Bionicle: Moirai: Review Topic

[Palm]

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"She thinks she is deep-hiding, but what she does not realize is that she will perish like the rest of us!"

"You seem to believe that we will perish."

"And you do not?"

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Bionicle: Moirai: Review Topic

                                                            By Alex Palm

Chapter Select

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     Before Le-Koro knew how to train and fly Gukkos, and before Kongu was the Captain of the Force, the village struggled heavily to defend itself against Makuta's forces, primarily against the Nui-Rama swarms: A powerful and merciless enemy characterized by vast numbers and sharp claws. Le-Koro - unable to properly combat the Nui-Rama - has built various squads to seek out and destroy Rama hives in order to drive back the enemy. These guerrilla forces live an incredibly dangerous life, full of doubts and deaths. But their job is too important to be left to nobody at all: They must protect their home.

 

     Hidden away in the trees, Le-Koro is hardly a village. It is at war, and it is losing. Hardly able to fight back on the front lines, Le-Koro is losing hope. With more and more casualties, their numbers are dwindling. They cannot hope to defend themselves from extinction unless a solution is found.

 

     Bionicle: Moirai follows some of the original defenders of Le-Koro during their war with Makuta, including Kongu. Kongu is the newest addition to one of the oldest teams of Le-Koro. who's made a name for himself as a capable warrior and Le-Koro's fastest leaf-runner. Struggling with ideological battles and the constant threat of death by the Swarm, Kongu's friend and fellow soldier Karata is searching for a last-ditch solution to the problem on everybody's minds:

 

     They cannot survive much longer.

 

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     Notably, in canon, we have never seen a full explanation for what occurred between the time that the villages were being built, and the time that the Toa Mata arrived to the island, leaving me with plenty of breathing space. That being said, I do not claim to not contradict canon. This particular story is meant to be a precursor to my iteration of Kongu that I play in the BZPRPG. This includes the implementation of certain aspects of the Gukko Force that I've built while playing Kongu there: Characters that existed but are never explored in canon, and original characters. I want to tell what the BZPRPG's Gukko Force's history is. And this is it.

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"Lies are as relentless as the storm, and as treacherous as the Rama-swarms. Do not take comfort in them."

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Edited April 11, 2014 by Palm

[TNTOS]

I think this story is off to a great start. In particular, I think you describes things well, helping me imagine the characters and setting without bogging down the story. That can be hard to do sometimes, so good job there.

 

You did a good job setting up the tone of the story, too. While it's a bit too early to say for certain, I think this story is going to be fairly dark and grim, though not hopeless (although of course I could be wrong). You established that tone in the prologue pretty well, which again is another thing that can be hard to pull off sometimes.

 

I would like to point out, however, that your tense is inconsistent. Early on, until Kana's appearance, you use the past tense ("He walked to the grocery store"), but for the rest of the chapter you use the present tense ("He walks to the grocery store). It's not usually a good idea to mix tenses like that because it can be confusing. Personally I think you should go with past tense, but you should really just choose the tense that you think fits your story best.

 

Keep on writing,

 

-TNTOS-

Edited March 24, 2014 by TNTOS

[Palm]

Hmm, I hadn't noticed I had been switching between -tenses, thank you for pointing that out! I'll work to keep that more consistent during the next chapters. I appreciate you checking Bionicle: Moirai out, and providing your thoughts on the prelude to the story as a whole. Thank you! c:

[They]

This epic is really going somewhere in style. The plot is enjoyable, there is plenty of tension, drama, and opportunity for incredible action sequences. The darker feel is fantastic, and you're doing a good job pulling of the gloomy perspective of the guards through Kana. I am definitely keeping this on my reading list, whether or not it pertains to one of my favorite RPG akiri.

 

For critique, I would recommend going back into the sentence structure and working on how you want to develop the writing style a little more. At the moment you have great descriptions, rather good action, and some interesting dialogue, but the actual way you write from sentence to sentence, let alone paragraphs, varies greatly. Think about the mood and feel of the epic and work on creating a writing style that is evocative and similar throughout. Personally I might try a noir style mixed with machismo, something gritty but illusive.

 

Focus on grammar. You've got nice sentences until I look deeper and see comma splices and semicolons used improperly (ignoring tense since that has already been addressed). Editor friends of mine have always called me on the semicolon (a favorite, it seems, of writers everywhere), for improper punctuation. "Never put in a semicolon," they say, "we'll tell you if a sentence needs one." If you read your sentences aloud I am sure you can find where things are hiccuping. Look at the free modifiers and see if they are attached to independent clauses. If not, you have a dangling phrase (I think that is the term), and that needs to be remedied in most cases (there is always room for stylistic error).

 

Dialogue! Kana speaks without contractions. Why? Is she a stuffy lady who can't talk normally? Kongu is the new guy, would she look down on him and speak casually while he has to address her formally? These are things to think about regarding conversation. Listen to how you and your friends talk. How do you talk to your peers or teachers? Does your vocabulary change from one group of people to the next? Being able to include these details in your writing of dialogue will make the characters seem far more three dimensional. "Dialogue isn't a conversation; it's a sword fight with each party taking tempo and trading blows."

 

In closing, I think the words of Prof. Strunk serve the purpose: "Omit needless words."

Edited March 28, 2014 by Hatachi

[Palm]

This epic is really going somewhere in style. The plot is enjoyable, there is plenty of tension, drama, and opportunity for incredible action sequences. The darker feel is fantastic, and you're doing a good job pulling of the gloomy perspective of the guards through Kana. I am definitely keeping this on my reading list, whether or not it pertains to one of my favorite RPG akiri.

