The Constructive Criticism Thread

Well, kinda. The prologue must have had accomplished pretty specific things:

1. Introduce the narrators, help the reader become accustomed to the writing style;
2. Explain how the World itself works;
3. Show the scene which kickstarts the plot: Sophia the incarnation of Science creating a mountain, which leads to the destruction of the rail way, which in turn leads to the energy crisis that Max is hired to solve;
4. Introduce the "sparkling" spirit (which the narrators shadow throughout the prologue), show it waiting for a chance to enter the realms of Men in Aetopholia because the story is told from Switching P.O.V., and the second chapter is told from the perspective of the mechanic on board of the airship Max is tasked to hijack. The chapter ends with the "sparkling" possessing the airship, and escaping with it while the mechanic is still inside, derailing Max's plans. The prologue would have acted as foreshadowing, so the twist would not have came completely out of the blue, and the reader would not have felt cheated.

Now, I'm not satisfied with how the prologue reads even in the original, but I felt that I needed feedback to guide me how to accomplish those things while I was writing them. Obviously, I failed in almost all of the above points, but that was kinda expected at this stage. The question was how badly would I fail.

Concerning the two narrators thing, this is the second draft of the story. I indeed used third person limited narrator that speaks in the past tense in the first draft of the story, but then the background of the setting got expanded, I needed to incorporate those two into the narrative and I wanted to see if I can pull two narrators off. The first draft is here, if you're interested. I rewrote it into the current state because the prologue wasn't really well connected to the plot, and at the same time gave away too much about the World's structure and backstory.

So, thanks a lot for the advice. It's very useful.

So, can we move on to The Cambion by Adept Gaderius?

Also, Adept Gaderius, you're going to have to edit the document and remove all those giants DRAFT watermarks, because it's pretty much impossible to read with them blocking out large sections of every page.

Edited by wolfofthewest on Jan 10th 2019 at 7:51:27 AM

Sounds good to me. I'll message them now.

Well, this is my first time in the Con Crit thread. Already heard your call, I've removed the watermark from the Cambion draft.

The Cambion

I read the first 14 pages, which is enough, I think, to get an idea of your writing. First off, I presume that you understand that your writing style is awkward to read, with numerous grammer mistakes and clumsy phrasing. That is simply a matter of practice, and so the only thing to do is to keep writing and eventually smooth out your style. A grammer checker would be very helpful, and you might consider seeking tutoring or a class on writing to help you advance. I wont hold that against your work, because everyone has to start somewhere.

One major problem is the frequent change in perspective and voice. The opening is the old "reference manual" style of introduction in which background information is presented as if it were a page from some source material. This rarely works, and most often comes across as cliche. You should drop it for the more challenging, but utlimately more natural cold opening from the point of view of a character. It doesnt have to be the main character, but it should be someone who, in the course of the action, naturally guides the reader into your world and provides a reasonable introduction to it.

On page 3, you switch to Claire's point of view, which is much better. In fact, you could entirely delete the first two pages and the reader wouldn't lose anything by it. All the background information is presented from Claire's narration or from Dr. Blackmore's exposition. But that's another problem- on page 5 you switch yet again to Dr. Blackmore and his group, which by itself isnt necessarily a problem, except that you go from first person narrative in Claire's case to third person omnicient in Dr. Blackmore's scenes. This is extremely awkward, and I would recommend that you either continue to use the first person, except from Dr. Blackmore's point of view, or else use third person for the entire work. Note that first person narration is more difficult to write well, and some people feel that it is overused in the fantasy/horror genre, but that is entirely up to you. Just pick a style and stick with it.

Some smaller issues: I see no reason to go into the level of detail that you do regarding everyone's name tags. The general rule is that if a detail (or even an entire scene) isnt necessary to advance the plot or the theme of the work, then it shouldn't be included.

There are some minor details that I found amusing: What kind of corporation or government agency actually uses "Menial Worker" as a formal position title? Are they trying to lower morale? Why would they recruit, hire and presumably train workers who are not aware of Claire's dangerous traits until the day they are brought into her cell? Why doesnt the worker believe Dr. Blackmore? We dont know who these people are, they dont even have names, so the reader cannot connect to their motivations as characters in the story. I presume, without having read ahead, that Claire will eventually kill one or more of them, and when she does, the reader will likely experience almost no emotional impact, because you haven't presented them as relatable individuals yet. You need to include dialogue that will help us understand who Dr. B and these workers are, what their reasons for being there are, and how they feel about the situation they are in. The general rule is: readers want feelings, not facts about the background. So depict your characters emoting in every scene and line of dialogue, and your story will become much more compelling.

And I can see that you have the skill to do this, because you did it with Claire.

