[C&C] Please?

[Iykos]

First off, I would like to thank the person(s) involved in the Roleplaying Guidelines up top. I actually took the time to read everything, and a few things more than once due to losing my spot where I was, and found it greatly satisfying. I already knew that I am no where near a great writer, and know that I have many areas that need to be worked on. Namely comma placement, and descriptive words instead of pro/nouns.

So here I ask anyone, who is willing, to please read over my post(s) to help me better strengthen my writing style. A link to it is here. I am currently failing in proper alternative tags for characters, and over use words like "other" when there are only two; I also have problems when being overly descriptive of small areas. Anything else that you find that needs working on, please bring it to my attention, and I will try my damnedest to work on them.

[Jarka]

I'll give you some C&C by Monday.

[Iykos]

A nine day bump.

[Shun]

Not as bad as I'd assumed considering how you introduced it but then again everyone is their own worst critic.

The idea of your guy being a retriever is cool, it's almost like he's an enforcer for the mob or something. What I don't get is how he resembled a gargoyle then just didn't. Was that just the target's mind playing tricks on him?

Now the thing the stuck out to me most was out of all that you don't see what Iykos is actually feeling or thinking. His speech interaction was the same with the target as the mob boss and the super. The most you learn about him is he likes the smell of cherry blossom, doesn't have a bank account and wants new clothes.

I'm not saying your rp was bad because I though it was really interesting how you were able to describe your actions. Just perhaps focus more of an effort into developing an actual personality for your character.

Besides that and the occasional grammatical error that happens to the best of us, you've done a fine job. In my opinion at least.

Edit: One more thing.

“There it is,” the other said with a dry tone, seemingly aggravated by what the other had said.

In situations like this you might want to make it a little more clear who's actually speaking.

[Iykos]

At the point in the quote, the things in your statement that I wound up reading first, I think I was still slightly buzzed, or just plain tired. I get that way sometimes. The gargoyle thing was more of a reference to a statue that is perched on the edge of the top of a building, much like a gargoyle.

I'm also trying to ease in on the character building, something that I always have a problem with. I guess I'm trying to ease in from a third person binding of an onlooker to truly being inside of his head. Also, the beginning of a story, for me, is one the hardest things to do. Instead of fully going into detail about how ever drop of rain felt like a stinging pellet the size of bullets to the minor character, I went with a slightly less degree. More out of less was what I was thinking, I guess.

Also on the quote, I have been picked at by staff and fellow readers in the past on sites like Senkai and AD/FoF for repetitive use of names or pronouns for each character. I've tried using descriptions for the people speaking, but it just doesn't feel right to me to constantly do that. I'm also still thinking about the next post for my personal story.

[Shun]

Nobody's gunna pick on you here man. Those other sites might have had people who weren't fans of it or suggested other methods but at the end of the day you gotta write your way. As long as it matches the format of the given site, 3rd person past tense, don't worry about what other people prefer. Write for you bro.

Half the people here don't even read as of late and if they do I'm sure people would appreciate seeing something different.

[Iykos]

Thanks mate. You made me smile when I read those words. They even seem kind, for text. And I have not the foggiest(sp?) idea if he is still here, but I think Greg was one of the ones who did state what I said.

[Jarka]

Ahhhhhhhh this one time I read your post and then didn't actually write the C&C... sorry.

Overall it was good. I actually really enjoyed that you didn't say much about the motivations of each character yet. I, personally, love description of the mundane being given the same attention as action sequences. The fact that you devoted just as much attention to him showering as you did to the collection in an alley really set up a nice, stark contrast.

The biggest issue I had was with dialogue. It wasn't that dialogue was bad, it was simply formatted suboptimally in a lot of cases.

One, don't be afraid to give a line of dialogue its own paragraph.

Anytime a person speaks, they become the subject. As paragraphs should generally have only one primary subject, it reads really strangely for it to be, like:

"You've never danced backwards in high heels," the woman whispered. He scoffed, pulling the coat tight against his body.

