mdk — Roleplayer Guild

@Blizz
The thing missing from this poem is surprise. When you look at good poems, they’re saying things like “love is a watermelon” and that relationship between ‘love’ and ‘a watermelon’ is what breathes life into the words. It’s all that symbolism and imagery crap your English teacher drones on about ad nauseum – but they kind of have a point, right? If you don’t go outside the box, it’s not really a poem – it’s just a list of facts.

WHICH TOTALLY KINDA WORKS IN THIS CASE! Because in the Glorious Country, this is exactly the kind of poem you would expect people to write about their Glorious Leader. I mean this is a picture-perfect, in-character-ish sort of entry, and in that sense it’s friggin’ brilliant. I just wanted to start out with the criticism because outside of the scenario we presented in this contest, this poetic voice would come across as I guess the only good word would be “bland.” 

Interestingly there are certain traditional poems that use this sort of formatting. I cheated and looked at @Shorticus’s review – that’s one. Another is Hebrew poetry, where repetition is part of the whole idea – “God is good, God is great” is a poetic clause. That’s academic though. In a modern, English, ‘do I like this’ sense of things, what we really want from poetry is imagery that makes you think/feel/wonder. It’s absent here, and here, that’s fine – hell I’m tempted to call that a strength, in this case! Just don’t make a habit of it is all I’m saying.

@klomster
Nailed it.

Let’s start with what I really like. First of all, you totally captured that cult reverence and generally absurd true-believer voice. It’s lunatic and over the top and authentic. Second, I really liked that introduction section about seeing, hearing, touching the glorious leader – @Blizz put me in kind of a Book of Psalms mood, and this has the flow of a Psalm of David, really – which is high praise. Third and last because of constraints – that ‘stallion riding another stallion with sparkles’ bit is still making me laugh. I love it. 

My only criticism – bearing in mind that again, GLORIOUS COUNTRY style isn’t going to carry you too far outside of this scenario, so be smart about what you learn here – my only criticism that could apply to your writing in general is, there’s a little more repetition that I’d like to see. Things like crowds so moved they burst into songs of praise over and over again – I mean I get it, what else can you really say in this situation, but just be mindful of it, right? And towards the end, the word ‘graze’ appears in back-to-back sentences, which is just weird for the reader because we don’t hear ‘graze’ once in a normal day, and there it is twice in a row. 

That’s it. This is quirky and insane and ridiculous, and for all those reasons I think it should really turn out as one of the stronger entries of the month. But I haven’t finished reading yet, so don’t hold me to that. MY POINT BEING – great job.

@wisedragongirl

I have to get this out of the way or it’s going to bother me for the whole review – I adore poetic meter. I would marry poetic meter but I’m pretty sure Shakespeare has dibs. You picked a really great rhythm for this poem and just didn’t stick with it hard enough, and it’s bugging the hell out of me! All easy fixes, too – “Some people were jealous and wanted his wealth” fits the rhythm. ‘None No one was able to touch the good king” fits. “He deserved Deserving the following praising galore” fits. It’s…. well. The lesson is, if you don’t really super-realishly think about it, the rhythm slips away, but it’s usually not all that hard to keep it. And keeping it makes your poem hit 3,000,000% harder. Always be thinking about the rhythm!

Rant out of the way. Let’s talk about the positives – first of all, structure like I said was a really smart choice. The stanzas are natural, the rhyming is consistent and natural, and the rhythm (when you kept it!) was perfect. The images are pervasive and you don’t linger on any of them, and they’re all adding to the bigger picture of this great king and his loyal people and his awesome kingdom. Everything here works, basically, is the short-version. 

Except the rhythm. But you’re so close, and it’s such an easy correction.

@Polybius

You did a fantastic job of world-building (worlds? Whatever). The writing itself is friggin’ outstanding – feels like the perfect amount of detail, excellent descriptions mixed in nicely with conversation and action. The big take-away for people who might read your entry and then read my review (and also for you) – when you read this story, you’re getting a real sense of what’s around the plot. Things that you don’t have to write, but you’re still telling us – that’s an art form right there, and you’re all over it. MAJOR kudos. 

Sidenote – I’ve been in numerous military officers’ lounges before and you nailed it. The setting here is the strong suit.

Let’s talk plot. You’ve given us, in my opinion, a very strong scene, but with a few chinks in the armor. The conversation – and the suspicious pauses in the conversation – are very effective. But the chink is, the ending – with the violent confrontation – isn’t really foreshadowed at all. When the martian puts her hands under the table, we’re already in Tyler’s head and he should already be suspicious, right? But heck, even before that, he should’ve been suspicious just stepping into the club. It’s a sort of  reverse-Chekhov-gun – there are essential details left out and I think that’s why the plot doesn’t quite hit home. Yes, the surprise of a gun popping out mid-conversation is more shocking – but it could happen a little more honestly, I guess? Does that make sense?

Plot was a little weak. Literally everything else was amazing. Your characters are interesting and alive and a part of a bigger, breathing world, and the language was great. Compare this to the bar scene in Inglorious Bastards – I mean okay, that’s Oscar stuff, let’s not get carried away, but notice how in that scene the tension is building naturally because of what the audience is “in” on? Aspire towards that end of the spectrum.

