Also known as Katz
My thoughts on Matrix's entry (sorry, I'd already written these before KSPAM posted):
I thought the story and organization were good, but the writing could be tightened up. There are lots of phrases like "as it was" or "such as this" that don't add anything; try to eliminate them (ie, "The tree was lush, being close to the river, even one reduced to rolling-mud.") There are plenty of other clauses that can be removed, too: "It too was black as the space between the stars at night, with no such sparks of light within" can just be "It too was black as the space between the stars at night." I estimate you could take a hundred words off this way and not remove any of the content of your story.
Maybe a bit too much internal monologue from the cat? There's not a ton, but IMHO it's best to remain strongly third person with creatures that are not actually intelligent (if the cat is supposed to be actually intelligent, ignore this).
I second the opinion that Jamiyyah is an unnecessary word here.
Confusing stuff: What exactly is this light and where does it come from? The tree is defined as being magical, but the cat isn't, and we don't get any idea of where the magic comes from except from the darkness itself, which doesn't make sense.
Also known as Katz
My thoughts on KSPAM's story:
It's an interesting beginning. It leaves me wondering whether it's going to be a horror story or a sci-fi story or a realistic military story. Without knowing which, it's hard to know what about the passage as a whole you should change, but I think it's pretty strong and most likely doesn't need any large changes.
On to the little stuff:
-Gordon Falman: Reminds me too much of Gordon Freeman. This may just be a problem with me.
-o’ eight hundred hours: Say 0800. It sounds more military and more terse.
-remote cave system: Since you gave an exact date and time, give us an exact location. I'm not sure how remote "remote" is: are we talking in a US national park or the wilds of Africa?
-o’ six hundred this evening: Shouldn't that just be 1800?
-The rocks, while easy to lift with enough manpower: Lose this clause. I suppose most things would be easy to lift with enough manpower. Also, I get the impression he's supposed to be concise, so you should look for extra words to get rid of (of course, I tell everyone that).
-In order to conserve battery power, I will now cease recording: I read this and assumed he was using an audio recorder. Rereading it, I thought he meant conserving flashlight power and was writing the notes. You should clarify.
-Poor greenhorn’s scared shitless: Is greenhorn a military term? I have no idea, but I associate it with Oregon Trail.
-We’ve already rationed our bars: If they only had one bar each, I'm not sure how you ration them. I would have expected them to already be gone after five hours.
-Seeing as I have come to the limit of my allotted recording time, I am now ceasing recording: That's a long sentence for someone trying to conserve power. Shorten it.
-The cave in was relatively small, unless the military feels like dragging its feet today: Comma splice (your only conventions error). I believe the cave is small whether or not the military is dragging its feet. Just break it into two sentences.
-saw a pound of bricks in the bowl: Why is there a toilet in the cave?
-Freeman: Continuing Gordon Freeman associations aside, that's pretty similar to Falman given that you only mention three names. Also, why does Ricky go by his first name and Falman by his last?
-when the sun rises in the outside world, at approximately o’ six hundred hours: Again, too long for a terse record. Just say 0600 hours. Plus, there's no reason for it to be approximate, since I'm assuming he has a watch.
-signing off: I'm assuming this is a prologue and the real story begins somewhere else, and I'm further assuming that poor Falman and company don't make it. However, Falman doesn't know this, so there's no reason for him to say something as permanent as "signing off." It's only going to be two hours until they leave—far less than the time from the previous entry.
P.S. What's the tag for block quotes?
edited 12th Jun '10 10:23:39 PM by jewelleddragon
Also known as Katz
My story: This is from a novella about a witch's familiar who becomes human and it's the last bit I'm really, really not happy with. It's a bait-and-switch romance between Proserpina/Julia the cat/girl and Lucius the would-be love interest. This is the first and last time she sees him as a human.
She followed the river upstream, thinking that a walk would keep her awake. Watching the braids in the river, she stumbled suddenly upon someone sitting by the water. It was a young man of medium height with dark hair and a light tan cloak. He was idly tossing rocks into the water. He looked up when he heard her. He had a mild, jovial smile. It was the man with the nephew.
"Oh—I'm sorry," she stammered. "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"No disturbance," he told her. "I don't recognize you. Are you new to Laneum?"
"Yes, I just arrived yesterday," she said, following the feline principle of mixing an element of truth with every lie. "My name is Julia."
"I'm Lucius," the man told her. "You came to Laneum? Odd choice. It's only a village."
Proserpina improvised. "I didn't come far, just from Decussis. I just wanted a change of pace."
"To each his own, I suppose," said Lucius with a shrug. "Change of pace to you, quiet little town to us. I would offer to give you a tour, but if you've had a chance to walk through it, you’ve probably seen it all.”
