Post by Loogs on Jun 15, 2016 17:20:12 GMT -5
HELLO EVERYONE, IT’S TIME TO
(DIS)ASSEMBLE: (DIS)ORIENTATION EDITION
Hey guys! After reading (Dis)Orientation all in a couple of sittings for the first time, I took a lot of notes about my feelings toward the narrative so far. I’ll be covering all of that here, in a few parts: the good and the bad, and then a little character-by-character roundup. So without further ado, let’s get started on the
(DIS)ILLUSIONMENTS
(I want to start with the low points first to get all the negative stuff out of the way early, so I can bring y’all back up with the key moments of the plot. Please don’t take these criticisms the wrong way, I want to give you my honest impression of how I am reacting to things as a previously-uninvested audience, and I hope you take some of this to heart.)
1. SHOW DON’T TELL
Here we go. The first page of Dis is probably the hardest to read through, and maybe that was expected, but some of these intros are especially tough. A lot of them take care to go into lengthy detail cataloguing what the character is wearing. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the fact that now, at 24, I have a much better grasp on who I am and what I want, but my tolerance for this has become very low.
To give you an example of what this kind of writing brings to my mind, I want to bring up the infamous trollfic known as My Immortal. Now, believe me, no one’s writing here is nearly as error-prone as Tara’s is, but you know when she introduces a character every chapter and she always has to go into detail describing their cool Goffik™ outfit from Hot Topic lest they be mistaken for a PREP?? Some of yall’s character intros started to read like this. I dunno dude, I just can’t be bothered to care about your character’s green glow-in-the-dark studded belt and their azure Doc Martens or whatever. I’m much more interested in how they feel about their first day of school outfits or whatever.
There are other SDT errors here that don’t involve appearances; DL’s might be the most prominent example in my mind. First post, point-blank I’m just told about what Ty’s upbringing is like, but the way it’s been presented to me doesn’t really hold my interest. These kinds of character traits are best left to a slow, gradual burn that starts out with subtle hints and then starts making its presence known as the narrative rolls along.
2. DÉJÀ VU
I don’t mean to pick on Cendra like this, but this is too grave an error to overlook. Quoting a character’s dialogue in snippets so your character can react and respond accordingly is one thing, but wholesale copy-pasting entire paragraphs from the previous posts is quite another. I had to actually scroll back up to make sure I wasn’t just rereading a post by mistake, and breaking my immersive experience like that is a huge no-no.
This brand of redundancy is a huge dealbreaker for me, and I highly recommend keeping the copy-pasting to a bare minimum. Instead, have your characters observe in their own narrative voice. A lot of characters already pull this off flawlessly, notably Deandre although I gotta say, the more dismissive, sarcastic recapping of Kilik and other Elliot characters are some of my favorite examples of this.
3. YOUR PATH IS BRIGHT BUT STORM CLOUDS LOOM IN THE DISTANCE
“Talia, look to the future and you'll do just fine.” She smiled encouragingly at her, then squinted her eyes as she thought, “That sounded more like a fortune cookie... I did say 98%.” Jesse quoted her disclaimer.
Again, I really don’t want to pick on Cendra exclusively (last time, I promise) but Jesse’s demo has the unfortunate distinction of being possibly IMO the weakest demo out of all of them. My exact reaction after reading this was what the fuck was this cold reading bullshit I just witnessed. Using less vulgar language, I feel really let down that all we got were some vague lines that could be easily said by some non-Power Miss Cleo rando psychic. I wasn’t just disappointed, but I felt a little… cheated.
I feel like this one could have been played out much more effectively. I was going to suggest naming a very specific sequence of events that then happen in the exact order they were predicted in, but I misunderstood her power at first glance it seems. Now that I know that her power is actually seeing into multiple timelines, I’m not sure exactly how to do an effective demo. I’d almost suggest not even doing a demo? If played right, as we’ve seen, it has the potential to be even more impactful than if she had done an actual demo.
4. YOU’RE NOT FROM HERE, ARE YOU
[EDIT NOTE: I’ve been talking to Lee about this one and it seems he may have already edited out a lot of the examples, but believe me when I say this one was happening at an alarming frequency; it popped up like once every other post and I’m pretty sure every author in the topic did it at least once.]
