RuneScape Forum Archive | "The Warrior's purpose."

Azigarath

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''He parried blow after blow, returning them with his own, locked in combat with the single demon.''
Do the demons have weapons? If so, parrying is not important, seeing as Torva is wearing armour. If you attack someone's armour that will probably be the last move you make before your opponent kills you.

The demons wear spiked masks, which is pretty cool, but masks are not helmets, so can't be worn so. Perhaps this could be changed so that they wore caps with an attached face mask and nasal, similarly to the helms worn by some Vikings and Normans.

''Torva backed off, the sword keeping all the demons at bay as he backed himself towards his men.''
Couldn't the demons just swarm around him, disarm him, take him to the ground and trample over him?

''just as Torva cut the hand off of an advancing demon, who howled in pain and fell to the ground, turning to dust.''
The demon died because it’s hand was cut off? :/

Oh, the archers are there, shooting the flying demons.

''Archers, in teams of five to six, focused their fire, turning the demons into pin-cushions that fell onto their own troops below.''
Uh, shouldn't the flying guys, like, you know, fly into the enemy or evade the arrows or land on the ground or something?

About time those mages started doing something.

''Torva tried to see up towards where the mages sat, at the far back of the demonic horde''
The mages are behind their army, and can see where to launch their magic?

''Most fell, and were unharmed, but more than a few impaled one another by mistake as they fell,''
Impaled by what?

''hold your tongue'' is an overused piece of dialogue. I have read it so many times that it sounds silly.

''whose simplistic, bare robes''
I'm not sure what this means.

''Shocked, Torva immediately pulled the blade from out of the dying mage, who fell to the ground, twitching''

05-Apr-2013 22:23:18

Azigarath

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Stomach wounds don't make you twitch. And why is it that every time a hero confronts the enemy leader, everything always has to stop, and then the hero fights the last foes one by one, then confronts the leader screaming? I have read, and seen, this formula numerous time.

Torva has visions of peace of this and that; another overused scene, used in movies, novels and video games and their trailers.

''It was a simple village, typical of the primitive age Torva lived in.
Small, squat homes of stone earth and timber takes from the forests.''
So the village is primitive, yet can supply plate armour, swords, maces, bows with arrows that can pierce demons. Is there, like, a castle or something nearby to do that?

Torva now screams ''No!'' with a Darth Vader voice.

''What was giving him this strength? Where was he getting such power??''
I'm not sure, I'll ask someone who knows though.

''With a roar that sounded so loud, it was carried to every single demonic ear around him,''
Seriously?

''The demons, while greatly outnumbering the lone warrior, found it incredibly difficult to slay a single target amongst the throngs of their brethren. Demon pushed against demon, making it easier for Torva to cut them down as their own amassed ranks worked against them.''
Well, it wasn't hard for them to pull a soldier out the wedge and kill him with one thwack earlier.

You overuse the ''...'' exclamation. It is both annoying and ineffective, unfortunately. Actually, it's not annoying at all, but personally, it encourages me to lose seriousness to a story. Formally, it means the author left something out.

Fhalin has a tendency to grin and laugh, as every stereotypical villain always does. Did Torva really kill the entire army by himself, even the flying demons? It doesn't seem rational for one man to kill potentially three thousand remaining demons on his own, if he and his force was outnumbered 15 to 1 after all.

05-Apr-2013 22:23:33 - Last edited on 05-Apr-2013 22:29:33 by Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Oh, there were 2,000 demons, the ratio should be 10 to 1, then.

''Both Hazeel and Zamorak looked with startled eyes towards the beast, but neither said anything.''
Why do gods have such childish reactions?

''Her long, soft hair obscuring her face.''
Torva's wife's hair obscures her face every time she is put into a scene.

''Falling to his knees, Torva gasped for air.''
Uh, was he dreaming while standing? I guess he got up when he awoke.

''simply fall back, hitting the ground hard enough to break his old body.''
That's a pretty hard fall if he just fell backwards.

