To Tame A Dragon Workshop

[Revenant]

Messieurs Paragon and Enigmatic Immortal have requested a Writer's Workshop judgment for their thread To Tame A Dragon (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?t=20812).

This thread will be open to the general Althanian public for two weeks. Everyone please take a few minutes to read the thread and post up some feedback.

Thanks and enjoy.

[SirArtemis]

Okay, I'll be updating this as I go through the thread.

From the first post, I notice that Paragon isn't a fan of dashes, and I noted a few points where I believe they would be necessary.

I also noticed some tense conflict that threw me off a bit.



Second post, there were some times that a missing word made me lose some clarity and I'd have to reread a couple times to understand what was trying to be said.

Also, I noticed some dashes here that were unnecessary, which is contrary to Paragon...

Missing some commas as well, as well as apostrophes misplaced, unneeded or missing.

And, of course, trademark Jensen mixing up there and their.



Third post, noticed some tense issues again.

The description of the mayor seemed... I guess bland? It was presented in a very straight-forward way I guess. Very factual, which made it somewhat boring to read I guess.

A missing comma, but otherwise good.



Fourth post, missing dashes again, I lost myself in clarity a couple times, and misplaced apostrophes.



Fifth post, no real problems, other than some of the dialogue not lining up in my mind with Jensen's character. I've done some reading of his threads and you presented him as.... too polite I guess. He was too nice to you, and honestly, he wouldn't be. This is blatant in his next post and how he begins, commenting that he thought you might be retarded.



Sixth post, the fact that you used "cause" instead of "because" in a non-dialogue situation irks the shit out of me.

Again, apostrophes and commas, and missing words hurting clarity.



Seventh post, typo early on, and a few later as well.

I didn't quite understand the ripple/tidal wave analogy, since I'm not sure that's true, but I understand the intention.

Some missing commas.

I think that the dream sequence would be better presented, personally, in a different format. Maybe italics and indented or something. or even broken up with a horizontal line or something similar.

Hmm you mention the dragon being selfish because of his desire to protect you, and to not think about his relatives. Wouldn't that be selfless, rather than selfish?



Eight post, more missing dashes, commas. Mostly just little mechanics.

Some sentences seem to be multiple thoughts strung together with no punctuation, making it somewhat difficult to read.

Saw at least one typo.



Ninth post, I noticed a tense issue that didn't line up.




mmk well it's getting redundant to point out mechanic errors, since you know what you need to work on at this point hopefully, so I'll finish up the story and then give an overall analysis of the story itself.

[Paragon]

Any examples of this 'dashes' thing? I don't quite follow.

Come on people, respond it up!

[SirArtemis]

Any examples of this 'dashes' thing? I don't quite follow.

Come on people, respond it up!


Ever since he started working for a sealed up ancient dragon, he's been doing some real good in the world, and getting paid for it to boot!

Personally, I would put sealed-up, but it's correct either way.



Dorian was traveling along The Steppes, not only waiting from his next mission from his boss dragon Malanthar, but also looking for something to do from town to town.

Here, I would do boss-dragon. (PS you say from his instead of for his)


Those are the two examples I notice in re-reading your first post, but I'm sure most of them are likely preference compared to necessity. You could also do town-to-town.

I didn't want to point out specifics, but if I come across any more I'll edit this with more. Sometimes it just flows better for me, at least personally, when a pair of words are linked by dashes if they are a phrase or something of the sort. For example, you could say boarded up or boarded-up. Both are correct, but in the same sense, you use fire-breathing instead of fire breathing. You see what I mean? I feel like at times there are word pairs that you could connect with a dash to make it more clear, though its not necessarily incorrect all the time.

[SirArtemis]

Okay so now that you have the "writing style" section taken care of, I'll do a general summary of the story and characters.

The continuity seemed fine to me. Jensen was on a mission because he heard the dragon was terrorizing a town, and Paragon is visiting the town due to rumors of its beauty. Seems reasonable to me.

