The Constructive Criticism Thread

Please read the instructions pinned to the top of the thread. Add yourself to the bottom of the waitlist and we'll give it a look when it's your turn.

Perfect page-topper there!

@De Marquis: Those are a couple of oversights on my part, yeah. Looking back, the whole chase scene was kinda stupid and having them checked in the car definitely makes it less so. As for the government not having psis, so far I have not found any logical reason and I'll probably be rethinking it. Thanks for the advice.

Personally, I've always thought of war as destruction of the future to avenge the past, but maybe that's just me. The wording throughout the first few pages makes the main character's place in the story a bit ambiguous. I don't know if that's intentional. The line "failure of the soldiers to protect me" made me think of Eve as being of noble birth, as it's "me" specifically and not "us", but later lines made me bask in the shadow of doubt. When writing in first-person, always keep in mind who the main character is writing to. First-person is like a diary. Most books I've read in the first-person have the characters telling their story to normies who don't initially know anything about the setting (Percy Jackson, The 5th Wave, one of the novels I'm working on). Your book seems to be going off the opposite assumption, with details slowly trickling toward the readers. This is fine, and there are many amazing works of media who work this way, but you might want to elaborate on the psychics more, earlier. All in all it was a good read. I didn't make it that far, as I've been under a spell of ennui lately and had to force myself to get into it — I've literally spent all week binge-watching Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Bo Jack Horseman and eating bacon — but I know good tropes when I see them, and your work has some really good tropes. At least, I like to think I know them

According to my count, it's been just over two weeks, but Too Many Ideas hasn't received five pieces of feedback. (I blame a certain first-person shooter for my own inactivity.) TMI, are you good with what you've got, or do you want the whole enchilada?

On an unrelated note, I'm going to start engaging with works more. I've been in a serious slump, and I think this could be what I need to dissolve my writer's block.

I'm fine with what I've got, it's been pretty detailed and I don't want to hold anyone up. Thanks for the feedback, and good luck to the next guy in their writing!

My weekend was kind of weird- I totally forgot your turn ended on Friday.

Ultimate Lazer has been PMed.

Thank you.

I could use feedback regarding the storytelling, characters, as well the general writing in the story. Since it's about superheroes set in the future, yet is also mature rather than made for kids, I feel like it's important I get the tone down. It's been a while since I posted a new chapter, but I'm definitely going to return to it later.

First up, I would join some sentences together and fix minor grammar mistakes. regards," the Watcher said. A man approaching his fifties, age had done little to slow him down. I find it helpful to think of paragraphs as individual clauses organized by common theme. Also, replace periods with commas at the end of quotes if they're followed by character indications, i.e. X said, Y muttered, but not if referring to characters indirectly (for example: "This is idiotic." That was Fraud Rush, a metahuman convict forced to work with us for community sentence.).
The story and characters are both really well fleshed out, I think. It's a bit hard to follow along when I have no idea what Gwawe or halphyx or anything is, but the descriptions you've come up with give me a very clear picture of the dropship, their powersets, and the world in general. That's just in the first chapter.
This isn't really relevant to what you asked, but the character names could use some tweaking. I keep staring at the word Flowers thinking, "Is that really the AI's name, or am I reading this wrong?" You might want to change Watcher's name, since that's a Marvel IP. And maybe stop capitalizing "the". People make fun of DC's main IP a lot, insisting that his name is The Batman, and I wouldn't want such a fate to befall Adele Wallers.
You'll be seeing RAM as a follower shortly. I expect great things from your story, and with great expectations come great yada yada yada. Everyone knows the shtick. (Wocka wocka. I'm not funny.)

So, my initial reaction here is based purely on the first chapter. They're pretty compact and easily consumable—at least judging from the first—which works pretty well, I think. Point is, I may wind up reading more later, and that may change some of my opinions. Writing will get better over time after all.

So with all that said, the thing that leaps out to me the most is that it feels... blunt. It feels very straightforward, in the sense that it's telling me what's occurring, rather than describing what's occurring, if that makes sense.

