Workshop: Reunion

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Name of Completed Thread: Reunion (http://www.althanas.com/world/showthread.php?31633-Reunion&p=270342#post270342)
Name of Author: Mari and Lucifer
Type of Thread: Quest
Thread Length: 10 posts
Feedback Rewards: (Post Length of Thread/10) * ((EXP Needed to Level)*0.05) EXP
Date Closed: 26th January 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 and AP 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.

Go nuts.

[Gum]

i've thought about posting a workshop response a few times, but i always stop myself because i feel like i don't have much to add, i don't really feel qualified to offer critique. but i wanna get out of that mentality so i can contribute more. so here i am to break my workshop duck (you're both australian, right? that's a good cricket term, eh?). i hope what i have to say is okay and that it is helpful in some way or another?

this is kinda the boring bit of the feedback so i'll get it out of the way first. you guys had a small number of proof reading errors -- missing apostrophes on possessives, the odd letter missing here and there and a lowercase i. that's an easy fix, just give your posts the old once over before posting them. also, there is one i'll point out specifically. that's the use of "lets". it's a contraction of "let us" so it needs to be "let's". i say needs to be, but it needs to be as much as any olden times grammar needs to be lol.

these characters are really interesting. and man, the ar'tuel element between them was revealed really well. i enjoyed how it built up from one post to another. it's more than that though, it was stitched together really well with lucifer's frustration at amari being a slave. it was very natural how the two issues kinda dovetailed throughout the conversation. and in the context of the longstanding crimson hand organisation, that gives the whole drama a real weight that feels very consequential. it feels dangerous and feels like it's leading to a huge pop off. and that's cool, i dig that a lot.

clearly this thread is a setup thread for more to come. and i'd say it achieves that objective 10/10. right now i'm left wondering like, well shit, what's going to happen when lucifer confronts lye? same goes for amari discovering her true nature. and how will that affect her relationship with lye... will she rethink it, abandon it entirely. and when/if she rediscovers her past will she align more with her bro and abandon the crimson hand... yeah, so that was really good.

i also really appreciate references to characters and locations outside of the thread. it's always good to see characters and places and moments in althanas all connected. it's good to feel it as a living world. i know that sounds kinda cliche, but i'm not sure how else to put that.

so what i wanna talk about last is the setting. as i mentioned above, you guys brought althanas as a macro kinda place alive by mentioning the wider world. but there's room to spend more time on describing the details of the tavern. it can really help with immersion to focus on tiny details, the kind of tiny details you'd notice if you were the character, or you were an observer. smells, sounds, feelings, touch, all the sensations--what were they like? is the soft grain of the floorboards old and worn, leaving the ridges of the hard grain protruding? how low is the ceiling? how big is the room, and how does the size of the room affect the mood? where is the light source and what kind of shadows does it make? the best source of inspiration for this i find is real life, look around the room you're in or remember a time from real life that might relate.

now i'm not saying to get bogged down in setting, because that would be very detrimental to both of your styles. nobody wants to read about how many grains of sand there are on the beach and what colour each grain is... but there's a sweet spot. you can find that sweet spot with one or two sentences imo, you wanna set the mood with really slick stuff. you can do it with unusual metaphors and spending a lot of time on choosing your words carefully. and then once you get good at that you can start layering with the environment, using it to foreshadow or hint at or enhance the emotions of your characters or their predicaments. a bird flies by, it almost hits the window, but pulls up at the last minute. then later in the story your character has a close call and recalls seeing the bird. that's a basic example, but i hope it's helpful.

and just to say before i call it, some of that stuff i just mentioned there about description and setting. that's more of a personal preference thing for me, so it's "take it or leave it" advice because if that style isn't what you dig, it isn't what you dig. i can only give you advice from my own perspective and i'm sure a lot of people would disagree with me.

anyway there it is. i hope that this has been helpful?

and thank you for the opportunity to read the thread, it was very interesting and it has me interested in the wider goings on of your characters. so i will be reading more in the future!

[Jethro]

So, right there is a movie that came out in 2000 called Men of Honor staring Cuba Gooding Jr. and Robert De Niro about a Navy deep sea diver. It was a fantastic flick. During this movie there was a scene where a sailor was standing barefoot on top of an empty case of bottles shouting at the top of his lungs "I STOLE A PIE! I STOLE A PIE! I STOLE A PIE!" while banging on a cooking pot with a mallet. I bring this up because the opening scene of this thread reminds me of that.

Mari, your character is a member of a not so secret secret society. The Crimson Hand and while I do not know the demeanor of the group as a whole going around announcing to the world that you are with a group dedicated to causing chaos seems to be drawing a lot of attention to your self and your group. Especially since often the act of causing chaos includes what a lot of people think is criminal behavior. This could be taken as a bluff by the patrons of the tavern so that's what ever. Further strong language. Yes I know this site is an adult site with "adult language" yes I understand this is a shitty world we live in but contrary to what George Carlin thought Strong Language especially when used rapid fire for no real reason is not creative and loses a lot of its impact. You run on the border of this a lot of the time running across the border. Forgive me if i am looking too deep but from the readers prospective this could be jarring. As the author of your character it just might be characterization but I do not know. How ever to get attention both in character and out of it you have done a good job just like the guy shouting "I Stole a Pie!"

