Of course, that’s probably just me, its an anachronism when this thread has already had others, so its not like it’s a major issue, but one that made stop and sigh just a little. Otherwise, an enjoyable thread.

[matthewkuch]

Thread Title: Transformation Central
Judgment Type:
Participants: BlackAndBlueEyes

---

Plot:

• Storytelling- 7

The writer displayed basic knowledge and coverage of the elements of fiction- Plot, Setting, Character, Conflict, Symbol, Point of View, and theme that is- gracefully integrating and showing most of them throughout his story.

There was excellent effort and development of the plot, as Madison’s intentions and reasons for being in the situation that she was were rather unclear and obscure at first but the thread nicely elucidated many of the questions. The reader could progress through the story without much difficulty; however, Madison’s history was a bit sparse which, subsequently, would leave the reader a bit confused as to what her exact motives were if she did not read your character sheet, but all in all it was clear that the author was an experienced one and his storytelling skills were quite exceptional.

The conflict of the story was brilliantly developed and internal in nature, exploring the problems that Madison had with the person that she had become, and her outlook on herself in lieu of everything that has happened. She sees her plant body as a prison, as well as the scapegoat for some of her actions, and associates her forced service with it as well. She is absolutely disgusted with herself, the deprivation of her own humanity’s not helping at all. Years of suffering from her not being in her normal, natural, true human form since being burned at the stake results in a huge amount of emotional animosity towards her entire being now, which she defines as “…what I have become,” (Post 6). She looks to find new hope by getting a human body and starting over, believing that it will free her from the ties to her “prison.” The extent to which she buys her freedom is very ironic, because she binds herself into eternal servitude in order to obtain freedom.

This also covers the theme of the story, such that: “Madison was so desperate to be free that she was willing to serve a demon forever in order to get it.” Very clever, and very crafty.

Symbolism, interpereted by one reader, can be seen in the small notebook that Maladim gave Madison, an object that she will never part with that represents her debt to Maladim that she will never part with- a debt that will always be with her, and a debt that she is now subject to forever.

When dealing with point of view, the author must be wary of changing tense because usually past tense is used. Changing from past to present tense is often discouraged, but such things did not happen too often in this thread. First person point of view was used. One of the benifits of using first person point of view is that the reader is able to experience things from the character's perspective easier.

Overall this area was a strong suit for the author, obviously small technical flaws such as lack in setting details, lapses in mechanics, and awkward sentences impeded the flow but the author’s understanding of storytelling was very solid; subsequently, earning a 7.

• Setting- 6

The setting had its strong areas, but also its weak spots.

The setting was very strong in the end of the thread. Maladim’s library was very well described with special attention added to its infinite expanses. Additionally, the scene where Madison was choosing her new body was well described too, especially with the sounds of the machinery and the display of the demon’s sheer power and expanse. When Madison came back into the scholar’s house, the bad odor was also a strong addition to the description of the surroundings.

Conversely, the setting was somewhat lacking in the beginning of the thread. As an author, one of the main goals is to allow the reader to completely immerse herself in the writing, so she can feel and experience everything the author has to convey firsthand. That is one of the things that makes a great story, truly great. Setting cannot be stressed enough, especially in the beginning of a story, because it allows the reader to completely absorb herself in the story. A setting that is not lacking in depth, texture, and atmosphere allows her to walk in the character’s shoes, see what the character sees, hear what the character hears, feel what the character feels. Jumping directly to the character’s intentions is okay, but the reader does not have that concrete “foundation” of the world around her to feel comfortable enough to immerse herself in the character’s perspective and therefore effectively experience the character’s intentions on a firsthand account.

The beginning of this thread in particular felt as if there were holes in the world around, images that literally had holes of nothingness when visualized in the reader’s mind. This can sometimes leave him confused or disoriented when trying to visualize the surroundings and whatnot. A lot of this has to do with the lack in sensory details. Most of the time a good attempt at sensory details was made, but only one sense was focused on and many others were lacking. Focusing on a specific feeling or sense is great, but sometimes it can be more effective to go with small amounts of a wide expanse rather than a larger amount of one.

