Offering Story Feedback

[magerblutooth]

Hello yello! I'm Mager Blutooth, a creative seeking creatives. I've only been in this Tapas community for a few minutes, but I'm hoping to make a good first impression. I was contemplating what kind of service I could offer that would make use of my current skillset, and my conclusion was giving feedback to creators.

I figure I'd start simple by opening 4 slots for any starving artists out there hungry for review and analysis of their precious creations. Comics and novels are both fair game. I've reviewed plenty of both. Though in order to accept multiple requests, I'll need to restrict the length of what I can review for now to 4 chapters maximum. I don't generally need to swallow the whole tree to taste the fruit, and hopefully restricting the length will allow me to be more focused and provide more useful feedback to several different people.

If you would like my feedback, just link your story here in this thread. If you have a specific section of your story you'd like me to analyze, you can tell me that as well. Otherwise, I'll just read the first four chapters (or however much you have written so far). Also, be sure to let me know what difficulty setting you'd like me to use. If none is specified, I will default to Normal difficulty:

Easy - Will mostly focus on the positives, only pointing out major problems.
Normal - Will try to be fair and reasonable, trying to balance praise and criticism.
Hard - Will mostly focus on the story's shortcomings and issues. Will still touch on the story's best qualities.
Intense - Will nitpick every flaw I can find. You have to really impress me to get any praise.

In the interest of fairness, for now I will adopt a first-come first-serve policy for these 4 slots instead of picking the stories that most intrigue me. I look forward to diving into this new sea of creativity. Wish me luck!

CURRENT SLOTS (4/4):
1. jenessamdsilva
2. ivanskilling
3. BLTX
4. vamvsama

[FancyDreamer]

I recently just finished my first novel, and I'm going back and editing to potentially publish it for real. I would love any feedback. I don't really care how hard or not hard you look at it. I'm just looking at things I could change for publication before I present it to a publisher. However, this is a BL story and isn't up everyone's alley, so don't pressure yourself to read this one if it's not your cup of tea. I won't be offended at all if you'd rather not look into it.

Missing Pieces | Tapas

[jonofowkes]

It's my first comic so there are def writing flaws particularly in the first ep. I'd appreciate some hard critique, thanks for the offer

Akomen | Tapas

[thecrystalrook]

shoot, give me the hard review. I'm aware of the obvious short comings in my art and story telling, and I work to improve them with each episode. But I do sometimes need a critical eye to spot things I miss. I've written quite a bit and the improvements become much more apparent as time goes on, but don't feel obligated to read it all.

Space Pirate | Tapas

[magerblutooth]

Awesome! Looks like I've got my first four slots filled. I'll get everyone their feedback as soon as I look through their stories and sort out my thoughts. We'll see how this goes, and hopefully I can help out some other people.

[jenessamdsilva]

Hi, this is my romance, mystery drama novel called The Love She Wanted. I would appreciate some hard critique. Thank you so much.

The Love She Wanted | Tapas

[ivanskilling]

I see that your four slots are already filled but if you're still available for more, I would love a hard review on my murder mystery novel! Thank you for this opportunity!
(The first four episodes are a little on the short side but it gets longer after that)

Devil's Triangle | Tapas

[BLTX]

I'll take the hard review. Also, if you find this before then, the second episode ia coming out on Friday, and I would like critique for both. So feel free to wait to review mine if you want/need to.

DESCRIPTION: Donnie is a psychopathic kid who's been trying to escape his destructive downfall. Having to choose whether to keep trying to better himself, or take the easy way out and go full violent on his country's twisted, and backwards people. For now, he's taking advice from different entities, whether it's his plush toy Libby, his psychotic neighbor AJ, or a masked dream figure known as The Masked Stalkee.

Donnie The Fighting Psychopath | Tapas

[vamvsama]

Hey, thanks for the offer.

I think I will go with the INTENSE difficulty.

So, for when you have the time and one of these slots open...

Here is my story.

In Z Finite (Eng) | Tapas

[magerblutooth]

Okey dokey. Let’s get to work on this feedback job. I've taken some time to look over the first story and organized my thoughts.

Missing Pieces by Fancy Dreamer
Normal Difficulty
Chapters 1.1 to 1.4

Finding a story about an amnesiac struggling to recover identity is like finding a hamburger on a fast food menu. It’s simple enough to arrange the ingredients and make something decent, but because so many exist, it’s much more difficult to have it stand out from all the other restaurants that do the same. A story like this needs to reach out and grab the reader with its own personality, so it's worth focusing on how this story attempts that.

Premise alone, I do see potential on that front. The guy with no memories gets taken in by his therapist, who is also a detective and wants to study him so he can figure out the truth of what really happened. Our guy also appears to be suspiciously in-tune with nature, to an almost supernatural degree, allowing him to pick up on things that normal people miss out on. The forest is strongly tied to his past, and it’s the detective’s job to figure out what that past is. But why is this detective really so eager to invite a stranger into his home and let him stay for over a month just to solve one case? Is he that dedicated to the truth, or is there conspiracy afoot?

