Hi Dual Matrix. One SSCC review coming up.
Overall, I felt like this was a nice, brief slice out of a larger storyline, and it left me wanting to read more about the larger context, so good job there! If I’m right, this is a speech by Tahu that occurs sometime after the defeat of Makuta on Spherus Magna? That seemed to make the most sense. Either way, it’s a well-worded piece of dialogue, with a very meaningful and inspiring message. Nicely written.
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Time for the critique! Now, because this story consists mostly of a single passage of dialogue, I’ll mainly focus on issues related to writing structure. The first thing I will note is the overall format that you’ve used: it’s basically a passage of dialogue that has been split onto different lines. Now, usually if you’re splitting up dialogue like that, you’d have to enclose each line of dialogue in quotation marks, like so:
"Let us remember, my friends, what happened today, for once good overruled the ever-present corrupting power evil and we finally won."
"Altough, freedom had it's price, many brave innocent lives have come to a sudden end."
This isn’t normally a problem, but the fact that most the story is in dialogue-form makes things a little odd, since technically it would be better if you had just combined all of the lines into one big paragraph of dialogue.
My suggestion for this would be to sprinkle some action into the dialogue. Maybe have Tahu do something while he’s talking: look at something, gesture in some way, etc. Inserting those little actions between lines of dialogue would help breaks things up and would also help give some structure to the narrative as a whole.
Here’s one spot where I thought you might insert something, since there seems to be a natural shift in topic:
And we'll keep this future safe and happy, as a thanks to who gifted it us.
And today, the real heroes aren't the Toa, for we were not alone, Matoran, Skadii, Vortixx, Turaga,... our victory, is yours, for we all now share the name my species held, for we were all heroes on that battlefield, for we are all heroes now.
Maybe add in something like: “Tahu gestured toward the crowd” after the first line? That’s one suggestion out of numerous possibilities, but it would help connect the reader to what’s actually happening in the scene.
One more general suggestion related to writing structure/style:
"Let us remember, my friends, what happened today, for once good overruled the ever-present corrupting power evil and we finally won.
In a critique, I always focus on the opening lines, because in many ways they are the most important part of the story. The opening lines need to hook the reader in and get them interested in reading further. With that in mind, this opening line felt a little off, and I think that’s mainly because of the wording. There’s an overload of adjectives at the end, coupled with a couple of grammatical inconsistencies that make the sentence seem unbalanced. I’ll note these in succession:
... for once good overruled the ever-present corrupting power evil and we finally won.
- First, a slight nitpick: I assume it’s “power of evil” in the middle there.
- Secondly, the number of adjectives before “evil” feels unnecessary. You could easily trim a few (or all) of them without diminishing the effect of the sentence. I think it would definitely make the sentence flow better.
- The verb “overruled” feels slightly odd here, although it’s not terrible (the meaning of “overruled” makes me think of a court-case). I would probably switch it with something like “overcame”, but that’s up to you.
- Lastly, the end of the sentence doesn’t quite work grammatically: “for once good overruled. . . .and we finally won.” This construction implies that something happened after we won, but the sentence ends there. My suggestion would be to simply drop “once”: “for good overruled . . . and we finally won.”
Finally, a few nitpicks:
Altough, freedom had it's price, many brave innocent lives have come to a sudden end.
“Although” and “its”.
But their deaths, their sacrife, will not be forgotten ...
“sacrifice”
Because of their sacrifice we can live today, because of them, there will be a tomorrow.
This would flow better if it were split into two sentences: “Because of their sacrifice we can live today. Because of them ...”
Although that is somewhat of a stylistic choice, it was actually a common suggestion that I had throughout the story. A few other examples where it would be better/more grammatical to split lines into separate sentences (I have highlighted where the split should occur):
Yes, there will be battles, we will once again have to fight.
Many challenges still await, old and new enimies are to be fought.
(also: “enemies”)
And today, the real heroes aren't the Toa, for we were not alone, Matoran, Skadii, Vortixx, Turaga,... our victory . . .
Of course, we could have surrendered, and indeed we could have ran
“run”
And I think I’ll conclude things there. Again, I definitely thought it was a nicely written piece overall. With a few tweaks to the formatting and some of the writing structure, it would make for an even more effective piece of short fiction. I look forward to reading more!
JRRT
