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Unofficial Writing Group

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  • Member
    November 26, 2018

    @Tenebrous: I'll take a look at it soon and to be clear, I have never played ESO so I'm not too familiar with ESO's questlines.

  • Member
    November 27, 2018

    Again I must note that I have not played ESO nor have I read your other works, so I'm reading GHARH-TOK as a standalone. Well, let's get to it:

     

    General Critique (GHAHR-TOK 1)

    The first I notice at a glance is the format of the story and I don't really like it. Without reading GHAHR-TOK 1, my mind clicks and telles me that I'm expecting a journal/epistolary of sorts ala Dracula but what GHAHR-TOK 1 is, is a more conventional Third Person Limited Narrative story. Also on the narration, I find it for the most part pretty telly and almost every paragraph, specifically in the Trynhild Earth-Turner section having some form of exposition on the world thus slowing down the story. I think what's happening is that GHAHR-TOK 1 is trying to tell me too many things with too little time so the expostion gets bloated because of it.

     

    On exposition, GHAHR-TOK 1 is harsh on it. Harsh in the sense that for me to understand this story, GHAHR-TOK throws me head first into a pile of concepts and names without giving me enough time to ease into the world.

     

    At the moment I don't detect an overaching plot for all three characters but individually I find myself most interested in Valheim's story because of just how weird it is. Captain Rana Uvayn is a war story and I have a generally fondness for those and for Trynhild, I'm not quite sure where the story is going for her yet.

     

    Prose and dialogue is fine. I can read it easy and that's pretty good for me.

     

    On the characters, I can't say I'm invested in them because it's still too early but Trynhild is not looking too good for me.

     

    Nit Picks (or crap only I care about)

    I'm not too fond of the Misc.Notes section especially with explaining the words/terms. I prefer to infer what the words mean through the story itself... or I'll look up a dictionary if it really piques my interest.

     

    So is there anything you think I've missed out or anything aspect you'd prefer me to focus on?

  • Member
    November 27, 2018

    Decided to go ahead and review Tenebrous' story since it was short and easy to do.

    So character-wise, each of three characters and their motives are pretty easy to understand from the get go: Trynhild is a farmgirl who wants to find glory like any Nord does; Valheim is a Warrior-Priest of Jhunal (the Nordic equivalent of Julianos) defending his Temple from the Worm Cult, or was defending it (more on that later); and Rana is a privateer serving under the Pact trying to figure how to defend Bleackrock Isle from incoming Covenant enemies (one of the first quest in the Pact questline IIRC).

    Individually, each of their respestive stories looks unique, but I fail to see how they all connect, though I guess it's natural since this is just the first chapter.

    I'm familiar with some of the locations since I have some knowledge on ESO, but I don't mind if there are any made up ones since it adds more depth to the world.

    One thing I want to point out is in Valheim's story, it's set in Silgrad which I assume is a part of Solitude given this line: "seeing the cobbled streets of Solitude flowing with the blood of the people of Silgrad". However, then you have, "through the forest--where the Rift pines mingled with the Stonefalls fungi--". This kinda messes with my internal GPS and probably the other readers' who are familiar of the geography of Tamriel since Stonefalls is like on the other side of Skyrim, between the borders. I think there needs to be some clarification there. 

    There's also the mention of Dominion soldiers, even though Valheim is fighting against Worm cultists.

    The exposition in the chapter isn't really that heavy, though this is coming from someone who has a general knowledge on Elder Scrolls lore. The differentiation between Jhunal and Julianos was a nice touch, but I think it would've been better if it were brought up as a conversation between two devoutees of the respective pantheon.

    Anyway, that's all from me. Hope you find my review helpful in any way.

     

  • Member
    November 27, 2018

    OK! Thanks, you two! First off, Delta. The formatting *is* terrible; still working on a solution, but I agree it looks atrocious. While I do plan on elaborating on the characters/concepts I mention further on, I can see how it's easy for a newcomer to ESO lore (let alone general TES!) to get lost. As for the Notes section, I totally get removing the "dictionary" parts, but some of the other bits are important to clarify. That said, I could probably include those in the comments, so we'll see what I can cut.

     

    Also, Pocky, Valheim's flashback is actually meant to screw with the narrative order. I should clarify, in-story as well as in the notes (if they will remain) that it's a jumble of different memories intersecting like a dream. Silgrad is near the Morrowind border (actually a reference to TES1: Arena, b/c I'm a nerd), but Valheim is basically going through both that memory and the one from Solitude; hence, the Worm cultist became a Dominion soldier, Silgrad and Solitude are randomly swapped, and other such things. Long story short, it's kind of a dream sequence, and meant to kind of screw with the narrative order.

     

    Overall, thanks a million for the feedback! Not being able to write for a long time has really messed me up (in many ways), so I really appreciate the nitpicking. I'll hop to the editing as soon as I can!

