|
| "What a Magical Mess!" Reviews/Comments [ 3 ] | Reviewed By: Becca Stareyes [MediaMiner Member] On: April 06, 2005 22:41 CDT
Comment/Review:
First off, the opening would work far better were this a TV series -- you need not explain what it going on here. In fact, if you aren't going to use this POV again, I would drop it -- it's best to limit POV shifts as much as possible. same goes for the Evil Interlude. Your writing is a bit detached. You could do with a bit more description and emotional reaction -- your prose feels very dry, and it makes it hard to get into. There are a few grammatical errors (I spotted an it's/its mistake near the part where the protagonists objects to being a magcial girl) -- you may want to read through with a finer tooth comb, and tell your beta to do the same. You might also benefit from throwing in some other magical girl anime references -- as of now, this feels more like Sailor-Moon-with-male-protagonist than anything else, and it would help it to be more generically shoujo/magical girl -- just because it's a parody doesn't mean it should be a rehash. Also, watch the insta-knowledge thing. While I like seeing intelligent heroes knowing a lot about things doesn't always equal good judgement of how and when to use it. I do like that the protagonist doesn't have the best fighting skills. Overall, I do think this story has promise. it just needs a bit more polishing and thought.
| Title: FFARG review
Reviewed By: roku kyu [MediaMiner Member] On: April 05, 2005 18:19 CDT
Comment/Review:
You know, this story has potential. I especially like the cleverness of the dialogue exchanges between Laurent and his talking cat (except for the last exchange, which I will mention in more detail later.) However, there are problems that interpose themselves between this cleverly-thought-out storyline and the involvement of the reader. I feel that you have way too much "vague exposition"...or exposition in general. There's too much "this mass of light," "that glowing light," "the new intelligence"...all this background disengages the reader. Plus, you might think about shortening interminably long sentences like "The only reason he knew what he felt was the fact that he had seen a description of it amongst the information that had suddenly popped into his mind." Huh? Too confusing and too passive-voice. Also, once a clever bit of dialogue is used, you shouldn't use it again, as in Shadow critiquing Laurent's lack of fighting skills for the second time. Diminishes the cleverness of the first exchange by creating redundancy. I think that your strength is in your characterization of Laurent and Shadow, and if you will just let those two characters talk and exchange info without throwing in huge sections of, well, less-than-exciting background story, you might find that this story moves along much better. Good luck, and keep working.
| Title: FFARG
Reviewed By: Broken Visage [MediaMiner Member] On: April 04, 2005 20:06 CDT
Comment/Review:
This will not be a typical lengthy review of mine because, honestly, I wasn't really grabbed by the story. It is truly good, no doubt there, but for some reason it didn't really pull me in. The grammar and spelling are exceptional, though, and that puts it up above many submissions to online archives. Might I suggest that you use italics instead of caps when emphasizing a word? I think it looks better with italics. Caps leans a little too close to "angry net-speak," you know?
|
|
|
