The Constructive Criticism Thread

I only got one critique for my story...not sure where the rest went.

Hugo G was running this place, what happened to him/her?

Last seen on the fora in mid-August.

Ok, I'll send him a PM and see if he's still around.

Well, I have waited several days now, and recieved no response. We may have to appoint ourselves a new thread administrator.

Is there a process for appointing an admin for the thread or is it volunteer-based?

I believe its voluntary. Duties consist mainly of notifying authors when its their turn yo be crit'd.

I wouldn't mind being the new administrator, but I'm concerned with the fact that my story is next on the list. If I became the next administrator I'd be taking a rather (outwardly) self-serving action, and I'm worried some might confuse the standards for posting and reviewing.

It would be self-serving only if you disappear after getting critique for your story.

And, of course, you arnt critiquing your own work, so that seems ok. However, Im concerned that the last author only received one response. Can some of you crit the last author before we move on?

, Both fair points. I'll take over admin'ing this thread then unless anyone has any objections with it.

I checked Luigisan's post history to see if he's been around recently, and evidently he's been permabanned from forum posting. I'm not sure how that works in regards to PM and viewing the forums altogether, but I could try to contact him and see if he'd like to receive more critiques. It does kinda suck that he only received one.

We also need to find a way to get more people involved in posting feedback. Too often this thread slows down because the same few readers provide critiques and then get burned out, while others only provide broad and shallow feedback while they wait in line for their own turn to post their work. Frankly I don't have an answer to this problem, I'm just aware that it is one.

Edited by randomdude4 on Sep 19th 2018 at 7:57:25 AM

I apologize for the double post, but I have decided to extend Luigisan's time for feedback by one week beginning now.

So far we only have the one critique by De Marquis (thank you for writing one by the way), meaning we should get at least four more. I will begin working on a critique myself tomorrow. If mine and De Marquis are the only ones with critiques after this upcoming weekend I may start PM'ing people to ask if they'd like to contribute.

If you like, I will PM everyone who has posted on the last couple of pages to see if they would be willing to participate again.

That would be great. Please do.

Now, on to my critique. Due to the length of the work, my feedback will be summative rather than by individual pieces. I'm also more focused on the structure and technique instead of the content, as I'm of the Jim Butcher philosophy that execution is far more important than the ideas themselves.

Perhaps it is my own personal taste, but the prologue feels unnecessary. The whole thing is pretty much an Info Dump, and history relevant to the story should be integrated naturally into the narrative. Anything else is superfluous and takes up time for the story to get going.

I'm going to echo De Marquis' points about showing vs. telling. Showing creates images in your readers' minds and puts them in a scene. Telling just informs them. For example, at the start of Chapter 5 "New Friends, New Foes" you wrote "Tany is the first one to wake up..." Instead you should show the audience that everyone else is asleep the same way Tany would. Descriptiveness goes a long way for showing. Go through the steps of painting a picture for your audience. Rewritten, my example sentence would look more like "As she stifles a drawn-out yawn, Tany looks around at the others. They rested still, their chests rising and falling calmly to the lullaby of pleasant dreams they still enjoy." Writing something like that creates a far more detailed picture for your readers.

Writing in present tense is (in my opinion) among the hardest of all the grammatical tenses to pull off well, though it's not impossible. However, I think you severely cripple yourself by pairing it with 3rd-person omniscient as your desired POV. Limiting what your character's see and perceive is far more effective at developing mood since the reader's will connect more with what they're seeing. I advise you to revise or experiment with other styles. 1st person would prove beneficial to the present tense, while switching to past tense would aid the 3rd person POV you have going on already. Just my take though.

This is one that is near-impossible to find as the writer, but inquire more closely with people with whom you trust to be honest for moments that undercut the drama of the situation. Pulling from a random section (Chapter 19), the line "Let me go! Let me go, ugly goblins!" just feels somewhat out of place to me. There are moments like that scattered around your story that I would just rephrase or cut altogether.

I can tell that you've worked hard on this over a long period of time, and I wish you luck in your revisions.

Edited by randomdude4 on Sep 23rd 2018 at 7:51:16 AM

I hate that I'm double-posting twice on the same page, but we need to move on. As of last night critique for Luigisan's story has ended, which means we are moving down to the next person on the list.

