Subject: Re: Welcome
Author:
Posted on: 2012-11-14 17:14:00 UTC
No, because that particular story is one of my more serious ones in the works, but that would be hilarious otherwise.
I had a similar idea in one of my more, uh... Dark stories, let's say. The main character in question becomes able to stash weapons in his shirt, at the expense of becoming even more deeply infected by the skin-defiling disease he is cursed with.
Please, step away from the bespectacled psychopath!
Okay, so this will be my first attempt. Hope I got this all right...
Specs McGlasses:
Specs is a creation from the mind of SC, who Specs still refers to as Creator despite several times being told not to. Specs earned his name from a key detail, wherein the removal of his trademark glasses, for any reason, caused him to burst into flames. It was suspected at the time that the Laws of Comedy were toying with him, and so to avoid such travesty, his glasses were fitted with Velcro so that they wouldn't accidentally slip.
After discovering that Specs seemed to physically react to the expression of SC's emotions, and that the effect was tripled when the two were close together - again, likely due to the Laws of Comedy - SC kicked Specs out of his house for his protection, and Specs moved into a small apartment. Before he was kicked out, SC gave Specs a Cool Sword that, until recently, never left Specs' side.
One fateful day in May (it was actually June, but Specs liked rhymes), Sef appeared in Specs' room from a rift in reality. After some time living together, Specs gave up his Cool Sword to Sef, along with a pair of guns stolen from Specs' past that he had been given by SC via discreet shipping, and the two parted ways. Only, of course, to reunite in the PPC, of all places, in the Department of Floaters.
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Sapphire "Sef" St. Claire:
Originally a mercenary-for-hire Stu from the Black Cat continuum, employed by Chronos to combat Creed Diskense and his Apostles of the Stars, Sef was soon hit by a heavy dose of Phlebotinum which left its mark in the form of a hyperspace arsenal in his head. It was at this point, along with trying to cope with having such a dreadful name, that Sef felt his patience run out. Soon after, he rebelled against his Stuthor and cast himself out of the continuum by breaking the laws of physics and hiding inside his own arsenal - made possible due to bad author logic.
Sef, unconscious from his own actions, ended up falling out of his arsenal in the residence of Specs, who decided that weirder things had occurred before (such as spontaneously combusting when his glasses were removed) and took him in. Along with giving Sef his nickname, Specs also gave Sef his Cool Sword and a pair of cross-shaped guns - which had been confiscated from a Sue from Specs' past - to keep. The idea was that Sef should temper the use of his arsenal and only employ it when no other solution was presentable to him. Following this advice, Sef learned to adapt to a more human way of living and all but forgot about his powers - to the point where many of them disappeared altogether. Looking for vengeance against Suethors, Sef soon joined the PPC. The greatest irony was that he was placed in the same response center as Specs.
Of course, as Sef learned the hard way, it's never a good idea to tempt the Ironic Overpower.
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Permission piece: A Brief Story Excerpt
First fic to spork: "Tales of Vesperia 2: The Blastia Age Restored"
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*Praying frantically that I didn't screw up*
My feeling is that I'd like to see you hang around long enough to settle down a bit before getting Permission. Enthusiasm is good, but I kinda feel like you've been loading the Board with lots of one-line references to memes and your own work. Since I don't want to see missions colored heavily with references to memes and your own work (where your avatar is God, I think?), I'm leery of a yes here, especially with these agents. One has a history of getting shiny presents directly from his author, and the other one is defined as a walking vending machine for powerful weapons. You say he won't use it, but in that case, why even put it there? How often will there be "no other solution" but to tap into it? And Specs' glasses—bursting into flame when he takes them off is not a Law of Narrative Comedy, it's random chaos. It's important to know the difference, because random does not necessarily equal funny. This is a common misconception.
I'm just... very leery. On top of what VM has already noted, I think a "not right now" is appropriate. I'd like to see you read more missions, settle in, and maybe come up with a pair of agents that don't seem so heavily inclined toward big guns and shiny swords that come from On High, okay?
~Neshomeh
Hey, if the answer's no, I can totally roll with it. Even I'm looking at my stuff and wondering if I was actually ready or not.
Like I said, I didn't think try number one would get it for me. It's a good deal of weight off my shoulders now that I have a definite answer.
(Normally, I'd go into the bit about the characters and how this-that-and-the-other, but I'll hold off on that this time around. After a while, it's just me getting defensive.)
Thanks for the response.
Bad logic indeed: it practically fuels the PPC, at least the parts that don't run off of comedy or phlebotinum.
