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Post by melcaroni on Apr 26, 2016 8:57:03 GMT
Now that there's a good amount of my writing on this site, I figure I might as well use this section for some critique. Don't worry about harshness or whatever because I don't really care-- In fact it's probably better to be harsh in case I don't realize how bad I'm doing. Anyways, if anything strikes you, feel free to mention it, but for starters, I'll put up some of my work I'd like critiqued. IN THE LINE OF FIRE1. Melody Posts [Kokoro Shine]I picked out this post because I think it's the one I'm the most iffy about out of my recent Melody posts. I do like it, but it's a LOT of focus on Melody and NPCs rather than any characters, and I didn't want it to get boring. Even so, I'd like to know how to keep scenes like this engaging, so I can have more exposition writing without having to worry about reader engagement. Points of Critique: - Text conversation; engaging or time-wasting? - Length/pacing; where/when do you feel yourself feeling "okay get on with it" - Melody; is she coming across sympathetic or whiny? 2. Pinhead Posts [HIM2DWAB]I feel right now that Pinhead is sort of my weakest character I'm currently writing, and I'd like to find ways to change that. I'm not sure I can put my finger on what I think is wrong with him, but I think the main thing is that he's not really interesting or entertaining enough. My intention with Pinhead was to make a more jaded, beyond-his-years kid who's been in this messed up reality for way too long, but I think either I didn't pull it off well or the character just came out bland. Either way, I'd like to know what you guys think. - Humor; is the dialogue/writing entertaining or dry? - Character; is Pinhead interesting/entertaining or just a time waster? - Too fucked up, not fucked up enough? 3. Gary Stuart [HIM2DWAB]This one's a lot simpler; I mostly just wanna know how funny this (and other Gary posts) are. Gary is the character that by far I've gone the most balls-to-the-wall nuts with and I'd definitely like to know if he's working as a character or if I'm just throwing nonsense at the reader and nothing is sticking. Might be subjective but hey, I'd definitely like to know how to improve. I feel he can be better, though personally I do have a blast writing him. - Humor/Pacing; Is the writing consistently entertaining/engaging, or is it only amusing me? - How could it be funnier? - Does the joke get old at any point? Is there any confusion about what the joke is?
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Post by Clairamarata on Apr 26, 2016 20:10:55 GMT
I just wanted to give my two cents on Gary. I'd like to make it clear first of all, that I am not a fan of "balls to the walls" humor. I have never been a big fan of it, I have a very specific type of humor. That said, I do feel like I can at least point out why it's never worked for me, and maybe how that can help. But I'll the issues I found with your post:
One of the biggest issues I can see here is that it's just joke after joke, with no refrain or rest. You're throwing a slew of information at the reader. Humor needs a lot of pacing to it to be funny, so you need to give them spikes of humor, and rests so they can process the information. Here it's just fast-paced information throwing constantly.
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Within the main joke, there's a bunch of sub-jokes... Well, not jokes, but more so bizarre factors. Such as plunging his heart into his chest and fish grim reaper. Neither of those two things are normal, but they're an attempt to make things more bizarre. (Let's remember that bizarre doesn't mean funny.)
This is actually disadvantageous. Let's take something bizarrely funny. In The Disaster Artist, Greg Sestero describes a symbol on Tommy Wiseau's car: The sign of the zodiac killer, something odd that you don't see every day. Anyone reading the book knows that Tommy Wiseau is some weird eccentric dude that really could fit the image. You know he's not, so the idea of something so fitting on Tommy Wiseau's car gets a chuckle. (I've described it weirdly, but it's a naturally funny thing, especially when narrated by a nervous sounding Sestero.)
Leading us to moments like the heart/dying and stopping the grim reaper thing. This isn't inherently funny, it's just the character DOING things. What would be funnier, most likely, is the idea of him trying to do it, and failing spectacularly. Especially since, for a ridiculous character, you can see them attempting to do it. But actually doing it is a different story than trying and failing, as the latter generally elicits more of a funny "what a silly guy, he's so weird!" response than him just being able to do anything.
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Mind you this is all subjective, and I could be completely off the mark even, but there's just a level of "This is a bit TOO absurd to be funny to me." I'd heavily suggest thinking of a way to make a suburban white male with a fish pond and a strange eccentricity funny without just having him do wacky things. I know the purpose of the RP was to allow things like that, but in terms of humor quality, I actually find it to be a bit of a handicap.
Hopefully this mess sort of helps?
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Post by melcaroni on Apr 26, 2016 20:23:12 GMT
It does help! I worry that exactly what you're describing happens when I write Gary, so this is really helpful. I think you're right-- There's not really enough "joke" and the bizarre isn't enough to carry it. So this was good, thanks.
i mean i said all this in discord chat already but
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Post by ramenigma on Jun 28, 2016 13:48:21 GMT
MelodyThe first thing to note about Melody is that by herself she's fine, but she really shines when she is paired with a character that's far more... intense than she is. She's a natural tsukkomi, and luckily she's surrounded by boke's!