The setting itself was fairly easy to imagine, though I had envisioned the island differently. As you describe the town, as far as I recall, you have an island in the middle of the town, almost like the "Target" store logo. Yet how I envisioned it was more like a peninsula town with an island off to the side in the ocean. However, there is also the fact that some of the scenery seemed bland to me. Sure, something like the mayor's office wasn't going to be used more than once, but at least from what I remember, you only mentioned that there was nice furniture. I don't know what kind of furniture, and that is either because it wasn't mentioned or wasn't memorable. I also would have liked a bit more imagery on what the dragon's den looked like.

The pacing seemed fine except for one part. I'm trying to imagine how far off this island was from the town because Paragon rows to it, and from what I had thought, fairly quickly. Yet later, Jensen spends nearly an entire day constructing an engine, not to mention that I don't even remember any mention of the engine BEING attached to a larger boat, just that it was DESIGNED for a larger boat.


The dialogue had a couple problems for me. There was a point where Paragon bunnied Jensen, and I've read a bit of Jensen's writing and I feel that Paragon might have made Jensen too nice. He's kinda an asshole. Also, there was another time later where there was a conversation between Paragon and the man who had the canoe, it seemed very forced and unrealistic to me.

The action was pretty good, but some seemed useless. Jensen set up some really elaborate trap using vines and trees to bait the dragon, and I didn't really think he was running toward Paragon, though I may have missed that bit. Not much later, Paragon just stabs at him with no mention of the trap ever again. I would have liked a bit more build-up to the climax, at least in the fight itself. It seemed like the "contact" with the dragon was somewhat rushed. You two could have done some more teamwork on distracting the dragon, or even using that trap of Jensen's to allow you to get close.

The persona was good for both writers. I got a sense of both of their personalities, especially Jensen with his closing remarks to the Mayor and such. I think you both did a good job in showing your characters here, since I have a solid image for both.



I've already touched on it, but the mechanics and clarity, going hand in hand for me, made it difficult at times. Typos, missing/extra commas, apostrophes, dashes, missing/extra words. If anything, these throw off the pace for me a bit.

This is a bit of a strange request, but try not to use words that might... look silly I suppose. Like "stampeded" looks awkward to me and I thought it had said something totally different until I looked it up. I know what it means, but the way it just looks made my brain think of it as something else. Maybe using a simpler word to mean the same thing could help with pacing, such as a synonym or using the definition instead of the word. Instead of "stampeded" you could have said "flew headlong" or "suddenly rushed" or something. I know, odd, but I'm just telling you what happened to me.



As an overall analysis, I enjoyed reading the story and can play it out in my mind like a movie fairly easily. Proofreading more thoroughly will generally help overall with the story as well, and though this is fantasy, trying to keep it somewhat realistic would help. The claw of the dragon to your chest seemed like a pretty painful attack, and I could see Jensen surviving it (immortal and all), but I had thought a claw of the dragon went THROUGH you... which... wouldn't just heal from rest. Again, I could have misinterpreted.

[Atzar]

Reserving a spot here. I'll post something within the next couple of days.

EDIT UPDATE: I finished reading it. I'll have some thoughts up tomorrow, depending on how the day goes - it looks to be a fairly irritating one, so we'll see.

[Atzar]

So yeah, I said I was going to post some feedback in this thread. Time to do that. I think Sir Artemis did a pretty good job where mechanics and clarity are concerned, so in the in the interest of not beating the dead horse I’ll leave that alone. Instead, I’ll focus on the story itself.

I had read Paragon’s profile in the past and loved the fact that it was so involved with dragons. I’ve talked fairly extensively with Sir Artemis, and he speaks highly of EI’s writing ability. So I was looking forward to reading this.

I thought the premise of the story was solid – can’t go wrong with dragons raiding a town – but I felt that the execution was bland. This was a dragon! Burninating the countryside! Burninating the peasants! Burninating all the people, in their THATCH-ROOF COTTAGES!!!

Ahem.


