Workshop: Dawn Through Darkness

[Alyssa Snow]

Name of Completed Thread: Dawn Through Darkness (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?27866-Dawn-Through-Darkness)
Name of Authors: Karuka & Dissinger
Type of Thread: Quest
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level (http://www.althanas.com/world/faq.php?faq=exp#faq_levelchart))*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: (11/13/14)

Critique Guidelines:

1.) 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 and try to speak in terms of "strengths" and "weaknesses". For example: "Your story was strong, but the action seemed a little weak. Try using more adverbs to describe actions or use a thesaurus to spice up your word choice."

2.) Likewise, those who have asked for a workshop should take criticism gracefully. Use it to better yourself. These are not intended to offend or belittle, only show you opportunities to grow.

3.) If at any point you notice improper conduct, contact an administrator immediately. Bullying of any kind will not be tolerated. Arguing will also be regulated heavily. Polite, constructive debate is permitted within reason.

4.) In order to receive EXP & GP for your feedback(see Workshop Guide), a critique must be helpful, elaborate, and considerate. It is suggested that the review be at least 3 paragraphs and focus on strengths, weaknesses, and overall content. You may use the Althanas Rubric as a guide.

5.)Those that leave an exceptionally detailed review with plenty of constructive advice may be eligible for double rewards. This will be up to the posting judge's discretion. The authors of the thread may request the additional reward be given if they found a review to be particularly helpful. The request must still be approved.

[Ranger]

Hey there! It’s been quite some time since I’ve done some general reviews for the site so I figured I’d give it a whirl. I’ll try and keep it brief but helpful, and if I say something that doesn’t make sense feel free to PM me or catch me on AIM and I’ll explain what I meant better. Karuka and Dissinger, it’s a pleasure to have this thread be the first one I do a workshop for since returning. =D

General Commentary – for both of you
The opening posts were a little slow, like you were both getting your footing and just wanted to get into the thread itself. I can fully understand that. However, as the quest continued on it took on a personality of its own and really started to shine. I thought the pacing was a little wonky at times, but otherwise was very enjoyable to read. That much talk during a big boss battle, Dissinger, is something that is almost always frowned upon by every judge I’ve never seen… but you did it in a way that made it flow well, to the point where it wasn’t jogging to read and didn’t seem unrealistic.

In general there were a lot of errors grammatically, but they were very minor things. Always remember to give each post a once over at some point, if nothing more than for punctuation.

All in all I loved the story. It was interesting, had me curious as to what was going to happen next, and I wanted to really see some angry vines eat that shaman bastard. I was happy to get that in the end. Haha. My biggest comment is something I’ll undoubtedly make note of for each of you below, and that is to take care in aligning your prose with the story, how it flows, and being careful not to stall out with wordy sentences. It is the thing that caught my attention the most. If you can split a sentence, keep them long enough to flow well but also convey a little more story (flesh out the idea per paragraph) then you’ll be able to immerse the reader much more.

As for a score, if I was using a rubric, I’d say it’d be somewhere around 67-72 most likely. All around pretty well done.

Karuka
Story
I know this is a continuation of other stories, but the way that Dissinger was described at the beginning sounded more like a mindless, angry zombie than a character.

Every post seemed to have a lot of one or two sentence paragraphs, with one of them (for the most part) being rather long. I mention it in the prose area, but it should be mentioned for pacing as well. Short sentences and paragraphs are meant to convey an idea quickly, but the longwinded sentence structure slows everything down. It’d be best to maybe put a little more into each thought (paragraph) if you are going to draw them out, or condense the sentences if you want to push the pace.

Post 14 :: “If Karuka’s bird was here… Seth’s eyes traveled up to where it had fallen from. There were her things - her satchel, her spear... and her knife belt. A bloodied chain flicked up, sweeping the lot down, where Taodoine immediately scuttled to reclaim his safe hiding space in the bag.” – this paragraph seems to imply that Dissinger didn’t know she was there, but before you wrote this he had thrown his dagger to cut the vines holding her hand.

Character
The captain of the ship in the first post was uneasy about Karu, but that’s about all we get. He didn’t have a form, the mention of his personality was slight, and Karuka showed absolutely no interest in him. After writing him into the story it was odd that he was completely ignored by the woman when she was on the deck.

