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  1. #1
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    Philomel's Avatar

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    Workshop: Cradle of the Filthy

    Name of Completed Thread: Cradle of the Filthy
    Name of Authors: Rogue
    Type of Thread: Quest
    Thread Length: 19 posts
    Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
    Date Closed: October 6th, 2017

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    Last edited by Philomel; 09-06-2017 at 07:54 AM.

  2. #2
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    Atzar's Avatar

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    Atzar Kellon
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    Hi! So what I usually do for workshop threads like this is nitpick the first few posts for mechanics/grammar. Then, once I feel like I have a grasp on the strengths and weaknesses of your writing style, I stop annotating those bits and move on with the story and characters. That’s what I’m doing here.


    Post 2

    “Her eyes were pinched shut in concentration, and her hands were cupped so tightly that she can feel her bones.” Tense disagreement; ‘can’ should be ‘could’

    “An eternity later, a spark appeared, and bursted into a small flame.” ‘Bursted’ should be ‘burst’

    “His flames appeared instantly and shot halfway up cavernous hall, burning as red as his red velvet shirt.” ‘burning as red as his velvet shirt’ – the second red is redundant

    Post 3

    One thing I noticed – you’re inconsistent with whether you italicize Arianthe’s thoughts. “Lazy donkey asses, the lot of them.” Neither is wrong, but pick one and stick with it. Also, if you italicize, italicize the whole sentence.

    First impression of Darger is that he’s a dumbass. He’s making fun of Arianthe for being mediocre when he’s even worse?

    “You’re balls-less ass, right?” ‘You’re a balls-less ass’

    You’re inconsistent with the spelling of your character’s name. I’m assuming it’s Arianthe, but I’ve already seen it spelled Arainthe and Araithe as well. Also, Old Man Taiu was mentioned as Old Man Taius once.

    Post 4

    Yer a wizard, Arry!

    “hurling a full leg of lamb.” Hauling? Unless she’s literally throwing the leg of lamb

    “Tessa Ree was a plumb and homely Temple cook with brown eyes and browner hair,” ‘plump’

    “The name was familiar, like an old forgotten taste, flitting just out of reach in Arainthe’s mind.” Good line here. Still misspelling your name though

    Post 5

    About a quarter of the way through now, I guess this feels kind of typical? The arrogant, unlikeable teachers, the lowly-but-friendly staff, the incompetent asshole classmate, the ultra-competent not-quite-as-asshole classmate.

    Post 6

    “Tessa Ree stood a feet away to keep an eye out for any passerbys.” Either ‘stood feet away’ or ‘stood a foot away’… also, passersby

    “The greeneries and thin trees in the garden did little to sooth her annoyance.” soothe

    “Arainthe had planned on actually talking to Old Man Taius. That plan just went out the window.” Why? I don’t see why Arianthe couldn’t just wait until Hruine left. Looks like you’re trying to set up an ‘underdog beating all odds’ situation here, but this could have been thought out a little better.

    “not that the old man had ever hid it” either ‘had ever hidden’ or ‘ever hid’

    “Her fists clenched until it hurt.” They

    Post 7

    Alright, I’m going to stop picking out individual typos for the rest of the thread. By now the trend is pretty clear – your mechanics are solid overall. You run into a few spelling mistakes when spellcheck can’t help you (on your names, for example) and I’ve spotted a couple of instances where you mix up tenses. Just watch for those types of things.

    I felt that you missed an opportunity to show me something about Arianthe here. Hruine is clumsy and loud when traveling through the woods, yet Arianthe can follow his trail in silence. When did she pick up these skills?

    Post 8

    It feels like you went out of your way to establish Darger as an unlikeable character, and while it is effective, he comes across as cartoonish. Some added subtlety would make him a much more interesting, believable character; non-PC characters can benefit from development too, even if you intend to use them as villains

    Post 10

    I feel like I’m starting to get a bead on Arianthe’s character now. She’s manipulative, competitive, and has an inferiority complex based on her past as a street rat and her middling natural talent. It took you a while to get into the story, it seems.

    Post 13

    As I began this post, I was ready to put Hruine in the same category as Darger – a simple, flat character, a pin set up to be knocked down by the main character. The end of the post hinted that there’s something more to him. Hope you follow through on that.

    Post 14

    This was the best post of the thread so far. This is the kind of material that helps the reader relate to a character. Well done.

    Post 15

    While I see what you were trying to do in this post, I felt like that was a lot of thoughts to be having while falling to one’s death. There’s a time to get expansive with feelings and the inner monologue. The last post was perfect because it happened during a lull in the action. In this one, you robbed the moment of tension by writing too much.

    Post 18

    I was hoping that Arianthe was going to ambush Hruine in the woods somewhere. Would have been a good way to emphasize her advantage over Hruine in the wilderness.



    …and done!

    Some final thoughts:

    It felt as if you got into a groove with Arianthe as the thread went on. Her personality was terrific in the second half of the thread, whereas in the first half she generally just came across as vaguely envious and bitter.

    I come back to what I said about Hruine in Post 13 – you gave me the hint that there was something more to him than a cold, ruthless villain, but then you didn’t follow through. That was a letdown. Perhaps that happens in a future thread, but keep in mind that a thread is its own self-contained story. It’s important to illustrate major secondary characters in the same way that you illustrate your main character.


    As for the story itself, the structure was fairly typical: some exposition, introduction of characters, a quest, some action, some adversity for our main character, and eventually, triumph. Nothing unexpected ever happened. No twists. This was a fun story and I enjoyed it, but there wasn’t a lot here that struck me as especially memorable. You’re a good writer, though. Keep writing!