However, this comes at a cost. And that's that there are only so many ways one can react to another character with shock and horror and be entertaining. In that sense, while it isn't an issue yet, I can see Melody losing something of her "spark" if she continues down her current path. I'd recommend varying her reactions from momentary shock and anger, to maybe rolling it into something more. Maybe it might be fun to see it become a more vocal, explicit rage? Maybe it might be better to have her slowly pile up these instances into her boiling point? Or maybe you might want to have her get more introspective; have her explore why strangeness and terribleness is attracted to her? Who knows! But slightly shifting away from the current "no no no no" reaction could do wonders in the future!
Furthermore, I think it's definitely to your advantage to try and have Melody interact with as many characters as possible. As a reactionary character, the comedy and general fun of her personality is in how she sees different characters and what seeing what her summation of their characters are. Try and interact with more sane characters to make the weirder ones impact more. Or at least surface sane seeming characters. Also, utilize Shigeru some more since their relationship has quite a bit of potential in it.
Now to address your three points of concern. Firstly, I find the writing style of Melody's posts engaging and enjoyable. However, you have a bit of a habit of repeating certain phrases which don't seem too bad at first glance but add up over time. Melody's soul and repeated no's, for example, are utilized quite a bit. In fact, there are quite a few running jokes which could easily become overly used if not careful. Melody's weight and financial situation, for example. Not to say you shouldn't use those. But make sure to be careful with them. The length of the posts are fine, from where I'm standing. What helps is that they do actually vary in size. So a long one may be followed by a short one.
I don't find Melody either particularly sympathetic or whiny. Rather, I think she's more like the common trope you see in British comedy of a character who's everything is awful for and that's why it's funny. They're not really sympathetic, because you don't want their suffering to stop. (Though giving them a few hope spots is a good idea.) But it's not like the reader actively dislikes them. Still, if you want to make them actively sympathetic you may want to have a few more scenes displaying her inner feelings in a way that actively contrasts to her standard irritation. That being said, a concern regarding whininess is Melody's usage of snark. The issue with a character that is too snarky or sarcastic is that they can easily become grating, if not handled right. Melody has a lot of moments where she's sarcastic, so take care not to make her seem like she's fully capable of actually landing "hits" on other characters. At least not ones that will last. If a character bemoans their situation, but they seem to be in a position of power over the other characters, they can easily seem whiny. Carefully maintaining her loser status is the key to what makes Melody fun, I think.
PinheadI feel Pinhead's got a good concept, but he's not really being used to his full potential. The main issue is that really most of Pinhead's struggling to craft an individual identity outside of the whole being jaded thing. A lot of what he says doesn't really require him to be, well, what he is. If you changed him from a kid whose lived in the world for a long time to, say, a grizzled guy with a gun who's just been plopped into the world... Not much of his dialogue would have to be changed. What I mean is that his actual concept isn't really reflected in his words and actions. Furthermore, another reason he may be seen as potentially bland is that not much of what he says is particularly specifically relevant to the situation. Nothing's really a reaction to the current situation. This seems to mainly stem from a lack of emotional range to Pinhead. What's important to note is that a jaded character doesn't necessarily have to be constantly grizzled and grumpy. Amusement, relaxation, sadism, sadness, even possibly fear can all be felt without necessarily feeling acute distress or happiness. I think slowly bleeding in more and more feelings into the character could definitely help to making him more interesting.
But most importantly there are no hints to Pinhead's inner self, more or less. Pinhead doesn't really show any thoughts or feelings, demonstrate any real strong likes, seem to have any fears or particular wants... Just giving glimpses into how he thinks would really improve how interesting Pinhead is.
As for the points you wanted looked at, I find that Pinhead's dialogue (while occasionally entertaining) tends to be rather dry. Admittedly, I dislike snarky/sarcastic humour, generally, but I feel that with Pinhead what makes these particular instances dry and not as amusing as they could be is the fact that he seems to be stuck in "T_T" mode and the fact that it never seems to come from a genuine place. He's not making a remark because he's affected in any way by the event/action, nothing really makes me think he cares. Rather, he's just chiming in for chiming in's sake.
As for fucked up levels... I'd say not fucked up enough. I feel that if you're aiming for darkly horrifyingly humorous, nothing's stuck out to me as "oh god. i can't believe you've done this."
Anyway, point is, just keep doing what you did in your last Ep 1 post since none of this feedback applies to that one. But the rest it does. I think.
Gary Stuartdave pretty much summed up any critique i could have given so yaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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