“I believe so, unless there is a hidden part that you can’t find unless you’ve already been there.”
“Ah, you obviously haven’t closely examined the bell tower,” said Lucius with a sly grin. “In the back, hidden in ivy, is a little narrow stair that leads downwards. You reach what looks like a blank wall. Examining it closely reveals the outline of a doorway with no keyhole. To open it, you have to check the paving stones underneath you. One of them is loose. Lift the loose stone and the door will swing open and reveal the entrance to the underground, which leads just about anywhere if you know where you’re going—but bring a torch, because it’s frightfully dark down there.”
“Really?” asked Proserpina, fascinated.
“No. I just made that up.”
“That’s not nice!” she exclaimed, then added, “How do you come up with things like that?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. They just come. I like to make up stories to tell my nephews when they’re in town. They seem to like them.”
“Nephews? You have more than one?” The young woman asked without noticing her slip.
“Sure do,” Lucius replied, equally unaware. “And a niece. My big sister has two boys and my eldest brother has a daughter.”
Proserpina sat down beside him. "How many brothers have you got?" she asked.
“I’m the second youngest of five. It is the best thing in the world and the worst thing in the world. They drive me mad, but they’re always there when I need them.”
“Sounds nice,” Proserpina murmured, allowing the water to still until the pebbly bed disappeared and was replaced with her delicate pale face.
Lucius dropped his face so that his dark hair fell in his eyes. As he looked at her again, his brow suddenly furrowed. He asked, "Why are your eyes like that?"
"Like...like what?" she stammered.
He touched her cheek with one hand and gently raised her face so that the sunlight fell on it more directly. "Yes, they are," he said to himself, and then to her, "They're slit, not like human eyes. They look like cat eyes."
"They are?" She hadn't noticed. What did it mean?
"Yes. Why?"
"I don't know." She dashed one foot in the icy water.
“You don’t like talking about yourself, do you?”
“Not those kind of questions.”
“Okay, different kind of question.” The young man rested his chin on his palm and, drumming his fingers against his cheek, pondered. “All right. How about… what is the scariest thing that has ever happened to you?”
“Now that is a good question.” Proserpina sank into a deep muse. It was a minute or two before she spoke. “It was a little more than a year ago. I was walking in the woods a few miles to the west of here. It was dark. All this was normal, for I used to spend all the time I could in the forest, and much of that was at night. But then I felt it. The ground was trembling. It started ever so slightly that I almost could not feel it, but it grew stronger and stronger, and I realized that something was approaching.
“I climbed the first tree I touched. I could now hear galloping feet, and in another moment, clanking as of gear and harness. Then I saw them. I had heard about them, but to see them with my own eyes was more terrifying than I can describe. It was Noctanus’ wolf army. They were larger than ordinary wolves and nearly black, decked out for war. I saw the moonlight glint off of their gear. They streamed by beneath me, on both sides of the tree where I perched, and I lay along the branch, trying to make myself as small as possible. It took nearly an hour for them all to pass. After that, it was nearly another hour before I dared to climb down. I found the ground all churned up and covered with paw prints. I do not know where they were going. For some reason, that night, Noctanus decided to send his wolves through our forest.”
"Noctanus," murmured Lucius. "That must have been terrifying. We hear of him, but even though we are on the road to the mountains, Laneum has never been in danger, for which we are glad."
"Let's not speak any more of such things," said Proserpina. "It's hard to worry about evil magicians on a sunny spring afternoon. Come, let's have another story."
Lucius pondered and decided. "You've got me in mind of scary things. All right, I've got one. There was this man who fell in love with the most beautiful woman with bright gold eyes. Her eyes were beautiful and unusual, but she had an eerie laugh. It was almost inhuman. An old seer warned him not to marry her, that only death and destruction would come of it, but he put no stock in the seer's words, for he was not superstitious and he was deeply in love. Once he married her, he found that she ate scarcely anything, only a bite or two at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and yet she was still full and shapely. He asked her why she ate nothing, but she would only reply that she was not hungry. One night, he woke to find that she was not beside him. In the morning, she was back. That was strange, so the next night, he pretended to be asleep and found that, late in the night, she rose and left. Before the sun rose, she returned. The next night, he did the same thing, and when she rose, he followed her. She left the house. He followed her. She left the village. He followed her. She walked out into the wild, and there she found a pack of hyenas ravenously feasting on a kill. She crouched down and joined them, ravenously ripping into the meat with her mouth. He was horrified and he ran back home and pretended to be asleep when she returned. The next day, he told her, 'You have lied to me. You feigned to be human, but you are really a chimaera: a human on the outside, but a hyena on the inside. You are the foulest sort of monster...'"
