Workshop: Turning Point

[Rayleigh]

Name of Completed Thread: Turning Point (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?25631-Turning-Point)
Name of Authors: Solar Haven
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 7 Posts
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: March 28, 2017

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.

[Storm Veritas]

I haven’t read anything from you before, and there were a number of technical challenges here that hopefully prove to be quick fixes. I really enjoyed the overall story, which was strong, and look forward to tracking your improvement.

Story: (17)

Storytelling: (7)

There is some real meat on these bones. I enjoyed the story, the tie-ins from both parents, and the quick, dramatic confrontation between Adonis and Archie. Adonis seems to be a really powerful and versatile character; it lends you quite abit of flexibility.

Setting: (4)

Very good visual, but visual setting made it a little one-dimensional early. There was a big missed opportunity on food scent, texture, and taste of the food served. I felt like you were very light on setting given the complexity of your thread; there were several occasions that I had to go back and re-cap what was happening to fully understand the plot. Take your time; your story has TONS of content so layering in a little depth will go a long way.

Good job working in “the smell of blood, sound of water droplets”. This is exactly the type of context that immerses the reader. You can use this as a great launch point, since you definitely showcase the ability to set the stage.

Pacing: (6)

You do a pretty good job here. You’re very consistent, which I absolutely appreciate. You move the plot quickly and it doesn’t drag very much. There are a few places where I fundamentally didn’t understand pace – we’ll get to that later. I think you could slow down quite a bit to set the stage for your reader, and in turn pull more strength from your story.


Character (14)

Communication: (5)

Dialogue is a huge part of your work, and you write some really interesting lines, getting some dark humor in alongside heavy action. You also use dialogue as a driver to work setting, including some accents and tonality. You also bounce back and forth character to character, and use descriptors frequently enough to keep track of what’s going on.

Your struggle comes here more in making sure the exchange is realistic. The motivation for all of your characters isn’t clear at all times, and the relationships between them (or lack thereof) is very unclear. If you can build in relationship interplay a little more, it would really help.


Action: (6)

Quite strong. No one can say they’re bored reading you, although they may not follow everything perfectly well. This can be a big foundation for your work moving forward. Only the struggle in clarity keeps this from being even higher.


Persona: (3)

Big struggle here. Your characters feel extremely one dimensional. Adonis is a perfect character, Archie the ultimate monster. Adonis has some serious background issues / detail that you lean on, if you can technically split it out a little bit better you could really develop this.

Give your characters some more dimension and it will help a ton!

Prose: (14)

Mechanics: (3)

There are a LOT of typos Capitalization (examples: “His pet Fox”, “His shoulder”) Apostrophes are also used incorrectly a few times. Some wrong words / misspellings - “Miss-informed”. Missing periods at the end of sentences (post #3, “voice ordered from above”)

This is the main reason I hammered you here. It appears this is spell-checked as there were very few actual mis-spellings. It does not appear this was proof-read in word; that’s a KILLER.

You also bounce back and forth with dialogue so frequently that it can get a little exhausting. Not the end of the world.

Clarity: (4)

Clarity – using a little more setting could have been a more effective lead-in for Archie. Also, when using “powers”, you really need to describe them. Without reading your profile, I had no idea what “Wall” or “un-wall” abilities might be.

This one is really important, I’d prioritize re-reading this after writing a post as, again, sometimes the work moves TOO fast, and becomes a bit confusing.

Technique: (7)

For the most part, you were very strong on technique. I’d like to see a bit more formatting, but it was well spaced, easy on the eyes, and a fast read. If I’m going to be really tough on you for mechanics and clarity, I’ll be generous here!

One thing that hurt you – post 6… Very long quote from a “voice” in mid-action seems odd, since mentally the timing doesn’t seem to jive. Keep the mental clock running in your head as it affects pacing and clarity. Understanding exactly what’s going on and how timely it appears is really big here.



Wildcard: (7)

Fast thread, fun, and a good time. I hope to see more!

Total: 42

[Revenant]

Batman would be disappointed in Adonis.

Story: 14

Storytelling: 6

Initially, this story lacks much depth in setting itself up. Adonis simply stumbled out of the forest banged up and things start from there. Why was he in the forest? Was he running from something, and if so why? This is likely the continuation of another story of yours that I haven't read so right away I feel lost as to what's going on. The central core of the story, however, was present and done well. You know where you are and where you're going. And the ending left no doubt. To improve this area, take a little time earlier in the story to set things up before throwing the reader right into things.

Setting: 5

You set the scene here, but didn't give the me much as a reader to go on. I knew where Adonis was and what was around him throughout the story in the most basic sense, and you stuck to it well, but there wasn't much else to really bring the atmosphere to life. Work on adding in a couple extra elements to the scene here and there in your writing. Little things like sounds and smells can really help bring a vividness to posts.

