Subject: On Profiles
Author:
Posted on: 2015-08-03 18:34:00 UTC
Personally, as a beta-reader, I'm fond of seeing character profiles both in Permission and on the Wiki. It's useful for me to be able to get a quick run-down of what the character is supposed to be like, so I can judge whether or not the appropriate characterization is shining through. Basically, to help me see if they're writing the character they think they're writing.
So I'm doing the thing. Ahem.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vSx09it7tq2daf1jsKOth8xEU8cBBypDjpVMoZNQtO8/edit?usp=sharing
Agents' bios and my two prompt pieces are included in this document.
The fic I intend to kill for my first mission is https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11229975/1/The-Chronicles-of-Cassandra-Black-Year-1
Warning for rape and self-harm since there is no such warning on the fic itself.
Hoom, hoom.
Activity: W-ell. On one hand, I do know... not well, but OK-ish? On the other hand, this knowledge is roughly three years old. I don't really feel like I know you yet. I think you need to hang around a bit more.
PPC knowledge: I... can't really tell. See below. One thing, though: why do you have five agents? Two — three, at most — is plenty for everyone.
Fic to spork: Kill it with fire, aright.
Writing ability (creative): Again, I can't really tell.
Writing ability (technical): *screeches to a halt* How do I say this? Your punctuation and grammar are not so good.
-Your commas are all over the place. For example: "Mare Elm is a female, eighteen year old, witch from the Harry Potter continuum." should be "Mare Elm is an eighteen year old witch from the Harry Potter continuum." (As a side note, there are no male witches; that makes noting that Mare is female pointless.)
-"She enjoys reading and discovering new fandoms, her current interest is anime." — the comma should be a semicolon.
-"Her eyes are still generic though." Missing comma between 'generic' and 'though'.
And so on and so on. It's pretty bad; I simply couldn't go through the whole document because the SPaG is rather bad.
Related to that: I see you listed our resident Greybeard as a beta. I hold Hieronymus Graubart's beta'ing and nitpicking abilities in very high esteem, and I am very surprised he OK'd something with such SPaG.
Therefore: Permission Denied. Your writing is simply not legible enough for me to see if there's anything bad or good with the creative side and so on.
Since we don't want STT fixing the SPG to fail on other counts, and all...
PPC knowledge looks fine, though I wonder why Elliot and Thingy were so ready to offer Mare a place in their RC - wouldn't the Marquis have something to say about that?
Anyway, actual writing. What I did was to delete the profiles unread. To my mind, the profiles are there to catch the 'when on missions she grows laser cannons out of her arms and blows up small children' things; I shouldn't have to read them to get to know your characters.
But... well, this is what I wrote down in my notes on the three agents' personalities:
Mare
Excitable/skitty
Except when not
-too many adjectives, srsly
Coriander
More eager than he looks
Socially awkward
Snarky
El
Grumpy
Yes, yes, 'haughtily'
There's... not a lot there, and some of it is very inconsistent. Elwhatsit suffers the most: she can be summed up entirely in the word 'haughty'. Mare is close to being just 'excitable', except that she does her 'no you can't come in' thing to El for some reason (why not 'eee! newbie!'? That's what the story that far would suggest she'd do), and snarks at her in the second story.
And then there's Coriander, who... is introduced as being eager but hiding it (by standing by the door), turns out to be socially awkward, then descends into snark to El despite showing no previous signs of it. I've no idea who he's supposed to be.
Then there's my other comments: adjectives and adverbs. These should be used sparingly, but you've chucked them after practically every dialogue tag. To pluck an entirely random example:
“I don’t know,” Mare replied unhelpfully
I think we could tell that was unhelpful. ^^
... and I've just gone back and looked at the profiles. My only response is, "Who?" Eldrich is a vengeance demon who maliciously grants wishes and tends to melodrama? I had her down as a member of the nobility. Coriander respects Mare and is very wise and slightly alien? I was getting 'awkward geek'. Mare is a Slytherin? Really? I could see her as any of the others (Gryf or Huff for the bounciness, Ravenclaw for the snark against El), but Slytherin?
The characters in the profiles are not the characters in the stories. I think, before you try for Permission again, you need to get a handle on who these people are, not just their species and RC number.
hS
(PS: Though on the flip side, I didn't flag your punctuation as too bad at all. ^^ Different PGs, different hangups...)
Now I’m wondering whether this supports or invalidates your opinion that profiles should not be required for the permission process.
Outlining character sheets and then writing the story matching the characters to their profile is certainly a good way to keep them in character. But I’m quite sure that it’s not the way I would do it; and I have seen others saying that they don’t know who their characters are until they have written their story.
But then, being able to build a profile based on what is shown in the prompts – and presumably in other writing exercises and background material that is not contained in the permission request, but may be made canon later – is an analytical skill valuable in PPCing, so the PGs may want to see the profiles regardless of whether they were written first or last.
Anyway, I learned here that sketching character profiles based on what I see in the story, to check how consistent they are, should be an important part of beta reading.
