"You As You Are" Workshop

[hoytti]

Rules

1. No outright attacks on thread writers or reviewers. You may criticize the thread only. This is not a venue for trolling, flaming, or otherwise bashing, demonizing or demoralizing individuals. You will receive only one warning, and upon the second offense in the entire forum, action will be taken.

2. This forum is for Workshop type evaluations only. If you have a thread you want others to look over and comment on, create your own Personal Workshop thread (or whatever you want to call it) in the Role Players' Corner.

3. Take criticism well. The comments here are intended to help writers improve as such. Do not get disheartened if someone says something ill of your work, but rather take it to heart and work hard to improve.

Arden has requested a Workshop Judgement for his thread, You As You Are (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25483-You-As-You-Are-(Closed)).

It will remain open for feedback until midnight on the 31st of December.

[Luned]

This workshop has been extended to January 12th. Don't forget, you can earn rewards (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?26064-Writer-s-Workshop-Rewards) with your contributions here!

[Quentin Boone]

I'm aware the deadline has passed for this workshop, but was advised (and encouraged) by Lye to write a review anyway.
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I'll be using the rubric to review the thread.

Story

Storytelling: [7]
I was drawn into the story from the first post, and throughout I was left wanting to know more - most importantly I was left anticipating what the meeting between Arden and Rehtul would be about. It also clearly leads on to further plots. I would have given a higher score here if I knew why Rehtul needed help and why Ruby was such an important person in Scara Brae.

Setting: [6]
I got a good feel for the setting in general, but I wasn't immersed. What were the back-alleys like? Were they paved, cobbled, dirt? Even though it was minor, I would have liked to 'see' the boat a little more: Was the railing iron, brass, steel, something else? Was the deck actually dirty or did Rehtul wipe his backside out of a matter of course? What about the smells in the harbour? It's the little things like this that make all the difference.

Pacing: [9]
The story moved at the right pace throughout: The march through the city was nicely brief, and things slowed at all the right moments to build suspense. Great job.

Character

Communication: [7]
For the most part, all the characters' dialogue matched their characters well. I especially liked Ruby's officiousness - she really struck as a woman of influence and power. I would have awarded more points here, but I felt that Rehtul's speech was a little cardboard in the first couple of posts. I know he's grown up around nobility etc, but he's still a kid. I didn't really get that from the first couple of posts with him in it, but this improved as the thread progressed.

Action: [7]
A good job here. Not a lot to say, really. A couple of things I really liked, though, were Rehtul running his finger across the desk to reveal the dust and Rouge's positioning that did a good job of making it clear she didn't really wanna be around Ruby and Rehtul.

Persona: [6]
I was able to get a good impression of everyone's personality, except for Rouge. Part of that is because she played a pretty small part in the thread, but more could have been done here, I think.

Prose

Mechanics: [5]
There were a few misspellings here and there, and a couple of weirdly-worded sentences that would have been remedied with a quick proofread. Arden, your sentences are consistently lacking in variety of structure; try not to start the majority of sentences with a pronoun - it became quite distracting at points.

Clarity: [7]
Everyone's writing was clear and nothing left me confused. There was one instance, however, where I wasn't quite sure who was being talked about, but this relates to my point to Arden above.

Technique: [7]
There's little to say here; I thought you guys did a solid job. Especially in building tension in the lead-up to the meeting. Good job.

Wildcard

[7]
I thoroughly enjoyed this thread. The characters were interesting, I liked the references to other characters and events, and was constantly enthralled by the mystery surrounding the meeting. A jolly good job.

[Lye]

Since Mr. Boone was kind enough to give this thread some feedback, I'm going to close it out and award the necessary EXP & GP. Thank you for your time and effort.

Since you were the only person to offer feedback your rewards will be doubled. This being said, a new Workshop system will be posted shortly and we encourage future participation.