Old Drew Id
First Post
I do better critiquing when I can work directly from the source, so here is a snip from the opener to your second SH:
Okay, SH's often have large casts like this, and it can be difficult to quickly introduce the characters to your audience. You definitely have a start here by introducing the characters by name, class and race, and a little blurb, but the format is a little off-putting. Anything in ALL CAPS is harder to read, especially with excess or unusual punctuation ()[]. Sometimes writing is not about passing the information across to someone as much as it is about molding your information into a pleasing shape. Maybe try something next time like:
Bonds the Warforged Barbarian: "Destroy and don't bother to ask why!"
Cedious the Halfling Rogue: "A binge-drinker and general trouble-maker"
Same info, easier presentation.
A lot of the writing books will tell you this, but just to reiterate, go for detail, but know when to let your audience's imagination fill in the rest for you. There is a lot of focus here on the rain, the wood and stone paths, and the glow of the lanterns. In my opinion, a little too much. And in comparison, no detail about our heroes, except that they are returning from a party. Is anyone drunk? Tired?
Also, you mentioned the POV issue earlier, so I won't harp on that except to say the best advice I have is to pick one PC at any given time, and follow them through the entire scene, even if that means that you miss out on some little details here and there that this particular PC would not have noticed. I would rather hear about the party from Bond's POV and get everything colored through his prejudices, desires, fears, etc. and miss out on the funny thing that someone said in the other room than I would hear a third-person "report" of the party with none of the character. In other words, don't tell me that Bonds is a binge-drinker, when you can show me, through his own eyes, that Bonds is a binge-drinker. (A good tip here for practice is to try writing out one scene several times, each time from the POV of a different character in that scene. Especially for arguments, love scenes, fight scenes, and initial meetings. Practice seeing the world through one person's eyes and then reviewing everything again as someone else.)
Also, this is all very visual, which is good, but for it to have more meat, give it some tactile and auditory qualities as well. Tell me how the rain smells, or how the party smells for that matter, particularly what a wet warforged barbarian smells like. Is the rain a warm spring rain that musically drips and plops its way through the city, or is it a cold and driving winter rain that sounds ike chains being dragged across a tin roof?
Also, I am guessing that you pre-wrote some chunks of this to be read-aloud in-game, and then you are combining your notes of the game with the pre-written chunks to produce the SH? While that can work, I would recommend two things.
1) If you do this, don't intentionally break up the pre-written chunks by putting them in a seperate color like this. It just makes it more work for the reader. A reader should sort of "fall into" your writing and drift with it and float away with it. They should not have to do any "work". Every time you change POV, tense, or color or whatever else you can change, it is like forcing the reader to make a little jump, or a little bit of work, to keep going with you.
2) Completely merge the two styles of writing, between the notes and the pre-written blurbs, so that there is no distinction between where one ends and another begins before you publish to Enworld.
One tip here is about breaking sentences out into phrases. This is something that is much easier to do as you read through your stuff the second time than it is to catch during a first run. (By the way, always read thru twice before submitting. That alone can make you a better writer.) As far as breaking sentences into phrases, what I mean is that most sentences should only have one or two phrases. In spoken language it is fine to have sentences that combine 4 or 5 phrases, but in writing, limit it to 2. Specifically with this section, you say: "Bonds interrupts everyone as he looks onto the bridge he nears."
If you break this up into phrases, you have:
1) "Bonds interrupts everyone
2) as he looks onto the bridge
3) [that] he nears.
You are trying to cram too many phrases into just one sentence. Instead, keep it down to 2 phrases per sentence, as in: "As he neared the bridge, Bonds looked ahead. He interrupted everyone."
Finally, this relates to the fact that most people find it harder to read present-tense fiction, than past tense. I would rather read "Bond spotted a figure" than "Bond spots a figure."
Going back now, to combine all of these tips, you might have something that looks like this:
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Cedious laughed, hiccuped, and staggered frighteningly close to the skybridge railing. He hadn't had that much to drink at the party, he was sure. It must just be the dark night and the pouring rain that was making the footing unstable. That was probably it. The dinky lanterns they used in this part of town only allowed for little spots of light scattered every twenty paces or so. Hardly enough to be useful in this kind of weather, especially when he was trying to lead the whole party home.
Now if only he knew where in the hell they were, that would be something.
Still, Cedious wouldn't let a little rain and a complete lack of direction ruin his mood. Besides, this was spring rain, right? Fresh spring rain. He inhaled deeply, and nearly gagged on the reek of the oily warforged creeping up beside him.
"Cedious, I question your navigational ability," Bonds intoned mechanically, like a cross between a statue and a nursemaid.
Cedious stiched his lip in a smirk of confidence and hurt pride, "What? I know where I'm going! Just lost my balance is all! Let's see here..."
Cedious scratched the stubble on his chin and took a look around. There were dozens of paths intertwined through here like a maze, and to be honest, even if he was sober he would have had a hard time figuring out the right way. Why couldn't humans just stick to simple huts and dirt trails like they'd used back in his village back home? Well, there was a bridge over there that looked promising...
Cedious took a confident step forward before the warforged caught him with a heavy hand on his shoulder and yanked him backwards. Before the hafling could protest, Bonds had a hand to his lips, and pointed ahead onto the bridge.
Cedious squinted and looked ahead. The bridge looked clear to him. What was going on? No, wait! There! A figure in a dark cloak was racing across the skybridge, staying in the shadows. A lightning flash gave him a brief glimpse of the thief's shape as it slipped over the barrier and disappeared into the darkness and rain.
Bonds calculated a quick judgment, "I suspect a thief seeking purses."