  • Member
    December 3, 2018

    @SpottedFawn: If all goes well and I've sorted my stuff out, I'll begin reviewing Sign of the Bear by this weekend... well the first 4 chapters anyway.

  • Member
    December 6, 2018

    @Tenebrous

    I'll take a look at GHAHR-TOK as well. In your opinion would it be better if I look up the questline from ESO first via youtube, or would you prefer I went in blind? I'm not familiar with ESO, but I'm open to doing a bit of video-watching before I critique!

     

    @Delta

    Thank you again for your constructive criticism, I can only hope that Sign of the Bear is better than Part I! 

  • Member
    December 7, 2018

    SpottedFawn said:

    @Tenebrous

    I'll take a look at GHAHR-TOK as well. In your opinion would it be better if I look up the questline from ESO first via youtube, or would you prefer I went in blind? I'm not familiar with ESO, but I'm open to doing a bit of video-watching before I critique!

     

    @Delta

    Thank you again for your constructive criticism, I can only hope that Sign of the Bear is better than Part I! 

     

    Honestly, I would prefer a "blind read", though really I don't mind either way. Still working on stuff IRL, but slowly I'm carving out time for the Vault. So we'll see how my writing goes!

  • Member
    December 8, 2018

    Short review of GHAHR-TOK!

    I enjoyed the characters, with the exception of Valheim. I struggled to make sense of his part of the chapter and (as Pocky pointed out) the geography really threw me out of the story. I appreciate it diving right into the action, though I couldn't always keep up with it.

    I like Tryn's personality, and Rana's! I do not yet see the connection between these three characters, but it's an intriguing start.

    I recommend reading the story out loud, to see how it all flows together. The first line, while telling of Tryn's character, was a little hard to read.

    I was not familiar with the majority of the terms used in this story so I found the notes at the end helpful. I had a hard time grasping the time period without a specific date, since I do not know what era ESO is set in other than 'before Skyrim'.

    The formatting is rough, as the others have pointed out. However, I am still interested in reading more. What does GHAHR-TOK mean, by the way?

  • Member
    December 10, 2018

    Trying a new structure for this one and I hope it gives more detailed feedback that you can use. Let's get to it:

     

    Chapter 7: Windhelm

    Play by Play

    Scene 1: Harbour

    I really like how this chapter starts and the opening paragraphs really set the mood. Hell, the first line:

     

    ‘The great city of Windhelm sat on the edge of the Sea of Ghosts like a black, somber crown. Snow-dusted and wind-lashed. Ancient and formidable.’

     

    Is pretty sick. Even on the first read, I can hear Wayne June’s voice reading it to me in my head and hearing voices is always a good sign. However the narration gets pretty telly with this one,

     

    ‘Architecture—how things were put together or how they persisted in spite of the elements—had always been an interest of Kjeld’s. He enjoyed engineering, though he knew few technical terms. While Reidar was gawping at something on the docks, Kjeld was trying to gauge just how high the walls were—or even how far along they went before they inevitably curved, closing the city in.’

     

    Instead of showing Kjeld’s ability/interest or setting more scene, this bit just tells me that information. Fine I guess but it dampens the otherwise strong opening. Other than a few oddities, which I argue are nitpicks on my part it’s a decent scene other than being too short – a strong initial but could be followed up.

     

    Scene 2: Windhelm

    The bracket things pull me out of the narrative flow because it feels like footnotes. I really like the worldbuilding of the racism but I feel it’s again too short and it’s a missed chance for more character/worldbuilding.

     

    Borderline nitpick but them waltzing up to the leader of the rebellion is really weird to me, giving me the impression that someone who is as important as Ulfric has really lax security. Yes, we do that in-game but this isn’t in-game, we don’t need that abstraction.

     

    I don’t really like this phrase,

     

    ‘Kjeld mistook the grizzled veteran for the Jarl at first, but the charismatic personality and the haughtiness of tone changed his mind onto the second man.’

     

    Because it’s a hard tell. Just judging from his previous lines, I don’t find Ulfric at all charismatic but the narrator tells me that he is and I don’t like being told what to believe.

     

    ‘Skyrim must stand alone. Again.’

     

    Sounds oddly comedic to me. ‘Robin’s a pterodactyl. Again.’ Kind of comedy.

     

    These two lines being close together,

     

    ‘“Leiv White-Paw is your father.” Said Ulfric, his tone betraying nothing, but the undivided attention he was giving Kjeld did not waver until he got confirmation.

     

    “He died eleven years ago.” Kjeld watched Galmar’s expression more than Ulfric’s, but the old warrior betrayed nothing.”’

     

    Reads funny to me. It’s the repetition to the turn of phrase that made me stop and go back to check if I was re-reading the same line that stalled the flow.

     

    ‘his own footsteps carried him in the direction of the White Phial, a shop they’d noticed when they’d gotten lost searching for the Palace earlier.’

