Troper Critique Club

The rest of the story is still a bit messy, so this is all I can post at the moment:

The story itself is supposed to be a physics-themed Sherlock Holmes parody set in the 21st century that I decided to write for my juniors after some discussion with the subject teacher. However, I tend to grossly overstate my own knowledge and understanding, and the fact that I won't be able to have him proofread it is a bit of a problem. Apart from the archaic language, what do I need to fix? Many thanks in advance for the help!

Five days seems like enough time to go without a critique. Here're my thoughts, as someone who has read a lot of Sherlock Holmes.

The excerpt does a fair job of emulating that meticulously-detailed Doyle style, but I think you've gone too far. There's too much information in that paragraph— more than Holmes would say, more than Watson would write, more than I'm willing to read. It took a great deal of will power to keep reading what was basically a textbook, and the only thing that kept me going was the belief that there would be some clue or relevance at the end, but it never came. Unless there is something very important to the mystery *

On the bright side, I like your narrative voice. I think it fits with a Holmes story, although it might be out of place in the new millennium.

edited 20th Dec '11 5:56:11 PM by SharkAttack

Thank you! I'll do what I can to make it comprehensible then.

Okay, I'll be a minor hypocrite and post this.

I've got seven pages of a comic script. Now, since I have no idea how to write a script, it's probably a bit of a mess technically (panels, pacing, stuff). And while any critique on these things is welcome, I mainly want to know two things.

• Is the narrator annoying?
• Ignoring the fact that he's the narrator and all that comes with it, do you want punch the main character in the face for reasons that were made clear when you read it?

If anyone is willing, I'll pm them (or something) as seven pages are too much to post here. Also because, as mentioned, it's kind of a mess.

(This would be more suited to the Critic Dating thread, but I don't think it's worth it to post there for only seven pages.)

EDIT: Someone has already read this and gave an opinion, so I'm out of the waiting line.

edited 22nd Dec '11 2:40:33 PM by Dealan

I'd be very grateful for some con-crit on a short (<1 page) story, "Growing Up". Yes, weak title; if you come up with a better one, feel free to tell me. Any kind of critique is great, whether word choice or something bigger.

A realistic slice-of-life story. Don't expect any major twists; it's all about the small mood changes that herald the maturation process.

"Growing Up" By Christina Nordlander

Miss Clarissa's ballet school was in a flat in town. It was night outside when Jeanette came out of the ballroom. She waited in the cloakroom while Dad put his coat on. The cloakroom was narrow and had a wallpaper with old-fashioned dark red flowers. There was a window in the short side opposite the door to the landing. She leant forward, hands on the cold window-sill. Almost everything outside was black sky, but on the other side of the window, low lit domes stuck out of the ground. They were about as wide as the window and made of thick glass that looked scratchy, so that you couldn't see anything through them except for the yellow of the light.

“What's down there?” she asked Dad.

“It's apartments,” he said. “You know, people who live there.”

Did they live under ground so that they didn't have any other windows than those domes? It looked like something from the black-and-white pictures in Momo, where the people in the city lived in high-rise blocks that were made just to store as much people as possible. Could they get out?

In the staircase it felt dark as if all the stone in the building lay on her, even though the light was on. The staircase was made of shining grey stone with white fossils in places. Dad had told her that the small ones were called trilobites and the long thin ones orthoceratites. It was a circular staircase, not a straight one like at home, so the steps were narrower on the inner side than on the outer. She climbed on the narrowest side so it would be exciting when they walked downstairs.

“Be careful, Nettie,” Dad said.

He always did. They got to the ground and Dad pushed the door open into the black. She was already freezing when they got to the car.

The town was always eerie at night when it was just lampposts and windows without any light behind. She didn't look out until they were almost home, so she wouldn't see anything that she was going to think about in the dark while trying to sleep.

Mum had pea soup ready and asked if ballet had been fun. When they'd eaten and cleared up she went to the stove and cooked gruel for Jeanette.

When the gruel was done, Mum went upstairs to tuck Jennifer in, then sat down with Dad in the living-room and watched TV. Jeanette stayed at the table, the warm gruel mug between her hands on the wax tablecloth. It had a lid and handles in white plastic. It was shiny and new, they'd given it to her when the spout cracked on the old brown one.

Maybe she ought to stop drinking gruel. Jennifer didn't any more, and she was just five. Mum might be getting tired of making it for her every night. Was she going to keep drinking gruel until she grew up and went to college?

She bit down on the little spout and sucked up the drink, and it was grainy and a bit strong and even tasted warm. “It lies like an angel cloud in the belly,” Mum used to say. If she stopped, maybe Mum would be sad as if Jeanette had said that she didn't need her.

