Informal Workshop: Soothing The Bloodthirsty Fires Within.

[Lye]

Thread Title: The Bloodthirsty Fires Within. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?26140)
Name of Authors: Noir. & Lye
Type of Thread: Quest
Summary: Lye, an assassin bend on bleeding anyone he sees dry, is stalking a band of poachers in the Skavian Wilds. His efforts are dashed when a wandering maiden of mystical origin, Noir, becomes the attention of the traveling thugs. In his efforts to kill his prey before she can, the two lone wolves clash with one another. Injured, they are forced to retreat and seek refuge from a sudden Salvan blizzard. Their time spent together brings old memories into question and stokes the embers of new flames. Lye puts his foundations to question and is cast into uncertainty, perhaps even death...

Guidelines for Feedback:

Standard rules for etiquette apply. No spamming or off-topic posts, no personal attacks or trolling. Focus on critiquing the thread, not the writer. Use constructive criticism.

Reason for Workshop:

I would like to get a group perspective on the presented writing styles while we await judgement. Specifically, I would like to get feedback on story, pacing (or flow), and writing techniques. The following questions can help too:

Is the story compelling?
Did it keep your interest?
What were some strengths of the writing?
What were some weaknesses that can be improved?
What was your favorite scene & why?
What was your least favorite scene & why?
What would you like to see in the future from Lye?
What would you like to see in the future from Noir?
Additional Comments: (If Any)

This is a long thread, so I do not expect many takers. If you do decide to offer some feedback, not only will I would greatly appreciate it, but I will return the favor down the line.

Thank you.

[Flames of Hyperion]

As I continually disclaim in my prefaces, I'm not very good at dispensing advice. Feel free to ignore and disregard at will!

I skimmed the thread once, and read through most of it a second time to get a better idea of both of your writing styles. Unfortunately I don't have the time to do a fully in-depth critique, but here's a few things I noted...


***

It's evident that you both enjoy writing with your characters, and that you know them well. Devoting a goodly chunk of the thread to throwing them together and seeing what emerged in the end helped greatly to develop the dynamic between them. What I thought could use improvement was how you presented their interaction, especially towards the beginning of the thread where one person would speak and act, then the other, then the first again, and so on. In threads such as these, it's always useful to work closely to interleave the interaction, for example by scripting the entirety of the conversation via PM or IM and giving the other person leave to control your character. You can find out some very interesting things that way...

I found the beginning of the thread somewhat difficult to slip into. Partly this was because the opening scene posed questions but didn't really arrest my attention, partly because of the way in which it was written (passive voice and choice of words (particularly weak verbs) / sentence structure). The monolithic paragraphs didn't help, nor did the elaborate run-on sentences. And because you didn't break up the writing here, the action sometimes seemed to drag. These mechanical aspects improved as the thread went on, but this raises the question of proof-reading: it's clear that you went back over some of your posts after writing them, but that you didn't go back over the thread as a whole after you'd finished. Some very simple errors (rouge -> rogue, reusing the same phrase twice within a paragraph, etc.) could have been eliminated simply by careful editing or by reading the story out loud.

You presented your characters with a series of challenges that you used to develop them, and it was good to see that you tried to strike a balance between being bad-ass and actually being challenged. I have a pet peeve here with depicting the antagonists (especially the poachers) as cardboard cutouts with little characterisation and little reason for their existence other than as speedbumps to your characters' progress. I understand that both Lye and Noir saw them simply as 'prey', and that allies such as Corvanik (who intrigued me greatly in his brief appearance) were treated much more humanely, but they were still men with friends and family and hopes and history and everything all of that entails. Even if your characters pay little attention to such minuscule details, a simple "Marta..." as the life leaves the lips of the umpteenth victim would have sufficed...

You made a tremendous effort to establish the setting whenever the scene shifted, but then forgot about it for long stretches during conversations. I find it okay to let the environment sink into the background, but equally I feel that it's necessary to remind the reader from time to time of the cold wind upon Lye's skin, or the stench of bloody excrement upon his unclean blades, or the crackle of the fire and its healing warmth.

