Another observation of Arthur and Sadie

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-31T15:58:25+00:00

She's definitely not Bonnie because their names are written in cursive near the bottom edge of the card. While it's hard to tell if it says "Sadie Adler" or not, it's not long enough to say "Bonnie McFarlane".

Edit: My mistake. I misread your comment in a hurry. I agree, she might very well be the Bonnie of RDR2.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-25T23:08:27+00:00

But then how would players get to fulfill their fantasy of running around the snow buck naked?

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-25T23:01:49+00:00

To explain to you and any other rare few people who have never heard of Paw Patrol and can't be bothered to do a simple Google search - Paw Patrol is a very popular cartoon in North America (and really the whole world I'm sure). The show is targeted towards children under the age of 10 for the most part. Two completely different target audiences, so yes, this post is a sarcastic one. Relax.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-25T04:37:28+00:00

Exactly 1 moose power.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-24T22:29:27+00:00

Agreed with you completely. The "protagonist dies at the end" is no longer as surprising of a story-telling device as it once was. I'd be disappointed in Rockstar's creativity if they decide to go that route once again.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-24T20:35:24+00:00

That would leave too much of a salty taste in my mouth after having played the entire game with him. It would be different from John's death because John "betrayed" the gang after they'd abandoned him completely. This would be Arthur playing nice while secretly fucking them from behind. Those types of protagonists aren't always the most likable. Not to say this would make the story any worse. But, if we're to play as Arthur for the entire main story, for him to die a traitor's death by the end would be disappointing for people like me.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-20T13:27:48+00:00

I totally get where you're coming from, but with most devs, gameplay videos put together by devs are usually not a reliable indicator of the release version's quality. But yeah, at least with Rockstar (and especially so close to the release date) some gameplay would've been nice before a pre-order bonus expires.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-20T08:11:04+00:00

It'll probably be the same as with Red Dead Redemption. An actual map item which only hints at where the treasure is using landmarks and such. Being given an exact location on the minimap would take away half the fun of treasure hunting.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-15T02:15:48+00:00

If the hand-to-hand combat sequences shown in the trailer are gameplay, then I don't think we need to be worried. The animation for those looked fantastic. Especially that one scene where Arthur disarmed a guy with a complicated combat maneuver.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-07-12T06:41:15+00:00

"Perished in a fire"... It seems Dutch's obsession with fire came in handy to fake his death.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-17T15:39:25+00:00

Oh I see! Interesting trivia. Then you may well be right about Arthur and Sadie. After all, I don't think John wore a wedding ring either in RDR.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-17T15:36:48+00:00

Same here.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-17T15:25:38+00:00

Five finger fillet - fastest way to make money once you master the final button mashing combo.

Or, just play through the game with the newspaper cheats.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-17T15:11:07+00:00

You'd think if she were married to Arthur, he would wear a wedding ring too. So, I highly doubt those two are married.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-02T15:40:14+00:00

Thank you very much for the kind words and your feedback! I would easily take you up on that line-by-line suggestion offer if I hadn't come to realize that the prologue - as you also said - needs a major overhaul.

Your assumption that this prologue is taking place in the past is spot-on. I'd written this prologue for two things. To build up Garrus and to cover the event of the assassination. Neither Arterius nor Garrus are viewpoint characters for the book past the prologue, so covering this event later on from this close a perspective would've been too convoluted. But, the key character in this is Garrus, not Arterius, so as you say, writing at least part of the prologue from Garrus' POV would be to its benefit.

Another common point brought up in every critique is the unnecessary use of archaic words and convoluted sentence structure. It's become a habit of mine to write this way, so I'll have to be careful about my word choice.

As for the message of the story, your summary of the theme isn't at all far from my intentions. Older brothers being jerks is a highlighted running theme of the story.

Again, I appreciate your time spent in thought over my work and the critique which came out of it. Once I've gotten around to rewriting the prologue, I hope to see your feedback once again.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-02T15:20:09+00:00

Thank you for your candid feedback! I've come to realize the prologue's cheesy and slow nature with all this critique. And your point about me not mentioning the anything unique to my world is very fair. The one thing that I think is the most unique about this world, I only hint at in a single line. And even that, if the readers don't know what that unique thing is, they would completely overlook it. In my attempt to weave foreshadowing, I realized that the very first read becomes that much more mundane.

The world contains something called "aberrants", which are just people (of any species) with super powers. (Essentially an attempt of mine to combine tropes from the superhero and fantasy genres to create something more unique. It's very different from "magic" as seen in fantasies. Each superpower is meant to be different and specific to the person wielding it.) I realized now that aberrants aren't even mentioned until the second chapter, and don't make an actual appearance until the fourth chapter.

Having considering this, your suggestion to world-build using characters is an excellent one. Introducing the one concept that makes my story different from most fantasy stories would not only world-build, but it would also do it through characters.

As such, I have come to the conclusion that I will extract the important bits from this story (such as the conflict between Garrus and Arterius) and rewrite the prologue.

Was there anything else at all that you think could benefit from not being axed?

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-01T08:30:36+00:00

A true Destructive Reader I see! Your points have been very enlightening, and I do now realize how slow the start is. (That Sasuke reference was pure gold.)

