Workshop: School for Scoundrels

[Lye]

Name of Completed Thread: School for Scoundrels
Name of Authors: Mordelain
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 10 Posts
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: (11/16/14)

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.

[Philomel]

Workshop: A School for Scoundrels

Dear Mordelain

Overall the story was a delight to read. As far as threads go within Althanas this is a rare and exciting moment to see, with the idea of a peaceful world and someone's ordinary life. The uniqueness of it makes it not only stand out but interesting and almost a relief to see of a "slice of life" type of story. The names as well that you use and create, those of the children, are imaginative as well as believable, reflecting the language of Fallien and giving a small insight into how the tongue might sound as well.

As another strength, you have a great talent at "showing and not telling" especially in relation to the history of the Tama, and the Fallien itself. In some sense your posts are a little too dialogue-dominated (posts 4, 6 and 8 especially) however you do manage to write a flowing story, smoothly from one post to the next. Your depth of writing is fantastic, and one can imagine the excitement in the children just by how you write them. A good feature, also, is that each child mentioned has their own distinct personality that you pick up on, discuss, and use to your own advantages. Negatively, however, as far as description and technique goes, you could have used more literary devices, such as similies, to stretch your style, yet the base you have for description is good and solid. The relationship Mordelain has with Suresh is beautifully written, though again could do with a little deeper description, maybe a reflection on their past, however ambigous.

Finally, as far as mechanics goes, there is a tendency to misspell, as seen a couple of times in the earlier posts. However, these are very minor and you have a good grasp of sentence structure. Sometimes, as a weakness, you could do with a little tightening of your paragraphing, as you often run a sentence on after a line of speech, where there should be a new paragraph (post 10, fourth paragraph, for example). In a way, also, the entire story could be longer. Although you make it easy to read and a good thread to read in a few minutes, it almost felt as if there was something missing, or a possible new development to happen, such as the next day with the children, or a scene with the children telling their parents - a little epilogue to see how the history lesson has reflected on them.

Overall, however, excellent and very intriguing to see what happens in Mordelain's life. Also, the title of the piece is extremely good and clever, in reflecting pop culture. One way to develop from this place is to experiment a little more with technique and think about how you maybe could expand your stories, making them even one post longer and almost looking back retrospecively.

[Ranger]

School for Scoundrels
After reading this it’s my understanding that Mordelain is a plane walker. She was part of a plane-conquering empire that didn’t know how to deal with Althanas magic. Somehow that’s related to The Tap and they were (or perhaps she personally was) responsible for Fallien becoming a desert? And the Jya is not a priestess of some Althanas religion as much as – I assume – an leader of the people who knows the truth about the plane-walkers and their involvement with the island?

It was somewhat hard to follow what exactly was going on in the thread, as well as with the characters themselves, which made me have trouble as a reader getting into the story. For the most part it was mechanically sound, but for a few slip ups, but the other elements of the writing seemed a bit lost. I enjoyed the interaction with the students, from a teaching standpoint, but would have liked to see more depth given to them as well as the setting as a whole.

All in all, an interesting every-day life type read that made me more curious about Mordelain, your story with her, and gave me plenty of questions to look forward to getting answers for. =)

Mordelain
Story
Post 1: “Hot sand, a peculiar smell that never left a desert dweller’s heart and mind fulminated through the chamber.” :: need a comma after mind, but I put this here because it’s hard to truly understand the smell of sand. Maybe if you lived in the desert you could imagine that as a fact, but since the vast majority of us don’t it is a difficult way to create a setting.
Why is Fallien humid?

You made certain comments about night and evening during the teaching recess, in your narrative, which confused me a little bit. I thought that it was mid-day, and later you made it clear that it was, yet those little points made it hard to tell if you were in the present referring to night time or talking about the past.
Also, lots of words that are uniquely Mordelain’s plane-walking culture or Fallien that even for me as a person who used to review and read the regional information thoroughly couldn’t grasp. I liked the use of earth cultural references to describe the Fallien people and knowledge, but the Tama side of things was a bit murky. A little bit of information thrown in as an aside, to add description to the wording, would have made it clearer.

You use a lot of short sentences, which changed the way the thread was paced, but also makes the rhythm of the narrative a bit staccato in nature… in turn making it a bit jolting to read at times.

Character
Your character seems conflicted, as if trying to make up for something in your past that you mostly just alluded to. It’s hard as a reader to get a good feel for who Mordelain is, what she’s done, and all that without a background to fall on. I would definitely suggest maybe putting a little more into the narrative to really help the reader understand the character.

As it was, it was a bit difficult to really get into the story because I had no clue what you had done in the past, why you were teaching, and the like. As such, the characters involved – from Mord to Suresh – were somewhat flat.

Also, with the children, I had no clue who they really were other than side-notes that they were in a classroom and asked questions. You used those questions to show your character, who she was, to a degree but didn’t give them anything for the reader.

Prose
There were a couple points where words were missing from the sentence, easy to miss things from the author’s view if you read it while it was still relatively fresh on your mind. As well as other little wording mistakes here and there. Proofreading is always your friend.

