Workshop: Qadira - Rebirth

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Name of Completed Thread: Qadira - Rebirth
Name of Authors: Qadira
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 5
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: 25th June 2016

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]

Hey Qadira! Congrats on your first thread!


The first chunk of your score comes from story and it's made up of the below items.


Storytelling:

I think you have a good foundation here and you have an idea. That's important, because ideas are hard to teach; execution is something that comes more easily with time and skill. Though your thread was brief it served as the introduction. Your character has awoken, she has begun to realize that she is "alive" again, and she is completely unaware of who she is beyond her name. This is the starting line and there is much to explore from this point onward. I like it.


Setting: There wasn't too much here, but i think you could have explored the environment more. I'd also note that sometimes the comments on the environment seemed a bit difficult to believe and to an extent this will be tied to pace in the next post. For example, unless it immediately started to flood, I'd find it hard to imagine that a mud slide would form as quickly as it did and slide down into her mouth fast enough to suffocate her as though she were drowning. I'd also note that if she were buried beneath the neck, water would not penetrate many feet of dirt in such a short time. The soil at the top would only begin to turn to mud whereas the lower levels would most certainly still be dry. Check yourself with realism when writing, or it can pull you out of a scene.


Pacing:

I think you may have rushed your introduction a bit, and that came out in some of the action aspects of your writing. The mud is one such thing noted above. But if you read the entire story, it sounds like it happened in the span of five to ten minutes.



The next part of the story relates primarily to the character.

Communication:

Admittedly there really wasn't too much talking but internal dialogue counts for this. I'd recommend you think about how you want to narrate your stories. Your narrator seems to be both telling the story but also participating in the story. Third person narrative can take many forms, but I simply suggest reflecting on what voice you'd like to take before you get into the habit of things. By reading this, I find the narrator and the character overlapping to such a degree that it feels like your eagerness comes off as a showmanship type of narrative. Maybe something a bit more distant and unbiased narrative could serve?


Action:

The most notable piece here that I struggled with was your escape from the coffin. I had a very hard time following how exactly you were escaping from this underground tomb. You tell me you are very tightly constricted but you kick a hole with your foot into the wood. Somehow you then are able to reach your arm down that far to scoop dirt. These ideas conflict and are very confusing. If you're very tightly bound, then you would have absolutely no means of reaching that far down. You just wouldn't have the wiggle room. I can understand what you're doing, but I have to apply a completely set of images that are totally unrelated to how YOU are telling me it happened, and this loses me a great deal. This also applies to your instantaneous mudslide and dirt-to-cement description when it starts to rain abruptly.


Persona:

I think there's a lot for you to work with here as you develop your character further. She has a personality, and that is clear. However, as I mentioned earlier, I think drawing a clearer distinction between narrator and character may be helpful in making the character more vivid. Unless you want to do first person narrative.



The last piece of all this is your prose, which is the "writing" aspect of all of this.

Mechanics:

I'll be honest, I'm a stickler for this. There was quite a bit of incorrect usage of punctuation, capitalization, words that needed to have a space and didn't, words that weren't accurately used. Try to avoid slang as well when writing proper stories. Unless used in dialogue, you don't want your narrative to say that something happened cause of this - the word is because.


Clarity:

I already touched on this for you. I think really visualizing what it is you are description with your actions and checking yourself with realism will help with clarity. Tighten up on the actual rules of language and writing as you go and things will be much smoother.


Technique:

I liked how you immediately started the thread by hinting that the breath was the first in what felt like years. That gets the reader thinking about whether or not it has been years and why, as typically mentioning something like that out of no where isn't quite helpful. It helped lay the foundation for how the rest of the story unfolds. I also like the connection between being awoken from the dead and the fact that she is actually a necromancer - that parallel is not lost.