     

    More tells again. What was presented earlier gave me the impression that the brothers did not have trouble finding the palace – they entered through the docks, witnessed casual racism, and found their way and now the narrator tells me that they were lost earlier.

     

    Scene 3: Candlehearth Hall

    I like the scene setting – it bleeds character through the words, so yay. Not too much for me to comment on other than pretty good dialogue flow (I don’t find myself stopping) but that’s applies for the rest of the chapter.

     

    Oh, spelling mistake:

     

    ‘of his mustache onto’

     

    Also good hook in the end.

     

    ‘Because Leiv White-Paw killed Hoag Stormcloak, and this city will never forget it.’

     

    Characters

    Looking back, I don’t think I’ve explained my complaint of Kjeld properly. As for his personality, the responsible one, I actually like this sort of character – I’d even go so far as to say I can identify with this archetype because I personally do subscribe to deontological ethics and I use it as a theme to most of my works. Hell, Stannis of ASOAIF is my favourite character in that series because I can relate to his sense of duty and more importantly, the price of duty.

     

    Digressing, let’s talk about Luke Skywalker of Star Wars. As I grew older, I like the character more and more and in turn, the Binary Sunset scene gets better and better. Luke has been called whiney and I agree that he is but when he looks into the suns – that scene gets more touching because now I understand that it’s because he yearns for more but life has other plans for him. Here’s the thing, Luke is an adult and he can leave whenever he wants to. The scene that led up to this, unless my self-serving memory is terribly incorrect, Uncle Owen never said that he can’t go to the Academy – only that he should go to the Academy NEXT YEAR because he needs Luke THIS YEAR. Luke isn’t held down by some power, he’s held back by responsibility. Responsibility to his family. He can’t-No, he won’t leave home and go on an adventure because… that’s just the right thing to do and doing the right thing can hurt. A lot.

     

    Now let’s get back to Kjeld. As a character on his own, Kjeld is fine – likable even. But as a POV or even main character, Kjeld bores me because he is too reactive and in this chapter he still has that problem. If I were to oversimplify his events and thought process of this chapter, it would be ‘Return mail to sender and tell them to change the address’ and ‘pick up groceries on the way home’. I mean at this moment, I still don’t know what Kjeld wants if anything other than returning to his boring old life. It’s fine for me if that is his character but as the POV, that’s kind of a deal breaker. Now for the other POV character…

     

    For the last critique, I made a big mistake by not talking about Reidar. During my reading of Unblooded, I kept asking myself: Why isn’t Reidar the MC? Personality wise, I’m fine with him. He’s a hotblooded teen who’s mischievous but not malevolent. That’s fine enough but unlike Kjeld, Reidar is the one who does things to move the story along. Unless I’ve read that wrong, during the docks scene in Unblooded before the business with Baldor; Kjeld had the plot hook of the father’s letter but didn’t too much with it. It was Reidar who bit the hook and attempts to move the story along. That was the moment when I slapped my knee and said ‘Why isn’t he a POV?’

     

    And I’m not disappointed with his section in this chapter. Unlike Kjeld who is on the plot rails of ‘Do this, do that’, Reidar decides to go into a bar and do stuff. In other words, Kjeld does things because the story said so. The story does things because Reidar does.

     

    Nit Picks (or crap only I care about)

    How does Kjeld know what a crocodile looks like?

  • Member
    December 10, 2018

    Oh wow, wonderfully detailed critique, Delta! Thanks are fully in order.

     

    Scene One:

    No idea who Wayne June is, but thank you! I really enjoyed writing those opening lines, and it's always nice to know others did too. My writerly talents are tuned more to describing settings and moods than weaving together fantastic character-driven scenes. Practice makes perfect though!

     

    Scene Two:

    I actually gave this chapter a reread today, and I noticed the same things you did. I'll be making notes now to add to a 'master list' of edits I plan to do some day.

     

    Scene Three:

     

    Very proud of that hook.

     

    Characters:

    I have never seen Star Wars. I know, I know, 'Death by a Thousand Cuts'. But I think I understood the gist of what you were trying to convey.

     

    Great points about Kjeld as the POV character. I struggled with getting him motivated or out of that 'reactionary' role in the story. I had trouble balancing his personality with Reidar's, who absolutely demanded he become a POV character when I first started writing out Frost Moon.

    Unfortunately, Kjeld will be 'going with the flow' of the plot for quite a few more chapters. I (tried to) worked his passiveness and lack of a goal into the plot itself, with Kjeld later hitting a low point and changing gears to a more active role. We'll see if it pays off, or if there is still more work to be done (who am I kidding, there's ALWAYS more work to be done!).

     

    Also good nitpick, I may have already changed that in my google doc but not here on TV.

     

    I am open to suggestions on how to make Kjeld a more active character, once you've gotten to the meat of the story. I know writers are largely supposed to figure out solutions on their own, but it doesn't hurt to get the ball rolling. (This goes for anyone else, too! If you all have suggestions, I'm all ears.)