Reviewed [Aq] Week 203: Keep Your Eyes Peeled - Feedback

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Mystydjinn

[Insert rimshot]
Jul 29, 2013
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I... I was gonna make a tips and tricks joke but I remembered I don't have any. There's also no drum emote here.

Aborted jokes aside, I've got a couple things to shoot your way. 1st, I'm gonna be a hypocrite.
I don't know what your characters look like. As far as I can see in this chapter, there's no definitive description of what Red or Sharpy look like, or the rest of the part of Boreas your characters are in either. And I'm only assuming Boreas since the only characters outside of the family we've met so far are enlil.

This is something I tend to struggle with a bit as well so I've been picking through stories to get a good idea of where to slip in detailed descriptions without breaking flow too much, but I still have trouble trying to figure out which details are irrelevant, and which will have my readers doubling back to see where I mentioned it earlier.

Continuing, you used your character's direct observations to describe what was going on in this installment of your story but you never actually describe what they're seeing. With the exception of the mushrooms (the name of which I can't remember right now) I didn't know what anything looked like due to your description, though I hesitate to say that since I make a habit of reading all of the lore in PT for ideas so I know what most everything is/looks like off hand. A newcomer, or anybody who doesn't obsess over lore and details like that for shits and giggles is gonna be really lost when they try to figure out what Red and Sharpy are avoiding, running from, or what they even look like.

Touching on the Aseroe chase scene specifically for a moment: This piece generally felt a little rushed. Each time something interesting happened it felt like there was supposed to be more on the plate than you served. As result, the surprise and shock you were trying to portray (I assume) in the appearance of the minor vistra lacked to build up to be anything but jarring instead of the shock I assume you were going for.

I'm still learning to employ this technique myself, but a method I like to use for describing scenes and giving buildup for events is the "camera" or "by stander" method. Insert yourself into your story as a silent bystander keeping record of everything that goes on around you, focusing on your important characters or events. Describe as much as you can in your environment based on what you observe while you visualize yourself like this, then as you move on with the story you can cut away the fat when you edit.

Either way, this was pretty short a piece altogether so I assume it's more of a segway into some meat for your next chapter. I look forward to ya next one.
 

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