Original post by Estok Criticisms are not about identifying the flaws you already know, but the ones you don't know. Anyone else up to writing a self-critique to set up a fair basis for criticisms?
Constructive criticism is not just about identifying previously unknown flaws. It is also about making suggestions for how to remedy flaws, both known and unknown, and not just remedying flaws but also increasing effectiveness and effeciency at achieveing whatever the writer's goals for the piece were. Not to mention just helping the writer understand what the piece makes the audience thing and feel, and complimenting virtues in the piece so the writer knows when they did something good and to do it good like that next time too.
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.
of course. The first thing you need to do is to identify the flaws. In round 1, it was explicit that people are not accepting flaws when they didn't expect them. The ultimate criticisms is to improve. I didn't say that faultfinding is the only components. But it is an essential component.
It is not much I am asking:
Can you show others the flaws in your own entry, so that we can skip the flaws that are already obvious to you.
No reason to defend, this is for you to see what you couldn't.
Well, I was amused that the name Shin just randomly happened to show up in two entries, applied to quite different characters. And I have to wonder if the author realized they had forgotten to include the requisite tattoo - that would have been a nasty surprise. If so, my sympathy.
I really liked the idea of this guy walking around with tons of scrolls strapped to his body like oversized bandoliers. The 'pockets of holding' would also have been good, except it seemed like overkill to give both of these to the same character - one or the other would probably be more effective than both.
Personality-wise he seems quite similar to Aeger in entry 3, however the story purpose of Shin's boring dialogue is less clear than the purpose of Aeger's obstructiveness. I would have like to know more about what Shin's goal in life is and why he is a missionary teacher away from his wife and daughter.
Entry 5 - Kael
I thought Kael seemed like the most attractive of the characters, someone artists would enjoy illustrating and players would enjoy looking at. Although I think he should wash the blood off of his clothes. [wink] Unfortunately he is all looks and no substance. He does not appear to have a goal in life, a personality, or any strong motivation. He has a tattoo that seems to indicate some vague divinity and destiny, but neither he nor we have any idea what it means or why he has it. And we don't care either, since being born with a tattoo is apparently normal in this world if all his siblings were born with their own tattoos. It's mildly interesting that his father gave him to the barbarians to protect him, but the implications and emptional repurcussions of this are not explored.
This entry needed edited a little. A 'hoard' is a pile of loot, while a 'horde' is a band of barbarians. 'Graciously' meanse generously or politely, and is not an appropriate adjective for how one survives a battle. And I laughed out loud when I read the phrase 'extremely awesome' because it was so out of place.
Entry 6 - Micah
A childlike bard searching for a beautiful song to change the hearts of the barbarians; nobly born with a tattoo indicating his forgotten heritage, but orphaned along with another young girl and boy by an overwhelming army of evil creatures. *cough* While the Scarecrow from the wizard of Oz is a fairly interesting character archetype, it was not developed in Micah. There does not seem to be anything unique or interesting about him. I thought it was unlikely that by the time he was 13 he would still have never asked anyone what his tattoo meant, and if his ignorance was the point, the author should have mentioned something about him discovering the meaning during the course of the game. In general the birth, education, and escape of this character all seemed too convenient - there is no conflict, he doesn't have to struggle for anything, he doesn't urgently want anything, and the audience feels no particular emotions when hearing his story.
I also wondered how this entry was related to the introduction of Shai - such an innocent character seems inappropriate to a slaughter and revenge themed game. Was the army of evil creatures supposed to be the same as the barbarian horde? Possibly this entry should have been disqualified for not being written in response to the winning entry of round 1 as per the rules, but I don't think there's clear evidence that there not related, there's just no clear evidence that they _are_ related either.
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.
Original post by sunandshadow Well, I was amused that the name Shin just randomly happened to show up in two entries, applied to quite different characters.
To tell you the truth, the original name of my character was "Kael" [grin]. I was very glad that I changed it, otherwise things would get very confusing right now.
Since I don't particularly feel like working right now, I'll contribute the background and critique to my entry: Chinu-a. I'll outline the work behind the character, both so that you can get a feel of the thinking behind it, and so that you can offer me advice on how to better approach my next piece of creative writing.
