2011-02-07, 01:15 | Link #41 | |
ゴリゴリ!
Graphic Designer
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Vancouver, British Columbia
Age: 33
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Also, a solid critiquing from you, felix. It's always great to inform one of possible plot holes and spots that can be cleaned up; I'd be a little cautious of pointing out personal punctuation and major word changes though, as we end up deviating from the original intention of a section. Just ranting here, don't mind me. My short critique: I agree with felix on the slightly clunky parts that can be cleaned up, but the rest was quite good. I personally think the punctuation should be edited to your preference; a character can have special traits that allows them to emphasize differently. Sorry to use your example here, felix: ^^ "Intense pain, chest area." The comma sums up the scenario well, as the original sentence would read something like: "There was intense pain in my chest area." "Intense pain. Chest area." The monologuing takes a sudden break as we're faced with two fragmented sentences. If this was a scenario in a movie trailer I could see it, but in a monologue I can't really see it working. Read the previous version and this one as if you were monologuing yourself. Be sure to take the short pause for the one with the 2 period markings. "Intense pain- chest area!" Hell, I would have said go with this one if it wasn't a monologue. I'd argue against my other half that this version would be quite accurate with what the character was thinking, but in storytelling where one is monologuing, the lack of excitement in the speech gives it that much more strength. Imagine a monologue where one is talking in a monotone voice: "I woke up. Everything was white, had I died? Ow, intense pain!" Nonetheless, make edits and heed felix's suggestions well; there were a lot of good points made. Just be careful not to fall into the agreement loop. ^^ Great story, and I can't wait to see the absolute final product
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2011-02-07, 06:09 | Link #42 |
sleepyhead
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Join Date: Dec 2005
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Yes, as papermario mentioned, don't take my punctuation suggestions too seriously. When writing stories and such, unlike when doing technical papers, correct grammar is less important, since the writing is more free form. Punctuation can help, but no reason to stray from your own style.
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2011-02-07, 11:04 | Link #43 |
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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Thanks everyone for your comments! I was expecting general comments and feedback but the proofread's good too
I'll decide what to do with the punctuation later. For now I'll just fix the plot spots and rework some of the phrasing. The next draft won't be up anytime soon. I'll need to look and comment on the other entries before working much more on the draft first ! |
2011-02-07, 11:31 | Link #45 | |
sleepyhead
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I just used it as a test, everyone seems to have followed suit… I'll bring it up in the other thread, so we can have a "official one".
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2011-02-08, 09:44 | Link #47 |
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@wassupimviet
I liked the third and fourth acts of your story. The first act was ok, but generally the second act may need work. If I'm guessing correctly your work is fanfiction for a series I unfortunately know nothing about. Therefore the care should be taken when using specific terms like "Megadeus" and "Big O", because readers may not know what they are. I think you did a bit well there, I was able to infer (hopefully not wrongly ) that these are some form of weapon. You could probably provide more hints to provide context or discard such references though, because ultimately these provide small nagging questions that may distract readers from the story. I'm also wondering about the role of the character Norman. He doesn't seem to serve much purpose in the story. Perhaps he can be removed from the story, since space is tight and you'll probably want the readers to focus more on the main characters. There's still a lot of time, so good luck with the edits! |
2011-02-08, 10:49 | Link #48 | |
Every word must conjure
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(I've grown up learning that writing a too-good first draft isn't a good thing. So your comment gets me worried )
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2011-02-08, 12:05 | Link #49 | |||||
sleepyhead
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@shelter, well since you put it that way I guess there's no reason to hold back. You know what they say: careful what you wish for.
The colon creates too much of a pause IMO. It also creates a expectation for a list, which may be unnecessary since you don't really give a list there. While I see where you're going with the idea, the principle may be less poetic and more technical, and so not really work too well. Quote:
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From the principle perspective, I think you could have burned though a lot more senses with it in the same space. I feel like you're committing to the visual spectrum a little too heavily, hence why the lines that reflect other senses would seem to stand out like gems. Lastly there are a few tongue twisting bumps you can smooth out. But I'll leave it to you to find them.
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2011-02-08, 14:02 | Link #50 |
ゴリゴリ!
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Join Date: Jan 2009
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You're absolutely right, shelter. It's never good to just go with the first draft, and felix once again did one fine job of laying out a detailed critique. I'll once again express my views on the criticism and add my own bits.
The em dash would certainly work better, but since we're being sticklers for perfection, I can see why the en dash was used. I often do this too, since many forums read the two as the same. A comma or semicolon would work a little better than double colons (which usually start a list or break into a completely different topic), as felix mentioned. I'm also wondering if that orphaned 2nd verse is intentional or not, it does look a little out of place. I can't agree with the rhyme breaks. If you read it carefully, there's no distinct rhyme scene put in place; I'm pretty sure it was intended to be free verse. I don't know which manner you chose to use the word "rhyme", because there could have been multiple uses. Stop me if I'm speculating incorrectly. In the short amount of text I feel you really got your point across. There certainly is always room for improvement but if you focus too hard on that you might lose the well-constructed poem you have now. Best of luck in your editing.
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2011-02-08, 17:30 | Link #51 |
In scientific terms only.
