Workshop: When Bloodoaks Weep

[Philomel]

Name of Completed Thread: When Bloodoaks Weep (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?28766-When-Bloodoaks-Weep)
Name of Authors: Whispers of Abyssion
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 10 Posts
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: 04/03/2014

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.

[Alydia Ettermire]

Well, Doc, looks like the rest of Althanas gets to see what I put you through each time I review your stuff. No mercy, like usual. ;) As a note, I started trying to put this through the rubric, but I’m just gonna go post by post instead.

Post 1

ablaze from bow to stern - I know you were probably trying to avoid a cliche, but you could have picked up some alliteration here by using “from stem to stern.”

a series of miniature suns scarring the onrushing night. - Nice imagery. Needs more sound.

back towards the twilit mountains from whence they had come - Twilit Mountains. Proper nouns, Flames.

Touma Kamikaji watched without words - at first I was going to say this could be better put “watched wordlessly,” but no, you’re right. The w w w thing sells it.

Other notes from the first paragraph: You use the word “its” a lot.

Notes from the second paragraph: Spectacular imagery, as always. And how the HECK is this thing any sort of “Benevolence?”

force of its passage alone carved - didn’t need alone in there.

Touma’s robes of grey cotton, - Touma’s grey cotton robes

But his snake-like eyes of dark brown erred not from the - hrm. Maybe “serpentine brown eyes” or “dark brown eyes, focused as a snake’s.” And “erred?” Did you mean “veered?”

Mmmkay. Wonderful visuals, but… why would an Alerian strike force be after this thing? If it’s stuck in the Lindequalme, not bothering anyone important (‘cause we know these pasty elves aren’t important), why would Alerar sacrifice so much when there are other, better targets to focus on in the attempt to conquer Raiaera? It looks grand, but where’s the sense in it?

Post 2

Only his melodious inflections gave light to the anonymous clearing. - huh?

“So your kind can finally see beyond their own noses.” - That elf might need some ice for that burn.

“Because you have to stoop so low as to ask for aid from a mere manling? Because you expect me to blanch by forcing me to witness the effect of my actions? I see that you’re already on your hands and knees, Wanderer. How far further must you fall?” - I think there needed to be a little inflection here to get the sarcasm across.
“...you had no other choice: the many deaths of the Corpse War…” - I don’t think a colon’s the right punctuation here.

Gauntlets of elven steel tightened upon spears and staves. Myriad eyes glinted behind masks of sculpted ivory and bone. - Considering the cultural discipline of the elves (particularly their militias), and the Wanderers’ goals in this conversation, is this appropriate? I get their loathing for him, but he’s useful for now.

“...avenge the comrades who you sacrificed to the Disciple’s wrath…” - Who is probably unnecessary in this sentence.

“A mana bomb?” - Dun dun dun.

Post 3

It transpired they needed him for one reason, - transpired feels weird here. I’d actually just lop that whole part off altogether, “They needed him for one reason…”

It’s not really clear that the conversation at the beginning of the post is at a different point in time from Touma standing in front of the altar.

Selana,... the one whom all others took their cue. - the one from whom

I love the quiet emphasis of the Time Had Not paragraph.

Now she clung to the past like a beggar to his praying bowl, a goddess of a dying people, a memory lost to time. - Sadness. :(

Post 4

for he knew those of the Star Pantheon to be capricious in the extreme. - I feel like you could have used this sentence to build some foreshadowing. You established who she appears to be, and you established that Touma might have seen something else. So saying Star Pantheon is misleading, since this is semi-from his perspective.

Touma grit his teeth. How much else did she know? // Too much? - This is kind of clumsily contradictory with everything else.

she whispered again, sibilant and susurrating. - hissing at the serpent. I like how this gives them an undercurrent of having a direct conflict. But maybe I’m reading too much into it.

“...I know of the nights you sit awake before your mirrors, wondering whether they will ever forgive you for what you have done.” - poignant.

He laughed, beaten and broken. Not only could she read his thoughts, but his emotions too? - two things: I’d have added “bitterly” after laughed, because you know I love triples. I also think this would have been better off as its own paragraph.

Post 5

the heavens lay blanketed beneath an obese sky churning with fast-moving cloud. - I’ve never heard the word “obese” used to describe a sky before.

