I've been begging for a critique on [1]
(Well, not one from not-AHR)
edited 27th Apr '11 5:30:26 AM by SalFishFin
Deathjavu, glad to help! Thanks for taking the critique to heart, but not too hard. (Pun!)
If you're looking for ways to practice scene building, try some simple sketch exercises. Pick a random object, location, or person and give yourself three minutes to write as thorough a description as you can of it. Include visual, sensory, emotive description— basically, everything you think is important about that person/thing/place. By "sketching" scenes like that, you'll build up the ability to establish scene quickly but well.
The main reason I posted the version of the thing I wanted critiqued wasn't that THAT was what I wanted to go with.
The original version of the think I posted, Ronka, was far more raw and stream of consciousnessey, and in addition to seeing whether my self-editing was working I figured on a TV Tropes thread like this one, the MC's clearly Image Boards affected mindset (which the book attempts to parody) might be a bit too sweary Mc Gee for the critiques thread. Even though his dialect of coarse language is an amalgamation of a lot of trolls I've seen on the internet, which is the subject of the book itself.
My problem is that I somehow manage to get the whole book written, but what comes out of the head of mine is more cerebrally weird than what you'd get while reading The Catcher In The Rye listening to Dylan and the Dead. I've been trying to edit myself for a long time, but at this point I can't even tell whether my attempts at making things less infodumpy are making it even worse than it already was.
Help me Ronka, you're my only hope.
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@Sal Fin, your fiction at the very least does not resemble the tangled mess of content mine is right now. I have to say, it had a consistent tone and I understood what was going on. Apart from me not being able to know if this is a Pokemon fanfic or not, gahhh, my brain is very frazzled right now and I don't really know what I can do except nap. Be aware if I was in a clearer state of mind not drugged up on cold tablets for my sniffles, I could give you a critique that wouldn't sound like a misinformed version of Hunter S. Thompson.
edited 28th Apr '11 12:17:36 AM by NewGeekPhilosopher
Hell Hasn't Earned My TearsI'd like criticism for my story
. 8k words; Cyberpunk/neo-Noir story. Main concerns are whether it qualifies as cyberpunk or noir, if the story flows right, and if I show more than tell. Looking for constructive criticism.
English Major
- It's polite to critique someone else's stuff first.
- You mention San Diego every chance you get in the first few paragraphs. We got it the first time. Trust me. Also, if you wanted a Californian Wretched Hive, why San Diego?
- You tell rather than show. A lot. "These two characters are in a COMMITTED RELATIONSHIP" rather than "Sera smiled and took Jessie's hand as they went down the stairs. Eighteen flights later, they left the building still holding hands." Or, "Rosa was beside herself with grief" rather than "Rosa wrapped her arms around herself and sobbed as the body of a young blonde girl was presented to her in the morgue". Or, "The next morning they got a call from Gabe" rather than, y'know, "The phone rang, Jessie picked it up, Oh hey there" "Blah blah blah blah!" "BLAH?!" "Blah?" "Blah blah blah blah!" and so on.
- At several points, you use "thru" instead of "through", which completely kills any mood.
- The mention of Sera's cybernetic parts and angst regarding them can be cut entirely, as it has no effect on the plot. I would say a definite Noir.
- Her love life can be cut as well. It seems to be there to provide an excuse for lack of angst, clumsy flirtatious banter, and a few glimmers of humor that only serve to weaken the plot's impact rather than underscore drama or provide a little breathing room for the reader.
- It's a pretty standard plotline with pretty standard concepts and pretty standard writing and pretty standard flow. You could have done better integrating cyberpunk into the Noir setting. Not terrible by any means, but not stellar either. I'd give this a C+.
So I wrote this in an hour, it is not finished.
Closer To Home
If Avern had been in the same position as her boss (boyfriend? It sure feels like he'd just been witness to a messy breakup), he would have killed himself too.
His eyes twitch in their sockets, uncontrollably. He looks over his shoulder, or tries to, until his stomach churns and all his muscles go limp.