Both of the subjects are fighting for your attention. Did the author accidentally use the wrong pronoun? Is it actually a man whispering about high heels? This takes the reader out of the story. Compare to this:

"You've never danced backwards in high heels," the woman whispered.

He scoffed, pulling the coat tight against his body.

It's much clearer, and it opens up the rest of the paragraph for the coated man for the reader.

Also, don't be afraid to change up the dialogue location or to dedicate an entire paragraph to just dialogue. The following has dialogue leaders (the most common format), dialogue bookends, and a dialogue complete. Dialogue completes are best in shorter paragraphs (otherwise, they risk being lost), but otherwise, feel free to experiment.

"You've never had to dance backwards in high heels," the woman whispered.

He scoffed, pulling the coat tight against his body.

"Really? You have nothing to say to me?" she inquired. She planted her fists on her hips. After a few moments, she began chewing her lip to fight back tears. She muttered, "After ten years, all I get is silence?"

"What do you want me to say?" He asked, exasperated.

Her head shook slowly as she struggled to find the words. At last, she muttered, "Say anything."

In addition, and this is something that a lot of people can work on, it's a little bit bland to read verbal descriptors - inquired, whispered, replied. While they are technically correct, stylistically they are completely unnecessary so long as the speaker is clear. If you are giving each dialogue its own paragraph, this should be a no brainer for the reader. Freeing yourself from these word opens up the opportunity to elaborate on the rest of the situation. Compare the dialogue above to this:

"You've never had to dance backwards in high heels." The woman couldn't bring herself to look at him.

He scoffed, pulling the coat tight against his body.

"Really? You have nothing to say to me?" She planted her fists on her hips. After a few moments, she began chewing her lip to fight back tears. Her voice wavered. "After ten years, all I get is silence?"

"What do you want me to say?"

Her head shook slowly as she struggled to find the words. She couldn't believe it had come to this, not after all this time. "Say anything."

The reader is much more engaged because they're not constantly being bombarded with he said/she said. In addition, anytime a question mark is used, you can slash away the "inquired, asked" descriptors. The reader knows that the person is asking something, it is an inquisitive statement by nature. Now, it is acceptable to use dialogue descriptors when it is extremely important how the person said something - whispered, muttered, and yelled come to mind. However, there are three things to consider with this:

1: Can the reader infer from another use of description how the person is talking? Describing body language is much more immersive and can often portray the exact temperament better than a dialogue descriptor.
2: Is it really that important that the dialogue is spoken in this specific manner? Look at the woman's first statement: what started as a whisper -something a lot of people might insist is an important manner of speaking- became completely open-ended. This lets the reader use their imagination. They can put themselves in the speakers shoes and picture the last time they were so upset they couldn't look at somebody. Maybe I'm a whisperer, maybe you're a growler, but we have definitely been in a situation where we can't look at somebody.
3: Even in situations where they must speak in a certain way, would it be better to describe the quality of the speaking? In the woman's second dialogue, she goes from boring bland "muttered" to "Her voice wavered." The picture goes from generic to pristine. We've all heard somebody speak while on the verge of tears, and these three words nail it. "The whisper barely escaped her lips." is a million times better than just "whisper."

All of this dialogue advice is just a big offshoot of that good ol' show, don't tell that people like to throw around as advice but never really elaborate on.

The only specific negative that caught my eye was this sentence:

The being moved towards the male in the trench coat...

It read really awkwardly. Male is an unusual word, and being is an even more unusual noun. Putting one as the subject and one as the object was suboptimal... maybe something like "The being moved towards his victim..."

And, don't forget to put ladies in your stories, it cuts pronoun confusion down by half

Other than that, just make sure you vary the length of your paragraphs, both number of sentences and visual length.

But yeah, definitely a good start. Loved being thrown into action and then being totally taken out of it, and I'm intrigued to find out the mystery behind the other characters.

Sorry for the huge infodump about dialogue. Dialogue is my absolute favorite thing to write, and, as I mentioned somewhere, all of that is advice that anybody can use (hence why I made the super awkward woman and the man example, not specifics from your post).

[Mza]

That reply right derr. Dat shit was inspirational son! Thank you Jarka.