Real Talk time, Exodus: we cannot keep casually identifying characters by race/nationality as if it’s some kind of personality trait.
Please note that other students like Dalisay and Deandre get some of this too, but I want to zero in on Almudena for a couple of reasons. One, it happens to her the most and so frequently I could easily make a drinking game out of it. And two, I sometimes also find myself the lone Latinx in a group of people. So, unlike Dali and Dre’s experiences, I can tell you firsthand that it is really frustrating to see Almudena constantly being referred to as “the Mexican girl”, “the Latina”, etc., because it happens to me too.
When an author distinguishes a character by race like this, they perpetuate a concept known as “othering”, which in short means you’re singling them out as being different from you. While you may think that’s not such a huge deal, the effect can be really damaging. I noticed that other than Deandre, no other character identifies a white character as being “the white boy”. It’s always just intrinsically assumed that they’re white, and setting white as the default is not something you want to perpetuate.
Solutions? Let the character’s actions speak for themselves. The only time it ever really needs to be mentioned that Almudena is Latina is in her introduction. Any subsequent mentions are just redundant at best, and kind of racist at worst. She already comes off as her own unique Latina self through her actions (especially through her use of Spanish, although I would like to add that there are many Latinxs who cannot speak Spanish for one reason or another, and this does not make them any less valid than Latinxs who do.)
If you don’t use racial descriptors to distinguish a character from the others, your readers won’t really notice or miss a thing. Trust me, I promise.
5. DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO
“Just because none of us can prevent Silumas from manhandling our students does not mean that it’s acceptable behavior for the rest of our faculty,” Thyra put her hand on Marius’ shoulder, and turned towards Garth, who Ben was half-carrying back to his seat. Her voice lowered, her tone hushed.
“Do we really want to teach these children that the best way to get your way is brute physical force? That boy... Your lord, Valon, has actually told me he believes that some day, Garth’s power could even outstrip his own. Do we want to teach him how to merciful and respectful, or do we want to bring up one of the most dangerous Powers in the entire world to think the right approach to any conflict is throwing his weight around and bullying people?
Here it is, here is the single most egregious misstep in all of Dis thusfar. Worse than the copy-pasting, worse even than the racial othering. This one actually made me so furious, I had to stop reading for a few hours and step outside for a smoke. This is it.
There is the regular expectation of suspension of disbelief, and then there’s this. I’ll spare you the explosive rant that actually happened in reaction to this, but do you really expect me to sympathize with Thyra after this??? Like, am I supposed to keep believing that she sincerely has her students’ best interests at heart after this? Silumas is clearly a really bad dude!! And guess what, YOU hired him!!! You knew he was a huge danger to people, and you brought him on board anyway. You have personally witnessed the man actively causing physical harm to another student now, but no, it’s Marius’s little shoulder pat that gets your goat. Bullshit, Thyra, I call almighty cosmic bullsHIT
But hey, if Lee’s plan was to paint this character who’s supposed to be this righteous paragon as actually being kind of super shady, then kudos I suppose because you succeeded in making me very angry?? Can’t say I’m going to be too keen on rating Thyra highly in the character reviews if there isn’t a damn good reason for this, though! Because as of right now, I’m souring on her real quick and I’m gonna need a palate cleanser of utmost quality to get the nasty taste this is leaving in my mouth.
Okay, that’s it for the nadirs of the plot, next post I’ll be doing the highlights, and after that, maybe expect a mini character poll review of all the characters in Dis?
(DIS)ASSEMBLE: (DIS)ORIENTATION EDITION
Hey guys! After reading (Dis)Orientation all in a couple of sittings for the first time, I took a lot of notes about my feelings toward the narrative so far. I’ll be covering all of that here, in a few parts: the good and the bad, and then a little character-by-character roundup. So without further ado, let’s get started on the
(DIS)ILLUSIONMENTS
(I want to start with the low points first to get all the negative stuff out of the way early, so I can bring y’all back up with the key moments of the plot. Please don’t take these criticisms the wrong way, I want to give you my honest impression of how I am reacting to things as a previously-uninvested audience, and I hope you take some of this to heart.)
