mdk

Google Picture War

Google Picture War

Didn't see that coming?

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

Done!

Adversity

10/10. I'm not 100% sure you've had enough nice things said about this yet, even though there's a bunch, so let's see..... You crushed the perspective on this, especially Terra's italicized parts. The story was obviously always going to go a certain way, given the challenge, but it felt amazingly credible anyway -- this isn't just a challenge piece, it's a real story, and a great one. You've got this thing down.

And because you're doing so great, I'd like to share some ideas about style choice. These aren't 'corrections' and shouldn't be treated as such -- you don't need those from me. My red pen is on the shelf. This is blue-pen stuff. Let's start with a big-picture idea.... You're splicing in a narrative with a homework assignment in (what feels like) a very cinematic style. The italics sound like voice-over framing device sort of things -- "This is why I'm telling the story, and this is where I am when it's over." That works, and there's no need to change a thing. You might have considered telling the whole thing in Terra's perspective -- because Terra's perspective is strong enough to handle it. What I mean is, instead of breaking into third-person narratives, potentially just write the whole story in english-paper format, as she remembers it, as she feels about it, all in her mind. It would be a very different story if you'd done it that way -- instead of detailing the events, you'd be much more focused on the emotional impact. So the thing to think about is, which do you prefer? The events are tragic and interesting enough to justify the third-person narrative, but the emotional devastation is valuable too. There's plenty of other ways you could've approached it too, like, maybe she's been called in to the teacher's office over her bad paper and they're having a conversation about the assignment -- that would open the door to emphasize the disconnect from other people. Basically what I'm driving at is, you're at a level right now where the structure of your story is a conscious choice that impacts the meaning, and there's lots of ways to take advantage of that.

Next a brief thought on sentence structure -- again, nothing wrong with how you're doing it. I mean technically grammatically fragments are taboo, but screw grammar. Fragments are cool, when they're useful. My personal feeling is, periodically, you probably should've tended towards run-ons instead. I'm really thinking of just one part near the top:

Soft, feminine footsteps. A woman’s feet danced around on the floor. Graceful and fluid. Twirling from one place to the next with the movement of a ballerina. Her bare, smooth legs moved to an unheard rhythm. Only heard by her. Sweet melodies passing through a white chord to her ears.

I can't say I know much about dancing or women, but dammit, I KNOW PERIODS. ... That came out wrong. Lemme re-punctuate that real quick:

Soft, feminine footsteps. A woman’s feet danced around on the floor, graceful and fluid, twirling from one place to the next with the movement of a ballerina. Her bare, smooth legs moved to an unheard rhythm, only heard by her -- sweet melodies passing through a white chord to her ears.

Why have I done that? Simple: we're dancing around the sentence, graceful and fluid, twirling from one image to the next with the flow of a ballerina's dance. This is the part where you can break rules to send your message better, and the message is flowing -- so why not let the sentences flow too?

EDIT: One more thing. This one, I'm tempted to reach for the red pen. In the shooting scene, there's a very sudden transition from Kaelyn's to Harris's perspective. I sorta picture this scene through a camera lens, and if I was directing a movie, at that moment there'd be a long, slow camera pan to Harris, to put the viewers into HIS head instead of hers. It doesn't really do that here...... Not to say you CAN'T do that in writing ever, but like, Idunno. It jumped out at me a little while I was reading and felt out-of-place. Whether that's a problem or not, as well as how/if it needs to be fixed, I mean, your thoughts are as good as mine. But I thought I'd call attention to it anyway.

That's it, that's all I got. OH -- I like the way you write dialogue. We don't need any he-said-she-saids in there and you were wise to leave them out. Okay, THAT is all I've got. Great job.

EDIT: I lied, I had one more thing, adding it now

Schedules -- Your Inputs Here!

Me and @Terminal, in an ongoing effort to maximize your contest awesomeness, want your inputs on how you'd like TTL and RPGC to interact, time-wise. There are essentially, as we see it, two options (though if you can think of a third, we're interested!)

Option One -- as we did the first time around, RPGC goes through its cycles (submission period, voting period), and then when we declare winners, TTL kicks off at/around the same time.

Option Two -- Whenever RPGC's entry cycle ends (so for instance, May 17th at midnight), we roll right into a TTL submission period while RPGC votes/reviews are still ongoing.