Character Concept
The character concept came quite quickly, while I was struggling with writer's block on a techincal paper that I was working on at the start of the week. Since this is my first piece of creative writing for quite some time, I decided to use a cheap trick and loosely base the character of myself. The idea was to throw someone with my personality into the situation where they were raised in an entirely inappropriate setting (such as a blood-thirsty barbarian village), and how that would effect them. Originally the character was much more of a pacifist (and a coward [grin]), but I realised that with that background Chinu-a would not be totally shy of battle. I also thought that my natural shyness would develop into a considerable dislike of a barbarian culture, which is how the whole "lone wolf" personality trait was derived (by the way, Chinu-a means "wolf" in Mongolian).
Since I needed a tattoo with a secret, and I also needed a reason for Chinu-a to stick around with Shai despite being naturally a loner, I decided to link the two concepts together. This also brought about Chinu-a's twin objectives of trying to save his village through Shai, but also prevent his village from being destroyed by Shai, which I thought was a good addition to the character.
Writing
I didn't have a lot of time to write this up, but I planned on spending a couple of hours. Mid-way through the week I wrote the first part ("physical appearance"), but since I was both sick of writing at that stage and just plain sick, I didn't really have the stamina to finish it then. I then budgeted a few hours on the last day before the end of the comp. to finish it off, but I spent most of them researching the Mongolian language for the names (it really is quite fascinating, and the writing is quite beautiful; that's why I made the tattoo a Mongolian word). So I slammed out the entry as you see it, had a lot of fun writing the backstory, did a quick edit, and then was too exhausted to do anything else. While the piece did seem a bit long with the history included in there, my quick check by importing the piece to LaTeX suggested it was about the right length, so I submitted it. I should have thought that writers tend not to use condensed 10pt fonts when calculating their page limits; you live and learn, I guess.
Critique of Piece:
Well, the obvious flaw is that it's too bloody long, but we all know that now [grin]. It's also not really quite long enough to put everything in there that I would like. That's a problem I felt with some of the other entries; there's so much more I would like to have seen included that I suspected the authors were dying to include, but couldn't due to the page contraints (that's also why I feel guilty about submitting so long a piece, sorry everyone!)
The other main flaw is that Chinu-a's character changed a bit from a battle-shy loner to a honourable lone wolf chivalrous knight-type character, and I'm not sure if those two personality elements are blended together well enough in my writing. If I had the chance to re-edit it a few times then I think I could fix this, but you've got to do the best you can with the time available.
A further problem is that the game itself is not very well defined in my piece, but that's really an aspect of the competition that I could not get around. In case you were wondering, my game concept for Shai and Chinu-a is an action-based tactical strategy RPG. Nearly all my game ideas are some horrible mish-mash of genres, I'm afraid [smile].
I also wanted to include the element of player interaction with Chinu-a, so his personality would change depending on how you treat him. However, this is a very hard concept to put into words, and I'm not sure on the best way to do that; it comes across a bit rambly the way I did it. It also beefed up the length of the piece considerably, unfortunately.
I'd also like to describe Shai's reaction to finding out Chinu-a's secret in a bit more depth, since that would be a pivotal scene in the development of both those characters (the other would be stopping Shai from slaughtering the whole of the Guochuun Clan).
Edit: Oh yes, forgot to add this minor nitpick: I'm not sure whether a group of probably illiterate barbarians should have a word as their symbolic tattoo. That's probably a mistake, but the word does look pretty good in Mongolian.
Edit mark 2: Also I forgot to add: there was also meant to be an element of a mentor in Chinu-a, to provide an teacher of mercy to Shai, since I was uncomfortable with the whole "total vengence" theme introduced in the introduction. This might be overloading the character with too many qualities, however.
[Edited by - Trapper Zoid on October 7, 2005 1:23:33 AM]
Pre-writing Audience: Someone browsing a webpage, trying to get an idea of the characters before knowing much about the game or the other characters.
Objectives: 1) To introduce a character fitting the theme of R1E5.Vengeance.
2) To introduce a tattoo that is relevant to the situation
3) To deliver enough information for the viewer, yet maintain a level of mystery for the viewer to discover in the game.
4) To profile the character in a format that is easy for the viewer to compare multiple characters
5) To leave an impression, so that after the viewer has seen it once, he can move on to see other characters yet remembering the gists of this character.
