03-15-2018, 01:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 03-15-2018, 01:54 AM by King Ghidorah.)
NNNNNnnnnnnnngggggbook-club. An Alliance Forged In Blood.
*puts on his reviewin' goggles*
Okay. General stuff first.
The thing I liked most about this story was that, not having read anything else featuring either character, their personalities were brought across vividly and effectively enough for me to develop some sense of them as people: Christa's cocky self-assuredness and over-prepared eagerness to do violence, and Issac's weariness of combat and death thanks to having seen far too much of both. The overall situation was easy to grasp, and the feeling that Christa and Issac were hunted was a genuine presence within the narrative.
Now, for more specific feedback:
Gildarts: I'm going to preface my comments by saying that you've improved tremendously since you wrote this, and any criticisms I happen to level upon you here should be considered strictly in light of the story I'm judging. Cool? Cool. Alrighty...
You established Christa's personality immediately, and dived more-or-less directly into the action, the overall feel of which you brought across extremely well. Your writing in this thread had an almost poetic use of language, but therein lies a rather large problem. Sentences like this one:
All that said, the actual structure and content of your action scenes is practically cinematic. The (for lack of a better word) choreography was excellent, almost like something out of one of the better class of bond-films. In short, you have an excellent visual imagination, a knack for charting the 'shape' of a scene, and a firm grasp of both your character and your co-writer's - but you could do with some proof-reading.
Strazio: Same disclaimer. Present-Strazio's writing beats the tar out of old-Strazio's writing but it is old-Strazio's writing I'm reviewing here.
You write some pretty good dialogue, and you do an excellent job of bringing across Issac's overall distress with his situation. His reactions to Christa's violence feel very genuine for the most part, though at times his stated opinion and the way he reacts don't seem to jibe; Particularly when they first met, it seemed like he should have objected more strongly when she executed that thug, but after that they developed a convincing sort of chemistry, riffing off their mutual (though differently manifested) emotional damage. By the end of the story they genuinely do seem to have bonded.
That said, you tend to dwell on emotions and exposition for slightly longer than you necessarily need to - sometimes an extra few words, sometimes a whole extra sentence. You established Issac's aversion to violence early on, but his continued horror and dismay at Christa's affinity for carnage continued to be emphasized to the point where it took me out of the narrative.
I'm not sure how I felt about the dream sequence. It was a good piece of background, but it also interrupted the overall flow of the story, and I feel like it could have made for some excellent dialogue if handled slightly differently.
Overall, you were pretty solid. Your prose was tight, your action was frantic, and your word-choice was on point. The giant bolded sound-effects were a bit garish, but I can chalk that up to youthful exuberance.
I'd recommend a Great bonus for Strazio.
Sadly, I just can't get past Gildarts' broken grammar in this thread. It really threw me off. I love ya Sam, but I can't recommend a bonus in good conscience.
*puts on his reviewin' goggles*
Okay. General stuff first.
The thing I liked most about this story was that, not having read anything else featuring either character, their personalities were brought across vividly and effectively enough for me to develop some sense of them as people: Christa's cocky self-assuredness and over-prepared eagerness to do violence, and Issac's weariness of combat and death thanks to having seen far too much of both. The overall situation was easy to grasp, and the feeling that Christa and Issac were hunted was a genuine presence within the narrative.
Now, for more specific feedback:
Gildarts: I'm going to preface my comments by saying that you've improved tremendously since you wrote this, and any criticisms I happen to level upon you here should be considered strictly in light of the story I'm judging. Cool? Cool. Alrighty...
You established Christa's personality immediately, and dived more-or-less directly into the action, the overall feel of which you brought across extremely well. Your writing in this thread had an almost poetic use of language, but therein lies a rather large problem. Sentences like this one:
Quote:A single pull of her reflex and out came the cry of her readied gun as his flesh was littered in hot lead.Mean that the reader has to work sometimes to figure out what's going on in your posts. You have a problem with not quite getting the contextual use of certain words or their accompanying linking-verbs right; some of your sentences violate basic rules of grammatical structure pretty badly, and I honestly couldn't always tell if it was deliberate or not. Once I did work it all out, the images were very vivid, and you're description of small details - things like the clatter of spent shells and the twinkle of broken glass - really tied the action together, but getting there was sometimes a bit more of an effort than I would have liked; Particularly during a drawn-out fight scene like the one in the bar, if a reader has to work too hard to keep up, you're in danger of losing their interest.
All that said, the actual structure and content of your action scenes is practically cinematic. The (for lack of a better word) choreography was excellent, almost like something out of one of the better class of bond-films. In short, you have an excellent visual imagination, a knack for charting the 'shape' of a scene, and a firm grasp of both your character and your co-writer's - but you could do with some proof-reading.
Strazio: Same disclaimer. Present-Strazio's writing beats the tar out of old-Strazio's writing but it is old-Strazio's writing I'm reviewing here.
You write some pretty good dialogue, and you do an excellent job of bringing across Issac's overall distress with his situation. His reactions to Christa's violence feel very genuine for the most part, though at times his stated opinion and the way he reacts don't seem to jibe; Particularly when they first met, it seemed like he should have objected more strongly when she executed that thug, but after that they developed a convincing sort of chemistry, riffing off their mutual (though differently manifested) emotional damage. By the end of the story they genuinely do seem to have bonded.
That said, you tend to dwell on emotions and exposition for slightly longer than you necessarily need to - sometimes an extra few words, sometimes a whole extra sentence. You established Issac's aversion to violence early on, but his continued horror and dismay at Christa's affinity for carnage continued to be emphasized to the point where it took me out of the narrative.
I'm not sure how I felt about the dream sequence. It was a good piece of background, but it also interrupted the overall flow of the story, and I feel like it could have made for some excellent dialogue if handled slightly differently.
Overall, you were pretty solid. Your prose was tight, your action was frantic, and your word-choice was on point. The giant bolded sound-effects were a bit garish, but I can chalk that up to youthful exuberance.
I'd recommend a Great bonus for Strazio.
Sadly, I just can't get past Gildarts' broken grammar in this thread. It really threw me off. I love ya Sam, but I can't recommend a bonus in good conscience.