 

For critique, I would recommend going back into the sentence structure and working on how you want to develop the writing style a little more. At the moment you have great descriptions, rather good action, and some interesting dialogue, but the actual way you write from sentence to sentence, let alone paragraphs, varies greatly. Think about the mood and feel of the epic and work on creating a writing style that is evocative and similar throughout. Personally I might try a noir style mixed with machismo, something gritty but illusive.

 

Focus on grammar. You've got nice sentences until I look deeper and see comma splices and semicolons used improperly (ignoring tense since that has already been addressed). Editor friends of mine have always called me on the semicolon (a favorite, it seems, of writers everywhere), for improper punctuation. "Never put in a semicolon," they say, "we'll tell you if a sentence needs one." If you read your sentences aloud I am sure you can find where things are hiccuping. Look at the free modifiers and see if they are attached to independent clauses. If not, you have a dangling phrase (I think that is the term), and that needs to be remedied in most cases (there is always room for stylistic error).

 

Dialogue! Kana speaks without contractions. Why? Is she a stuffy lady who can't talk normally? Kongu is the new guy, would she look down on him and speak casually while he has to address her formally? These are things to think about regarding conversation. Listen to how you and your friends talk. How do you talk to your peers or teachers? Does your vocabulary change from one group of people to the next? Being able to include these details in your writing of dialogue will make the characters seem far more three dimensional. "Dialogue isn't a conversation; it's a sword fight with each party taking tempo and trading blows."

 

In closing, I think the words of Prof. Strunk serve the purpose: "Omit needless words."

 

Yeah, these are all things I need to work on improving! I'm looking to make Moirai a ground just for that, learning as I go and applying what I'm learning from feedback (and those book recommendations you gave me thank you for those haha) in order to become a better writer. Learning some fundamentals! Woo!

 

As for the lack of contractions, it's a style I adopted in the BZPRPG to help remind a reader that the Le-Koronian's have a very different way of speaking. I found that it was easy to forget they used tree/chute-speak in between terms that were actually tree/chute-speak terms. I tried to shake up how they sound by removing contractions. It is on purpose, although I suppose I should work to make it clearer somehow that it is intentional and not just me forgetting to shorten words.

 

Thank you for your feedback! I really do appreciate it.

 

Chapter 2 is now online!

[They]

After reading Chapter 2 I can see you're working on changing your tenses and stylistic approach. The sentences are much shorter this time around, generally speaking, but I personally feel they're a little choppy. Maybe less repetitious detail? You're giving me tons of information, and I love it, but it's overwhelming, especially in the fighting with the rama. Once you've established that Kongu is using the disk as a shield try omitting ("omit needless words"), what he's doing with the disk until he changes tactics? I found myself in a personal project continually trying to establish how "powerful" someone was based on their finances. However, the lesson I learned from some mentors was: "Show he's powerful, don't say he's powerful." After doing that the chapter, and the character, read much better. I think this example can be applied to a lot of what was going on in chapter 2. You were doing a good job of it when Maro showed up and you showed her skill in hiding and leaf-running by having Kongu react to her ability.

 

Thanks for the explanation about the contractions in the speech. I get what you're working on and I think that's cool, but I just want to pose a question: why would a slang language that uses fast-talk like tree-speak keep their words long? If they're already contracting and combining words in larger forms wouldn't they keep the normal contractions as well? It's just a thought to consider, linguistically speaking.

 

Keep up the great work!

~Kughii

[They]

This is a review for Chapter 3.

 

I know in past reviews I've focused deeper into the syntax or grammar in the beginning. This time I'll be doing something a little different. The general feel of the piece was evocative, and you're definitely working on giving the individual characters personality. The three-dimensionality of supporting characters is good to focus on, but don't forget to keep the protagonist just as well rounded. Kongu is not just our eyes into your story, he's the protagonist of the story. He may not be the best fighter or the fastest runner, true, but I found in the latest chapter he felt more akin to wallpaper than matoran. He had feelings, yes, but mainly he was just a token to introduce the field medic.

 

I felt the plot of this chapter was slower than the other two, that's not a bad thing given its shorter length. You handled the development of plot very well. As for describing locations I feel you went a little too into detail. Perhaps if you had left the description to a sentence, two sentences tops, and then I filled in the details with my mind. Overwriting is something I am guilty as charged of, and I want to stress how important it is not to fall in the rut of writing all the details. If later on we see the leaf runners digging into the tree because they've been stationed for a long time, cool. You could even use that situation as a dramatic point of interest, but in the beginning it's too much information and I find myself glazing over.

 

Keep working on the syntax and punctuation. You're getting somewhere but I feel you've swung in the other direction with the pendulum as the last chapter. With time and persistence I'm sure you'll find a middle ground.

 

In all I'm really looking forward to the next chapter.

~Kughii

[Palm]

New chapter is up! Sorry it's been so long so thanks for your patience! This one was short, but here it is anyways!

[Gifthammer]

I'm really enjoying the story so far. This is definitely a point that never crossed my mind before: what did the Matoran do before they got used to the Island.

 

I remember seeing maybe the first chapter during the summer, you've definitely changed it quite a bit since then. Great work!

[They]

The latest chapter feels good, moves good, and needs more stuff.

 

Just keeping writing my friend, keep writing!