Polyamorous Workshop Judgement

[Duffy]

Enigmatic Immortal and Lavinian Pride have requested a workshop judgement. Please offer any advice and comments you have, but remember the workshop guidelines in doing so. The thread and ensuing discussion will remain open for two weeks, following which there will be a light commentary and judgement and contributor rewards.

Polyamorous (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?p=164296#post164296)

[Silence Sei]

Lemme start off by saying that if I'm harsh, it's because I love you guys. : D

Jensen, I've fought you before so I know that your character just likes to rile people up. As someone who has read your profile, I know that's just his character. As an audience member, it took several posts for me to understand that Jensen just pisses people off because he can.

Your first post actually would have turned me off. It did turn Amber off. While I understand the need to create a particular mystique, there were better ways you could have gone about it. Many of them not actually stating that Jensen grinded on Kid from behind. You made it extremely obvious that Jensen was dry humping a kid, and he knew she was a kid. A hand around the throat and a seductive whisper into the ear would have carried the same effect of Jensen going along with the ruse, without being so vulgar.

In one of your posts, you said that Sarah began to rattle Jensen's brain. Okay, I can buy that, being that he's aan immortal. However, even wolverine becomes brain damaged after repeated hits to the head from the hulk. Sarah clearly overpowered you and something like jostling your brain about would have made Jensen not been able to make a coherent sentence, or at the vary least be extremely dizzy. Yet he thought clearly enough to know everything he planned next. I'm just saying the next time somone takes a bus to your head, show some actual signs it had more than just the 'that hurt alot' aspect to it.

I didn't get a feel for who Jensen was until your last two or three posts. Like I said, a random person would have thought of him as a pedophile asshole who womanizes. All of a sudden, you slam us in with the character development. By using bits and pieces between your posts to explain yourself, we wouldn't have been overloaded with a Jensen history lesson after several posts of just dick-and-fight.

I liked the introduction of your fellow knights in the end. They seemed to have their own unique personalities ou from what I grasped of them. They also seem to bring out a lighter side of our antagonizing immortal. A lot of your posts were just reactive, but there isn't much room for proactive in a thread where you just get the crap beat out of you, so you get points there.

Finally, even though they were random thugs, deswcriptions would have been nice. Jensen could have been ffighting elves, a midget, or batman for all I knew. Maybe a few features the next time you're using your fodder would help you a bit. Food for thought.

That was long, now onto the pride of Lavinia.

Sarah, I don't think any single person would have allowed their kid, surrogate or not, to be virtually molested for as long as Sarah let Kid did. I write Sei as overprotective, but I think any mom would have stopped the hustling game the second private parts started getting involved. I'm assuming here you talked the post over with Jensen, and agreed to the guys interfering first. Any mom on this site would have told you that those four nondescript npcs would not have had the chance to engage in a conversation with Jensen, let alone a fight with him.

It's harder to tap into maternal instincts when you're a guy. Before I had kids, I tried to use the dogs I felt were closest to me as a child for motivation on how I'd feel. Not like many men would try to rape a dog, but you probably get what I'm saying.

Sarah also let the guy off way too easy for what he was doing to her 'daughter'. The way you and Jensen wrote made it sound like Jensen was hanging on by a thread almost every post. It got a little redundant by the third time.

Sarah slamming Jensen's head repeatidly to end the fight. I could totally see that happening. The only qualm I had with it was the fact that you didn't make any mention of grusome details. If you're going to be so violent with it, I want to read about teeth flying everywhere, nails digging so hard into the back of the head they're ripping out hair, and either muffled 'fuck yous' or begging for mercy. You and Jensen bunnied each other a lot, so you had to discuss a lot of what was going to happen before you posted. Next time make the 'victim' look like a freddy kruger victim, not a Muhammad Ali opponent.