''Demons. It was demons.''
I kinda know that by now XD

Hm, every time Torva holds his sword, he grips it tightly. Personally, when I practise with my swords, I never grip them tightly. You don't really have to, you just need enough grip to hold the sword. Too much grip wears out your fingers' stamina and strength sooner.

''He felt the body of the demon crash into him as its’ own momentum impaled itself on Torva’s blade
The demon missed Torva, its giant, scythe-like claws sticking only into the dirt.
Torva sunk his blade into the back of the demon before it could free itself from the earth''
These demons are really stupid, despite being the elite.

Hi Level!

''“I am Nex.”''
Thank-you Nex, for telling your name.

''The winged man looked with surprise. “You are… unlike any human.”''
What is so astonishing about one parry? Regardless of how powerful a strike may be, not much force is needed to parry a blade. Slapping the flat of the blade into the incoming flat of a blade stifles the swing, and in this instance, dissipates the force of energy and strength.

''Swallowing hard, Torva picked the blade up again.''
Every time Torva swallows, he swallows hard.

''It's funny because no one on this forum will ever read the whole thing!!!!''
SURPRISE MUTHAH****ER!

05-Apr-2013 22:24:01 - Last edited on 05-Apr-2013 22:31:54 by Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Well, and there we go, I read and critiqued your story. All in all, the story is typed well, and you use descriptions and portray emotion very well too. Unfortunately, your story follows a common conflict, and you only use negative words to describe the villains. Words like grin, laugh, yellow and leathery, have all been used multiple times and only for the villains. Not only that, but it is only your villains, who portray fear and yielding when defeated.

For example, only your heroes are good, and only they smile to happy things like children and village life, and only your villains are so hell-bent to destroy everything, only to have their tail between their legs when they face your hero. I can understand that this is what demons do, but it just amplifies to clichés.

Stereotypical characters diminish the effectiveness a reader can obtain from reading a story. I found myself chuckling at some parts of your dialogue, as suggested by my teasing on some quotes. The gods were considerably silly and neonate in their behaviour.

You also overuse a few elements as mentioned. Your style of narration seems to attempt to build up suspense and emotion but spacing apart questions, ''...'', statements, and yelling only kills everything you have built up so very well in the first phase of the story. It kinda feels like you transformed your story from a solid foundation into an anime/manga-like cartoon. The armoured demonic soldiers seem to have disappeared in the finale of the battle.

Nonetheless, your debut for the Stories Forum was quite good compared to many others who write their first stories. My first full-length story I typed in 2006 was by far lengthier but would be wholly immature compared to this one, so well done for portraying more good than bad which was unsurprising. You know what you're doing and I wouldn’t be surprised if you made many improvements within a short period of time.

05-Apr-2013 22:24:18

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Just have some focus on things that you have not seen very often: an evil, ugly army outnumbering the good guys full of negative traits is a cliché, a hero defeating everything in his path is a cliché, and gods arguing with one another is a cliché, and all of this revolving around one battle and an aftermath is a cliché. If you absolutely must include such elements, try to expand on them so that they feel different. If you have an overly negative or overly positive villain or hero, you will not have characters, you will have caricatures.

Your ending, however, was done well. Just one line, ''Torva walked to his purpose'', puts everything to an end, or toward a sequel, effectively.

Of course, you are allowed to disagree with anything about my feedback and make corrections to where I may be wrong, I don't say I am always right. I am sure Level will give you better advice on specifics, I just broadly said my point of view. And, alas, the Stories Forum is quite inactive, a fraction of what it used to be. I have stories that have not had a reader in over two years that I still bump.

Oh and one last point: combat, especially that of your hero, was wholly irrational. Here's some links to YouTube that I am sure you will learn from, most of which I have shown to several other people. Just copy-paste the title into the YouTube command line or just fill-in the censors of the link. Although it is quite a stretch to go through them all, they will offer an excellent basis for combat that is realistic yet within the realms of fantasy. I hope this helps, and I look forward to future projects by you.

