The Constructive Criticism Thread

I was just saying, there are a lot of characters here for a short story, and many of them are getting lost in the background, but if each of them gets their own story somewhere, it ok.

Very true. I just wanted to be sure that what little bit parts they did get were internally consistent. Of course, I understand this is a difficult thing to judge based only on one story, so I'm not too worried about it.

@Erock: Thanks for the comments! Was there any line that seemed especially unnatural? If it was just a general impression you had that's fine, but I'm curious if there was anything in particular that stood out.

Dangerous Loners in Dangerous Times, the beginning. My book doesn't use chapters.

“This is how you start. Stand in a room with all the lights turned out and think of a friend or relative you know. Close your eyes and imagine this person is in the room with you. Repeat to yourself, “S/he is here, I just didn’t see until now.” Repeat it until you absolutely, honest to God feel that that person really is there. Turn the page. Did you see that person? Of course you didn’t, that’s absurd. However, convincing yourself that such an outlandish thing can happen is the first step to being noticed. Turn the page.”

-Dangerous Magicks by Aleister Campbell

"Gentlemen, we've decided to put the next phase of our master plan into action. Now...put on your serious hats."

Keith groaned and turned on his side. Henry, over by another pile of discarded books, was absorbed in building what appeared to be the Leaning Tower of Empty Absinthe Bottles.

"Is anybody listening to me?" Alexander Caratine walked over to the corner of the room where the treasured Serious Hats were kept. He was a small, stout Latino with big eyes and no hair.

He paused to look out the window. The Alhazared Book Depository had a nice view of the Golden Gate Bridge. Of course, Caratine assumed it was the Golden Gate. From this far away, it could be a giant red dragon.

Keith looked up from the hideous plaid loveseat upon which he sat. "There's no point to wearing the hats! You just want us to look foolish!" He was a squirrely Asian with long legs and short arms.

The television, connected to a small generator, blared near him. The vibrations rattled the tinder-dry wood which comprised the walls.

Alexander recognized the voice blaring from the window-it was the Early Midmorning News. "The Red Scarf Butcher, known for the cruel precision with which he hacks apart his victims, has made a target of poor old Mrs. Lovinglyloveton. That is, the body is most likely Mrs. Lovinglyloveton..."

"You just don't respect the sanctity of this club, Fremmen! You don't respect ME! I'm sorry, I don't think that. Here are the hats."

Henry finally looked away from his perilous structure to observe Alexander holding in his hands a bevy of bright red party hats. Alexander noticed that whenever Henry looked at him, he looked as if there was something intensely interesting over Alex's shoulder.

"We've got to show appreciation to the Good Ol' Boys club by wearing these hats! Ever since my grandfather started it in nineteen fifteen-" Alexander smiled when he talked about the Good Ol' Boys just like he smiled when he had an ice cream in his hand.

"I'm confused, Alexander." Henry said. Dr. Eckler had told him to express his emotions whenever possible. "I'm not sure that there were party hats back then." He was a monster of a man, broad-shouldered and towering with a long scraggly beard. Somehow, he looked intensely sickly despite this.

"'I could hear the entrails splattering on the floor' says Mitch Segvey, local preacher. 'I still see the body in my nightmares...' And now for your regularly scheduled 'Gonzo the Clown's Half-Hour Funhouse'"

Alexander ignored him. "Keith, we've all got to respect the Good Ol' Boys. Put these on."

Keith got up from the loveseat and turned to look at Beauchamp. Some intensely flammable absinthe was dripping from his bizarre Babel onto the dry paper books on the dry wooden floor.

"Beauchamp!" Alexander shouted as he tossed one of the conical caps his way. "Don't think those towers are more important than me!"

The hat struck him in the back of the head. He paid more attention to his absinthe than his friends, generally.

He sighed. "Fine! Fine. You obviously don't care. Moving on with our discussion-" Caratine motioned to the window again, specifically indicating what looked like a stronghold mixed in with the cheap apartments and modest houses

"-Allen Penbrooke is throwing another one of his debauched parties in ten days, just in time for Christmas. That's how long we have."

He looked up now, with purpose. Keith had abandoned wearing the hat and was attempting to balance it on the end of his nose. Caratine had long since known that he and Keith had different amounts of respect for his club, and that wouldn't change. He also made good morphine cocktails without too much fuss, so Alex tolerated him.

"We can't take him on now. There's only three of us. That's not enough to perform a clean assassination!" Caratine fumbled in his coat for a cigarette lighter.

