Arashi-chan Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 This is the feedback topic for my story. Any comment and help will be VERY appreciated. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shuuda Posted January 22, 2009 Share Posted January 22, 2009 (edited) 1) Infodump prologue. I want a story, not a history lesson. A good writer will let the world reveal itself throughout the course of the story, in a natural way. Writing a waste of time opening explaining all about the history of the world is a bad idea. Please refer to these for more information: - http://limyaael.livejournal.com/146318.html (On prologues) - http://limyaael.livejournal.com/186438.html (On avoiding infodumping) 2) Since the king never had a legitimate heir, the people of that country convinced the Holy Woman to help them and she was crowned Queen a year after. Hmm... and didn't anyone intelligent oppose this? After all: Healing powers =/= political knowledge. I have a hard time taking his heal figure seriously in general; she sounds far too cliché and easy to imagine being a Mary-Sue. The Queen made a court with the seven people she trusted the most, and gave them powers that were beyond human understanding. So wait: one minute, this character has healing powers; the next, she has powers which were not even mentioned. 3) The Court then decided to take over her place and run the country. Their rule was despotic and they used their powers to silence everyone who opposed them. Ah yes, here we go with the typical evil government. Don't you think that it is a bit of an eye rolling cliché? The Mary-Sue queen gets replaced with a bunch of tyrants. (Thus proving just how great that queen was.) 4) The people live in the big cities of Cobalt (the coldest city, also has lots of green areas) Putting the description of the city in brackets is not necessary. 5) Also, if you want to include a character into this story, please send me a PM (not a post, a PM, please) with a bio of your character (Name, age, appereance, personality, city where he/she lives, magic abilities of they have one (just nothing Mary Sue-ish, please), and a small bio). This is the first time I'm doing this, and I know it won't be easy, but I will do my best. Alert! Bad Idea Alert! Alert! Bad Idea Alert! Alert! Bad Idea Alert! Alert! Bad Idea Alert! And so on... Never, under any circumstances should you ask other people to create character for you. Especially if they have no in-depth knowledge on the lore of this world (And no, your infodump prologue is not nearly enough). At the end of the day, only the writer knows enough about the world at this point to know what character names, jobs, culture is like. If you let other people create characters, you will no doubt run into these problems: - Character names and job (and other stuff) that are inconsistent with the culture of where said character comes from. For example, Lyle (no offence to him) coming from a place which draws inspiration from Africa (where all the other characters will have African styled names) This is without a doubt the worst part of forum member insertion: there will be no consistency in the names and culture, thus ending with crap world-building. - Although you discourage Mary-Sues, that is not enough to stop the flow of crap characters being made. Where fantasy falls to wish fulfilment, it falls like a freaking ton of bricks. (remember that) - Silly names. Whenever I read some of the script-fics around here, I laugh at all the stupid names (Branded, Yogurt, Hexblade etc) Please refer to this for more information on the importance of character names: - http://limyaael.livejournal.com/171056.html Good luck in the future. Edited January 22, 2009 by Shuuda Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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