Subject: And if you want to practice...
Author:
Posted on: 2014-09-19 09:01:00 UTC
... there's a game of Fill the Plotholes up on the Board at this very moment! The perfect place to try out a short piece in a new style of writing, based on a ludicrous prompt. Seriously, go join in.
That goes for everyone.
hS
Hi,
I just finished my second mission: Time Lord Twins (Of Doom) and I figured rather than going ahead and posting it on the wiki, I'd like your expert opinions. :) Also, I went through/edited/fixed my first mission: Arrow Through the Heart, if any of y'all would like to see that.
Link to Time Lord Twins (The Mission):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PlkfvlnBF08HAXwRVwphuX5LSG3Dj5M3c-TddAZ70sc/edit
Link to the original story:
http://www.quotev.com/story/4819918/Time-Lord-Twins/1/
Link to Arrow Through the Heart:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1qupb5GnNBU3C6UCAogDjHDmiW8S1qB69kR3uTTk7rkU/edit
Enjoy~
Very brief, I have about ten minutes... (which is why no Terri this time; also because you've said to Nesh that it's not complete)
Unfortunately, the negatives that Terri highlighted in Arrow are still here - in fact, they're magnified. One reason I've always disliked missions taking place in TARDISes is because they completely separate the agents from the action. And, uh... okay, it turns out that they weren't in their TARDIS? Then why are all the quotes in [square brackets] like they're coming from a computer screen? And, more importantly, why don't the agents interact, like, at all? Yes, Ceka goes and pesters the Doctor, but other than that, this reads like an MST, not a mission.
You've tried to paraphrase parts of the action, but you've run into two stumbling blocks: you've still got way too much direct quoting, and you're not really being selective about either. Yes, every direct quote got a reply, but... how many times do you need to say 'No respectable Time Lord would say that'?
I think I can probably stop here. My main issue is that the agents don't interact with the world around them, um, pretty much at all, except when you write little set pieces (Ceka talks to the Doctor, the agents sneak into the gym). I also have no idea why Ceka is a Time Lord - or why she's even there. Two agents would have been plenty, and would have let you flesh out Silver and Anna's characters further.
Oh, and something I go on about a lot: no-one's going to read a half-page block-paragraph charge list. Break it up with interruptions by other characters, or trim it down to bare essentials, but that sort of thing is too long. (And yes, I have a few of my own floating around).
If you'd like me to go through and dissect TLT in more detail, I can try, but right now, my time's up.
hS
If I were suggesting how to improve this mission, my number one recommendation would be: work aggressively in Third Person Limited.
You've come close to this. Most of the story, we seem to be sitting solidly on Silver's shoulder - but occasionally we wander off. You're halfway between Limited and Omniscient, and it drags the story down.
So make it strictly Limited. That means: anything Silver doesn't know, we don't know. If you have thoughts written in - 'This was it. Ceka shows her true colors.' - they can only be Silver's. If someone is away from Silver - such as Ceka immediately before that line - we don't find out what they were up to unless they tell Silver.
And the flip side of that is, we delve significantly deeper into Silver's mind. You've added a subplot about Silver hating (and fearing) new things, but it makes almost no impact. In aggressive Third Person Limited, we can see all the times Silver glares at Ceka, or thinks she's untrustworthy. And through Silver's eyes, we can see her gradually come to trust Ceka. At the moment, she suddenly trusts her out of nowhere; we should have seen that building through the entire mission.
To show you what I mean, I'll throw up an example of 'strict Third Person Limited' for the Ceka-bothers-the-Doctor scene. Please don't use this; it's just intended to show what I'm talking about. Based on your text, of course.
Alright, I'll (try) to fix that. :) thank you!
... there's a game of Fill the Plotholes up on the Board at this very moment! The perfect place to try out a short piece in a new style of writing, based on a ludicrous prompt. Seriously, go join in.
That goes for everyone.
hS
Just remember two things:
1/ Writing is a learning process.
and
2/ Writing is a learning process.
By which I mean:
1/ Writing is a learning process. You're not expected to be an expert right out the door (for my own part, at least a third of my early PPC stuff makes me cringe), so don't fall apart because you can't equal your favourite author.
but
2/ Writing is a learning process. If you're not improving with each new story - you're doing it wrong. ;) So do your best - take as much advice as you can - and who knows what you'll be writing in ten years' time?
hS
to ask a follow-up question. When writing a 'fic, if you decide to use a different POV style, does that mean that you have to rework the rest of the story? Obviously that would be the ideal, but the question is whether it would be obligatory.
Here's what I mean: I believe that like Tigeress's mission, the crossover that I am working on is somewhere in between Third Person Limited and Third Person Omniscient (albeit leaning more towards Limited). I'm now thirteen chapters into my fic. If I were to come to the conclusion that a strict Third Person Limited style would work best, does that mean that I'd now need to rework the previous thirteen chapters?
P.S.: If you are so inclined, how would a scene from my crossover look like in strict Third Person Limited (Volt's POV, please)?
Your last three or more chapters don't include Volt. You'd be looking at, uh, Third Person Multiple Limited (?) or something - TPL, but with the viewpoint character changing from scene to scene. That's different from TPO, where the viewpoint shifts within a scene.
