Workshop: The Search For Self

[Lye]

Name of Completed Thread: The Search for Self. (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27463-The-Search-for-Self)
Name of Authors: Amber Eyes (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?14169), Silence Sei (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?30), and Lye (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?2900)
Type of Thread: Quest
Date Closed: 7/22/2014
Number of Posts: 23 Posts

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[Asmodeus]

Great story. I used the rubric as a vague outline for my comments. I'm really curious to see how everything plays out between the IK and the Cult and The Order of the Crimson Hand. Very compelling tale!


Story:

Storytelling: 10

This was a really compelling read. I felt a definite sense of synergy between the writers. Every post transitioned smoothly into the next. I almost forgot I was reading something written by three separate people. Plus, the concept itself was appealing. I enjoyed seeing the Ixian Knights inner workings and Lye’s elaborate deception.

Setting: 8

The story made good use of Corone and Knife’s Edge. There was some quality imagery, like when Kyla felt the sun on her skin or Lye could imagine he heard the gears struggling to turn in the guards’ empty heads. I felt like some of the early posts could have used just a little more. But I realize the difficulty in that, since they were primarily dialogue.

Pacing: 8

I felt like the initial dialogue between Sei and Kyla went on a little long, but it served a purpose and the rest of the story moved right along. The pacing between Sei and Kyla’s initial conflict to her meeting with Lye to her return to the castle moved along nicely. The ending came at a good point, and it was satisfying.

Character:

Communication: 10

This story was really dialogue driven. Kyla and Sei’s arguments and her meeting with Lye were all well written. The things each character said and the way they said them seemed consistent with the brash young leader or the tired old man or the master manipulator with a grudge that they were.

Action: 9

The actions the character’s performed served to reveal their traits, like when Lye was slicing the dried beef, or how he growled the name Orlouge.

Persona: 10

In my opinion, this was one of the strongest points of the story. Everything the characters did was believable. The relationship between an aging Sei and his daughter was well-depicted. I especially enjoyed the way that Kyla bought the lie that Lye had cooked up. She believed it not only because it was plausible, but because she deeply wanted it to be true.

Prose:

Mechanics: 8.5

I noticed a couple of tiny typos (castke where castle was supposed to be, and the like), but overall the story was cleanly edited.

Clarity: 10

I’m still pretty new to Althanas, but I understood what was going on without having to look anything up. I was never confused, though I might’ve been if I didn’t know anything about the IK or the mystic race.

Technique: 9

I felt like the technique was really solid on everyone’s’ part. I especially enjoyed the scene where Lye was deceiving Kyla into believing that the Cult of Blessed Torture was responsible for the attacks. The way that he sliced up the dried beef paralleled nicely with the lie he was weaving. I felt like there were a couple of little anachronism (a clipboard, someone saying something sucked). They seemed just a little out of place in a fantasy setting. But, I also realize Althanas is a melting pot world with a variety of foreign objects and phrases.

[Flames of Hyperion]

* Disclaimer: This is informal, subjective advice from somebody who's not very accomplished at handing out such. Treat accordingly. Without further ado!

Story:

Some parts of the story went too much according to the plan for my liking. For example, Kyla dismissing the guards - would they have left her without any argument whatsoever? Especially given Sei's injunctions? In general, many of the Ixian grunts felt and acted like faceless NPCs, which made me sad.

Other parts felt a bit skipped over despite the efforts made in the opening stages - Kyla and Lye travelling to the inn in Underwood, and from Knife's Edge to Lye's hideout. They were prime opportunities for expanding on inner monologue and engaging in some tense banter, but you seemed to want to move the story on very quickly. Then again, I'm a sucker for slow pacing and strong build-up, and I can understand why you might have chosen the pacier option instead.

But the plot punches went down perfectly. The conversation between Lye and Kyla, the way he manipulated her into asking for the one lie he could get her to believe. The confrontation with Emma when Kyla arrived back at the castle, and then the council meeting where her sisters overrode her once more. Ending on that note drew the story together, but left just enough questions in the air about what would happen next. Let's see how the Ixians - or the factions within them - take it from here ^^.


Background:

The story did pretty much have the feel of a transition thread to it, the calm between two storms. Having cursory knowledge of the events surrounding the attack on the castle, I only felt a little bit left in the dark. Referencing specific damage to the castle might have helped here. You all did a very good job of weaving those events, along with the Eiskalt War into the narrative of the thread - great stuff. Also, good use of Kyla's shadowwalking ability to spread the action across the continents. I did feel that some transitions were skimmed over a bit too quickly (as above).