Gellievo Malvae, the Mistress of a Thousand and One Masques - you misspelled her name. :-/

… who he had duped into trusting him and doing as he bid for two decades. - isn’t he a bit young for two decades of manipulation? Or is he a classic sociopath?

A solid character-establishing post, at the first time your story really gave you a break to do it. He’s dedicated to his cause and to his own.

Post 6

The first paragraph gives interesting imagery to an interesting power.

A third raindrop fell bearing a fragment of his consciousness. - needs a comma

and the hackles on the nape of his neck rise. - redundant. One or the other gives plenty of imagery. “His hackles,” or “the hairs on the nape of his neck.” I prefer “his hackles,” personally, because it’s briefer, evokes more animal emotion, and fits better with the overall tone of the paragraph.

A fourth raindrop into which he projected his will, to the right of the Disciple and away from its thundering path. - I get the point, but the wording is clumsy. Maybe “He projected his will into a fourth raindrop, to the right…”

I like the metronomic oscillation between action and thought in this post.

Post 7

Thus he had approached with customary caution and care the opportunity to avenge the deaths of his comrades at the Necromancer’s Cave. - See, this is why the tightening of fists on swords was not appropriate earlier. Let the little worm laugh! He’s already on a hook, he just doesn’t know it. They know it.

Elnaril and the rest of his Wanderers crept in silent step into the Temple, - wait. Isn’t he missing both his legs? How is he doing this?

With a start he realised that the heretic manling had ransacked and defiled this most holy of Selana’s sanctums. Nothing remained. Not a relic, not an artefact, neither a speck of litter nor a sign of damage. - Interesting.

that the heretic manling - Hard to be a heretic of a religion you don’t subscribe to, isn’t it?

Worst of all, the colossal gilt-swathed altar bore no branched candelabra, no censers, no triptych screen, no starry emblem of the Pantheon. - Must have been quite a job for one human to take all that stuff in the time he had, especially considering the visitor we saw him with.

Lacking the advantage of the Young Star’s holy benediction, they stood little chance of defeating the Avatar of the Devourer, - How does he call himself one of the faithful if he has so little faith in the Star and so much in her stuff? Fail.

He wiped his nose as indicated, only to find blood weeping from it as from a fresh puncture wound. - eww

Blowing up the mana bomb doesn’t make much sense. To what point and purpose? He won’t be any less dead, his goals won’t be any more met.

Post 8

though the mana bomb had carved a swathe - swath. A swathe is “a band of linen or the like in which something is wrapped; wrapping;bandage.”

Voracious tongues of incandescent flame fed upon the accursed bloodoaks, mist-blue and frost-green like some hallucinogenic aurora. - trippy.

remains of the erstwhile Temple of Sublime Tranquility - ruins?

but of melding to his will the residual energies deposited by the last stand of Elnaril Aerataeth and his cadre of Wanderers. - When you phrase things like this, I always feel like it would be better done to format it [action] [thinger] [prepositional phrase].

“I will rend the flesh from your bones. And then seek out all you hold dear. And rend the flesh from their bones too. And then drag your mouldering carcasses into the ruins of my Temple and string you up above my altar, and burn out your pain centres as I wait for the End Times to arrive!” - that’s not very lady-like.

Post 9

A brilliant emerald green hue tinted her blank silver pupils. - The pupils? Not the irises?

Thick purple veins crawled up her limbs from her hands and feet, until they clasped her slender neck in a tight chokehold. - eww. Unless you meant “vines.”

Two things: How does Touma still have the energy after all of what happened in post 8 to oppose Pode? And I still feel the foreshadowing could have been handled better.

as though a million electric ants nibbled at the flesh betwixt his skull. - nice.

A silky serpentine voice susurrated through the shadows. - silky, serpentine

Overall, I liked the battle of wills going on, but I do feel that it should have been more difficult for Touma. He just spent a lot of power, she’s extremely powerful, and she’s grinding all that he is into all the grounds that there are. So the easy smirk should have, at the very least, been very strained.

Post 10

the daemonic runes carved into his gums and the stringy elf-flesh lodged between his filed incisors. - Gaaaaaah eww eww eww!

