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"The Warrior's purpose."

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The Level

The Level

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Understandable. Generally this community holds itself to a higher standard than just fanfic for the sake of fanfic, but if that's you then I have no problem with it. But don't just assume we know the circumstances under which you wrote the story and what expectations you have for the story. Azi wrote the review assuming you were an aspiring writer looking for ways to improve.

06-Apr-2013 00:02:49

Ghondor
Oct Member 2023

Ghondor

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I still stand by what I said that he was being far too overcritical of Runescape combat (he was also wrong on a few of the criticisms), but I get what you're saying. I assumed people would take this as just 'Oh, a story sort of explaining just who Torva was and what happened to him', but I suppose unlike most normal 'fanfics' I employee a degree of 'actual' writing (I wont say 'good writing', or 'great writing', it's obvious we all know it's not that)

I just wasn't expecting such super specific criticisms. I thought everything would just be 'oh my god cool sotry write moree' or 'to long i didnt read'. If I would have known people were going to be this analyzing (Not that I'm saying it's a bad thing, I just wasn't expecting it), I'd have put a disclaimer it was just meant to be a simple Runescape story.

In all honesty, I was thinking about going some self-confliction route with Torva, and giving him kids and making some deep fear his wife would die etc etc etc, but I thought going into stuff like that would be going 'over the story's head', and would make it way longer than I wanted it to be. I also thought about including the 'Fhalin' character much earlier in the story, and turning him into a character who sort of 'bit off more than he could chew' by getting involved with Zaros, and now he's fearful of his mistake. Maybe even turn him into a 'tragic villian', who only followed Zaros to save his own family or something, but again, that would have been going over the head of what I was writing, so I downgraded him into 'greedy evil bad man'.

This is just meant for someone who likes DA EPIC RUNESCAPE LORE!!!. A sort of build-upon of the Torva mini-backstory.

06-Apr-2013 00:11:49 - Last edited on 06-Apr-2013 00:16:48 by Ghondor

Ghondor
Oct Member 2023

Ghondor

Posts: 3,764 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Oh no, don't get me wrong. I'm working on a novel right now that will surely be the next Harry Potter and will win me several nice trophies (and trust me when I say while it's not the pinnacle of perfect writing, it's many steps above something like this Torva story)

All the criticism about the generic characters has spurred me to think about maybe going for deeper characters with the Pernix and Virtus stories, though.

My main deal with not really wanting to take the characters in too brash of directions is mostly because they're not really mine, and I'm keeping a 'fanficcy' mind set with it (hence why Zamorak is just a *********. I have no idea what kind of person he is/was before becoming a God, and since this is a fanfic of my own imagining you can understand why I'm not allowed to take liberties)

I've been thinking up a really specific back story for Pernix, though based around the reason 'he doesn't talk much', which would lead to a lot of that delicious internal conflict, so maybe I'll build on that.

06-Apr-2013 00:42:09

The Level

The Level

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To me back stories have always relied on adding depth to existing characters. Let's be honest here, Jagex can only make a character so engaging in the course of an RPG. To make a truly captivating back story would be to have expand depth to an existing character. You probably don't like him much after your exchange on the contest thread, but Poller4's 'Ardonmeth' is an excellent example of expanding the story of existing characters.

It's part of the pull of those stories that we kind of already know the surface story of a character. The challenge of the writer is to make that character have a complex and dynamic personality. But again, if you don't want to, that's fine.

06-Apr-2013 00:50:31

Ghondor
Oct Member 2023

Ghondor

Posts: 3,764 Adamant Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
That's why I'd like to see the Runescape lore officially be structured up a bit, and then have more books/etc expanding upon the stories and character.

Runescape's story is in such a weird position because the people writing it have changed so many times it's hard to have anything really be canon or not. The new developers are doing a great job of really cementing lore down, though. I hope they keep it up so we can get a actual basis of what the hell Runescape lore really is.

The thing with Torva/Pernix/Virtus is literally nothing is known about them, they really don't have characters. So the door is more or less completely open to do whatever you want with them. I may consider getting more complex with the other two, though that would be weird when you compare those stories to the Torva one, but eh.

I'm sure Poller4 is a decent writer (that doesn't mean I'm going to consider him a decent human being after his imposing 'everything by wow sucks ur deaf if u listen to them only lord of the rings is good'), but if I ever read anything by him, it would be with an open mind.

06-Apr-2013 01:07:15

Azigarath

Azigarath

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Thanks for taking the time to reply to my feedback in detail. I can understand how RuneScape fits very well with your story, and in fact your story is written much better than the official lore, but the initial point I am trying to make is that it's ok to go beyond what RS decrees. Like, let's say the demons changed their mind and killed the mages and their leader, then that'd be an open rebellion against what is created by JAGEX. In this means, there is creation, not too much recreation.

I apologize for nit picking, but whenever I make a critique, I often feel that I did not do it fully. I am competitive with myself, so often I try to get, quite literally, almost everything to comment on just for the sake of not feeling inadequate after completion. Guess I should relax.

To the best of my knowledge, twitching occurs when the nervous system or brain is damaged. So, if you broke your spine, and your body produced its natural painkiller, later on you would feel the pain and start twitching. The ribs, guts, and other inner organs do not directly connect to the nervous system, so, in my opinion, it would not cause twitching. It could make one thrash about, of course.

''(This is before he's a God, by the way. In fact, no Gods are even in the story :V)''
Lol, woops...

''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.''
Ah, I would never have imagined that.

Thanks for that, Level. I will admit the review was really long, but, like I mentioned above, I feel less about myself when my feedback doesn't feel whole or complete. I should have known better than that since this is Ghon's debut. And yes, I did assume Ghon was a person who wanted to be an author for life, and yes it was wrong of my to assume so. And I just read he is working on a novel; I comment in the real-time, because, well, then I can be proven wrong better.

06-Apr-2013 01:33:36

Azigarath

Azigarath

Posts: 9,271 Rune Posts by user Forum Profile RuneMetrics Profile
Just like Level said, Ghondar, you're free to disregard things in my feedback, I did mention in the end it was ok to disagree with me as I do not claim to always be correct. But I'm not too important, the best thing to do is to do everything your own way.

06-Apr-2013 01:33:44

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