Workshop: The Messenger

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Name of Completed Thread: The Messenger (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?31349-The-Messenger)
Name of Author: Shinsou Vaan Osiris
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 7027 words (calculated as 14 posts on a 750 per post basis)
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: 5th October 2016

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.

Remember, if you post before 11:59 PM (ET) on Monday, September 5th, you'll receive x3 AP!

Author note:

This was pretty much an improvised thread. Do your worst Althanas!

[SirArtemis]

Story

Well then. Hell of an improve my friend. That was a tremendous read, especially given the speed with which you posted. I really enjoyed the time hop element that gave relevance to the present day action. The only thing that threw me was that present day, turns out, was actually seven months ago. Adding a "Seven months later" tag to the top woulda been a nice and consistent touch to how the thread had been developing. I think it serves as a really wonderful bridge between a point in your past where you still had a home and family, the present where your new family is the brotherhood, and a future moment where both are lost and hatred lives within the character. It sets a short-lived but deep journey of the struggles a character faces and the raging emotional storm living within.

The one snippet of setting that ruffled me though was when you described the clearing, but then mentioned the volume of trees seemed greater. These seem like contradictions, but otherwise nothing jumped out.


Character

Related to the story, this entire piece revolves around understanding more on the character and his origin. Granted, I remember reading the character sheet once and recall something about a lost memory/identity, and I'm not sure where that fit into all this. I also had to check myself and make sure I didn't delve too much into Bleach when reading the story and give your character the individual credit he deserves. That said, I did expect to know more about the sword. There must be reason it is named and referenced by name throughout the thread. It seems to have significance to the character, as it is mentioned multiple times and the interactions with the blade too are emotionally charged. However, you haven't given me anything to understand that element of your character's internal growth and relationship. I also only know that your father, implicitly, died on that day when the rest of the city was destroyed. I wish I knew more about his influence on you and why there was so much hope in your character as "the future" of the people so to speak, beyond just being young and the next generation.


Prose

I think part of the speed of the post is to blame here with much of the "junk" I found throughout the thread. As usual, a proofread would do wonders, especially if read out loud. On that note, the one thing I do think you would benefit from is being more concise as well as chopping up some sentences. There are times where three thoughts are strung together in such a way that feels very long-winded and clunky. I'm personally quite guilty of this myself. Being more precise and sharp with this would make quite an impact on the power of your writing and how strongly it reads. There are also times where more words are used to say something that can be simplified. These two janitorial elements, I think, would be some of the biggest changes you could make to enhance your writing.


Wildcard

This was really wonderful. It was brief, but carried depth and emotion within. Learning more about your character and seeing him falter, seeing him struggle, seeing him lose, and seeing him succumb to the emotional demons living within is what humanizes him and makes him relatable. It is the very conflict that makes the reader dive into a character and empathize with them, and I think this was well done. I do feel the length did bite you in that I had little time to invest in the world. I typically suck with setting in general, including when reading, and have a hard time painting the picture. As a reader I would have liked more. I remember forests, a lot of snow, a rainy day, and a camp of people on the ground. I got a bit jumbled up with this magician and his throne as well as this silent-hill type enemy dragging a scythe. Still, it didn't detract from the story for me, but it could have been cleaned up.

I hope this was helpful and if you have any questions please let me know.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

This workshop will close soon. You have two more days to submit your feedback!

[Les Misérables]

The Messenger Workshop.

A fine, quick read this was. Overall I thought you handled the switching back and forth from past to present quite well, and I enjoyed learning a little more about Shinsou's past, both on Telgradia and on Althanas. One thing you do exceedingly well is manage your troops; it can be difficult to write from the point of view of a commander, but during the scenes that included the BoC soldiers I pretty much always had an idea of where they were and what they were doing. Well done!

Storytelling: You situated each scene very well, not just by means of the "Concordia, Present Day" type markers, but also by adding thoughtful details about the setting. This allowed the story to evolve naturally, and I appreciated the parallels you placed between the present and past, especially at the end, but more on that later.

Setting: You kept the setting consistent and congruent, which allowed the story to move along at a nice clip. One thing that I feel you do extraordinarily well is incorporate all five senses into your descriptions. I didn't just know what the setting looked like, but how it smelled, felt, sounded, and at times even tasted. You also find ways to weave the five senses naturally into your descriptions, which is a big bonus because with some writers it tends to come out a bit clunky and list-like. Writing with you keeps me on my toes when it comes to incorporating the five senses, so kudos to you sir.

Pacing: As I mentioned before, despite fairly long posts, this story moved along at an excellent pace. I believe this was in part due to your management of the setting; since I didn't run into places where I had to stop and wonder "where is he right now?" or "what's going on exactly?" it was easy to stay interested and keep reading. This may seem like a small thing, but I have a horribly short attention span so I particularly appreciate threads that can maintain my interest throughout.

