Subject: Hang on a second.
Author:
Posted on: 2015-04-12 00:00:00 UTC
I know I said you could borrow Alex, but I never got the chance to look it over to make sure he was in-character. Yes, I was too busy to beta read the whole thing, but common courtesy says that if you borrow someone's agent, you let them look it over before publishing. Not cool, dude. Way not cool.
Oh my dear ever-loving Arceus, what have I done?! D':
I was going to switch back to some of my other RCs after my last mission, but then I found something horrifying and I couldn't stop myself, plus I wanted to explain Lapis' backstory for a while and I couldn't just let her homefic be. By the way, a word of warning: DO NOT READ THE INTERLUDE UNTIL YOU HAVE READ THE MISSION ITSELF! You will be spoiled. A lot. Anyway, enjoy, peeps!
This is the last solo DIC mission I'll be doing for a while, by the way. My next few missions will hopefully ensure that Falchion doesn't get too figuratively rusty. ^^;
The Mission: A Feudal Nightmare
The Interlude: Bitter Memories
and I liked how you told Lapis Lazuli’s back story, but the end is confusing. Where exactly did Rainbow-Hair and Fiery-Tail find the blue-haired girl? Were they in a void left by the deleted badfic? Was she running on a generic plain in Nowhereland? Did the same agents who had been assigned to the badfic coincidentally find Lapis in the corridors of PPC HQ?
His eyes went huge and he and edged away.
One "and" too much,
Then Ripper and Alex appeared next to the canons just then...
The repetition sounds weird.
...she asked to the canons...
I think this "to" should not be there.
...an important artifact to him.
Word order is my weak point, but "an artifact important to him" probably works better.
She thought of when she had travelled across miles of country over the course of a few days.
I would believe in her ability to create plot holes if this had either been "hundreds of miles" or "a few minutes"; about one mile per day isn’t really fast. Or is the plot hole supposed to cause her travelling too slow?
HG
Specifically, the plot hole ability was caused by her remembering that she traveled way too many miles over a few days - the area was supposed to correspond to coastal California, and starting from the equivalent to Los Angeles, they were about to end up in the southern tip of the state in a few weeks.
And I've thrown in a little note in the ending that Lapis was found in the halls of the PPC HQ - the Wiki says that she fell straight into HQ after escaping her homefic, which is part of why she's so nervous all the time (the PPC specializes in killing Sues, after all).
I'm going to pluck a random example of this from the place I was at when I decided to write. This isn't a specially-selected example, is what I'm saying:
Lapis quivered in terror when Matt’s Dragonic Backlash sent Giga Bowser stumbling dangerously close to the group. The air shimmered around her again, but she stopped herself before she could escape through the plot hole. In the midst of the overly descriptive action, the disguised Pokémon trainer had begun to notice something.
“I’m a little disappointed that it took me this long to realize this, but… Did you guys hear something… off about the way the canons and the Stu were talking?”
“We were so focused on the scriptfic format we got ourselves into that we didn’t hear anything,” said Sarah. “At least I didn’t. I was too busy trying to reset the format.”
Cupid’s eyes widened a little, recalling how he’d gotten distracted while his partners were arguing. “While you ladies were squabbling and doing other stuff,” he mused aloud, “I noticed that all of the characters were saying their lines at the same time. It was a lot harder for me to notice who was saying what because of that, like so many voices at once.”
Sarah gasped. “I think I know why!” she cried. “The spoken lines were not given separate paragraphs!”
There's something really off about the way you write, and I'm trying to pin down what it is. On the first hand, there's lines like this:
In the midst of the overly descriptive action, the disguised Pokémon trainer had begun to notice something.
Cupid’s eyes widened a little, recalling how he’d gotten distracted while his partners were arguing.
I get a really strange vibe off that sort of thing. I think it stems from the fact that the narrated 'actions' are so... non-physical. You're telling us that Lapis noticed something, rather than showing us her reaction: did she raise an eyebrow? Was stopping herself a reaction to the noticing? Equally, you show us Cupid's action, then explain it. I don't think the explanation was necessary - I think it detracts from the narrative flow.
On the other hand, there's the dialogue. Example:
Sarah gasped. “I think I know why!” she cried. “The spoken lines were not given separate paragraphs!”
Imagine telling someone something, and hearing that as their reaction. It doesn't sound like speech; that's not how people talk. People talk more like this:
Sarah gaped. How had she missed that? Then her brow furrowed in thought. "And I think I know why. It's the Words - the spoken lines didn't get separate paragraphs."
Your line reads as if Sarah had to wait for a dramatic flash of lightning to backlight her, and was expecting the scene to end immediately afterwards. "We must enter the castle - and destroy Dracula!" Drama like that isn't realistic.
And thirdly... how did they not notice that every single spoken line in the scene was said at exactly the same moment? It seems like something you'd comment on at the time, not a mildly strange fact that you'd pick up on later.
