The Constructive Criticism Thread

Saturday Morning Short - Lock's Lizards and Labyrinths:

I couldn't wait for a critic in the Writer/Critic Dating Service, so I decided to put my script here. Now technically, this is part of a series called Saturday Morning, where a bunch of cartoon characters meet up in one world. Like Drawn Together, only more tasteful. I just have to make different shorts to introduce them in their own worlds first. This short is a parody of adventure fantasy cartoons where this Link Expy named Lock, is on a mission to save his idiot sister, who is a parody of Disney Princesses from the 30's to 50's. It's about five pages long (counting the mini storyboard). Do the sentences flow naturally? Is there any actual characterization in these characters? And most importantly, is it funny?

Edit: I altered the shareable link so you can comment on specific places.

edited 2nd Jul '17 2:26:45 PM by DokemonStudios

I was along because apparently someone suggested to move it somewhere else, which didn't make any sense.

@Dokemon Studios

This is rather short, there's not much to talk about, since it consists only of two brief scenes. I can say this: The dialogue flows mostly well enough, there are a couple of hiccups where sentences are a bit awkward, which kills the jokes.

On characterization, the script's too short to tell. There are hints of what is the characters' personality is: Lonk is a clueless overeager hero wannabe, the elf is snobbish, the princess shares Hagrid's passion for animals, the mage has only one line by which we can tell that he's nerdy. But those all are one-note characterizations, and I didn't detect any personality in the ogre. But that's, again, because of the shortness of the material.

As for whether the script is funny, I'll say this: I recognize some jokes on the cognitive level, they are rather well delivered, but I'm not fond of this kind of humor. Plus, I'm kind of not in the target audience of the script: I'm not familiar with The Legend Of Zelda and Final Fantasy, and I'm not really sure what's really being parodied, so some aspects of the jokes might have flown over my head.

Hope this helps.

It looks to me like your idea is to make a visual thing out of this (live-action? animated?) — If that's what you're after, the formatting needs work. Unfortunately, TV Tropes kind of puts the "TV" aspect on the wayside, which means there's not many resources I can give you here on the site to get you started. So instead, here's a couple helpful links to get you started on that path. I'm also a screenwriter, so if you have any specific questions feel free to PM me.

As for characterization, my big concern here is character voice: They all sound the same. Same word choice, same cadence, same everything. Since this is clearly a parody of other fantasy works, you'd be forgiven for playing with and straight-up stealing the stock mannerisms of the original tropes — The dwarf can be gruff. The dark elf can be cold and vague. The ogre can be a monosyllabic dunce. The princess can be a fluttery Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

Something else to consider: It's okay to drop hints that "Hey, this steals from The Legend Of Zelda and World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy." But if you lean on those connections you're going to lose people — as seen

I recommend you open up a new document, list out every character trait, every cliche you want to steal from those sources (descriptions, personality quirks, etc.) — list them out as best you can without using stuff from the source material. No mention of Hyrule. Nothing about the Night Elves. Shrek and Lord of the Rings are right out. See what you come up with, then adjust your descriptions using that list.

Okay! So I think I've sufficiently ripped it apart. But there are still good things you can be proud of! I think you're on the right track by playing Lock as this overeager adventurer-type. A little more tweaking and he could be a solid Leader in your Five-Man Band. Likewise, I see a lot of seeds for interesting things you can do with Princess Flora: she's absent-minded, extremely forgiving when cuteness is involved, and these two traits on their own can drag your characters into so many different plots just surrounding a Save the Princess Plot.

Keep at it!

For the record, this is meant to be a script of an animated short, I should have made it much more clear when I was making that post. I was also writing down the character descriptions with the intent for people first reading this script, but I can also see how that can be unnecessary.

Admittedly, it was hard to find a good personality for Oh-gurr and Calculus without making the typical fat kid and nerd stereotype respectively. As for Nighta, most of my inspiration for this character comes from rogue classes in RP Gs, so maybe she only sticks around the group because she is more of a kleptomaniac.

Also, I actually do have a document for character bios, but it's sort of bare bones at the moment. More exposition, less character, and no visual reference either though I have drawn a few characters, albeit crudely. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OLQuzU-Q_-SYGDDsJToXay-OnvNBcC4Li80E5JjC8O8/edit?usp=sharing

One more thing, these scenes in that script were the ones I wanted to write down the most. One of my weaknesses in story structure is I can tell you how the story begins and ends, but the middle is the hardest part to decide.

But still, thank you for the criticism, it's nice to see somebody analyse some of my characters from a writing stand point.

edited 2nd Jul '17 2:36:30 PM by DokemonStudios

This is a pretty minor note, but I noticed that Oh-Gurr's dialogue doesn't really paint him as a stereotypical brute. If anything, he seems significantly more grounded than Lock.