Communication: Your characters converse fluently and overall your dialogue comes off as effortless - well done here. I do have one suggestion which you may choose to work with (or not), in ongoing threads. You've created an entire world, or rather worlds, and given your character an exceedingly rich background in it. I'm forced to wonder on occasion, therefore, why Shinsou's dialogue sounds so much like he comes from earth. In particular it's the turns of phrase he uses that can be somewhat distracting. Saying things like "What the hell" or "Yeah, keep it down a minute" or "Fuck it" can pull the reader out of the moment, because these are common turns of phrase we use here on earth. If you decide to delve into this, I'd recommend thinking about what unique characteristics of Telgradia might contribute to form some unique turns of phrase.

Here's an example of what I mean from George RR Martin's "A song of ice and fire".

Rather than saying "What the hell," a character from the seven kingdoms might say "Seven hells!" This relates to the fact that their religion is based on seven deities, each presumably with their own version of hell.

Action: You have flashes of brilliance in your action, but there are also times when it gets a bit bogged down by run-on sentences. One thing which you do remarkably well is incorporate small actions throughout your posts. Things like Shinsou tossing his hair, or weaving in between sleeping soldiers, helps to keep the setting consistent while also showing the reader the kind of person Shinsou is. Regarding the run-on sentences, I would encourage you to try to use shorter sentences during action sequences. Think of it this way; each action in a battle is significant, and may therefore deserves its own sentence. This also gives the reader a clear idea of the order the actions occur in.

Here's an example from the fight scene in the last post:


As he forced the man down, thrashing with every bit of strength as he was held, he couldn’t help but feel as if he were dragging some poor sobbing slave-girl to her knees; the resistance became less and less until the man simply had to submit, groaning through pursed lips in frustration at his weakness; his utter helplessness.

Here's how it could look with a little restructuring:


The man thrashed with every bit of strength as Shinsou held him down. The Telgradian couldn't help but feel as if he were dragging some poor sobbing slave-girl to her knees. The resistance became less and less until the man simply had to submit. A groan of frustration at his own weakness pushed through pursed lips. The man was utterly helpless.

Personally, I always try to avoid using semi-colons or more than one comma per sentence during action sequences. I find this gives a healthier rhythm to the action, allowing the reader to feel what is happening rather than just read the words.

Persona: Really excellent work here, especially the bit at the end about Shinsou coming to understand the meaning of "hatred". This is the kind of detail unique to Telgradia that I would love to see present in your dialogue. You not only provided a consistent scale of Shinsou's personality, you delved into the finer points of what makes him who he is. Persona is one of the sections which I've always found most difficult to provide feedback in, so I'm glad you're already so good at it :P

Mechanics: I noticed that Artemis recommended proofreading your posts out loud, and since this is something I almost always recommend, I will second the notion. I have a feeling most of the errors were caused by the nature of power posting, so I'm going to use this section to focus on sentence structure. The same thing I mentioned in action about longer-than-necessary sentences applies here. Although I personally believe that action sequences are the most important time to avoid run-on sentences, it can apply throughout. Here's another quick example from post #6.


The humidity climbed further through the early hours of the morning and coupled with the warmth emanating from the remains of the campfire, this created a heavy, uncomfortable atmosphere as the Brotherhood partisans slept on through the night, tossing and turning in the heat.

and here's what it looks like with some restructuring:


The humidity climbed further through the early hours of the morning. Coupled with the warmth emanating from the remains of the campfire it created a heavy, uncomfortable atmosphere. The Brotherhood partisans tossed and turned in the heat as they slept through the night.

One of the reasons I recommend doing your proofreading out loud is that, any time you run out of breath going through a single sentence, it gives you a hint that it may need some restructuring.

Clarity: No need to beat a dead horse, so I'll just say the only thing that negatively impacted your clarity was the run-on sentences. Your admirable work in setting and action paid dividends here, keeping the story clear and precise throughout. This is quite impressive in a thread involving so many NPCs, as I find many writers struggle to maintain clarity during crowded scenes.

Technique: You had some really nice foreshadowing in here, in particular the moment when the "humanoid" thing was approaching the camp, dragging its maul through the ground. Your work with metaphors is solid, and I'll just say that they are particularly beautiful when not involved in a longer-than-necessary sentence. Remember, a good metaphor can be almost like showing the reader a picture, so you want that picture intact and solid, not spread across the length of a run-on sentence. Overall great work though, I am envious of your creativity when coming up with similes. Keep it up!

Wildcard: Really, really impressive, especially considering how fast you wrote it. I look forward to the continued adventures of Shinsou Vaan Osiris, especially the ones I'm involved in. Well done :D

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

This workshop is now closed. Rewards to follow!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Rewards as follows:

SirArtemis receives 770 EXP, 30 GP and 4 AP!

Les Miserables receives 280 EXP, 30 GP and 4 AP!

Thank you for your feedback!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

All rewards added!