First of all, there wasn’t much of a hook. The first post, in many ways, is the most important post of the thread. It’s your opportunity to make a good impression right from the outset. Not only are first impressions pretty hard to break, but it immediately sets my mood: am I enjoying this thread, or am I picking it apart? If you write the intro well, then I’ll enjoy it – from then on, I’m a lot more likely to ignore or even miss minor mistakes or inconsistencies because I’m more interested in reading an entertaining story. Conversely, if you don’t hook me, then I have an entirely different outlook: rather than simply trying to enjoy the read, I’m probably going to put on my “Critic Hat” – props to Christoph for the term – and try to find every little error that you make.

I thought the first paragraph was pretty good. Working for a sealed-up ancient dragon? Alright! Here we go! Unfortunately, the post went downhill from there. Wait a minute… farmers? Bleh. And one of them doesn’t even think this thing is enough of a threat to warrant running away? Double bleh. This is a dragon. Fire. Teeth. Wings. People screaming. I WANT MY BURNINATION!!!

The point that I’m making, I guess, is that I think it would have been a good idea to give the reader a taste of the action right off the bat. Show them one of the dragon’s nightly raids. Establish this thing as a threat, something to be reckoned with, right from the outset. Then, when you introduce your characters, the one farmer’s panic will seem a lot more real. This isn’t always a good tactic for a thread, but in this case it would have helped.


There were a few inconsistencies in the thread that I noticed. In the intro, you mentioned that the island on the lake was home to many rare flowers, and then told me about… tulips and lilacs. Those aren’t rare. Hit Wikipedia for a minute and find some real rare flowers – or even make some up. Also, you don’t start up a steam engine with a pull cord >.<. Rather, you’d have to light a fire. It was clear from your description that you know what a steam engine is, but you just seemed to make a half-assed attempt at coming up with a way to stick it on a boat.

I should note that these are the kinds of things that I would have brushed off had I been caught up in the thread, rather than reading it to catch mistakes.

Some of the reactions of the characters seemed a bit off at the end of the thread, as well. For one thing, the dragon stabs Dorian through the gut before he finally comes to his senses. Then, he wakes up, sees the dude impaled on his claw, and is like “Oh, my bad! Kthxbai!” I just would have expected a lot more remorse and regret from him, I guess – leaving the kid to bleed out didn’t seem very ‘sorry’ to me. Also, one of EI’s lines in post #17 really stuck out: “The kid was passed out and tired from his adventure. He wouldn’t be waking until he got the needed rest.” I found it considerably more likely that the kid was passed out from the hole that the dragon carved in his gut.

In general, I thought the description of the steam engine was unnecessary. Dorian was about five feet from death by burnination. It didn’t seem like a very good time to go off on a tangent about sticking a steam engine on a boat to get out to the island. I understand that you were probably trying to be realistic with it – to keep me from saying “Wait, how did you get out there so fast?!” – but you could have done that in a way that was much less disruptive to the battle at hand.

I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that I have a fairly negative style of critique, so I will point out the things in the thread that I did like. Throughout the thread, I typically had a good idea of where you guys were and what was around you. I thought your characters were well-written (although I agree with Artemis that there was a distinct difference in their personalities when one of you tried to play the other’s character) – EI’s in particular had some depth, and I think Dorian will get there in time as he develops a little more history on Althanas. There were some funny moments (the little girl, kicking the engine to make it work). I thought the last part of EI’s concluding post was probably the best passage that I saw from either of you in the thread:

“History would eventually remember this day, this moment. They will speak in their tales of two men, who dared to fight against a dragon and save their town. History would erect a small, insubstantial monument with Dorian’s name, but Jensen? No, history would eventually forget the jerk, which was fine with him.

He was immortal, he wouldn’t forget the real story; The story of the boy who tamed a dragon.”

This was the only real time throughout the thread that I thought “Whoa, that was epic.” In a thread with a dragon fight, there should be a lot more of those moments.


I’m going to end my commentary there. I hope that I’ve given you two plenty of food for thought, and perhaps you’ll take some of my criticism and apply it to your writing in the future.

