Somebody Told Me: Prelude and Part 1

[kitfallen]

Title: Somebody Told Me
Genre: Kingdom Hearts, AU
Rating: PG14
Pairing: Naminé/Marluxia, Axel/Roxas, Sora/Riku/Kairi
Main Characters: Sora, Roxas, Naminé
Summary: Sora was born into this world, but Roxas and Naminé weren’t so lucky. Thankfully, Sora is generous and gives their souls a place to stay.

Prelude “Breaking My Back Just To Know Your

Comments

[mirrorbrothers]

I can't really tell without more detail, but offhand I vote for shit-happens-rocks-fall. Ideas that scare the crap out of you are almost always right, in writing or anything else, and stories run off conflict.

And, uh, yes, I could tell you don't like names. That was the point of the critique - your dislike of names is a flaw in your writing. The first time you described Marluxia's hair, it did indeed tell the reader something important about his personality. After the first time, the reader already knows all that, and the description does nothing but replace a name. You knew that, really - look at how you described Marls' hair the first time, and the way you said it every subsequent time. The first one looks like a description, it acts like a description, it does everything you wanted it to do. The later descriptions are in the same place you'd put a name - in fact, you could just find-replace "the warm-haired teen" with "Marluxia" through the whole chapter and it would read just fine. That means the description is doing a name's job - and since the reader is getting no new information, it isn't doing its own job. It's even a little confusing as an identifier - you could fairly call Sora's hair "warm," and if you try that phrase when Kairi's in the scene you'll be in real trouble.

Some rules to remember:

* If all you're doing is letting the reader know who you're talking about, use a pronoun or a name. That's what they're for.

* If you're using the same description of the same person twice in the same chapter, you're probably doing something wrong.

* Whenever you have two choices in writing, and they both do exactly the same thing (like identifying the speaker) use the one with fewer words.

Johnny, Rob

[kitfallen]

Johnny: Hehe, the shit-happens-rocks-fall one doesn't really scare me, but you're good for wanting the one with more conflict. The way I'm working towards writing the story right now, is a mix of rocks-fall and birds-and-rainbows--which makes it harder to write but all the more real because not everyone's story is the same but it shows a range of plots without being too much of a range that it confuses the reader. I'm always one for purposefully sticking my pen in spots that I'm bad at and forcing myself through them so I improve.

Rob: I was only joking about the names, but I find that a lot of writers use names constantly as cop-outs for actually describing how the character looks and feels. You make a good point about my overuse, that there's way too much repeating of the same exact thing without any change, causing the story to be dragged down in repeated terms and far too many words. (Hmm, Kairi's hair isn't really 'warm' though, it's like ash, cooling down from the flame...)

By the way, I've been reading some of the writings on your shared LJ and they're very good. I'm enjoying the Other's Keeper one at the moment, and even though I like Axel/Roxas, I'm glad you made Roxas straight, because it plays out a dynamic that now I really want to poke at in this story, but can't because I've already declared the pairings.

(@Rule 3: Aw, but I like to use lots of words :3) I know I need to work on my usage of names and descriptions in this story. Usually I'm good with that balance, but for some reason, the style of this story is making itself difficult. I think I'm going to use a bit of a cop-out and claim that most of the style of the prologue was combined of all of them trying to describe things, then the first part was Nam's way of seeing the world. Maybe that'll get me out of my funk with Roxas's chapter.

Thank you for the advice and hopefully I'll get out the next chapter soon!
-kit