Henry had paused his diligent work to take a swig of a non-empty absinthe bottle. He spoke this time: "But Lee Harvey Oswald killed a man by himself...?"

"Of course he didn't!" Alexander scoffed. He was reaching for one of the various cigarette boxes scattered around the room now. "I think we all know it was a Protestant conspiracy that did it. At least seventeen affilates." The air was thick with absinthe, and maybe...gasoline?

"What does this have to do with us?" Keith asked. Apparently, he had finally managed to balance it.

"We're going to need more people before we can strike! We'll execute a brilliant plan where we'll all work together, using our strengths, crack a few one-liners, then burst in on the party and kill Penbrooke where he stands! Then justice will be meted!" Alexander put the cigarette in his mouth, dramatically.

"We're going to kill a man on his birthday." Henry was adding the now-empty bottle to his stack as he said it. It would be wrong to say that he didn't know that he was standing in what was essentially a gigantic tinderbox. He merely didn't care.

Alexander recoiled as if he's been shocked. "Penbrooke is scum. He's a murderer and a liar and a war profiteer and I'm going to get him! They can't prove it, but we can get him!"

"I'm sorry!" Henry suddenly gained something of an expression on his face. "I don't hate you, I really-"

"I didn't say I hated you, Beauchamp. Are you off your meds again? We're all good friends, right?" Alexander looked around the room expectantly. “So, we need two people! I have some ideas."

He thought about it for a moment, and spat his not-yet-lit cigarette out onto the floor.

"What am I doing? I don't smoke cigarettes! Keith, don't just sit there, make me a morphine cocktail. Please."

It's from my Na No Wri Mo novel.

edited 1st Nov '13 6:24:23 PM by Jinxmenow

Pal, it's a bit impolite to skip over everyone else on the list without so much as asking permission first. There are five other people who are in line before you. Why not give them half a chance?

Also, contribute some feedback to them in exchange. I like your story, I encourage you to write more of it.

Who's up next, even? This thread has been inactive for a while... as usual.

Erok, frogger5, Snowy Foxes then me. Eroks turn was forfeited a while ago, so we're waiting on frogger5.

So...it has been over a month since the last post. Do you guys mind if I post something for feedback? It's a very short poem.

Somebody just go for it already!

......I'm going to take that as a yes.

This poem is used as an opening for my story (a RWBY fanfic, to be specific), indirectly introducing the four main, color-coded, characters. The recurring color motif of the team and the story is gray and ashes, because they all lost someone in their childhood. As such, I tried to put as much reference to those two as possible.

So, how does the poem sound? It doesn't sound too cheesy or anything, does it? I did try my best to be evocative.

edited 12th Dec '13 11:53:34 AM by dRoy

@dRoy: The occasional non-rhyming word threw me off for some reason. All the same it doesn't sound too bad— I love the tone.

Street Thieves and Artful Dodgers. Any critiques on

• How it works as a Dickens reimagining

• Portrayals of Fagin and the Artful Dodger

• Future setting

• Strength of descriptions and language

• Whether it works as steampunk and science fiction

edited 13th Dec '13 4:37:16 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

I'm guessing that some of those words are the characters or perhaps groups of your fanfic? Since I don't know anything about that series I'm a little confused in reading some of your poem, as in, I don't quite understand a few of your phrasings, although again, that might be because I don't know anything about the series you're writing about. As a poem I feel it flows quite nicely sounding very dark and bleak as though someone has dealt with turmoil and the characters are just trying to get by, my only question...

Is Fuchsia the name of a group/character? Or is the poem referencing an actual flower?

I don't have much to say on your portrayal of Charles' work because I feel as though somebody with more experience in that kind of thing could better critique that, that being said.

- Fagin and Dodger seem to me like characters who are in there as filler at the moment so they don't seem all that important right now. Of course since you've only written two chapters, at least in the link you posted, you may have plans to develop them further which you definitely should do. Dodger has almost no development at all and if he's important (Like the protagonist's best friend) then he could really stand for being developed sooner rather than later. I've come to understand Fagin's role is to be the mentor/father figure for the protagonist? Knowing how the protagonist really feels about these two characters would be a nice touch, even if you did some of that, a little more never hurt! ^^

- I like the futuristic/steampunk setting although it would be cool if you described the scenery a little more. I don't really feel like I'm in the future right at the moment, I know there's airships and implants but what do the people look like? The city? Is this still earth or are there cool 'spacey' things going on in the sky? This could be hard because you're writing in journal form, but I really feel this could add to the overall atmosphere and help really transport the reader into this, by the sounds of it, really cool world you've made.