[Hysteria]

I have the first 5 posts with detailed notes (I tried not to repeat myself, so the comments got smaller). Then a total down the bottom for the entire thread. I didn’t read the other judgements so that I didn’t taint what I thought :)

Paragon:

#1

I thought your way of writing tended to bounce around my perspective. For example, in the first post:


Dorian felt pretty good about himself. Ever since he started working for a sealed up ancient dragon, he's been doing some real good in the world, and getting paid for it to boot! Fallow, his little black dragonling companion that was invisible to everyone but Dorian, was also in a good mood.

If I write the subject of each sentence it goes:

Dorian
Dorian’s goal
Dorian’s actions
Fallow, back to Dorian, back to Fallow.

At the start I found it a bit odd to read, and while it is far from annoying, it did interrupt the story quite a bit later in the thread.

The rest of the post is alright, but I think it would have been nice to introduce me to Dorian more, what he looks like, what was the deal with the ‘sealed up ancient dragon’ was (I assume that is Malanthar?). I also found some of the expression hard to follow, eg:


Ever since he started working for a sealed up ancient dragon, he's been doing some real good in the world, and getting paid for it to boot!

When I first read ‘working for a sealed up ancient dragon’ I thought it meant that he was trying to seal up an ancient dragon. If you shift the words around to get:


Ever since he started working for the ancient dragon, sealed deep in the blah blah, he’d been…

That way you can explore the back story a bit while not using too many description words for the dragon.

You can also set the scene. Was the sun high in the sky, the birds singing and the grass green? Or did the sun beat down on Dorian ominously and the slight smell of smoke carry on the wind?

#2

There is another good post to illustrate the shift of the readers focus at the start.


The town looked worse than Dorian thought. Several houses were missing roofs, while others had large sections with dark discoloration that he assumed were from burns. While he had heard of fire-breathing dragons before, he never imagined he's be walking in the wake of one. Many of the houses were boarded up and abandoned, while others had makeshift covers of wax to lessen the effects of the damage. The waterfront was especially damaged, with the docks leading into a ship graveyard. The small market had barely any peddlers, and the people that remained shifted about listlessly as though they had already given up. To Dorian, the most obvious resting place of the dragon was the island.

Town, Dorian.
Houses.
Dorian.
Houses.
Waterfront.
Market.
People.
Dorian, Dragon.

Another note about this paragraph, you don’t explain the perspective of the view, is Dorian walking through the buildings, or has he just come over a ridge and seen the town? What are the other senses that are activated by the scene? Can he smell the burnt houses, taste the charcoal on the air, feel the people’s hopelessness?

The last sentence sticks out too, how does Dorian know this? Because he is turned to the dragon’s way of thinking? If so then explain it. Say that ‘Dragons like to live near their prey’ or that ‘This is a territorial thing and the dragon must live near by, then if the village have stumbled upon it, it must be in the island’ or even ‘Dragons like flowers, so it’ll be on the island.

If I were to re-write this sentence on the assumption that he is walking through the village I would have something like:


Dorian’s footsteps on the charcoal painted streets stones echoed amongst the abandoned houses. The smell of burnt wood clung to air like a stain, colouring everything with its depressing odour. Dark burnt steaks crossed the faces of the forsaken homes where they tongue of fire had licked its way across the wooden structures. Dorian could feel the hopelessness of the town as his upturned head move side to side in disbelief. The boy would never have though that he would find a fire-breathing dragon, let alone walk in the path of its destruction.

I may have gone overboard with the description, but I also linked the flow of the paragraph, you know where he is, what he is doing while I unravel the details of the story. I also move from Dorian, to the scene, then back to Dorian and his feeling in connected sentences:

Dorian, houses.
Houses, odour.
Houses
Dorian
Dorian.

#3
The bunnying made it hard to judge, but you could have made the transition to the rooms more detailed, and now you’ve brought back Fallow I wondered where he had been since the first post. RPing cases like Fallow (I have a shadow spirit that Talen can talk to and no one else, which is similar) are freaken hard and I suggest either working hard to say what he does each post (like another character) or drop him. Have him fly off to scout around and then come back a few posts later or something.

#4


Fallow reluctantly agreed to keep watch, and before he knew it Dorian was fast asleep.