  3. #3
    Senior Member

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    jdd2035's Avatar

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    Captain Cain Jodin
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    Hi there I am JD happy days are here again! I don't have to power through these looking for maximum AP for these that means my praise and complaints will be faster to read than they have been!

    Your solo was a breezy fun read! It reminded me of something out of the Dresden files a bit when ever Harry Dresden would flash back. You set up the rivalries well in advanced so it wasn't a surprise as to what was happening later on. It was a good pay off, all that being said I have a lot of nit picky complaints that would most likely seem petty. My biggest complaint comes from the first two posts.

    The first post was unnecessary I felt like Conan the Barbarian should have been sitting on a throne looking bored while the first post was scrolling upwards and the tracking on my VCR was still adjusting. Yeah this is a writing site so no matter what the reader is going to encounter a wall of words no matter what how ever a wall of words of nothing but exposition is cumbersome.

    What could have been done different was to integrate your exposition with in the setting and character set up for the thread as a whole. For example...

    From post #1
    The lucky ones would leave as apprentices to the full sorcerers and sorceresses of the Order, and from there work their way into the heart of the Order.
    From post #2
    Life as an acolyte at the Temple of Praxeum was a series of trials and tribulations, and if one were lucky, one left the Temple as an apprentice.

    That leads me to the second complaint repetition. See the above examples for an example of the repetition. I understand that some repetition is a story telling technique which is show cased in the Iliad and Odessey. I.E Blue Haired Poseidon and Grey Eyed Athena but I don't get the impression that you are going for that. I repeat a lot because I have a narrow vocabulary so I kind of feel like a hypocrite here and I have no idea what to tell you to help you here but its something I've noticed.

    Any way I enjoyed reading your thread. Hope this helps.

  4. #4
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    SirArtemis's Avatar

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    Story
    Storytelling, Setting, and Pacing

    I quite enjoyed the way you utilized the setting and the background of the character to gain advantages in that setting. Your writing style made me feel like I was actually reading the Kvothe series, which is a compliment. At least in the story aspect. The pacing also felt great and rolled along nicely with each piece fitting in snugly. I think this was overall quite well done.


    Character
    Communication, Action, and Persona

    I really enjoyed getting a sense of Arianthe and her relationship with Tessa Ree. I also had a pretty clear idea of the supporting cast, which isn't always easy to accomplish. Each one had an identity that was easy to pick out. The way you interacted with your environment and even your own clothing added a sense or realism and depth in many instances. Some moments of supernatural activity did lose me, especially her little iron man moment after the collapse, but overall this was pretty clean and clear.


    Prose
    Mechanics, Clarity, and Technique

    Firstly, I just want to mention a general mindfulness regarding switching between tense in your narrative. An early example of this is: "Her eyes were pinched shut in concentration, and her hands were cupped so tightly that she can feel her bones." I also am not sure what you mean by "plumb" when describing a person. It seemed like throughout the thread there were instances where you used a word to try to articulate something, but I think the word was misused and the meaning lost (mostly needing to be inferred). You also typoed your own name with "Arainthe," and then later "Arainth." Not a good show, and happens throughout. You have 56 cases of Arainthe, 15 of Arianthe, and one of Arainth. Also be mindful of when to use "a" vs "an" as in the case: "an pallid" or "a easy." There are also general typos that come out when reading something aloud, which I highly advise. You may have caught things such as: "You will seek out the a diadem buried in the tomb," or "She was hiding in a secret alcove with her ear was plastered against a wall. Tessa Ree stood a feet away to keep an eye out for any passerbys." Also, is it old man Taiu or Taius? Another item to be mindful of is object agreement between plural and singular: "and there were no new green growth." It happens a lot. That particular example happened twice in the thread. You also repeat a few sentences throughout the thread, almost word for word, and it's a bit jarring.


    Wildcard

    I think you have a very appealing method of storytelling, but for me at least, there's a distinction between storytelling and writing a story. What I mean by this is that when you choose to put thoughts to paper (or word doc in our case) there has to be a bit more attention to each word you choose. Too often I felt like you were telling me the story by voice, and though that has its moments, I think it comes off as really verbose and clunky when put down in written form. I would recommend a few things to help, at least to start. The first is refreshing yourself with singular vs plural, with past and present tense, with a vs an, and always using a dictionary to check whether you're using a word correctly to say what you mean to say. The only other thing is to read aloud to catch errors. In time hopefully you can be more concise with your writing style but there's definitely a lot of talent and room for growth.
    Last edited by SirArtemis; 09-25-2017 at 01:49 PM.

  5. #5
    Legend

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    Philomel's Avatar

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    Last couple of days to add your commentary! Since there was no warning I'm letting this be open until the 10th.

  6. #6
    Legend

    EXP: 127,650, Level: 15
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    Philomel's Avatar

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    Philomel van der Aart (+ Veridian)
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    This thread is now closed for judging and will be dealt with asap.

  7. #7
    Legend

    EXP: 127,650, Level: 15
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    Philomel's Avatar

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    Philomel van der Aart (+ Veridian)
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    Name of Thread: Workshop: Cradle of the Filthy

    Workshop rewards

    Atzar recieves:
    665 EXP
    40 GP
    3 AP

    Jdd receives:
    760 EXP
    40 GP
    2 AP

    Sir Artemis receives:
    1425 EXP
    40 GP
    4 AP
    Last edited by Philomel; 10-14-2017 at 07:37 AM.

  8. #8
    Legend

    EXP: 127,650, Level: 15
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    Philomel's Avatar

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    Philomel van der Aart (+ Veridian)
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    All rewards have been added.

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