Then beautiful music started playing from the TV in the living-room, the kind that swelled up until you almost guessed how it would go from there. She would never be able to stop if it was this beautiful. When she'd drunk out the last, she sat down in the couch between Mum and Dad and waited for the children's show. At eight o'clock she would have to go to bed because she had school tomorrow. It felt like she was sick but it hadn't reached her body.

THE END

edited 22nd Dec '11 1:37:18 PM by DoktorvonEurotrash

I like your descriptions. But there really doesn't seem to be anything going on. I like how she was thinking about the past when she drank from the cup.

I'd like to see more of your work. Something with a little more conflict in it. Or maybe a Random Events Plot with frustrations and wondering and wandering and whatnot.

edited 22nd Dec '11 1:48:56 PM by Schitzo

Thank you!

I don't put a lot of my original fiction online (no, I'm not afraid of plagiarism, just don't want to get into issues with previous publication), but if I post anything more, I'll do it here in Writer's Block.

Is there anything you've published that we could find?

Oh, if only... no, nothing yet. I won an online writing competition, but that's in Swedish, so not much use to most people here.

I do have some fanfiction online. If you care about Venture Brothers, my fanfics for it can be found here (my username on that forum is OriginalDean Venture).

Little thing I have, admittedly. Basically, I was thinking about Twilight(NO idea why) and I thought, "Wow, the very beginning of the first book is bland. I bet I could write it better," and wrote immediately what came to mind. Just looking for a bit of critique and suggestions, or whatever, and I might write some more.

Here we go:

Wait! Isabella? and with Swan plucked on awkwardly at the end, as though it were the intended result of some terrible plan?

Beautiful. It means Beautiful Swan. My parents are very forgiving.

"Bella, you haven't said anything. We've talked..." was all my mother could say; the deflated way she ended the sentence seemed to mean, ''oh, the hell with you, I'm not having the same conversation in an airplane compartment for the thirty third amd a half time."

My parents are very forgiving.

Mom especially.

I think, for the only the sixth time, what Forks would be like. And the answer is the same.

Shit-ton a' trees.

I felt my moms chin touch my shoulder; now, she seemed trying to figure out what awful curses I was scribbling down in my graying, worn notepad. I could picture her olive face crinkling to understand, when she asked "Are you still writing?"

"Yeah," I said, "just what ever comes to mind."

It was my name. I was glad that she didn't ask when I was on the other page. Penises, far as a woman could dare to dream!

Penises. Made me think of home. In third grade, a gap-toothed, Spider-man obsessed, scrounging and nose picking boy, Ian, took offense to when I told him that, No, Pokemon was better than Spider-man and drew penises with unwashable black sharpie on my favorite My Little Pony backpack. He wasn't very good at it, so they all kind of looked like mutated bananas.

That boy became my best friend. My truest friend. Ian. He moved away, sometime before I did, to Texas. The good thing about that, I guess, is that at least I didn't leave him behind.

I looked out the cockpit window; sky, clouds, and (of course) a shit-ton of trees, morphed and separated from each other, never overpowering another. It was all equal. All new.

All new? Yeah.

• Edited to fix grammar.

edited 26th Dec '11 4:38:27 PM by YoungPrometheus

A bit incomprehensible. and quite a few grammatical errors here and there

the penises all over the page gag was alright, though.

First of all, I haven't read Twilight, so I can't compare this to the original.

What you've written certainly isn't bland. Some bits of it I like better than others, but bland it is not. (Unlike Schitzo, however, I don't think it's incomprehensible.)

The first paragraph is a bit heavy on the Purple Prose. "The white became stained with cursive, cluttered blotch of thin black" is a rather overly poetic way of saying "I wrote something on the page". Also, it's a very long sentence. You might gain from putting a full stop after "black" and changing the last bit to: "Upon closer inspection, if you were brave enough to look and decipher, it revealed the words Isabella Swan."

My main problem with this scene is that the style feels inconsistent. I'm having trouble imagining a teenager whose mental voice includes both "shit-ton a' trees" and "'twas" within the space of a minute. Those jolts in style come off as trying too hard to surprise and shock the reader. (Granted, a lot of this is me making assumptions about authorial intent. If you write more of this, a longer snippet might give more of an idea of what Bella's voice is like and even out those jolts.)

Typoes: "amd"; "the my mum's chin"; "gape toothed" should be "gap toothed" (or use a hyphen).

Some things I like:

"My parents are very forgiving."

the deflated way she ended the sentence"

"I felt my mum's chin touch my shoulder" (apart from the typo I mentioned earlier). Very descriptive without using any unnecessary words.