"My head," he moans, slumping forward onto his knees. The ground below him is gray, then red all of a sudden, splotches of it. He blinks, and when he opens his eyes the girl is peering into his face, holding his jaw in her small, delicate, vaguely damp and utterly female hands. And Avern feels a lot better, actually. There's a wet bandanna or something tied around his head.
"I gave you a potion," she tells him. "Can you stand?"
Avern tries, and succeeds. Barely. The girl stays kneeling, eyes on the ground, and doesn't show signs of getting up. But when he moves forward she is suddenly at his side, holding onto his forearm. Surprisingly strong for a short little stick.
"They're... not following us?"
"They might be," she says, a little shortly. "I can't see them, but... that doesn't mean anything..."
When Avern opens his eyes again, he is lying on something soft, with a white ceiling above him and a dim light to the side. Small, slender, blonde figure in the corner of his vision, moving slowly and quietly. Heaven?
"Not quite."
The girl. The girl whose name he doesn't know. Who saved him, for some reason. There is always a reason, and if it was strong enough to—
"My name is Rebecca."
"Am I talking?" Avern's voice sounds as a croak, shattering any illusions of heaven more thoroughly than any 'no'. "It doesn't feel like I've been talking."
"No wonder you're reported so often. Can't keep your thoughts to yourself."
"No, dammit—" Thoughts shoved into a corner of his brain. Mostly. As best as possible... "I totally can."
"Yeah, you can." Rebecca (he repeats it firmly) sighs. "Sorry. I'm too used to hearing you get insulted by someone on my team, I guess. Also you just woke up."
"What?"
"What's your name?"
"Avern... Kinsley."
She stares at him, as if he was the one who changed the subject out of nowhere.
"I don't have your records, so I'll assume you are not thinking straight enough to lie. In case you didn't remember, Avern Kinsley, we used to be on opposite sides."
"No, I know that. But waking up?"
Rebecca picks up a chair and sets it next to the bed. Then she puts a hand on Avern's shoulder and holds him in place while a bowl lifts itself off the desk in the middle of the room and moves to hover next to her elbow. It smells like... bleach, but more planty. As Avern had feared, she takes a rag out of the bowl and wrings it out before applying it to his head, where it burns against his blood like proper whisky.
"When you're asleep, or waking up," Rebecca tells him in-between his stifled yelps of pain, "You're not alert enough to do much in terms of mental defense. It's like your muscles. Takes a while to shake the lead out of your feet, takes a while to clear the fog out of your brain."
"Why—are—you—doing—this?"
"Because your hair blocked some of the potion from getting to the lower contusions on your skull."
"No—this." Avern yanks out of the reach of her dabbing arm and gestures to the comfortable wicker chairs, pristine cotton sheets he just now realizes he is on top of rather than under, the sheer suburban quiet. "No hospital, you're patching me up yourself, you saved my life and probably ruined your teams plans to catch me forever—"
"Well, I'm not doing it for you." Avern has only known Rebecca for a few minutes, but damned if rejection doesn't sting like a bitch. After more ominous trickling sounds she pushes him into a prone position and opens his shirt, where she continues to apply liquid fire to his open wounds. It's so distracting Avern almost misses the next thing she says: "I save a lot of people's lives."
"Oh. You're the healer."
And here Avern was thinking she led some sort of secret rebellious life, when actually it was just more convenient to drag him to her house instead of some hospital deeper in the city. Where they'd have to fill out forms and shit. A wave of sarcasm washes over him. Scintillating conversation there, he thinks—except he doesn't know what "scintillating" means, and also: it isn't his own voice he hears. It's—
Another sigh and the desire to make a snarky comment is cut off. "Sorry. I'm in a bad mood."
That's a frightening thought, the woman who has his life in her hands feeling ornery. "Are you going to turn me in?"
"Oh... I don't know."
"What? Why?" It's always the quiet ones.
"Well. This thing with our fearless and morally upright leader about to kill his archnemesis, and me saving you instead, that's the sort of thing that causes a schism."