Proserpina had risen and was backing away from him, horrified. "Oh, come on," he pleaded her. "I didn't mean to scare you. It's just a story..."
She ran away.
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
Yeah, thanks for pointing out some of that. Falman's using an audio recorder by the way.
And yes, Falman and Freeman are a set of mix and match references. Mess with their names a bit and you get Gordon Freeman and Warrant Officer Falman.
On to your work, good sir. I can't really find anything wrong with it except for one or two nitpicks:
- “I believe so, unless there is a hidden part that you can’t find unless you’ve already been there.”
This seems a little awkward. It's a little flow-breaking, lowering the joke's overall effectiveness. How about "Perhaps, but even small towns can have big secrets, right?"
- The wolf army. This might just be a case of me needing more background but are they wolves or lycanthropes? Armored wolves seem a little strange.
- The little tale at the end. Is this referring to your main character? Perhaps make it a little less literal and a little more metaphorical. It works as is, but it's almost like he's reading her mind.
edited 12th Jun '10 10:56:30 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Also known as Katz
And yes, Falman and Freeman are a set of mix and match references. Mess with their names a bit and you get Gordon Freeman and Warrant Officer Falman.The wolf army. This might just be a case of me needing more background but are they wolves or lycanthropes? Armored wolves seem a little strange.Perhaps make it a little less literal and a little more metaphorical.
Maybe a bit too much internal monologue from the cat? There's not a ton, but IMHO it's best to remain strongly third person with creatures that are not actually intelligent (if the cat is supposed to be actually intelligent, ignore this).It's a cat. Of course it's intelligent. Maybe not as much as you or I, especially considering it's not domesticated, but it's still a cat.
(ie, "The tree was lush, being close to the river, even one reduced to rolling-mud.")I don't see how this sentence is an example of what you say. There's nothing unnecessary here. It explains that the tree is lush because it is close to a river. It further explains that the tree is still lush even though this river has been reduced to some mud via evaporation.
"It too was black as the space between the stars at night, with no such sparks of light within"I don't think this one is unnecessary either. While it repeats the phrase from earlier, it also sets up a contrast for the cat creating the sparks of light.
What exactly is this light and where does it come from? The tree is defined as being magical, but the cat isn't, and we don't get any idea of where the magic comes from except from the darkness itself, which doesn't make sense.This is a mythological folk tale. Specifically a "why something is how it is" myth. Most everything is magical in some fashion in such stories. Especially those things the story focuses on.
However I am reminded of how I should go and post the updated version of the story I made after replying to Mammalsauce's critique.
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
@jeweled: I assume your character is the same creature as is described in the tale? Change it to something else, like a vampire, or maybe something vague, like monster or demon. Being called a monster always has negative psychological effects on people.
Next segment is here, please critique:
March 27, 2010, 7:08
We had to leave Private Ricky behind. Sniveling little bastard refused to move. He kept on repeating that same noises story he told me last night. He was beginning to get under my men’s skin and since it was unlikely that we could get him to budge without resorting to the use of force, we left him behind.
We headed deeper into the cave through what initially appeared to be a wide opening but slowly tapered down into a crisscrossing of small tunnels. We have had to go through one man at a time, which has drastically slowed progress. I can only hope that we’ll be able to find another exit before we run out of food. Cease recording.
March 27, 2010, 11:09
We may have stumbled upon something a little… disturbing. Around 0900, we lost contact with Private Ricky, who we’d been keeping an eye on with the walkies we’d been given. We tried to contact him multiple times; every attempt was met with absolutely no response. We have no damn clue about what happened to the kid.
But what came as a real surprise is what we found after. We backtracked, to see if he’d decided to trek ahead after all. After a certain distance, it became both impractical and near impossible to continue forward. It was about then that Corporal Jenkins saw what he called, “a dull sparkle”. After a little digging, he removed a set of dog tags from between a few small rocks. At first we thought they belonged to Private Ricky. Closer inspection revealed that either Ricky was a time-traveling robot or someone had been here before us. A long time before us. Twenty-five years to be precise.
Not only that, but the dog tags belonged to a number of soldiers. Captain Leon Marx, Second Lieutenant Gary Bradford and First Lieutenant Patrick Erikson. Why the hell would these be here? Have other soldiers been trapped down here as well? And if so, why hasn’t the military shut this site down? I have no clue what’s going on. Falman out.
March 27, 2010, 13:29
Officer Winters has fractured his ankle in a hole, further slowing progress. I’ve told him to put on a brave face for the guys, to pretend like it doesn’t hurt. While the effect may be small, we cannot have them losing their morale now. They’re wrecks as it is. To think, trained soldiers, some of which have even seen heavy combat before, caving in like this. Caving in. Haha. Oh god, we’ve got to get out of here. Even I’m starting to lose it. Cease recording.
