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Yrolg

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The following is the review I provided for C0smic1's "Price of Unification".
Hello. The following is the rubric you provided for your story, “The Price of Unification”.

Literary Tools: 121/150
--Description: 35/40
--Voice: 17/25
--Symbolism: 15/25
--Depth: 15/20
--Analysis: 15/20
--Word Choice: 10/20
--Juxtaposition: 14/10
Structure: 74/120
--Format: 25/40
--Grammar: 15/30
--Usage: 12/20
--Sentence Configuration: 10/15
--Basics: 12/15
Plot: 88/100
--Development: 35/40
--Intricacy: 25/30
--Consistency: 13/15
--Originality: 15/15
Other: 64/90
--Impact: 16/20
--Flow: 16/20
--Conclusion: 7/15
--Theme: 12/15
--Empathetic Ties: 5/10
--Title Relevance: 8/10
Layout: 65/80
--Introduction: 23/30
--Overall Appearance: 13/20
--Title Page: 14/15
--Chapter Configuration: 15/15
Total: 412/520 79.2%

14-Mar-2009 02:23:30 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:23:17 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The following is the rubric I am providing for “Price of Unification”.
Literary Tools: 105/150 70%
--Description: 30/40
--Voice: 17/25
--Symbolism: 12/25
--Depth: 13/20
--Analysis: 14/20
--Word Choice: 14/20
--Juxtaposition: 5/10

Structure: 62/120 51.6%
--Format: 34/40
--Grammar: 5/30
--Usage: 10/20
--Sentence Configuration: 9/15
--Basics: 4/15
Plot: 65/100 65%
--Development: 27/40
--Intricacy: 14/30
--Consistency: 14/15
--Originality: 10/15
Other: 60/90 66.6%
--Impact: 14/20
--Flow: 11/20
--Conclusion: 5/15
--Theme: 13/15
--Empathetic Ties: 7/10
--Title Relevance: 10/10
Layout: 66/80 82.5%
--Introduction: 23/30
--Overall Appearance: 16/20
--Title Page: 12/15
--Chapter Configuration: 12/15

Total: 358/520 68.8%

14-Mar-2009 02:23:38 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:23:33 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

The single most detrimental quality of your piece were the rampant errors that ran through it. I intended to create a list of the different errors you made, but I soon realised that they were callous, obvious, and ignored. I really do suggest that you re-read your piece after this review, and you take into consideration each of the blatant mistakes that I am not pointing out. There are typos, extra symbols, extra words, and missing punctuation. This really hurt you in the structure category, and it was incredibly distracting to me whilst I read. The distraction is caused means that it affected the rest of your story, as the above rubric demonstrates. I was embarrassed whilst reading this piece; the level of effort that was illustrated in this piece is not much at all. The errors in some places are just so obvious that it’s like you were using a speech-to-text program with the wrong microphone.
Another error that you maintained, but which is more excusable, is the mix up between homophones. If you were not a native English speaker, the errors would be very understandable (though not sanctioned). One such idea is when in Chapter 2 you called General Monokar a “shroud politician”. The correct word in this instance is “shrewd”. This is not the only example. You preferred “neigh” (which is the sound a horse makes) to “nigh” (which means almost; just under). On a similar grammar tangent, the singular possessive of names ending in s is the same as all other names: to form the singular possessive, add apostrophe s (‘s). For example, “Zerfos’s helmet glowed in the dimness of the musty library”.

14-Mar-2009 02:23:41 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:23:51 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Your introduction was not appropriate. It focused on luring readers to the story and tried to tempt them into reading. In doing this, however, it demonstrated a cliché and unbecoming style, and actually dissuades readers. Continuing the topic of format, the consistency of chapter conclusions is necessary. You ended the first three chapters uniformly, the fourth different, and the fifth yet different again. I also disliked your presentation of dialogue.
Your dialogue broke the single greatest rule of descriptive writing: show, don’t tell. You had the habit of using dialogue to shortcut your way from description and revelation, revealing otherwise unknown information in bland, documentarian style. A prime example of this is at the end of Chapter 1, when the Colonel Vertoc is battling Zerfos. You felt it necessary to include in the middle of a fierce battle scene a description of the different echelons of magic. There is a cause and solution for this, and I will detail both.
The cause for this fault is that you employ so many battle scenes and action areas that you have trouble identifying the most important ones and capitalizing on their effects. A story should be a journey: there are hills to climb, slopes to descent, and plains to cross. Your story is more of a thousand tiny mountaintops, one after another. Instead of going up and coming down and introducing the next mountain, you just throw spike after spike at the audience, hoping they’ll enjoy it. “Price of Unification” needs more valleys and plains; you need to describe and introduce more. Victor Hugo is the prince of this art – in Les Misérables he introduced each of the chapters within the book with a fifty hundred page explanation of almost all the information the reader would need. There were six chapters.