Finally, and a bit fussily: Lye's flashbacks obviously drove the early-middle portion of the thread, but I found it difficult to keep track of what was a flashback and what wasn't, which confused me at times.


***

I hope that is of some dubious use! I appreciated the way you wove some of the history of Althanas and the current events in Salvar into your narrative, and the story as a whole did a grand job of bringing two characters together and transitioning them from beginning to end. A lot of what I've written above is, admittedly, nit-picking.

I'll certainly be keeping one eye on where Noir and Lye go from here!

[Quentin Boone]

Disclaimer: This could be seen as a harsh critique, but it isn't a personal attack at all.

********

Okay, I was looking forward to reading this quest and had intended to read all three forum pages. However, I quickly realised that I would only be able to manage a few posts. I'll admit, then, that my review is based only on the first six posts. However, I think they give enough to allow me to give some useful feedback to you both.

So, let me give you the good stuff, first:

-- I enjoyed the premise of the story and it set up a new-found companionship quite well.
-- Both of your characters are interesting. Lye: A masochist is always fun. A sadomasochist is twice as much so. I'm intrigued by the strange magic your character used to throw the katar; the 'shadow possession'. Noir: There is a distinct air of mystery about your character. I want to know more about how she ended up wandering the frozen landscape of Salvar wearing so little, followed by a shape-shifting demon.
-- Generally, you create excellent opportunities for your partner to interact with you, or respond to your actions, in each post. This helps to keep the story flowing at a reasonable pace.
-- An echo of some of Flames of Hyperion's comments:
-- It's clear you both know and understand your characters well.
-- You definitely used the environment well.
-- I enjoyed your use of dialogue.

And now, for the bad news:

This was quite the chore to read, honestly. I was disappointed after looking forward to the thread for most of the day. There's a mix of minor and major things that made things difficult for me. Overall, however, it felt clunky. I'll address the specific issues below, shared issues first, then with each of you.

-- Homophones. The two that rise immediately to mind are 'fourth'/'forth' and 'past'/'passed'. The first being the word you guys used, the second, the word you wanted. It's important to check these; a spellchecker will ignore them, but they're still wrong and it can bring a pause to a person's reading. Usually people have issues with the same words over and over, identify these and keep an eye out. Use a dictionary if necessary and you'll be fine.

-- Grammar and punctuation. Throughout the posts I read, there were several instances of either missing punctuation, or unnecessary punctuation. Flames of Hyperion suggested reading your posts out loud. I agree with them. Make sure you read every pause, and pause only when the punctuation tells you to. This, I think, will be quite a revelation.

-- Actions. This was mentioned by Flames of Hyperion, but I'll expand a little. After the fight, I felt there were perhaps a few too many actions per post. As mentioned above, you both did a great job of leaving what I term 'prompts' for your partner to respond to, through both actions and dialogue, but I was left with a 'see-saw' kind of feeling about your interactions. Multiple prompts in a post can result in a couple of outcomes - 1) Your partner responds to the most pertinent one (determined by them and their character), or 2) Your partner responds to all of them. Unfortunately, it was the latter I saw in your thread. It felt like a constant ret-con of sorts. If you try to limit prompts to one per post, you can achieve a much better flow. These can then be padded out by 'auxiliary' actions.

-- Characters. Although I was able to get enough of an impression of your characters to garner interest, I still felt a certain disconnect. Lye, I got the motivations of your character, but I didn't have a clue what he actually looked like, apart from the scarf and animal skins he was wearing. I did, however, have a feeling his eyes held a stark mania to them, which you managed without mentioning, so kudos there. Noir, your character thoroughly confused the hell out of me. I didn't really get her motivations, and I couldn't see her in my mind's eye.


Okay, let's have a look at individual issues.