In a cloud of red mist Pode dissipated into the dying twilight..., - Weak beginning to the sentence. “Pode dissipated into the dying twilight, a cloud of red mist that re-formed at a…”

Gotta say, I’m really not a fan of how you “demon ex machina’d” all over the end of this thread. It’s kind of looking to be a thing with Touma (granted, all I've read from him are this and Shadowdancer), and while I can look over it once or twice, especially spread out over a long time, it’s just… gyeh. I think a character should make what he can of his or her own abilities. It’s okay to be guided, influenced on occasion, and have rare intervention from whatever divine they subscribe to (or are opposed by), but if it’s an all the time thing, it cheapens their accomplishments and experiences.

Just my two bits.

[Flames of Hyperion]

Hi Karu,

As always, your editing and proofreading insight is greatly appreciated. Thank you very much once again, in particular for pointing out where I'd failed to explain things properly!

For the record, the reasoning behind the points you raised are as follows:
- The Aleran strikeforce was sent to divert Kongorikishi from attacking more precious targets. The Disciple is definitely not limited to the Lindequalme. In the canon of these storylines, it was the single obstruction preventing all the might of Alerar from sweeping through the Plaguelands and wiping the Elythian League from Althanas (up until the rest of those poncy High Elves got themselves organised, that is!). I wonder if I could have found a way to express this without abandoning the plotline completely, perhaps from Touma's point of view.
- The reaction of the Wanderers in post 2 was meant to display how their loathing for Touma broke through even their vaunted discipline. Plus, it would have tickled Touma's ego (however subconsciously) to see that: all part of the act!
- Post 7: it wasn't Touma who took all that stuff while he was attracting Kongorikishi; in fact, it was Pode herself (the Temple that Touma saw earlier was only an illusion. Elnaril only attributed it to Touma because he'd been led to believe (again by Pode) that the Temple remained holy to Selana after all these years in the Lindequalme. This could definitely have been conveyed better via foreshadowing, though.
- Also in Post 7: the worst thing that could have happened to the Wanderers was to leave the mana bomb unattended in the middle of the Lindequalme, beneath the eaves of a desecrated abomination to their patron deity. Hence the last act of defiance in setting it off. Again, could have been better expressed.
- Post 9: Re-reading the relevant sections, I can see how it came across that Touma got off too easily. That said, his personality is defined by 1) that sheer arrogance, 2) with his need to piss people off even when they've got him by the throat, 3) he always does have a contingency plan, and 4) why should he exert himself when there's another member of his Fraternity eminently more qualified for the job? In this case, Natosatael, who finds it convenient to call Touma his vassal but in reality has established a working partnership on more equal grounds.

Your last comment gave me much pause for thought, and of course you're right. The thing is, I've never considered Touma as a character who's limited by what he can do by himself; he's deliberately written as a contrast to Nanashi, who really isn't good at asking somebody else to shoulder the risk for him. In that sense his chessmaster / kingpin archetype might not be particularly suited to a protagonist role, even as a villain... the challenge, then, is in coming up with a challenge commensurate to Touma's attention and abilities, that doesn't require the added backup of the Fraternity! I feel that the AC will thus be an interesting test of how he copes when he can't pull ex machinas out of his arse...

I'm glad you gave me the chance to address these issues in public! Thank you one last time for the feedback ^^.

I'd love to hear what anybody else might have to say about the thread, whether in response to the above or not. Even simple one-line responses like "It was boring" are thoroughly appreciated, although I hope you'd be willing to tell me why! Need I mention the valuable EXP and GP up for grabs?

Thank you in advance!

[Philomel]

This workshop thread has less than a week to go! Get your comments in quick for some easy EXP!

UPDATE: This thread is being left open until the 10th March. So you have the weekend to work on them if you want some easy EXP!

[Philomel]

This workshop is now CLOSED. Thank you to everyone who submitted commentary.
Rewards will be calculated in due course and posted here.

[Philomel]

Workshop Commentary Rewards: When Bloodoaks Weep
(http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?28792-Workshop-When-Bloodoaks-Weep)
Rewards:
Alydia Ettermire (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?8606-Alydia-Ettermire):
800 EXP
20 GP
(rewarded double EXP for a thorough commentary)

Flames of Hyperion (http://www.althanas.com/world/member.php?8570-Flames-of-Hyperion):
650 EXP
20 GP

[Lye]

Points added.