March 27, 2010, 16:34
We’ve made camp by a small underground pool. The luminescence of the cave life combined with the water has given us a brief reprieve from our energy usage. And the pools offer a practical buffet line of the shrimp I mentioned earlier. Without any means of making fire, we’ve had to eat them raw. Still, no complaints. Thing may be… Wait, what? What’s going on? Jenkins! What’s going on? Jenkins report-
March 27, 2010, 20:12
We’ve lost Jenkins. To who or what, we’re not certain. All we know is he’s dead. Seeing a severed head loll about like a deranged soccer ball would give one that impression. Goddamit. Goddamit. Goddamit! First the cave in, now this! What the hell got to him? The freakin’ shrimp?! This is… you know what? Screw it!
March 28, 2010, 03:19
I’m starting to hear it too now. The scuttling sounds. They’re right. That ain’t no shrimp.
I’m still replaying his death over and over again in my head. No matter how many times I try, I can’t seem to forget. His head, bleeding like a leaking balloon, the eyes bulging out, his face so twisted with fear it didn’t even look human. I’d heard the stories of stuff like this from the vets but I never knew what they were talking about until now. Poor sonuvabitch is gonna have to be buried in a soupcan.
Winters is taking it hard. He was Jenkins' pal. They joined the corps together, or so he told me. He's been sitting over in a corner for over an hour now. He keeps mumbling about how it should've been him. I'm afraid I've just lost another one of my men.
edited 13th Jun '10 9:03:42 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Also known as Katz
Heh, my prediction was...totally wrong. The story continues to be intriguing. Moving on:
Sniveling little bastardbefore we run out of foodthe walkies we’d been givenboth impractical and near impossibleeither Ricky was a time-traveling robotTwenty-five years to be precise.some of which16:34...20:12Keep it coming!
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
@jeweled: Impractical and impossible meant it would be difficult to continue and wouldn't be anywhere near worth the effort. Besides, nobody really liked Ricky.
The Terminator joke was a little iffy but it can always be removed.
As for the powerbars, it was more of a snack to hold them over for six hours. They obviously didn't expect this. Still, maybe half a sandwich would be better.
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Also known as Katz
A powerbar is a perfectly reasonable snack for a 5-hour exercise; it's just that it's such a trivial amount of food for the length of time they've been down there that I would expect the mentality to be less "we'll be out of food soon" and more "we're already out of food." Heck, they could easily have eaten the power bars before the cave-in, or while initially waiting for rescue.
Of course, if that's the biggest problem to be resolved, you're in great shape.
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
I don't know much about the Marines and the military but I assumed rationing whatever food they may have would be the first thing they'd do in an event like this.
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Just popping in to say that this is the standard information found on the vast majority of dog tags:
- Some combination of Last name, and First name+Middle Initial
- Identification Number (Social Security Number/National Insurance Number/etc)
- Blood Type
- Religion
- Branch and/or Division
So, no ranks or birthdates. This information I got from searching the net, but for rationing you probably will have to ask someone in the military as I haven't come up with much information at all.
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
Ah, thanks. Still, it has the same effect. And giving the time some ambiguity will help conceal the mystery.
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Also known as Katz
They can just be rusty or generally old looking to give a sense of time.
You could also make Faldman or someone with him a military history buff who could be all like "That design was discontinued in the year nineteen blanky-blank," but given the brevity of your prose, that seems iffy and superfluous.
For that matter, the simple fact that they don't belong to Ricky or anyone else in the group makes it obvious that other people were there earlier—although, without any time indication, Falman might think it was very recent and the other people were still in there.
PARTY PARTY PARTY I WANNA HAVE A PARTY
Yeah, I was thinking dirty, rusty and maybe a little bent, to indicate both age and a bit of wear.
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial
Also known as Katz
There you go. It's even a wet cave, so there's a good reason for them to be rusty.
edited 19th Jun '10 3:58:27 PM by QQQQQ
The Titleless
I'm assuming, since the above post is blank, that I can post a work? It's the first half a what's basically a two-chapter prolouge.
My name is Felix. I took the name because I like cats, and people say I have nine lives with my luck. I don’t have a last name, because I’m an orphan. Even though I’m an orphan, I have a sister, and a family. My sister is part of my family: the Paladins.
The Paladins are an organization of warriors. Each of us is given our uniform upon graduating from training in the capitol. It consists of a light metal breastplate, bracers, grieves, pauldrons, and boots. Other equipment we’re given includes two swords with knuckleguards, an extremely heavy blue cloak that many consider our defining characteristic- for many reasons-, and a tri-fold hat. All in all, most of us look similar to nobles in the end, yet are distinguishable from everyone else.