When reading the confrontation scene with the scholar, books and paper scattered all over the floor with parchment and what not, but what was it like? Especially talking about the surrounding in the house. How did it smell? Did the candle light cast shadows? There were many candle lights in there but were they so close together that they brightly lit the place or was it dimly lit? did the light from the windows help? Was there a layer of dust on the books that kicked up when they were knocked over or were they immaculately clean as he was a neat freak, or he frequently read all of the books?
What was Lorinus’s port city like? Was it dark and gloomy covered with overcast clouds? Was it bright and sunny? What were the xenophobic people like? Did Madison experience any trouble from them or were they completely fine with a stranger roaming their streets?

Although the beginning of the thread was somewhat weaker description, the middle-end of the thread was stronger in terms of the setting and the reader can find himself absorbed in the character’s point of view, experiencing the setting. Overall a great effort was put in earning a solid 6.

• Pacing- 5

The flow of events in the thread seemed to be good, although major transitions seemed somewhat abrupt. The reader can adapt, but the sense of how much time passed dissipated into vagueness as none of the events were given any time frame. The writer did such a good job with immersing the reader in the plot and storyline that this was not a big detriment that could lead to the reader’s being uncomfortable when reading it, but it was a bit off. When Madison first went to Lorinus there wasn’t much of a timeframe given; additionally, there was a jump from when she asked the man for his brain and when he was dead surrounded by candles. Later in the thread there were jumps when she went unconscious. Keep in mind it is okay to cut from scene to scene in order to give effect, but when absolutely no time frame is given, it leads to vagueness in the story.

Although not much timeframe was given, the thread progressed nicely and the storyline flowed well. As mentioned earlier, the timeframe was not the focus of the story and so the lapse in definite time depiction was not a major fault, resulting in a high end 5.

---

Character:

• Communication- 7

The dialogue in this thread was very strong, nearly every bit of it had a purpose whether it was to further character development or display character intent. All in all the “Show, don’t tell” principal was very well used under this category and a clear knowledge of it was accounted for and utilized. Body language was also used, such as minute cases like when Madison rolled her eyes so far that she thought she would snap her optic nerve. All in all a solid 7 was earned.

• Persona- 7

Just as with storytelling, persona was a strong suit in this thread. Character development was a huge topic as there was not much physical conflict or struggle, and most of the thread was devoted to showing what kind of characters Madison and Maladim were. Madison was mainly shown in her struggle with herself and her internal conflict, whereas Maladim was hashed out by his dialogue. His character was very dynamic somewhat shown his varying diction, as sometimes he used larger more formal words such as “adequately,” “cancellation,” and “facilitating,” but later he uses phrases to explain like “It’s basically…” Some could see his vast knowledge base interfering with his word choice, making him speak more sophisticatedly, and more “dumbed down” at other times. He was introduced as a demon, but the reader was able to deal with him. He was portrayed as a fair demon, with a caring side

Sensing my unease, Maladim walked over to where I laid and sat down near my chest. The glowing runes etched on him faded away as he placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Don't worry," the demon said in a comforting tone, "everything is going to be fine.

But he also had a ruthless side as he smiled before removing Madison’s soul. The contradiction leads to an ominous, mysterious touch to his character. Very well done. Persona earns a 7 here

---

Wildcard:

Wildcard goes to the comic remark made by the narrator:
“Maladim smirked, thinking he was making the funniest of jokes. You would think with an infinite library at his disposal, he could've looked up one that was better.”
That made me smile

All in all it was a good read that I enjoyed. Thanks, and good job

[Rayleigh]

This thread is closed. Rewards will be posted soon.

[Rayleigh]

Workshop: Transformation Central

SirArtemis receives:
675 EXP
30 GP
2 AP

Bard receives:
225 EXP
30 GP
4 AP

matthewkuch receives:
900 EXP
30 GP
4 AP
For an exceptional workshop submission.

Congratulations, and thank you to all participants.

[Rayleigh]

All EXP, GP, and AP have been added!