Thematically, your work reminds me most of M.R. Carey's "The Girl With All the Gifts" (the book, I haven't seen the movie), which is about a young female zombie being studied by the government after an apocalypse. If you haven't read it yet, you should, you would like it, and it might provide you with some useful ideas.

OK, I think that's enough for now. I think you need to entirely rewrite the whole thing, except for Claire's internal monologue scenes, keeping in mind the points that I have raised.

So far, you have an interesting set up and potential story. Keep at it, and feel free to seek additional feedback. Good work.

Edited by DeMarquis on Feb 9th 2019 at 8:27:04 AM

I've already read your critique for the first 16 pages. After reading your critique, I promptly started editing the first draft of The Cambion in one go. Here are the difference between the early draft and the new version in my computer.

• Trimmed out the 'reference manual' opening to shorten page number and increase pacing. Instead, the opening is replaced with a brief, cryptic dream sequence involving an enigmatic woman.
• Shortened the introduction of Dr. Blackmore and his staff and reduced the amount of level detail associated with it. Changed 'Menial worker' to 'Orderly' in the first few pages of their appearance.

I'm keeping up with the good work. Continue on critiquing my work over the next few days. In the meantime, I'll be continuing on other horror short stories as a hobby,

Cool. Keep at it.

I reread the entry, but I don't see where the changes you mentioned were made. It looks exactly identical to the first time I read it.

As for the next 15 pages, it's really more of the same. The constant back and forth between first person narrative and third, sometimes several times on a page, is tiring and confusing. The pace is slow- not much happens between 14 and 30 except Claire is escorted to an experimental room. There is some dialogue, some exposition, but not much plot. We dont get much insight into Dr. B's mind, what kind of person he is, how he feels about this situation. Your writing style is much more "telling" than "showing". For example, on page 27 there is this passage, an internal monologue by Claire:

"The voice of Doctor Blackmore seems cold and scientific. He sounds very calm and collected as if he’s not afraid of me. I know, I’ve a lot of experiences with him showing my powers and not be intimidated."

But why does the doctor's voice seem cold and scientific? Are his words clipped, is his voice a monotone, is his language formal? Telling the reader that his voice is cold and scientific creates an emotional distance between the reader and the character which prevents the reader from engaging the scene. The next example is from page 28:

"There was something unsettling about Claire’s eyes. The gaze was piercing - the more Dr. Blackmore stared into her eyes, the more he felt perturbed about it. He felt there was something unnatural, something eldritch about it but he couldn’t put a finger on it."

That's much better, here we know what it is about Claire's gaze that the doctor finds disturbing. Hence, the reader can imagine looking into Claire's eyes and finding it disturbing ourselves. This fully engages us in the scene and draws us more fully into the story.

Basically, I would suggest a full re-write, focusing on describing the subjective experiences of the two major characters using one narrative voice.

Edited by DeMarquis on Feb 22nd 2019 at 7:28:45 AM

Actually, it's the review copy meant for the ConCrit thread. The new draft is located in my computer.

The slow pacing between page 14 to 30 is designed to characterize Claire, build-up suspense to the scene where Claire reveals her true potential and making the whole story more rewarding by giving a sense of astonishment to the reader.

Edited by AdeptGaderius on Feb 22nd 2019 at 5:08:54 AM

Hey everyone!

I've been lurking on this thread for a bit and I was thinking about posting something, but I'm not sure I've seen an official way to do so. Do I just make a public link to a google docs file and post it here? If that's the case, I'll just edit this post with the link. Thanks!

Edited by Tonberry2k on Feb 25th 2019 at 3:44:32 PM

There's a link at the top where you can put yourself on the waiting list. When it's your turn you can post a public Google-doc link.

I'm also going to step back from being the one who alerts people on their turn to post. I've been doing a shit job of it and I'm just not in a good place to do it. Sorry if I've let anyone down.

Thanks for clearing that up! I added my link to that page. *deep breath*

So the next person up is theblockedwriter, yes?

Do you have a limit on how long a document to post as a Goodle Doc?

No, but people will only read as much as they feel comfortable doing.

So would twenty pages be okay do you think, or should it be less?

Speaking from personal experience, twenty pages is too long. Many readers will look at it as too daunting a document to both read, analyze, and provide feedback for, especially when trying to fit everything else into their day too.

The Constructive Criticism thread is aimed for helping improve your writing. When selecting what work you’d like us to take a look at try to find an exerpt that best exemplifies the area of writing you’d like to get feedback on. I’d go no longer than 5 pages personally.

If we assume around 250-350 words to a page, 20 pages would come out to around 6,000 words or so. Most of my chapters are around that long, and it's also worth noting that the TV Tropes short story contests have had upper word count limits of 5,000 words. A while back, someone submitted a novel portion that came out to around 23k words, but it had been heavily edited and polished by that point and so the writer only requested criticism on the story contents (like how so-and-so came across and what we thought about the plot development). Most people only read a chapter or two.