Next you might ask what why there is a large group of warriors. Truthfully, no matter how much the higher-ups try to conceal it and recruit people with light-based Gifts, we’re bounty hunters. Sure, some of us do hunt down Grade-A psychotic take-over-the-world villains that are a threat, and most of us hunt down criminals with sizable bounties, but on your first year, we are restricted to little more than fetching cats for old ladies and collecting rent from stubborn tenants.
Not that I have a problem with cats, but I can’t wait for my first year to end in a month.
“So,” I said to myself, “my last job as a newbie is a small-time crook in the town of De Mood. De Mood? The Mood? Is that what it means?”
At that moment, a massive gust of wind and snow brought me back from reading the slip of paper and I wrapped my cloak around myself tighter. After a few years down south in the capitol for training and minor jobs, I’d forgotten how cold it could be up here.
Soon I heard children laughing, no doubt playing in the snow. Barely and inch and they’re already shirking from their chores! Good kids, I say. Better to have fun when you’re young then be unable to when you’re old. I was barely of age, around sixteen years, and I had learned quickly that you don’t shirk work as a Paladin. Not after the first time you try, at least.
The town came into view quickly after that, and, surely enough, there were about ten kids jumping around in the snow, laughing and rubbing their hands for warmth when they remembered to. One dark-haired boy, around ten by my guess, walked up.
“Are you a Paladin?” he asked, awed by my uniform and weapons. Knowing boys, it was probably mostly the weapons.
“Yes, lad. A Paladin who needs to remember more layers up here in the north!”
“Whoa!” the boy said, and yelled to the others. “Hey, guys! The Paladin’s here!”
The children quickly converged on me, asking me what it was like to be a Paladin and if I had swords or if they could use them. It looked like they were attacking me from all sides, and more than once I had to grab one of my swords that they tried to slip from its sheath. It stopped when the first boy was hit with a snowball. He turned around, and a little blonde girl about his age smiled sweetly.
“Nico got hit by a girl!” a few kids yelled, and the group was suddenly divided into two groups, one of boys and one of girls, all throwing snowballs back and forth playfully.
The girl then popped up right next to me.
“You’re welcome,” she said. “My brother gets carried away some times. Our elder is waiting for you in the village.” With that, she rejoined the other kids.
I walked into the small village and quickly found the elder’s house.
“’Elder’s House’,” I read from the sign. “I wonder whose house this is?”
The door opened, and there was a man of around forty standing there. “Come in,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
“You’re the elder?” I asked, surprised. This man didn’t seem… elderly enough.
“You’d be surprised how many people ask that. The title ‘elder’ is more of a mayoral position in this town nowadays. Our last elderly elder went a little crazy and put us in some hard times, so we changed the system.”
He gestured for me to come in again, so I did. Looking him over, he was a tall, strong man, tanned, a rarity in the northern winter, and, again, around forty. He was bald, had a deep, commanding voice and piercing eyes that I couldn’t bring myself to look into. He seemed a natural leader, and my preconceptions faded.
We sat down at a table, across from each other, and he began to talk. “You know that we have had trouble with a criminal. He has killed three people and stolen enough to starve at least four more families. While that may not seem like much to you, that’s about a tenth of our population here in De Mood. That would be a major emergency to you, so I would like for you to treat it as such.”
“Don’t worry, sir, I grew up here in the North. I know how it is.”
“Do you, now?” he asked, curious, but stopped. “Well, we can trade stories later, if you have any. The crook wears a distinct hooded cloak, and seems to have some form of armor on him, though we can’t tell what kind- our guardsman never got close enough to tell before the crook disappeared.”
“You only have a single guardsman?” I asked. “No, I take that back. You probably only have one person that knows how to use a weapon and doesn’t have an important position. But your report said he, or someone resembling him, was seen heading out to the hills to the east.”
“Yes, we believe he is stockpiling for a journey south, to bigger cities. If he escapes-”
“Stop! Thief!” someone cried from outside. I was almost instantly out of the house, a sword in each hand.
The apparent thief was covered by a pitch-black cloak and running away. Fast. Sheathing my swords so I didn’t skewer any bystanders, I ran after him.
He went around a building, into an dead-end alley, and jumped onto a wall, grasping at the loose bricks near the top; he knew the city well. And, because of my gear, he was moving faster than me.
I ran back out into the street, watching the roofs for him. The pedestrians knew to get out of a Paladin’s way, and plenty of them followed me, ready to attack the thief when I caught him.