I could many interesting stories arising from such a premise. However, once we detach ourselves from the conceptual and get into the more mechanical aspect of this story, things quickly start to lose steam. An amnesiac as a main character can be a major pain, as it can easily result in a “blank slate”, lacking in any personality or opinion. When writing a character like this, you run the risk of creating “Generic Amnesia Man” with no discernible character traits. However, I think Felix runs into the opposite problem. Our main character here inexplicably has too much of his personality intact, to the point where, while reading, I would continue to forget that he lost his memories until it was brought up again. Felix is constantly telling me that he doesn't talk much, yet he's constantly engaging in full conversations without any emotional withdrawal. If I look at the conversations by themselves without any narration, I would conclude that Max and Felix are just two guys who live together, with Max being strangely paternal and controlling.

If you’re unfamiliar with the principle of “show, don’t tell,” it would be my first point of suggestion in terms of re-drafting this story. So many details are told to us through narration, rather than communicated indirectly through action and dialogue. We know Felix is scared because he tells us he is scared. We know he’s confused because he says he’s confused. We know his 6-month rehabilitation was grueling because he told us so. When significant elements like emotions and motivations are told to us so directly, it makes it difficult to care about them. We know them, but we don't feel them. “I was scared” is much less effective than depicting a character’s heart racing as they slowly come to realize that they’re being watched from afar while their train is leaving without them. Showing instead of telling is a bad habit that many can easily fall into when learning the craft, and it’s good to break it early. One exercise that may help you is to try writing from third-person limited POV, where you try to tell a story without peering into anyone’s head. While it’s still possible to ‘tell’ instead of ‘show’ through this POV, it removes the temptation to dump all of the character’s emotions out on the page through narration, since the narrator shouldn’t know how people are feeling. When you write "telly" dialogue, you may be more likely to pick up how unnatural it sounds and reconsider.

I would say the telly narration would be the largest issue with the simplest fix, but there's a more fundamental issue this story has that would need a more thorough analysis to solve. This story fails to distinguish between “plot” and “things happening.” It's a classic "and then" story. Whenever the author includes something, the implication is always that it is significant in some manner, affecting the world, the characters, or the plot. If something happens that proves to have no relevance to anything, the reader will be let down. This is what leads people to ask questions like “Why did the author bother to tell me this?” and “Can the author get to the point already?” If the reader is thinking about the author, they aren’t immersed in the story. That's why this issue is best avoided.

Here’s an example. In chapter 1.4, we get our second breakfast scene, where the MC is wondering whether the pancakes in front of him have chocolate chips or blueberries. He asks his detective therapist which it is, and the answer proves to be chocolate chips. They then proceed to eat their breakfast in silence and we move to the next scene. This scene does not offer new insight into the minds of our two leads, it does not advance the mystery of the MC’s lost memories, and it does not create new plot threads for us to journey down. The only reason I see for its existence is that people normally eat breakfast after waking up, and this is a reasonable interaction that they might have when doing that. Interactions like these can be put to good effect, but only when they service the story, characters, and world. Perhaps after he asks which it is, the MC doesn’t trust his answer, which could lead into a conversation about the trust between our two leads. Or it could be used as a segway into asking something about the MC’s past. “Does the flavor bring back any memories?” “This is the first time I’ve used chocolate chips. Is the taste familiar?”

The name of the game is “cause and effect.” You want your story to feed into itself, so that we can track where the story is going and theorize what might happen next. “Once upon a time I was eating breakfast. Then I went to the store. Then I went to the movies.” This isn’t a story; it’s a list. Intrigue comes from the idea that past actions lead to future consequences. “Once upon a time I was eating breakfast. I noticed the eggs were green. I went to the store to complain and ask for a refund. They told me that complaining about our beloved dictator’s new green eggs was a capital offense and called the authorities. Running for my life, I hid in the movie theater to elude pursuit.” Direction can vary wildly from one story to the next, but having a direction is what’s most important for any of them if your goal is to capture the reader’s attention.

The third point I'd like to bring up is the use of character details to push the story forward. The concept of Felix having this strange connection with nature despite his amnesia is a solid idea that could make a good centerpiece for his characterization. “Something happened to you, and we have no idea what” is a weak starting position, as it gives you no springboard to launch yourself from, so the use of the forest as a connection point provides some foundation. However, we spend too much time beating around the bush with it. By the end of chapter 1.4, it has yet to come to the forefront as a major plot point beyond vague feelings of “something is wrong.” Since the plot isn’t progressing, it’s one of the only things we have to push the mystery or character development, and no one seems to care about it that much. Even Max, who’s supposed to be super-invested in learning everything he can about Felix, doesn’t seem to concern himself with the fact that Felix is ascribing a will to the forest and somewhat obsessively asking to go to it. By the end of 1.4, I feel like I know too much about Felix and not enough about Max.

