3 replies to this topic

[tent163phantoka]

The Story
The story it's an homage to.(WARNING:ARCHIVE LINK.)
With Apologies to the White lady, Isreali Toa, and Jedi Gali.

Edited by tent163phantoka, Jun 16 2012 - 03:10 PM.

[Cederak]

Hello, tent163phantoka, here is your official ECC review. I think the first step you might want to take with this epic is the aesthetic one, by which I mean spacing out your chapter. Any dialogue should be spaced and have its own line separate from others. It just looks nicer that way. That said, I'll cover the errors I found.

Now, there were games about be broadcast all over Spherus Magna soon.

Now, there were games about to be broadcast all over Spherus Magna soon.

The first event was an Approximately 80.2 kio dash.

The first event was an approximately 80.2 kio dash.


I must know, why are you apologizing to a few of the best writers I've ever seen on this site? You're giving them credit for your inspiration, do you not think your work compares to what they did? Don't answer that. Since this is a critique, and I'm allowed to throw my opinion around like confetti at a party, I'll give you my answer. I think you asked for a review far too early. I think the use of so little description has made your intro feel very hollow, not to mention your use of a human name (possibly a human character I assume?) adding to the ambiguity of this story.

I'm not sure if you're serious or if this is intended to be some sort of multi-post comedy. My instinct is telling me it's the latter, but correct me if I'm wrong. There's not much I can say about your plot. The execution of a single idea like starting an Olympic game seems to simple for me to comment on substantially. I want to stress, however, that you need to pay a lot more attention to detail. I've said this to many writers, using canon characters is never an excuse to skip defining their colors, their attitudes, their feelings, etc. And why someone named Roger is spending time on Spherus Magna is really beyond me. If my comedy theory was correct though, he probably doesn't require an explanation as the idea of a human just showing up amongst biomechs is supposed to be a touch of humor in itself.

So that's it. I easily doubled what you've written thus far, which brings me back to another earlier point: know when to ask for a request. You hadn't given any thought to letting other readers skim your work, you hadn't even waited to make a second post. Completely ignoring the fact that the ECC requires an appeal request to be made for multiple reviews of the same work (please read the ECC first post for more details), the bigger point that this story has a terribly vacant feel to it remains a problem in itself. Please take this critique into consideration as you continue writing, be it here, in short stories, comedies, CoT, or elsewhere on the internet or in life.

This is one of those rare times where I don't feel I should make a mention of keeping up the good work. In fact, I feel I would be lying to you if I said that. So I'm going to tell you something else. Probably not what you want to hear, but something you need to hear. Writing is not an overnight business. Writing is practice, writing is a demand to keep going, to keep rewriting, grinding through more erasers or making more presses of the backspace button than you can possibly remember. Writing is a mountain to be climbed, a storm to be reckoned, an ocean to be respected. And even if you reach the summit, survive the tempest, master the seas, the work is never done. There is good writing and bad writing, no perfect writing exists. So I implore you to keep climbing, keep fighting, keep swimming - keep striving to achieve good writing.

-Ced

Edited by Cederak, Jun 16 2012 - 04:40 PM.

[tent163phantoka]

It is indeed an epic. I apologized because I felt it was proper. no less. I used my own name as a reference to the fact that I'm the one "Broadcasting" this across BZP.

Edited by tent163phantoka, Jun 16 2012 - 10:41 PM.

[Grantaire]

After reading this, I do understand your apologies to those writers. How do I say this really? Your writing reminded me rather of the bible insomuch is it was very, very brief.

No, that's not a compliment, because this is supposed to be a novel, not scripture.

There wasn't really much to go by, because there isn't much there. Literally. Only one chapter, and that one a major chapterlet. Now, it is not wrong to have an intro that short. The problem? That specific intro shouldn't have been so short.

Vakama sighed. It had been a long time since Makuta had been defeated for good. Now, there were games about be broadcast all over Spherus Magna soon.

This isn't as bad as other places, but the glaring flaw in this writing is made apparent in the briefness presented. You could have expanded it to something like this: "Vakama sighed as he stood hunched before the flames of his bonfire, present wherever he went. As he stared into the flames, they seemed to reflect the face of the Makuta Teridax, his unholy face staining the otherwise pure face as mud spoils a clean garment. But that was in the past, he reminded himself. Now, on the fully restored planet of Spherus Magna, a new series of games were about to be held, and broadcasted to all the peoples." See? 27 words becomes 80 words, while having the same meaning.

Nuparu had invented a device that allowed this to happen. Now, Vakama and the other Turaga listened to Nuparu explain this invention, but they had trouble understanding it. However, they supported it.

I'll be blunt; this part makes the first line look mild. You could have made this an entire scene, and it could have been good. Instead? you make it three sentence, and it was not good, at all. What is this device, what does it look like? How exactly did the turaga react? What did they say? I know it's supposed to be a TV, but it'd be nice to have some more info.

"No, Roger, I'm fine. I would say I'm getting too old for this, but I've been around thousands of years longer than this technology," Vakama joked.

For a comedy, I would ignore this. But Roger, in Bionicle? Sorry, but no, that's not a good name choice.

He had a feeling there was a universe where he had done this before. The first event was an Approximately 80.2 kio dash

Um, so a 40 mile dash? Do the runners have kakamas or something?

Overall, my initial reaction stays the same. I'll state my review in basic. This story is far, far, far, far, far, too brief, and it needs a lot of expanding. Do that, and it might have potential. As it is now, I don't really like to say this, but in my opinion it's not a good piece of work at all, sorry.