You don't have to take this suggestion, but I think it might be interesting if you write him as a subversion of the Dumb Muscle trope by making him the straight man to Lock's antics (or possibly even the Only Sane Man of the group).

Character trope inversions, oh yeah. High fives all round!

This past weekend has been kind of nutty, so I didn't get around to contacting Maple Samurai until now.

Wow, this thread moved faster than I thought. While I am admittedly embarrassed to be showing the story when I haven't published a new entry in months (I'm still trying to get into the habit of writing on a consistent basis), here is the folder containing what I have written so far of my Web Serial Novel Crowley University, containing four main chapters of the series proper, as well as two side stories.

Sorry if this is unhelpful, but I don't have anything specific about the story I'm looking to get a critique for; just a general idea of what parts I've already written need revision or any aspects of my writing that I could improve on in future entries. Also, I should probably give a content warning for mild sexual content. In any case, I look forward to whatever criticism people feel fit to toss my way.

Just a couple notes, here.

First off, character voice. They all sound the same. I've been working through this same thing myself, and here are a few strategies I've come up with:

1. Pick out a few tropes that describe how the character behaves, then use the words that stereotype would use.
2. Accents and dialects (or "cultural word choice") can be a fun and useful way to show where this character comes from and what mannerisms they have. Give 'em a "y'all" and a reader will know right quick that they're from the Deep South and don't care much for fancy stuff. But if you remove contractions and insist on proper word choice, it will sound as if your character is prim and proper and pays attention to such details.
3. Consider psychological word choice, too. For example, passive voice vs active voice. "I have done it" vs "I did it." Or the little filler words people choose: "I guess" vs "I suppose" vs "Sure" vs "Definitely" is a whole continuum of self-confidence, right there. And then there's ways to reflect how they process information: "I saw this happened" vs "I heard..." vs "I noticed..." — Keeping in mind all of these, and more, as you write dialogue can help flesh out not just a character's personality, but their entire psyche.

Secondly: exposition. There are times you go into too much detail, or it gets redundant. For example:

This information, while interesting on its own, doesn't really add much. The previous bit of dialogue already showed that Gorgophone doesn't have the same concept of time as your human narrator. That's enough for us. Remember that Viewers Are Geniuses.

There are other cases where you run into the same problem. When we first see Eva, you spend two paragraphs describing her. The first one does plenty. And while it does make sense in the context of the story to spend time immersed in her beauty, there are better ways. Try peppering her physical attributes into the rest of the scene — or even later in the story. You don't have to describe everything about a character immediately.

And this is just what I have for the first chapter! I'm running out of time at the moment for the other three, but I'll get to those once I have a chance.

Devoured the whole thing in one sitting. Thoughts:

• I'm a bit put off by the fact that we are informed of the characters' personalities before they actually show them. It feels, on one hand, redundant, and on the other hand, since the problem with character voice (pointed out in the post above) persists through the whole text, it's not always delivered in full measure. That said, I really like the flow of the dialogue.

• The first person POV is used in the narrative, but it doesn't feel that we're viewing the events from Victoria's perspective. She's a bit too objective, too self-aware, rarely expresses her own opinions on the matters. That kinda defeats the purpose of having the first person POV, and prevents from showing the character of Victoria.

• I come from the culture that has a bit different stance on the trope, but as I understand, Said Bookism in English is frowned upon. At times it could become distracting.

I have a question: do you intend to keep it Slice of Life? Or there will be an overarching plot of sorts?

I'm asking because at this point it's not really clear to me what the emphasis of the story is on. If it's the former, then there's too little characterization, and you skip through some of the events, for example, it would be interesting to see how Khulan's and Hillevi's argument would play out. If it's the latter, then, frankly, four-chapter long prologue is a bit too much. And for a novel titled "Crowley University" it has too little of the university itself.

Also, I'm from Central Asia myself, and if you have any questions about the nomad culture to build the centaur culture upon, feel free to PM me.

Weekend was rough again; Ewolf's up. Any further critiques or help for Maple Samurai can be handled through PM.

kaiego recent draft

• dialogue
• writing
• And characters

Note: Kaiego has changed alot over the months so eventually i might get out the recent renditon of it. for now let's focus on this one.

edited 31st Jul '17 8:01:32 AM by ewolf2015

I took a quick look at it. I'll be able to go over it more after my dentist appointment, but right now, I will say that you have very good scene description (compared to my screenwriting, at least).

thanks. Can't wait to see it.

has anyone else read it or are they having trouble accessing the pdf?

