Ataraxis
10-26-08, 09:09 PM
Quest Judging
In the Darkest of the Dark…
Hey there, I’ll be your judge this evening. First off, I’d like to point out two things: one is that, since this is an incomplete battle, you shouldn’t be getting a full-fledged judgment. Only complete threads (those over 10 posts or in the general vicinity of 10 000 words) are eligible for a full one. The other thing I’d like to point out is that, if you’re going to try and make it seem like your opponent “has gone inactive and hasn’t been on since his last post that you know of”, you probably should have removed the identical AIM (powermoneyfame5) and Yahoo Messenger (power_money_fame) accounts and identical birthdates (Feb 21) from both your Shinigami_90 and Death_god profiles.
Now, since basically you lost interest in writing a battle with yourself and decided you couldn’t be bothered to finish it so that you could milk some XP and GP out of this by making it seem like you were actually fighting someone else, well… I just have to warn you that this might not turn out the way you thought it would. I’ll still do my best to give you comments that will help you improve your writing, and I’m hoping you will keep an open mind as to the suggestions I will provide. Your score will not be high for many, many reasons, yet I have hope that you will not only improve greatly in the coming months, but also develop an idea of what should not be done on Althanas – namely, trying to cheat the system like this.
You will be getting the same score for both accounts. Even separate, the scores would be exactly the same, either way.
STORY
Continuity ~
1/10. I have absolutely no idea what either Zaith or Zanth are doing here at the Citadel. I’m guessing you’re telling yourself ‘well, to fight, duh’, but that’s not nearly enough to get a good score in Continuity. What you should try, next time, is to introduce your characters into the story like an author would his own character’s in a book. It doesn’t have to be an autobiography, and it definitely doesn’t have to be in profile format, but it has to be in a form that attracts the reader, that makes them want to read more about your character.
For one, try telling the reader where Zaith and Zanth were before going to the Citadel, and their reasons for wanting to fight. Some want to fight because they need to get strong enough to face future adversities. Others come to the Citadel to fight for sport, to test their mettle and to etch their names into history as the greatest warriors. Others are murderers who are tired of being hunted by the authorities, and who want to satisfy their urges as killing isn’t a crime in the Citadel. Your characters just happened to be there and meet up in the same arena and fight, and they just happened to be brothers.
You also mentioned a fight with Destrudo, but 90% of the readers probably don’t know what you’re talking about: you can’t assume that everyone will have read your past quests. You have to give the reader all the information they need inside the quest or battle you’re writing.
Setting ~
1/10. It’s pitch black darkness, yet you can see an arena and the pit in the middle. The only other precision you gave was ‘no rocks, no nothing’. That’s about as thin as saying ‘the arena didn’t have any pink zebras in it’, to which I’d answer ‘ah, yes, well, I only assumed’. To improve here, you need to give the reader descriptions of what Zaith and Zanth perceive through their senses. If you’re saying things are pitch black, you’re telling the reader ‘they can’t see anything’. Don’t have them see something afterwards, especially if neither of them have a night vision ability.
If it’s too dark to see, focus on what they feel when they walk, or what they can smell in the darkness. What sounds they’re able to hear. Since you’re creating this arena, you have complete control over what is and isn’t there, so it’s your responsibility to make an arena that’s interesting to read about. Is there the hush sound of running water around? Upon approaching its source, do you smell anything strange? Is it truly water? Or is it blood?
Sometimes it’s good to think outside of the box in making arenas. Just remember that when you do, don’t forget to pay attention to the simple details as well. Lastly, remember to interact with the setting, one way or another. The Setting is not a mere stage with props for your characters to use, but a world inside which they move, a world that affects them as much as they affect it.
Pacing ~
1/10. The battle wasn’t complete, and it was quite nearly impossible for me to deconstruct them to understand the gist of what you were saying. Pacing is the category that is affected by how well your writing flows, how well you manipulate suspense, rising tension, lull moments and how easy it is to read your posts. It’s also the organization of the information you convey, and the place where the story’s immersive quality is scored. This had only five posts, yet I had much more ease reading through 30 post battles that scored 60 in the past.
What you should do to improve here is to carefully write your posts instead of just putting words to thought and dumping a post under 4 minutes. Correct grammar and syntax also influences the Pacing score immensely, as those mistakes can literally kill any flow a quest may possibly have. If you have doubts as to your abilities in self-criticism, ask a friend to review your posts and to tell you what they think. With experience, you’ll automatically know what you’re doing wrong and what you’re doing right, so keep at it.