Suddenly, the thief leaped off the building towards me. I ducked instinctively, and he landed to my left, rolled, and disappeared into the shadows. Literally. He wasn’t there anymore- he must have a Gift of some kind. The mob following me didn’t catch this as fast as me- they turned about, looking for their target.
Then the thief was on me again, from behind me. He put a knife to my throat and yelled, “If anyone moves, the Paladin dies!”
Now, while I’m sure that, given a second or two more, the crowd would have attacked anyway, but the thief dragged me into the shadow of a building and out of a shadow inside a house- this was his gift, apparently. Did it have limits? How dark did the shadow have to be? How far apart could they be? These were the main questions that flooded my head, but one more was answered: Could he move other objects or people? Yes. I was here, along with my equipment and clothes.
The thief kindly removed his knife from my throat, but took my sabers as well. He set them all down on a table, and pulled back his hood. I’d say that he looked like he could have been my cousin, but that’s a given for towns near each other up north. Not many people come through, so there’s little difference between towns.
What the thief didn’t look like was well-fed, happy, sick of the town, so on and so forth. This guy wasn’t the thief I was looking for, or even probably a thief. People have a tendency to call people who walk around in black cloaks and brush against you thieves.
“The thief is the Elder.”.
—-
I'll post the second part after I'm done writing it. Thanks in advance.
Hey look!. Yu-Gi-Oh meets wrasslin'!
Also known as Katz
Sorry this thread has been so dead. I was hoping that other people would pick up with the editing a little (especially since not everyone is a fan of my find-fault-with-every-single-line approach), but apparently that's not happening. I'll get back on it in a bit.
Rock On
Everybody can relax, DrRockopolis is here now!
- I figured I should bite the bullet and try this whole creativity thing. I'll reserve a critique for later, if you don't mind.
SarcasticallyInsane
Actually pretty good.
- A few grammatical/spelling goofs;
- Grieves=/=Greaves; the first is what you do when you're sad, the second keeps you from getting your shins kicked in.
- What do you mean by "...look noble, yet distinguishable from everyone else."?
- Hardly and inch->hardly an inch
- A couple of your sentences/paragraphs do drag.
- And yes, I do feel bad about saying that, because I know I'm going to have that problem in whatever I decide to write. No doubt, it will be worse than yours.
- "laughing and rubbing their hands for warmth when they remembered to", the second part is rather awkward. Do you need it? Can you rephrase it?
- You might try adding it to the next sentence; "A young boy, rubbing his hands for warmth, walked up to me and asked..."
- It feels like there should be a slightly better way to phrase the equipment list and the description of the Paladins; they just feel slightly off, compared to the rest of the work, but I can't put my finger on it. I think it's the listing thing; it's jarring.
- Maybe, keeping in your tone; "I'm a Paladin; sounds grand, but really, no matter what the higher ups say, we're just bounty hunters...The blue cloak and tri-fold hat make for a distinctive uniform, as do the trademark two swords...We might stop Grade-A Take Over the World nuts every once in a while, but that's a long way off for a rookie like me; I'm usually rescuing cats or collecting debts. Not that there's anything wrong with cats..."
- The thief..."He didn't look well fed, but beyond that, he didn't seem to disgruntled."
- I'm not sure how Felix knows right away that it's not the thief.
- "He disarmed me, and laid my sabers on the table. He laid his knife down, too, then drew back his hood..."
- I do have to wonder, killing three people and stealing that much food isn't that minor, no matter where you are; are you sure they'd send a lone rookie to do that?
You do a good job of setting atmosphere, making the story almost conversational/like a tale told by a campfire. Interesting twist, too.
By the way, what is a tri-fold hat? A Tricorne
?
- Napoleonic Samurai? Kickass.
MY PARENTS ARE DEAD! But I still have a family; my sister, and the Paladins.
edited 20th Jun '10 7:30:44 PM by DrRockopolis
[[tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=12919183980B30760200 Liveblog of]] John Carter Of Mars
The Titleless
Thanks, I'll break down your break down now.
Actually pretty good.// A few grammatical/spelling goofs;
- Grieves=/=Greaves; the first is what you do when you're sad, the second keeps you from getting your shins kicked in.
- DAMN SPELLCHECK. I looked past that, thanks...
- What do you mean by "...look noble, yet distinguishable from everyone else."?
- They look upper-class, but they are pretty easy to pick out in a crowd.
- Hardly and inch->hardly an inch
- Damn AUTO-SPELL CHECK.
- A couple of your sentences/paragraphs do drag.
- And yes, I do feel bad about saying that, because I know I'm going to have that problem in whatever I decide to write. No doubt, it will be worse than yours.
- I know. I'm working on it.