Decisions and Implementations:
1) The theme of R1E5 was a pretty standard feudal type asian setting. The introduction itself had provided no boundary of how large the conflict was. There was also no direct indication of what race Shai was. The idea is that if the game involves only small villages and the deserts and grasslands in between, it might be a bit dull. Therefore, since Shai is a character from a villager, the other character can be from the cities. By introducing a second data point, the landscape of the game is defined: The conflict as the player sees begins in a small village, as the player (Shai) traces the root of the problem, the player approaches closer and closer to places that are seemingly peaceful. To increase the dimension of the setting, a second character is created in a seemingly peaceful setting in the city. By doing so, the dimension of the story is transformed to include the transformation of Shais' view on the conflict. The implementation is to produce a second character so that a spectrum can be defined to transform the characters. One from the village against the effects, one from the city against the cause.
2) The theme of the game was vengeance. If there is significant symbol, such as a tattoo, it should related to the theme. For the two anchor points, Shai is the impulsive, immediate end, and the second character is at the calm, grand visional end. If vengeance is at the impulsive end, what is the corresponding form on the other end? Shai's children are dead. The second character can have the parents killed. But is it still vengeance after it is transformed? The tattoo has to reflect this meaning--the transcended form of vengeance, passing from one generation to the next. The reactive emotion would be long gone, replaced by the freedom to choose to take action. When a reaction transforms into a voluntary action, what has revenge become?
3) The idea was to deliver enough information to induce mystery such that after the viewer had read the profile, the viewer is inclinded to discover more in the game. This profile uses simple contrasts to shape the mystery: red and white, death and living, father-daugher, the peaceful arts and the martial arts; as well as the subtle contrasts: an inheritance of position that is not clearly joyful, an upper class unmarried woman with a best friend in the lower class, and the message received at the end of the scene.
4) To profile the character in a format so that other characters can be easily compared. This is done by simply listing the characteristics after they were discribed.
5) A scenery has the property of leaving impressions. So a scenery is presented first, followed by a summary of information presented, and additional informations. When the viewer read the list after reading the scene, the viewer should be mentally confirming that the list was making sense for this character:
"The name of the character is Ichiwa." "yep, I think I know that." "Her age is 33." "That sounds reasonable." "She is a senator." "I didn't read this from the scene, but I know that she seemed upper class. 33 is a little young." "She is also a secret leader." "Is that what the message is about?" "Her father was a senator who had died." "That explains the passing and coming leaves." ...
The effect is to create an echo in the viewer, so that when the viewer reads it, he is also thinking about the descriptions with a reference. And the reference is the beginning scenery.
Hit/Miss
1) In terms of setting (time period) this is probably a hit, but otherwise, there is not enough indication for the viewer to understand the relationship between Ichiwa and Shai. Most people will not expect a contrasting character of the same theme. They will think that they are simply unrelated.
2) Because the theme is vengeance and the second character respresents another point on the same spectrum. It is also not easy to expect the viewer to see the relationship.
3) Information-wise is on the low end. Very low end. Double-diet. This will only make sense if the you understand that the viewer will be viewing more than one profile. It is unclear whether the mystery can be delivered. For example, How many people smell romance in the profile?
4) The list is clear, but some of the fields are deprived of details, espeically the fields traits and appearance. There was no motive to have exotic hair or eye colors. It is a tradeoff between the ease to compare and descriptional details, and it is on the low end of details to a point that even if you compare the characters, there isn't much to compare. In the context of this profile, the goal cannot be presented, because the audience is a potential player, so it is classified.
5) Impression favors scenic description and short profiles. The design of the character name also summarized the scenery as a token. The question lies on whether the scene itself is effective to imprint characterization, tone, and emotional subconsciously. In this case, the writing of the scene needs to be intensified about 5 times. The current scene is skipping frames. And the focus can be more concentrated on the character being profiled.
Other Flaws:
A) Relation to Shai The profile can have some more indicators on how the character is introduced in the game. The problem is, this is not the kind of information one would try to find when reading a profile the first time. These information are more related to some hint page or walk through. By including these informations, the profile itself takes a toll on immersion. So the question is how to introduce such information without reminding the viewer too much that it is a game, that the characters aren't really characters but if-then statements that sits at a location waiting for the player to trigger. Holistically, the relation favors a meta-description outside the domain of the profile. For example, you can present each character with their hometown, and provide an overall map of the world. Based on these, the viewer will understand approximate when the player will meet the character, without the profile explicitly telling the viewer mechanically.