I would be careful with the use of ‘he’, here it could be applied to both Dorian and Fallow. You could put something like ‘before the dragon knew it, his friend was fast asleep’. That way you care colouring the action with more story information (they are friends and not say, master and pet).

After this sentence you should also separate the first part of the post from the dream sequence somehow. I tend to just put a page break like center]* * * *[/center (with start and end ]. That gives you:


* * * *


The son, of course, referring to Fallow.

Why ‘of course?’ Is it son in a metaphorical way? Is he adopted?


The young man got up and put his boots on, looking out into the darkness outside the window. Suddenly, there was a flash of light that caused him to shield his eyes. It was fire! The dragon was spewing fire everywhere! It was really here! He got his things and ran out of the room, out into the main area of the inn, and out the door. Up in the sky, a stream of fire would erupt from a black outline every few seconds. It was hard to see the dragon in the darkness, but the flapping of its wings gave away its location clearly enough. He looked around and saw a ladder leading up to the roof of a house that was burned.

It seems odd that he got up without hesitation, nor effect from the sleep. How can he put his boots on while looking out the window? I would also say to ease up on the ! Rather than ‘a stream of fire would erupt from a black’ it should be ‘a stream of fire erupted from a black’.

#5
Make sure you separate thoughts from the narrator, it was Dorian who wondered if Jensen had a death wish, so write it as such. It was clear that Fallow had dropped off your radar for this post.

Enigmatic Immortal

#1
For the first post I thought you could have done a better job introducing Jensen through his actions rather than simply talking about him.


Jensen pondered the numerous reasons why he of all people had to go to this blasted land. He hated Salvar for many reasons, the most notable being he had frozen to death on more than one occasion. It could have also been that it was the fortress Death’s Cradle where he was brutality experimented on before an eventual decapitation. It might have even been the fact a midget had stolen fifty gold coins out of his pockets when he was stabbed in the heart by a sociopath on a killing spree before he found is ways into Cassandra Remi’s midnight rampage.

Whatever the reason was, Jensen Ambrose, immortal Knight of Apocalypse didn’t care in the least. A hate was born for this land and he needed no other reason than that to despise it. He figured it was like his unhealthy racial disgust towards elven creatures; it never made sense and warmed his cold black heart.

Never-the-less Jensen was on a mission from his order and as a senior knight he was bound to obey. His good fortune in having time off wasn’t immortal like he was and eventually he knew he had to go back to work. Still, he hated this current mission because it brought him to Salvar. So like any spoiled brat he whined and complained the entire time.

If we simplify this down to subjects we get:

Jensen doesn’t like having to go.
He doesn’t like Salvar.
Jensen is immortal and gets into hijinks and shenanigans.

Jensen is a knight of the apocalypse.
Jensen is slightly annoyed with Salvar.
Jensen likes to hate.

Jensen was on a mission as a knight and so he had to do it anyway (even though he hated it).
He is immortal (unlike his spare time).
Jensen hates his current mission.
Jensen hates Salvar.
Jensen complains (although he is alone, so to whom is a mystery).

So as you can see, you repeat several times the same thing across three paragraphs, that Jensen doesn’t like Salvar, and he’s immortal. I think that you could use Jensen to illustrate these facts rather than directly tell the reader.


Jensen turned his nose up at the thought of entering Salvar once more.


The immortal regretted every step he waisted in the continent he despised.

They’re simple examples to illustrate my point, you can show, rather than tell the reader how much Jensen hates Salvar. I also think that you could have better shown us how he looked and what was going on around him. Perhaps separate the backstory out from the body of the text and illustrate why and who brought him here. I know it was an order from the Knights to check out the rumour, but who did Jensen shrug too?

#2
At the start of your post you use the word ‘he’ for Jensen twice without linking it to him until three sentences later. While it is clear your talking about Jensen because it is your character and we are RPing, it still stuck out.


One word could describe the carnage he Jensen saw when he entered the town: Massacre. It was like the dragon had figured which places to burn first, the docks, the government buildings, a few houses of nobles and the poor. It left behind symbols of hope however. This proved the beast had some intelligence as far as Jensen was concerned. It left behind small patches of light so that when it came at night it would extinguish them in a bale of(?) fire.