On the mechanical side of things, the story is mostly stable in terms of its grammar, punctuation, syntax, and the like. There are a few rules you may wish to brush up on, such as capitalization rules with quotations, and a handful of misspellings (fallo instead of follow, quite instead of quiet). But more pressingly, your story could use a healthy dose of sentence optimization. It suffers from a great deal of redundancy, stating the same information multiple times without adding anything new. For instance, the simple sentence “Max didn’t talk to me, but that didn’t bother me.” This sentence could be reduced to “Max didn’t talk, but that didn’t bother me,” removing the double “me’s” without removing any relevant information. Or the sentence “I want to grab a few things before I get the ingredients I need for a stirfry” could be reduced to “I want to grab a few things first”, since at this point in the story we and Felix both already know the reason why they came to the store. These changes may seem tiny, but when they keep happening over and over again, they start to add up and annoy a reader hoping for tighter writing. As a rule of thumb, keep in mind that there aren’t many situations where the reader needs to hear things twice in a row. It’s unnecessary at best, damaging at worst. Your goal should be to deliver the most information using the fewest amount of words.

I imagine that more details about the characters would be revealed if I were to keep reading past the excerpt I analyzed, which is why much of my feedback is directed toward the writing style and how the story could be cleaned up. Aspects like the first chapter starting in the present, then having a flashback, then coming back to the present and ending the chapter indicate a lack of organization. The impression I get is one where the ideas came and were written as they appeared, rather than one with a focus on outlining, planning, and refining ideas. There's an old exercise I was taught that may be of use to you to help understand the benefit of such organization. Draw out your entire story in 16 simple images with no words. Then try it again with your favorite professionally made story. Consider how easy it is to choose what 16 images to draw between the two, and how easy it is to understand what is happening in the two sequences from images alone. If you take those 16 points you chose from your story, use them as key events in your outline and connect them together with relevant connecting scenes. Just like how an animator does with keyframes and in-betweens.

If you're serious about getting this story published, I would strongly consider boiling it down to its core components and giving it a complete overhaul in terms of its structure, trimming the fat and making things more focused. There's nothing stopping a premise like this from working, especially if it's meant to be a romance story. Once you've mastered the basics, you can move towards more advanced concepts like character dynamics, overarching themes, symbolism, figurative language, and the like. Start with the fundamentals and work your way up to be more than you were yesterday. Make the most!

[magerblutooth]

Akomen by j0n0
Hard Difficulty
Chapter 1-4

Since we’re upping the difficulty, I will cut right to the chase. This story is chaotic. Chapter 1 throws us into this vast world with all of these characters that keep popping up and then dropping out before relevant traits can be identified. I get no feeling of focus or purpose behind it. Sometimes those characters are dying before I know their names, leaving an impact on other characters whose names I can neither pronounce nor remember. "Disorienting" is the word I would choose, to the point where many of the story's finer details get drowned out by the vast sea of "what is happening?"

I suppose I should start on the subject of characters. It’s worth noting that there were only two characters I was able to get invested in within the first four chapters. One was the Akoman, and the other was the goblin merchant in chapter 1. The Akoman stood out by having a striking design, while the goblin merchant had a personality I could track that felt in line with the world he was in. But what these two characters had in common is that the story was able to focus on them long enough for me to identify them as characters. They interacted with other characters with enough consistency that I could keep track of what they were all about. There’s not much to say about the Akoman’s personality, but I really like the part in chapter 1 where the merchant refused to let the guy haggle with him and earned the guy's favor. Even though I had no clue what currencies they were using or what products they were selling, the emotional language bled through the literal words more so than any other dialogue I came across.

Comparatively, the only other characters that come to mind are Dragutin, Mirrejdau, and Acifix. I presume these characters to be more relevant to the overall story, but I couldn’t get much of a read on them. Mirrejdau was the most interesting of the three, with his “another form of evil” mentality allowing him to hold a conversation with the Akoman. His characterization was only harmed by being the umpteenth character to come from nowhere in the chaotic storm of the narrative. By the time he made his intro, I felt like I was reading a parody comic. As for the other two, I was able to pick up individual character traits about them, but I kept losing track of them, between the frenetic action sequences and off-model designs. In chapter 2, Acifix’s face seemed to keep morphing, and he kept wildly changing position, to the point where I thought there might be two elf characters that look like him. The conversation between the elf and the goblin in the dining hall was particularly tough to follow, having to read it two or three times to figure out which one was injured and who was saying certain lines. It may be the first time I'd suggest to a comic artist to research some rules on cinematography techniques. Even something simple like the 180-degree rule could go a long way to making your panels easier to follow. In film, they employ a lot of different techniques to make sure the audience can keep track of who’s who, to avoid these kind of situations.

