Destiny & Danger (Solo)

[Vigil]

Duffy, you requested commentary from members of ALF from this thread and this will be the first for the group. So, I ecnourage other members to read this and share their piece of what they thought of it.

This thread is short and a narrative between two siblings over the course of a conversation that seemed to be used to advance the plot in your other work. There really was no necessary reading besides this to understand the point of the thread or background information required, and as always, if somebody feels a need for that its usually their job to go and track down the writer's other work and read it for themselves.

Destiny & Danger was a short and easy read, but interesting. From what I saw, your theme was how a family would act if the gender roles are switched and women held leadership positions and acted as head of the family instead of men. It was also told in the style of drama and I felt as I was reading this that I was watching a theatrical play which is definitely quite different then what I'm used to. I say this because a lot of the dialogue in your conversation seemed to be highlighted immediately afterward by an action from either character. Sort of like amateur actors looking at each other on set and reminding each other, "Okay, you said this, and now move." Like they were running lines or something. It felt a bit forced and not really natural.

To help, I'd suggest that if your most dominant component in a narrative is a conversation that before you write the narrative you try writing all the dialogue out before hand from beginning to conclusion between John and Sansa. In this exercise you could read over your dialogue once finished and begin to imagine how the conversation would go in your head from start to finish and begin filling in how in a natural dialogue how two people would probably act in this situation. Rather then placing movements in as you go along, it gives you a better picture of what you're attempting to do when you see it all at once. Perhaps it will help.

This conversation, for instance, was charged and very heated because both siblings are bound by tradition and one of them is seeking to move away from it for the sake of one of your characters. Or perhaps the act of freeing himself from matriachal tradition is the bigger side of his motive to defy his sister. I imagine in a conversation like this that there would be a great deal more vitriol between the two and from what I read it seemed more like you used the actions of either character more to keep the reader interested while you move forward with what John and Sansa are talking about than as natural actions in this narrative. Sometimes in a conversation there need not be as much movement and action at all, and you could stress more on not only what your characters are saying, but how they are saying it. Context in dialogue in some instances means a lot, and if you could address this more it would bring more substance to your characters and allow the reader to really see what you're trying to say.

So, to sum it up, I'd say look back on this thread and re-read it for yourself. Look at some of your word choices and the flow of conversation and try to picture it in your head to see how it moves. Does it move naturally for you or does it seem kind of stilted and awkward? It was the latter for me.

I think you should also really put some more value into setting. It seemed almost forgotten and in a narrative like this you need to consider what you're going to sell a reader on. This is a fairly simple plot, it acts like a chapter in a book, and centers around the conversation and history between two characters. Already you can see that this is a thread that focuses on dialogue, character development, and themes. To supplement that, you really, really need to try and throw the reader a bone by making the narrative seem as inviting as possible. This means using the tools that you have left in your disposal, and use of setting would have been ideal here. You could have spent more time on describing the drawing room and the Midwinter household to put it in the mind of the reader. More than the color of the carpet, the drapes and the pile of books in another room. You could easily go back in this thread and look at the way you used your setting and try to imagine it again using your five senses. How things not only looked, but smelled, tasted, touched and what either character heard.

This setting was passive and a bit placid. Remember that people don't live in a vacuum, especially when interacting with others. In a charged conversation like this, a lot of your senses would have been heightened by a feeling of impending physical or emotional conflict. You could definitely take full advantage of this and have John focus less on his longing for his sister during a break in the conversation to listening to the crackle of the fireplace, feeling the thread of the lion he was trying to sew against his skin, etc. It acts as a way to draw the reader in and allow them to better see things from John's perspective.

Take full advantage of every tool that you have when writing, especially in these instances where for the sake of the plot you are deprived of certain elements. Don't be forced to end up using them for the sake of using them, because as I pointed out earlier it looks awkard. But rather, utilize your remaining strengths and attempt to paint the best picture for the reader as possible.

I didn't really have any trouble understanding what you wrote in this thread, but there is one instance I'd like to highlight because I really didn't see the context or really understand why this was used;

In ancient times, the drawing room had been nothing more than a shed, and in its firewood origins, a spark had been kindled by the early male members of the dynasty that today offered their ancestors a temple from the dominance of Albion’s women.

“That is a prime example, John, of why women conquered this valley’s sandstone cliffs in the tentative years of our society’s birth.” Her dry, bitter, and sordid tone cut through John’s confidence like a rusted, bloodied, and cruelly bent blade.

“Because they are cold and bitter harlots?” the stocky moustache and smouldering expression on John’s face lasted for a few moments before Sansa erupted from her mausoleum of tattered pages, and leapt at him. Her right hand, like a quicksilver dagger in the dark cut across his left cheek with a start.

I had trouble understanding what you were trying to get across with what was in bold because it really had no preamble to why John said it or even after. And the action that followed is an example of what I was describing as forced and awkward. If you're going to use an example of why the women conquered the valley, you need to provide more context and reason as to why Sansa is saying it rather then to have her simply say it so that John could respond and she would have reason to slap him. It breaks the flow of the narrative and makes the point you're trying to deliver fall short from what I'm sure was supposed to be a definitive blow against Sansa while also emasculating John.