The whole flashback to Ian: it's nicely introduced and very descriptive. I especially liked "mutated bananas". Though I have a problem with this sentence:

"When in third grade, a gape toothed, Spider-man obsessed, scrounging and nose picking boy, Ian, took offense to when I told him that, No, Pokemon was better than Spider-man and drew with unwashable black sharpie penises on my favorite My Little Pony backpack."

It's really a sentence fragment (following on the previous sentence); it doesn't stand on its own. I'd change it to "In third grade, a gap toothed, Spider-man obsessed" etc., dropping the "when".

The second-to-last paragraph with the view from the plane is excellent.

"and drew with unwashable black sharpie penises on my favorite My Little Pony backpack": I think this would flow better if you changed it to "and drew penises with unwashable black sharpie on my favorite My Little Pony backpack".

This is well-written, apart from my complaint about the style being inconsistent in places, and some sentences being a bit rambling. I quite like Bella's character. You're off to a good start with this.

Hope my critique was of at least some use.

edited 26th Dec '11 6:20:39 AM by DoktorvonEurotrash

^ Thanks to both of you. Not gonna lie, at least half of that, I wrote on the spot while posting it here, so the grammatical errors (which I honestly try to avoid, but it was, like, two in the morning and I wanted to go to sleep.

I was worried about the beginning; my thought process was that I needed to set up who Bella was, how she viewed the world, establish the relationship between her mother, and most importantly, her personality.

Bella, in the regular series, has a reputation for being bland and passive. That's not very fun to read, so the impetus behind all of the above was to give her (what I thought of as) a layered, personality. She is blunt, cynical, and thinks she's more worldly than she really is, but she's meek and helpful too, just when you don't take her at face value. Its probably not much, but you never know what crazy crap I might add. So, thanks.

edited 26th Dec '11 8:20:53 AM by YoungPrometheus

Here's 'smore. Y'know, it's funny. I don't plan how much I write- I just went downstairs, wrote with a crappy pen, and it just... started coming out.

continuing from the last example.

As we got up, my mother touched my shoulder; now she apparently felt comfortable enough to give out another friendly reminder. "Bella, just..." she began. I heard her take breath in and continued, "Your dad is really looking forward to seeing you. Please don't make him feel bad; this is very important to him." Her voice was firmer, more confident.

Dad. Charlie.

I missed him too. So much. But... not as much as I probably should have. I had no idea why.

We were walking down the plane's steps, looking at new trees, breathing unknown air. The fact that there wasn't any smog was admittedly a good first impression.

Charlie was the second impression - a mixed one.

His face, soft, square and traditional, was like looking at an object that left a crude, cracked impression. Familiar, yet different - I looked more like him than my mom, oddly. I had her eyes though. Maybe that's why he looked so pained.

He hugged me, him, in his police getup, me in my grey windbreaker. Mom stood behind me, watching. I could tell, even his hug was a little sad, a little forced.

That's all for now. Please critique or make suggestions. Thanks.

EDIT: For grammar.

edited 29th Dec '11 7:06:15 PM by YoungPrometheus

Comments on the new snippet:

Typo: "the planes steps" should be "plane's"

This continues good, with none of the jarring contrasts I had problems with in the first bit.

The description of Charlie is pretty excellent. I have a grammar problem with "like looking at the object". I think "an object" would make more sense than "the object".

Not really a lot to say about this bit. It's good. Descriptions come naturally and are the right length.

^ Thanks again. Yesterday, I did the same thing; just sit down, and write whatever comes mind. Its actually pretty fun, you just have to wait until something interesting crosses the mind and just go from there.

Here's another example. This is original, but its based around the concept of Superman. I kinda like it, and I consider this a first draft, if I'm going to continue it. Please read and critique. Thank you. I worry it might be a bit of an infodump, looking back.

I saw God today. Not a little g "god", but an actual, totally serious I-can't-believe-it's-not-butter, all caps G-O-D.

But Laika, that can't be right, we all know that God looks like an emancipated Grizzly Adams in a robe, not a candy coated scientific anomaly! Yes, I say to myself, he may have looked like a member of the Liberace strongman association, but he was as honest to god-like as anyone in history.

I saw God today. That's the thought. My only thought. I claw my fingers into the hospital bed, eyes' closed, hearing the sound of me breathing in and out,in and out,in and out, for what seems like hours.