- I've already given my thoughts on your descriptions of the world, but the language seems to be good, it's rough but that's just the character and I can fully understand what's happening. I feel as though you need to be careful however because if you go too far on the slang side one might not understand exactly what you're trying to explain. But as of right now I'd say it's good. You're descriptions for the characters also seems to be good, though it'd be cool if you went into more detail about implants and how they work/what they do. Unless you're keeping it a secret for later in the story at which point, ignore that.

- Yes I definitely feel as though it will definitely work and with the right world building it has the potential to turn into something really really cool!

edited 12th Dec '13 11:48:00 PM by kwhizz

Dodger is the protagonist here not Oliver. It's set in Brooklyn (which in the future is a separate city from NYC).

Anyone familiar with Dickens (or Lionel Bart) and want to comment on how it works as a Dickens reinterpretation?

edited 13th Dec '13 4:41:46 AM by MorwenEdhelwen

First of all, thanks for the criticism.

[[quotebock]] I'm guessing that some of those words are the characters or perhaps groups of your fanfic? [[/quoteblock]]

Yes; Slate (Schiefer), Cyan (Cian), Fuchsia (Fuksia), and Rufus are all colors. The creator of RWBY stated that OC names must have a word that means or reminds of color.

Can you be more specific, so I can fix it?

The character's name is Fuksia (she prefers Fuko), and it is a reference to both color and flower. Ever since she lost her parents to a fire, she have been tossed around from house to house, because she was a bastard child.

Thanks. That was what I was going for, really. The whole poem is inspired by this song. Well, the first half, that is, not the action scenes.

(By the way, RWBY is awesome! XD)

A bit off-topic, but is the "five critiques and then your turn ends" rule still in place?

I wouldnt think so- it clearly wasnt working. If we dont want this thread to die, then I think we have to be a little more flexible.

What about three critiques? Could that work?

@ Morwen Edhelwen - Oh okay, my bad. So then just scratch everything I said about Dodger. And replace it with, he's a good character and is so far pretty interesting. I'd actually really like to know a little bit of backstory from him, though I'm sure that's coming eventually!

@ d Roy - Well the phrases I don't quite understand, and again that could just be me, are

- Accepting garden nowhere to be found - I suppose I could come up with a few interpretations of what this means but if it's supposed to have one 'true' meaning I'm not sure what it is.

- Rufus house shall be lost to an engineer - If Rufus is a singular character than I believe it would be 'Rufus's house' but if it's a group you're talking about then never mind.

- With Fuchsia that's actually a really interesting triple meaning but it may read better if you add 'a' before Fuchsia, so 'a Fuchsia flower is scorched with embers' it doesn't seem to disrupt the flow and I feel it gets the message of referencing all three of those things across a little better.

The more I read and think about your poem the more I like it. ^^

edited 13th Dec '13 10:13:08 PM by kwhizz

I agree. I think that we should set up some sort of email system, or a pm system.

Here's one I think could work.

People on the list should submit a preferred contact email, and whenever a work receives a sufficient amount of feedback the person who was last critiqued emails the next three people in line, alerting them that their turn is coming up. That person should then post in the thread to confirm that the alert email has been sent. If the next person goes two weeks without posting, it goes to the next person and so on.

Does that sound manageable?

While I don't particularly like the idea of lowering the required number of critiques, it clearly wasn't working so I definitely agree that a new system would be a good idea.

Sounds workable to me, though I would suggest lowering the 'two weeks without posting' waiting period. One of the reasons this thread sometimes moves like molasses, I think, is so much time is spent waiting for a specified time limits to run out. Perhaps something like, the person with the highest priority who responds within 3 days gets to go next? So if only person #2 and #3 on the list get your e-mail and respond, #2 goes next while #1 and #3 must wait until the next time the e-mail is sent.

As for a 'sufficient amount' of feedback, would that be at least three critiques or two weeks of time, whichever comes first?

Lets try it.

Ok, since I was the last one on the list to be critiqued I shall go ahead and PM the next three people (btw, where did Erock forfeit their turn? I guess I missed that post).

EDIT: Ok, all three messages sent. If you're on the list and didn't get a PM yell at me and I'll send it again.

edited 15th Dec '13 7:04:01 AM by LittleBillyHaggardy

I'm alive!

As am I, I've got my chapter about ready for the next turn.

edited 15th Dec '13 3:37:20 PM by Lockedbox

Right, I still want to be critiqued. Have to do a bit of prep first, I'll post in a day or so, if that's ok?