Notes for Team ‘The Whole Glory’
Numbers between parentheses are post numbers. Even-numbered posts are Logopolis, odd-numbered posts are Shadowed.
Shadowed, after reading your first paragraph, I noticed a somewhat jarring number of commas that slowed my pace of reading down a lot. Just by tinkering with the punctuation, it reads less like an Inspector Gadget mission statement: “Far beyond the seemingly infinite nothingness sat a bastion of life – a crossroads to the universe, flourishing in the abyss. Untold multitudes of people of all forms and species, even beyond the vast knowledge of the Lawmaker, went about their business in preparation for the events to come. It was here that Thor, lord of warfare to the northern people, had commanded his servants to the Whole Glory the reaping of worthy souls unto the great halls of Valhalla.” To improve it stylistically, it’d need either to be reformulated or expanded upon.
For it was with the barest trace of a smile visible from under his executioner’s mask, that he pulled a pair of short swords (1) Starting a sentence with a coordinating conjunction makes the reading awkward, and this isn’t one of the a few cases where it’s acceptable.
(1) Few people know how the singular and plural work in Norse, so seeing ‘dvergr’ and ‘dvergar’ used can elicit a few double takes. I don’t know of any viable, IC way to resolve this, as I don’t expect your characters or narrators to go into an etymological explanation at any given time. Just thought I’d point it out. Just in case you’re wondering, no points were docked here.
Turning to the dwarf, Honuse Relaiyent shrugged off the touch, bringing himself nose to nose with the one he saw as an unnecessary weight to bear, despite having a firsthand knowledge of the being’s martial prowess, having defeated him in single combat at the behest of his lord. (1) Quite a run-on sentence, with a similarly large number of commas as in the first paragraph. “Turning to the dwarf, Honuse Relaiyent shrugged off the touch. He brought himself nose to nose with the one he saw as an unnecessary weight to bear, despite having a firsthand knowledge of the being’s martial prowess after having defeated him in single combat at the behest of his lord.” Or, alternatively: “Turning to the dwarf, Honuse Relaiyent shrugged off the touch, bringing himself nose to nose with the one he saw as an unnecessary weight to bear - despite having a firsthand knowledge of the being’s martial prowess after having defeated him in single combat at the behest of his lord.”
Ginnungagap (2) More of a comprehension matter. You can’t take for granted your readers’ knowledge of the finer points of Norse Mythology. Names like Thor and to some extent Sol are okay, but knowledge of terms present in the cosmogony of a mythology probably aren’t. You did imply that it was a void in the parenthesis that ended your paragraph, but the association felt incomplete. A more direct link would have helped. I’m not going to dock points here, though. Just remember to be slightly more informative in the future and it’ll be fine. I had to look for Yngvi, too, and it’s apparently an older name for Freyr. Then again, that one was at least in a context that helped the reader understand it was a god.
And this is more of a pet peeve, but parentheses rarely are seen as aesthetical in writing. I’ve seen occasions in which their use was effective, but in these cases dashes or simple commas can be used to good effect. Just be wary of not having too many of either, though you’ve been rather good at balancing your punctuation so I’m not worried.
placing enough of his decay (2) I was confused here when I first read, and I had to read your profile to understand. The mention of his racial ability was too subtle here, but something akin to “placing in it enough of his aura of decay to grab some attention’. Otherwise the decay makes it sound like he himself is decaying, and the putrescence of his touch would be enough to attract attention and possibly harm by infection. You could then use ‘inherent’, ‘innate’, ‘natural’, or even ‘racial’ to make it clear that the aura is a racial ability.
“Very well. Best me with steel alone, and your qualms will be justified in my eyes.” (2) I’ve also mentioned in other judgments that it’s not necessary to take someone’s dialogue in whole and insert it into your own post. It’s even a bit jarring, actually. Referencing that line of dialogue in the narrative is one way. In your case, I can understand that it was put there to emphasize that they were the only words he heard before the swords came swooping. Instead of simply plugging it into your post, you could for example dismantle it into the two most important parts: “
Best me with steel alone,” the dwarf heard with rising apprehension, “
and your qualms will be justified in my eyes.”Of course, the interpolated clause can be replaced by anything you think would fit better. It looks less like the author blatantly reminding the reader of that line of dialogue, and more like an emphasis on what words alerted Till to the danger of an impending battle.
aiming a deft knuckle-punch up past the polearm, aiming his strike for the chin of his opponent (3) it didn’t sound like you repeated ‘aiming’ for style. In this case, replacing the first one by ‘throwing’ might have been more adequate.