D_C_N: The follow up to my previous story, hpopefully I was able to fix some of the flaw that the last one had here, and uh, feedback is welcome once again, because, well, I can't improve if no one tells me what I'm doing good or bad. Thanks
AMKitsune: Right, so I've read this chapter and I'm afraid that I wouldn't rate it as highly as the last one.
Please bare with me. I'll try to explain why as best I can.
Once again, they way in which you describe the landscape and the people in it is top notch, but I suspect that this chapter may have perhaps been a little 'too wordy'. Honestly, I've been a little unwell lately which has lead to me being somewhat tired which probably isn't doing my ability to focus any favours, but I found it quite hard to concentrate on this chapter and to fully absorb what was going on. Another reason for this may have been because 'not much of actual importance' seemed to be happening for most of the chapter. I'm not trying to say that it was boring or uneventful, but compared to the last chapter which had our protagonists fleeing through a dark forest trying to outrun death, not much seemed to happen in this chapter. To sum up the most notable events that I picked up on, there was the river crossing, the old man with the sword in the village and then meeting the soldiers. I realise that there was also a section at the end where we met this 'not-royalty' guy, but by this point, I was struggling to keep up with the story to the point where additional characters and events weren't really sticking in my mind.
Something else that I noticed which may have possibly been a contributing factor to my finding it harder to concentrate on this was the fact that much of the speech (and a fair few other sentences) weren't capitalised. Your sentences can often run on for quite a while, and while this can be great for adding to the overall feel of the story, it can sometimes 'lessen the point' that's being made. These longer sentences that often feel like they contain more than one subject combines with lack of capitalisation at the beginning of many of the speech sections (which comprise a great deal of the story), while technically making sense, also make the story harder to read in my opinion.
It's most likely my current lack of focus talking, but I feel that this chapter could have perhaps benefited from being written with slightly shorter, more succinct sentences. Something else to bare in mind with this critique is that I'm Dyslexic which means that while I'm lucky enough to be able to read most things as well as anyone else, I can struggle with the flow of text whenever there are grammatical errors or if it's not laid out particularly clearly. For the most part, your writing is very well laid out, but I just want to make it clear that my 'condition' makes it harder for me to understand what other people may have absolutely no problem with. Still, you may find it better to write these chapters in a program that automatically capitalises the first word of each sentence for you.
Finally, I may have had difficulty with this chapter simply because I didn't find many of the events in it particularly gripping. This is unfortunately just my personal opinion and I would have most likely kept that opinion regardless of how the sequences were written. Personally, I'd consider these sections 'filler material', meant to go between the main sections of interest. Going back to what I said earlier, while I understand that most of this chapter was spent travelling, there were a few times where I felt that the story was going to slow down and focus on that area for a bit. Places like the river crossing and settlement with the old man and child in it. Unfortunately, I feel that these sections were skimmed over too quickly and 'not enough time was spent on them'/'not enough of interest happened' to make them stand out from the 'filler' that was the time spent travelling between locations.
Just to make it perfectly clear, I don't want you to be disheartened by what must essential look like a big 'wall of negativity', but as it currently is, I found the chapter hard to engage with and consequentially, hard to get absorbed into. If I were to read this at another time, I may find it easier to follow along with the flow of the longer sentences and less intense story of this chapter, but right now, I'm afraid that I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. I'm currently on the fence as to whether I should post this or not. It feels knowing how critical this all is. I just hope that I was able to accurately pin point the reasons for why I found it hard to engage with.
Of course, I'm by no means an experienced writer myself, so pretty much all that I'm saying is based purely on my own opinions and observations. My suggestions are ones that I believe would make the story easier for me to read personally. I have no idea whether they would be of any benefit to anyone else. I'd certainly hope so, but I couldn't say for sure.
Once again, I hope that these thoughts may be of some benefit to you. My apologies if I rambled on a bit with some points or repeated myself. Being tired can do that XD
Best of luck with your future writing.
(As I am at the moment, I could spend forever rereading this critique and not be fully satisfied with it. For the sake of just getting it out there though, I'm just going to post it as it currently is.)
D_C_N: Thank you for spending the time to take such an in depth look at my writing, and don't feel bad for the critiques, because, if I do something poorly, and no one says anything, I can't know to not do it anymore.
This story was essentially filler, er, well, I wanted to explain the situation and the settings, seeing as I didn't do that at all in the last one, and perhaps it would have worked out with the preceding and following segments included, but I didn't do that. I just put it out on it's own, so it likely was boring. The next part, if there is one, should be more exciting, I just wanted to lay out the groundwork and didn't know the best way to do that.