BTW, I would assume that Mare was sorted into Slytherin in her badfic of origin, because the Suethor wanted her to be in this house, not necessarily because she fits best there. Her Slytherin tie is only shown in the flashback. This may be a stealthy way to imply that realizing that she doesn’t actually identify with Slytherin is part of her character development. But this doesn’t exactly match the profile saying that she treats the inter-house rivalry seriously. (Is this meant to describe the situation when she joins the PPC? Is it still valid three years later, when Eldritch joins the team and Mare may have realized that she had been sorted into the wrong house?)
Anyway, if we plan a character arc with surprising twists that will explain the initially apparent inconsistencies in a character, should we spoil it in the permission request?
HG
...being able to build a profile based on what is shown in the prompts... is an analytical skill valuable in PPCing...
I agree that it's a valuable skill - but I don't think the character profile should be the way to showcase it. Actually, the best thing would probably be to write an Intelligence report on the badfic you want to take on - that's the type of analysis we need to be able to do as PPC writers, not writing character profiles.
I had long arguments over how much should be in the profiles, and - obviously! - I still think we're getting way too much in there. You ask if we plan a character arc with surprising twists... should we spoil it in the permission request?; the answer should be an emphatic 'no!'. But character profiles are the sort of writing which might end up requiring it.
For an example of what I think a profile should be like, you can check the Wiki article on Permission; I wrote both the example bios in there. I prefer the version with headings, but both contain the same information. For Lou, then, I provided:
-Basic physical information. This took about twenty words. Do you need to know where Lou buys her glasses, whether she has any birthmarks, and the history behind her feelings about her hair colour, to decide whether she's a valid character? No. {Well, since you asked-} I didn't. {Shurrup. There's an Eye Speye opticians in New Cal, I usually have a small one on my left sole, and I went through a phase of dyeing it black because it was 'more interesting'.} Great. Anyway, this is just there to catch the 'demon from the dawn of time' species entries.
-Powers and skills. This is an important section, because people have a terrible habit of giving their agents big magic, big weapons, and big problems. So we need to know what you've slapped on there, because it might not make it into the samples. As with Lou, though, hiding the details is fine! This doesn't have to be an in-universe document; it's just something for us to look over quickly and say 'yep, fine'. {Does 'talks to the author' count as Big Magic or Big Problems?} Shut up.
-Personality. This could probably go - we can see it well enough from the story - but people argued vehemently for its inclusion. Again, it's there to catch bad stuff like 'and likes to torture any minis he finds'. {Did someone really say that?} Yes, and no, they didn't get Permission. {Good. Ugh.}
-History. Once again, this just a simple filter. If your character deduced the existence of the PPC, created her own portal generator, and bullied the SO into giving her a job, we need to know. {Did that actually happen?} Not as far as I remember. But apart from that... well, look how little Lou's profile has.
Getting Permission is not meant to be a struggle against all odds. We've tried over and over to streamline the process and make it easier, but it's never worked.
'We should ask for a single story.' "But what if they write about something that doesn't tell us much?" 'Well, we should specify what to write about.' "But a specific subject might not fit their characters." 'Then we could make it a randomised choice.' "But we should see something procedural as well, as a baseline." 'Then we can ask for two prompts.' "But there's a hole in my bucket, dear Liza, dear Liza..."
Permission was a lot easier when everyone in the PPC wrote fanfic, and for the same couple of fandoms too. Then it was, "Yep, I've read some of your stuff, I trust you; you're in." Now... now I don't even know.
If you were trying to control the quality of a shared universe that isn't hosted at a single location, how would you do it?
hS
Might I suggest some sort of open beta? Basically, you come and introduce yourself, hang out for a month, etc., then you write a mission and post it (entering PPC canon on a probational basis). Then the whole community can take a look, provide suggestions, and generally whip it into shape. If that doesn't happen, it gets kicked from canon and the author gets invited to take it down and rewrite.
After a few missions go up without significant issues, you lose the probation and get full freedom to write. Basically, we as a community help people get better at writing through the medium of missions; and if they refuse to improve, their missions aren't part of our shared universe.
And if we get too many Sue Agents floating around, unremoved, the Flowers could resurrect the DIO, or normal Agents could write ‛‛missions'' in HQ.
Of course, there could also be a preliminary check of Agent bios to pre-empt bad characters.
The downside is that some people might read the rejected missions and associate us with bad writing. Or we might gain a reputation for helping budding writers along, rather than trashing their work? Who knows?
Personally, as a beta-reader, I'm fond of seeing character profiles both in Permission and on the Wiki. It's useful for me to be able to get a quick run-down of what the character is supposed to be like, so I can judge whether or not the appropriate characterization is shining through. Basically, to help me see if they're writing the character they think they're writing.
Two of those agents are just bit characters responsible for recruiting the others, but you're right. I plan on cutting the character number down to just two agents.
I really thought I'd done everything I could in regards to making sure my SPaG was up to scratch, but apparently I failed at something. Do you have any advice for how I could make sure I don't make the mistake of submitting something like this again?
Thank you for the con crit though, it's good to know what I need to work on.
Hey, HG. I'm sorry to pry, but: did you beta this thing? Have you OK'd it for publication, as things were? Something here strikes me as really weird and I want to get to the bottom of this.
And I was specifically called in for SPaG. Apparently my punctuation skills don’t match my reputation. Or I had a really bad day.
SingingTheThunder, I’m sorry for this. I wish I could have helped more.
HG