CHARACTER
Dialogue ~
2/10. The dialogue was, I’m very sorry to say, over the top cliché. Not only was the formatting of the dialogue incorrect, but the contents were nothing out of the ordinary, and neither Zaith nor Zanth gave off any realism in their speech. I understand how alluring it must seem to be able to write a character saying things that are ‘badass’, and doing the whole ‘I cannot be defeated’ monologue as they batter their adversaries into oblivion, but you have to ask yourself if you really think it’s believable. Yes, of course, Althanas is mainly a high-fantasy roleplaying forum, but that doesn’t mean we have our characters run around yelling ‘All your base are belong to us’.
Part of what makes writing so fun is the ability to make characters come to life through their actions, speech and emotions, to make them appealing to the readers in the same what that the story is. If Zanth and Zaith were real people, do you think they would talk that way? Do you think they don’t have any thoughts that go beyond ‘I am superb, must destroy’? Not all people talk the same way, but no one talks as if they were following a script with a botched translation from a Chinese Kung Fu movie. Watch a good movie, and pay attention to their lines: you’ll notice that your favorite characters a certain uniqueness in their speech. Your goal is to create a similar uniqueness for all of your characters.
Action ~
1/10. There was very little about this battle that seemed like good Action. I want to dispel any misconception you may have about the Action category, first of all: it’s not like the ‘action’ from ‘action movie’. This category encompasses everything that your character does, from quirks to nervous tics, to habits and demeanor. If they have a coffee addiction, they might twitch a lot. If they’re drunken louses, they’ll slur and drag their feet and wobble in the streets. If they love the sound of their own voice, they might talk a person into submission. Action is everything that your character does that make him stand out from other run-of-the-mill, stock and generic characters. It’s what makes them believable, appealing, and interesting.
Of course, action also does include strategies and tactics in a battle. However, don’t assume that the person who wins gets the highest action score: if a character is known for making bad choices, then losing because he made a bad decision would net more points than a character with no particular skill in being ingenious that somehow comes up with the most convoluted strategy to win there is. Remember, the winner ‘in character’ is not necessarily the winner ‘out of character’. When you’ve developed your characters so well that you know them like the back of your hand, you’ll be able write action that is natural to your characters, so spend some time working on them every now and then.
Persona ~
1/10. If dialogue is what they say and action is what they do, then persona is what they feel. I had absolutely no idea of what these characters felt, as there was little to no introspection and their emotions were conveyed in such a skewed manner that I wasn’t even sure if they were emotions to start with. I apologize if I’m being harsh, but this is not meant as an exaggeration or as an insult: only as my opinion that your writing has flaws that you can correct. Persona goes hand in hand with the the previous two categories in the sense that a good score in Persona means that your character was believable.
Consider this: “Oh, oh, woe is me! The darkness, it is like an eternal void in my heart, where gather the remnants of a thousand dead stars, to combust and to die, once more and again! Oh, oh, woe is me and the unfathomable depths of my dark and twisted psyche! Pain is all I have! Pain is my undying companion, the knife that hovers above my soul, never striking yet always drawing, drawing the lifeblood out of this desiccated husk that I am!” Over the top melodramatic, right? This is what happens when someone tries too hard to make their characters show their pain.
When someone doesn’t even try to give any real emotions to their characters, it ends up being: “My family, it is dead,” Johnny said as he watched his family, which was, well, dead. Yeah. I do know that I’m showing you dialogue, when Persona is supposed to be more of what the reader can decipher from the narration itself, but I thought it’d be easier for you to see what I mean through these exaggerated examples.
Zaith and Zanth, they seemed to show about the same range of emotions as characters from an anime that focuses more on explosions than actual character development. Try to flesh them out a bit more, and have their personalities revolve less around what they are, but who they are.
WRITING STYLE
Technique ~
1/10. There was next to no technique here, and you basically wrote exactly what crossed your mind without filtering any of it, or correcting any formatting mistake. There wasn’t a style per se, and if there were, then I couldn’t make it out under all of the clutter and mistakes and redundancy. If you want to try getting higher scores in technique, my advice to you would be first to read a good book, and get a feel of what flies and what doesn’t. I’m not asking you to copy that author’s style, but to analyze it and see what was good about it, and what wasn’t, then adapt the things you’ve learned to your own writing. Technique includes how well you can make your writing flow, how well you’re able to say a lot of useful things with an economy of words, and how well you can get an image across using literary devices such as metaphors, similes, allegories, stylistic pleonasms, etc.