B) Details The scene is missing many frames
1. The initial scenery can be lengthened by at least two lines. 2. A missing line that indicates that there is a woman playing music 3. The music itself is missing two blocks. In general, four blocks conveys completeness. 4. A missing pause between the end of the music and the slapping of the string 5. A missing line that clarifies that the seal is a tattoo and that it is not on the sleeve, but on the lowerarm. 6. A missing line that looks at the face of the character, preferably in the music 7. A couple missing lines on the dropping of the blood 8. A missing line where the character ties another message to the falcon
This entry had the same problem as entries 1 and 3, but to a greater extreme - it posed questions about the character instead of answering those questions to describe and develop that character. As in entry 6, this character seems too childlike and comical (with her giant scythe and book attacks) for the theme of slaughter and revenge. And I really have to wonder about 'the love Airre left behind' if she's only in her mid-teens.
I did like her name and the description of her clothing, although her tattoo seemed merely cosmetic, lacking any interesting symbolism or function. The book is a fun idea (although as I said above I wasn't sure how well it fit with the prompt). Her personality is a common type - mildly agreeable, but the only thing that might make her a distinct individual, the reason for her exile, is not described.
The Life Orchid and Arbor Grand stuff is, like the flightlands in entry 3, a cool concept but largely irrelevant to the character. Also I wondered why an organization all about meditation and life would be particularly good at training soldiers. It seemed unlikely to me that Airre, a small young innocent female who seems to have a scholarly bent since she's always reading/writing in the book, would be a good fighter.
Entry 8 Chinu-a
I liked the idea of one of the barbarians on Shai's side and ashamed of his barbarian heritage. A clan symbol is a fairly stardard type of tattoo, but it works well here because of its importance to the plot. A stammer is also a good trait which helps him seem unique. And I liked the gameplay aspect of Shai's responses encouraging or discouraging his self-confidence.
There were only two things I doubted in this piece - it seemed unlikely that Chinu-a would be willing to kill his opponents in battle unless he knew them and thought they were bad people, and it seemed unlikely that he would want to redeem his tribe if the only one he had liked, his mentor, had been murdered. He is described as feeling quite alienated from the tribe as a child, so I doubt he would want to rejoin it.
Anyway I thought this entry did a solid job of describing the character's personality, motivations, and how these would develop over the course of the game, although the entry lacked some of the pure creativity and intriguing ideas of some of the other entries.
(skipping 9 because I'm saving it for last)
Entry 10 - Chiba, Ichiwa
This entry was short and did not contain a lot of information about the character, her goal in life and motivation, her relation to Shai, or exactly what the significance of the shed blood making the seal rotate was. I also thought it seemed unlikely (although not impossible) that a senator of an imperial court could have an unadorned, simple, natural appearance - imperial courts of all types generally favor elaborate clothing as an indicator of rank.
In general I did not feel like I knew the character or had a reason to empathize with her.
Entry 9 - Anahata
This is my entry, if you didn't guess. [wink] I'll attempt to comment on it too, although I doubt my assessment will be completely fair.
So. The first thing is, this entry is a character introductory scene, not a character profile. I only noticed this after I had submitted it (doh) and I spent a nervous night wondering whether it would be disqualified for that. Fortunately it wasn't. What happened was, I wanted to develop my idea from the first round about the organization of people who attempt to create justice because the universe doesn't naturally have any. Also, from other posters' comments I concluded that the wings and the old monk were the two most popular elements in the losing entries of the first round, so I figured I would give them a second chance to get into the game by including them in my second round entry.
At any rate, I started out writing an encyclopedia entry thing about the organization and the 7 tattoos for the 7 different chakras, but it was so damn dry and boring! o_O Also since I had mine and 5MG's first-round entries strongly in my mind I instinctively wanted to write something that matched their cinematic/script style. And meanwhile I was typing as fast as my little fingers could go to get the entry in before the deadline. So, without noticing that it was probably slightly against the rules, I found myself imagining a scripted scene/FMV where Master Anahata's character was explored through Shai's first impressions of him and his analysis of and advice to Shai. Master Anahata's character was largely based on my reaction to 5MG's introduction of Shai and the theme of revenge, as well as my fruitless attempt to explain the teacher's character and the Aristarchy's philosophy in my round one entry. I thought people might understand it better if I put it in the more familiar of eastern chakra magic.
