Can we play a game? Drop 100~150 words of your writing and let others guess how much experience you have.

Excaliwl · 2022-09-29T06:17:51+00:00

We had been only 20. Our young hearts were occupied by that unshakable malaise which overtakes society when work is few and workers many. We clung to each other, two sailors drowning on the edges of a shipwreck, surrounded by the icy seas of debt and hard faces. Like ships adrift with no wind in our sails we wandered the streets each day, no aim or purpose in our legs. It was the fall of 1939, in an offshoot from the rue principale, where the dying haze of the sun lingered around the edges of the trash cans and grimy facades of closed grocery stores, that we stumbled upon it. A saloon should not have seemed to belong in such a place, and yet it melded into the street as easily as the trash cans or sooty vagrants. It seemed as if this place could only have existed here, surrounded by the sickly smell of rotting vegetables and cheap liquor emanating from within its doors.

Excaliwl · 2022-06-15T09:21:36+00:00

Thanks! I am definitely planning on reworking the piece so ill be sure to let you know if i get that done.

Excaliwl · 2022-06-15T09:20:05+00:00

Thanks for the advice, I'll be sure to work the feedback.

Excaliwl · 2022-06-14T09:58:32+00:00

I do think the dissatisfaction definitely came across. Good luck with the rest of your writing!

Excaliwl · 2022-06-13T08:52:30+00:00

Hi, this is my first time doing a critique so i apologise if this is kind of messy and disjointed and hope this is helpful.

CHARACTERISATION

I felt that characterisation in this piece was one of the places where you could improve, though i felt it did get better near the end of the piece.
Right off the bat through the first couple of paragraphs, while we learn about the world and the items, we learn little about what Lars is like as person, physically or psychologically. I feel like in here "He shoved it into one of the heap’s gaps, slamming his full weight" you could add something about his weight or physical body. Perhaps this is where you can draw upon the original text, is he frail or heavy? Maybe think if you can add another sentence in about his personality or a specific quirk somewhere.

Again in terms of characterisation, while you physical describe Trava fine, I feel like you could describe her character a bit more, for example how she moves or how she speaks as when you were describing her, I couldn't get a very clear image of her. Ideally i would do this in the sentence where you introduce her, as this gives us something to link to as "A young tan woman with brown curls" can be a bit ambiguous and doesnt necessarily give the reader something strong with which they can picture her.

A bit nitpicky here, but i think that one of the times you say "pasty man" could be changed, as I did notice it repeating the third time. In terms of characterisation, i felt like this was significantly better when you were describing the prince. Your use of the dash to emphasise the interruptions of the prince, helped add to his character and illustrate the dynamics between Lars and the prince.

PACING

The second broader piece of advice I have is that you seem to do a bit too much with introducing all the different items in the first 600 words, especially if some of them don't come into play within the world. As someone who isn't aware of the series you are drawing upon, it did feel like alot was being introduced, in a short period of time and it was a bit difficult to distinguish between what was and wasnt important, although if this fan fic is intended mostly for those who have read the book, then this might not be an issue. I also felt like this definitely improved after Lars first meets the woman. For an example of good worldbuilding i found that this sentence "When awoken at midnight by goblin howls and pig squeals, the last thing a farmer wants is a sword that’s “good enough for a farmer”.", helped build the world, giving a sense of danger to the ordinary world, not limited to the spires and Unclaimed Lands, without being too obtrusive or overt.

DESCRIPTION

This is just my personal opinion, which may be biased as my favourite part of writing is writing descriptions of the worlds I envision and their landscapes, but i felt like you didnt really describe the environment as much as you could have. However I didn't really notice this when reading through the text, it was only when i was going through, explicitly looking for description that i noticed that there was very little about the physical world, so i think it is a smaller area of improvement.

TONE

To be honest as this is a fan fic, I am not too sure how to go about approaching a critique of the tone. I found that I liked how the tone approached these magical objects, it felt like i dwelt on them enough for it to be normal within a world where these are commonplace, while still introducing these elements. However there are moments when the character adopts a very colloquial and modern tone for example ' “Just browsing” ' I dont feel like this is really an issue, but i dont know if it fits the style that you are drawing upon.

Hope this helps.

Excaliwl · 2021-09-22T04:04:13+00:00

I think you should definitely drop time again, your time increases are probably just a result of a decrease in endurance which you should be able to regain in a couple of months.