Mechanics ~
2/10. You write things in present tense, but it does not suit you. Moreover, you switch from past to present to past rather often. My advice to you would be to stick to past tense all throughout. Also, you have a very loose grasp on grammar and syntax, which you should look into from now on. For one, don’t write fragments, write full sentences with a subject, a verb and a complement. Fragments are a risky thing to try, as sometimes, even when you meant for it to not have a verb, it comes off as badly written or as an oversight. In your case, it does seem more like an oversight from not rereading your posts, or from not having the experience to correct these things the moment you notice them. Lastly, punctuation. Capitalize your ‘I’s. Double-check. Triple-check. Then, put commas and periods where commas and periods are required. You can read more details on that in the notes affixed to this judgment.
Clarity ~
3/10. I at least understood most of what happened in that testy, vague and blurry sort of way. The Mechanics and Technique, and pretty much every other category contributed to lower the Clarity score, which is supposed to net high scores quite easily. Cleanliness plays a big part here, so try to at least write your posts in a more presentable manner next time.
MISCELLANEOUS
Wild Card ~
1/10. This was an incomplete battle, with nothing out of the ordinary going for it. Not only that, but it was very hard to go through. I know this is harsh, but part of being a writer isn’t just doing stories for the heck of it, but to write them so that the readers who decide to give your stories a chance actually get to enjoy them.
TOTAL ~
14/100.
I apologize, but nobody wins.
EXP Rewards
Zaith Nathanel Tenimi gains: 80 XP!
Zanth Michael Tenimi gains: 60 XP!
GP Rewards
Zaith Nathanel Tenimi gains: 40 GP!
Zanth Michael Tenimi gains: 40 GP!
FINAL NOTES
You weren’t even supposed to get a full-judgment for only five posts, but I figured you would request the comments if you really do want to improve. This may have been a lackluster score, but do remember that you yourself lost interest in this battle, and so you shouldn’t expect the reader to enjoy it if you yourself did not. Next time, if you truly do enjoy the quest or battle you’re writing, then you’ll definitely see a difference in the score. When that time comes, I will gladly step in and give you more comments, as I do want to see how much you’ll have improved by then.
So, good night, and until next time!
Notes
Odd-numbered are Shinigami_90, Even-numbered are Death_God
In all black leathery material to cover the skin under the armor from the coldness as well as from some wounds. And for the amor as he is covered in from head to toe, with jet black metal armor and a pure white steel with a dragon type insignia that resembled Shade, Zaith's best friend and Draconian brother on his shoulders, from hands to elbow, the chest and back from neck to waist line, and finally his legs from his knees to the tip of his toes Zaith steps to the Citadel and stops (1) This is not a sentence, nor can this be considered a stylistic fragment. Here, you were aiming to describe what Zaith was wearing and what he looks like, but you just ended up with a broken string of words that, unfortunately, barely make any sense. I’ll be blunt here, in hope that the impact will make you feel the urgency to change this way of writing: to me, what you just wrote there had as much value as saying ‘Black leather, on body. Armor there, plus it’s black, yeah, okay yeah. There’s like a dragon somewhere. Bunch of stuff on his shoulder. Finally, legs.’
When you write, you have to write actual sentences. Write literary fragments only when you’re comfortable and when you feel that you’re skilled enough to try. Some time ago, I judged a player who’d written most of her time on Gaiaonline, and though it was at a rather low level, she quickly improved by adapting to Althanas instead of sticking to her guns, hoping that sooner or later someone would give her a high score. The trick to it is to put some effort into writing your posts: instead of just writing exactly what crosses your mind under 4 minutes, you should plan out the gist of your post in your head, then review your sentences as you write them while asking these questions:
1 – Does it make sense?
2 – Is it grammatically correct?
Here’s an example of what that paragraph could have looked like: “Beneath the armor, his body was covered in a material of leathery black that protected him from the cold and concealed the countless scars and wounds that riddled his flesh. The armor itself covered him from head to toe, jet-black with silver-white outlines. On the breastplate could be seen the insignia of a dragon, similar to the Draconian perched atop Zaith’s shoulder: his name was Shade, and he was the man’s brother and best friend.” You can forget about the descriptions of where his armor is (neck to waistline, etc.) because you already described the armor as ‘covering him from head to toe’.
Zaith steps to the Citadel and stops "So this is the famed Citadel eh? This should prove to be fun.. unlike my last fight" as he places his right hand on his face and remembers how bad he had gotten the pulp beat out of him. (1) this is not the right format for dialogue. There are many ways to write dialogue, but they’re all supposed to make sense: your way, quite unfortunately, does not.
Here is one way to rewrite the previous excerpt:
Zaith steps to the Citadel and stops. "So this is the famed Citadel eh? This should prove to be fun.. unlike my last fight," he said as he placed his right hand on his face, remembering how bad he had gotten the pulp beaten out of him.