The extra section is Wildcard and I'm going to take that as an opportunity to just give some general and vague advice. One of the most beneficial things an individual can do in order to improve their writing is to read the writing of others and seeing what works and what doesn't work. The second thing is to just do the writing, and it's great that you're doing it. The third, and one of the most practical before submitting a piece, is to read it out loud. I don't know how many times I've heard that in my life but as I get older it rings more and more true. Read your work out loud to yourself. Read it following the punctuation that you've included, the enunciation, the capitalization, and see how it sounds. It will help you tidy up quite a bit and catch a lot of your mistakes. You have a lot of room for growth, no question, and I think reading your work out loud will be one of the biggest jumps you'll be able to make in the short term. Do that with this thread and you'll see how many times you were actually repeating yourself and how awkward that might sound as a reader.


Hope this was helpful! Feel free to message me with any questions or comments!

[jdd2035]

Hi there! I'm J.D and this will be my first workshop nice to meet you I suck at grammar and spelling and most other things associated with writing so don't worry i won't be too harsh.


Storytelling: All right, the cold introduction has been done by a lot of shows Star Trek, Star gate, Bones, N.C.I.S, etc. and the end results of its use varied. So to say that it's done to death would be misleading. You did a good job with it there was actually no other way that I can personally think of to write your story and not spoil it. Though your first post I couldn't figure out if you were the Bride, Batman or Ryan Reynolds. So very good opening.

Setting: I liked the way it kept expanding from one "Oh Crap!" moment to the next. That is what I like in a story the trip from one piece of action to the next. I had a question how if your character was confined in a tight coffin how did she get to where she could move her arms above her head? It's a small nit pick and the question came to me roughly 15 minutes after waking up and before caffeine. The thing is I didn't really get any sense of danger. Yeah I saw the mud coming, and the dirt in the mouth and I may be desensitized but I didn't feel much kick in the teeth about it. I have no idea how to make your story have that kind of punch and frankly I wish I knew how to do it better in my own stories.

Pacing: The pacing was cool, I touched on it a bit in the last category. There was a bit of a story where you are in the top of a burning 40 story building and you have to survive. So you jump out of the window and survive for five seconds then what? You got this down pretty good with each post adding to the then what? or "Oh Crap" moment.

Communication: The one thing I could say here is strong language. While I'm not a ninny I recommend that rather than following through with the cursing just write out that she let out a string of oaths, and curses or whatever It's a mild thing but just a thought as some people in the world believe that the use of foul or strong language shows a lack of imagination. I can take it or leave it. I'm probably a hypocrite here but that's the one thing I thought of.

Action: Not much action here. There was definitely plenty of character progression.

Persona: Same as above.

Mechanics: I aint touching this with a ten foot pole... Grammar and spelling are not my strong suits

Clarity: Your story was quite clear and provided a good mystery to figure out.

Technique: Much like mechanics i'm not touching this with a ten foot pole. Not because your technique is bad but because of my skill in writing.


These last few categories are short mostly because I am not skilled in these areas my self so it would be a touch hypocritical to tell you that you're doing something wrong when I screw stuff up all the time in these sane categories. It's like the blind leading the blind. Any way it was a good story and quite fun to read.

[Cards of Fate]

Grats on your first thread bud! I know I helped you edit it a bunch, but here's some more feedback to help you along.

Plot: This thread was pretty short and sweet. It had a couple plot points, a little bit of conflict, and somewhat of a resolution. It could have been longer, but something tells me you just wanted to get this out of the way to get your foot in the door, and that you plan to expand on it further in another thread.

Story:
I think for what you had you did pretty well here. There’s an air of mystery about your characters situation, and you could have explored that a little more. I think the ending kinda rushed a conclusion out the door and dumped a lot of info on the reader, but given the length of the piece that’s kinda hard to avoid?

Setting:
Arguably the weakest of all the scores, there was a lot to improve on. There’s a fine line between too little and too much setting, and it can often be very easy to put too little or too much setting in. A few extra lines about the surroundings would have been nice, such as maybe describing some nearby tombstones, the grass, etc. It really helps to draw the reader into your story.

Pacing:
The thread was quick, it was only four posts long and read pretty quickly. Events came and went pretty quickly because of that, and thus a lot of weight to certain scenes was lost. It helped the reader along, but it also dulled some of the emotional impact of what had happened.