I think the voice you are using to describe the scene is confusing. You start off talking about Jensen, but then slip into describing the town as Jensen would see it without referencing that as the point of reference, then finish with a thought of Jensen’s. The last two sentences seem to be more connected than stated, are those Jensen’s thoughts, or the voice of the narrator? I wasn’t sure if the last sentence you were using ‘bale’ to describe the way fire (similar to burst or jet) or if you meant that the dragon would set bales on fire.

Like Paragon, it would have been good to say why the dragon was on the island (was there simply no were else for it to go?).

#3
You start this post much like your first and have the first three posts filled with one idea: Jensen thought it was silly that the boy thought he could talk to dragons.


Jensen had to blink a few times just to make sure he heard that right(1). The boy’s face remained neutral, hiding no ill intent or mental retardation (2). That was bad, cause Jensen was hoping the boy had problems in the head to think he could talk to dragons(3).

“Uh,” He didn’t know what to say to that(4). The kid wanted to reason with a dragon by talking to it(5). He felt a long checklist begin to tally down his head like a pile of coins being counted as to why this was just foolishness (6). One: The boy thinks he could talk to dragons(7). Two: The boy thinks this dragon can be reasoned with(8). Three: The kid thinks he could talk to dragons(9). The list tended to repeat it self. ( I loled)

Jensen snorted before he blinked again. Talk to dragons (10). He just couldn’t fathom that one (11). He chuckled inside his own head as he began to wonder which of the two were crazier. For once he met someone who may actually give him a run for his money.

Twelve sentences are related to how Jensen is shocked that Dorian thinks he can talk to dragons and Jensen’s reaction. I think the effort that you put into these paragraphs could have been put into making one really funny reaction.


Holy shit the boys bonkers. Thought Jensen without a doubt in his mind that the boy most certainly could not. For the first time the immortal may have actually found someone as screw loose as himself.

After that you would then move straight on to his physical action, you could hark back to the disbelief now:


“Uh… you wa?” said Jensen with his jaw open, the immortal could just belive his ears.

After that it gets repetitive if you keep going on.

#4
Some of this post was hard to follow, like when he was thrown from the room. I had to re-read it to make sure I understood what was going on. Second main problem for me was where the throwing glaive came from. I know he has them on his person due to your character sheet, but it was just kind of pulled from thin air because you never describe him as having them in the thread.

I however loved the IC actions of this post and the way Jensen just didn’t care. I thought it was very well done.

#5
It was a bit hard to follow your movements through the house, and I found it odd to suddenly shift from being flippant to scared and running. I also think you could have fought harder against the dragon given your skills.


Paragon:

STORY:

I think you could work on the setting, but most of the story made sense. It was a bit weird the whole ‘invisible dragon’ bit, I think you could have explained Fallon better. The idea of a town getting attacked, you heading out as a servant of a dragon to try and calm the beast was good IMO.

CHARACTER:

I think the character acted within its bounds, but you could work on the dialogue and actions. Remember to structure your posts better so that you can better explore what he is thinking/doing.

WRITING STYLE:
Sometimes it was hard to read and there were some odd paragraphs, but overall I thought you did a good job. You should again work on your focus when you write and better move from one thought to another so that the reader can understand what you are staying. Remember that you may have a picture of whats going on when you write, but without that you need details to fill it in.


Enigmatic Immortal

STORY:
I was still confused as to the exacts of the mission. It seemed too broad and unclear. You also didn’t seem to develop, or fit Jensen into the role very well. He seemed to stick out from the story rather than being woven into it. Its hard being in a thread you didn’t create and still have your character integrate, but he seemed at odds with his story. For example, he hated Salvar, but hated to see these people die.


CHARACTER:
Jensen is such an interesting character its hard not to be interested in him. The overall effect of a jerk who can’t die is very refreshing. I did think however that you could have used his actions and dialogue to better explain his particular take on life rather than just telling us. I also think you could work on particular things he does as a result of his immortality. This is just a suggestion, but it would have been funny if he had kept a journal of every way he had died, thus showing how much he doesn’t care about dying.