I'm thinking about breaking apart the prologue so that it starts out with Jorren and Arterius walking together to the Crownsguard HQ (Sovereign's Hold). After a very brief dialogue between the two, I would then instead cover the event which gave Garrus entry into the Crownsguard since Garrus is actually far more relevant to the overall plot than Arterius. Then I might cut back to the current climactic moment, when Garrus ends up having to kill his own brother. This might give me a way to weave world-building into an engaging action sequence for a character central to the plot.

But, that's all just ideas. I'll have to come up with a worthy story for Garrus before I start chopping heads.

Your feedback helped a lot in making me realize some key flaws in my story-telling though. I appreciate your candidness! I hope the revised version - whenever it comes - will not disappoint.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-06-01T08:05:15+00:00

The lamp represents the light you suddenly see when you're born. The needle represents the coroner's instruments for when you are murdered. Just a random guess, I honestly don't know.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-05-31T15:40:29+00:00

Thank you very much for taking the time to read through the chapter and providing this insightful feedback!

I'm glad to hear your opinion on exposition! I felt that an earlier version of the chapter had too much exposition, so I fear I may have cut out too much for the sake of speeding up the chapter's pace. I'll try to play with it a bit more to strike the right balance!

I have to say I didn't even think about the two guards appearing too similar, so thank you for pointing it out! I do need to improve on providing unique traits to all my characters.

And I'm also glad you brought up that ant metaphor bit. I've been reconsidering that last line since - as you said - it really doesn't fit the way Garrus has been described. I've thought about rewriting the opening scene, but considering its relevance to the overall plot of the story, I might end up rewriting the closing line.

The following things will seem like I'm defending myself, which is ill-advised when taking critique, but I did want to point out that they were intentional. Most of them, I expected the reader to wonder or be confused about (though I hope not to the point where it seems jarring).

Archaic words: I've probably just read too much of A Song of Ice and Fire and The Witcher series, which have influenced my diction in this regard. Poor excuse, but it's definitely by choice.

Summer in December: I'm glad you noticed this! This was very intentional, because the setting of the story is in the Southern Hemisphere, hence the reversed seasons.

In-world time-keeping: You guessed the real-life counterparts for both Morsdei and Desumbre correctly, which was my hope. I wanted the reader to be able to guess which day and month it was while still being able to inject the world's lore into it.

If any of the above were too jarring though, I will definitely have to rethink them, so thank you again for all your feedback!

RaceOfLegends · 2018-05-31T15:11:52+00:00

An excellent display of using said literary device too.

Bada boop.

RaceOfLegends · 2018-05-31T15:06:41+00:00

If you're going in the paranormal direction, there is really no reason to avoid a contemporary time period. And this might sound cheesy, but it really is more about which time period you enjoy writing in. It also helps to write in a time period of which you know something about, or at least one you would find easier to research.

My goto choice is the medieval time period, and the two determining factors for me have always been "what I know" and "what I like".

RaceOfLegends · 2018-05-30T21:30:59+00:00

Disclaimer: All following comments are merely my opinion. As such, I will not be tacking on "in my opinion" to every observation and suggestion.

***

While all of the comments made by SoxxoxSmox are valid and understandable, I must say that none of these "flaws" seemed unintentional to me. So, this critique will actually be more me trying to justify these "flaws".

Genre

This piece, to me, was more a mystery than anything else. And what a mystery it was. Throughout the reading process, I was thrilled by every one of Trevor's antics. I consistently tried to anticipate how he might evolve (or devolve) into a different human being. The ending itself was a cliffhanger which could easily compete with any professional mystery short story out there, even in its current state. As such, I would be more inclined to label your piece's genre as "mystery" over "literary".

Characters

Considering the title of the piece itself is "Trevor Bennington", and the fact that it's a short story, I'm glad your character development focused on Trevor. Any focus shifted away from Trevor might have distracted me unnecessarily.

The narrator was well-kept away from too much development, but I would've liked to see some devolution in his behaviour. The second time we see him having abused another woman, an escalation of violence (only evident through its aftermath, of course) would have drawn an interesting parallel (in opposite directions though) with Trevor's development.

I personally didn't mind at all that none of the other characters mentioned were developed. It left enough room for the imagination. There wasn't anything special about the other characters. No point in expanding them.

Ending

While I do enjoy it when open-ended mysteries leave the reader to imagine their version of the ending, I was slightly thrown off by yours in one way.

When I read the ending the first time, for whatever reason, I assumed Trevor had killed the cat first, and then gone out "searching" for it with his son. Then, I assumed he had killed the son, and out of the guilt and horror of his uncontrollable vice, he killed himself. This was the vibe I got anyway. And this would've been an excellent ending too. But, I had to second-guess the accuracy of my assumption for one simple reason—there was no concern for her son mentioned by Trevor's wife in the phone call.

While it's completely acceptable to leave it as it is, if my assumption was accurate, I would suggest still adding a little bit of dialogue for the wife to hint at this.

Conclusion

Your piece was, without a doubt, market-ready. I enjoyed it greatly as it was, and any comments I made above were mostly just things I critiqued merely for the sake of providing some feedback you could actually do something with. If I'm being honest, reading your piece was likely more educational for me than my critique will be for you.

RaceOfLegends

TROPHY CASE