Character:
Writing an amnesiac is kinda tough when it comes to portraying emotions and thoughts to the reader, because the character is in transition. I think you did alright in establishing a little bit of Qadira, but you have a long way to go in terms of fleshing her out as a three dimensional character.

Communication:
There wasn’t much dialogue here, and what you did was pretty solid for the most part. The zombie felt a little talkative as he was rapidly decomposing however. I did manage to pick up certain snippets of Qadira’s personality from some of the pseudo inner monologue you had in certain sections, and it spoke to me a little bit about your characters temperament. Other than that, there is not a whole lot to say here.

Action:
Some of the actions taken by Qadira were kinda muddled and hard to understand. At first pass I thought I understood what was happening, but each pass afterwards made me think something differently. The clawing out of her grave scene was difficult to comprehend, but is also a difficult action to describe to begin with. It feels like pieces of important information didn’t make it into the writing. Practice makes perfect in this section.

Persona:
I feel like more could have been done to depict Qadira, but given the nature of the thread and it’s length, some things were intentionally left out. I look forward to reading more by you and discovering more about Qadira.


Prose:
The writing was pretty basic. You didn’t really bust out a whole lot of fancy writing techniques, and given the brevity of the writing it might have been a mistake to have done so.

Mechanics:
Artemis touched on this already, and I’m gonna bow to his skill on the subject seeing as I’m not that great at mechanics. A quick skill is to try reading everything out loud and looking for things that sound awkward, that usually catches a lot of mistakes.

Clarity:
The thread was pretty coherent for most of the thread save for Qadira’s escape to the surface. The same advice from above can be used to help you here.


Technique:
Not much to say here except for one thing that I really liked. You refused to use your character’s name until the very end, and while you had to overuse pronouns a lot to get this done, I really like the idea.

Wildcard:
It was a quick read and I had a lot of fun with it. It was pretty engaging, and despite its flaws it managed to tell a pretty quick and fun start to your story.

[Less]

I am going to take things slightly out of order, because the “Prose” category informs or augments most of the other categories.

Prose

Mechanics
There were quite a few errors, enough to be distracting and to disrupt the clarity of the story. I’ll echo the sentiment of reading aloud, and also address a few of the ones that are particularly easy to clear up or seem habitual.

Ellipses Abuse: This is a pretty common-but-pernicious affliction. My general theory on the matter is to just eliminate all ellipses (“…”s) when I edit, but they do add to writing in some cases, usually in dialogue. The shambling speech of the zombie, for example, makes good use.**Almost all ellipses within narrative take the reader out of the writing a bit… because it seems as if the writer needs a second to think of the next word or phrase.

Pronoun Juggling: This was probably the most difficult part for me in terms of separating mechanical error from my ability to enjoy the story. In the first post, third paragraph, you actually use “his” instead of “her”, and it took a few re-readings to try to sort out exactly what had happened. I’m still not actually sure if it was “this” missing the t or just a flub. There were also other instances throughout the writing where the antecedent of a given pronoun wasn’t particularly clear, and that almost always makes me wander backward in the writing until I can figure out exactly who is doing what. I think this is symptomatic of the anonymity you wanted to create, which was good, but did lead to using more pronouns than you otherwise might have (meaning you need to take extra care not to muddle them).

Clarity

A lot of what I said above applies here. Some sentences were mechanically incorrect or mechanically correct but awkward, which caused re-reading for understanding.

I think it’s particularly important to strive for clarity when presenting a mystery story, which is more or less what this is. A lot of the appreciation comes from seeing what the author intentionally obfuscated in order to present the solution to the mystery eventually without giving too much away. When there is unintentional obfuscation as a result of mechanics, it casts doubt on the obfuscations that should have been successful, or makes it difficult to determine if there actually was any intention.

Technique

I think that you were successful in this category, especially given the length of the piece. In particular I enjoyed the slight foreshadowing of her spontaneous necromancy- the tingle that she assumes is her body going numb that is in fact her re-animating the corpse that we meet later. I also think the overall reveal is successful despite the mechanical and clarity issues, and it’s a nice twist on a cliché. We’ve seen this scene before in media (Kill Bill, various horror movies), so when I first began reading I was hoping for a payoff, and it delivered.