He stands there for a few moments thinking of what to do to help his chances of surviving the slowly and cautiously steps inside and sees a robed onk at the counter and walks to him. (1) There is also one thing you MUST remember to do when writing: use consistent tenses. In this battle, you switch from past tense to present tense so often it generates bodily pain in the reader! Well that’s an exaggeration, but still, it did cause a high level of discomfort. Try sticking to everything in the past tense (and this includes past progressive, simple past, past perfect, past participle).
Also, check your sentences to see if you’ve actually spelled everything right. You wrote ‘robed onk’. I know you meant monk, but words with missing letters really makes it less fun for the reader.
"Please follow me kind sir." as he goes down the hall to his right; (1)
"ok Zaith Tenimi? We have an open room for you right this way" as they walk down a secluded hallway. (1)
That’s not correct dialogue either. You can’t write a line then stick in an ‘as’ to say that the line is being spoken as a certain action happens. Compare and contrast with this:
"Please follow me kind sir," the monk said as he walked down the hall to his right;”
"Okay, Zaith Tenimi? We have an open room for you right this way," he said as they walked down a secluded hallway.
Bad thing is that those sentences are basically saying the exact same thing, only using different words. In both, he’s leading Zaith to the same place after saying two lines that can basically be translated to ‘Right this way, sir’. You’re being redundant here, and redundancy only adds style when it’s done with a purpose.
The monk stops in front (1) stopped
and stares at Zaith (1) stared
Zaith stops opposite the monk and stares back (1) stopped, stared
At that the monk goes back to his counter and leaves Zaith to his thinking. Zaith just thinks hard and knows what he wants and steps to the door and places his right hand on the door and opens it. (1) At that the monk went back to his counter, leaving Zaith to his thinking. Zaith just thought hard to figure out what he wanted, then stepped to the door to open it.
When you write the actions of your character, don’t give us a play-by-play. ‘He walks to the door, stops at the door, placed his hand on the door, pushed the door, stepped over the doorsill, then closed the door behind him.’ I’ll tell you this now, this kind of writing isn’t exactly popular. People don’t need to know every little, trivial action that your character does. You could have simply said ‘he opened the door and stepped through’.
As he steps inside Zaith looks around and sees nothing but pure pitch blackness, no rocks no nothing. (1) stepped, looked. Also, ‘no rocks, no nothing’ is a colloquial way of saying it. If you want to write formally or at least, correctly, you should just end that sentence with ‘pure pitch blackness.’
in-experienced (1) inexperienced
"ahh home sweet home"Zaith says as he wanders to the clear other side of the pit and awaits his opponet(1) "Ah, home, sweet home," Zaith said as he wandered to the clear other side of the pit and awaited his opponent.
(1) You know, I’m sorry to say, but picking up every mistake you make would be a long and arduous task. I’m still on the first post and it’s already become quite tedious, which is further proof that you need to carefully review your posts. If you don’t trust your eyes, you could ask a friend to read these posts for you and give you tips.
As he waits, little does he know that very being is on his way to the Citadel, the very one who left that note after Zaith's battle with Destrudo. (2) You know, the fact is that not everyone reads everyone else’s quests and battles. It impossible to read everything that others write unless you have a LOT of time on your hands. As such, you shouldn’t assume that the reader knows what past events you’re referring to. I’ve no idea about Zaith’s battlewith Destrudo. I’ve no idea about anyone who left a note. Your responsibility as the writer is to make things clear to the reader, to give the reader substance and explanations: give us a short summary of what happened in that battle, give us the general idea so that things don’t fly over our heads and leave us downright confused.
his armor is somewhat identacle to (2) identical
insignia embroided into (2) embroidered
robbed monk (2) robed
Excuse me, but why am i stopped? All i have done is to find someone wh--" (2) Capitalize your ‘I’s, please.
sword that lays sttaight behind his (3) straight
"So, who wants to start us off? you or me? cause putting it blaintly i can care less who starts" (3) "So, who wants to start us off? You or me? ‘Cause , putting it plainly, I couldn’t care less."
Diagnally (3) diagonally
Zanth closes his eyes as Zaith speaks the words. (4) To put it plainly, that sentence was as useful as saying ‘Zanth closed his eyes as Zaith did the actions’. You could just say ‘Zanth closed his eyes while Zaith spoke.’
to make a move he quietly brabs Nox (4) grabs
small scrape in Zanths side and knocks him on the ground for a few secondsn. (5) Zanth’s side, few seconds
do something un expected (5) unexpected
do something un expected (5) its
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