If you're wanting criticism on just a single chapter or an entire short story that happens to be right around 20 pages, I don't see an issue with it. For something that hasn't been polished or edited extensively, I would consider 20 pages or 6,000 words to be the upper limit of what would be reasonable to offer for critique here, and also the upper end of what would be a reasonable length for a single chapter. If you go more than a couple hundred words or so longer than that, consider finding a good stopping point and cutting it off. Of course, any critic is free to read or critique only as much as they feel inclined to.

All right, thanks.

Frankly, it depends on how good you are. The better an author you happen to be, the more people will be inclined to read.

Well, that's what I aim to find out.

First, here's my running thoughts:

• You're writing in the digital age. If you want something [blacked out] in Google Docs, commit — black it out. (You can use either the highlight color or special characters, depending on where it's meant to be finally published).
• You describe a number of physical characteristics of this girl, but not her skin color. A lot of writers feel like it's racially insensitive to describe a character by the color of their skin, but here's a secret: It's not. Giving a complete picture of the most obvious elements of a person — height, skin color, hair, clothing, and body shape — goes a long way to making the reader feel physically present, so your writing will only suffer if you avoid one of those four items like the plague.
• Is it deliberate that her last name is censored the first time but not the second? Because if so, that's kind of funny. If not, well… (I should mention, the fact that I can't tell if it's deliberate is probably a problem in and of itself, but a more existential one I wouldn't know how to recommend you go about fixing, so meh)
• “was experimenting on a highly dangerous experiment to summon a being called ‘Al Enna’ involving self-inflicted neurosurgery…” I would move “to summon a being called ‘Al Enna’” to the end of that sentence. Otherwise it sounds like Al Enna is the thing that involves self-inflicted neurosurgery.
• Also, “self-inflicted neurosurgery” is an awesome phrase and this story wins automatic points for including it.
• I'm… let's say, trepidatious about your use of what from what I can tell is a made-up piece of “Arabic” folklore as the basis for the evil cult. Especially because “Lillim”, from what I can tell, is just some nonsense made to sound vaguely Arabic (though it doesn't sound even vaguely Arabic). Not deducting any points yet, but my hand is on the buzzer.
• There are a lot of weird grammar errors — comma splices, mostly — but other than that the narration for the story proper is serviceable first-person. Not super-colorful, but not everything needs to be.
• Okay, I've been ignoring a lot of grammar mistakes, but “A siren was raised; alerting it was start of my daily routine.” is a god-awful sentence. Full point deduction. Consider “A siren blared across through the facility, its tinny echo amplifying it further; my daily routine was beginning.” Or something; I'm totally happy with that one either, but at least it's grammatical.
• I'm going to ignore any further grammatical mistakes that don't make it impossible for me to tell what's being said; just assume there are a lot of them. Please, please, get a copy editor.
• “As if I imagined” sticks out to me. Is it indicating that the protagonist won't even let herself imagine? If so, that's a really cool and harrowing image. Or is it just another example of a grammatical error? I can't tell. See, I only bring up grammar because it's tied to storytelling.
• What is the point of going out of Claire's perspective in the lye shower? I get that it's clearly intentional, I just don't see what's gained from it. Or rather, I do see what's gained from it, but you put in way too many scene-transition markers and it muddles the effect. Only indicate a scene transition if you're going to a different scene.
• Ignoring the redundant scene transitions, it's actually a really interesting narrative device. If I knew anything about Claire other than why she was being studied and the fact that sometimes she read books, the stark contrast would probably highlight how dehumanized she's been.
• Around the time I got to the list of weapons the security team had, I decided that the scene had gone on for too long. The trouble is, that's not actually what's happening. In fact, it's the opposite — you seem to be rushing through this section, as if there's something you can't wait to get to. And I'm sure it'll be cool and all, but if you'd spent another page fleshing out Claire's interiority (e.g. what she thinks about her situation, how she handles the pain, what memories stick out most strongly), and maybe a bit more time describing Dr. Blackmore and Juanita (physical descriptions are good places to sneak in bits of characterization), then when we finally got there it would be more impactful.
• A lot of the descriptions are utilitarian — they say what something is designed for, what it does, etc. Consider descriptions that are more sensory — how things look, sound, feel, smell — or emotional — what they remind characters of, what emotions they evoke. Don't tell me that the hydraulic lock is “difficult to breach or crack”. Tell me about the insignia of the security company printed on it, who Dr. Blackmore doesn't like but they do good work and that's what matters. Don't tell me that the alien metal in the door comes from a meteorite, tell me that it feels unnaturally cold, as if it were sucking the very life from the room.
• I really like the small talk among the menial workers. It's a bit stilted because of the grammar, but other than that it's a much-needed humorous scene. (“based on a video game”, my god, how *do* you come up with this stuff?)