One final pointer relates to personification of appendages. You had her hands and feet feeling and touching, and it didn’t really work. She feels with her hands and touches with her feet, rather than the actual appendages doing it. It happened a few times, so it’s something I would be wary of.

Story

Storytelling

There is definitely a story here. The initial premise (survival) is a compelling and primal one, even if the actual plot moves in a somewhat different direction. As I mention, there is a “twist on a cliché” aspect that is satisfying as well. There is also a finite beginning and ending that are reverse of one another, and excluding survival, the stakes are still high. Her very identity is on the line from the beginning, and after overcoming conflict, she begins on the path to regaining it at the end.

Setting

Considering the scope of the piece, the setting was adequate. There is only so much you can say about a coffin. I do wish, and this will tie into my next point, that the setting she emerged into was a little more developed and that she had interacted with it more. She just emerged from being buried alive, so her appraisal of the graveyard is a little clinical for my tastes. Additionally, a necromancer, she probably should have had some very specific associations with graveyards. Maybe she could have questioned why she was so at ease with such a macabre setting before the big reveal, etc.

Pacing

Overall I think the pacing was good. Especially in a constrained scenario without a lot to do, you did a lot, and it wasn’t dull. I do wish that the last segment, the actual revelation, had been a little bit more substantial. It seemed a little rushed, and it was the most important part of the entire piece. It “told” us exactly what had happened to her, when it could have “showed” us, and drawing out the memories and actually showing them to us would probably have been very effective and given the end the pacing it deserved.

Character

Communication
I think it’s hard to remark on the effectiveness of Qadira’s dialogue, but that’s fine because we don’t actually know anything about her as it happens. The next level here would have been having her say and think things that surprised her but that made sense once it was revealed that she was a necromancer who had died seeking power.

I did enjoy the zombie’s dialogue. Managing non-standard dialogue is difficult, and often comes off as a bit hokey, but yours worked, so kudos.

Action

Again, the nature of the piece made it hard to tell if her actions were in keeping with her character. The actual action was definitely relevant. It did suffer a bit in description, but that is more mechanical than character related.

Persona

I touched on this, but I would really have liked to see some foreshadowing of the reveal in her inner dialogue. She is more or less a blank woman reacting to an awful situation at first, and those emotions were appropriate, but by the end we know she is not just a blank woman, and those little bits of thought could have been a great way to show us who she is without actually showing us who she is.

Wildcard

What I liked most about this piece was that, as I delved into work-shopping it, I appreciated it a little more each time. It stands alone, and also works as an effective prologue for everything else that you will write about Qadira. There were small details that, when I went back and re-read it after the reveal, and re-read it again to find things to talk about here, were pretty delightful. It's just a matter of building up the technical execution to support what are great ideas and great sequencing of them in a way that readers can fully (or mostly) appreciate them on the first reading.

[Devyn]

Hi, Quadira! I'm Lincoln, and this will be my first workshop, so I hope this is helpful to you somehow. Congrats on your first thread!

Story

Storytelling

I found that I liked your introduction quite a lot. It was evident that it was just the start of Quadira's journey, and so raised questions while answering a few as well. You had a solid start, with the arc of it never deviating from necessary events. From the "awakening" to the challenges and Quadira's realization of what had happened previously, I wanted to know more about what happened, and the open-ended ending was something I found quite good.

Setting

As for the setting, it was good, but nothing spectacular. With the coffin, there wasn't much detail to be added, but while I got the idea of it, I didn't really get the feeling of her being trapped? Does that make sense? The atmosphere wasn't quite there, I guess. When Quadira came out of the ground, there was much more to describe, and the descriptions that you had were good, but probably could have been fleshed out a bit more. I felt like the placing of the description was good, and the scene with the mud had just the right amount of description in it. All in all, maybe a bit more detail, as well as your character's reaction to the setting?