Pacing: 3

This entire thread felt like one big "hurry up and finish it" rush. Getting sidetracked too far off the main point of the story isn't good, but little things here and there can really help to add an element to it. For example, in the first part of the story when Adonis is in the tavern, let him look around, take in the sights and sounds a bit. Adonis just escaped a harrowing experience, let the pace of the story tell the reader how he is relaxing after finding a safe haven. Then, once he is captured, speed things up. Make it a bit for frenetic to show Adonis' panic at the situation. The flow of your story can almost be a character of its own, use it to highlight certain aspects of the story for your reader.

Character: 14

Communication: 6

While some of the conversations between your characters comes off as "he said then she said" back-and-forth, they were really the driving force behind the story. The pay between Adonis and Archie, in essence, WAS the story and the actions served to highlight it. The conversation between Adonis and his mother was also really well done. My suggestion for improvement would be to let the conversations linger on a bit more. Use the conversations to give the characters their own life. Don't be afraid to draw things out a bit more.

Action: 4

The action at the beginning of this story was well done. Everything flowed smoothly and made sense to me. But once Adonis woke up captured everything seemed to rush together and the distinctness of what was going on got muddied. There were definitely some good distinct parts to it, but the waking/murders/threats/escape sort of all blurred together. In the end the arrival of the enemy army was simply "there" and I had to pause to re-read, though the finale was very well handled. My suggestion here would be to take time to craft each event individually. Each scene doesn't need to be epic and monumental but writing "this happened, then this happened, then this happened" makes all the events a bit less memorable.

Persona: 4

There isn't much to say about this part other than that by the end of the thread I didn't know much more about Adonis and Archie than I did at the beginning. Giving more insight into the characters will help the reader connect more with them.

Prose: 13

Mechanics: 3

I noticed a lot of errors in both spelling and punctuation without having to read through a second time looking for them.

Clarity: 5

Assume that readers don't know your profile and haven't read any of your work before. Each story should hold enough of your character's basics that they can understand who he is and what he's doing just from this thread. Also, because both of the story's main characters had names that start with an "A", because your sentences in their conflict were short, and because each paragraph seemed to start with "Adonis" or "Archie" I had to really slow down and go back over what was going on to make sure I knew what was happening.

Technique: 5

There wasn't much surprising in this story. It was straightforward and well done, but not much to really distinguish it. Backwoods folk who distrust magic users is a common trope, and while there isn't anything wrong with going this route (it's well used for a reason) it needs some personality to make it really stand out. I'm not saying that you "have" to think of something new or innovative for the idea, but there really wasn't anything here other than murderous person hates mages even though he is one. Adonis' mother contacting him and helping him overcome the poison with the help of the other mages' souls was probably my favorite part of the story, but everything else was pretty cliched.

Wildcard: 5

I see a lot of potential in your writing and I'm looking forward to reading more. I actually found that I want to see what happens when Adonis is brought home and though this story didn't really engage me it was a quick read. But also, disappointed Batman.

TOTAL: 46

[Wings of Endymion]

Nipping in with just a few comments, some to reinforce what Storm and Revenant have already pointed out, others to highlight my own feedback...

First of all, there's never enough anti-mage sentiment depicted on Althanas, so kudos for choosing to base a thread around it. I like your underlying plot - the nobleman with a grudge against mages who captures and tortures them. But you didn't really give me much of a motivation for Archie, and Adonis felt a bit off to me as well. I think this was because you moved things along at a breakneck pace and thus never gave Adonis a chance to interact with the setting, meaning that I as a reader never got a feel for his character. Plus he very quickly grew used to the idea of killing somebody - and doing so in a way that caused suffering - as soon as his mother gave him the thumbs up. Given the overwhelming difference in arcane aptitude displayed during the final battle, couldn't Adonis have captured Archie rather than murder him? As a writer of multiple characters who have the same 'don't kill' ideology despite wielding powerful magic, it was difficult to follow that change in personality (I hesitate to call it development, I'm afraid). I did like the magically-induced hypersensitivity (can we abbreviate it as MIH?) at the end.

Your mechanics have, unfortunately, really let you down. You start every other sentence with the name of the character involved, flirt with your tenses, capitalise random words, misspell others, forget periods, misuse apostrophes, fail to separate paragraphs, and use different dividers in different posts. I didn't get much in the sense of technique either - no metaphors, personification, foreshadowing, etc. that could have helped with setting or the building of tension. Worryingly, you didn't do anything to distinguish the voices in Adonis's mind either, despite how central they were to the plot.

Random fact: there are only two arteries in the neck (the right and left carotids), not 'many' as you indicate at the end of post 2 ^^.

I like the dialogue-driven nature of the thread, which keeps the overall pacing snappy and works to give Archie in particular a distinct character. But in many places it comes across as stilted and unnatural - you use it to exposit the plot more often than not, your characters tell their feelings rather than show them, and although you have a sense for dark humour you also overuse the cliched phrases of a typical one-dimensional villain. And again, you're let down by the fact that you don't punctuate it properly. For example:


"Your one of them their fanceh mages aren't ya?" The older Gentlemen said as he sat down across from Adonis

Ignoring the missing period, the bolded fragment is not a sentence on its own. Hence it should not start with a capital letter (remember that question marks and exclamation marks within dialogue have the same properties as commas):


"You're one of them there fanceh mages aren't ya?" the older gentleman said as he sat down across from Adonis.