Each option has its ups and downs -- with option one, no one has to split their attention, so the TTL contestants (as well as the RPGC reviewers) can focus on one thing at a time. With option two, there's always a contest accepting submissions, so it's right from one to the other, no waiting around.

What do YOU think about it, and how would you like us to schedule things going forwards? Feel free to bring up any other scheduling concerns, if you've got em. Anything we can do to make the sub more appealing.

Mayweather vs Pacquiao Predictions

This popped up today:

One Easy Step

wheelchairs make it so much easier to rofl.

The Twelve Labours: General Discussion

@mdk

If I remember correctly, the difference between passive and active voices can be summarized as "The wrench was thrown by the mechanic" and "The mechanic threw the wrench", right?

If so, I can see now upon rereading my entry how that takes away from the action. I did it largely because I was instinctively following the scene through Jack's perspective in the beginning, where it made sense, and I didn't realize the error in continuing it.

@Holmishire

Exactly. And you're right -- it does make sense at the beginning, and heck, it makes sense for a lot of the rest, too. It's almost never "wrong," and yet, it's typically "not right" either..... But in this story a lot of the passive was justified. Which, honestly, is kind of rare.

EDIT: Let's add another review!

Elma

I um.... well, look. You're doing the important part, namely, writing your butt off. Keep doing that and everything else will follow. The plot is interesting, and the twists are meaningful. The action is exciting. All that to say, your heart's clearly in the right place, and that's worth emphasizing.

However.

The writing is supremely confusing. Good news! The doctor prescribes more writing -- that's medicine you can enjoy. It's easier to work on this when you're writing smaller stories -- not the length, so much, you can write books if you want, but the scope. If writing about a parallel-universe Elma possessing a regular-universe Ayuna fighting in regular-universe against parallel people using Aither/ether/ayther from other universe to bend natural universe laws is confusing (hint: IT IS), then start with a simpler idea and nail it. This story would've been equally interesting if it was set in Camelot, with wizards and knights and thieves. It also would've been way easier for a reader to follow.

On longer pieces -- correct me if I'm wrong, but this seemed like a stream-of-consciousness style of writing -- you start with a character in a location, with a pretty good idea of what's going to happen, and then come up with each specific step as you go along. A lot of really good writers approach it that way -- nothing wrong at all with inventing the details as you go along. If that gets confusing, it's generally a sign that you should try outlining first, to better organize the piece. How much you spell out, and how you do it -- that's up to you. But adding some regimented structure early in the process can help clean up the finished product. In this story, I might've set aside some room at the beginning to establish the world (maybe Elma talks to the students from the school and they collectively explain the two worlds to the readers, before the action starts). Maybe lay out, okay, she's going to assault this city on her own and I want to spend this many paragraphs on the infiltration, and this many in the cell. Frankly I don't know what your outline should consist of, or what it should look like, or how long you should spend on it -- but it's worth it for you to google some techniques and try them out on your own. Possibly, if you've got one available, talk to an english teacher/professor about different methods of organizing your thoughts over such a long effort (bonus: they'll give you an A for showing interest).

@Caughtintheriddle offered some tips already about sentence structure and tone, and that's why I'm sorta glossing over those aspects. Again, these things are easier to work on (and less traumatic, should you be corrected again) when you're dealing with smaller stories. Gotta learn how to paint a tree before you can paint a forest, and all that. My feeling is, you should try giving yourself one or two pages, and holding yourself to that -- but I don't matter and you should write what you want, can't emphasize that enough. You can get into a situation where you're putting in all this tremendous effort and people struggle with it, and it becomes discouraging -- and that might bum you out enough to stop loving this art form. I don't like that. I want you to write forever.

Anyway. Easy A for effort, and conceptually, it's incredible. It's just the technique that needs work.

RPGC #2 -- POWER

Honestly, this is the first time we're trying it, and I don't know what'll break the contest. I figure let's be safe and just avoid any story content in here. Meta stuff ('how long are you guys writing yours?') is probably okay, just, you know..... Use your judgment, I guess, and think really hard about how it might affect the vote. At the end of the day we go with what the community wants, and if the community wants to talk beforehand, who am I to say no? We may revisit that later. For now, safest answer is to avoid talking about the content of your entry.

RPGC #2 -- POWER

Yeah, stay away from that for now. It has a chance to undermine the vote, and the vote is sacred.

One Easy Step

My roommate came back from deployment and drank all my scotch. But he buys decent box-wine and leaves it unattended all day, so....... draw?