I'm just having trouble accessing the time needed to read it. Real life issues. Nothing personal.

It's not terrible by any means, but I think the problems with both the characterization and the dialogue can mainly be attributed to one thing: a lack of distinct character voices. Everybody bar Rosanna and Tiagus and maybe at a stretch Mc Cradle sounds pretty much exactly the same, and that makes it far harder for their characterization to come across. Like, a Jerkass is going to say something in a very different voice to a Nice Guy, and a shy geeky kid won't speak the same as a child who wants to be the center of attention at all times. Do they use slang? Tell jokes? Speak formally or informally? Use passive-aggressive comments or just straight up insults? Do they swear? Stutter? I think if you gave characters these traits they'd come off as far more distinct and interesting.

I mean, John goes from snarkily mouthing off to Jake to talking to Mc Cradle like he's got serious self-esteem issues or something, but then he basically shrugs off a random kid throwing a coke can in his face. Wilbur starts off with this really enthusiastic greeting, then goes all technical, and then doesn't really have a voice at all from that point on. Other than this everybody just kinda sounds like a generic kid.

Another issue is agency, in that John doesn't really do anything of his own volition until the fight (which does do a fairly good job of giving him a solid motivation). Instead, things just kinda happen to him that result in him getting in this situation. As a result, the structure suffers for it, since it feels less like it's building up to this revelation and more like just a series of vaguely connected events that end in a fight scene. I just think that if John actively tried to FIND the bracelet or something it would both flow better and make John a more interesting character. I'd also personally save the meeting with the animals until episode two or something, because it just feels a bit out of place pacing-wise, not to mention it's introducing more characters when the cast is already fairly large for a first episode as is. That said, it asn't a terrible scene on its own, and I did like the dynamic the group had.

Also, Levitt gives John a TWO HOUR detention for looking out the window for five seconds? Damn, that's so unreasonably harsh I can't tell if it's meant to be funny or not. There were also quite a few grammar errors throughout.

Overall, it has clear issues, but it's not irredeemable and I think it could work if you went over it a few more times.

oh I did, by literally changing the concept. for one thing, the idea of them of becoming your typical fairies has been scraped. Instead they become half human hybrid bug heroes. i might as well get rid of Mc Cradle entirely. the animal meeting served no purpose so i'm killing that. orginally, my to be episode was going to include introducing the main 5 characters but I can't seem to get to work. I might go back a to doing that idea since the in media episodic thing isn't working. I don't know how to go about it honestly. I think two parter could work since I feel that the frist take on it has them introduced too fast really. like super quick.

with that out of the way, I'm well aware that it was crap and that's how I might fix it. The only thing I might not be able to fix in years time is how to make characters sound legitimately different from each other. of course that could all be remedying by observing years of people doing boring conversations for the sake of research so that would never happen. even then when was the last time someone talked about taking down a dragon in a conversation without it do not coming out as wooden or unnatural. in how to train your Dragon that is. within that conclusion, I can make a point that yes, I suck at writing dialogue, my structure is faulty, and the pace might feel slow or too fast. it's really because I some time feel like haven't improve my craft in high art and writing. I know that's bull but feel like it's true. compare it to my last script and it feels the same and I'm some cases, even worse.

end of self bashing myself. now I have several questions in terms of how I can go about improving the next two drafts that are going to be two parters.

• since I can't seem to have my characters sound like their age as well as well getting them to sound different, how might I did this in my next draft?
• I want to introduce my characters in a way that probably shows What they are like without having the pacing to suffer. maybe it's now I write manuscripts that's not allowing me to showcase that enough but I still want to know how to do it.
• since you had a problem with John just moving along the plot, I decided to add some quirks to him like not liking people, being a friend to all bugs, and sometimes a know at all. would this be a step up if executed correctly?
• and lastly, I forgot to mention that jake is now a girl as well as Mitsuko. this isn't really much of a question just a statement.
• with now also becoming a edutainment show about invertebrates, cold bloodied animals, biology and ecology, how can I establish that this is suppose to be this kind of genre of show?
• last but not least, are there a few things you at least liked about it?

please do reply soon since I gotta go to work soon.

edited 8th Aug '17 6:48:54 AM by ewolf2015

Sorry for taking ages to reply, I... well, I don't really have an excuse, I was just lazy.

