[C&C] Sage

[Ander]

I can start by breaking down your writing first, and then I’ll move on to the character.

Your grammar is pretty solid; it’s been excellent ever since I first started reading your stuff. Your vocabulary is probably above average; you’re actually probably the only one who’s ever had to make me look something up, and that doesn’t happen to me too often anymore. Sophia called your style unique and I’d have to agree. It is very refined, and has an almost aristocratic feel to it sometimes. That might not be the best word to describe it, but it’s the closest thing that comes to mind of how to approximately define it. Intellectual, I guess is the way to put it, which is appealing to those who can appreciate that kind of thing, and I definitely do. Don’t get me wrong, though, you manage to do it without being dry, which is no small task; it is still enjoyable to read, and very clean. Your pacing is always measured and even, never too long, never too short, and you pay the right amount of attention to each thing that you need to address within the post, especially when it comes to responding to others. You also tend to alternate between character narrative and objective narrative, and you manage to do it seamlessly without being confusing. The proper emotion or point of view is always conveyed and you can tell whether it’s third party or first party. That’s something I do myself and it’s an approach I really like, if it can be pulled off correctly.

Them’s the pros, here’s the cons.

I’ll start off with something small, because I always have to have a nitpick for somebody, and it’s on a personal level. A few times, you’ve left off the “er” in “Ander,” and then it becomes “and,” without capitalization, and it actually took me a while to figure out that that’s what the mistake was, because I couldn’t understand the sentences where you did that. So, you know, there’s my “I’m a jerk” commentary. More seriously, though, I can always tell when you were either struggling with the material or uncomfortable with it, because it becomes apparent in weak spots in your posts. The writing doesn’t get sloppy, but your style gets more conservative with description and details, as in, you tend to gloss over parts you really didn’t want to write as quick as possible and don’t put any polish on. Improvement areas, I’d say to use more similes, and more imagery. Your imagery is awesome when you are writing about a profound moment for Sage’s feelings, when she uses her ice powers, a fight, or when you are describing a particular place. If you are not writing about one of those four things, your imagery kind of drops off a little bit.

Moving on to your character, I find it very difficult to come up with a complaint. I read some of the commentary above, and the most common one was that Sage is annoying as a character because she’s shy and predictable and what have you. I don’t personally necessarily find fault in predictability, because it means you are staying true to their design. If a character is easily provoked for example, then yes, you should expect them to lose their temper if somebody gets in their face. If they didn’t, it would ring false, now wouldn’t it? Sage reacts predictably, but it is realistic of the parameters of her character. A character being predictable and a character being stagnant in their development are two very different things in my book, and I wouldn’t say Sage falls victim to the latter, especially with all of her recent events. So, unless she ends up stuck running in place for a while, I don’t think you have a problem.

I think you picked a very appropriate pace to develop Sage, because of what happened to her, and because you had limited interactions with other characters beyond Xenia (whose presence stunted her need to blossom into anything more than what she was; i.e., if you have someone who protects you from the dangers of the world, why would you ever need to venture out into it on your own?). Vad was a great first step, though. I’m probably a little biased in this venture, though, since I played a part to her opening up. You are both developing and deviating from her original mold. And actually, her reactions are not entirely predictable, at least to me. There was one time in DA, and I can’t recall what it was specifically, but she was seeing Kaden in pain, and internally she’s wondering, “Maybe I should give him my Valium.” And that, to me, would not have been expected. Of course, ultimately she didn’t end up doing it, but just the monologue was good enough. Also, occasionally Sage has reacted the complete opposite of what I’d expected her to. Hitting Xenia, for instance. I’d have believed her to cow-tow.

As far as her being annoying, she’s really not. Her insecurities and social awkwardness are things that everyone worries about, but she takes it to a higher level than most. I think the difficulty in trying to role-play that (for other people), is that because she is so internal and she thinks more than she speaks or acts, people can feel kind of lost with that, or be unsure how to translate that from their own character’s perspective without metagaming your character too much (It is a huge pet peeve of mine when others take somebody else’s characters and start extensively writing their thoughts and feelings, especially in order to mold it to what they want to achieve for their own post. I’m not talking one or two sentences, I’m talking dedicating an entire huge paragraph or section to it.). It’s a difficult balance. But she is getting better, especially at advocating for herself.

I’m probably going to cut it off there, and give you some C&C later when your big changes have had time to settle in, because otherwise I’d just be giving you feedback on the stuff that is in the middle of shifting, or things that are no longer of relevance.