That's not necessarily a criticism. It actually works pretty well in a lot of places, particularly in regards to Watcher. I got a sense from him of being the kind of guy who's Been There, Done That, and the situation they're in neither phases, nor particularly interests him. For an introductory chapter, that's a pretty good look. It'll help with a sense of scope when things do get big, I think.

However, the bluntness of the narrative does hurt it in some cases. There's definitely some cases where it feels tell-y, but there's also cases where it affects the pacing, I think. Certain situations get described very up-front, and as a result feel rushed and difficult to follow or understand.

Perhaps it just a stylistic preference on my part. But essentially, it feels like it works during character interactions, but doesn't work during action scenes. To me, at least.

Technically, I also noticed a few situations where your tenses feel wrong, or at least the grammar awkward. For example, "It's imperative that Byron wouldn't be late". I'm not 100% up on the specific name of the tenses, but my general gut is that the sentence begins in present tense (Which I'm against in general but it isn't strictly wrong), and then transitions into... future tense? A different tense, at any rate. My apologies for not being able to be precise there, but I hope you understand what I mean. There's a few instances of that throughout the chapter, where one sentence, or a section of a sentence, will be in a different tense than the surrounding.

On the whole it's a fairly decent start. It feels like a series cold-open. Combine that with the short chapter length, and It's good for hooking the readers in. But, it's also rough. I can see it going to good places, though. I'm not so much for online reading, but if I were I could see myself giving a couple more chapters a shot.

My feedback is also based on the first chapter. I pretty much agree with the others, in terms of the setting and the characters. Your main challenge right now is improving your writing style. What Sharysa calls "blunt", I believe, are deficiencies in your use of grammar and narrative style. I looked ahead at chapter 12 and I saw many of the same deficiencies. This will improve with practice, so the main thing is to keep writing, but I will provide you with some specific pointers.

In particular, you frequently "Tell" instead of "Show". I'll go over a few passages to illustrate the difference.

"A dark night in the desert of the Eastern African nation, Gwawe."

That's your first sentence. Not a bad initial attempt, but it lacks sensory details. How dark? What does it sound like? Smell like? An African desert would be considered a pretty exotic locale by most readers, so you should provide some exotic details. Compare to this:

"Darkness shrouded the beach like a blanket. This section of the African coast was entirely abandoned, and there was not a light to be seen. It was too dark to see the surf lapping at the feet of the men loading crates onto a small ship docked a few meters away, but one could clearly hear the sound of the wind rustling sand dunes nearby, and the ever present chirp of crickets in the night."

Not perfect, but you can see how the additional sensory details help set the mood of the scene for the reader. This place is dark and mysterious, and a dark and mysterious organization is carrying out some sort of operation. Darkness and mystery are the theme of the scene, and every detail should somehow advance that.

Next, if it were me, I would describe the men, the sound of crates scraping across the dock, the mechanical whine of the winch, the smell of diesel fuel. A word stitched on the dark uniforms of the men: Mist.

The same principle applies to feeling the characters experience. You write: "Scarlet Black was never one for standing around, especially when there's a fight to be had." Ask yourself what a person who is impatient to fight looks like. What do they do? What expressions or gestures or body language would they use? How would it affect the way they speak. Now take those details and write a short paragraph that replaces the sentence above. This will help the reader immerse themselves into the action.

Nit-pick: You shouldn't use "was" (past tense) and "there's" (present tense) in the same sentence, or even the same scene. Pick a tense, and stick to it.

Now this is your story, so you should try your hand at adding your own details, not mine. Everyone's style is different, and what you are tying to develop here is your own narrative voice. Dont worry so much about trying to achieve some nuanced effect, and just have some fun filling out the scene. Eventually it will start to feel natural and smooth.

A few more pointers. Dont mention a character by name unless you are introducing them in the scene- that's called "conservation of detail", and it's important because basically what you are doing is distracting the reader with information about a character or element that does not appear in this scene. The general rule is, add as much sensory detail as you can, but only about characters and objects that are present in the scene. Even that might be too much if it distracts from the theme- to take one example, at the very end of the chapter you mention the name of his wife, and the fact that their relationship is romantic. This distracts from the theme of that scene, which is something close to "a mission completed". You should include no detail that does not contribute to a feeling of satisfaction and completion on the part of the reader. You might mention that he is looking forward to going home, but only briefly.