[Lye]

This workshop closes in one week. Please get any last minute feedback in to claim your easy EXP & GP.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Although I don't feel very worthy of giving out advice in my current state of mind, I'd just like to say that I enjoyed this story thoroughly. You wove a rich tapestry of lore in the Tama and the Nine Worlds, veiled your character's part in it with mystery and intrigue, and then presented it well in the form of teacher Mordelain giving a class to a group of inquisitive young minds. Write what you know?

In truth, I think you could have fleshed out the story a bit more on the whole, between the immediate setting and further glimpses into Mordelain's secrets (particularly regarding Suresh). I'll also echo the need for another round of proofreading, or to get somebody who might be willing to go over your threads and point out the niggly semi-errors that might detract from the reading (and yes, I'm more than willing to raise my hand for the role). I promise I won't forget. Unlike Mordelain ^^.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Strengths:

Setting: You had so much setting that was so vivid I almost felt like I was in Mordelain's classroom. Your attention to detail here was wonderful.

Pacing: Despite how rapidly the thread was churned out, its parts flowed well one into the other, neither too short nor too long.

Characterization: The thread was nearly first-person, so Mordelain's personality really showed. The burden of her guilt, the burden of her history, the freshness of her hope. The kids in her class felt real, and despite his brief appearance and limited actions, Suresh felt well-rounded.

Storytelling: I really liked the way the history lesson in the first half wound in and out of the classroom's happenings. It was really engaging.

Weaknesses:

Mechanics: You had a lot of errors a quick proofread would fix, such as "they learned taught it" in post four, the "bums shuffled to the edge of sheets" in post 6, etc. Another thing is that you occasionally use one word where it feels like you mean another (for example, you use "erred" twice, when the first time it seems you meant "ventured" and the second time it looked like you meant "hesitated"). The last part is a stylistic thing that feels wrong to me, but you use it a lot, so it might seem right to you. You use "verb adverb-ful," when I feel like it should be "verb comma adverb-ful" or "verb adverb-fully."

Storytelling: In the second half, there was a lot of tell instead of show, and I didn't engage as much with her then as I did in the beginning.

Cheating: Posting a picture is not writing a post. That was a nine-post solo, mister. :P

Over all, a very worthwhile read.

[The Muri]

My first workshop! I'm setting this up like a basic judgment.

Strengths:
- The story was simple, but nice. The interactions between students and teacher was a great driver.
- Mordelain and the students had a marvelous dialogue throughout the entire the thread. Mordelain trying to tell the students not to run in the halls got a chuckle out of me.
- Clever idea, showing the Fallien history, tap, etc. through writing a setting in a history class.
- I loved the storytelling! How the teacher able to keep the student's attention and everything. Very nicely done!

Weaknesses:
- The setting felt a little void. While you did paint some pictures, and you used a lot of the senses, the setting itself seemed vaguely used. the interaction with the environment wasn't as strong as the interaction between the characters. I do like how you described it though.
- More writing techniques could have kept my interest in the class going longer. The humour and interaction was good, but I felt like there could have been more techniques here and there.

All in all, I liked the thread. Could have been more exciting here and there, but I still liked it. It was a fun read!

[Hysteria]

I know I'm late...

*skips over the other responses*

Mord, that was a delight to read. I felt as if I was one of the kids, thrown into this deep world that slowly started to make more sense the more the story unfolded. I am struggling to think of anything that I'd suggest changing. You were fairly sparse on the details of the setting at the start, but if you increased then it'd subtract from the the dialogue. And that dialogue! You conveyed a lot of story and meaning with it, it was probably one of the best examples of using dialogue in a story I’ve read on Althanas. The way you placed actions and descriptions between that dialogue really struck me as clean and well flowing.

The story was well crafted, I'm afraid I haven't read enough of what you've written with your Mord account to know if this was a gap filler after the story they were discussing or not. The immenseness of the story, covering years that seemed as worn and tired as Mordelain appeared herself.

The setting was well done too. I like the descriptions of the food the pair ate (though I found it odd she was storing food in the table outside? And on that, why did they eat outside...?), good choices for the climate which was a nice touch. The use of pillows, smaller tables, cool rooms for the kids, whitewashed buildings, etc. The only thing I'd maybe add was some sensations during the lulls in conversation between Suresh and Mordelain. They might not notice it too much, but dry air or dusty air, hot stone, etc might have given more of the sense of being in a desert city.

I noticed only a few errors in writing as I read, though I know I tend to skip over them when I read. One the sentence was confused, another was 'the' instead of 'they' and another I think you swapped his and her. But all in all there was very little that I noticed.

When I put this thread into perspective on Althanas, the only thing that brings it down is the brevity of the story. For what it was, it was great.

[Lye]

Rewards:

Philomel - 200 XP & 20 GP
Ranger - 350 XP & 20 GP
Flames of Hyperion - 500 XP & 20 GP
Where in the world? - 250 XP & 20 GP
The Muri - 100 XP & 20 GP
Hysteria - 550 XP & 20 GP

[Lye]

Rewards Added.

Workshop Archived.

Thank you for your contributions.