While the dialogue for Sarah, Kid, and the bartender was decent, there was not enough of it in terms of during the pummeling. Sarah is a mom. She's had Kid for how many years? Every single punch should have been associated with a profanity. I could give certain examples if you need me to, but I think you should know what I'm talking about.

The only character I got out of Sarah was that she was Kid's mom and Seth Dahlios sister. Beyond that, she struck me as a brawny girl who just liked to hit things. From what I remember, Sarah hated Seth, maybe next time a situation like this can come up, she can deal with which scumbag she hates more? Is she seeing Seth;'s face while she punches Jensen, or has he taken the top spot on her hate list?

If you guys have any questions, you know my AIM and know how to PM me. Hope I helped.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

Having learned I can counterpoint arguments I shall attempt to do so now. These are not defensive jabs, but an actual conversational point I had with Silence Sei when on AIM. I figure these points should be public as well.


Lemme start off by saying that if I'm harsh, it's because I love you guys. : D

Awww...now ya gone and dun it! Made me cry...


Your first post actually would have turned me off. It did turn Amber off. While I understand the need to create a particular mystique, there were better ways you could have gone about it. Many of them not actually stating that Jensen grinded on Kid from behind. You made it extremely obvious that Jensen was dry humping a kid, and he knew she was a kid. A hand around the throat and a seductive whisper into the ear would have carried the same effect of Jensen going along with the ruse, without being so vulgar.

Okay, so in truth of this you can argue this way that way and over the moon again about this topic. No matter how you look at it, anything Jensen does to a little girl will be met with open hostility and be seen with nothing but vulgarity. No matter what it's just disgusting for anyone to act like a pedophile. I could have whispered in her ear, said crude things, but in the end somebody could have made the same argument you made for that method as well.

It's like a torture scene. You will have some people say "That was way beyond acceptable description and made my skin scrawl. Totally unnecessary" or "Eh, it was a torture scene, I'm unaffected by it." In my eyes, this is the same thing. Some people will be outraged, others will just not care.

IN CONCLUSION: There is no right way to write a pedophile stalking a child. It's poor taste. I wrote that angle to rile Sarah up, make her come out and fight Jensen. It worked.

I thank you Sei for all your advice, as all of it was really good. I'm not even arguing your point about Jensen's disgusting use of Kid, just defending the reasons behind it. So thank you very much for your input.

[Revenant]

I'll try to write this as general as possible and not go into kit-picky details.

Please note that while I try to structure my observations, I also tend to just throw in stream-of-consciousness blurbs as they come to me. Also, these are obviously just my opinion on the matter and I am fully aware that you were not writing this specifically for me and that not everyone thinks as I do.

So take what I say with as many grains of salt as you want.

Lavinian Pride - #1

ONOMATOPOEIA!

*sigh* I guess it’s not just your verbal sentences that start off this way. Some people like the jarring exclamation to grab attention at the beginning of a story but I personally feel that it’s a little too “in your face” style of writing and immediately puts me outside of the flow. “The sharp crack of wood rang through the Peaceful Promenade of Underwood” has the same result without punching you in the nose.

Watch your comma usage. There are several extra commas that I noticed, which tends to throw off the reader’s flow. Try reading out loud, taking a second or two to pause at each comma, and seeing if it still sounds correct. Funny enough, as I read through I noticed that there were also a couple of places where comma were missing. Damnable migrating commas.

Enigmatic Immortal - #2

I enjoyed reading the first half of this post. To me, it had enough description to paint a picture of what was going on but still enough room for me to fill in the gaps how I see fit. You also made good use of internal thought to explain how the character thinks and set me, as the reader, into a proper mindset.