@shorticus

I’m partway through reading in detail right now, and I wanted to get some point-criticisms out of the way before I give you the proper treatment in a minute. I don’t always do point-by-points, but when I’m doing fine details like this it’s because you’re awesome. Forgive the nitty-gritty!

-	While Arturus speaks with the dragon, there’s a parenthetical (which the dragon claimed human meat did). I DON’T LIKE IT. Rephrase that and work it into the sentence – “They talked about which meat tasted best, and the dragon insisted that it was human no matter what Arturus suggested as an alternative.” I mean not that, that’s bad, but…. Like that. The parentheses shut down the story for a second and it was really jarring, because I’m super into this.
-	Word choice when he speaks to the king-priest. “I doubted that I was Chosen at all once I saw….” Feels wrong, idunno. Read aloud it’s fine, took me a couple tries in writing.
-	Poetry from the book of Aldorane lacks a good rhythm, but this is hardly the point of the story so don’t sweat it
-	Cutting through the grove of thorns, there’s an exclamation point when Arturus realizes his path is being regrown as he moves. The exclamation point is weird. I’m not one of those ‘never ever use that’ types, but this instance feels like a break from the overall style. I’d go another way.
-	Arturas talking to his father is a little sloppy. “you are my sire, he who taught me all I know” – why not ‘you taught me all I know?’ And ‘for whom I have fought all these battles for,” obviously, slipped past – not a big deal, just pointing it out.

Okay, done with all that. Wow. Let’s skip the parts where I tell you how impressed I am, or I’ll be here all day. The story is well-written and that’s great, but more than that, it’s compelling and that’s rare. Style is sound and consistent. Pacing is goddamn brilliant. Characters were overwhelmingly interesting. Climatic. Different. Let’s boil it down to simply: dude, this rules.

I picked out some points as I went along, and listed them above. Should not be construed as complaints, or detriments, or whatever – just some extra things to think about on your next compelling story. Something else that you did well, but still think about it next time – this was the right amount of setting for this story. He passes nameless villages and on the one hand, maybe naming a few of them would help each encounter stand out – that’s a trap I think. Like…. This is very clearly a story about Arturus and his dedication, and not about the land it’s happening in. That’s all background, and it stays background here. Presumably the next story may possibly call for a different specific amount of setting detail – nail it as well as you did in Firebrand, and you’ll be in a great place.

Not much else to say. This was crazy stupid good.

@vilageidiotx
First of all I love the intro. It was all character and weird as hell – bloody perfect.
Second, I love the tone of this entire story. Less Braveheart, more Jarhead. It feels super authentic all the way through, and I’m connecting that much more with everybody involved. 
Third, I love what’s in the story almost as much as I love what isn’t. We don’t get to see the battles – only the damage. And that’s a whole commentary on Revolution of its own! There’s no waving banners, not even all that much excitement (okay, the one guy shooting through the floor while he’s singing a fucking church hymn) – when there’s bravery, it’s ludicrous. When there’s justice, it’s sideways. I can’t really put into words just how ‘right’ this all feels. 

TL:DR – I honestly tried to do a point-by-point complaint log like I did for @shorticus and I literally came up dry. It’s crazy. There simply is nothing in this story that I don’t like – nothing that doesn’t work, nothing that I would want to see done differently. It’s outstanding. Which leaves me in a weird place, because I desperately want to say something helpful for your future writing endeavors – so I’ll pick the one spot, four paragraphs from the end, where he’s sitting quietly and thinking about what he’s learned from all this. Yes – that seems like exactly the sort of thing he would think about, yes, it works, yes, you did it well. It’s as close as I can get to a weak point, and it ends when he gets a Snickers – go figure. I guess maybe trim down the soliloquy a little, maybe? I’m sorry. That’s really all I got. Bravo.

@platinumskink
Well that was a lot of fun!

So, to really appreciate this, you certainly had to be ‘in’ on the GLORIOUS ‘roleplay’ I guess. But if you weren’t – and you highlighted – I think it would still be worth talking about because of the great effect of the hidden text. The two sides – and then that one part where they trade places? FLAWLESS EXECUTION. I’m not gonna be picky about the writing because, I mean, dueling propagandas, what do you expect right? But there’s one line where you point out ‘This is happening in modern times’ or something along those lines and, yeah, okay, that’s slightly breaking the fourth wall just a touch. But whatever. 

This was fun. On format alone this has to be the cleverest thing anybody’s ever turned in. I dig it, I like it, I APPROVE. Nice job. Also I’M A STAAAAAAAR! Woot. I think in the realm of ‘canon’ for GLORIOUS COUNTRY, this should pretty much be the authoritative ‘what happened’ outcome.

Okay, calling a break. Three more to go. May I point out – everything I’m reading has been uniquely awesome for completely different reasons and comparing each story is going to be, like, ludicrously hard. Assuming that keeps up, I have no idea how I’m gonna vote yet. You guys rock.
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