Critique requested!
Will do!
NeoGAF Creative Writing Challenge #91 - "Unbound"
- Thread starter Cyan
- Start date
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Will do!
Congrats, Ashes!
All: thanks for the crits. Overall, the idea I got from everyone was that it sounds like maybe I had an idea going, but needed to flesh out the execution. Word.
Grakl, could I get a crit? I might jump on Cyan's bandwagon and try to work on mine as well. Which feels like an insane idea, but hey!
All: thanks for the crits. Overall, the idea I got from everyone was that it sounds like maybe I had an idea going, but needed to flesh out the execution. Word.
Grakl, could I get a crit? I might jump on Cyan's bandwagon and try to work on mine as well. Which feels like an insane idea, but hey!
Yep. Gosh darn it, I forgot to finish the other two. I can't make promises any more, but I know they'll all be here by tomorrow. I'll post them in this thread.
Following the same crit style as last time I did em. Positives, negatives, single thing that'd most improve the piece.
Puddles - "Exodus"
+
There's a resonance and power to Biblical stories. Using them gives you a power boost, but also raises the bar for what you're doing. I like that choice here.
I like the gritty, almost brutal feel to the story. Because it's unusual to see that juxtaposed with the Bible, it feels fresh to me.
Solid detail-work. Stuff like the bronze weapons, the Earth Spirit bit, carving blocks for the temple of Horus. Minor stuff that makes it all feel grounded in reality.
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"the soldiers' wives being fucked." Too much into the grittiness. Aaron isn't a soldier or a hard-boiled detective; "fucked" doesn't ring true to me.
I'd be careful of names with too much resonance. You mostly avoided naming Moses, which I think was the right choice. I'd excise him from the one place you did mention him, as well. "Your brother" or "my brother" is fine; we know exactly who that is. Related, but different: Memphis. Totally the wrong resonance, regardless of historical accuracy. Deep South is not what you want to evoke here.
This God feels more Voldemort than Yahweh. The powerful, uncaring God fits for the OT, but the last bit doesn't work for me. "the whisper becomes a scream." To me, that says high-pitched, which says fear, weakness. A powerful, confident Yahweh doesn't scream, He bellows, or roars, or thunders. Unless the inferences from "scream" were intentional, you might wanna change it.
Single thing that'd most improve it:
The two parts feel disconnected to me. If they're just two parts of an ongoing narrative, I'm not sure why you split the POV. It really feels like there should be a thematic connection between the two, and I'm just not seeing it. I suggest either finding a thematic connection and building it up, or if you've got something in mind and I've missed it, strengthening it and making it more clear. I think that would really help; as is, the two pieces don't feel like part of a whole. They don't gel.
Puddles - "Exodus"
+
There's a resonance and power to Biblical stories. Using them gives you a power boost, but also raises the bar for what you're doing. I like that choice here.
I like the gritty, almost brutal feel to the story. Because it's unusual to see that juxtaposed with the Bible, it feels fresh to me.
Solid detail-work. Stuff like the bronze weapons, the Earth Spirit bit, carving blocks for the temple of Horus. Minor stuff that makes it all feel grounded in reality.
-
"the soldiers' wives being fucked." Too much into the grittiness. Aaron isn't a soldier or a hard-boiled detective; "fucked" doesn't ring true to me.
I'd be careful of names with too much resonance. You mostly avoided naming Moses, which I think was the right choice. I'd excise him from the one place you did mention him, as well. "Your brother" or "my brother" is fine; we know exactly who that is. Related, but different: Memphis. Totally the wrong resonance, regardless of historical accuracy. Deep South is not what you want to evoke here.
This God feels more Voldemort than Yahweh. The powerful, uncaring God fits for the OT, but the last bit doesn't work for me. "the whisper becomes a scream." To me, that says high-pitched, which says fear, weakness. A powerful, confident Yahweh doesn't scream, He bellows, or roars, or thunders. Unless the inferences from "scream" were intentional, you might wanna change it.
Single thing that'd most improve it:
The two parts feel disconnected to me. If they're just two parts of an ongoing narrative, I'm not sure why you split the POV. It really feels like there should be a thematic connection between the two, and I'm just not seeing it. I suggest either finding a thematic connection and building it up, or if you've got something in mind and I've missed it, strengthening it and making it more clear. I think that would really help; as is, the two pieces don't feel like part of a whole. They don't gel.
Was thinking about writing the crits in the new thread, but they probably don't belong there. I'm quoting these because otherwise they'd look bad, haha.
Puddles - "Exodus"
Cyan - "The Box"
These are more critiques are more general than I'd normally give. If you want a critique on a specific paragraph/line or something, ask away.
Puddles - "Exodus"
The imagery of your piece is good, and aptly shows the reader the insanity of the battlefield in ancient times. Your first line is good, and sets the tone for the rest of the story as a victory for the ones that have destroyed the Canaanites. The way you portray your characters are also nothing new, with a hero that is still moral as well as a younger brother to finish the story. I don't know anything biblical, so if these are direct references (other than the obvious Moses), they fly over my head, but I still get the idea.
I question why you didn't directly refer to Caleb as Aaron's brother in the second part. I wasn't really confused, but it still made me actually question who was inside the tabernacle when I should've known immediately who it was.
Your writing, unfortunately, is stiff. I assume the voice you are trying to show the reader is a kind of formal one, and while that is all well and good, it doesn't really come across to me as a particularly interesting one. Again, your imagery is excellent, but the way it is viewed comes across as rather disassociated from reality.
This problem isn't in your dialog, though, which is rather decent, but full of snippets that I've heard in many other stories ("You think to enter my presence," "in return, I shall make you great," “I am not worthy of this task,”
In your last paragraph, you write "this God" as if Aaron questions whether the God exists. This is only a small problem, but unless you expand on it, use "the" instead. He clearly just fears the God.
Exodus was still pretty fun to read, as I don't get much exposure to this genre (historical fiction? I'm not entirely sure). The story is greater than the sum of its parts.
Cyan - "The Box"
Tangent - "I Am" or "Clay"
These are more critiques are more general than I'd normally give. If you want a critique on a specific paragraph/line or something, ask away.
Well, I guess I was confused then! Oh man, haha. No problem.
Man, you really bring up a conundrum, Grakl. You say the dialogue is corny. I was trying to make it sound, well... biblical. Some of those lines are taken more or less word for word from the Old Testament. But they come off as corny today... interesting. I'll have to find a way to work around that.
No, I just meant a couple examples (but specifically the one I gave). Otherwise I can see how your dialog is biblical, and why you have pieces of dialog I've heard before, if they're taken directly from the Old Testament, especially due to its impact on our culture. I haven't read it myself, nor anything Biblical, so it's my fault for that.
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