Concritathon

[indri]

Text pinched from peasant_ and deadsoul820.

This is my post for peasant_'s Concritathon. Anyone who wants to give me public concrit for Descent is very welcome to do so here. Anyone who would rather send the concrit privately, my address is archaeoindri@yahoo.com.

According to the rules of the concritathon:

Concrit is Constructive Criticism. This means that it must point out at least one, preferably more, flaws in the story as well as at least one, preferably more, good points in the story. It must also be written so as to inform the author of your opinion without hurting their feelings.

Ta.

Comments

[gillo]

OK, I’m very late with this, for which please accept my grovelling apologies.

First let me say I loved it – the blurring of the boundary between delusion and reality, (and the two realities of the vampires and the First) the insidious gathering strength of the soul, the way one only gradually pieces together what is happening – even who the woman with the clipboard is. I wasn't 100% sure whether everyone Spike met who we recognised was the First, or if some of them were his delusions because of the weight of guilt. Dunno that it matters really, though. (Is the Buffy he thinks is with him already when she visits him in canon the First or his dream anyway? Dunno about that either.)

But If I have to post some criticisms, I hope you’ll accept these:

He's managing to sit up now, back to the tunnel wall, sitting on his arse and pulling himself along, inch by inch.>/i>

Is this slightly tautologous? Sitting up surely must be done on the arse?

"Go to sleep! It's late, don't you have," he waves, "huts to go to? Go to fucking sleep!"

The break there feels artificial. Personally I’d put it before “Don’t” or after “to?”.

The jeep's down a ways,

Very American wording, or so it seems to me – slight disjunct as the POV has used English slang like “arse” earlier.

The third vamp is armed with a wooden spoon but she seems too angry to use it: she tries to bite and hit him instead as if he were human. She lands a few blows and Spike lands on his backside on the floor, his stake rolling loose from his grasp. He spins away from her only to have the fourth one's fist land on his jaw, sending him flying. The wooden-spoon woman stabs through his chest but misses his heart. He grabs her wrist, pulls her down on top of him like a shield. Spike rolls like this, holding the woman to him, for a good five or ten seconds. By then he's found the lighter in his pocket and has pressed it to her hip. He has to throw her off the instant her skirt sets alight or he'll go up in smoke too. He grabs the spoon from her just as she starts to incinerate and thrusts it into the heart of the fourth. Then he turns to the vamp with the broken neck and kicks off his head.

I feel this lacks urgency, mainly, I think, because the sentences are mostly very similarly structured or of similar length. While nothing but very short sentences is, I think, overdone as a technique to create excitement, they have their function in sustaining pace.

Angelus throws back his shoulders and puffs himself out. "Evil," he says. "You know it makes sense."

Now that is really funny – but is that what you want to achieve just here?

I can only really find niggles to comment on - it really is a very fine piece. Sorry again that it's late.

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

"Go to sleep! It's late, don't you have," he waves, "huts to go to? Go to fucking sleep!"

The break there feels artificial. Personally I’d put it before “Don’t” or after “to?”.

I took it that Spike was going to say "homes to go to", changed his mind, paused briefly and waved in the direction of the huts, and then decided on the "huts" wording and carried on speaking.

[gillo]

I see what you mean. But the pause still *feels* odd - perhaps it needs a clearer break? Or perhaps I'm just too dim to see it right.

It's a wonderful bit of fic, anyway - I'm just being Ms Picky.

Re: Part 2

[indri]

Don't worry about being late! As you can see, I'm only now finding time to reply. Your review is much welcome. I'm glad you enjoyed the story.

To reply to some of your comments:

"sitting on his arse" is indeed a tautology but it's a common one in British English vernacular. As in, "What are you lot doing sitting on your arses when there's work to do?"

"huts"--speakr2customrs has interpreted it as I'd hoped, but it can't be that clear if you stumbled over it. Noted.

"The jeep's down a ways" could well be US English. I've lived in both the UK and the US so I get confused and need these things pointed out. At first I considered using "range rover" instead of "jeep" but I couldn't manage to use it without sounding clunky.

Fight scene urgency, or lack thereof -- you're not the only one to have mentioned this, so it's clearly something I need to look into. Do you know of any good examples of fight scenes I could analyse so I can improve?

"Evil. You know it makes sense." Absolutely I want a laugh here. I think Angelus is funny. And I also want to point out the inanity of the FE's underlying motivation. But that could be my odd sense of humour.

Thank you again! I know how much time these critiques take to do,

Re: Part 2

[gillo]

"sitting on his arse" is indeed a tautology but it's a common one in British English vernacular. As in, "What are you lot doing sitting on your arses when there's work to do?"

Trying to analyse what my problem with it is, I think it's because you've already used "sit up" in the same sentence. And to me the idiom "sitting on your arses" implies being stationary...

Do you know of any good examples of fight scenes I could analyse so I can improve?

None come to mind instantly, but I'll look out for some. Action scenes are tricky in any case. Some of the Harry Dresden fights seem to maintain energy well.

Re: Part 2

[speakr2customrs.livejournal.com]

Fight scene urgency, or lack thereof -- you're not the only one to have mentioned this, so it's clearly something I need to look into. Do you know of any good examples of fight scenes I could analyse so I can improve?

A lot of people have told me that my fight scenes are excellent, especially in "The Cloak of Mist"; those people may be flattering to deceive, but no-one has ever told me that my fights suck. waywardchilde writes fight scenes that are badly marred by lousy grammar and frequent tense slips but otherwise are superb examples of urgency, immediacy, and drama - if he could get over his grammatical problems they'd be about as good as you could hope to read. ffutures is a master of fight scenes. ezagaaikwe has written some excellent fights, choreographing them out with the aid of her husband who was an unarmed combat expert in the US Marine Corps, but her fights are few and far between. The same applies to a few other writers I know who do good fights. With waywardchilde there's a fight every few paragraphs, and they could be a valuable resource if the grammar doesn't drive you mad in the reading.

The best fight scenes that I've ever read are in the "Modesty Blaise" books by Peter O'Donnell.

Re: Part 2

[indri]

Thanks. As soon as I get a moment to breath in, I'm going to post a general request for good fight scenes and emotionally affective texts. I want to see how it's done.

Also, I'll finally respond to Estepheia's thoughtful comments.