Speaking of unconventional advice, since your story has a lot of action shots, it may benefit you to research some of the fundamental principles of animation as well, to have your action feel more fluid and less chaotic. The sequence that made me come to this realization was the shot where Zula’s shield gets pierced. The tentacle that pierces him lacks a strong wind-up, so the resulting blow doesn’t have much impact behind it. It’s missing the component of anticipation that makes for a punchy blow. Cartoons tend to exaggerate when it comes to rendering motion, but the principles of motion and energy displacement are still the same. It could make for a useful case study for you.

On intense difficulty, maybe I could ignore the dedication that went into rendering all of these panels, drawing them in perspective, aiming for accurate anatomy, and giving the weapons detailed designs instead of generic ones. While such efforts didn’t always pan out, and I don’t think as much effort went into having characters’ expressions match their moods, that much commitment does contribute to creating an immersive world. I think that’s why I ultimately felt more attachment to the world itself over the course of reading than to most of the people living there. Several of your establishment shots are on-point, with the one that opens chapter 3 being particularly impressive. It gives me a real sense of where everything is in relation to everything else, a shining beacon to help me see through the chaotic haze. I could also learn a thing or two from your paneling. Even though the story can be hard to follow, having the dynamic panel shapes is much more interesting and immersive than putting everything in a bunch of boring rectangles.

Up to this point, I haven’t really said much about the story. When it comes to that aspect, I’m all about “intrigue,” which is the term I use to refer to that which inspires me to turn the page. Intrigue takes a lot of different forms, but it generally comes from wanting to know more about the plot, characters, or world. What motivates this character? What is the answer to this mystery? What happens next? The core premise of this story appears to be that there is a big bad evil to defeat, and an army of knights and an elf are trying to defeat it. The Akuman has buildup to its reveal, and its interesting design does make the buildup more satisfying. However, the core issue is that the story doesn’t seem to develop any characters or relationships in anticipation of the fight. Every character is an island until they happen to encounter another character. So by the time they all bump into the Akuman, they’re all just the “good guys” fighting the “bad guy.” It seems like another case of lost focus.

The point of comparison I'd like to draw is to the first chapter of the manga Berserk, another story where our main character’s goal is simply “kill the big evil bad guy.” However, before we get to the part where Guts fights the main bad guy, we can discern key character traits that make him stand out from the more generic characters around him. As he fights, we learn about his principles, his philosophy, and his limitations. If I try to analyze Acifix and Dragutin to the same degree, there isn't much I can point to that distinguishes them from one another. The only significant difference that comes to mind is that Acifix is more of a loner, while Dragutin leads others into battle. Unfortunately, these traits don’t impact the fight, so it's tough to draw intrigue from that distinction. The heroes’ only goal is to kill the Akoman, and the Akoman’s only goal is to essentially destroy the world. It’s hard to get invested into such a concept by itself, since it’s rather trivial as far as fiction goes. It’s the sort of story that works much better in a video game, where the gameplay can provide intrigue to make up for where the story lacks it.

I think a good chunk of the writing issues do come back to the lack of focus and lack of characterization. I’d suggest mapping out your characters and focusing on what makes them interesting to you. List out their character traits that make them unique from one another and make sure you have scenes that establish and reinforce these traits so that the characters feel consistent. How will their actions shape the story, and how will the story shape them? Having a bold character with impostor syndrome like Dragutin is a fine idea that can be put to good use, but how does it affect the plot? If he were to break down during the Akoman fight, perhaps it would cause an intense loss of morale that gets his men killed. Perhaps it’s simply the thought of that happening that terrifies him, and he has to confide his fears into someone who ends up betraying him. Perhaps the Akoman is capable of sensing this fear and exploiting it, making things harder for everyone when it seemed like they had the upper hand. Characters that make their own conflict are highly useful, since conflict is the greatest source of intrigue of any story. The more you can tailor the conflict to your specific plot, world, and characters, the more identity your story will have.

The best advice I could probably give for a story like this is to reference other comics that you enjoy reading and study what you like about them. Look at the character traits you admire and how they affect the story. Look at how they arrange their characters within panels to keep things clear. Think about how the plot would be different if you put different characters, or even your own characters, in place of those comics' main characters. Think about whether the story would be more or less interesting as a result. If less, think about what's missing. Think about the conflicts that most interest you and what interests you about them. What do your favorite shows, movies, and comics have in common? How do they manage to entertain you in different ways? Understanding what makes a good story is the first step in writing one. Then comes refining your technique, improving your lineart, enhancing your expressions, etc. Make the most!

[FancyDreamer]

Thank you so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Your feed back lines up with what I've already been told, but it doesn't make it any less important. If anything, it means its very important. I already knew before decided to publish this that it was super rough. When I started on Tapas, it was just an idea. I knew how I wanted it to start and how I wanted it to end. What you read was more of a word vomit than a finished product, and I'm willing to admit that. I've already begun edits, and the first chapter has basically been completely rewritten, and I'll probably go back and change even more before I finally say its complete.