Words. Hard words that he has probably only heard once or twice in his life, during some class he didn't bother to pay attention to. Even normally, he's not the person to go to when the urge for a sophisticated chat comes along—but right now, Avern has not quite recovered from a blow to the head and he has not had breakfast. Or, come to think of it, last night's dinner either. On cue, his stomach growls.
"Ow."
Another bowl, steaming, drifts into Rebecca's hands. Avern is torn between having his pride wounded at being fed like a sick little kid, and how incredibly weak he feels at the scent of homemade chicken soup. But instead of feeding him, Rebecca props him up and puts the bowl into his hands, then she gets up and walks out of the room, looking over her shoulder at the doorway.
"Try not to spill anything."
edited 1st May '11 11:26:54 AM by Leradny
This is not a full criticism so somebody else weigh in on this too.
Leradny
Excellent piece, the pacing was especially good. First off the bad: Some awkwardly phrased sentences and superfluous dialgoue ("Another sigh and the desire to make a snarky comment is cut off" strikes me as one), but this is mostly just cosmetic.
The good: the pacing, how you as a writer slowly handfeed the reader more detail about the story. It's a tried and true method of gaining our curiosity about this world and adds just enough mystery for us to keep reading. Who is he? Who is she? Who is her fearless leader and why are they on different sides?
I would like to know more about the setting.
edited 1st May '11 12:49:33 AM by Carbonpillow
The Blood God's design consultant.Actually that detail was supposed to be a little poke at Rebecca's lack of control over her telepathy when she mocked Avern for that same thing.
But thanks for the critique! Setting will be elaborated further soon.
Here's the WIP for the very beginning of my story. It sets the story up in an In Medias Res way. I'm worried about the pacing, and whether or not it ever gets boring or melodramatic. Please tell me what you think:
Vendal sat back on the settee of his study, staring up at the ceiling. “Lord knows I could use something like that,” he silently thought. He knew prayers and cheap ale wouldn't do him much good, though. Not since the Oblivion Crisis, anyway. He would need something a bit stronger.
He heard a knocking on his door. “Come in.” He didn't even look at the door when he said it.
The face of one of Vendal's servants revealed itself in the doorway, a young Dunmer named Bradas.
“Your Highness,” he said, carrying a fine bottle in his hands. “I brought you your flin like you asked.”
“Good, bring it over here,” said Vendal, gesturing from behind the sofa. The servant moved over to Vendal's position and set the bottle down in front of him, along with a shot glass. Sitting up at last, Vendal filled the glass and shot the drink back in one gulp. He body shivered as the Imperial whiskey went down.
“Will that be all, sir?” Bradas asked.
“No, that'll do,” said Vendal, pouring himself another shot. “In fact, take the rest of the evening off.”
“Really?” asked Bradas. He was somewhat concerned for his master's well-being.
“I insist,” said Vendal. Primarily, he wanted to be left alone, but another part of him wanted Bradas to be able to celebrate the festival with the rest of the employees. No doubt they were having a party downstairs.
“Well, alright,” he said, turning towards the door to leave. Before he left, however, he remembered to append it with “Your Highness”.
Vendal sighed.
Vendal was the ruler of Morrowind, and had been so for eighteen years. A Dunmer in his mid-fourties, he had a wiry build tempered by too many battles to keep track of. Like all Dunmer, his ears were pointed, his skin had the color of dark blue ash, and his eyes were red like blood. And as he rested in his study, clad in his Redoran evening robe, drinking his flin and staring into the warmth of the fireplace, he thought back on the year before.
“It's only a matter of time before the Argonians declare war,” he thought. “Those attacks have been getting worse and worse.”
For the past six months, various Dunmer villages close to the Morrowind-Black Marsh border had been attacked by small groups of Argonian raiders, who would terrorize the local residents and burn their houses to the ground, then run away before the militias could capture them. So far, all the Argonian tribe leaders he had sent messengers to had been silent about the issue.
Of course, Vendal knew why these attacks had been happening: the Argonians wanted revenge. The Dunmer had been kidnapping Argonians and using them as slaves for centuries. An Argonian captured by Dunmer slaveowners could look forward to many decades of backbreaking labor in the saltrice plantations, or picking comberries for brandy while facing off against almost schizophrenic heat, cold and rain cycles.