The second half of the post wasn’t nearly as enjoyable for me. The pedophile spin you put on your character disgusted me but, while I personally don’t enjoy that element of your writing, it really stayed true to the character’s cocky, jerk-ass feel. What really bothered me was how over the top you went once the action started. Where you managed to nicely balance description in the first half, you lost control of it here.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems like you have a mental picture of exactly how this fight progresses and are trying to convey the details of every little thing that happens in the action sequence. In your attempt to leave no stone unturned you tend to put too much writing into each line, which makes for cluttered reading. This is a reading story, not a watching story, which means one of the best things about it is that the reader gets to take your descriptions and put it together for themselves. Try to slow your action down a bit, taking your time to focus on the really important parts and letting imagination fill in the rest.

Lavinian Pride - #3

Your first line in this post is so confusing that I had to read it four or five times to actually put together what you meant. Let’s examine:

“The laughter was cut short…”
What laughter? I know that you are continuing the plot from the post above, but you should still identify. “Jensen’s laughter was cut short” or if you prefer to post from your character’s POV “The pervert’s laughter was cut short”.

“…when through the throng of people ran the woman in the corner.”
Passive wording and lack of commas. “when, through the throng of people, ran” use commas to separate clarifying information in your sentences. It would have been better to use active wording and say “when the woman in the corner ran through the throng of people.”

“Jensen’s laughter was cut short when the woman in the corner ran through the throng of people.”

I also notice that after reading your writing I have little idea what Sarah is like other than she is strong, fast, and angry. There is little emotional resonance and I find it hard to connect to the character.

Enigmatic Immortal - #4

My biggest issue with this post was how Jensen seemed completely unfazed by what was happening to him. I understand that he is an immortal and doesn’t care if he lives or dies, but in the interim he is going to have to go through a lot of shit. Slamming him into the table hard enough to break it and the wind doesn’t get knocked out of him? It doesn’t leave him senseless, even for a second? She punches him enough that his eye immediately swells up and throughout it all his laughter isn’t interrupted? He doesn’t gag or get a tooth knocked out? It would have enhanced the scene to have him laugh for a hit or two, choke for a second on the blood running into his mouth, only to spit that same blood back at Sarah along with a tooth or two and start his laughter again.

By this point the sheer number of taunts are more annoying to read than beneficial to the story. You haven’t given any character reason for Jensen being an asshole other than “just because”, and though he is taunting and eccentric he really doesn’t have a personality. Flesh him out some more. Why does he like to be an asshole? What is the driving motivation? Does he do it because he hates his immortal life? Because he is bored? Is he Bill Murray in Groundhog’s Day, forced to go through the motions over and over again while he waits for some inspiration in his life? You have a good, solid outline for a character, now you need to fill the shell.

Lavinian Pride - #5

Meanwhile …

I liked your ‘aside’ in the first section. It made good use of the fact that there are other things going on and gave a little bit of depth to Sarah’s character. My only issue is that you start it with “The girl” and, since you were writing as Sarah when you last left off, it was confusing. I’m not sure if you were going for a surprise with Kid’s name and that’s why it took you so long to formally introduce her, but it’s generally better to give identifying information about major plot characters around the time they show up.

Your section on Sarah waking up from her rage blackout was a little to drawn out. “Her shoulders… her legs… her arms…” I get it, she’s sore from beating the crap out of Jensen. I have no problem with fast-forwarding the plot like this, but the way you did it just felt like filler.

Enigmatic Immortal - #6

I had to double check Jensen’s profile to see if he had any sort of damage reduction because, damn, he’s still all on his feet and roaring laughter after he just got rushed through a tavern wall. A freaking WALL! At least you pointed out that he had to cough everything up before he could restart his chuckle-fest. Ok so we’re writing about superhuman characters, I get that. You’re using one of your special abilities to “Shoryuken!” Sarah, ok that makes sense, I’m on board. But after this he should barely be able to breathe, especially if his physical attributes are reduced by his “Punch Drunk”.

Bullrushed through a freaking wall and he’s still dancing... Harumph.

