11/15/12
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist (MOC (OCs)
[“Hold on a sec, I need my jacket,” I stopped Theo]
Dialogue is written as “Hello,” she said or “Hello!” she said, never “Hello.” She said or “Hello.” she said or “Hello,” She said or “Hello” she said. The only exception to this is if the next sentence doesn’t contain a speech verb, which is a verb describing how the dialogue is said. In that case it’s written as “Hello.” She grinned, never “Hello,” she grinned or “Hello,” She grinned or “Hello.” she grinned. Note that something isn’t a speech verb just because it’s a sound you make with your mouth, so generally stuff like laughed or giggled is in the second category. Furthermore, if you’re breaking up two complete sentences it’s “Hi,” she said. “This is it.” not “Hi,” she said, “this is it.” or “Hi,” she said “this is it.” And if you’re breaking up a sentence in the middle, it’s “Hi. This,” she said, “is it.” The same punctuation and capitalization rules apply to thoughts, except you don’t use quotation marks with thoughts.
This is competently written, but it’s incredibly slow. I’m assuming you meant this chapter to be building suspense and establishing their characters, but it simply isn’t interesting enough. You’re spending long chunks of time on exactly what music your character listens to.
[“Well, it’s supposed to be kind of like that…only it’s based on the real world,” Theo tried to explain. When all he got in reply from me was a blank stare, he went on. “Almost like… Alright, when you play the Sims—not that I’ve ever played it—you create your own avatar, who lives in some made-up city in the game universe. But with this new game, you play as yourself…and you can connect with friends, who play as themselves… And you live in your own house, in your own town—like, Downingtown, Chester Springs, Exton; it’ll all be in there. And you have the power to do pretty much anything you want with the game’s environment.”]
This, for example, is perfectly good. Everyone already knows what Sburb actually is, but it’s good to establish what the characters think of it. But this is only appearing more than halfway through a long chapter – you spent the actual opening discussing in extensive detail that your main character’s friend takes a long time in the bathroom.
The knife attack starts interesting, but as soon as he shows his super dodging skills and lack of shock it’s clear that it’s not as dangerous a situation as it’d seem, and then it just turns out to be sibling strife, which…under a lot of circumstances, something you’d need to establish, but it’s kind of ground already tread in the comic. You didn’t need an extended fight scene.
I don’t know if it’s just a style thing that bores me here or what.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch2 (MOC (OCs))
Hm. Well, some tidbits, but I’m still questioning the story structure. Having them hang out at their frog temple was interesting, and I liked the lotus providing the game for their holdout, but you spent so much time on trivial stuff like explaining the drugs. And I’m not sure there’s much point to hearing the dreams – those generally work best when they’re things to speculate on, but either they were mundane things (they’re going to do stuff on Prospit) or they would be intriguing except they have already established answers – a person riding the wind is a Breath player, an angel means someone’s god tiering or possibly just prototyping weirdness. I guess you might be doing some fakeout there, but in general, if something seems like it has an obvious answer, then later it turns out to be something else, it doesn’t change that there’s no real suspense for the leadup.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch3 (MOC (OCs))
[“Still harboring those hard feelings for last year?” she sighed. “Well, I’m not here to talk about that, actually. If you want to live, you’ll listen to what I have to say.”]
Huh, that’s unexpected and intriguing.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch4 (MOC (OCs))
[ They all stared at me in what I could only assume was awe. I mean, I don’t know why they always regarded me so]
Didn’t you just say they usually act very differently and try to avoid him? Or were they still in awe even then?
[“Considering what happened to you, the fact that you’re alive is a miracle of God, let alone the fact that you have no broken bones or fractures. We thought you had slipped into a coma, but…well, you obviously haven’t. We had to dispose of your clothes—they were half burned off, anyway. Your contact lenses had to go, too, I’m afraid.”]
Uh…if his clothes are burned, he’s burned, so he’s going to be in pretty terrible shape even if his bones are fine. Burns are nasty. And if his contact lenses “had” to go it sounds like they were damaged, which in turn means his eyes were damaged, because I can’t imagine what could damage something on his eyes without harming the eyes themselves.
[I’ve never seen a person with eyes that shade of red, before—not even albinos. I know more than a few people who would love to know how you acquired them.]
The issue with red eyes isn’t that they’re an unusual color, it’s that without a degree of pigment in the eye, the nerves don’t develop properly. If you’re going to be letting science get anywhere near this, the problem is blood red eyes simply don’t work with humans. He’d have to have pigment there, and there’s no red pigment. The doctor should be more than bemused. Honestly, if freaking out the doctor here isn’t the whole point, I’d say just don’t give him red eyes, the visual effect is lost in a text medium and it’s one of those things that really don’t stand up well to any scrutiny.
[“I’m keeping you here under observation for a couple days. Your body may have sustained trauma that has yet to surface…your mind, as well.]
If you want him to have miraculously avoided any major injury, you shouldn’t say his clothes were burned. Also, they should be certain brain trauma occurred, because he was unconscious way, way too long. The fact he’s not currently showing any issues should be confusing the doctor further.