That's pretty much all I have, and hopefully I gave you some definite food for thought. Destiny & Danger was definitely interesting and with a bit more preperation and with better use of literary elements such as setting and dialogue, it could have really been much stronger as a narrative then acting as an engine to advance your overall story and plot.

Remember that this is ALF commentary, and not a judgment, Duffy. You can feel free to respond back to what I've given you in this thread if you have questions or you want me to elaborate more on something.

[Visla Eraclaire]

Duffy, I know your style is and always will be theatrical, so some of my criticism may not be useful to you because I think in doing so you tend to write in a detached, unrelatable, over-thick way. Your prose comes off rigid, stilted, unnatural. At times I think that is the point, but when it happens all the time it ceases to have a point and just becomes stale. The primness in which two siblings speak to one another could mean a lot of there were anything to contrast it with. Your non-dialogue prose is just as rigid so it comes off more as the writer's voice than any reflection on the characters.

He stared at her longingly ... He stared at his sister longingly

There's an illustration from the very first post. The idea of a brother staring at his sister "longingly" is frankly uncomfortable, and clearly their relationship is just that. At first I cringed a bit and then I thought, "Well, it made an impact, let's see if he does anything with it." But then it just repeated again later. The second time was just as weird but now it had lost its impact as well.




I have to agree with Vigil that the actions inbetween the dialogue seem... inhuman. They seem like the maneuvers of over-acted high school play actors. Example from the second post:

“That is hardly fair, John,” she jabbed a finger at him from across the dusty crimson carpet, before she began to roll her head and start to loosen her limbs from her long period of study.

She takes the time to call in by name, so the whole line doesn't seem fast or quippy enough to justify a finger-point. At the same time, she points and then stretches. That just seems bizarre. She was snappy enough to point but then tired enough to stretch. The whole combination just seems like a muddled mess.


Counterpoint

“I do not condemn your actions, Sansa, but I do condemn the tone you take when you are asked to do more than what is,” he shrugged, before he rose himself, as was custom after a woman left a table or meet, “required of you…”

While that action was still awkward, it was meaningfully so. It shows the depth of the cultural courtesy accorded to women that even in the middle of an argument where he's challenging her, he bothers to politely stand mid-line.


By the end of the second post, the dialogue seems more lively. It sounds more like people in an actual argument, prim and proper people to be sure, but living people, not the imaginings of a playwright.


And then, back in post three the silly "cut to the chase" pun and John's one liner, we're not even in a play anymore. It sounds more like the lines interspersed in a made for TV action movie.

John sighed, wriggled, and clicked life into his neck.

This is another awkward description like Sansa's motions in part one. It seems like you're just putting filler actions for him to take between lines. He's straightening up now? Midway through an argument. "Clicked life into his neck" just baffles me, honestly. I can figure what it must mean, but while it's always good to try a novel turn of phrase, I have to say that one doesn't work for me.


The dramatic descriptions of how things are said and the actions that accompany them can be great, in fact, I really liked this one

spitting, mewing, and puking rage as he ascended

but in this case, the line fails to follow through with the promise.

“Why can you not just let it lay down, Sansa?” he shrugged virulently, palms held upwards to the sky.

That doesn't sem like someone puking rage. Also, shrugging virulently seems like a contradiction in terms.


Another example of an action I liked, a level of theatric motion that was perhaps uncommon but not unbelievable.

John snapped his fingers, as if to attract her attention.

I would not say "As if" though because he seemed to be quite literally attracting her attention.




Post 6 features something that I'm guilty of from time to time. The tendency to fire back and forth with rhetorical questions. In the heat of writing sometimes it seems smart, but a lot of it just ends up being filler and as someone who argues with people a lot, it's just not the way people really talk, in any age.

John stroked the finery of his moustache with a confidence Sansa would have seethed at, had she seen it.

That one's still a little baffling. Is it part of this gynocracy that stroking a moustache is considered too cheeky?

Sansa slumped, adding swagger to her hips at the price of the spark from her eyes.

THis one too went over my head.




I'm going to stop quoting so much because I think it's becoming more burdensome than helpful. Post #7 is just too melodramatic. It borders on the Shakespearian but without the clever turn of phrase and in this day and age, even if it had them I think it would seem too dusty and trite.


In sum, the parting exchange finally had a bit of the spark and bite that the whole thread had lead up to. Unfortunately, the import of it was a bit too obscure for me without a background in your world. I know it's a tight line to walk between explaining everything over again to familiar readers and leaving the unfamiliar in the dark. I think just a little more context would help but you got pretty close. I had a decent idea of what was the point.


You were playing with some big ideas here and ultimately the payoff was decent, but the road to get there was a lot of stumbling and awkwardness. For such a short thread, too much of this felt like filler.

[Revenant]

Condensed rubric requested. Quite a bit of commentary has already been given by your ALF associates and they covered all the topics that I had.

Plot (10) – 20

Character (10) – 18

Prose (10) – 20

Wildcard (10) – 5

Total: 63

Oliver Midwinter receives 866 exp and 125 gp.

[Cydnar]

I would like to offer a somewhat delayed thanks to all those who commentated.

As ever, brutal, but insightful and to the point - entirely what I needed to sort out the kinks and give some direction and purpose to any future efforts.

I hope to put this advice to practice when I write with Oliver again - as a small token of thanks, could you split the gold and divide it between Visla and Saxon? Signatory, if anything else.

[Letho]

EXP/GP added.