14-Mar-2009 02:23:45 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:24:10 by Yrolg

Yrolg

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And this is the solution: foreshadowing. You need to improve your description and your dialogue. If you were to take the information from the dialogue, plug it into prose, and increase the depth and analysis of it, you’d be killing two birds with one stone. Instead of explaining magic within this battle (which I think is abruptly implemented and not introduced), why not make a small portion on the politics of old Brizan, explain the need for the coup, and detail the magic in this less action-packed portion. If you do this, when the action finally does arrive, the reader won’t be distracted by arbitrary snippets of information that seems almost irrelevant to the plot at that moment and distracts from the overall idea of the scene.
On the idea of description, I’d like to make the small note that there is none. Not when there’s a section of dialogue, at least. It’s like you have two switches: dialogue, description; and they can’t both be on at the same time. I really suggest providing more information with the dialogue. Instead of simply saying,
“Hello, Marius. I notice your coat is worn.”
“Because of your penny-pinching father, Enodine.”
“Or perhaps your pigheadedness.”
Why not add prose, and say,
Enodine walked down the aisle between the wall and the piano, his green trousers striking an uncomfortable pattern with the cream coloured walls. Stopping at the chair which blocked his path, he said, “Hello, Marius.” Looking at the head which occupied it, and pointing to the elbows of the figure below, he continued, “I notice your coat is worn.”
The propped feet swung down from the piano keys, leaving a slight hum as they left. Marius twisted in the chair to face Enodine, dropping his book to stare him in the face. “Because of your penny-pinching father, Enodine,” he stated flatly, placing a bookmark in the book, before setting it underneath his chair.

14-Mar-2009 02:23:50 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:24:28 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Enodine crossed his arms. “Or perhaps your pigheadedness,” he added arrogantly, shifting his weight and leaning against the wall.”
The second situation adds much more detail and paints a clearer picture of what is happening. The description helps to explain the attire and body language of both characters, which is important. A picture says a thousand words, but with description, you can paint a clearer picture with just two hundred.
Having now discussed the quality, presentation, and format of your piece, I’d like to know assess the plot and contents.
Overall, your plot was average. It wasn’t entirely original, but it wasn’t cliché to the point of boredom. If anything, though, I’d say that it did*’t progress much. Though description and voice and all that other junk is fine and nice, the plot is what keeps your readers reading. And in this piece, I did*’t notice a whole lot that would’ve kept me reading if I did*’t have to. I could fairly well guess where each idea was going, and there were no real twists that I couldn’t have guessed. A good author to read for plot twists is Edgar Allen Poe. Though he is known as the master of the macabre, and though he wrote in the same basic style in each of his pieces, each tale of his is uniquely different and disturbing. It doesn’t matter how many of his pieces you’ve read: when you first start to read a new one, you have no idea where the thing might be going.

14-Mar-2009 02:23:54 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:24:49 by Yrolg

Yrolg

Posts: 25,296 Sapphire Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Furthermore, the plot you’ve presented so far is basic, and it has no interconnectedness. You’ve made, so to say, a number chart: 1,2,3,4,5,6…etc. But you did*’t explain that two is one plus two or that four is two times two or that six equals three plus two plus one. The one basic skill that can help you more than any other with this is analysis. Once you learn to analyse a situation and answer the primordial question, “Why?”, leaving every possibility covered, this problem will completely disappear. It will also add depth and meaning to your story as well as enhancing the plot.
And lastly, remember the basic structure of a chapter: it must have an introduction, a highpoint (******), and a conclusion. I felt that your chapters oftentimes missed the first and last of these requisites, and this encouraged me to forget what I’d already read. By presenting the information in this format, you are providing resources for the audience to use so that they may remember more of the information you’re providing longer.
(Those interested in receiving a review like this one should conclude their post with a smiley face of their choice. This is to be the final aspect of their post.)
As always, I welcome your response to this review. Any opinions you have on what I've written and taken from your piece would be wonderful.

14-Mar-2009 02:27:30 - Last edited on 20-Feb-2010 02:27:07 by Yrolg