Maybe it was just me, but I don’t understand the sudden anger that came in post 9. “Fiorair thundered in Karuka’s blood…”? From that point on I wasn’t sure exactly what that meant and how the next few paragraphs flowed with Karu.

Post 14 :: ““Who’s the beast now?”” – seemed forced and a bit out of place.

Post 14 :: ““What?” Karuka spat more blood onto the moss. “A weapon of great consequence, in the hands of a master.” – I assume you are talking about the spear, and you are the master when using it? If that’s the case, why were you worried about learning how to use a dagger and having Diss teach it to you?

Prose
In your opening post you had a couple points where the wording was odd. There were also a couple places in the third section of that first post when you had sentences that had upwards of 4-5 comma’s separating different points, which could have been written most smoothly or broken up to form smaller more precise ideas.

“But those shopkeepers, native refugees of wartime economy, were not the vendors Karuka had come to see. His business was much more stable, as not only was his product local...everyone had to eat.” Number agreement between vendors and His.

Post 9 :: ” The ghoul wasn't capable of tiring, and although the girl’s hair was plastered to her skin thanks to the air being almost wet enough to drown in, though her blows met his counters with less force, though she had to frequently shake the stinging sweat from her eyes, though her breath came hard, she didn't relent.” – perfect example of wayyy too long.


Dissinger
Story
The second portion of your first post, with the slight flashbacks, caught me off-guard at first in what you were doing, but then began to make sense as you played with it. It gave me a little bit of a background into what had happened. It was different but I think if you had taken just the single line that you quoted instead of the entire paragraph from the previous thread it would have flowed better as a whole. From there you could use the narrative to explain the rest.

Not a lot of mention about the setting, what the Draconian’s looked like, where they were… just that there were 3 and they were picking on a human, all of a sudden. Then he was killing them without talking about where it was taking place, the human child, or anything. Did he get swept up in the death? Did he run? Little things like that.

Character
The dialogue in your 8th post was excellent. It was good banter, cut off at key points, and flowed effortlessly as I read it! It was also what I had been waiting for in the thread for dialogue. Before that point it seemed more forced, a little rough, and needed some life breathed into it. After that it seemed to keep the gist of the character, but lost a slight bit with the diction (in my opinion at least). Still well done.

Prose
First post :: “He prowled the streets a feral glint, searching for prey.” Word choice makes this confusing.

There were quite a few places each post were you had word agreement slip-ups, missed a word, or put the wrong one it. Just keep up the proofreading and it’ll help.

One of my personal pet-peeves with writing it the use of the same word or phrase too often and close together. In post 10 you used “chain” or “chained” 6 times in 2 paragraphs back to back. There’s always a way to circumvent that, just have to find a different method of saying what you want to say without losing your personal writing style. Thesaurus will help if you get stuck though.

Another example of the above, the opening to post 15 :: “Blades began to join it in a lazy arc as the juggling of blades slowly pulled every last knife from her belt.” – blades followed by blades makes it an awkwardly worded sentence to read.

[Lye]

This workshop closes in 4 days. Get your feedback in soon if you would like to collect some easy EXP & GP.

[Flames of Hyperion]

I'm not really worthy of giving out advice at the moment, but once again I enjoyed this read. Karu, you have a knack with cultures and languages in particular that never ceases to amaze. Dissinger, between banter and battle you have bad-arsery down to an art form. Together you channelled your characters into a solid tale of travel and trouble in a strange land.

Ranger touched upon this briefly, but my greatest gripe was the lack of colour in characters not named Karuka or Seth (and, to a lesser extent, Seanair). They had no goal, no motivation, and ultimately no real part to play in the story other than as a punching bag for a certain Demon. It's a personal peeve, and one that didn't detract much from the story you wanted to tell - which, after all, centred on the aforementioned pair - but for example I would have appreciated a glimpse into Gavan's mind as well.

[Lye]

Rewards:

Ranger - 700 XP & 40 GP

Flames of Hyperion - 1,000 XP & 40 GP

[Lye]

Rewards Added.

Workshop Archived.

Thank you for your contributions.