1) I didn't really have a problem with the characters sounding their age, just with them all sounding similar. Character voice is the kind of thing that sounds impossible until you actually do it, at which point you realize it's actually really easy. It's kinda hard to explain without giving an example, so here are three random people saying what amounts to the exact same thing (this isn't anything I worked on earlier pls don't ban me):

1. 1: "Uh, e-excuse me, but, uh, have you seen Mr. Smith anywhere?"
2. 2: "Where's Smith?"
3. 3: "Oh, for fuck's sake... where the hell has Smith got to?"
4. 4: "One minor little itty-bitty microscopic problem with that whole Smith thing: I've got no idea where he is. And the issue is, I'm not very good at that whole "having my thoughts magically teleport into Smith's extremely small brain" thing, so I kinda need to, you know, talk to him. So if you could find him that would be just grand."

You can probably tell the personalities of all those people just based off that one line that doesn't even directly mention or concern them. That's what I mean by character voice.

And that ties into point 2): you can show us the basic personality of a character with a single line. I've read a lot of stories that confuse "character development" with "the characters sitting around doing nothing talking about things we don't care about" so this is a vast, vast improvement over that.

3) I think you're missing the point of what I was getting it. The problem isn't that John doesn't have any random quirks, the problem is that he isn't moving things forward. He has no goal or motivation, and thus everything he does will either be boring, random actions made solely to keep the plot going, or just the bidding of someone else. When he finds the bracelet thing, he doesn't find it because of his quick wit or moral strength or any actual positive attribute of himself; he just finds it by random chance or perhaps the meddling of higher powers. It's not like he wakes up from the weird dream and then realizes "Hey, that old bracelet thing might be useful" or something, he just happens to go exactly where he's needed for the next scene to progress.

Character motivation is potentially the most important part of any character. Why should we want them to succeed when they don't have anything they want to succeed at? If a character has no motivation, they can't really have any agency- how can they act when they have no reason to act? And if they have no agency, and they're just there to have orders barked at them by some authority figure... well, why the hell are they the main character?

Annoying thing is you do give him the motivation of "avenging Buster" but that only lasts for the fight scene, and then it turns out Buster is fine.

5) ...I got nothing. Sorry. Other than "say facts about bugs" I wouldn't have a clue.

6) I'll be honest, I am in no form the target audience for this in any regard, and more to the point I'm not some bizzare arbiter on what is or is not considered good writing. If you think any of my advice is crap and not worth listening to, don't listen. Just because I didn't like it doesn't mean it's objectively bad or anything.

no worries I think. I'm not sure I can think of a decent motivation but for the recent rendition I was thinking of John trying to figure out what the bracelet does until he goes to the green house with his friends. that's where they end up getting teleported into the lost garden of eden, the birth place of bugkind. It was mostly due to john's curiosity that lead them to this mess. most of them blame it all on him and John makes this up in the cilmax by getting them together to stop the big bad of this two parter.

and also, finding any kid who's willing to read it and say something is rare so that's why I ask you about it. and, don't you know periphery demographic is a thing? you done need to be the target demographic to enjoy it.

As a final piece of advice, since you seem to be so focused on making stories that appeal to both youths and adults, I would check out Multiple Demographic Appeal for some examples if you haven't already, because that trope covers works that were deliberately crafted to appeal to multiple demographics. Periphery Demographic occurs when a work attracts consumers who the writer wasn't aiming for (like Teletubbies attracting stoners). That being said, if a reader who is outside of the 'primary' demographic (in your case, middle school-age youth) fails to become invested in your work, that's the work's fault, not the reader. No matter what you plan on doing, good, strong characterization is where it all starts.

Millership's up; if you have any further questions, take them to PMs.

edited 16th Aug '17 5:18:25 AM by CrystalGlacia

thanks.

Shattered World, Arc One. Prologue: The sparks - 2 pages' worth of the first draft of a prologue to an upcoming YA (that is, at least college-aged) Dungeon Punk Web Serial Novel of mine (although now I'm leaning towards publishing it as an e-book).

Apart from the general critique of writing and the grammar (English is not my mother tongue, and the text in the link is actually a translation, so it's one of major concerns), I have the following specific questions:

1. Are you intrigued? Have I managed to introduce the setting in an entertaining way?

2. The prologue is supposed to invoke the feel of a holy scripture text (albeit full of Bathos), so I need to know if the prose style and the overall mood are appropriately bombastic.

3. The main theme of the prologue is History Repeats, so I tried to convey it not only through the content of the text, but also through the repetitiveness of the prose. I need to know whether I managed to go overboard with the execution of the idea or not.

Thanks in advance.

edited 16th Aug '17 10:00:53 AM by Millership

A quick question, is there an upper limit on the length of items for criticism? I'm considering requesting it for the latest chapter of my story, but even for the people who reviewed the first chapter there's still be two in between, so it would make the most sense to just put in all three (four chapters total). But the latest three chapters are ~10K words each, so I feel like asking for a novella's worth of critique might be excessive.