[magerblutooth]

Space Pirate by CrystalRook Arts
Hard Difficulty
Chapter 1-5

Due to the uneven length of the chapters for this comic, I read chapters 1-5 for the purpose of this review. It felt like a natural stopping point and gave me a decent understanding of the comic’s style and writing to provide some general feedback.

It’s interesting to read a story that was originally created for a different medium. In that sort of situation, not only is there the product itself to examine, but also the translation process of converting the story from its original form. I can definitely visualize the story playing out in those kind of Final Fantasy III pixel graphics in RPG maker, with the main space pirate character engaging in random encounters in between all of the main cutscenes and boss battles. Video game stories are often highly motive-driven, so the story wastes no time establishing the main character’s goal. Playing it off for laughs is an interesting choice as well, as it establishes the conflict as low-stakes, in comparison to the much higher stakes of the MC having a bounty on his head.

Since our main character is a space pirate deemed dangerous by the bad guys, we aren't actually sure who the 'bad guys' really are, outside of MC bias. Later on, we are able to see how extreme the bad guys are about taking out the MC, being willing to shoot civilians to get to him. It makes for a good dynamic, as it paints the bad guys in a darker light without putting the hero in a lighter one. He could be just as dangerous as they claim, to the point where their extreme measures turn out to be justified. It's an engaging dynamic, as it creates questions for the reader to think about. It could easily become frustrating if character motivation wasn't clear, so you did a good job by establishing that so clearly from the outset, both for the heroes and villains.

Given what I've seen, I would call this story "serviceable," capable of pushing a player forward in a game without miring them in a bunch of backstory and lore. If I were playing it as a game, I wouldn't say there's anything about the setting, characters, or writing that leaves a strong impact, so I would mostly be looking to the gameplay when deciding whether or not to keep playing. In terms of adapting the story into a comic, that's not the greatest position to be in, but I think the base concept provides a solid enough framework to make something memorable.

The story is fairly simple in design, which means there isn't too much room for mechanical issues like plot holes and logical inconsistencies. The only one I picked up on was the question of how our MC knows the guy he's chasing stayed in the town he chased him to, as there doesn't seem to be anything that would prevent him from leaving. The way that he just found him in the bar was also pretty anti-climactic, as it basically just picked things back up from the space station. His escape didn't amount to much aside from the change in setting, so it makes me wonder if there could have been a more meaningful consequence to the escape.

You mentioned in your description obvious shortcomings in the artwork, but I figured it would be useful to touch on some specifics in that department. One aspect that comes to mind is how directly the character design looks to have been translated from the original game idea. Most of the human characters differ mainly in attire and hairstyle, while having little variation in height, facial structure, head shape, body type, etc. From what I understand of RPG Maker, it sounds in line with how characters would be distinguished in that medium, where everyone is designed to look uniform on the overworld map, with hair, clothes, and color being the key distinguishing traits. However, in a comic, you'll often find character design using a much larger degree of shape language to make characters more distinct from one another. Naturally, your non-human characters vary wildly due to being completely different species, but the same principle can apply to your leads. Of course, your human characters probably wouldn't vary to that degree given your semi-realisti style, but you might be surprised how different you can make people look while still maintaining a sense of realism. I always go back to the anime Monster when I need inspiration there.

Since much of the story is driven by its action, the stiffness of that action is one of the biggest hindrances to the narrative. We’re dealing with a comic instead of an animation, so the strength of action shots is in the strength of posing, perspective, and linework. I can easily imagine how several of these panels would look if drawn professionally, and most of the improvements involve changing those three aspects. Much of the posing looks as though it’s drawing the gist of the action it is trying to get across, rather than the actual pose we would see if someone were performing the action. It makes the action readable but lacking in realism. For those kinds of shots, I’ve found it can be very handy to take a picture of yourself performing the actions and use them as references for drawing. I’d say the kick in chapter 5 is the most impressive bit of action in the segment I read. It feels weighty, and the anticipation from the shot before the kick builds up to it well.

When drawing a comic, a lack of perspective is what makes characters feel like 2D cutouts in a 3D world. Some of your shots have more depth than others, but many of the action shots suffer some severe perspective issues. Things like characters not standing on solid ground, appearing to be larger or smaller than they really are, or looking like they’re too close or too far away from one another when interacting. It’s noticeable that your profile shots, where characters are moving only in two dimensions, are more technically impressive, as they aren’t hindered by any clashes with the z-axis, much like what one might see in a 2D platformer. There’s also a pretty consistent symmetry issue with many of the forward facing shots, making for some rather awkward expressions. Your faces also look better in profile, where symmetry isn’t required.