Also, for someone who hated Salver, it really didn’t come up after the first post.

WRITING STYLE:
Sometimes you used words that didn’t quite fit the context you wanted them to be used for and there was a lot of writing that didn’t have much of an impact on the reader. Overall however I enjoyed the way you told me about Jensen and the humour you used.

[Revenant]

I found this story to be a nice read and was happy that the ending was resolved in a different way than the standard ‘kill the big monster’ ending. Most of the previous posters have done an excellent job of providing feedback, so I won’t be writing an epic, story-length analysis. As a judge, however, I feel like it would be beneficial for me to point out a few things that I would take note of if I were going through this thread for a judgment. Also, I’m going to focus more on things about Paragon’s writing than EI since I’ve given him plenty of writing critiques.

Paragon, your character just happens to be a dragon mediator who runs into a dragon problem. The fact that you’re just walking down the road and run into a rampaging dragon feels very contrived. It’s my assumption that dragons aren’t very common and given your character’s back-story it would have made much more sense for Dorian and Fallow to be following up on rumors of a dragon attack then it would be for you to just happen to stumble upon one.

Your descriptions are very minimal, and I wouldn’t have given you any more than a 5. You give enough to give a rough idea of Dorian’s surroundings, but there’s little life to it outside of that. One of the suggestions that I would make would be to not rush your threads. A good story is made in the journey, not in the destination.

As far as exploring Dorian’s personality goes, I enjoyed the blurb between Dorian and Fallow on the night before the attack. When Dorian is facing down the dragon after Jensen calls it down on you I don’t get anything from you. There’s no fright, no confidence, nothing. I would assume that having a giant, fire-breathing lizard would conjure some sort of emotion within you. I understand that being a mouthpiece for the King of the Dragons would inure you to dragon-fear, but there should still be something.

The pacing of your thread took a major hit in the middle. Your quick jump to the island, leaving Jensen behind was awkward. Some better coordination between the two of you would have helped you get a better score in pacing as well as clarity. My biggest issue was, again, how quickly the story jumped from one point to another. There was really no need for a flashback to be necessary. Why not just start from Dorian’s conversation with the mayor, getting the canoe, and then progress to the island?

Despite my criticisms, I did enjoy your writing and I look forward to reading more of it.

[Paragon]

We both had some major writer's block this thread, but that's no excuse. The idea of starting the thread off with the dragon attack does sound much better, as does the recent suggestion of having Dorian investigate the attack rather than stumbling upon it. I'll also try to focus more on putting inner thoughts, feelings, and such into my posts... although I don't want to force it. There are times when I feel that if I over-describe something, it'll end up sounding bland and boring, but in this case it looked like I under-described. That was mainly due to being uninspired, though.

It's clear I have some issues of perspective due to having a tag-along familiar, but I hope experience will solve that. Hell, just playing in general will accommodate me to the character and let me develop him into something people can identify clearly, but for that I'll need to do a lot more threads.

I seem to have run out of active threads to do, so I hope this Workshop will serve as a way for me to find future questing partners! I'm available for anything so just shoot me a PM.

[Zerith]

Before I post this, I just wanted to give you guys a quick thank you for the read. I enjoyed the story, and am thankful for the opportunity to judge this. If either if you have any questions later, feel free to ask me. Now onto the judgment!


STORY (17/30)

CHARACTER (17/30)

WRITING STYLE (15/30)

WILD CARD (6/10)

Final Score: 55!

Reward:

Paragon receives 531 EXP and 195 GP!

Enigmatic Immoral receives 1847 EXP and 156 GP!

All spoils are pending approval by an RoG mod.



Hysteria, as the top contributor, recieves 200 EXP and 100GP!

SirArtemis recieves 150 EXP and 50 GP!

Atzar Kellon recieves 300 EXP and 50 GP!

Revenant receives 250 EXP and 50 GP

[Taskmienster]

The Exp and GP has been added for everyone.