I don't stop thinking about. When I dream, I hear his voice, his soft, calm voice, the same even in anger, when his wide eyes narrow and go redder than the rockets glare. When he walked, glided really, through the crowd, smashed the podium into twigs of twigs, grabbed senator Plastino and bound into the sky. When the world stopped to catch its breath, then exploded into unbridled hysteria, trampling everything in sight. Me included.

Hindsight's funny like that. Kumatora, wonderful, beautiful, smarter-than-smart-don't-tell-her-Chinese food-is-worse-than-salmonella, 'Tori warned me about going.

My heart skips a beat when I think about her. I almost died. God almost killed me, and I would have left her behind.

She always knows.

"YOU FUCKING IDIOT!", was the second thing she said.

When she came in, I could see anger and terror battling in her eyes. When she hugged me, it actually hurt, and not because my back became the footprint for every man and woman in Dallas. "Thank-thank God," she all but sobbed.

And this was the first thing I said, "Do you have your phone?"

"W-what?"

"I need to tweet this."

More to (possibly) come.

edited 29th Dec '11 7:08:01 PM by YoungPrometheus

It's pretty good =) the names confused me, but I guess it's...um...put together well? The Girl's introduction is a bit clumsy— the dashes connect two thoughts that are not exactly the same thought, and I think some grouping punctuation might help. "Tori (other descriptor, smarter than smart, and don't tell her Chinese food is worse than salmonella,)... Tori warned me not to go."

And introducing her as Tori and revealing she has a longer full name later could help with the "what are these names and where are these people from?" feeling I got. But I liked the overall tone. It's not exactly all clear, but I get the sense that's intentional, for the mood of it, and that anything important will be revealed later. And I loved the ending.

I've got a couple things, but one is terribly short. http://killingsuperman.thecomicseries.com/ I have two pages of a comic called Killing Superman done, but noone on comic fury has subscribed or commented, which is making me kind of nervous. Basically -is it clear and readable? (and not just in the sense that it is legible. I know the lettering needs work.) and -does it seem like it is going somewhere you would be interested in reading? Also feel free to comment on the art if you want.

The other is a short story thing, called...

Sex and Ice Cream On Dinosaur Island

“Dinosaur Island” was not an island, in any conventional sense of the word. It was a piece of dirt surrounded by more dirt in every direction for further than you could drive on a single tank of gas. It was, at one point in its construction, intended to be an island and, true to the harebrained, half-cocked spirit of Dinosaur Island, they began digging the trench before realizing the climate in Ass-End-Of-Nowhere Northern Texas made creating and maintaining a moat a laughable impossibility. What they were left with was a backhoe paid out for long enough to make a Dinosaur Dirtpile (“Dinosaur Mountain,” to the more lenient, imaginative, or near-sighted observer), a half-dug trench filled with garbage and mosquitoes right outside the front gate, and an inaccurate park name it was too late to change, because they had already ordered the sign.

Dinosaur Island had everything. It had mini-golf, bumper cars, and some of the only ice cream you could get within the aforementioned single tank of gas. It had one big-ticket roller coaster—the Meteorite, which had kids barfing their ice cream all over the synthetic putting greens for just over three months, until it tyrannosaurus wrecked and the park was shut down.

But it wasn’t the three months of operation that made Dinosaur Island the stuff of fond memories and outlandish stories. It was the years after that. It was the years it sat rusting in the Texas sun, close enough to a half-dozen towns to drive to but far enough away to make an adventure of it. It stood as a decrepit beacon to restless teenagers with borrowed cars and enough between the car-full of them for a single tank of gas. They poured in—it was bring-your-own ice cream and cigarettes and beer, but it didn’t seem right without ice cream, so bring it they did. They slid down the backs of a herd of stone raptors and got flakes of plaster and paint on their jeans. They argued over what color the Triceratops had been, and whether they were Pterodactyls or Pteranodons flapping in circles on the kiddie ride, and whether or not there really was a hobo living in the T-Rex mouth that used to swallow the balls on the fifth hole of the mini-golf course.

Dinosaur Island is still standing today—as much as it ever stood. It is still sitting on a pile of dirt in the middle of nowhere, and it is unlikely to go anywhere anytime soon. It can still look like a mountain, if you want it to. You can still climb up the track the Meteorite fell from, or poke around in the cracked cement crater it left. People have chipped away pieces of dinosaur island over the years. Teeth and claws and sometimes whole heads, but you can’t really take Dinosaur Island with you. The police have been cracking down on that sort of thing lately, but there are likely a couple of high-schoolers losing their virginities in the brontosaurus they used to sell ice cream out of all the same.

Maybe not though.

Maybe they are doing it in the mini-golf T-Rex over the bones of a dead hobo, or the trench outside the front gate if they do not mind the smell, or even on the track the Meteorite fell off of, as long as their tetanus shots are up to date.