Finally, the story's linework could use an upgrade. I found it odd going through a comic where the panels look mostly straight but many of the walls and structures look sketchy, wobbly, and crooked. It makes me wonder why a straightedge wasn't consistently used for drawing these since the entire comic looks to have been drawn traditionally. When doing the final draft, try to make sure each of your lines is drawn in one stroke. If these strokes turn out too wobbly, I'd suggest an exercise where you draw two dots on a page and try to draw a straight line connecting them in a single stroke. Over time, it'll become easier to execute. There's also a notable inconsistency with line thickness, with no real pattern to what lines are thinner or thicker. It seems to be more based around which lines get drawn over again during the sketching process, which makes for a rough-looking final product. The shading looks to adhere to more structure, with the gradient darkening as it gets closer to the light. It makes the sketchy outlines stand out more, due the contrast in professionalism.

To summarize, I would call the story simple but effective. It's missing the sort of hook that would get me invested into its plot, characters, or world and desire to pursue it further, but it has enough going for it that it wouldn't be a chore to keep reading if I were to continue. The artwork could stand to level up a few times in specific key areas, and the overall package could use some refinement to help the story break away from its origins as a video game story and take advantage of the medium of comics. Make the most!

[thecrystalrook]

Awesome review, great to see a full perspective. The transition from RPG to manga has definitely been an interesting one. Trying to not have that "the party is adventuring!" feel to it is definitely tricky. I'm actually bouncing around the idea right now of doing the older episodes over in a more professional look - better/cleaner art, more structure to the story etc. So this is a huge help going forward with that! I think I know what I want to do for a more of a story hook - I have a flashback scene I did a few episodes ago that's pretty impactful to the overall story. I may consider moving that flashback to being one of the very first things you see - but we'll see how things go when I'm rewriting.

[jonofowkes]

Thanks a lot I really appreciate the advice. I've always had an impression that characterization was the weakest link in Amoken, but know I know for sure. I think i'm going to reconsider my current script and try to really flesh out and differentiate the characters i've introduced so far in the coming chapters.

[magerblutooth]

Purple Shades of Blood by kae.
Intense Difficulty
Chapter 1-4

This was an interesting story to analyze, especially with it being the first of the bunch requested to operate at maximum difficulty. It definitely got my analysis brain running, and I ended up with quite a bit to say. It took some time to organize my thoughts into a format that may be useful to you, so I hope you get some use out of it.

When examining any story, you can always break it down into the scenes that comprise it, like puzzle pieces that form the whole picture. When arranging these scenes, it’s important to make sure that each one is contributing new information about the characters, especially for a character-driven story like this. Consider the first time Savannah comes to visit Leo compared to the second. What new information do we learn about Savannah in the second that we didn’t learn in the first? She tries to cheer him up, she tries to make him feel better, she tells him his blood is pretty. It’s the same scene again, told in a different way. The entire thing could be cropped to Leo coming into class later, thinking about the basket she left at his doorstep that morning, as it only reinforces what we already know. This trend seems to continue for the rest of the excerpt I read. Aside from the fact that she likes Leo, wants to help him, and thinks he is beautiful, I know nothing about Savannah as a character, making her pretty one-note. I found out she has a twin sister, but this doesn’t have a meaningful impact on any character development, as I don’t yet know anything about the sister character other than that she is Leo’s co-worker.

Characterization is one of the main issues with this story, and I wanted to highlight it by going over the most baffling sequence I encountered in my reading. It’s the text message conversation where Leo invites Savannah to his cafe. First, he makes the declarative statement that he is not going to tell her where he works, and her response, for some bizarre reason, is to make a joke, accusing him of selling drugs. I cannot fathom why she thought to do this, given her knowledge of how antisocial and sensitive he is, combined with the fact that tone does not translate through text and he has no way of knowing this is a joke instead of a genuine accusation. I was expecting this to cause conflict. However, not only does Leo interpret it as a joke and respond to it stunningly well, it makes him do a complete 180 and tell her where he works, inviting her to come visit sometime. This is the kind of conversation I could see once they’ve gotten more comfortable with one another, but at this stage, I don’t even know why he continued the conversation after she asked where he worked. That is, I don’t know why he would reply with “you don’t need to know” instead of just ghosting her. It’s a disconnect between what I am told and what I am shown about Leo. I’m constantly told that Leo doesn’t like talking, but he sure does have a hard time resisting the temptation.

Telling instead of showing is actually another major issue with this story’s delivery. The story is told mostly through Leo’s perspective, but there are times when we see things through Savannah’s eyes as well. This perspective can be useful for making sure the reader has access to all the information they need at all times, but it can be a problem when that information is simply told to us matter-of-factly. If there’s one thing in stories that an author should generally try to avoid, it is directly telling the reader how a character is feeling. A good story tends to deliver this information indirectly, using action and dialogue. This is the principle of “showing” rather than “telling.” Instead of having Leo say to himself in his internal monologue that Noah is his only friend, let us figure that out ourselves by seeing the huge difference in how he talks to Noah compared to everyone else. Instead of him telling us that he needs to be alone, let us figure that out ourselves by the fact that he locked himself in his house and refuses to come out. Take a look through the story and take note of all the sentences where you directly state exactly what a character is feeling. Any of these sentences can be rewritten to make for more compelling events. The man saying “I am sad” is not nearly as effective as the man silently walking up the stairs of his dimly lit apartment building, bundling himself up and turning on his MP3 player to max volume. There are ways to tell the reader something without stating it outright, and it’s more engaging to have characters whose emotions you figure out yourself.

