My Solo Discussion

[Lady Blackwell]

Solo (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=145493#post145493)

hey everyone, i am attempting my first solo. and would like feedback on it here in this thread.

Positive and Negative Criticism Accepted, Negative preferred.

cause without knowing what's wrong how can i fix it, and fix my writing style?

[Visla Eraclaire]

Alright. I don't normally do this sort of thing, but since you asked and I'm bored...

Technical Comments
There are several purely technical errors in the piece, including capitalization, spelling, and homophone errors.
E.G. Para 4 -
"excert" => "exert"
"your near death" => "you're near death"
"concious" => "conscious"

That's three errors in one line of dialog. I would recommend you type all your posts in a word processing program before posting them. Spell check would catch the latter two of these errors. As for homophone errors (your/you're, et al.), you're just going to have to read things over. Everyone is bound to let one or two things slip, even with careful editing, but you can at least avoid a string of repeated errors.

Stylistic Comments
First, I'll make one comment that some people would argue is still technical. You frequently string together quick sentences with commas.

E.G.
"He had no mana left, this man had drained it all out of him. . ."
"Well, i can sense your fear, i can see it, i can smell it."

I think there is a place for this in writing. A comma, especially when a character is speaking, as in the second example, suggests a rapid pace rather than a full pause between sentences. It is, however, technically incorrect to string together sentences with commas alone rather than semicolons or commas with conjunctions. I don't think this is a major issue, and it can be used to good effect if it is done sparingly. That way it's clear that what you've done is make a stylistic choice rather than a technical error.

Second, the post contains a lot of repetition. Once again, this is not something that is always wrong. Repetition can drive a point home, or place firmly in the mind of the reader a critical descriptor. The words most repeated in this passage, though, are "the man" and "the woman."

This is a problem I frequently run into while writing. There are characters that, for thematic or simply practical reasons, aren't referred to by name. When you have a name, you have the advantage of alternating between, for instance, "Visla" and "she" and "the young woman." When you don't have a name, it gets harder. I would recommend trying to at least use pronouns, when it is possible to do so without ambiguity. Also, you can make your references less repetitive by adding an interesting adjective. Once again, make sure the audience can clearly tell that, for example, "the dark-cowled man" and "the ashen-skinned man" are the same person. As long as you do that, the repetition can be ameliorated and you can give the reader extra information while you go.

Thematic Comments
One of the most common pieces of creative writing advice you're going to hear is, "Don't tell the audience something. Show it to them."

I think this is something you should consider strongly as you continue with this piece. We're told that there was a previous confrontation between Max and this evil man. That's fine. Action can take place before the audience joins the story, and this can be used to dramatic effect. In this case, I felt like I might have liked to see it. It may be too early to tell, and I could be mistaken.

The dialog you've provided your characters is pretty stilted. They need to have a way of expressing themselves that isn't just, "This is what I am thinking right now!" You should try not to use dialog to communicate to the audience what the character thinks or feels. This can certainly happen, but remember that characters talk because they need to communicate something in their world. If what they're saying isn't believable, you've paid a hefty price to inform your reader. An alternative way of getting thoughts across is an inner monologue, but remember to keep this believable as well. We don't generally think in easy to understand, straightforward statements. Show the thought processes, the images coming to mind, and the emotions flowing through the character.


I hope this wasn't too much or too harsh. You did ask for negative comments.

[Lady Blackwell]

i know i asked for it, and no actually i didnt see any of that as harsh at all, i thouroughly enjoyed reading that, and the thing i found was im better at writing darker things then happier things. again its just my perception

[Yari Rafanas]

I already told you what you need to do the last time you asked for help.

Get Word, or maybe even something like Open Office. The latter is free.

[Lady Blackwell]

i have open office thanks to your advice, but i wrote that post while sitting at work, and bored lol, so i had to write that in the post reply box.

[Visla Eraclaire]

Posting is not a race. If you're bored, write down ideas (possibly even on paper, shocking, I know) and read them over later. Taking more than one look at something can really improve its quality. OpenOffice can only save you from total misspellings. Bad ideas you need to find yourself by not rushing through something and asking why you're writing everything you write.