The story does seem to be a little short, especially for five characters to be popping up in. Plus, I don't know where any of the people are - I assume they've found a generic table because it seems like they're sitting down.
Also: the word condone. I'm not sure it means what you think it means, or at least that it should be used where you're using it. For example
"I practice magic, but condone its practice as training for megalomaniacal buffoons."
To condone is neither to approve of something nor to disapprove, but to overlook it even though some might find it objectionable. It's like an old west sheriff looking the other way while his nephew busts some heads in a saloon brawl. In this paragraph, you used the word in a way that doesn't fit the structure of the sentence. There's no conflict between practicing magic and condoning the use of it, so the word "but" shouldn't be used in that context. In addition, the tone of magic being "training for megalomaniacal buffoons," doesn't fit with the idea that the character is condoning it either. (Also, context as to why he has these opinions on magic might have helped.) Logically, it's hard for a person to condone their own actions - the condoner would have to be someone else who turned a blind eye to the proceedings.
(One wonders how you get a whisky flask into a tabard - the last one I saw had no pockets - but that's neither here nor there.)
Unfortunately, aside from all that, the dialogue felt kind of stilted. The phrasing is a bit off to require so many commas, and the order and flow of the sentences doesn't come off as someone talking or even someone trying to talk in an old-fashioned manner. It seems like someone trying to puzzle out a seventeenth or eighteenth-century letter. On top of that, the actions that go with the dialogue don't seem to fit with it, probably because I'm having a hard time parsing the dialogue and it's meaning to begin with. I'm not seeing much emotion from your characters, or any personal choices in regards to how they talk and act.
I do like the message of 'I am human, who are you to criticize,' but it lost a lot of impact in delivery since the sentence was tangled up and didn't show tone. I also don't know enough about any of the non-speaking characters to appreciate why this is a revelation for them.
It seems like you got stuck on large words. You don't need to bring us thesaurus boquets to prove you love us. :)
In the future I'd pick a longer scene with some movement or a less formal tone - you did much better with the agent bios, probably because you weren't trying to write in an old-fashioned manner and because the humorous nature of, say, Specs' glasses-removal problem goes a long way towards helping words like "wherein" get along with the rest of the sentence.
Good luck, SC. :)
Oof. Yeah, I kinda figured my Ye Olde Englishe was a bit muddled. I read it over after I had posted and flinched.
I think my best element of writing is modern language. At least I don't have to bullsh*t it.
(And in regards to the tabard: that particular character, Alistair, can hide things practically anywhere. I mean, until I realized that it was physically impossible to justify, he had a shield that he pulled out his back end.)
All said and done, thanks for the input.
I was wondering if it was a hyperspace tabard or something.
No, because that particular story is one of my more serious ones in the works, but that would be hilarious otherwise.
I had a similar idea in one of my more, uh... Dark stories, let's say. The main character in question becomes able to stash weapons in his shirt, at the expense of becoming even more deeply infected by the skin-defiling disease he is cursed with.
But that's cool. :)
Considering the course of the rest of the story (Kid is sucked into a living nightmare by an insane representation of his deepest fears, has to fight through a land of fire and death while struggling against an enhanced feeling of self-loathing, doubt and sadness, everything is trying to kill him), that bit is tame.
Like, it's so tame that I reused it in a sequel story, and was still less freaked out by it than the rest of the stuff I wrote.
Yeah, I've written things that disturb me but it's usually on a psychological scale. (Such as, I had an undeniable urge to write fanfiction for The Cask of Amontillado around haloween, and it disturbed me that I was putting that much mental effort into empathizing with the dude who walled somebody else up in a crypt... and the story I wrote about a serial killer who legitimately thinks he's just killing ghosts, which was... yeah.) Mostly I manage to creep myself out with the craziness of the people in the stories.
Oh good! I'm not the only person who does this!
It is incredibly difficult to find people on DeviantART who have the same or similar habits. Probably hence why I don't have jack diddly squat in terms of watchers.
Thankfully, I was never there for watchers.
I've always been a fan of Poe and such... and creepy movies. Not gory movies, because fear should not equal nausea (and really, there's only one plot for a slasher movie,) but movies that make you think.
I'm on fictionpress, and I write humor and action and stories about people who are insane. http://www.fictionpress.com/u/782120/CalliScribbles
You?
I try to stick with what I know, but sometimes I go out and wing it.
A lot of the time, it starts out horrible, but then gets made better.
And a lot of the time, things I'm just guessing about turn out to be one-hit wonders. The story I was telling you about? I called it Faust because every time the MC (Christopher) learns any new tricks or funds any weapons to combat Faust (the embodiment of his nightmares), the horrible skin disease spreads and turns him pretty much into a living zombie.