“If they knew what I went through in order to get slavery abolished...” thought Vendal as he downed another shot of flin. Most of the plantation owners had to have their slaves taken from them by military force, which meant facing off against the best mercenaries in the region.
It's not like these attacks could've happened under any normal circumstances, though. When Vendal got started as ruler, every land in the vicinity was controlled by the Cyrodillic Empire, and if anybody tried to pull stuff like that, the Imperials would've come in and rendered them unrecognizable with ruthless military action and biting tax referendums. But then the Oblivion Crisis came and reduced the Empire to a tiny fraction of its former self, with half the military killed and the rulership left without a king.
“The Empire...” thought Vendal. “We all have fond memories of that.”
Drink in hand, he stood up from the couch and moved over to the window. The stars were bight outside, as if the night sky were dotted with a thousand fires, and the moons, Masser and Secunda, glowed brighter. All around him, the landscape of Morrowind stretched outward. He could see the rocky spires of the mountainlands that his stronghold was situated upon. Behind him were the muddy lowlands of the Ascadian Isles, where the parasol trees provided ample shade. In front of him were the Ashlands, and in the distance, he could see Red Mountain, and the remains of the fence that once held so many evil creatures in.
He tried to drink the flin that was in his glass, but he only succeeded in spilling it down the front of his robes. He stared down at the shot glass, feeling the smooth material between his fingertips and, in a fit of defiance, wheeled around and flung it toward the opposite wall. The sound of it breaking rang throughout the room, and Vendal fell to his knees in shame.
“I can't handle this,” he ruminated to himself. “The Argonains have us outnumbered and our forces are stretched ridiculously thin, and thanks to the Empire's stunted trading, I haven't the resources to bargain with them. Everything's falling apart at once!”
His fist contorted, he started punching the floor beneath him. Every time he struck the cold stone floor, a savage pain shot up his arm, but he didn't care. Over and over, he struck the floor, as if trying to break through it with his fist alone, but in the end, all he had to show for it was his bruised and bloodied fist.
Defeated, he let the rest of his body fall to the ground. He moved his head to look over at his injured hand. “Pathetic,” was the only thought that registered.
He layed there on the ground for some time after. His hand stung, but he pretended not to notice. Though many different thoughts were running through his head, he processed none of them. All he wanted was to think himself out of existence.
As he layed there, he noticed the window in his eyeline, the window opposite to the one he had been staring out of earlier. He tilted his head up to look at it; the shot glass he had thrown had left a crack in it. But what was outside the window was what really grabbed Vendal's attention: there, resting serenely on the horizon and glowing with festival lights, was the city of Vivec.
“Vivec...” he thought through the haze of his mind.
He had seen the city outside his window many times before, but somehow, this time was different. A hazy recollection of events started to swim through his consciousness, things he had forgotten about in his years as ruler.
“Wait a minute...”
With some difficulty, he pulled himself up off the floor and moved towards the opposite end of the room. There he found his reading desk, and in this desk, he found a tiny drawer. Slowly, he pulled the drawer open.
Inside was a small, ornate ring.
With his non-broken hand, he slowly went to pick the ring up. He felt it between his fingertips.
Then it all started to come back to him.
edited 1st May '11 6:54:14 PM by DonZabu
"Wax on, wax off..." "But Mr. Miyagi, I don't see how this is helping me do Karate..." "Pubic hair is weakness, Daniel-san!"Lera: Easy enough for me to read, which is more than I can say about some pieces. Unfortunately, I think the inner voice (especially @ the beginning) was very jolty jumbly kinda. Like, at first I wasn't sure if it was just a narrator or not and then a couple of sentences in I was thinking "oh she's speaking?" and it threw me for a loop.
Also, the way you describe certain things.
His eyes twitch in their sockets, uncontrollably. He looks over his shoulder, or tries to, until his stomach churns and all his muscles go limp.