Lavinian Pride - #7

I’m all sorts of confused by the beginning of this one. What the hell is she dissecting him with, her bare hands? Didn’t she throw his knife/glaive/whatever back at him, something he just barely juked? Side note: a juke is when you start to move one way and then rapidly change direction in the hopes whatever is coming after you doesn’t react quick enough and keeps going in the original direction, kind of hard to do to a flying knife.

Aside from that no real issues. You gave a little look into Sarah’s character near the end which is nice. I know that she has a long, sordid history and I don’t expect you to lay her story out in intricate detail but a little more insight would be nice for those of use who don’t know her character familiarly.

Enigmatic Immortal - #8

Finale-
Hey look, backstory! Character motivation! Something that says that there’s more to Jensen than Superdickery! Too bad it took you this long to give us anything. Oh well, better late than never.

While I feel like Jensen shouldn’t be able to do much more than whimper and twitch on the ground by now, considering he’s had “been carved up” added to the list of shit he’s gone through, I can’t begrudge a character giving one last hurrah. Still, a little more limitations on his ability to get up and “walk it off” would have been far more realistic. There’s only so much a body can take, and only so far that a surge of adrenaline can push you.

Lavinian Pride - #9

Finale/Epilogue-

Not much to say here. Comparing Sarah’s violence to a symphony gave a little more feeling to the action, which was nice. A bit more of her personality at the end, but not much. I would have preferred to understand her motivations and feelings a bit more, she comes off as nothing more than emotionless unless she’s snappy, and then there’s nothing but pure pissed-offness.

Enigmatic Immortal - #10

Epilogue-

Funny thing, this is probably my favorite post of yours in this story. I find that I like Jensen more when he’s being a snarky type of jerk, like he is with Stephanie and Adolph, than when you are writing him as an “oh yeah, in your face motherfucker what you going to do about it?” type of jerk. These two could be interesting NPC’s if you develop them some. Use them in the meat of your stories and not just the end game. They might make great foils for Jensen’s character.

Final Thoughts

I’ll focus more on Jensen than Sarah as he is a newer character and isn’t as fully developed.

Pride - The biggest issues that I think you could focus on are proper grammar (when to use/not use commas), using active words rather than passive ones, and making the scene come alive. I have all the basics I need when I’m reading your writing but you fill in the details a bit. Give it some life.


Immortal - Jensen doesn’t really come off as insane, if that’s what you’re going for. He just comes off as a one-dimensional dick. Why is he a dick? Because he wants to be a dick. Meh, not really an interesting concept. Your constant use of crude, blatant insults come off as childish. While they certainly have their place and are an effective exclamation when used correctly, they don’t really work when used too often. By the time Sarah trips and her skirt rises up, with Jensen saying “Ouu baby it’s a damn shame we have to part ways because I would KILL to tap that ass!” I’ve just toned it out. He’s supposed to be a master of manipulating people into losing their temper but here he just sounds like a dumb MTV frat boy.

And that’s my two cents.

[Duffy]

Thank you for your comments everyone, this workshop is now closed. Judgement based on commentary will be delivered shortly.

[Enigmatic Immortal]

I don't mean to be rude, but I was under the impression that shortly didn't mean 6 days.

I don't mind the wait, I already waited this long, but I do think it owuld be nice to be able to have a mod who's judging our thread poke in and say 'hey, i'm your judge and I'll be done on Blah Blah Blah date and time...'

This is just something I think we should add...

[Duffy]

Lavinian Pride

Story (17/30)

Character (14/30)

Writing (18/30)

Wild Card (6/10)

Total Score: 55/100

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Enigmatic Immortal

Story (19/30)

Character (14/30)

Writing (17/30)

Wild Card (7/10)

Total Score: 57/100

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Enigmatic Immortal wins! He receives 1837 experience and 100 gold.

Lavinian Pride receives 525 experience and 25 gold.


Revenant, as the most helpful contributor receives 50 xp and 150 gold!

Silence Sei recieves 175 xp and 50 gold.

Thank you for your patience!

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP was added for the battle and the contributors to the Workshop!