It was pure luck on my part that some quick googling turned up that description of the Anahata chakra which not only fit with the philosophy I was trying to convey, but conveniently was associated with the element air, which went nicely with a tattoo of wings, and even made a pleasant-sounding character name. That's also why the wing tattoo was green, while I had originally envisioned it as black.
Oh, I'm supposed to be finding flaws here, huh? Well, there are some tense shifts, from present to past and back again. And a missing close parenthesis. >.< Things I can only hope I would have caught if I'd had time to edit. Also it might have made more sense to use the Chinese name for the chakra rather than the Sanskrit one, but I really wasn't sure what ethnicity Shai was supposed to be or where the game was supposed to be set - seemed like it could be pretty much anywhere in primitive Northern or Central Eurasia.
And just like I criticized in many of the other entries, we really have no knowledge about Anahata's past or what his motivation and goal in life are. But at 1025 words I was somewhere near the maximum length already, I didn't have another 500 words to spend exploring him, so I'm not really sure how I would have done this differently if I had it to do over again. Maybe cut a paragraph out of their argument, since it went on a little too long, and stick another two paragraphs of actual character profile at the beginning with the Chakra stuff or maybe at the end instead.
But, for all that the chakra stuff is a bit cliche and it was written in a 2 hour mad dash, I'm pretty happy with how it came out. [smile]
[Edited by - sunandshadow on October 7, 2005 6:51:53 PM]
I want to help design a "sandpark" MMO. Optional interactive story with quests and deeply characterized NPCs, plus sandbox elements like player-craftable housing and lots of other crafting. If you are starting a design of this type, please PM me. I also love pet-breeding games.
Good timing that I was checking this thread at the same time as someone was commenting on my writing!
Quote:
Original post by sunandshadow I liked the idea of one of the barbarians on Shai's side and ashamed of his barbarian heritage. A clan symbol is a fairly stardard type of tattoo, but it works well here because of its importance to the plot. A stammer is also a good trait which helps him seem unique. And I liked the gameplay aspect of Shai's responses encouraging or discouraging his self-confidence.
Thanks. Those points were the ones I thought were good too. And I really like gameplay influencing the paths of all characters in a story based game, so I had to put a bit of that in there too.
Quote:
There were only two things I doubted in this piece - it seemed unlikely that Chinu-a would be willing to kill his opponents in battle unless he knew them and thought they were bad people, and it seemed unlikely that he would want to redeem his tribe if the only one he had liked, his mentor, had been murdered. He is described as feeling quite alienated from the tribe as a child, so I doubt he would want to rejoin it.
A very good point, and probably something I should have commented on. The original version of the character concept (when it was still in my head) would not kill anyone, and was more of a mentor (and about a couple of decades older). But I realised that this caused a problem with the time frames; the barbarians would have been rampaging for ages by then, and that didn't really fit with the story. So I toned down the character somewhat to the version in the entry, but that weakened his position as a mentor character.
The second point I should have included Chinu-a's motivation in the entry, but if I were to step into Chinu-a's boots, I'd think he'd say that although he doesn't like his tribe, they are still his tribe and his clansmen, and his family. He'd prefer it if they were redeemed rather than destroyed, even though he doesn't really like them that much.
Now I read through my explanation I'm not it's still that clear [grin]. It's a bit hard when designing a character you flesh out the skeleton of an entire storyline and game world in your head and then try to capture a snapshot of it to explain to other people.
Quote:
Anyway I thought this entry did a solid job of describing the character's personality, motivations, and how these would develop over the course of the game, although the entry lacked some of the pure creativity and intriguing ideas of some of the other entries.
That's true; I think that my character is a little bit cliche, but I guess I felt the introduction provided was a bit more real world than fantasy, so I decided to go with a somewhat believable character. Even so, he is a bit of the stereotypical "lone wolf with a heart of gold" type. It's so hard to avoid those cliches, isn't it? By the way, is the way this thing works is that we give our opinion of all the pieces for discussion, or do we only provide feedback by request?
[Edited by - Trapper Zoid on October 7, 2005 2:10:36 AM]