I also felt that setting was lacking a little, although what was given was done well. I didn't really get much sense of the Ixian Castle, or of Underwood and Knife's Edge. You could have spent a little more time establishing Lye's lair and interacting with it during your dialogue. I can tell that you tried to intersperse their words with little character actions, but none of it really touched on the scenery as well as some of the lines in Amber Eyes's opening posts. I feel like I should level the same accusation at the final scene in the council room, but I did appreciate how quickly the conversation moved there.

In short, I'm nitpicking really. There was some quality imagery, and some instances where you chose to keep the story moving instead, and both worked relatively well in context of what you wanted to tell.


Characters:

Amber Eyes stated in her first post - "The Ixian way was everything Kyla wasn't." I had my doubts, since in my mind the Ixian way also includes family - reinforced by much of the post that followed - and Kyla is of course very family focused. Hence it hurt even more when neither her sisters nor Sei could reach out to her, and when Lye broke her down - great portrayal. Then Kyla went back for the approval of her sisters after treading the dark path, and they justifiably turned against her by cutting down everything she believed she'd been working for. In essence, the entire thread could be seen to hinge on that single line in the first post, and it'll be interesting to see what happens to Kyla next.

Sei's troubles were also very well described, as well as the way he tried to reach out to Kyla and do what he could for her. The conflict between duty and family being a central part to his character, it was good to see it covered well. His paranoia in sending Talen after Kyla fit in well with his grandmaster personality, but you left that particular plot thread hanging. It might have been interesting to give just a little hint of how Talen's mission turned out, and what Sei was doing in the last few posts of the thread.

Lye the trickster played them both beautifully: wary enough of Sei to justify caution, but leading Kyla on with just the right tidbits to tempt her curiosity. The way he got all the information he wanted out of Kyla with a few well-chosen words established neatly the value he places on the correct knowledge - after all, what he gave Kyla cost him very little, but what he gained in return... I'd love to see where he goes from here with it. One little piece at a time, indeed.


Technique:

I might come off a bit harsh here, but that's because for all the potential of the story and the characters, the errors in technique detracted from letting them flow.

Amber Eyes, first post - "Eyes squinted, the girl looked out over the castle grounds." I pay great attention to the first sentence, because it makes such a big difference as to how the reader approaches the thread. Now, of course, there's nothing technically wrong with it, but if you take a closer look your verb - looked - is a lot weaker than an adjective you've already used - squinted - that you could replace it with. "The girl squinted over the castle grounds" conveys the same information in a tidier sentence. In general, I found your writing somewhat clunky at times - it didn't read as smoothly as I'd hoped. Sometimes your choice of tense didn't help, making the sentences impersonal and abstract, which didn't strike me as Kyla's character.

Sei, second post - "Eventually, the job of a father is to watch their children grow up from afar." Again I find usage of a weak verb undermining what is Sei's defining sentiment. "Eventually, a father resigns himself to watching his children grow up from afar" or "Eventually, a father's job settles into watching their children grow up from afar"; both of these options open the discourse with a bit more... oomph. I noticed a number of niggly errors in your writing: missing words, unstructured sentences, spelling (Eiskalt, not Eiksalt!), tenses, grammar. A simple re-read and edit would worm them out easily enough. Another example was in post #6 - repetitive use of sat / straightened when once would have sufficed.

Aside from weak verbs and niggly grammatical and spelling errors, both of you also engaged in a little too much telling not showing to begin with, for example when establishing the dynamic between the Daughters. I would suggest re-reading the dialogue out loud, as some of it felt a bit forced (Kyla's first dialogue with her sisters being one example); keeping to a common format for Sei's 'speech' would also help, although I think you just missed one or two instances.

Lye, eighth post - Immediately a spelling mistake, which was a shame given that I read quite a bit into the first sentence. The vision of him standing alone, an island of darkness amidst the activity of rebuilding the castle, stood out quite clearly in my mind. Again, I'd suggest rereading and rewriting to get rid of all the niggles, for example the doubled use of 'information'. I was also left unsure of what you meant by 'being made'.

Issues like this continued throughout the thread, and though they didn't impinge on the well-crafted story or the characters, they did force me to stop twice or thrice a post and work out what you were trying to say. I did like the good use of metaphor: Sei's dream and Lye's dried beef being major highlights. And the conversation flowed very well indeed between Kyla and Lye.


* In closing: the first steps towards the fall of a Mystic. What will the Crimson Assassin do with the knowledge he's gained and the war he's instigated? Only time will tell...

[Alyssa Snow]

This thread is closed, EXP will be awarded shortly. Both members get 2x GP for their useful contributions.

[Alyssa Snow]

Flames of Hyperion Gets:

1,265 EXP
230 GP

Asmodeus Gets:

230 EXP
230 GP

EXP & GP Added!

Thank you for your contributions.