05-Apr-2013 22:24:33

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=TtNZQBc4RpE&feature=related
Longsword Techniques - Receiving Strikes on Flat

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=ov_iVrHy4_A
CAS Hanwei - 2010 Blade show - John Clement* Historical European Swordsmanship

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=7Ijy8Ky_vrI&feature=related
15th Century fighting demonstration

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=bWISsk0cy74&feature=fvwp&NR=1
Messer Techniques from Talhoffer

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=-TzdtyMC7ek&feature=related
Fencing with five different medieval weapons

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=wR7RlwSGj50&feature=related
Rediscovering the Chinese Long Sword

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=Kj4Ng6DB***&feature=related
Fechten mit dem langen Schwert

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=G4k-vjdeZO4&feature=related
SwArta Harnischfechten

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=7rqP1F36EMY
Grabbing Edge During Half-Swording

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=Vp9xjkOlM4o
Longsword 16-Cut Demo

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=jgftn74sBFM
Blunt Force Trauma

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=mCL8ONmOKBw
Battle of Nations 2012 02-05-12 21x21 1 fight Poland-USA

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=1zGjex6qDtM
Vyborg castle medieval mass fight

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=9Ge6*_bMLcs
ringschule Wroclaw

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=lvkPLvoH1vI&feature=related
Twirch Ringen (Updated)

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=xz-07Dtp-Qw
Unarmed vs Long Sword Technique

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=jAAFczOyLVo&feature=related
Military Designs from Talhoffer's Medieval Combat Manual

http://***.youtube.***/watch?v=_hfLZozBVpM
Two Handed Great Sword

05-Apr-2013 22:24:50

Oct

2023

Ghondor

Posts: 3,764 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

I've only just quickly read over some of your first posts, but I'll reply with my thoughts so far.

You seem to be majorly nit-picking minor details, which is 'cool' and all, it's neat to get such specific feed back, but you are nit-picking a little too much. Bowstrings snapping could be described as 'cracks', and I'm not sure what you mean by 'stomach wounds don't cause twitching'. Have you experienced lots of lethal stomach wounds, or something?

Also, the demon's helmets were just described as 'mask-like', going after the design of Kir'ril's (however you spell his name) weird little mask helmet thing.

I do think the expansive feedback is cool and everything, but I wouldn't pick apart every minor detail of a fictional Runescape battle, at least unless you're just over-analyzing for fun and not trying to propose legitimate criticism.

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Just have some focus on things that you have not seen very often: an evil, ugly army outnumbering the good guys full of negative traits is a cliché, a hero defeating everything in his path is a cliché, and gods arguing with one another is a cliché, and all of this revolving around one battle and an aftermath is a cliché. If you absolutely must include such elements, try to expand on them so that they feel different. If you have an overly negative or overly positive villain or hero, you will not have characters, you will have caricatures.

That's more or less what I was going for. Torva is a good guy, the bad guys are bad guys. If I wanted to flesh anyone out more than that I would have made this much, much longer.

Original message details are unavailable.
and only your villains are so hell-bent to destroy everything, only to have their tail between their legs when they face your hero.

That's because that's what the Zarosian demons are, man. It's just generic Runescape characters.

Also, I speak in sarcastic/dry-wit tones all over the forums, I wasn't trying to actually insult anyone with the intro.

05-Apr-2013 23:16:46 - Last edited on 05-Apr-2013 23:21:06 by Ghondor

Oct

2023

Ghondor

Posts: 3,764 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

Also reading through some of your things like 'he swallows hard', yes, I know. Lots of this was written really late at night when I may or may not have even been awake. I noticed, myself, quite a bit of repetition in some things that my brain just defaulted into using. I'll probably fix them. Maybe. Eventually.

I'm also slightly unhappy with how I did Zamorak, even if he was a minor role. I was trying to express how he was insultive and belittling to his allies, only stopping when ordered to by a stronger superior, but he just sort of came off as snarky *****. Which I admit, isn't so bad. Zamorak, as far as officially, has no real character so I had nothing to go off of. (This is before he's a God, by the way. In fact, no Gods are even in the story :V) Hazeel is just Hazeel and Nex is just Nex.

The line about Torva gasping for air is sort of to elude he wasn't just lying down the entire time he was dreaming. He was walking.