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Aha, thanks for the comment and critique! Much appreciated.
Yeah, I labored under the impression that it was still a fanfic competition; by the time I figured it out, I was already about done. So, I said, "Ah, to hell with it!" and put on my hot-blooded-writing glasses to finish it up. Alas, this means that the references are a little stuck in there, so some of your suggestions might not work out. It's a fanfic of a somewhat aged anime (2000ish, if I recall) called Big O. I heartily recommend that you give it a shot. |
2011-02-09, 08:24 | Link #52 | ||||
Every word must conjure
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As for the remaining points, thanks for the advice. I don't really bother too much with form when writing poetry because I believe poetry is raw thought. But, yes, I hear you: it can be cleaned up a bit. Quote:
Don't worry about critique. I'd rather you guys whack me left right and centre instead of giving me a sentence of comment. It gives me an incentive to rewrite. Many of the fanfiction forums on Animesuki lack this kind of critical analysis. So, thanks again
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2011-02-11, 22:31 | Link #53 |
ゴリゴリ!
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A little more barren than I had hoped - there's still 3 good days to enter something; I may have to lower this month's voting limit to 1 if there aren't enough entries.
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2011-02-11, 22:54 | Link #54 |
~Official Slacker~
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Well the competition itself is still brand new, but as more and more people are grown aware and used to this competition, it might grow in popularity as well Sp we might have to take things slowly with 1 vote.
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2011-02-12, 00:25 | Link #55 |
Strangely dependable...
Join Date: Nov 2006
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Nice idea you have here, PM. I'd love to enter but school's just too busy at the moment.
On another note, I find it interesting that you're using capital letters to emphasize words and not italics. I noticed that italics/bold/etc are dissuaded from use in your rules. Is it because such formats are hard to read on the forum? I'm curious because correct written format actually dissuades the use of capital letters; instead, emphasis and conveyance of emotions to individual words are often done through italics - at least in a novelia.
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2011-02-12, 00:36 | Link #56 | |
ゴリゴリ!
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Quote:
Just as a note, all my other compositions outside the competition use many varieties of expressive punctuation.
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2011-02-12, 04:37 | Link #57 |
sleepyhead
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@PreSage capital letters are fairly good way to express yelling. Arguably we could also use things like a double exclamation mark (!!), but this is a question of the authors preference. This is actually proper since we're talking short stories; we could actually write intentional-ungrammatical and get away with it. Also, I write a lot of technical papers, which do require proper punctuation and such, and frankly I find it really hard to recall if I ever use italics, ever. The only situations that comes to mind is when either it is required by the style specification (such as "Abstract must be 9pt, indented, and in italics", etc) or I need to take a word out of context to avoid the person reading it as a extension to the sentence rather then a compound term — this happens maybe once in a blue moon.
If you're somehow basing your assessments on forum posts, then don't. Forum posts are completely incompetent at even splitting anything into the basic section/paragraph (we only really have the possibility of sections), the people writing are also not necessarily writing for readability mind you, or abiding by some standard.
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2011-02-12, 07:14 | Link #58 | |
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Join Date: Feb 2011
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Yes, an entry with good use of italics is more dynamic than the same entry without. It's also a better entry. In my view (where emphasis is part of writing) saying that the use of italics is unfair seems about equal to saying that using a larger vocabulary is unfair and hence we should restrict the vocab used. Also, capitals isn't a good compromise or replacement; there are plenty of situations where one fits but the other doesn't (though I'm tempted to try swapping the two to see what havoc erupts). Hence, I feel that it's better to let people do whatever they want with italics and bold. Better to let them get it wrong and receive feedback than to miss out altogether. Of course if lots of crazy entries appear then.... <hr> I'll continue this in the sticky. Last edited by lordshadowisle; 2011-02-12 at 08:53. Reason: Bringing discussion to more suitable thread |
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2011-02-12, 08:24 | Link #59 |
sleepyhead
Author
Join Date: Dec 2005
Location: event horizon
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If the contest would allow italics, then you would then have people saying "oh, why aren't different fonts allowed?" or "oh, why aren't different colors allowed?" or "oh why can't I write everything in size 7?". The consensus in the other discussion was: it's not necessary for writing, and anything you can do with italics you can do with better wording or just plaintext. We don't want a contest where someone who is just cute with formatting gets a advantage from it. Think along the lines of a poem that's written and formatted more like a graphic then an actual poem; like say it looks like a poster (for example) — this is not a graphic contest.
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2011-02-12, 12:24 | Link #60 |
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Alright, I'm not a native speaker, so don't expect any grammar corrections or suggestions for better wording. Just a heads up I also skipped most of the other comments for now, because I wanted to stay neutral until I read the entries myself. So sorry if I just repeat what has been said already.
But here my impressions and interpretations on the submitted drafts for now: On papermario's submission: Spoiler for rant:
On lordshadowisle's submission: Spoiler for rant:
On shelter's submission: Spoiler for rant:
On felix' submission: Spoiler for rant:
On wassupimviet's submmission: Spoiler for rant:
I linked to the specific entries I read, in case I missed a newer version. The quality of the entries is really good! Praise to all of you :3 |
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contest, emdas, writing |
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