Some feedback please
- Thread starter Zodia195
- Start date
CWatson
Not in a band.
- Joined
- Jul 4, 2003
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Okay, your first problem is the same that plagues a lot of young writers: SHOW, DON'T TELL. You have five paragraphs of scene-setting before any dialogue whatsoever, and that's a little too much. At the very least there should be some dialogue between Pristine and Kyra to set up those characters and put a little life on them.
Then, when Hunter and his gang show up... Well, simply put, your dialogue is not very good. It's stilted, it's wooden, and nobody has ever talked like that in the history of ever. You need to train yourself to listen to what people actually say--"yeah but"s, "uhh"s, "like"s and "..."s included--and write that down, not just the streamlined version. The Reader won't notice good dialogue, but they will notice bad dialogue, which makes it a thankless job. But it's something we just have to learn. My advice it to start with this clip of comedian Eddie Izzard - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope-1Zb5t-k - and transcribe it, word for word, punctuation mark for punctuation mark, noise for noise. Eddie Izzard has a rambling, idiosyncratic talking style when he does stand-up, so if you can capture the flavor of how he talks, you can do anything.
Next: punctuation. When you end dialogue with a mark that isn't an exclam or a question mark, it has to be a comma. Always. You have lots and lots of cases in which you don't follow this.
Also: the setting. It has no character or flavor whatsoever. It's not even (what TVTropes calls) the Standard Fantasy Setting, it's just this empty patch of dirt where your characters happen to stand. And the Doomed Hometown? Seriously? Yes, the world has a back-story, but it doesn't have any presence--I want to know about farmers in the fields and fishers on boats, about the political situation as it currently stands, about how Grom manages to survive even though Evil forces have conquered most of the world and will probably march on them out of boredom. I want to hear people talking in the street about how the kingdom of Happistan just recently fell, and what that means to them personally since they're like to be next on the target list. I want to know who the heroes are. I want to know about the economic situation--feudalism? Something different? I want to know how civilization recovered from the Invasion. I want to know what the religion is like, who they worship and why. I want a world that lives and breathes.
What's up with your knight, by the way? Reginald is a trained professional soldier, who spends all his time either fighting wars or practicing for the next one. He's probably one of the best, if he's amongst the king's household guard. He has either a sword-and-shield or a longsword (the so-called "hand-and-a-half" sword or "bastard sword") and--most pertinently--armor. He's wearing at least a breastplate, gauntlets, half-helm, bracers and greaves, if not the full plate-armor kit (depends on your technology level)--and yes, he is wearing it. He put it on before the entered the mountain pass because he's not a moron; he knows there are bad guys in the mountains and that it's his job to kill them. (And if he is a moron, then frankly I have questions about King Charles.) Lance and his boils, in comparison, are wearing boiled leather, maybe some bits of mail, and have things like scythes, daggers and pitchforks. Reginald can go through them like a knife through butter--not just because he's better trained, but because they can't hurt him; his plate is proof against most weapons and his sword gives him longer reach as well. The only thing that would cause him to hesitate is the presence of Kyra, whom the others might try to capture as a hostage, but if he kills them fast enough that won't be a problem. There is absolutely no reason, none at all, why Pristine should have had to intervene in that fight. It shouldn't have been a fight. Reginald should have wiped the floor with them.
And finally: your heroine. Have you ever heard of the concept called the Mary Sue? Yours in particular is a Purity Sue, particularly after that nonsense with Lance and the Boys. Really?, noble outlaws? And since when does Pristine carry a sword? Girls don't sword. Girls have babies. Girls fighting in armies was considered ass-backwards and maybe even perverted: if women are the only source of babies, and 1 in 10 births kills the mother (much less then nearly-50% infant mortality rate itself), what's the sense in killing them off in war too? This is not a concept you can just throw out the window because you're in a fantasy setting, it is an incontrovertible law of human existence and will be true of all humans, everywhere--whether they live on Earth or Middle-Earth. Girls hide behind men. Kyra might carry a sword, and maybe even have some sense of using it, because she's a child and (from the sound of it) a tomboy to boot. But Pristine should not because she is a proper lady (insofar as peasants like her count as "ladies"; historical records of the medieval period from our world don't much mention peasants, because historians of the era considered them less important than dirt) and when proper ladies need blood shed, they send men to do it. There is absolutely no reason Pristine would carry a sword, or know how to use it if she did, because the point of her existence is not to fight, it is to have babies.
I can tell from your story that you are personally young; you write like a 16-year-old. There's nothing wrong with that; we were all teenagers once. The questions I've asked and problems I've pointed out will help you grow up. Some of what I've said... well, you could make the argument that it applies to our world, and not Serenai, and you'd be right--but if so, that's more stuff you need to depict and set up. Serenai is not Earth, but as such you need to explain how and why it is different. And the rest just needs work. You've got quite an imagination going and clearly you have a story you want to tell, but your ambition currently outstrips your ability. It's an imbalance you'll need to correct. The things I've pointed out will help you correct it.