Turns out, the real story of Faust follows a similar premise, wherein for the low low price of selling his soul to the devil, Faust got a whole heap of knowledge crammed in his skull.
Outside of those kinds of stories, I really don't taper in horror all that much. I'm more strictly fantasy and humor.
First of all, you forgot a link to the fic, but that's easily remedied.
The second and more serious problem you have is that your story is too short. The characters just appear, have some dialogue, and that's it. We don't know much about them, and they're in the Featureless Plane of Bodiless Dialogue. It's not necessarily bad, it's just too short.
Would it be too terribly evil if I linked to a longer, less muddled-up piece? Because I know that I have a couple on hand. They're just deep in my gallery on DeviantART.
I'm afraid I have to agree with Des and SevenSwans on that - there's really nothing I can say about your piece with the length as it is. It does feel a bit clunky, the dialogue a bit forced, and I found it tough to follow. But I really would hesitate to make a judgement on such a short sample, if you've got pieces that are longer stowed away somewhere.
If you'd like to give it another go, and link to a second choice, by all means you are welcome to do so.
Sorry! I forgot to close my html tags!
This piece is from my novel that's in the works.
Here's hoping this rectifies my issue.
And sorry for borking the first reply.
I take it that this is a character encyclopedia of sorts. Grammatically it works, and it does make a very good encyclopedia - style entry. I'm going to poke some grammar here.
"It was by this tactic that first allied them," (I think that you are missing a word here: perhaps 'It was by this tactic that they were first allied,')
"This love of magic was born from a want of knowledge." (I'd change this to 'a desire for knowlege,' because although you could argue that a want of knowlege could technically be read as a desire or hunger for knowlege, the phrase as it's usually used means "a lack of knowlege.")
More to come: these just popped out at me initially.
Yeah, I noticed those two as well. They read awkwardly.
And don't worry, you'll have plenty if opportunities while reading. I tried to make that sucker airtight, but with my phone and sophomore-in-college level of grasp on the English language (despite being only a senior in high school - I was an early reader), I know I goofed somewhere.
It's okay. I do a lot of beta/proofreading irl (science major though... no, I don't know why I'm both,) and I agree: phone typing is a good way to get stuff squirreled up. I get warm, chocolate-flavored fuzzies when people get stuff right. :)
My phone's on the verge of cutting out on me, so I might be upgrading sooner than initially thought. (My phone plan automatically upgrades yearly, so I get some nice technology.)
In which case, I hope to god that my next phone doesn't suck quite as hard as this one did, and that I'll be able to actually WRITE LIKE MY NATURAL COHERENT SELF again.
Although that is definitely longer, and lacks the issues mentioned in the original reply, it sort of doesn't tell me much about your writing style. You've got mainly dry background context - it reads more like a textbook than a story of any sort.
But I didn't want to pass judgement on that alone, since I suspect your nerves are misleading you - so I followed a given link to your Deviant Art profile. You've got some good styles going on there, you've got a good grasp on syntax, spelling, grammar, and in general your writing is of good quality.
There is a bit of an issue there, though. The content of the pieces doesn't bother me (We mainly write fictionalized assassins, here, as you may have noticed; very few of us are really aversive to gore, violence, and/or twisted plot elements in general.) But at the beginning of one of your stories, you've got a summary telling people not to bother correcting your mediocre writing skills. In another one, you glibly identify one of the characters as a Mary Sue. I do like your writing, for the most part, but I'm really not comfortable granting permission with that being the attitude showcased. If we're going to go after Sues/Stus, it does not behoove us to go around touting our own writing as work of indifferent quality.
But... that, too, does not seem strong enough for me to outright turn this down. So alas, after all that, I'm going to abstain and wait for another PG to weigh in. Sorry, Specs.
It's all good. I don't imagine for one second that the first try will be the one to get it for me.
In regards to your comments about some of my works - I work on a scale of snark and realism. When I said "don't bother, it's mediocre," what I was saying was that the faulty writing was the least of the readers worries, because that particular story gets crazy, fast.
And when I identified the one character as a Mary Sue, I was being equally honest and silly at the same time. It is incredibly hard to show emotions over the internet, do I hold nothing against you if you interpreted it counter to what I intended.
Actually, I'm glad to be getting criticism instead of the typical, "Oh this is so amazing oh my gawd" that I usually get from people. I know my work is good - how good IS it is what I want to know.
Sorry that I've confuddled you, and thanks for the input.
That'd be A-OK, AFAICT.
Cool... But just to be on the safe side, I'm gonna wait until a PG says one way or the other.