• Okay, so we finally get some of Claire's interiority — her desire to be out. I like the way it's framed as an abnormal desire; that really drives home how brainwashed she is, thinking that this is normal. It's effective. It would have been nice to get that before you put her in pain rather than after, but I feel like I've been too harsh, so I'll count this as a positive.
• And then in the very next scene she's displaying a *lot* more willfulness. It would make more sense if there were something that happened to her, something she witnessed, or even just a train of thought we followed her on, that let from Point A to Point B. It's a nice, empowering development, but it doesn't feel like it was *supposed* to be a development.
• Yeah, she's displaying way too much self-awareness now. This goes against the sense of cold familiarity she had at the beginning of the chapter.
• At this point I have to come out and say it. The switching perspectives happens too frequently to add anything to the story. Have one entire chapter with Claire's perspective and alternate back and forth if you must (and I can see an argument to be made that you must), but don't do it every five paragraphs. It's jarring, and when the third-person perspective is just a single paragraph focusing on Claire anyway, it's pointless.
• Why is she escaping that day in particular? Nothing we've been told indicates that today is unusual. A minor point, but it's bothering me.
• What was the point of growing the eye on the nape? That came out of nowhere, advanced nothing, and developed nothing other than maybe confirming that she can grow an eye on her nape? But that's not something that needed to be established, even if it comes back later; she's a shapeshifter. Until proven otherwise, readers will assume she can shapeshift.
• The eye thing is cool. I think you could do to expand on what it made Dr. Blackwell feel, especially since that'd be a good way of characterizing him further while also building up the lore. Plus you have a tendency to underwrite.
• Claire's clinical observations about her own stare are… interesting. They add a level of self-awareness to her character, but I'm not sure if that really fits with the rest of her. Her earnest, unflagging desire to be normal could provide a good contrast with her awareness of her own alienness. If that gets explored throughout the story, good. If not, then it's a character contradiction at best and a character inconsistency at worst.
• The “action” scene with her attacking the targets is thoroughly-described, but once again, the descriptions lean toward the utilitarian. It's also a weird time to switch away from first person; I for one want to know how it *feels* to fire one's knuckles out as bullets.
  • Side note: Why is the accuracy a part of Claire's abilities? If it were specifically because she shapeshifted her sensory organs to be more precise, that would be a cool use of her powers that demonstrates her self-knowledge; if it weren't from her abilities but simply a skill she picked up from going through this testing day after day for years, then that would add an element of what-doesn't-kill-you-makes-you-stronger, which is always fun. As it is? It's just… a thing she can do, which does nothing for her character except make it harder for things to challenge her.
• Okay, the metamorphosis thing is really cool. The sort of thing I should have expected but didn't. Kudos.
• “The tentacles jutted out thorns which made his left foot and right arm bleed. “GRAAAHHHH!” he screamed out of agony.” All this description, but you never describe the actual pain. Your action scenes need to be more visceral, or you shouldn't bother to include them at all; stage notes don't make for an entertaining read.
• “He recognized the girl.” You say that like it's supposed to be a twist that Claire is inside the cocoon. It's clearly not. Why is it meaningful that he recognizes her?
• Everything from Claire's worrying about whether she can bulletproof herself to the moment she gets out the last anti-carbon round is amazing. It's still awkwardly worded because of the grammar, and I could do with a bit more foreshadowing of the biological manipulation, but it's a good scene otherwise.
• “It was very painful.” You can be more colorful than that. Compare it to lye, for example; that's an easy reference point.
• I like Dr. Blackmore's breakdown, and the mix of perspective and lack of perspective that motivates his actions at the end of the story. I still don't have a sense for *why* any of this, but I guess I can live with that for now.
• Oh, *that's* why. Huh. Disappointing. They kidnapped her because they don't like ennui.
• So that's the twist. I'm… not sure what that adds to the story. I guess we'll see?

Final thoughts: Well, that was interesting, and if the grammar were cleaned up I'd definitely want to read more. There are certainly really cool moments there, but I feel like certain narrative choices — like the motivations of the villain, and the whole concept of Al Enna — have the potential to seriously hamstring the story in the long run. Still, I'd love to know how much of my critique you found useful.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm re-writing the short story to fit with the critique, but I'm stuck with a writer's block until I manage to find some motivation.

Is it acceptable to add comments to the shared Google Docs in question?

Or do people prefer to keep the criticism to this thread?

Here's a little tip I once got for dealing with writer's block. If you're having trouble writing (or rewriting) a scene, sometimes that's because there's actually something else you need to write first. Try writing a different scene entirely and see if the change in perspective helps clarify things.