- And yes, I do feel bad about saying that, because I know I'm going to have that problem in whatever I decide to write. No doubt, it will be worse than yours.
- "laughing and rubbing their hands for warmth when they remembered to", the second part is rather awkward. Do you need it? Can you rephrase it? //
- Well, it's like the kids are having so much fun, they forget they're cold until they stop for a second; they'll quickly start trying to get warm again.
- It feels like there should be a slightly better way to phrase the equipment list and the description of the Paladins; they just feel slightly off, compared to the rest of the work, but I can't put my finger on it. I think it's the listing thing; it's jarring.
- I know, and I keep going over it in my head, trying to fix it.
- Maybe, keeping in your tone; "I'm a Paladin; sounds grand, but really, no matter what the higher ups say, we're just bounty hunters...The blue cloak and tri-fold hat make for a distinctive uniform, as do the trademark two swords...We might stop Grade-A Take Over The World nuts every once in a while, but that's a long way off for a rookie like me; I'm usually rescuing cats or collecting debts. Not that there's anything wrong with cats..."
- 99% of that sounds EPIC. Thank you. I will adopt some of that in.
- The thief..."He didn't look well fed, but beyond that, he didn't seem to disgruntled."
- I'm not sure how Felix knows right away that it's not the thief.
- Felix is from up north: he's seen thieves before. They don't steal a bunch and then do nothing with it; stolen food is eaten, stolen clothes are worn. The north is basically a snow-poor wasteland.
- "He disarmed me, and laid my sabers on the table. He laid his knife down, too, then drew back his hood..."
- I do have to wonder, killing three people and stealing that much food isn't that minor, no matter where you are; are you sure they'd send a lone rookie to do that?
- While Felix trys to make it sound minor, he's really ecstatic about his first 'real' mission. And being a rookie, he has the Gift of Luck (though he doesn't know this)- you have to work very, very, very hard to make bad things happen to him.
You do a good job of setting atmosphere, making the story almost conversational/like a tale told by a campfire. Interesting twist, too.
By the way, what is a tri-fold hat? A Tricorne?
- Sorta, I guess.
Napoleonic Samurai? Kickass.
MY PARENTS ARE DEAD! But I still have a family; my sister, and the Paladins.
- Never knowing your parents kinda takes the blow away from it, and his sister isn't biological (but just as badass as him- she's a Barrier Maiden who can attack with the barriers). Though the rest of the rewritten sentence sounds BA.
THANK YOU. Do you have any comments about my comments on your comments?
Hey look!. Yu-Gi-Oh meets wrasslin'!
...So is the floor open or something?
Whatever, I'll just go. Original fiction, but I'm not going to give the title because that's a spoiler.
He hadn't seen the sun in... he didn't even know how long. It felt like weeks, but he knew very well it could've barely been a day. The only real way to guage time was by approxomating given the hours his meals would be shoved through a slat in the door.
He sat in the corner, sort of. The room was so small he already took up almost all of the space just standing up. Scratching his beard (coming along nicely - maybe he really had been locked up for weeks), he tried to occupy his mind despite knowing for a fact he would be unsuccessful. A man in prison has one thing in his life: time. But therein lies the torturous aspect of incarceration - nothing but time and nothing to do with it. Stuck in a cramped, dark space with barely enough room to breathe... nobody could be expected to distract themselves in this situation. Nobody. Especially a screw-up like him.
In the corners of his mind he dimly reminded himself of his life, such as it was. As if through a foggy window, he saw it all. Slap-happy pops and put-upon mom, dropping out and working in a steel mill at 17... just before all this business he'd started reading pulp novels and discovered he was a walking cliche. Then this happened. All of a sudden he was important. He got lucky, he got responsibility, and he demonstrated why that was a stupid, stupid thing to give him. But his life wasn't important. Because at the moment, he didn't have one. As far as he was concerned, he was with his boys and they forgot to bury his body. That's all he felt like, at least. A useless slab of meat, no brain, no feeling, just stinking up the joint.
This thought process, which he ran through virtually every day (or whatever he could figure was a day), lasted either several hours or a few minutes. There's really no way for him to know. But this time... this time. This time something interrupted him. This time he heard something, he saw something... and for the first time in a long time, he felt something.
A flash of yellow orange lights and black solid bits burst past the bars on his door. A loud, booming noise accompanied this. If he were in better sorts he probably would have remembered that's what is commonly known as an explosion. He heard voices. Voices saying things he could actually understand for once.
There was a sound at his door. The key! For fuck's sake, he was going to get out! The door flung open, and he couldn't have erupted out of there faster if he was greased lightning. Faces... unfamiliar faces, but the uniforms were unmistakable. One of them helped him get up and very matter of factly stated, "Sgt. Leland Swagger? Good to have you aboard. Welcome to Combat Company."