Together, Bonds and Cedious moved quickly to the spot where the dark figure was last seen.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
(Hope that helps)
megamania said:
Okay, SH's often have large casts like this, and it can be difficult to quickly introduce the characters to your audience. You definitely have a start here by introducing the characters by name, class and race, and a little blurb, but the format is a little off-putting. Anything in ALL CAPS is harder to read, especially with excess or unusual punctuation ()[]. Sometimes writing is not about passing the information across to someone as much as it is about molding your information into a pleasing shape. Maybe try something next time like:
Bonds the Warforged Barbarian: "Destroy and don't bother to ask why!"
Cedious the Halfling Rogue: "A binge-drinker and general trouble-maker"
Same info, easier presentation.
megamania said:
A lot of the writing books will tell you this, but just to reiterate, go for detail, but know when to let your audience's imagination fill in the rest for you. There is a lot of focus here on the rain, the wood and stone paths, and the glow of the lanterns. In my opinion, a little too much. And in comparison, no detail about our heroes, except that they are returning from a party. Is anyone drunk? Tired?
Also, you mentioned the POV issue earlier, so I won't harp on that except to say the best advice I have is to pick one PC at any given time, and follow them through the entire scene, even if that means that you miss out on some little details here and there that this particular PC would not have noticed. I would rather hear about the party from Bond's POV and get everything colored through his prejudices, desires, fears, etc. and miss out on the funny thing that someone said in the other room than I would hear a third-person "report" of the party with none of the character. In other words, don't tell me that Bonds is a binge-drinker, when you can show me, through his own eyes, that Bonds is a binge-drinker. (A good tip here for practice is to try writing out one scene several times, each time from the POV of a different character in that scene. Especially for arguments, love scenes, fight scenes, and initial meetings. Practice seeing the world through one person's eyes and then reviewing everything again as someone else.)
Also, this is all very visual, which is good, but for it to have more meat, give it some tactile and auditory qualities as well. Tell me how the rain smells, or how the party smells for that matter, particularly what a wet warforged barbarian smells like. Is the rain a warm spring rain that musically drips and plops its way through the city, or is it a cold and driving winter rain that sounds ike chains being dragged across a tin roof?
Also, I am guessing that you pre-wrote some chunks of this to be read-aloud in-game, and then you are combining your notes of the game with the pre-written chunks to produce the SH? While that can work, I would recommend two things.
1) If you do this, don't intentionally break up the pre-written chunks by putting them in a seperate color like this. It just makes it more work for the reader. A reader should sort of "fall into" your writing and drift with it and float away with it. They should not have to do any "work". Every time you change POV, tense, or color or whatever else you can change, it is like forcing the reader to make a little jump, or a little bit of work, to keep going with you.
2) Completely merge the two styles of writing, between the notes and the pre-written blurbs, so that there is no distinction between where one ends and another begins before you publish to Enworld.
megamania said:
One tip here is about breaking sentences out into phrases. This is something that is much easier to do as you read through your stuff the second time than it is to catch during a first run. (By the way, always read thru twice before submitting. That alone can make you a better writer.) As far as breaking sentences into phrases, what I mean is that most sentences should only have one or two phrases. In spoken language it is fine to have sentences that combine 4 or 5 phrases, but in writing, limit it to 2. Specifically with this section, you say: "Bonds interrupts everyone as he looks onto the bridge he nears."
If you break this up into phrases, you have:
1) "Bonds interrupts everyone
2) as he looks onto the bridge
3) [that] he nears.
You are trying to cram too many phrases into just one sentence. Instead, keep it down to 2 phrases per sentence, as in: "As he neared the bridge, Bonds looked ahead. He interrupted everyone."
Finally, this relates to the fact that most people find it harder to read present-tense fiction, than past tense. I would rather read "Bond spotted a figure" than "Bond spots a figure."
Going back now, to combine all of these tips, you might have something that looks like this:
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
Cedious laughed, hiccuped, and staggered frighteningly close to the skybridge railing. He hadn't had that much to drink at the party, he was sure. It must just be the dark night and the pouring rain that was making the footing unstable. That was probably it. The dinky lanterns they used in this part of town only allowed for little spots of light scattered every twenty paces or so. Hardly enough to be useful in this kind of weather, especially when he was trying to lead the whole party home.
Now if only he knew where in the hell they were, that would be something.
Still, Cedious wouldn't let a little rain and a complete lack of direction ruin his mood. Besides, this was spring rain, right? Fresh spring rain. He inhaled deeply, and nearly gagged on the reek of the oily warforged creeping up beside him.
"Cedious, I question your navigational ability," Bonds intoned mechanically, like a cross between a statue and a nursemaid.
Cedious stiched his lip in a smirk of confidence and hurt pride, "What? I know where I'm going! Just lost my balance is all! Let's see here..."
Cedious scratched the stubble on his chin and took a look around. There were dozens of paths intertwined through here like a maze, and to be honest, even if he was sober he would have had a hard time figuring out the right way. Why couldn't humans just stick to simple huts and dirt trails like they'd used back in his village back home? Well, there was a bridge over there that looked promising...
Cedious took a confident step forward before the warforged caught him with a heavy hand on his shoulder and yanked him backwards. Before the hafling could protest, Bonds had a hand to his lips, and pointed ahead onto the bridge.
Cedious squinted and looked ahead. The bridge looked clear to him. What was going on? No, wait! There! A figure in a dark cloak was racing across the skybridge, staying in the shadows. A lightning flash gave him a brief glimpse of the thief's shape as it slipped over the barrier and disappeared into the darkness and rain.
Bonds calculated a quick judgment, "I suspect a thief seeking purses."
Together, Bonds and Cedious moved quickly to the spot where the dark figure was last seen.
-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
(Hope that helps)