[Yari Rafanas]

Next time, PM it to yourself so when you get home you can run it through the program, read it again, and it will likely turn out better.

Edit: Person above said it better.

[Lady Blackwell]

well what i can do is plug it in to open office now fix it up edit it, and work on my second in the proper open office way

anyway's anything positive about it from the first post?

[Visla Eraclaire]

Maybe it'll go somewhere good. For right now, it's difficult to tell whether there's good in there because almost nothing has happened yet.

Let that be a lesson. It takes pages of interesting storytelling to make someone like something. It only takes one poorly executed post to turn someone off.

[Lady Blackwell]

ahh thank you Visla i may write up another post tonight or tommorow when i get bored at work.

[Visla Eraclaire]

I'll keep my eyes on it, when I have the time. Happy to help.

[Visla Eraclaire]

The technical errors in the second post have decreased substantially. I did notice at least one instance of "max" left uncapitalized, as well as the word Sack capitalized for no particular reason. Most importantly, whatever errors there were, they weren't so numerous that they made me think about grammar or spelling instead of the story.

Honestly, the premise is an interesting one, though by no means novel: otherwise normal people forced to kill for their own survival, mad science, and all that.

It has potential. You discuss character expectations and how what happens differs from them. The actions being described are actually fairly interesting. Still, the writing itself remains awkward. It doesn't have a consistent voice. For one paragraph, we have the character exclaiming "Shit!" and the description of something hurting "like a son of a bitch." I myself don't really care for unnecessary grit, but that can develop into a well executed style, rough and visceral. The problem is that it's just that paragraph. The rest of the post doesn't have that same voice, and so the profanity just comes off as juvenile.


"Furious with rage" is another problematic phrase. I think you could do better if you thought about it a little longer. I considered re-writing the paragraph that began with that phrase as an example, but I think that might be a bridge too far. No matter what disclaimer I put on it, it would say, "Do this. Write like me." That's not what I'm trying to tell you at all. You should sound like yourself, but a consistent, engaging, well-refined version of yourself.

[Lady Blackwell]

well, i actually appreciate how fast you responded, and well there is a huge difference between when i try and when i'm bored, as you saw, anyways beyond that i try to keep actions and everything in a post well defined so that the readers know what is happening, and not having to re read it.

but beyond that i do thank you visla, your advice has given me some food for though, as well with the help i had got from Dissinger.

but if i kept up my writing as it is, what do you think the score would be? starting with the lowest and then the highest you believe it could be, this goes out to everyone!

[Visla Eraclaire]

I'm no judge (anymore), so I won't speculate on the precise numbers you'd get. I don't think they'd be very good though, for the reasons I've outlined.

I think there's no reason to say "if I kept up my writing as it is." The whole point of the site is improvement. I can understand that once you get on a roll working on something, you want to keep moving forward. Go ahead, finish the thread. Before you submit it, though, you should re-read the whole thing, fix up all the technical errors, and see if any phrases strike you the way they struck me.

Additionally, when you do this final pass, you can add in interesting touches. Now that you know how the story ends, maybe you want to foreshadow it a little. Maybe you want to insert an adjective or phrase that could become a motif through the whole piece. These are the sorts of things that turn decent writing into good writing. What makes good writing into great writing, I can't say. I don't consider myself a great writer.

[Lady Blackwell]

well personally my average was around 30, i am hoping to surpass that at least

[Visla Eraclaire]

I'm not sure what a 30 is nowadays. I think you stand a decent chance of it, though. A lot of the points are going to come through in things that are bigger than a post or two. Most of what I've said has related to the sort of micro-management of writing.

Theme and pacing make a huge different in judgment outcome. You've started off pretty strong, in terms of intensity I mean. It's going to be interesting to see if you can keep up that pace, and importantly escalate to a level that will give a satisfying climax.

[Lady Blackwell]

well ... lol i have no idea lol, but apparently its my old writing :p

[Lady Blackwell]

any discussion bout post three?

[Visla Eraclaire]

I noticed the same technical errors I have repeatedly pointed out within the first sentence of the new post.

I wash my hands of it.