Thank you again for giving me this feedback, I feel like hearing the flaws my writing has is incredibly important in my efforts to remove them, and also, even though there was alot of negative points this time it's really a boost to see someone taking my writing seriously, like it's 'real' not to mention, once again, if there were no negative comments I could never really improve.
So thank you once more, it's really great, and really helpfull, and just, super appreciated
D_C_N: For the purpose of the next segment of this story, which I have decided on writing, and seeing as this... I dunno, series? I guess, is being written with the people here on this booru in mind, I wanted to ask:
Would it be breakingly out of character for Katia to say, kill, like, an actual person?
D_C_N: Welp, I've seen enough of the phantom menace to know that someone slapsticking their way into accidentally defeating an army isn't very entertaining, lol, may just avoid it entirely then.
Although, it may be mildly entertaining if she tripped and knocked the antagonist over a cliff or something... the possibilities. ;)
AMKitsune: @D_C_N: Yes. I'd imagine so at least. I think part of the reason that everyone finds Katia so relatable is that she essentially acts like any other 'normal' person would in her situation. She's not a brave adventurer willing to wipe out hoards of bandits for a chest of loot at the end of a cave or take on a giant frost troll. She essentially has the mind of a regular person thrust into an irregular situation (a regular person with alcohol problems,fireballs and telekinesis, but regular none the less). If she 'were' to kill someone, either accidentally or reluctantly on purpose, I'm imagine that she'd feel absolutely distraught afterwards. To the point of emotionally breaking down if I had to guess. The only reason I think she faired as she did with the big Imp was because she was forced into the situation beyond her will and it was a 'monster', not a 'person'. Of course you could always go down the 'killing someone' route, but I'd have to wish you the best of luck in writing it in both a believable way and a way in which your readers would feel comfy continuing with.
Saying all this, maybe Kazerad will have her kill someone at some point (on purpose) and not be too effected by it. I wouldn't imagine so though...
Geravind: It was completely hard to read: some typos, some unmemorable names, hordes of rare words (this one's vocabulary is on fire), nonstandard dialogues, not clearly logical decisions. It should be more... clear to comprehend for reader.
Katia still acts like a ballast, but it looked like she's an important person to be worth of saving at the beginning.
It's completely okay, if she kills an enemy, but a kind soul -like hers- is capable of doing it only with real hatred on board.
It would be nice, if author put a few (<1%) deeply professional details here and there. For example: how to cross a river in the best possible way or how to change formation, when facing a single enemy or a group of enemies (of course, such hints should come from someone completely professional, not from some clueless cat)... It's usually hard for an author to figure out such details, but a sophisticated reader greatly appreciates it. And it's cool, when character's decisions are copletely logical (accordingly to condition, temper, etc.) and their behavior is most natural.
D_C_N: Thanks for the feedback and the answers, of my flaws, that I was actually aware of is my poor dialogue.
And for the next story, I think I have a decent Idea of how to proceed. (I'll be sure to include more details regarding the features of, well, battle, in the next story)
D_C_N: I lied. I have no idea how to proceed. I think this segment may be the last. I think I just neednto practice more before I post anything else. So, I'm afraid my little story may have to end here.
D_C_N: I know, er, well, that, hopefully is the plan. That I can pull Katia back out of this world and publish it with only my own characters. But the problem I seem to have is balance, if not enough happens, it will be boring. If too much happens it will be clutered. And if it has fast parts and slow parts it would probably be far to long.
Seeing as I am posting this to the prequel fanart site, I don't really feel that I could justifiably expect anyone here to read a 20 page story, where most of the content are things that they aren't really interested in.
Describe This Image As Dramatically As Possible
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http://i.imgur.com/rHsoBsf.png
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Please bare with me. I'll try to explain why as best I can.
Once again, they way in which you describe the landscape and the people in it is top notch, but I suspect that this chapter may have perhaps been a little 'too wordy'. Honestly, I've been a little unwell lately which has lead to me being somewhat tired which probably isn't doing my ability to focus any favours, but I found it quite hard to concentrate on this chapter and to fully absorb what was going on. Another reason for this may have been because 'not much of actual importance' seemed to be happening for most of the chapter. I'm not trying to say that it was boring or uneventful, but compared to the last chapter which had our protagonists fleeing through a dark forest trying to outrun death, not much seemed to happen in this chapter. To sum up the most notable events that I picked up on, there was the river crossing, the old man with the sword in the village and then meeting the soldiers. I realise that there was also a section at the end where we met this 'not-royalty' guy, but by this point, I was struggling to keep up with the story to the point where additional characters and events weren't really sticking in my mind.