Which is me. I am that next person.

What I've got here is the first chapter of a (currently untitled) fantasy short story I'm working on, though it might end up being a novella due to length. I'm confident in my writing fundamentals, so the biggest thing I'd like feedback on is if this opening chapter sets up the plot well enough. Most importantly, I want to know if it's interesting, and if not, some ways I could improve.

I'll take any feedback though, so if there's something like a typo or grammatical error I goofed on I'd happily take that being pointed out. Hope you guys enjoy.

(Also let me know if the link doesn't work. I've never actually done this before)

Edited by randomdude4 on Sep 27th 2018 at 9:05:06 AM

That was quite good. The style is well polished, and the mood never breaks. On a first read, I didn't notice any obvious spelling or gramatical errors, though the truth is I'm not the most skilled at catching those.

One impression that I have is that it starts a little too suddenly. It needs something at the very beginning to set the tone before the reader is fully immersed in the action. A paragraph or two describing the setting in overall terms would do very nicely. It would be helpful to know what the surrounding terrain and environment look like, and maybe a hint or two regarding the where his journey had taken him before arriving at the first scene. A couple of paragraphs is all that's needed since you do a lot of atmospheric descriptions of the immediate environment as you go along—things like the puddles he steps through or the wind raking his hands are a nice touch ("raked" is a better word here than "scraped", I think. How does wind scrape anything?) Or maybe some sort of quote at the beginning would set things off better.

Also, I feel like we could use one or two foreshadowing hints of what his "prey" is like. I don't mean that it's a werewolf—that becomes clear as the narration proceeds (and I do like the way you hint at it before the reveal), but more what it's character is. There is the barest hint in his "knowing full well that it wanted to be hunted" and it's heading into a town that it may be calculating in nature, but could we learn more? Is it desperate to escape, luring him into a trap, disdainful of pursuit, bored for entertainment? Not necessarily anyting too obvious, just a hint or two to entice the reader into wanting to know more.

And of course, I dying to know who and what the "hunters" are. Silver eyes are a pretty distinctive trait, I presume we get to learn more about them as the story proceeds?

In any case, well done. I would read more of that.

Edited by DeMarquis on Sep 27th 2018 at 11:49:17 AM

Very consistently dark, atmospheric and immersive. For a moment I caught myself forgotten that I'm supposed to be giving critique about this thing. And I didn't notice any major grammar errors (then again, I'm not a native speaker, so take this with a grain of salt).

I'll parrot De Marquis' comment about the deficit of the descriptions of the surroundings, during the intro I felt a bit lost. But I really like the gradual way you reveal the information about the setting and the characters.

I don't have much else to say that it's a solid start of the story, the atmosphere and the plot are established well and clearly enough and that I can't wait to see what happens next.

Hope this post was useful. Good luck!

Well I'll start off by saying that it is technically proficient (barring using "their" instead of "there" in paragraph 8 line 2). Also, this would not work as a short story since there are too many questions raised already, so I suggest making this into a novella.

So, lets get into my own critiques. Leaping off of my previous statement about questions, I have to wonder why Roark is hunting the beast in the first place. This isn't a question that needs a direct answer, but since the beast has supposedly not killed anyone yet, how dangerous is the beast? And how common are these beasts and other supernatural occurrences? I am guessing at least semi-frequently since this is a fantasy story, but this along with where this story takes place in unclear.

The mood is definitely consistent, but I have nary a good idea as to the aesthetic of the setting. I'm assuming it is either night or dark and dreary, but that is just a guess. A proper establishing shot at the beginning (whether of Roark the beast, or the location) would have done wonders. And to be frank, the setting isn't appealing to me right off the bat. That could change of course since this is only the first part, but I am relaying my initial impressions.

Moving onto Roark, I am a bit lost as to what his character is. I don't expect all facets of him to be revealed, but the little we do see hardly pops out in neither prowess nor personality. The only thing that stood out was his eyes, but considering how all hunters have it (I'll get to them soon), it is not noteworthy to the audience. Adding a few lines here and there would have fixed a lot of my issues with Roark.

