Yamu's Feedback Shop

[Ander]

http://www.cdbzrpg.com/forum/showthread....post466403

More specifically, #8 down, although you can read the rest if you want. Might make more sense. Also, since you read Duality, if you feel the need to throw in anything from that, go for it. Thanks.

[Yamu]

Bardock:

What I love most about your writing from Duality and from To Be Taught is that you find a wealth of things to write about outside of lust and fighting. I find I get really bored if I don’t have a pinnacle fight scene to embellish but you weave and write up and down with character development that does not need a cliché battle.

You find new and interesting ideas to write about. Focusing on writing your and Violet’s name in the ground and elaborating on the various dialects and languages is great. I get a huge kick at the arrange of ideas you incorporate into Bardock such as being able to read lips. You draw out the techniques of yourself and the PCs you are writing with such as Bardock’s lack of Ki Sense and Violet’s telepathic abilities and make it part of the story. This makes each and every thread you write in feel new and different from the last. Following a single character can get boring but you find ways to keep Bardock fresh and interesting which is the best thing you can accomplish in an RPG.

I really cannot lavish anything other the praise on your writing. You craft engaging plot lines with believable devices. You make your characters likable and engaging and propel the reader to get to the next post. Grammatically flawless I would only mention two small things.

In #8 you write an entire chapter in italics. While using the slant is good to distinguish mid-RP when you are going from current action into thoughts or dreams when you are writing a whole dream sequence that is already separated from the rest of the post it makes it difficult to read and gives me a bit of a headache. Use it only when the reader won’t already know the distinction. If a whole post is dream or thought just keep it in normal text. When things are popping in and out and the enact part begins with ‘Bardock woke up’ the italics become extraneous.

I have a slight disinclination towards long posts, but it is really more of a personal thing then an actual criticism and is eve hit or miss with me. Your last post with following Violet had enough going on that length never bothered me, but the one with the dream sequence felt like it would fit better if it was broken into other pieces like chapters in a book.

You used the word ‘wily’ which always earns points in my book.

I liked Kayley’s babble, it gives the character personality and makes that particular scene humorous which is often hard to do with the read word.

You’re one of those writers that I can only say many good things about, which I know are often not as helpful as bad but hopefully let you know you are doing a phenomenal job and that I bow to you.

[Toshiro]

Well, since I been gone for a bit, and ain't done much for this thing, let's see what ya think of it.

And to get a better feel, I used to be Goh.

http://www.cdbzrpg.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23595

[Yamu]

Toshiro:

For starters your writing is extremely rough to the point of distraction. It is hard to get through a single post with the vast amount of misused commas, awkward sentences, and just a plain maladjusted style.

Below I've taken a few of your passages and then reworked them to show you how taking out a few wrong commas and adding or changing one or two words can give a paragraph a remarkable better flow.

A deep silence of sheer, pin holed, darkness was everywhere. The realms of space, as cold as it could be void of life. It was amazing how such a place of beauty held such deathly knowledge and power. With in the void, there was a constant state of nothingness and everything. For every star that was destoryed, another would be reborn else where, billions of miles, and millions of lightyears, away from the one that had just died. But sometimes, from this dying star's, things can escape.

Below I’ve made several small tweaks in punctuation and grammar that give the passage better flow and a few larger words changes that gives the passage better balance and continuity:

The deep silence of sheer, pin holed darkness was everywhere. The realm of space was as cold as it could be, completely void of life. It was amazing how such a place of striking beauty and calm could hold such deathly knowledge and power. Within the void there was a constant state of nothing and everything. For every star that was destroyed another would be born millions of lightyears away from the one that had just died. But sometimes, from the seeds of these dying stars, things can escape.

You pepper at least one comma if not three or four into EVERY sentence whether they are needed or not. This sounds really harsh but I do not even know where to begin with it. I would say stop using them altogether because taking out the 90% that are wrong and missing the 10% that should be in there is preferable to having every sentence mangled by highly unnecessary punctuation. Find an online tutorial, just googling ‘comma usage’ has some good ones, and read over the punctuation rules then re-read your first post.

Light began to flood the ground, and blood was all that greeted the light. The figure could not be seen, it had disappeared as smoothly as it had moved. But a soft beep was heard from afar, beyound the string of opened doors. What ever it was. It had moved on.

In the above you spring commas everywhere except in the one place it should be used.

Light began to flood the ground and blood was all that greeted the light. The figure could not be seen. It had disappeared as smoothly as it had first appeared. Only a soft beep was heard from afar, beyond the string of open doors. Whatever it was, it had moved on.

Here:

Soft rythmic wirrs filled the desolute ship, casting a eerie life to the blood stained corridor's of the ghost ship. And for any that would come abord, they would see it as such.

Better as:

Soft rhythmic whirs filled the desolate ship casting an eerie life onto the blood stained corridors of the ghost ship. For any that would come aboard they would see it as just that.

The problems in your writing are small but they are so numerous they obscure any creativity your words contain. The setting you create is eerie and downright creepy but the comma problems become far more horrifying and overpower it. I could do what I did with the three examples above in literally all but four or five paragraphs of the two posts. Everything was so full of extra commas and awkward imagery that I could not get any deeper into the writing.

You can set mood like you breath which is a great talent but you need to polish up your grammar so the reader can access it.


Nappa:

It was short but your post as ‘Guts’ held some true artistry. A good Staff members challenges you with a ‘starring contest’ to see what you can do outside of the usual fight writing. While you never got around to the meat and potatoes writing you took something that bordered on silly and channeled it into something RP worthy:

If it was true that the eye was the gateway to the soul, Guts would come to know Sheena’s very well by event’s end.

That is truly genius. You take basically a cliché that everyone will know and identify with and set the stage for some hardcore character growth or to better analyze your character’s thought process. The ability to turn nothing into something makes you strong in a DA style competition when you are left to your own devices. It should also grant you many years of new and fresh ideas to work on since you can spin anything into a deeper roleplay.

I wish you had had a second post on that thread so I could see what you could do but you most definitely have the tools of a great writer at your disposal.

[Toshiro]

*shakes fist to the sky* DAMN YOU COMMA'S!!!!!


On a better note, thanks for that man, I'll try and rehash all the stuff though word (like I keep saying I should), but you know me. Always ina fight with bloody comma's ;.;