Something else that I noticed which may have possibly been a contributing factor to my finding it harder to concentrate on this was the fact that much of the speech (and a fair few other sentences) weren't capitalised. Your sentences can often run on for quite a while, and while this can be great for adding to the overall feel of the story, it can sometimes 'lessen the point' that's being made. These longer sentences that often feel like they contain more than one subject combines with lack of capitalisation at the beginning of many of the speech sections (which comprise a great deal of the story), while technically making sense, also make the story harder to read in my opinion.
It's most likely my current lack of focus talking, but I feel that this chapter could have perhaps benefited from being written with slightly shorter, more succinct sentences. Something else to bare in mind with this critique is that I'm Dyslexic which means that while I'm lucky enough to be able to read most things as well as anyone else, I can struggle with the flow of text whenever there are grammatical errors or if it's not laid out particularly clearly. For the most part, your writing is very well laid out, but I just want to make it clear that my 'condition' makes it harder for me to understand what other people may have absolutely no problem with. Still, you may find it better to write these chapters in a program that automatically capitalises the first word of each sentence for you.
Finally, I may have had difficulty with this chapter simply because I didn't find many of the events in it particularly gripping. This is unfortunately just my personal opinion and I would have most likely kept that opinion regardless of how the sequences were written. Personally, I'd consider these sections 'filler material', meant to go between the main sections of interest. Going back to what I said earlier, while I understand that most of this chapter was spent travelling, there were a few times where I felt that the story was going to slow down and focus on that area for a bit. Places like the river crossing and settlement with the old man and child in it. Unfortunately, I feel that these sections were skimmed over too quickly and 'not enough time was spent on them'/'not enough of interest happened' to make them stand out from the 'filler' that was the time spent travelling between locations.
Just to make it perfectly clear, I don't want you to be disheartened by what must essential look like a big 'wall of negativity', but as it currently is, I found the chapter hard to engage with and consequentially, hard to get absorbed into. If I were to read this at another time, I may find it easier to follow along with the flow of the longer sentences and less intense story of this chapter, but right now, I'm afraid that I wasn't able to fully enjoy it. I'm currently on the fence as to whether I should post this or not. It feels knowing how critical this all is. I just hope that I was able to accurately pin point the reasons for why I found it hard to engage with.
Of course, I'm by no means an experienced writer myself, so pretty much all that I'm saying is based purely on my own opinions and observations. My suggestions are ones that I believe would make the story easier for me to read personally. I have no idea whether they would be of any benefit to anyone else. I'd certainly hope so, but I couldn't say for sure.
Once again, I hope that these thoughts may be of some benefit to you. My apologies if I rambled on a bit with some points or repeated myself. Being tired can do that XD
Best of luck with your future writing.
(As I am at the moment, I could spend forever rereading this critique and not be fully satisfied with it. For the sake of just getting it out there though, I'm just going to post it as it currently is.)
This story was essentially filler, er, well, I wanted to explain the situation and the settings, seeing as I didn't do that at all in the last one, and perhaps it would have worked out with the preceding and following segments included, but I didn't do that. I just put it out on it's own, so it likely was boring. The next part, if there is one, should be more exciting, I just wanted to lay out the groundwork and didn't know the best way to do that.
Thank you again for giving me this feedback, I feel like hearing the flaws my writing has is incredibly important in my efforts to remove them, and also, even though there was alot of negative points this time it's really a boost to see someone taking my writing seriously, like it's 'real' not to mention, once again, if there were no negative comments I could never really improve.
So thank you once more, it's really great, and really helpfull, and just, super appreciated
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Would it be breakingly out of character for Katia to say, kill, like, an actual person?
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Although, it may be mildly entertaining if she tripped and knocked the antagonist over a cliff or something... the possibilities. ;)
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Saying all this, maybe Kazerad will have her kill someone at some point (on purpose) and not be too effected by it. I wouldn't imagine so though...
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Katia still acts like a ballast, but it looked like she's an important person to be worth of saving at the beginning.
It's completely okay, if she kills an enemy, but a kind soul -like hers- is capable of doing it only with real hatred on board.
It would be nice, if author put a few (<1%) deeply professional details here and there. For example: how to cross a river in the best possible way or how to change formation, when facing a single enemy or a group of enemies (of course, such hints should come from someone completely professional, not from some clueless cat)... It's usually hard for an author to figure out such details, but a sophisticated reader greatly appreciates it. And it's cool, when character's decisions are copletely logical (accordingly to condition, temper, etc.) and their behavior is most natural.
And for the next story, I think I have a decent Idea of how to proceed. (I'll be sure to include more details regarding the features of, well, battle, in the next story)
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Seeing as I am posting this to the prequel fanart site, I don't really feel that I could justifiably expect anyone here to read a 20 page story, where most of the content are things that they aren't really interested in.
Thanks for the encouragement though.
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I can't even come up with a suitable Inception pun that includes a properly clear name for that...