For instance, the apprentice could have been used to show us a glimpse into Roark. Does he treat his apprentice well? Is he standoffish? Does he see him as a nuisance? Why exactly did he decline to take care of the witch problem? Was it because it is against his standards, or is he just apathetic? And one small thing that sort of bothers me is how the barkeeper sees his eyes. It would have been fine if Roark let the barkeeper see them intentionally, but the narration suggests it was a mistake. If it was intentional, I think it should be made more clearly. If it was a genuine mistake, then I have to second guess Roark's supposed experience (a bit too much telling but not showing).

Another aspect that did interest me is the deal with the hunters, I'll take a guess that they are either some sort of hybrid between beasts and/or other races, or that they have been magically enhanced somehow. I noticed that Roark's moniker is "the Unbitten", so I'm assuming that Roark is an exception rather than the rule since it seems that they get their powers from being bitten. In any case, just enough about them was revealed to pique interest. I am curious as to why they hunt and why they have banded together. I also wonder if they are supposed to be feared, respected, or both.

Those are all my main points of critique. A few more minor things I was wondering about is why Roark bothered to order ale to blend in when he could have asked the barkeeper (who already knows who he is) to fill the mug with something else, especially considering how Roark seems to dislike it, and there are no benefits from it being ale either.The currency used is interesting, but it is unfortunately gibberish to me since I don't know what the value is (not helping is that there are different coins based on birds) and I don't have a frame of reference.

In any case, you certainly have the fundamentals down, but there is definitely a lot of room for improvement. Hope this helps.

It seems like I need to more firmly establish the immediate setting, which shouldn't be too hard (as De Marquis said it would probably only take a paragraph or two).

@Kakuzan could you quote the line that has the wrong use of "their"? I cannot find it for the life of me.

Also a number of the points you've raised relate to questions that aren't supposed to be answered yet, since a vast majority of the things you asked would essentially devolve into long periods of expository telling. For example, divulging more information about his apprentice's personality is neither relevant nor possible to show given that he makes no physical appearance in the story. Also there's not actually a witch in town; the innkeeper talking like that was meant to demonstrate the superstitious attitudes of the townsfolk.

You make a good point about the eye thing though. I hadn't considered that.

Edited by randomdude4 on Sep 29th 2018 at 2:02:13 AM

Ah, I see I made a mistake with the "their" comment. I got confused because you forgot to put "is" when you wrote "the establishment likely their". Sorry about that. And as for the townsfolk being superstitious, I'm not too sure if it is accurate to either portray or label them as that when there are quite clearly supernatural element. Maybe it is more so that they are sexist and suspect women just because? It should be more clear. I already guessed that most of these questions aren't to be answered right away, but I still feel that more could be done to better illustrate exactly what world this is as well as what kind of person Roark is.

I didn't forget to put "is." It's grammatically correct the way I wrote it. And no worries

Also I hope I'm not coming off as abrasive at all. I really do appreciate your feedback as well as everyone else's.

Edited by randomdude4 on Sep 29th 2018 at 2:45:59 AM

Hmm, interesting point about how people can still be superstitious even in the face of real supernatural phenomena.

Who's up next?

My bad everyone, I thought it was 2 week turns but turns out I'd misread and it's one week. Anyways, Joe Blitz is next, and I've PM'd them.

Alright, it's my turn, so here goes...

My work is a horror-dramedy short screenplay I've been working on for a few months. It's entitled Migraine, and it is the character study of a psychopath, and an analysis into the depths that normal people will sink in their struggles to achieve financial success, with a healthy dose of Black Comedy thrown in as well. I'm attempting to create a villain that has a sympathetic, understandable motive, but goes about achieving his goal in the most heinous of ways, so much that he is thoroughly unsympathetic as a character. I wanted to show how he interacts with the people around him, and I'd like to hear some critiques regarding the strength or weakness of my dialogue, as well as my attempts to Show, Don't Tell. Any tips to make the interactions more organic, or the story flow better, if need be, would be appreciated. Hope you guys enjoy, and I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Also, fair warning, it gets really twisted. Hopefully that isn't a huge turnoff.

Edited by JoeBlitz on Oct 9th 2018 at 10:59:36 AM