Of course, I just asked you to largely re-write the entire work. Sorry. If you go over every scene in every chapter like this, you will probably triple the length, which is a good thing. You could have a novel on your hands here.

Like the others, I think the characters are well fleshed out, the plot successfully drives the action forward, and the settings are evocative. I enjoyed reading it, and I would look forward to seeing the final draft. Good luck with this.

edited 12th Apr '17 8:00:47 AM by DeMarquis

It will have been two weeks tomorrow. Does anyone else have a critique to give?

~Ultimate Lazer Are you good with those three reviews? I can give another if you'd like. Otherwise, I think ~kegisak's Birthright is up.

One would be nice, thanks.

Would you guys mind arranging that over PM? I'll be ending your turn once I get home tonight.

I've sent him a message, and wish him luck with future development.

Cool! Kegisak has been PMed.

Wonderful! Thank you so much.

The first (and currently only publihsed) chapter of my story Birthright can be found here or, if you prefer standard print format (which everywhere on the internet seems to refuse to format their stuff in because who knows), here. Comments are enabled in the second link.

I'm looking for general critique on the chapter, in terms of style, readability, etc, the usual. However, as this is the first chapter of what I plan to make an ongoing Web Serial Novel, I do have one specific concern: Does this chapter make you want to keep reading? Is the hook at the end solid?

This next part is spoilered in case it's a leading question: I'm also looking to hear what people think of the end of the chapter, specifically what they believe is going on. I've left it a bit of a cliffhanger, and I've got a few plans, but how easy they'll be to pull off depends on how people see the characters and event.

Thanks again!

edited 25th Apr '17 4:01:35 AM by kegisak

Honestly, you're a better writer than I am. Not sure I should be the one doing a critique!

The hook at the end was fantastic. Your writing style reminds me of Brandon Sanderson. There's a lot of detail interwoven between dialog, something I've never been good at doing, and the characters are engaging. I feel like you did an excellent job with pacing, but I will say the bit at the end felt like a M Night Shyamalan twist. Could be a good thing or a really bad thing, depending on which direction you take it.

As for the beginning, my writer-sense is still tingling. If I know conspiracy — and I hope I know conspiracy, since I'm trying to pen one — there's definitely a fourth dragon, and that fourth dragon will either be super-evil or a major protagonist. And I'm rooting for it to be a protagonist.

Is anyone else planning on giving a critique, or even reading the work? I've got my finger to the forum's pulse, but I'm not feeling much energy.

So, I got my third draft done. Add it to the waiting list?

edited 7th May '17 5:31:29 AM by ewolf2015

Note that most high schools and institutions of higher learning in the United States (at least; can't speak to other countries) have finals throughout the month of May. That may be why the forum has been slow. Because of that, I'll keep your turn going for another week.

If you have a piece of writing that you want critiqued, add yourself to the waitlist. Don't overthink it.

That's much appreciated.

I'm also aware that the size of my chapter is a bit daunting, so if that's keeping anyone from being able to give it a shot, I can recommend a decent cutoff point around the middle of the chapter. It won't hit all of my questions, but it should be enough that people can get a good sense and provide general feedback.

Finally started working on a project of mine. Finished the first draft of the prologue. Added it to the list.

Kegisak, I was planning on ending your turn once I got to work this morning, but time sort of got away from me and then I had to wait for my boss to get me more work to do, so I gave the first chapter a quick read. It's a little slow until Sabrina goes out with Taurau, but the action ramps up enough from there that it's probably not that big of a deal. Not to mention that chapter 1 has a hell of an ending. I didn't really think too much about the actual content of the ending, and was more interested in what you were going to do with it. I happened to see chapter 2 was up, so I read that, too, and it looks like you've got a pretty good direction.

Outside of some minor typos in chapter 1, I don't really see any major problems. The setting's Near Eastern flavor is painted pretty well, and it looks like it's going to be a nice thriller, possibly with some political elements. Keep up the good work.

Once you reply (or when I get home from work), I'll contact the next person on the list.