Thread:Xanneer/@comment-24911350-20140528211733/@comment-24911350-20140530053412

Just finished "Pawn's Tale", it's good. There are no hugely glaring singular flaws or anything, but there are some minor issues that repeat very often. They're common mistakes with pretty easy fixes though, so with some minor changes, I think you'd find yourself writing a lot better.

- Disjointed Actions: The dialogue and actions are largely separate, alternating and coming in bursts. Try mixing them up a bit more.

I.E. Instead of: ''"Shh shhh. I hear some footsteps."

Zahn and Esther both quickly take cover under some brush, while Esther removes her hood and puts a hand to her ear to get a better listen.

"Other students? Maybe we could group up with them."

"Hold on. The other pair sounds... really heavy." Esther places her ear next to the ground.

As she does this, the back of her cloak slides down her back a little, exposing little bit of Esther's rear. Zahn can't help but stare a little.''

Something like this: ''Shushing Zahn, Esther whispered "I hear some footsteps", and quietly descended into some nearby brush as Zahn followed. She removed her hood and put a hand to her ear to get a better listen.

"Other students?" Zahn asked, "Maybe we could group up with them"

"Hold on. The other pair sounds...", Esther struggled to find the words "...really heavy.", she placed her ear to the ground.

In her hunched position, the back of her cloak slid down her back a little, exposing a little bit of Esther's rear. Zahn couldn't help but stare a little.''

By mixing some of the action and description into the dialogue, it's more compact, and tends to flow much better. The dialogue also goes on for quite a while uninterrupted at many points, which makes it seem like they're just standing around and talking, doing nothing else at all.

- Telling, not showing: This is something I learned in school that's probably the most important writing advice I've been given, or can give. Don't just describe things, or have the characters describe things, show it through action, and other senses. This ties into the last point. Going through and explaining all their weapons and semblances as they meet really disrupts the flow, people just don't talk so technically about stuff in person. It's obvious that it's for the purpose of the reader more than the character, so show it, don't tell it. I.E. Not: ''"This here is Violet Vanguard." Zahn presses a round button on the handle, and the object folds out into a large tower shield about half his height. The shield is the same width as Zahn's body, but as it goes down it begins to get thinner. The outside is rather plain, just a simple violet colored shield. "This little thing is made of some extremely strong metal and can withstand a direct hit from an ursa. Right here at the bottom are four barrels. If I press this little round button twice." The shield's handle moves to the lower part of the shield and is now held parallel to Zahn's arm. "The shield can act as a medium ranged shotgun. The blasts are unfortunately too weak and un-concentrated to deal any real damage unless you were to stand right in front of the barrel, but it can send foes flying across the room. And if I press the round button three times... and voila." The shield moves forward, only covering Zahn's forearm now. It begins to fold around his arm into some sort of large cannon. "It is now a long-ranged and very powerful semi-automatic battle rifle, with its shots capable of reaching at least 700 feet. And on the side here is where I reload my dust crystals. It can shoot at least 100 shots before I need to reload, but unfortunately VV needs 30 seconds to charge every time I reload. And if want to make it smaller again, I just press once for shield, then press again to compact it. And of course the flat button is the one that lets me shoot my dust bullets."''

Instead, maybe have a Beowolf come up and then do something like: "Zahn reflexively pressed the button on his gauntlet, unfolding the large tower shield on its side and bracing himself for impact. The lupine Grimm skull collided with VV's shield with a ringing tone, and as claws reached around its edges, another button press spun the shield to its side, and exposed the shotgun hiding within."

That's half the same information, but not nearly as rigid, disjointed, or injected into unrealistic conversation. You can just continue on to finish it, immediately or maybe later. Avoid using numbers if possible unless they're quantities. Saying you carry 3 grenades is alright, but saying they have a 13 ft blast radius, and you can throw them 26 feet is really weird conversation, even if you're having a conversation about grenades

Robotic Dialogue: One thing I noticed, especially at the start was that there was a lot of repetition that didn't contribute anything. Every tenth word is "Yin Yin", which isn't bad in itself, except that most of it is in the dialogue. Do you say your friend's name in every sentence you say to them?

Aside from those major points, it's just some perspective issues. It says it's in 3rd person, but it's in 2nd, which is generally a poor choice for prose. At the beginnings of each part, it also seems to have a conscious narrator, making it into a weird combination of 2nd and 3rd person perspectives momentarily. Zahn also seems to talk to himself a lot, and in a way that makes him seem like a happy-go-lucky child about to get a gosh darn good malt ice cream down at the soda shop with the gang before his date with a swell gal, good golly gosh. It just seems pretty 1950 the way he talks to himself, and most of it is kind of unnecessary, or would work better as a thought. He doesn't really seem like a Gary Stu, but I have a very hard time believing his character. His job is going to be to kill soulless monsters that are the ancient enemy of humanity, and he's smiling through it all and keeping up a totally innocent and delicate persona the entire time. That's the only glaring flaw I see in his character.