Starfisher

Criticism and all that. You all know the drill by now. If not, check the last thread to see how it all works.

I'm busy as hell, so I'll be posting my crit later this weekend. I apologize. Real life happens :/

Sholto

I'm away this weekend, but I'll post on Sunday evening.

Sholto

Kaito

been busy reading wrath of the gods the past days, had no time to write anything
maybe i'll rush something down, depends whether i got a spare minute in time.

Rodimus

Heh, 3 for 3. packing for vacation this whole week. Back next Sunday.

Alliance

How about not posting in here unless you have a "maunual" to post or a critisism of it, rather than saying you will post one in so and so more time?

Sword_Monkey

Same i have PM'd Starfisher already, as I am going to be away for roughly 3 and a half weeks.

See you all later .

Beelzebuddy

First off, I believe I owe Loco a critique from last week, before Starfisher so inconsiderately closed the thread on time. Loco, I think your story could be slightly improved by phrasing the supporting material in the voice of the character it's describing. The story's about Joe the Brick, right? Joe don't think too good, see, and all these fancy words make his head hurt. That's alright though, 'cause Joe don't gotta think too much either. Boss says to him, 'Joe, mess this guy up,' and Joe does it. It's a good job, a lot better than working at the docks like his cousin. Only this time Boss said 'Joe, mess those guys up,' and Joe can't do it 'cause everything got all dark instead.

Now onto this week's vict-ah, er, Caesar! Three things.

A) Adjectives are your friends, yes. Specifically, they're poker buddies: great fun to have around on a regular basis, but let them run wild and they'll leave behind a hell of a mess. Consider the following-
Pick any one. Preferably "shallow," since we already know it's snow covered, we can guess it'll be muddy, and specifying a shallow grave imparts a more morbid atmosphere.

B) Be careful about viewpoint changes. Your story begins from the perspective of the standing soldiers considering their prisoner and switches without warning to the prisoner's viewpoint as he withdraws something "cold and metallic," two adjectives the other soldiers could not have known about. It's okay if you want to do that, but insert something before then to let us know the view is switching. "The broken man found the strength to move. Not much, but enough. He dug deep into his coat and grabbed..."

C) Sweet mamma-jamma, commas!
There are a few other mistakes, mostly to do with spelling and phrasing. Those will come with practice.

Lestaki

Hmm, I was gonna do everyone but I think I'll go for these two in detail this time. If anyone gets left out, I may help you...

Sword Monkey
My first thought would be that the death for "heresy" is a bit abrupt. If I was into a cult or order that kidnapped to get its way, I definately wouldn't say "the whole thing is silly". For a start, something brought me this far, and as well as that- no one can be that stupid, right? That bit feels a little forced to me, as if you're trying to convince us in a typical manner that these are nasty, ruthless people, but I merely get an impression that the first man is an idiot. There's also a viewpoint switch which I find somewhat disconcerting, as we jump immedietely from a generic overview of the room to the hostage's perspective.

The dialouge also seems a bit... passionless to me.

I can't exactly put my finger on it, but I get the impression this supposed to be really passionate and forceful. Right now, though, it feels a bit wooden, with some weak phrases (bolded).

I think it's just a little vauge, maybe something like:

Looking at that, I guess I mean the senences should be a little shorter, as that conveys more exitement. And a bit more certainty to the phrasing as well. I dunno, just an impression. The idea's interesting and you definately did better than me about dragging something substantial out of the topic. Overall, pretty good!

Sevorak
I think you know what I'm going to say, my friend. Declamatory.


We have two dashes and two semi-colons in one sentence, let alone the commas. I think that's a pretty good indication that this sentence is too long. I find the "security authorisation" section a little too verbose, myself, and "neither said a thing" surely makes "it was a tacit arrangement" redundant. Saying things twice seems a little unesecarry.


Again, a bit longwinded for me. I'd shorten it to this:


Perhaps I was a bit brutal there, but you get the idea. Generally a simple sentence can create as much effect as several lines of intense description, something I always have to work on as well.

My final point:

This line feels a little unesecarry to me. Apart from being a point you can argue about () it feels a bit preachy to me. We're here for the story.

You already know my viewpoints on the story being a little unexplained; I know the dreamworld and everything attendant but it the boy's powers and their origins might seem a bit metaphysical and unexplained to newcomers. I dunno, anyone else have a view on that?

Anyway, that's just my quick thoughts on some passages. It was pretty good overall, and you'd definately picked an interesting topic. Keep up the good work! :thumb: