(no subject)
Back again, and again posting out of sheer irritation.
I'm still RvB obsessed. I didn't get Reconstruction for Christmas like I wanted, so once my paypal goes through I'll get it. I'm daydreaming about it already and how long it'll take to reach me in the land of Aus. I've put my order down for Reconstruction, the extra DVD to complete my boxset and the soundtrack. I don't know if I'll get anything else. For a while I've been looking for something to collect, a hobby or something and what's really caught my eye is Webcomics, so perhaps I'll get the Roosterteeth Comicbook 1. It's funny, but not brilliant. We'll see.
The thing that's really got me irritated is RvB section of FF.net. I don't know what's frustrating me more, the fics or the reviewers or the fact that I can't come up with a decent plot for myself.
We'll start with the fics. Don't get me wrong, there are some absolute gems. Nuh's fic seems to be discontinued, and there's a brilliant one called RvB: from Deviantart, but so many of them are Anywhere but Here fics. I hate ABH fics. They're cheap and lazy because no effort at characterisation is required (I'm not talking about the good ones out there, but they're the exception that proves the rule), there's never a plot- it's all a sham to get into fav character's pants and talk about what's on their ipod. Why is there always an ipod? Seriously, you don't care that I listen to Slim Dusty, and I don't care that you listen to Queen or Linken Park. In the words of Simmons, "I hate you, and I hate the bands you like!"
I hate that they're so lazy about spelling, 50% spell Donut incorrectly, their punctuation is random and their paragraph... Half don't even bloody start a new line for dialogue. But I'll work through it one story at a time.
My current project is Freedom! '90 and it's author Concealed Eminence. He's inspired by The Wish of Red and Blue by RvB Freelancer Tex, ironic because Tex is the character she butcher's the most.
Her's is the epitome of everything I hate about AbH fics, Church's balls and canon mangling, dialogue intensity random PoV's. I'm debating whether I want to review her. She's got 7 chapters and 39 reviews, so I don't know whether she'll use it or use her 'popularity' as an excuse. Her latest chapter is an AN complaining about 'outside school' because, she always has her writing skillz to fall back on. If I do my usual method of honey over vinegar I'd have a hernia. Hell, I struggled with Freedom '90 which isn't half as bad.
G'day Concealed Eminence! Let's have a look!
Well done! At a glance things look nice and neat and tidy- the first thing a reader looks for. No glaring spelling mistakes, paragraphing spot on and good punctuation albiet a few inconsistencies, readers love consistency. The first thing is your dialogue punctuation- sometimes you use a comma (which I've always learnt as the correct and used in published works, but some schools teach the fullstop), and sometimes you use a full stop-
-“Moan,” I said, looking at my paper.-
-“Yay.” I whispered to myself-
My suggestion is to choose one and stick to it, to keep everything looking tidy. The other punctuation oddity is you sometimes use a double fullstop (..) and sometimes a triple (...) The three fullstops in a row are punctuationally correct, referred to as ellipses and are the punctuation equivilent of -He trailed off- or -His voice died away.- You use it well, but if you use it too often it's like jumping out and shouting 'Boo!' The more you do it, the less impact it has, so don't use it too much. The double isn't correct so the comma will have the same effect. Ditto goes with the double exclaimation mark. Having two is incorrect and doesn't convey any more excitement than just a single one, so it's pretty redundant. Otherwise, brilliant presentation!
The other thing I look for in a fic at a glance is the degree of dialogue intensity- namely what percentage is dialogue and what percentage is description. Description is THE lifeblood of writing, it paints the movie in the readers head and the more detail, the more lifelike it is and the more we can completely immerse ourselves in the world that is Freedom!'90. To put it one way, as much as we loved the nippy dialogue of the machinima series, how excited were you to see Simmons and Griff get punched in the crotch in the animated version along with the nippy dialogue? It proves that given the chance the RT team would turn RvB into a slapstick comedy.
Now, I know you can do it. You describe facial expressions and voice tones really well, and some nice description sprinkled throughout like when Corey first shows up and when Donut shoes him around, you just have to expand it! A good dialogue to description ratio is only 30% dialogue, so for every sentence of dialogue you write, try to back it up with two sentences describing things. Try uses your senses- what does he see? what does he hear? How do things feel against his skin? What is that awful smell? And of course, how does he think and feel about it? Make the scene so real we could touch it!
That's the best and worst thing about selfinserts, Do you realise we don't know anything about Corey except he has a mother and blonde hair until midway? The good thing is that you know yourself, your life and how you react so Corey will be really easy to empathise with. The bad thing is its so easy to fall into the trap that if you know it you assume the reader knows. Ne-oh! Don't do it! Let's learn more about Corey! Where does he come from, what kind of family background, his likes and his dislikes- For example, perhaps we could spend a little more time around him and learning about him before he entered the Gulch?