I'm not sure if this is a recruiting thread, a getting to know you thread or a little of both but it would be a good start for a recruitment thread.

My only suggestion would if you are going to use a ton of foul language rather than write it out maybe narrate it out. This technique has been used best selling authors. Depending on his books Patric O'Brian has used it mixed with use of actual words where there was a need of an explanation point. Tim LaHaye and Jerry B Jenkins both follow this rigorously yeah they're Christian writers but you can not deny their commercial success. Tolkien, C.S Lewis, and Michael Crichton all have used this technique. Fact of the matter is there is this technique makes your writing more approachable and thus expands your audience.

As a kind of a post script this also reminds me of the entertainers that rely shock and edginess to get ratings. They have to continually get edgier and do increasingly shocking acts just to get the same amount of publicity and ratings as they did the time before. Over the course of their career they will have a spike of success punctuated on either end by a plateau and then obscurity.

[Lucifer]

Thank you for the great feedback gum! I will definitely try to hash out my scenery a bit better since I do have a habit of forgetting about where I am exactly. I definitely enjoyed writing this thread and I'm glad you enjoyed reading it! :D

[SirArtemis]

An introduction is due as I have been absent for time. I tend to do most workshops and will try to catch up. Always feel free to message me with any questions. I'm more than happy to talk more about what comes below.

Story
Storytelling, Setting, and Pacing

This is a section that I'll keep rather vague, but I want to suggest something for both of you that may help you with setting as it was mostly absent here. I think many writers have a character in their mind, especially with a format like this where your account IS your character. As such, I think it may help to treat the world as though they are a character involved in the story. Remember that the world, just like a character, has its own history, its own personality, its own emotions, and its own machinations. Treat the world like a reactive personified entity. For example, if you were the world, and someone just rotted your desk, how would you react? The world includes those in the tavern, if there are any. It involves the smell of the tavern, the noises people are making. It involves the barkeep who stocks the tea and seems to know Amari, who apparently phase shifted or turned on his "idle" setting as soon as he poured the tea. There's a whole world outside of your character that is going to interact with them, and be interacted with in return. If you remember that the world is a character participating in your story, it may make it easier to remember going forward.


Character
Communcation, Action, and Persona

I think here you both have a better understanding of your characters so this flows easier. Often times we build on what we know, and what we know is personalities that we would either like to have, do have, or have seen others have. As such we make our characters behave as we would expect that base-template to behave n such a situation. This generally dictated the pacing and storytelling of this particular thread as it was almost exclusively an exchange between these two individuals. So in this instance I'd say you're just fine, though I'd need to see how your characters behave in various circumstances to know more about what needs fleshing out.


Prose
Mechanics, Clarity, and Technique

Ok, disclaimer is that this is my self-proclaimed domain and I'm a stickler. You both have solid ideas of your characters, but you struggle with two fundamentals that will make or break your writing as you learn and grow. The first is already mentioned above in the lack of world. Characters floating in a general void aren't very enticing to a reader. The second is what's to follow, and that's the rule book. Without the proper tools, you cannot build; in the case of writing, knowing the toolbox of the language and its rule set will allow you to eloquently articulate and express your visions in a smooth and clear way. With that said, see below:


Post 1: Barely into the story and a sentence reads: He reached other the table and drew a small dagger.

I know full well how hard it is for many writers to feel motivated to go back and proofread their work. The most effective strategy is to slow down and read every world aloud, and reading as though your reading follows the same structure of your writing. If you have a period, pause there as you read aloud; if you have a comma, do the same. Tell your story to yourself and see how it sounds when you hear it and adjust accordingly.

Amari grabbed hold of his wrist. His flesh sizzled beneath her grip. Skin began to peel away.

Though not wrong, I'm not a big fan of bullet-point storytelling. I like to read as though I'm in a car driving down a freshly paved road. Bullet-point sentences feel like I'm driving down a road riddled with potholes. Maybe try something like:

As Amari grabbed hold of his wrist flesh began to sizzle and peel away beneath her grip.



Post 2: It seemed to be a man with a rather strange looking hand crawling his way out of the very tavern he was headed towards.

Lucifers blood red eyes fell onto the man’s face, who was visibly irate as he cussed out to someone in the tavern. Lucifer grimaced and stepped on the man's face as he walked over him “Out of my way, scum”. The man would have most likely retaliated if not for the person sitting inside the tavern that he had been cussing out to.

Sometimes simplicity is the most elegant presentation. Overdoing descriptors can lose a reader and cut into clarity. Some things you just don't need to tell, or can show with fewer words. For example, the above could be rewritten as:

Lucifer grimaced as his blood-red eyes fell onto a man crawling out of the tavern and irately cussing at someone still inside. "Out of my way, scum," Lucifer barked as he stepped over the fallen man, noticing a strange hand marking as he did so. The man did nothing to retaliate, his gaze still fixed at a figure at the bar.

Despite there being no right way, the above is a suggested alternative.