Second example:


"If you can call me that. I am not a typical mage." Adonis grumbled as he stared into his mug of Ale before taking another sip.

In this case, the bolded fragment can be considered a sentence on its own, so there's nothing technically wrong with what you've written. As written, though, Adonis's grumbles are separate from the words he's spoken. If you meant for his speech to indicate his grumbling, then it needs to be punctuated as follows:


"If you can call me that. I am not a typical mage," Adonis grumbled as he stared into his mug of Ale before taking another sip.

Finally:


"Look's like yo'r little friend 'ere doesn't care for me to much." The older gentlemen remarked as he nodded towards the frightened Fox.

Again, the bolded fragment is not a sentence on its own. Correctly, it should be:


"Looks like yo'r little friend 'ere doesn't care for me too much," the older gentleman remarked as he nodded towards the frightened fox.

That should cover it for now.

Your clarity suffered as well, not just from the mechanical errors described above, but also from the fact that you didn't describe Adonis's actions in a way that I could understand them just from the thread. Assume that your readers are not interested in going through your character sheet - they don't know anything about Adonis's history, his appearance, his abilities, anything. Start each story from a blank slate, and paint the characters in the minds of your readers.

Don't be afraid to take your time. The snappy pacing worked well in the first few scenes, up until the point that Adonis was captured by Archie and witnessed the death of his compatriots. You probably should have worked the scene with his mother and the souls of the other mages into its own post, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in the poignant moment, the titular Turning Point. The final confrontation dragged as well, mainly because Adonis was too busy flirting with Clara and then hearing long-winded voices inside his head (the latter in particular should probably have been spaced out among his actions). And the downside of this all was that you had very little setting - only the bare minimum of visual and mood cues, and almost nothing else in terms of sound, smell, or ties into Althanas.

You have a good grasp for character and conflict, and there's enough story in Adonis and his background to make for an intriguing tale as long as you're willing to tell it. Don't be afraid to slow things down, to show rather than to tell, to allow your character to interact with his surroundings between driving the plot forward with his dialogue. And please, please take the time to proofread and correct your mechanical errors. You don't have to aim for perfection, but you do want to make your readers feel comfortable.

[SirArtemis]

I know this is getting houndy, but I just want to focus on mechanics personally. So I want to give some examples that others haven't explicitly given.

The first, I think you could benefit from this nifty cheat sheet:

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/d2/d3/db/d2d3db4e3ff1e1345090389d9f9ec6bc.jpg



Second, as pointed out, when writing in dialogue and following up with a sentence referencing that dialogue, you can punctuate with a comma or a question mark. The example I have is:

"You just smell different to her." Adonis stated as he finished his drink.

Which should read as:

"You just smell different to her," Adonis stated as he finished his drink.

In the latter, if the word coming after the comma wasn't a name, it would be lowercase. Example:

"You just smell different to her," the weary traveler noted as he finished his drink.

In the case of a question, it would look like this:

"Do you think it's because you smell differently?" he asked the bartender.



There's also some contextual stuff that I noticed where the phonetic isn't the same as the literary usage. For example:

"We are use to the forest" is actually "we are used to the forest"

Another example:

"He might of been over thinking" is actually "He might have been overthinking"



The second to last thing of note is leading a sentence into something but then ending it prematurely. The example for this is:

"The disoriented and injured Mage clambered into a corner booth and as the bartender poured him an ale."
As the bartender poured him an ale.... what happened? What happened as the ale was being poured? Also, the word "Mage" should have been lower case.



And finally, tense usage. I'll give just one example of this and let all of this sit with you. It will take time to settle and learn but definitely takes practice.

all he knew is that

This is a clash of past tense with present tense. the word "is" in this case is referring to the now, but the perspective of the story is being told in the past, so it would be "was" in this case.




I hope you find that helpful! Keep at it!

[Rayleigh]

This workshop will close in only one week! Please add your thoughts before that time.

[Rayleigh]

This workshop is now closed. Thank you to all participants! Rewards will be calculated shortly.

[Rayleigh]

Thread: Turning Point (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?30792-Workshop-Turning-Point)
Type: Workshop Rewards

Storm Veritas receives 615 EXP, 30 GP, and 4 AP.
Revenant receives 570 EXP, 30 GP, and 4 AP.
Wings of Endymion receives 265 EXP, 30 GP, and 3 AP.
SirArtemis receives 395 EXP, 30 GP, and 2 AP.

To compensate for your wait, and thank you for your patience, and additional 25% EXP and 50% GP have been added.

[Rayleigh]

All rewards have been added.