Cheers mate, a good start! I'll review more once I get the okay!
So I got this reply:
Yeah, filled with confidence. All it was was a lot of bloody excuses. I wrote a PM
G'day Concealed Eminence! I'm back! Bwahaha! Thankyou for your compliments- reviewing is a fantastic way to improve your own writing because you quickly learn about what you like and what you don't, what's successful and what's not. Gives you a gradient of quality to work towards! It also means your name turns up more frequently in the archive, and if they see an good review, they'll know its by a good author. Gowan! Get out there and support your fellow writers!
As for Corey's personality, if you don't establish it right from the start Corey will be what's called an Invisi-Stu, a Gary-Stu by virtue of being a completely blank sheet of paper. You can change this by throwing Corey's opinions around! He should comment on everything! What he likes, doesn't like, does it remind him of past expiriences and why! It'll also help with dialogue intensity. You can also help yourself by writing out a bio for Fic!Corey. Name, Age, Appearance, Fatal Flaw, Saving Virtue, General Personality, Family, Relationship with Co-characters. The fact is you're a very complex person, too complex to be captured in a story and writing a bio will focus him. His fatal flaw is the most important part because that's all the Blood Gulch character's are, a flaw blown out into a fully fledged personality. What's your worst flaw? Imagine Corey's horror as he finds himself stooping to their level?
I also highly recommend rereading your work before you post because if you have time to go through the ringmarole of submitting, there's time for a quick reread. It's easy and really kicks your story up a notch. Spelling, paragraphing and punctuation are the golden trio of writing and everytime a reader comes across a typo, it trips up the flow of reading, completely ruins the mood. Plus knowing you've done your best for a chapter gives you a real sense of pride and won't come back to bite you in the butt a couple years from now. When in doubt, find yourself a betareader.
Cheers mate, onto Chapter Two
Tucka
and
Yay! Much love for Relocation, Griff and his Crow! I'll always be Red til Dead!
Let's get going! Now your first paragraph is what's called a run-on paragraph. A paragraph divides the writing into topics, a means of organisation. You've got two topics in that first paragraph, the first one talking about the base, and the second one about Simmon's appearance. If you get into the habit of doing it while writing, it'll really help your schoolwork. That's one of the best things about writing as a hobby.
I've mentioned rereading, it'll also pick up those tense slippages. 'wow, I -feel- like a jerk now.' should be 'felt'.
As for the chapter, well, reading about a sleepover isn't really interesting. It's nice to see more description, Donut is really in character and I enjoy the thought of Corey in frilly lilac, but very 'meh' in terms of content. You also use pop references. See, I have no idea who Rascall Flatts is or Cascada, so this conversation is boring and meaningless to me and similar readers. Just the same if I were to write about Slim Dusty or Living End.
Every chapter needs a hook, something exciting to keep the reader coming back and the story moving. Don't worry this is a problem a lot of Anywhere but Here fics have, if there isn't a greater plot the story dwindles and the author loses inspiration. What is your overall plot or goal? Imagine your story as a movie, with an introduction, a conflict or problem that needs to be solved with a big exciting finish! Why has Corey been brought here? What danger's lurk on the horizon? How do theys solve it? Plot! Plot! Plot!
I don't know whether to review chapter three or not but we'll see how he takes the other reviews, if his next chapter improves at all. If he ignores me, bugger him, I'll go onto the next author. I don't know why I started with him anyway. I should have done that Never Loyal fic. It looks fairly good and the poor bugger only has two reviews. I'll do it this evening!
Meanwhile there's my on fic. I'm dying to write something as brilliant as Nuh's, but I haven't really written or posted anything in years. It's true, if you don't use it, you lose it. Kidd kinda went down the drain, I don't know enoughabout Halo to write it.
My latest inspiration has been Kathy/Indi, a Freelancer. I'm not keen on doing a Freelancer for reasons I'll talk about tomorrow. We'll see...
You get the award for the most intellegent review on I've ever seen. :D
Hehe. Thanks for the review! Very helpful indeed. ^^ As to Corey's personality, I'm trying to work it in so that you kinda don't get the full picture until about half-way through.
Another reason there are inconsistencies and such, is prolly cause I don't really go back and correct. I guess I'm kind of lazy with Fanfictions that way, but it would prolly be a lot more grammatically correct if I went through and red-marked it, but I don't really have time for that. I just type it up and off I go.
Great review, it helped out! Feel free to review again! XD