Another thing that I want you to note in particular, Lucifer, is the rules regarding punctuation and quotations. Throughout the story you simply drop periods and commas entirely. For example:

"One green tea" He spoke, his crimson eyes shooting through the barkeeps.

The above should read:

"One green tea," he said, his crimson eyes shooting through the barkeep's.

Note the possessive 's added for barkeep. It's something you and Amari dropped a handful of times and should note as well. This is ignoring the strangeness of eyes shooting through the barkeep. Your eyes are not doing that. You are not Cyclops of X-men. His eyes may gaze past the barkeep. But you aren't shooting anything through his eyes. This is a case where flowery language does more harm than good, so just be clear and direct. "His eyes locking with the barkeep's," for example, if that's what you intended.


Post 4: A maniacal expression wore his face.

Reading this implies that the face is being worn by a maniacal expression, not the other way around. This drops clarity and confuses the reader. You never want to interfere with flow by forcing a reader to go back and make sure they understood what just happened.

He wore a maniacal expression.

You also mention soon after that he seethed with rage but kept his composure still. I don't think composure is an effective word to use here. I think maybe something like his posture or demeanor would be more applicable. If you're unsure of the particulars of a word, even slightly, always feel comfortable double checking a dictionary. In the case of composure, it's a noun that is defined as serene, self-controlled state of mind; calmness; tranquility. You are not those things. Your body may be still, but that has little to do with this fury.


The same could be said of the following in a sense:

He spoke through a bitten tongue.

Bite your tongue and read the sentence above that description. You'll realize it doesn't exactly articulate what you likely meant. I imagine you meant through gritted teeth, not through a bitten tongue.


Post 6: I had heard about them.

Watch your tense and ask if it makes sense. Had heard is referring to past tense. You could say you had heard about them while doing something or when on the timeline. In this case, you're simply stating having heard about them. If that's the case, you would say "I have heard about them." This is because you cannot un-hear about them. It has already happened. It is still active and present. You have and will always have heard about them.


Another thing to note is breaking up sentences too early and leaving fragments behind.

Amari scoffed, turning round to fully face him. Crossing her arms over her chest.

The second sentence there is a fragment and clearly is related to the first sentence. It would serve you well to combine the two into one complete and flowing sentence. For example:

Amari scoffed and turned to face him with arms crossed defensively.


Not to beat a dead horse, but one more time here:

It’s all, an illusion” He said pointing to his chest.

Should read as something like:
It's all an illusion," he said while pointing to his chest.

Take a bit of time to read up on those quotation usages. And remember, comma's and ellipses mean certain things if you are reading by following the punctuation presented to you as the audience. You totally dropped your punctuation in the next paragraph:

He paused for a moment, analysing her countenance "It really is a shame that you lost your memories” He stared off into the distance, visibly disturbed.

According to your punctuation, that entire paragraph is one sentence and the dialogue is not separated out.


Wildcard

Firstly, I hope that didn't feel like picking on you. I wanted to show examples in order to be helpful. Storytelling is an art form and takes time and practice, but it is less rigid in many ways. The English language itself is less fluid and follows a subscribed set of rules and guidelines that help us communicate with one another. The former takes time, commitment, and perseverance, whereas the latter is something that is easier to observe and study and learn by reading other writing that is reputable and published (since editors do a pretty good job of scraping writing).

All in all, I think you both have solid foundations of characters and storytelling and are on an excellent track. Remember to personify your world and to go back over your writing with a fine tooth comb and you can share some wonderful ideas with your audience in a clear and expressive way that really lands. There's nothing better than that smooth road feeling.

[Dissinger]

So my first impression was this was a dialogue thread. To that end I knew that setting was on the back burner. However as the thread went on I felt...empty. This thread failed to give me any answers and seemed to exist only to drop the questions in your lap and send you off to the next story. I felt the story was under developed and incomplete. There was build up with no...resolution. To that end I think the story could have used something to help bring a sense of conclusion. The abrupt ending from Lucifer also killed it. Perhaps had Mari given it one more post, to have her collect her thoughts one last time before finishing her tea it could have been salvaged.

I've noticed a couple of small typos. We're all guilty of them, don't be afraid to ask your thread partner to read your posts and tell you if they see typos or even worse awkward phrasing. If you aren't satisfied with your work, don't be afraid to talk to your partner about getting that satisfaction.

In short I think you like Amari to come off as this gruff hard girl, and then throw her on her head and see how she lands from it. It can create some very interesting scenes, but it is also a crutch. When you're going for a shock to your character it requires more than dumping it in her lap and having her deal with it, processing is a part of it as well. How does realizing she isn't unique anymore affect her? What is her next play? Is the love of tea from her past or is it from her locked memories? All this and more could have been touched upon.

In short, potential was all there, I felt like it was cut off before it could be explored.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

This workshop is now closed and rewards will be calculated for it soon.

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

Gum receives 200 EXP, 20 GP and 2 AP!
Jethro receives 100 EXP, 20 GP and 2 AP!
SirArtemis receives 500 EXP, 20 GP and 5 AP!
Dissinger receives 850 EXP, 20 GP and 2 AP!

[Shinsou Vaan Osiris]

All rewards added!