Just to explain a bit, Zaros is basically your typical ******** who wants everything destroyed. The demons are attacking for no other reason that to DESTROY EVERYTHING!!!111. I'm not about to take major liberties with the characters when I'm just doing short 'background' stories. Because it's a fanfic, man. I have to restrain myself.

I also admit the last battle with the demon army is a little 'eh eh'. I wouldn't, myself, call it bad for the story it's in, but some bits of it don't exactly make the most sense 'practical' wise. Think of it as any typical 'big cinematic final battle'.

05-Apr-2013 23:38:34 - Last edited on 05-Apr-2013 23:39:48 by Ghondor

The Level

Posts: 8,999 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

What Azi is too polite to say is that stereotypical bad guys versus stereotypical good guys just aren't that interesting. Characters, even in a Runescape fan fiction, must be in depth to capture the readers attention. I haven't gotten that far into the story, but it seems to me Torva saying to his wife that he will make the future livable even if she has to die seems a little unrealistic, if she really is somebody he loves. It's grounds for an internal conflict. Perhaps he's paralyzed with fear this his wife will be killed? The point is, a good character's flaws are what makes the audience fall in love with the character, and an evil character's glimpses of humanity are what make the character believable. A character without internet flaws is a character not worth writing about.

Even a demon can feel remorse, ya?

On a side note, Azi just wrote you a ridiculously long review designed to help you become a better and more realistic writer, and you just pretty much blew off his advice. You are not a great writer right now. The way to become a great writer is to listen to people like Azi that know what they're talking about. Seek it out. Eat it up. Like Azi said, you're in a much better place than most of us were when we started out, but you've still got a lot of work to do. The Story Forum is a fantastic place to meet fellow writers and grow as a writer yourself, but in order to do so you must learn to let other people tell you what you're doing wrong without brushing it off.

Don't take any of this the wrong way, but it needed to be said. Don't burn bridges in a tiny little community like this one.

Allow me to thank you for the long review, Azi.

Anyway, back to reading.

Edit: Also, if you don't want reviews like Azi and mine, just put 'I don't give a crap about what my writing seems like so don't review it. It's just fanfic, and nothing more.'

05-Apr-2013 23:47:42 - Last edited on 05-Apr-2013 23:53:14 by The Level

Oct

2023

Ghondor

Posts: 3,764 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile

All I can really say is I apologize for not pulling all the literary stops for a Runescape fanfic based off of a paragraph long character bio. Criticism is fine and all, even if you keep in mind I wasn't going for deep, heavily fleshed out characters and it was just more or less a dressed up little series of events leading to Torva's fight with the reaper demons and Nex taking notice of him. I wasn't trying to floor anyone with literary prowess with this.

And most of what he said was really nit-picky. Sorry if you feel I'm 'blowing everything off' or whatever, but I want to make it pretty clear I wrote a Runescape fanfiction and not a treatise on armed combat. There's no point to be super critical of that with me, since I don't care. It's not what I was trying to write.

(For the record, I know a lot about weaponry and armed melee fighting. That doesn't mean I made it a goal to weave that into the fictionalized combat, it's not meant to be over-thought)

If you want to over-analyze it, that's totally fine, and I welcome it and will read it. I just wont apply much of it to this, because all I wanted to do was dream up a story for Runescape, not structure any actual piece of literature. If that's 'burning bridges' to you, then I guess, so be it.

Oh and I should mention on another one of the criticisms, the demon's hand getting cut off killed him because it was established if the demons were cut (or even 'glared on') by the swords, they'd die. Maybe I didn't make the fact the demon died because of the sword, so that confused you, but it was already said they'd pretty much die if the glare of the swords hit them, so I dunno.

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Also, if you don't want reviews like Azi and mine, just put 'I don't give a crap about what my writing seems like so don't review it. It's just fanfic, and nothing more.'

I didn't think a disclaimer would be needed to let people know not to over-analyse fictional combat.

05-Apr-2013 23:56:11 - Last edited on 06-Apr-2013 00:03:03 by Ghondor

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"The Warrior's purpose."