Speaking of engaging, this story’s plot has another fundamental issue. Based on what I’ve read, I’ve gathered that the core concept of the story revolves around Leo and Savannah’s relationship, which means the main conflict is to be found there too. I had some hope for the conflict after reading the first chapter, but unfortunately the conflict is proving too weak to carry the story.

There is so much more momentum on the side that pushes Leo and Savannah together than whatever pitiful force is pulling them apart. It feels like the two are being tied together by the red string of destiny, rather than their relationship flowing naturally from consistent characterization and the principle of cause and effect. It makes the whole relationship feel artificial, which is never a good place to be. Consider the sequence where Leo runs home from his class after his blood is first revealed. Firstly, the bearded dragon is able to pierce his skin despite him putting on a coat that morning for the fall weather. Then he just happens to leave his phone in class on the one day that his big secret gets exposed, giving Savannah an excuse to follow after him. His class is a fifteen minute drive by car, and he runs home. That’s got to be at least a 5-mile run. Savannah’s not even out of breath by the time she shows up at his house, so I have to assume she followed him by bike or car the whole 5 miles without him noticing, which would be at least 50 minutes of running without him even checking if anyone was behind him. Then, when she uses his phone as leverage to get into his house, it seemed odd to me that he cared more about his phone than keeping people away from him, especially someone he thought to be a bad actor. I was expecting him to tell her to keep the phone and leave. But he doesn’t even put up a fight, which just makes me wonder if he even cares that much about his situation. Individually, these issues may be somewhat distracting, but when you stack them all together, it makes it feel like a contrived sequence of events to get Savannah into Leo’s house during his moment of vulnerability, which gets even more bizarre when the next chapter opens with Savannah having already left and Leo not even thinking about her.

Unfortunately the issues don’t simply stop at contrivance. Part of the explanation we get for why Leo is not resisting Savannah’s advances is that he’s “too tired to deal with her.” This provides an explanation as to why Leo is not kicking her out despite his characterization, but it does the story no favors in terms of creating engaging conflict. The main conflict at that moment is Leo’s resistance to Savannah helping him. By having him put up no resistance at all, it takes away the challenge. It’s like watching two people play chess where one side gives up and lets the other move their pieces for them. When Savannah eventually succeeds at her goal, it won’t feel rewarding, since it didn’t take much effort on her part to succeed. Moreover, if the main character isn’t motivated to participate in his own story, it’s hard for the reader to be.

It may have been easier to accept Leo’s mentality if I could better sympathize with his condition. However, another huge issue I had with the story is how the reveal of his blood color turns out to be such a non-issue. Nobody really seems to care except for Leo himself, and I question how much even he cares. He doesn’t get bullied about it, he doesn’t get hounded by reporters, no one even really brings it up except to say ‘Don’t worry about it. I don’t really care.’ If we’re talking about dealing with a problem on easy mode, it doesn’t really get much easier than this, and even if such events turn up later, it’s bizarre that there’s such a delay. The only real conflict is in Leo’s mind, and even then it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal considering he goes back to school and work a few days later. I’ve seen bad breakups that affect people’s lives more than this. We want to be able to empathize with what he is going through, so we can understand why he acts and thinks the way he does. The issue is that the information we’ve been given so far makes this incredibly difficult. I’m led to believe that something terrible happened in his past that made him super paranoid towards other people, except Noah. Like he was used as part of some lab experiment, and Noah helped him escape. Something like that would naturally make him distrustful towards people, especially if the people that captured him in the past also seemed nice. But then, it wouldn’t make sense that he would be walking around trying to live his life normally if he was afraid of people capturing him. At the very least, he would be more proactive about his safety, keeping a clear eye on his escape routes, looking around for things he could use as weapons, constantly on-guard against people that are bigger than him. These are the sorts of traits that would define a character who has been living with this for years and molded it into his DNA. The kind of traits that would make him a tough nut to crack for someone like Savannah, and make it more rewarding when she manages to break through.