I dunno. Just... go read over that scenelet again, in isolation. Can you see what I mean about it sounding... strange?
hS
Adverbs. Particularly adverbs attached to dialogue tags. And fancy dialogue tags, for that matter. You're really, really over using them. Act 2 begins with:
Lapis snarked.
She grumbled.
Cupid begged.
The girls both responded angrily.
Sarah added hastily.
Cupid cheered.
The dialogue makes it perfectly clear about the snarking, grumbling, begging, anger, and cheering (seriously, the last one, his only speech is a cheer. '"I like it!" Dafydd said, claiming he liked it.'). It's just... distracting and unnecessary. Dialogue tags should be used to convey physical realities - mumbling, shouting, and yes, possibly grumbling - not details of tone; your dialogue should be covering that by itself. And by and large it does; we can see that Lapis is snarky, for instance. We didn't need telling.
... this has turned into a double-post of 'Show-Don't-Tell', hasn't it?
hS
Checking back on most of the narrative, I'm pretty sure I used "said" a lot of times, but good call on the adverbs - I've checked back and gotten rid of most of them. Likewise, the way I'm explaining all the itty bits of the characters' reactions along with the dialogue does sound a bit off-putting, though that may have been one of the side effects of me liking to write long textwalls and such. I may go over the interlude as well to see if I did the same thing - and I will do what I can to avoid doing that in future missions.
Regarding the "every single line spoken at once" thing, the agents didn't notice because they were paying attention to the fact that every line was in script format (which is also a very bad thing to do in a narrative fic), and they ended up scrambling to reset their own format when it got affected too.
It’s a bit late for beta reading. I should really check my e-mail more often.
...a small metal cubes with buttons...
Should be "cube" (singular).
...the agents heard the devices make some futuristic sci-fi-ish sounds...
Should be "device" (singular).
Another long paragraph later, Matt managed to drive Giga Bowser and Matt away.
Do I need to read the badfic to understand what’s going on there? Is Matt driving away with Giga Bowser or are there two persons called Matt?
...during which the agents reset their format reset as usual.
I’m not sure whether resetting the format or resetting the "format reset" is the intended action here.
"What’s this guy gonna next, stop a school shooting?" she asked.
I’m not sure whether Sarah intentionally skipped a word there.
Armed with this knowledge, the canons proceeded to attack and fatally injure Moriamaru. The canons watched and waited.
Shouldn’t this be the agents, watching and waiting?
The new mini leaped off the Stu and headed over to join the agents.
“No,” Matt whispered in total shock, before transforming into his beast form and flinging Windscar off of him.
What’s going on here? Isn’t Windscar the new mini who had already leapt off the Stu? How could Matt fling him off then?
...silently thanked her lucky stars and superheroes that she hadn’t been flung into a tree.
Sarah has superheroes? Who are they?
Sarah and Cupid both cried out in stark horror. The Dragon Chain had severed his partner’s right hand with a single bite!
Since the first sentence’s POV was Sarah and Cupid’s, the second sentence’s POV should better not be just Cupid’s; thus "their partner’s".
And yeah, the interlude following this mission basically my way of killing...
Missing word "is"?
Will the agents be in trouble because nobody charged Naraku?
HG
Well, Sarah did thank Captain Marvel that she wasn't going to deal with sparkly vampires in "Scarlet Disgrace".
This exact issue was actually brought up during the beta reviewing process - originally, Naraku WAS going to be a replacement, but said beta did not like the prospect of a character surviving after his canonical death being immediately branded as a replacement. Huinesoron did do one mission in which Boromir was brought back to life and ended up dying after the Sue was killed, for example. So the canonical Naraku being resurrected by the Stu specifically so he can kill him isn't an impossiblity; it's just that the agents had to kill him before the Stu did to successfully throw off the story.
A couple things I noticed...
(First off, unless my Internet sources are wrong, the title character's name is written Inuyasha.)
"A few paragraphs of dialogue passed by, during which the agents reset their format reset as usual."
Uh...what? I think you hit reset one time too many.
"“Go figure that he’d show off his wonderful toys,” she grumbled."
"Go figure" is used for an event or situation that doesn't make sense (it's shorthand for "go and figure that out", according to Urban Dictionary). Since it makes sense for Matt the Gary Stu to show off his cool toys, use something like "And of course" instead.
More tomorrow, when I'm less tired.
I know I said you could borrow Alex, but I never got the chance to look it over to make sure he was in-character. Yes, I was too busy to beta read the whole thing, but common courtesy says that if you borrow someone's agent, you let them look it over before publishing. Not cool, dude. Way not cool.
In hindsight I should have asked you about that before posting this, but the thought slipped my mind. It won't happen again.
May I please have editing access so I can fix his lines later? Right now he's kind of Junior Professor meets Hyper Teen. (I say later because I won't be able to get on GDocs until tomorrow.)