[TG: It is a real place
TG: You were on Prospit
AT: yeah, prospit, that’s what it was called. how did you know that?
TG: It’s part of the medium]
Huh. Seems things are proceeding fast with their session.
[AT: well, she tells me that if i didn’t leave before 6th period, i would be a dead man.
CG: …is that why you wanted me to cut school with you?
AT: no, that didn’t even cross my mind, actually. asking you to cut was pretty spontaneous.
AT: i’m just realizing it now with hindsight. but i’m sure that she knew about this.]
That’s rather forced. Even if he didn’t take the message seriously, it’s weird enough to stick in his mind, especially when he’s talking about cutting in the first place. What’s the purpose of him not being motivated by that at all?
[CG: No. You have less time than they do—if you aren’t next on the chain, you’ll run out of time.]
How do they know that? I mean, there is whatever got the warning about the school meteor, but she didn’t seem to know about that, so what other source is there on how long players have?
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch5 (MOC (OCs))
[“Sorry for asking, but I can’t help but notice… Ehm… Why are your eyes appearing violet on my computer screen?”
“Ah,” Cass sounded slightly embarrassed. “Sorry if that disturbs you… I never leave the house without wearing contacts. No one else has seen me without them…”
Now that was definitely interesting. It was also kind of a coincidence, because it was her favorite color. Hell, it was even the color she used for her PalHassle text.]
Eh, this was already done in the comic and it works a lot less well here, for a variety of reasons from how the comic made sure to keep the real world sidelined as much as possible to the fact that text color matters there in a way it really doesn’t in a prose story where everything’s the same color.
I find it hard to believe that once Cass stops messaging him, he’s willing to ignore what’s going on at her house, especially when immediately afterward he’s told that she has only a minute to escape the meteor. Any normal person would be watching her terrified she wouldn’t make it.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch6 (MOC (OCs))
[“Mazel tov, motherfuckers…”]
Oh, clever. I was thinking a wine glass didn’t make much sense as an entry item.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch7 (MOC (OCs))
[CG: Well… I mean, I prototyped my kernel with my Hungarian Horntail sculpture, but a dragon is a bit different than an eagle.
CG: A dragon is sentient, mythical. There is a personality associated with it.
CG: Eagles are birds. Birds are…well, they’re birds. You won’t get much help from a bird.]
Harry Potter dragons are regular if scary animals – they’re sentient in the same way a bird is. Unless the idea is that general mythology wins out over the particular, but it’d really be less of a headache to just say it’s a dragon statue rather than specifically a brand of dragon that isn’t intelligent. And Rose’s FAQ should have explained that you don’t need a sapient prototyping to get a sapient sprite, given she used her cat.
…huh. So, his dreamself is murdered already, and also, somehow it was rushed over to his house as soon as he entered? Seems a bit contrived. Also, that means a lack of Prospit, which is disappointing.
[ From the chest-up…the Sprite was me, despite being composed of glowing red energy. It had my face, my neck, shoulders, arms…but then it all morphed into the feathered body of an eagle, and then into the bottom wisp of the Sprite, composed entirely of energy. I could see glowing red wings bristling from the Sprite’s back.]
Ugh, I was hoping that when I referenced prototyping it was just a hypothetical thing. In addition to this fic spending far too much time on setup in general, it’s drawing an awful lot off the specific events in the comic. If I wanted to read more about a red-eyed kid raised by a sibling to be great with bladed weapons who ultimately gets a sprite that’s half bird and half him, there’s plenty of fic that’s about actual Dave and not a knockoff version of him.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch8 (MOC (OCs))
[CA: and when i saw u in the clouds u werent glowin red dude
CA: and ur dream self aint fuckin dead either so]
So the dreamself is from the future, which I guess is reasonable, and looks like he’s going to be god tiering in addition, so more like some fusion of Dave and Jade, which is really just compounding the issue.
Ashes to Ashes, Grist to Grist Ch9 (MOC (OCs, WQ))
[Knight of Force]
Seems to be manifesting exactly like Breath so far, and I’m not sure how else it can differ – breath allows you to push things around with air, which is universal enough.
This still hasn’t really pulled away from the problem that there’s very little original information despite the length of your chapters. WQ’s explanations here are certainly relevant to the characters, but they’re recapping already known features of the game and not in a way that’s entertaining or adding anything new for the reader. And your OCs continue to have a really muted response to the game itself, so there’s nothing new to be gotten from their reactions, either. I mean, she explains that her kingdom is sacrificing everyone to buy them time, and all he can manage is “That was some pretty heavy shit to just get laid down on me on the first meeting” and then he goes right on to asking what his title means?
…and okay, so apparently force somehow also translates to fire, as well as mastering it almost instantly. I’m still not seeing the need for it.
[I’m sorry I tried to kill you back there… I’m just going through some really fucked up mental shit, after what Cass just did to me…]
The question of what’s up with the dreamself is about the only thing that’s really interesting, because it’s the only thing going on that doesn’t have an obvious answer.
This is just a very tedious story.
Wordcount: 47426 Huh, I’ve almost cracked fifty thousand.