And I think you're already in TPML, honestly. Take Chapter 11: it's pretty much all from Keith's viewpoint. People are described relative to Keith ('Standing by Keith's side', 'He was Keith's best friend'), we don't see things he doesn't ('Keith did not have to turn around to tell'), other people's actions are related only as Keith notices them ('He looked down at his sister, whose eyes were starting to well up with tears'), and if he doesn't know something for sure, neither do we ('her expression seemed to tell that she knew something about it'). So switching to TPL with just one character would simply mean not using the others any more, not a change of style.
hS
Well, to be honest, I was trying to keep the story from Volt's perspective during the chapters that take place in Kanto. It appears that I was more successful than I thought.
As for the other chapters (i.e. 11,12, and 13), even though it started from Keith's point of view, I think it transitions more into Third Person Omniscient, especially after the Destroyer lands on Vestal. Then again, I'm not that concerned about the chapters that take place on Vestal; those can stay in Third Person Omniscient.
However, come to think about it, I am not trying to stay solely in Volt's perspective throughout the story. You'll see what I mean once Chapter 14 comes out. I was more concerned about a) not switching between Limited and Omniscient when I wasn't planning on doing so, and b) finding ways to better my storytelling.
Thanks for the advice!
The story was very good. please write another one.
Um. I don't have time for a full beta reading, either, but there were some things I want to bring up about the mission's current form that need to be worked on. (I couldn't do a proper beta anyway, as I've only seen a few Ninth Doctor episodes. Hey, Slitheen! Nice to see you guys again. Nice to actually recognize something out of a Doctor Who mission for once.)
The one big issue right now is this extremely forced animosity between Silver and Ceka. It's completely distracting throughout the entire mission, and there doesn't seem to be any reason for it, except to have conflict for conflict's sake. I'm fine with agents not getting along well all the time, as the PPC isn't a children's TV show. But Silver's . . . Time Lord racism? I don't know what to call it. Silver's racism gets thrown at us out of nowhere in the beginning—nothing in the previous mission suggested Silver had anything against Gallifreyans. She doesn't display the same level of distaste towards the Doctor later, or even to the Sues. Heck, she even goes along with recruiting the Flier at the end without a word of complaint, so what is it that makes her dislike Ceka specifically? And there's no resolution to it, either; we're just told at the end that "her prejudice [is] finally gone." But this just makes it more illogical, because we never knew why that prejudice existed in the first place, or why it has suddenly disappeared. The agents' collective actions during the mission also contradict that there is any conflict between them, as on two occasions (neuralyzing the gym and returning the Doctor to the TARDIS) Anna leaves Silver and Ceka alone together, with no sign of enmity between them during those periods. If Silver disliked Ceka so, wouldn't she volunteer to do those things, to get away from Ceka?
Perhaps the answer there lies with the suspicion in the beginning that Ceka might have been trying to help the Sues. But that leads to another contradiction, because if Ceka, an established, if newbie, agent was untrustworthy, why would Silver (again) go along with recruiting the Flier, an actual Sue? At the end of the day, it feels like you've written Silver to be mean to a new character for the sake of giving the agents something to do during the mission, then magically removed that conflict at the end when it was no longer convenient. Honestly, it doesn't work; take away the Time Lord hate, and all the agents have left in their part of the story is commenting on what the badfic does and performing the motions of observe-neuralyze-assassinate. The actual badfic sequences are far more entertaining than what the agents are doing.
I realize this all sounds extremely negative, but that's partly because I'm reacting to an unfinished product that got posted too early. My goal here is only to point out a major narrative error so you can retool it in the next draft. Give your agents personalities: not just contextless, baseline traits like "hates Gallifreyans" (though again, I'm still not clear that is Silver's problem), but full viewpoints and opinions that can play off of each other and whatever's happening around them. That will lead to much better dialogue and a much better reading experience overall.
I actually don't have a beta-reader right now, (looking for one) so... probably why.
Thank you for your criticism! (I know, that sounded weird, but, I really do like getting criticism.) I'm still a developing writer-- so anything helps. :)
Alright! I'll work on that. I was trying to establish Silver has extreme prejudice against anything new... obviously that didn't work, so I'm going to try and find my error.
Maybe try working some shyness into her behavior at the start? Although it might be tricky to have both shyness and the antagonism you were leaning towards here. It's an interesting idea, though. I wonder how Silver will react if they get sent to a canon her partner knows, but she doesn't?
Anna definitely is the one who knows more about Doctor Who... but in there it's just Slitheens and Time Lords -- pretty basic.
Also, just as a side note, do you think it is possible to judo flip a Slitheen? I'm just curious XD
Even putting their weight aside, they were very clearly stronger than humans, considering ho many times they killed people with their bare hands. (I know the Broken, Fallen Weeping Angel isn't a human, but I haven't gotten the impression Gallifreyans are significantly stronger than humans, either.)
Review here
(I know it's the older mission; I was going to do both, but ran out of time)
And I'm a little unclear on this: are you saying Time Lord Twins is finished, or that it needs betaing? If the former, then you should absolutely post it on the Board as well as the Wiki - most people don't look at the Wiki for new missions!
hS
Well, betaing. I didn't post it on the wiki yet :)
You're at the "ask for a beta-reader while keeping my unfinished story private" phase of the writing process, not the "publicly post links to my finished story" phase. It's best not to confuse the two. {= ) Linking to a story anywhere your intended audience can see it, Board or wiki, is considered publishing, so it's best not to do that until the story is all finished, edited, and polished.
Unfortunately, I don't have time to beta right now, so I'll hold off looking at your new mission until it's ready.
~Neshomeh