You can drive away in a car that you might even own, because maybe you paid for the whole tank of gas by yourself. Maybe you’ve got a plaster horn in your pocket, or maybe you don’t. You can’t really take Dinosaur Island with you, but you can’t really leave it behind either. It will always be there, in your fondest memories and in the middle of nowhere, rusting in the Texas sun. When your grandchildren dig for the bones of humanity, what they’ll dig up is Dinosaur Island. They will have brought their own ice cream, and their own virginities to lose. It is a certain comfort knowing that even after the Meteorite falls, there will still be sex and ice cream and Dinosaur Island.

edited 1st Jan '12 12:32:12 PM by DaeBrayk

I liked the Dinosaur Island one, but that first paragraph might not be necessary (it depends on what you want). Or, if you want to keep it, it might sound better if the first two paragraphs switched places, so the "it has everything" part can hook the reader and make them want to read more about what the Island has.

Can anyone look over this trope page I'm editing for a friend and tell me if it's written well (does it fit in with the pages on the rest of the site, does it veer into nattering too much, etc.)? I'd like to edit/launch more fanwork pages for other people and I want to make sure I'm actually good at it before doing so.

edited 1st Jan '12 3:55:28 PM by NomadicLurker

^^ Thank you.I was a bit worried that it would be a bit vague, but I think it worked out pretty. Good idea on the Kumatora/'Tori thing.

The Webcomic: Wow, they have webcomics for EVERYTHING now, don't they? Its a pretty niche subject matter, so a lot of people probably wouldn't know about it, unless you actively advertise it. It looks... interesting so far. I'm guessing that either they create Metallo, or stumble upon him or some such? The lettering could be little clearer, but I could understand most of it. I can say that I think its very interesting, and you seem to be heading to interesting places. I look forward to seeing more. The art's a bit rough - I recommend cleaner, stronger line work, and not make everything seem smudgy. It'll get better with practice, definitlty. Maybe you could go to certain message boards to promote it? I'm trying to think of something that comes to mind, but you should do whatever you think is best.

Actually, the more I look at, the more my curiosity is piqued. I know this might sound really odd, but I just thought of it - are you interested in a collaboration? Over the Killing Superman story - you can decline if you want, but I'm a fan of the character, and have wanted to do a webcomic in any kind of capacity for a while.

The Short Story: What ^ said. It's an interesting little ditty, nice descriptions and such. Keep it up.

edited 1st Jan '12 5:07:24 PM by YoungPrometheus

^^the paragraph switching is a great idea, thanks! =) Probably gunna use it.

The trope page seems fine, though I'm not personally a fan of extended recipe gags. And I'm pretty sure that fanfic found an even nicher market than my webcomic.

About that though— it's not supposed to cater specifically to fans of Dresden Codak. I was aiming more for anyone who likes superhero comics. It's not even really a Dresden Codak fancomic—it doesn't have a single Dresden Codak character. I just didn't want to use Aaron Diaz's DC redesigns without acknowledging it, and "A DC Universe Fancomic inspired by the art and blog of this one guy" didn't fit on the cover.

Any ideas for making it not seem like it's just for people who like Dresden Codak?

As for the collaboration, I'm afraid the story is mostly written already and only needs to be drawn, but remember, they're not my characters. Nobody would mind if you also made a DC/Dresden Codak fancomic =) We could even have our stories take place in the same alternate DC universe.

Thanks! I'm probably going to sound like a noob, but what's an extended "recipe" gag? I googled it and couldn't find a meaning for it.

edited 1st Jan '12 5:51:26 PM by NomadicLurker

The whole "Marinate in absinth and add music." Describing a work as if it were a recipe. Like for food. I've just seen it done a lot to describe stuff...usually fan-fiction for some reason, and it seems kind of overdone.

Oh. I just put that there because I thought what I was originally going to write would be too bland.

I edited it out.

edited 1st Jan '12 6:21:18 PM by NomadicLurker

^^ Hmm... of the top of my head, I would suggest the DC comics message board, Deviant Art (they have quite a few groups.

So, erm, I suppose I post the short story I've written here?

This is a short story I submitted to a literary organization at my university that I'd like to join. Would anyone like to rip it to shreds and critique the hell out of it? I need to get better at writing short stories.

Note: I think I took too much inspiration from Fight Club for this short story. And when I say too much, I honestly think it looks too similar to parts of the novel.

Yeah...I reread everything and I swear it felt like reading an excerpt from Fight Club. And I don't mean that in a good way. Sigh.