Subject: Not a PG, but-
Author:
Posted on: 2011-11-25 08:12:00 UTC
I have to say, I like this permission sample better than the first one. It's way less purple and actually tells a short story in a considerable amount of text.
(I hope that third time's a charm as they say...)
Writing Sample.
Major Fandoms:
Lord of the Rings
The Culture
The Bartimaeus Trilogy
Forgotten Realms
Star Wars (some of it, anyway)
Ratchet and Clank
Doctor Who
Artemis Fowl
Agents:
Name: Caliban (real name unknown)
Age: 20
Home Continuum: Real Life
Partner: Agent Lennox
Object of Lust: Tea
Department: Department of Floaters
Weapons: as appropriate in the setting, but usually either a pistol or a longsword
Agent Caliban asked to be named thusly, after a character in one of Shakespeare's plays, when he was recruited to the PPC. He led a rather normal life before, his many weird quirks notwithstanding. His hobbies include reading, composing poetry, shooting pistols, and practicing fencing. He is a quiet person, with a dry sense of humour and a sarcastic and jaded view of the world. He is, of course, rather crazy, even if it does not show most of the time. He is short and thin, with a long, angular face.
His van-Dyke and brown hair are usually kept short. He usually wears black cargo pants, a green Polo shirt, black gloves, brown hiking shoes, and a brown longcoat.
Name: Lennox
Age: 23
home Continuum: Real Life
Partner: Agent Caliban
Object of Lust: Galadriel
Department: Department of Floaters
Weapons: None. The pen (or, in his case, the quill,) is mightier than the sword.
Lennox was a frustrated poet and writer before he was recruited to the PPC, becoming increasingly angry over the Canon Rape the various canon he loved, but especially lord of the Rings, were enduring. As he delved deeper into The Pit of Voles, horrified at the things he found, he became crazier and crazier. Once, he took a walk in a park near his home, and stumbled on an uneven flagstone. Normally, he would just have got a twisted arm, but, to his (mis)fortune, he fell through a plothole into HQ. After an embarrassing incident he does not care to talk about, he was recruited and partnered with another new Agent, Agent Caliban.
Lennox is a tall, gawky man. His hair is black, and so are his eyes. His face is round, and he wears rectangular glasses. He usually wears an Australian Straw Hat, a brown shirt, and jeans. He has an annoying tendency not to finish his sentences, and a Received Pronunciation accent.
Badfic to spork.
I had a long concrit written up, but we had a power outage that killed it.
I'll be appending one to this post once I finish rewriting it, but what it comes down to is that while you might have a grasp on the basic elements of grammar and spelling, your writing sample lacks reasoning for the characters, the characters have no characterization whatsoever, there is no real development or change that occurs within the story, and the pacing is shoddy.
I have to say, I like this permission sample better than the first one. It's way less purple and actually tells a short story in a considerable amount of text.
Since I was told that there should be more concrit on the board, have some.
Yes, I said it was better. And it is. You managed to leave out the purple and be more direct in your storytelling.
Still... I don't know. Giving it a second/third read I found a few things that irked me.
1. The story of this thing doesn't feel concluded to me. Dude kills the bandits and... uh. Yes. It was just a short scene out of something that felt like it should be part of something bigger.
2. The fight scene took me a few reads to get. You have a severe pronoun problem there due to having multiple males. I'm not going to take on the fight itself because I'm not that used to/good at writing fight scenes myself.
3. Okay, story crit time. So, we have the rider, dubbed Dude here. We start with him leading his camel onto a dune and taking a look in the far. He then sees something and mounts the camel. I'm not sure why he can't lead the camel along for the rest of the way, or, alternatively, why he wasn't riding it all the time. I personally think that leading the camel would be the better idea if he expects bandits to be there. Fighting on camelback sounds rather shaky. I have been on a camel safari and I say they shake like hell. Also, there's a lot of stuff on that camel. The best choice would be to either lead it to the oasis or to leave it standing a bit away, go scout for bandits and take it there if the oasis is safe.
But okay, Dude rides his camel and, oh surprise, gets ambushed by bandits using the old breathing under water with a reed trick. Just under sand. I don't know how well that works, maybe we should ask the Mythbusters, but even if it doesn't I'll take an acceptable break from reality.
So, the Sandit Leader jumps out of his hiding place and demands... the camel. Surprise, again. Camels are so valuable, they used to be payment. Now we get to the fight. Dude draws a dagger. As said, I don't know that much about fighting, but dagger vs sword(y thing)? Well, fine, a sword restricts movement more than a dagger, but its reach is better. And, as said, I seriously doubt camelback fighting works that well.
The fight scene itself... there's a lot of dagger fu in there. I'll leave it at that, hoping for a dagger on sword expert to fill me in.
One thing did strike me as odd. "For the wanderers of the desert." And no, I'm not talking about this battle cry. I'm talking about the fact that I can't tell if this is in character for Dude.
Anyways, the fight is done and dude gets to get his water and eat something. Then he walks into the sunset, never to be seen again. *plays the Lucky Luke ending theme* THE END. (Imagine this in a typical Western font)
4. I notice, I haven't talked about the depth of the story yet. Or rather, the depth of the characters.
I'm sorry, but that's not really there. Dude is essentially a guy with a camel. There's not more to him than that. As said, if this was part of something bigger, something that actually defined Dude's character, it could work out. But as it is, he's just a random dude.
To be honest, I like the camel. The camel is cool. To me, it seems like each of the camel's answers is a snarky comeback.
The bandits, are, in TVTropes terms, faceless mooks. They're there to be an obstacle on Dude's journey. Again, in a bigger scope, you've got to have some bit casualties, but for the length of this story, there should be more to them.
Le conclusion... *sigh* Yes, I said it was better. But yeah, it could still be better. Don't worry, it's nothing you can't fix with some practice, you'll get the hang of it.
Also, I wish for an edit button because I know there's something I forgot to say. <_>(Also also, if you allow comments to your document, people can comment on typos and other stuff.)