At first I thought you were trying to evoke medical horror, and was just being too clinical about it. Then I realized you weren't, and you were being REALLY clinical about it. If that makes any sense.
Also, I didn't notice until "Avern has only known Rebecca..." that it was all in present tense. Any artistic reason for that? Because it doesn't seem to be contributing anything monumentally important, but that might just be my opinion.
Read my stories!Strange how the girl doesn't take Avern to a hospital after storming out, one bloodied arm over her shoulder with the rest of Avern's near-dead body dragging behind. And "storming" would be a strong word, Avern thinks, if the girl—whose face he's seen for the past few months and yet he doesn't know her name (that feels wrong)—if the girl hadn't resolutely kept her eyes pointed in the direction she was taking him. Avern the bloodied. Avern, the guy she had done nothing for, and actually worked against until now.
First sentence is a slightly interesting narrator. Second sentence is from Avern's perspective, sorta, and kinda flip flops.
Read my stories!Oh no. Someone who posted before you was given a critique before your piece.
How will you EVER survive.
Read my stories!@Mr Zabu: I like the intrigue you set up about Vendal. It seems he has plenty of regrets running in his mind, as he tries downing flin and drink his worries away. (I've played Oblivion before, so I know something about the story background.) I notice on occasion your description would sound awkward:
Vendal was the ruler of Morrowind, and had been so for eighteen years.
These particular bits don't flow quite well for me; you tend to repeat yourself and it'll sound like rambling. You might try rewording a bit, like:
He was the ruler of Morrowind, and had been so for eighteen years.
There are some minor spelling slip-ups, like 'bight' and 'He body shivered', but that is nothing a quick once-over can't fix.
Outside of ze mechanics, this reads to me like another fantasy book introduction. I would have a dollar for each time I read that "Guy drinking, bitter over reminiscing, and then we cut to 'How he got this bitter.'" I know scenarios often repeat from story to story; the way you handled this introduction I find run-of-the-mill. You have a character saying a list of sob issues:
“If they knew what I went through in order to get slavery abolished...” thought Vendal as he downed another shot of flin.
“The Empire...” thought Vendal. “We all have fond memories of that.”
“I can't handle this, ” he ruminated to himself. “The Argonains have us outnumbered and our forces are stretched ridiculously thin, and thanks to the Empire's stunted trading, I haven't the resources to bargain with them. Everything's falling apart at once!”
coupled with some short background exposition about Argonians attacking after each thought line. It might seem good if you wish for a quick recap episode, but not if you wish to have readers find Vendal interesting at the start. Give him more personality besides moping — let's start feeling what Vendal's going through, rather than having you spoonfeed the reader with an Infodump. ("He would never again find the morning beautiful," instead of "He was sad.")
I find these two bits cliched:
It is cliched as in these generalized words have been said many times: the pointed ears, the blood-red eyes, it all started to come back. It doesn't leave a particularly memorable impression. What makes the Dunmer stand out from any other dark elf? Would it be the way their red eyes always looked so alert for (hypothetical) prey? Their horned ears like a nasty bat? Or what did Vendal start to remember? The woman who wore the ring?
You have a nice first paragraph, and it helps set the brooding mood I think you aim for. When you do finish another chapter for this story, I would suggest reading it over — touch up sentences which might fall bland, and watch out for Department of Redundancy Department-isms.
edited 2nd May '11 4:10:51 PM by QQQQQ
Here's another part of a story that I did on the fly. I wrote it on prayer request cards during an Easter service (talk about being disrepectful) and I just managed to type it up and do some adjustments:
Several people were gathered around the dining table, with plenty of food laid out. The hostess, Mrs. Diana Winston, was sitting at the head of the table. She had an anxious expression on her face, her nose wrinkled. She picked at the food on her plate. The cuisine was of goment quality, heavily seasoned and giving off a strong but mouth-watering smell. Her appetite wasn’t brought out by all of this, “I have the right to be worried,” Diana said to Christina in a resigned tone, “In the last six months, three jewelers had been murdered in their homes, and their personal gemstones stolen. I should be worrying.”