Also known as Katz
"They look upper-class, but they are pretty easy to pick out in a crowd."
The 'but' is what's hanging you up here. Upper-class-looking people already stand out in a crowd, since you rarely see a crowd of upper-class people. To say that they would stand out from an upper-class group (say, at the opera), say...well, what I just said, except so it sounds good.
Your two mentions of cats are colliding. He says he likes cats in p.1, but doesn't mind them in p.2. I realize those don't conflict per se, but it's weird to have two unrelated mentions so close together. Remove one or link them (ie, "fetching cats...but, like I said, I like cats.") Of course that makes it sound rather like he's a paladin *because* he likes fetching cats, so maybe that's not the way to go.
Like I say to everyone, look for words you can remove while still saying the same thing. For instance, "no doubt playing in the snow" isn't necessary. You can just say "Soon I heard children laughing. Barely an inch of snow and they're already..." etc. Snow is implied in that paragraph and verified in the next.
Another example: "I walked into the small village and quickly found the elder's house. 'Elder's House,' I read from the sign." Obviously redundant. In this case, I'd suggest you put in a little description. You're good at describing how people act and what they're doing, but you don't put in much about your surroundings. You can say "...found a stately red brick house," or whatever it looks like.
Grammatically: Maybe your formatting is just getting lost in the copying, but don't use single hyphens as dashes. Hyphens are for hyphenated words; dashes are for cut-off sentences, clauses, and the like. Use a double hyphen and Word will replace it with a dash.
P.S. The tag for making a WikiWord not act like a Wiki Word is [ = Wiki Word = ] (without the spaces).
edited 20th Jun '10 11:05:02 PM by jewelleddragon
Also known as Katz
Eponymous Kid: As per the rules of this thread, please comment on someone else's piece before posting your own. Then we'll be happy to look at it.
I will say however, that if you can't tell us the title because it would be a spoiler, it shouldn't be the title.
Well, I finally decided to take a crack at writing a full piece, mainly a short story. This is the first, completely unedited section of the story. Please proceed to tear it apart like no tomorrow.
The Experiment
March 26, 2010, 15:10 This is First Lieutenant Gordon Falman of the US Marine Corps. Today at o’ eight hundred hours, a crew consisting of five other officers and myself embarked on a routine exercise to a remote cave system rented out by the military for private use. The object of the exercise was to further hone our survival and navigational skills under pressure. We were each to be provided with one flashlight, a small canteen and a powerbar, which we would have to make last until we exited the cave. The intended goal was to in the cave at noon and out again by o’ six hundred this evening.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like that will be possible. One hour after our entrance into the cave, approximately twelve hundred meters in, we experienced a small cave-in. The rocks, while easy to lift with enough manpower, were too numerous and large for us to lift with only six men. It is our hope that upon the passing of the deadline, our superiors will take note of our absence and send in a search party. Until then, we will have to make due with our limited supplies. In order to conserve battery power, I will now cease recording.
March 26, 2010, 20:23 Our deadline has come and gone; hopefully by now they will have sent out a search team to look for us. This will come as a great relief to Private Ricky, who has been making an unholy racket since the cave-in. Poor greenhorn’s scared shitless. The same goes for every bat in a one-mile radius.
Still, we have to think ahead and prepare for the possibility that rescue may not come in time. We may have to consider moving ahead to try and find another exit, if one exists. We’ve already rationed our bars and Jenkins has mapped out our total battery life so we can further ration power. Seeing as I have come to the limit of my allotted recording time, I am now ceasing recording.
March 27, 2010, 4:07
I believe the time has come to move on. The cave in was relatively small, unless the military feels like dragging its feet today, we should seriously consider the possibility that we have been forgotten, or perhaps abandoned. Many of my men are going stir crazy. Just a few hours ago, Private Ricky came to me scared out of his mind over some weird noises he heard. Noises he supposedly couldn’t identify. Despite his frantic state, he was candid enough to say it sounded like scuttling. Upon further investigation, I discovered that the only noise was that of a species of sightless shrimp dwelling in the cave. Despite this conclusion, Warrant Officer Freeman came to me no more than two hours later with the same claim. He too looked like he had gotten up from the toilet and saw a pound of bricks in the bowl. I don’t know how much longer it will be before others start to imagine things like those two.
I plan to tell the men about this decision when the sun rises in the outside world, at approximately o’ six hundred hours. Until then, this is First Lieutenant Gordon Falman signing off.
edited 12th Jun '10 6:45:38 PM by KSPAM
I've got new mythological machinery, and very handsome supernatural scenery. Goodfae: a mafia web serial