Lye:

Firstly, your writing was generally easy to read, it had a nice pace to it and helped to portray your character. There are a couple of things that really stood out for me, though:

-- "It was until the night before, they had decided to set up a central camp, much more robust than the ones prior." - I really wanted to know what the poachers' camps were like for the rest of the last week. A quick sentence or word or two would have sufficed to sate my curiosity. Even something like "... a central camp, much more robust than the hastily-made, tentless, disorganised ones prior" would give me an idea of a ramshackle camp with little or no cover, a fire without stone surrounds, and lazy poachers. At the same time, I wondered why they decided a more robust camp was necessary today. This kinda echoes Hyperion's comment about giving your NPCs life.

-- Awkward sentences. There are a few awkward sentences, and they really made me stumble. A couple of things pop up repeatedly:

"He then stood and found himself a warmed boulder to take a seat upon for which he hunched over and kept an observant gaze on this lovely specimen approaching him." - For which he hunched over? It sounds like he was hunched over the boulder, rather than sat on it. Or he was hunched over while sitting on it. There are a few places where using 'for which' or similar makes things awkward.

-- Too many pronouns. "He... His... He... He... His..." There's points in your posts where you have an abundance of pronouns. It can leave your prose unclear and confusing. It can be difficult to break up the use of pronouns, but doing so can have a massive benefit. You can either mix up your sentence structure, or find alternatives to put in place. Sometimes you can merge sentences to avoid too many pronouns.

Noir:

I can see that you have a passion for writing, and a desire for excellence. I share those same things, so can appreciate them. I think, however, you've been misled a little. Let me help point you in the right direction :).

-- Your posts were a real struggle to read. One of the main reasons for this is a lack of punctuation. Your sentences are long and at times quite convoluted, but you don't give the reader any guidance about the sentences' paths. This is often primarily done using commas. They split clauses of a sentence and help us see the order of your thoughts, as well as showing pauses. You can solve this by reading your posts out loud.

-- Purple prose. This is basically making posts overly 'flowery'. It slows down the pace of your narrative and makes posts drag on. Sometimes, flowery writing is just the thing you need, but use it sparingly and infrequently. You used words that didn't really fit, or were outright incorrect. For example, your description of Lye joining the fight said he 'encompassed' it. Check out the definition of encompass here (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/encompass) and you'll see what I mean. Just remember that the most effective writing can be the most simple and to-the-point.

-- Character. I mentioned above that I'm confused by your character. Let me explain why. Firstly, there seems to be an inconsistency - one minute she's wandering aimlessly, kind of lost in a trance-like state (at least, that's the impression I get), the next she's effectively fighting off a group of burly poachers, the next she's off wandering aimlessly again but aware of Lye, then she's all attentive and 'alive' having a conversation. Now, I understand that you need to move the plot and character interactions forward, but you can do this without losing consistency. It would have added some tension if she remained in that trance-like state while fighting, her body kind of moving of its own accord, without her having a clue her life is in danger. The conversation with Lye could have been with a kind of dreamy voice, or forced, like she still didn't know what was happening. A slower transition back to awareness would have been nice.
In terms of Zai, I kind of got it. It's an observer, essentially, and maybe a protector. The only thing that stood out for me was this: "usually it was partial to land, but clearly it was unsettled and stayed air bound... dormant on a branch..." I'm hoping the selective quote here shows my point. Air-bound implies it's flying, rather than sitting on a branch. Remember, consistency.

-- Awkward/strange word choices. This is somewhat related to the purple prose point above, but I feel it needs its own point. On a number of occasions, you talk about 'hues'. For example, "he stranger adorned with those gleaming emerald hues." Huhwut?! I don't know what you mean here, seriously. Also, 'orbs'. They're not orbs, they're eyes. Again, simple and to-the-point. Call a spade a spade. I remember the first time I saw 'optics' as a replacement for eyes... I thought the character was wearing, like, night vision goggles. He wasn't!!

********

To both of you, don't let this review discourage. It's designed to help you grow as writers. I think it's evident that you have the potential to be great writers, it just takes a little work. If you have any questions, or want further advice, hit me up in chat or via PMs, I'll be happy discuss any of the issues here or help with anything else.

[Lye]

Thanks to the both of you. Looks like I need to rethink my writing strategies. Especially, the "keeping you hooked" part. The feedback is valuable. If you ever want your works reviewed by me, just shoot a PM my way.