Subject: Tell me, Have I improved my writing, or did it got worse?
Author:
Posted on: 2017-07-29 11:18:00 UTC
It seems like you are the only one willing to take the time to read my fic, so I must apologise for imposing myself unto you again. If you are still willing, I thank you.
I have only rewritten until chapter 2, and are now working on chapter 3.
AND FACE THE MUSIC FOR ONCE!
Apologies, trying to psych myself up to receive beatings, I mean constructive criticisms from all of you.
I present before you my English langauge fic, a Kuroko no Basuke and Mount and Blade crossover. http://archiveofourown.org/works/11459085
And a Malay language fic, where KnB characters learn HEMA. http://archiveofourown.org/works/11567364
Please, complain about all the problems you see. At this point, the only thing worse than knowing my faults in writing, is to not know it and worry about it every single day.
I have only read the first chapter but I have a couple of things to point out. This is purely my opinion and others may say it's not a problem.
First of all, I can't get a grasp of where Kagami got his weapons. You mentioned he was close, but did he run back to where he stored his weapons? Or were they hidden behind the wall he was hiding behind? You left out some details regarding movement and location that makes some portions a bit confusing.
Second,the fight scenes are a bit choppy and reads like a pokemon battle. During the fight, you basically listed what was happening instead of giving a description, it also gave the impression of each persob taking turns performing an action. Unless that is what you are trying to go for, perhaps consider making it more fluid. A fight is a seamless sequence of actions and reactions. Maybe try and combine two actions into the same sentence, actions in a fight are rarely separate. Also some actions can be inferred. For example when Kagami used his spear to hit the bandit, instead of saying "He stabs the bandit with his lance, which is stopped by the bandit’s round shield. The bandit is pushed back, but he calmly swings his mace to Kagami’s face." Perhaps do something like "Kagami thrust at the bandit, the tip glancing off the bandit's raised shield. As the bandit stumbled, he planted his foot and retaliated, swinging his mace up towards Kagami's face. Kagami deflected the blow off his shield and was forced back by the momentum of the blow." The bandit raising his shield to block was implied by the lance hitting a shield. Doing this also combines the strike and block in the same instant instead of two separate moments. The same criticism also applies to the rest of the exposition, although it is less of a problem there. I also fall prey to this mistake, so you aren't alone in having to improve this.
Finally, this is a small problem and it probably won't bother most people. But during the scene where Kagami gets shot, the reaction timeframe is a bit off. Kagami saw the bandit pull back the bowstring, but he barely dodged the arrow. It seems like the arrow teleported or something. Unless it is actually a teleporting arrow, it might be better to change it to seeing the bandit let loose an arrow instead of drawing the bow. That gives a good timeframe to "barely dodge" because any self respecting warrior would start moving as soon as he or she notices a nocked arrow and thus it wouldn't be "barely dodged".
So all in all, the story seems like a list of actions, events, and descriptions, instead of a fluid sequence. There are some location and movement details missing, and perhaps consider the timing of some of the action-reaction pairings then change the writing accordingly.
I realise that I write it by the fight system in Mount and Blade: Warband. The system is closer to exchanging hits to one another, rather than attacking and defending in one move or a series of fluid movements, like how professional martial artists do. While I am writing based on the universe of M&B, I already bend the world enough by using mods. And since I am doing world expanding, I will have to use reality rules.
I am busy rewriting the first chapter. When it is done, I will repost it.
Usually a game's combat system is there to create an accessable way for players to fight. It is impossible to create a combat system that replicates the effect of real fights. Therefore I think that regardless of world expanding or whatnot, one should not think of a game's combat system as the way characters actually fight in universe, and instead think of it as simply a representation of what occured.
one on one or fighting in small numbers.
But I will not extend the same conclusion to the battles later. Due to system limitations, M&B often do not allow everyone to be on the field at once if their numbers are too large, they placed a limit on how many bodies can be rendered at one time. So there are waves of attacks, instead of only one setpiece battle. There are mods for enlarging the numbers beyond basegame allowance, but it makes my computer too slow.
Thus, there are tactics that employs this situation, such as rearranging your troop type to match the weakness of the enemy troop type. Or making the number of people on the battle field very small so you can solo them on your own if you are OP. I intend to capture that situation. After all, I am writing a realistic-ish M&B and KnB crossover fanfic, not a low fantasy KnB fanfic.
If that's how the large battles must be portrayed then it's fine to do so. Unfortunately, since i am not well versed in Mount and Blade, I won't be able to help much in terms of the larger scaled battles. However, if you need any help with the smaller fights feel free to ask.
It seems like you are the only one willing to take the time to read my fic, so I must apologise for imposing myself unto you again. If you are still willing, I thank you.
I have only rewritten until chapter 2, and are now working on chapter 3.
Sorry for taking so long, I have been very busy. Yoir writing improved quite bit. I like the pacing, it's got a nice sort of continuous flow. The setting seems to be well defined without being too bogged down. All in all, a decent fanfic in my opinion, nothing fancy, but solid and enjoyable. Of course, there would always be stuff to improve, but try not to sweat it too much, it's just for fun after all.
If you see any new problem in my fuc, do not hesitate to critique it, in the comments section or here. I hope to write an original novel soon, which is hy I am a bit serious of this fanfic. Perhaps I should write some short fics for fun.
Oops, I didn't check my message thoroughly enough.
The sequence was what I was worried about the most. Some guy on Reddit already commented on other matters. Such as getting into the mind of the characters, overdescribing the world, and others. I intend to let the complaints come in first before rewriting.