Op A.D.: Initiate!
175 /179
Whooo I am back in the grader seat! First targets? Mewn and Urm. Here we gooo!
First things first: a mystery involving aliens seems pretty neat. I’m happy to see Mewn going forward with the story, and I’m also looking forward to what all else is in store for our two demvir sleuths.
Second thing: Yonks is apparently a word. Yonks. Yonks folks. Yonks.
Now, this collab on the whole has me feeling a little sideways about it. It might just be some formatting things (like with y’alls paragraphs for instance) but I can’t help but feel like this was supposed to be a detective/mystery collab, and it didn’t quite make it.
We have a recap-esque intro between our two demvir, reflecting on the events of a previous collab, with a decision to take some action and do something about the current obstacle. In this case: to speak with an expert. But when we get here to the expert, we run into some writing hiccups -- the first one being on Urm and his books. Often, when new elements (items, people, places, etc) are introduced, it is done with a purpose (Chekov’s Gun) but here the books were pointless. Even when they came into play they were immediately discarded.
After the gang cracked open their books… that’s when things probably tilted the most, and it’s due to a non sequitur. Craxtus has a sudden realization about geology, which triggers Inillis’s enchanting knowledge…. Then there’s when Craxtus has Inillis reading to him the account of the demon, he makes the statement that it’s not and the other two take it without question.
Urm
Accused at Auchrus
160/161
This was an interesting little gunslinger story to read, and pretty handily done. I’m not too familiar with spaghetti westerns (or westerns in general for that matter) but I could definitely enjoy some more of this. Read a little Hollywood, but that’s not a bad thing if that’s what this was supposed to be like.
We do at some point need to talk about your paragraphs. While not so much an issue here, like it was in Op Alien, there are some things that can be done to your sentences (and by extension your paragraphs) to help with action, tension, and other elements of your narrative.
Specifically, I’m referring to the length of your sentences and paragraphs.
In both Op Alien, and towards the end of Accused, your paragraphs start to get blocky. This isn’t exactly a problem, but the length of your sentences/paragraphs determine your pacing. Shorter sentences help to convey action, and by extent some level of tension while longer ones are good for detail or pauses (an exception is probably exposition paragraphs, where you’re following trains of thought from one concept to another before coming to a conclusion).
But that’s pretty much it for right now. Again this was a good little taste of a wild west type of story, and it was a change of pace from what I normally get to read. Well done.
But on the more constructive point, y’all are going to Paludis to do some tomb raiding, the bit of world building is nice, and the different portrayals of Laermont, Inillis, and Craxtus were well done. The three of them should make interesting characters to play off of in the future installments.