Sergeant Bernard Huntington sat near the opposite end of the table, vigorously carving his steak. He looked down at his plate, with a stiff but bent posture, “You are paranoid. I doubt the murderer would be here. His crimes were committed in Britain. I doubt he would travel here, in risk of being discovered with a bag full of precious jewels.”
Grace Millers was across from him, stabbing her peas with a folk. She lifted to her mouth, holding it in a flirty way. Her lips touched the metal tips, “Oh, you’re a sergeant. You should know how many ways a man can hide his jewels.”
“Please, Ms. Grace,” Mrs. Bryard said, “Restrain from such dirty jokes during dinner.”
Professor Brian Lehrer sat by the middle of the table, meekly scooping up his meal, “Well, he could’ve taken a boat. But this is presuming he even left Europe. From what the authorities know, the stolen items cost enough to set someone for life.”
“Now, now.” Mister Horace Preston sat opposite of Pr. Brain, swaying slightly as he carved his meat, “Let’s not worry about such things and let’s focus on our meal.” He looked behind, at the direction where the kitchen was at, “Hmm…Mrs. Minston, where would be your husband be?”
You know what direction this is going to go.
What do you think of the characters. Too cliche?
edited 3rd May '11 8:18:40 PM by chihuahua0
@ Chihuahua 0:
It's sort of hard to give a decent critique for something so short, but...
It was good overall. I liked how you described the way the characters were eating; that's an interesting device for characterization. I also think that the dialogue was good, and there was nice, steady pacing.
If you do continue this, I would suggest editing it later on so all of those characters weren't introduced in that section, or having some exposition before that scene. Also, you should try to condense some of your descriptions to avoid redundancy.
Other than that, I liked it.
I've been working on this chapter for a good while, and I still feel that there's something wrong with it. I mean wrong as in even more wrong than the wrong that is always there because I'm a bad writer. And I'm paranoid about first chapters.
So, could someone take a look and try to determine what the problem is?
Someone take a look at this first chapter of a Let's Play I did a while ago:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/lb_i.php?lb_id=13001521690B65600100
I'd mainly like a critique on the humor. Should I continue that Let's Play?

Yes, a critique! Thank you Ronka!
Flow stuff, yeah. That is always good to look at, I'm not surprised a few sneaked by me. Will pay extra attention to that when I edit. *
Funny you should mention that, because that was my original idea for this stuff. For starters, I thought there was a lot less story here, and for another I wanted to make the memories more like real memories-disjointed, incoherent, bouncing from memory to memory, filled with anachronisms.
Then I realized that would be super confusing, and way too hard. I had no idea how to write that. Or at least not without writing it normally first...
But that might explain why the pace is more in that mood.
Oh bugger, I was afraid someone might say that.
I can't visualize things in my mind very well, it's usually hazy and indistinct.* Unsurprisingly, this often leads to me ignoring the scenery entirely.
But, I will be working to improve that, because I know that's a major flaw in my writing thus far.
Dammit, you're right again. I can think of at least one moment that I explicitly threw in w/out blending it into the larger conversation, because I wanted to at least preserve the idea (the story she tells about being abused). Figured I'd either take it out weave it in more smoothly later. I think a few other conversation elements may have gotten in in a similar manner.
I'm glad someone told me what was wrong with this, because I think I was becoming a little too enamored of some of the word games in that segment. I still giggle every time I read the discussion of fun. *
Alright, so, slower pacing, particularly by adding description of the scenery/surroundings. More actions to go with the dialog. And flow stuff. Always, always, always flow stuff. Luckily flow stuff is one of the easiest things to edit for.
I have the next, um, 30 some pages written? *Checks word document* Yeah, the next 24 pages are already done. They probably have similar problems. But they are amusing-imagine her as part of a Romeo & Juliet parody, which throws the "Romeo and Juliet were both idiots" moral in the readers face. * Amazing how many people overlook that part.
Should I post it?
edited 26th Apr '11 9:52:05 PM by deathjavu
Look, you can't make me speak in a logical, coherent, intelligent bananna.