I wanted to try a little experiment, running through the story in an attempt to refine its strong points and maximize the conflict. Suppose we have Leo, the paranoid, socially awkward college student trying to hide his purple blood from the world. And we have Savannah, another socially awkward college student who has a crush on him, possibly just on a superficial level. Making them both socially awkward in personality doesn’t create much contrast between them, so perhaps we’d change Leo to be more baseline assertive, actively pushing people away since he trusts no one. Maybe he’s got a “bad boy” image because of it, something that invites unwanted attention and annoys him. When the inciting incident occurs, I’d have to consider how people other than Savannah would react. Does it make sense that Savannah would be the only one to follow after him? Did no one else care? What if several people chased after him and he refused to let any of them in? What if Savannah was the only one who stayed, hours after everyone else gave up? Maybe people just decide they were seeing things or they don’t really care. They cared about the spectacle of his blood, while Savannah is the only one that cares about Leo’s well-being. Something to show her attraction to him, as well as her general resolve and empathetic personality. Maybe she can’t get him to talk to her, so she comes back the next day. Maybe eventually she gets him to talk, but he won’t open the door. Maybe she keeps it up, insisting that she won’t stop until he comes back to class. And one particularly cold morning, he finally lets her inside. We get a striking contrast between Savannah’s timid personality and her intense determination to help Leo out in his time of need. Through her actions, she’s saying that she refuses to let him be alone, even if she can’t say it through her words. The act of him letting her inside has a lot of weight to it, both literally and metaphorically. Thinking about it from a relationship point of view, the conversations they have through the door are an unusual form of dating, and depending on what they talk about, there’s a lot of potential for them to grow closer in subtle ways. It gives us an opportunity to see the core differences between them. Savannah could open up about her own insecurities as an attempt to try and comfort him. Maybe he is dismissive at first but then says something that shows he was listening, giving us some sympathy toward him as well. You could easily get several chapters out of Savannah just sitting outside Leo’s door and trying to comfort him. As long as we keep learning new information and progressing the story, the dialogue alone can be very captivating. The two could grow more comfortable with one another, with Savannah speaking more and Leo getting more personal. Since we’re viewing it from Leo’s perspective, he could be engaging in various activities in his house that juxtapose with Savannah trying to converse with him. Like Savannah starts talking about food and makes him hungry, so he starts making breakfast and she humbly asks for a taste, leading to him sliding it through the mail slot. Maybe it falls on the ground and she eats it anyway to be nice, or maybe she tells him it tastes funny and he gets offended. Perhaps at first he finds her annoying, but over time he gets used to her being there. Later on, he could realize how significant it is that she was there to support him after he tried to isolate himself. You could have a day where she doesn’t show up, and he misses her. You could have him realize he needs to go outside for something and make her back away from the door, or even send her to go retrieve it. Her compliance with his demands could help to establish more trust between them.

This is only one avenue you could take with this story, but what I’m trying to get across is the massive ocean of potential this story has once you start applying the fundamentals of writing. We want to be constantly moving forward with each chapter, advancing the story, learning more about the characters, and keeping the reader engaged. I want to feel the significance of Leo’s fear and paranoia by having his actions mirror these emotions. If he’s just sad for a few days and then mostly goes back to normal, it tells me it’s not that big of a deal, regardless of how much pain he says he’s going through. And then when Savannah comes into the picture, I want her to be able to provide a sort of medicine for his illness, but not in such a way that makes it read like she was sent from heaven above just for him. We can have her support him and make a genuine attempt to help, but her finding everything about him from his dandruff to his bug collection charming is just repetitive. Where do they conflict? Where do their opinions differ? Where do they align? Almost all of their conversations so far have been about Leo and his blood. It doesn’t make for strong chemistry when they only have one conversation topic.

You could say there are a lot of layers when it comes to improving this story. Fixing things like “show don’t tell” are more of a superficial change than something compared to a complete overhaul of the story to improve pacing, flow, characterization, and audience engagement. Since many of the issues with this story are fundamental, it’s exactly the kind of story I would recommend stress testing the characters and plot. I’ll end off with a few of my favorite stress tests for you to try:

1: The 5 Trait Test: Write out the 5 character traits that best define your main characters. You can have a little overlap between characters, but take note if two characters have 2 or more of the same characteristics. They may be too similar. Your goal is to set your characters up so that at least 2 of a character’s traits contradict, such as “romantic” and “cruel” or “rude” and “compassionate.”

2: The One Sentence Test: Write out the entirety of your story in a single run-on sentence, using “but then” or “so then” to connect the scenes together. Your goal is to write out the story in its simplest form. The use of “but then” and “so then” is to help your story’s sense of cause and effect. Watch out for “and then”, as it likely means you have a tacked on scene that can be purged. Everything that happens should occur as a result of what came before, or otherwise interrupt the path to your happy ending. “I went to the store to buy eggs BUT THEN I got abducted by aliens, SO THEN aliens put a chip in my brain that would explode unless I traveled to India by the end of the week, SO THEN I went to India…”

3: The Staircase Test: Look at each chapter of your story and write out at least three new things that the reader learns in that chapter. This could be relevant information about the characters, developments in the story, features about the world or setting, or anything else that affects the story in some way. If you cannot come up with three new things that are learned in a given chapter, consider how the story would change if you cut out that chapter entirely. What would you lose, and would the story be better with it gone? When you finish, you will end up with a “staircase” of information, as each chapter gives you new information plus the info that came before. If a step only has 1 or 2 pieces of information, consider if that info could be transferred to another step in order to speed up the pacing of the story.

Make the most!