Pacing

The pacing was a bit neutral for me. On one hand, I found it to be perfect with the action. On the other, it seemed like it either dragged on for too long or was rushed in places. Near the end, with the realization of who she was, what she could do and her situation, it definitely felt rushed. I feel like you could have expanded a whole lot more on her emotions and let the whole thing sink in a bit. This was the part that I was most eager about after everything had calmed down, and so I found myself feeling a bit misled.

Character

Communication

As most of the dialogue in this thread was between Quadira and, well, Quadira, I got a sense of how she'd talk to herself vs. someone else. She had a strong and constant voice, and while I have no reference point to really judge off of, I found that she seemed to have a strong sense of being imbued in her speech. It showed her method of thinking, as well as some of her personality. For example, unlike a rash and reckless person, she thought out her course of action, relied more on her brain than physical prowess, and tried her best to stay calm. Thomas's speech I liked since it showed his progressive stages of melting, and the status of his sentience and consciousness while getting the message across.

Action

I found a few logic issues with Quadira's actions, and so will point them out here. Since she kicked upwards with her feet and made a hole, it means that the hole would be directly above whichever foot kicked the hole. Quadira is on her back, and so while she tucks in her arms and squirms, her feet would be braced against the coffin wall, and her knees would have to bend in order to keep on going. In this scenario, with the few inches allotted for movement, it would be impossible for her to get very far, much less reach the hole in a position where her head would be able to poke through. As for reaching out with her arms to grab the dirt, how is that possible? The dirt is still by her feet unless I misread that. If she pulled it close and pushed it behind her, that would mean pushing it past her head and bending her arms at convoluted angles. Furthermore, how would that help her move forwards at all? All that action would accomplish would be to get some dirt out of her way.

Persona

Writing someone who doesn't remember their identity is definitely different from someone with a strong sense of self. I think that you established part of her personality through her reactions to certain events, but still have a long way to go. Quadira stayed pretty consistent throughout the thread, but I found her reactions rushed or a bit unrealistic at times. While emotions were said, they came and went, and none really left a lasting impression upon me. More detail about her emotional response to things would be nice, and bring a lot more clarity into what her state of being is.

Prose

Mechanics

There were quite a few mechanical errors sprinkled throughout the thread, and while I didn't notice them at first, due to how into the events of the thread I was, after a few rereads, they began to stick out more and more. Simply proofreading more thoroughly would probably eliminate most of these, so I won't go into much detail other than this.

Clarity

While the second half of thread I found to be quite straightforward, I was confused at the beginning. For the first part, it seemed like the third paragraph (counting the one-word sentence) was basically a repeat of what had already been said in the first. Maybe the first paragraph was the original intro that you forgot to delete? I don't know, but that part confused my a bit and threw me out of the otherwise great start.

As mentioned in the action section, I was also confused as to how she got out of the coffin. Not much else can be said here since I think I said my thoughts on the matter before.

Techniques

While I get that she doesn't realize her name until the very end, the use of "she" in almost any sentence started to feel rather clunky and got on my nerves a bit. Alternating the use of pronouns or maybe just limiting the use of them, in general, would probably alleviate the strain put onto "she".

The writing style is straightforward, and while not bad, not too remarkable. It seemed like it was telling rather than showing her emotions a lot, and I was left with a feeling of detachment rather than understanding what she was going through.

I liked the foreshadowing of the use of her power, and the subtle use of "assumed" rather than an assured "was" in order to lead the reader to question whether she was really going numb, or something else was at work.

Wildcard

In all, I enjoyed reading this thread quite a bit, and Quadira's strange predicament hooked me in from the start. I really look forward to reading more threads with her and watching her story unfold.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Thank you all for your contributions! This workshop is now closed and rewards will be sorted out shortly!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

SirArtemis receives 250 EXP, 10 GP and 5 AP
JDD2035 receives 100 EXP, 10 GP and 5 AP
Cards of Fate receives 225 EXP, 10 GP and 5 AP
Less receives 50 EXP, 10 GP and 5 AP
Devyn receives 50 EXP, 10 GP and 5 AP

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

All rewards have been added!