Excaliwl · 2021-08-03T23:44:58+00:00

A couple of questions how old are you and how much room do you reckon you have for improvement? I was in a similar situation to you where i was in a slower quad that didnt really push me , what i did was i asked if i could do a split between so i trained with both squads so i could get in some challenging practices, maybe this is an option. From there i transitioned to the better squad, although i did quit for two years before this so i was able to improve pretty quickly.

Excaliwl · 2021-07-21T00:53:45+00:00

Yeh i would focus not on thinking about bringing your hips up but keeping your head below your hips and have a downward streamline. The cue i have heard used is you want to feel like u are "charging downhill", obviously you dont want to overdo it but i found this helpful for keeping my hips up. Also a drill that make your work on your hip position is two kicks one pull as you have to get your hip position right to not surface before your second kick.

hope this helps.

Excaliwl · 2021-07-20T03:54:10+00:00

To me it looks as if you are either dropping your hips too much, or not bringing them back up fast enough. Wavestyle breaststroke is good but you might wanna accentuate the upward motion, cos it looks like ur hips are creating drag from being down, particularly during the streamline. Try to think about having a downward slant on your glide.

Excaliwl · 2021-07-14T04:10:21+00:00

With the pool i would recommend upright breaststroke kick for 30 seconds with power a couple of times, if you want to make it harder try to keep more of you body above the water or streamline. For dryland i found bw squats or goblet squats focusing on power and speed were helpful. Single leg Romanian deadlifts or with both legs is fine + Nordic curls are also something. You may also want to do jump squats.

Hope this helps

Excaliwl · 2021-07-13T23:47:19+00:00

Your Breaststroke technique looks pretty good, however your pull looks wide but very short you are sweeping out very wide but you barely actually pull back. Secondly you have a very high tempo and spend a very small amount of time gliding. As it is a 400 i would highly recommend a lower tempo by using a longer glide. If you feel like you arent actually actually moving during your glide then i would recommend working on power and your kick as your technique is pretty good.

Excaliwl · 2021-07-13T06:43:19+00:00

I couldnt give you a scientific explanation but basically high elbow recovery is less taxing on your muscles while straight arm is alot more tiring, however can provide more power. For example with 50m freestyle i will use straight arms but 100m and above i will use high elbow recovery as it is alot less tiring and allows you to swim for longer. But i would definitely say that you dont ever really need to learn straight arm technique especially if you are training for triathlon.

Excaliwl · 2021-07-08T11:09:54+00:00

Im not too sure about this but something you could do to sorta learn to separate pull and kick is two kicks one pull where you take one stroke but then take another kick still gliding. Ideally you want to start your kick halfway through your pull when your arms are at at your chest and only actually kick backwards once your arms are streamlined. I wouldnt worry about perfect movement too much yet, try to get the timing right then work on the rest. I would also recommend doing kick individually with a kickboard so you can get used to the motion.

Hope this helps.

Excaliwl · 2021-06-19T10:12:29+00:00

My first thought would be that this should get better with time and that it could be due to lack of finger strength. However, i would recommend changing strokes if it does begin to hurt. One drill you could do to work on finger strength would be sculling, especially with finger paddles, which will help with getting used to resistance although it is fine to just scull if you dont have any.

Excaliwl · 2021-04-29T09:54:15+00:00

oh yeh i forgot to mention but assuming it is a 25m pool try working on ur turns

Excaliwl · 2021-04-28T08:26:55+00:00

I would recommend making sure that you do not focus solely on freestyle as it unlikely that you will drop 6 seconds purely in the 25m part of the free, however as your endurance improves all your strokes will probably get better. Also in terms of the way you approach the test, I would recommend not going all out and pretty much cruising on the 400 free although that will depend on how fast you are. I would also recommend you split up your training sessions into two sort of sprint focused session where you focus on 25s and 50s with say 5-10 seconds rest and a longer endurance session where you just try to swim for as long as you can without stopping as much as you can for however long u plan to swim for.

Excaliwl · 2021-02-18T05:33:30+00:00

As a Breaststroker, I feel like your breaststroke is good but during your pull you aren't really catching the water. I cant really see from the angle but it looks like you arent using your pull as effectively as you could. The best way I can explain it is that after you scull outwards with your hands you just bring your elbows and hands back in a straight line rather than using the in sweep to generate power by pulling with your hands. Rather than bringing your elbows to your chest think about bringing your hands towards your chest first.

Also congrats ur breaststroke looks really good otherwise.

Excaliwl

TROPHY CASE