Then, when Hunter and his gang show up... Well, simply put, your dialogue is not very good. It's stilted, it's wooden, and nobody has ever talked like that in the history of ever. You need to train yourself to listen to what people actually say--"yeah but"s, "uhh"s, "like"s and "..."s included--and write that down, not just the streamlined version. The Reader won't notice good dialogue, but they will notice bad dialogue, which makes it a thankless job. But it's something we just have to learn. My advice it to start with this clip of comedian Eddie Izzard - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ope-1Zb5t-k - and transcribe it, word for word, punctuation mark for punctuation mark, noise for noise. Eddie Izzard has a rambling, idiosyncratic talking style when he does stand-up, so if you can capture the flavor of how he talks, you can do anything.
Next: punctuation. When you end dialogue with a mark that isn't an exclam or a question mark, it has to be a comma. Always. You have lots and lots of cases in which you don't follow this.
All these and more need to be changed. The closing period should be a comma in all cases.From your story... said:
Also: the setting. It has no character or flavor whatsoever. It's not even (what TVTropes calls) the Standard Fantasy Setting, it's just this empty patch of dirt where your characters happen to stand. And the Doomed Hometown? Seriously? Yes, the world has a back-story, but it doesn't have any presence--I want to know about farmers in the fields and fishers on boats, about the political situation as it currently stands, about how Grom manages to survive even though Evil forces have conquered most of the world and will probably march on them out of boredom. I want to hear people talking in the street about how the kingdom of Happistan just recently fell, and what that means to them personally since they're like to be next on the target list. I want to know who the heroes are. I want to know about the economic situation--feudalism? Something different? I want to know how civilization recovered from the Invasion. I want to know what the religion is like, who they worship and why. I want a world that lives and breathes.
What's up with your knight, by the way? Reginald is a trained professional soldier, who spends all his time either fighting wars or practicing for the next one. He's probably one of the best, if he's amongst the king's household guard. He has either a sword-and-shield or a longsword (the so-called "hand-and-a-half" sword or "bastard sword") and--most pertinently--armor. He's wearing at least a breastplate, gauntlets, half-helm, bracers and greaves, if not the full plate-armor kit (depends on your technology level)--and yes, he is wearing it. He put it on before the entered the mountain pass because he's not a moron; he knows there are bad guys in the mountains and that it's his job to kill them. (And if he is a moron, then frankly I have questions about King Charles.) Lance and his boils, in comparison, are wearing boiled leather, maybe some bits of mail, and have things like scythes, daggers and pitchforks. Reginald can go through them like a knife through butter--not just because he's better trained, but because they can't hurt him; his plate is proof against most weapons and his sword gives him longer reach as well. The only thing that would cause him to hesitate is the presence of Kyra, whom the others might try to capture as a hostage, but if he kills them fast enough that won't be a problem. There is absolutely no reason, none at all, why Pristine should have had to intervene in that fight. It shouldn't have been a fight. Reginald should have wiped the floor with them.
And finally: your heroine. Have you ever heard of the concept called the Mary Sue? Yours in particular is a Purity Sue, particularly after that nonsense with Lance and the Boys. Really?, noble outlaws? And since when does Pristine carry a sword? Girls don't sword. Girls have babies. Girls fighting in armies was considered ass-backwards and maybe even perverted: if women are the only source of babies, and 1 in 10 births kills the mother (much less then nearly-50% infant mortality rate itself), what's the sense in killing them off in war too? This is not a concept you can just throw out the window because you're in a fantasy setting, it is an incontrovertible law of human existence and will be true of all humans, everywhere--whether they live on Earth or Middle-Earth. Girls hide behind men. Kyra might carry a sword, and maybe even have some sense of using it, because she's a child and (from the sound of it) a tomboy to boot. But Pristine should not because she is a proper lady (insofar as peasants like her count as "ladies"; historical records of the medieval period from our world don't much mention peasants, because historians of the era considered them less important than dirt) and when proper ladies need blood shed, they send men to do it. There is absolutely no reason Pristine would carry a sword, or know how to use it if she did, because the point of her existence is not to fight, it is to have babies.
I can tell from your story that you are personally young; you write like a 16-year-old. There's nothing wrong with that; we were all teenagers once. The questions I've asked and problems I've pointed out will help you grow up. Some of what I've said... well, you could make the argument that it applies to our world, and not Serenai, and you'd be right--but if so, that's more stuff you need to depict and set up. Serenai is not Earth, but as such you need to explain how and why it is different. And the rest just needs work. You've got quite an imagination going and clearly you have a story you want to tell, but your ambition currently outstrips your ability. It's an imbalance you'll need to correct. The things I've pointed out will help you correct it.
