Wyvern's 'An Assassin's Retirement'

[Yui-chan]

Wyvie,

 

I wanted to let you know that I've been (slowly but surely) keep up with your An Assassin's Retirement as it comes out, and I'm enjoying it thus far. You've written up a couple of interesting incidents from a young girl's life, focussing on the emotionalism of her situation. I'm looking forward to seeing how you bind it to the hints you've given about their culture and the Ashettu.

 

I do have two suggestions for you, though, that I think may help you with subsequent entries. Take them with a grain of salt, since I'm no expert, but they are points that struck me as I read...

 

First, given that the story is basically supported be emotionalism more than action at this point, I think you should consider pushing that aspect a little harder. You've got a great start at describing the child's feelings, stronger at some point than at others, but I feel like you could draw the reader in much more if you really dig into her emotions. Describe to us how she's feeling in more detail so that we can experience her emotions more than just 'see' the fact that she's crying or hurt. Tell us precisely how hard she struggled to make up her mind whether her desire to please her aunt and gain some hint of love there was more important than her own heart telling her it was wrong to stone those men. Let us know more about how she felt when the other boy saved her, or for that matter, when the cruel one suddenly struck her with a stone.

 

Hee. In other words, you're teasing me, darnitall! I want you to make me feel what she feels.

 

The second thing is of a slightly more technical nature, and really pertains only to your second post. Although you didn't in the first, you used a boatload of passive voice in the entry about her first kiss. For example, check out this paragraph:

At the center of the clearing, three men had been chained to three seperate multicolored posts, shirtless and sweating as the crowd of people cursed and jeered at them. By the tattoos of winged serpents on their chests, it was obvious that the three men were Ashettus... possibly thieves who had been caught, or perhaps previous prisoners of war. They were currently being stoned and mocked by the audience surrounding them... a festivity that Gretha was keen to participate in, and eager to expose her niece to...

There's a lot of passive voice in there that you could easily switch to active in order to better draw your audience into the action. You also started the post with a whole lot of 'had done this' and 'had done that' which, while not passive precisely, is another verb usage that distances the audience from the action. Usually, that's only used successfully in short passages. Although you used it well where you did, I think you'd be better off to stick with pure past tense as you did in the first post.

 

Well, that's a lot of my opinion, anyway. I can't wait to see what's next! Write, write, write!

 

Yours,

~Yui

[Nobody of Consequence]

Wyv: since one good turns deserves another... *evil grin*

 

K, gonna jot my thoughts down in note form, so excuse the lack of grammar and such variables as logical sentence structure

 

-Great opening sentences, in both posts.

-Be careful with those apostrophe's *giggle*.

-There's something I want to mention to you regarding adverbs. Use this as an example:

"Watcha playing...?" managed Ariella softly as she timidly

IMO, that actually dilutes the impact. Firstly, use said unless you have a very good reason for using another word. "Said" is invisible, so you don't need to keep looking for alternatives. Secondly, using just timidly would probably convey the same idea, something like this:

[bold]"Watcha playing," said Ariella as she timidly[/bold]

Now, I'm not sure if this is something you'll agree with me on, but it's the way I approach my own writing, anyway.

-kid's dialogue handled really well. Dialogue is usually tough, so kudos.

-The old "show, don't tell" thing. Instead of telling us that a certain character feels a certain way, characterise it. Describe reactions, facial expressions and body language. You seem to do more of that in the second post than in the first, which is good to see.

- I'm not sure if I agree with Yui in connection with the use of passive voice in the second post. If you're trying to show the passive side of Ariella's nature, it may actually work, especially given that it's in connection with emotional issues, although I would limit it solely to those passages where it does relate to emotional issues.

-I like the basic concept, showing her development through flashbacks.

-I understand that there is a very structured society here. Will we get to understand more of the whys as the story progresses? I mean this more in a sociological than historic sense, btw.

 

Overall, it's good work. Don't let the nits I've picked make you think otherwise. I, too, look forward to the next installment

[Wyvern]

Thank you, Yui and NoC, for your comments on the thread thus far! I agree that there's definitely room for improvement, particularly since I think my most recent post may be the weakest yet... ;p I was struggling with it for a while and it still didn't come out nearly as good as I wanted... bleh. I'll definitely be taking your comments into consideration and will probably go back and edit my initial posts sometime this Summer...

 

On a side note: these initial incidents in Ariellas life are kind of an introduction, since the actual story of Ariella's retirement will be occuring in the present.

 

Thanks once again, and sorry for taking so long to respond to this thread!

[Nobody of Consequence]

Sorry, Wyv, just wondering if that means you'll be writing the retirement pieces in present tense, or if I'm being dense and completely misunderstanding you, which is entirely possible.

 

Hope you don't mind if I don't crit this last post of yours. Think I might keep hush about nits, and focus more on the tale for a while. Or do you want section by section feedback?

[Orlan]

Changing Tense in a novel is trickey....not to mention it's confusing. I think Wyv means that these first few parts are the retrospective musings of the retiring assassin. and that the story is still going to be in past tense.

 

And if that is right, I think it's going wonderfully. Yui had said you might want to put more emotion in, though I think it's good as it is. The story is called An Assassin's Retirement, which makes one think it's going to be her looking back on her life...and if that's so, chances are she's become extremely emotionless (or has just learned to deal with it all.) We even see that in the begining with how she acts in the third installment. Hard to look back on a life with emotion if you've lost all of them.

 

Emotionless people make the best assassins.

 

The only thing I saw was "the sun casted" or something like that in the first post. I thought the past tense of "cast" was just "cast" though I dunno for sure

 

Good story. Make more. Assassins rule.