1. SHOW DON’T TELL
He was extremely glad that his parents had sprung for a private room in the dorms to keep distractions to a minimum, though the recent changes to his body had made being around others his own age uncomfortable. Ty had always been aware that the fact that he was the child of a white collar American man and a driven Japanese woman made him different, especially in his home town in Arkansas, but that was now the least of his worries.
She was a lithe, curvy young woman with dirty-blonde locks that hung just past her shoulders and pale, blue eyes. She wore a loose plaid shirt that buttoned down the front and sported a pattern of bright, orange squares interlaced by a trio of white lines and smaller, thin, blue lines as well as a pair of tight, ankle-length blue jeans and simple brown sandals. She had always prefered sandals to shoes, mainly because she found that shoes often blocked her ability to detect and tap into vibrations in the ground. Because of her particular powers it often felt to her as if she possessed two extra senses compared to most other people and anything that blocked or dampened those senses made her feel distressed similar to how normal people would feel if they lost their ability to see or hear.
This black cashmere sweater was much lighter than the clothes from his village. In fact all of his clothes where lighter. His sweater hugged his form but wasn’t really tight. The blue jeans he wore fit him much like the sweater but seemed to be made of a more flexible fabric for ease of movement. On his right wrist was a leather anchor bracelet and on the left was his Timex watch, its cloth band was a solid dark blue with a single grey stripe running through the middle. Reaching down Flint brushed a flower petal from his white vans. The blue feather that was printed on the outside of each shoe made them distinctive from other pairs he had seen before.
Here we go. The first page of Dis is probably the hardest to read through, and maybe that was expected, but some of these intros are especially tough. A lot of them take care to go into lengthy detail cataloguing what the character is wearing. I don’t know what it is, maybe it’s the fact that now, at 24, I have a much better grasp on who I am and what I want, but my tolerance for this has become very low.
To give you an example of what this kind of writing brings to my mind, I want to bring up the infamous trollfic known as My Immortal. Now, believe me, no one’s writing here is nearly as error-prone as Tara’s is, but you know when she introduces a character every chapter and she always has to go into detail describing their cool Goffik™ outfit from Hot Topic lest they be mistaken for a PREP?? Some of yall’s character intros started to read like this. I dunno dude, I just can’t be bothered to care about your character’s green glow-in-the-dark studded belt and their azure Doc Martens or whatever. I’m much more interested in how they feel about their first day of school outfits or whatever.
There are other SDT errors here that don’t involve appearances; DL’s might be the most prominent example in my mind. First post, point-blank I’m just told about what Ty’s upbringing is like, but the way it’s been presented to me doesn’t really hold my interest. These kinds of character traits are best left to a slow, gradual burn that starts out with subtle hints and then starts making its presence known as the narrative rolls along.
2. DÉJÀ VU
"Now, mind you, this is a portal, so if I don’t do this right, this thing will come through and we’ll all be obliterated, along with about three quarters of the Asian continent. Oh, and a planetary nuclear winter,” Garth grinned slyly, “I hate when those happen.”
“Now, mind you, this is a portal, so if I don’t do this right, this thing will come through and we’ll all be obliterated, along with about three quarters of the Asian continent. Oh, and a planetary nuclear winter,” Garth grinned slyly, “I hate when those happen.”
I don’t mean to pick on Cendra like this, but this is too grave an error to overlook. Quoting a character’s dialogue in snippets so your character can react and respond accordingly is one thing, but wholesale copy-pasting entire paragraphs from the previous posts is quite another. I had to actually scroll back up to make sure I wasn’t just rereading a post by mistake, and breaking my immersive experience like that is a huge no-no.
This brand of redundancy is a huge dealbreaker for me, and I highly recommend keeping the copy-pasting to a bare minimum. Instead, have your characters observe in their own narrative voice. A lot of characters already pull this off flawlessly, notably Deandre although I gotta say, the more dismissive, sarcastic recapping of Kilik and other Elliot characters are some of my favorite examples of this.
3. YOUR PATH IS BRIGHT BUT STORM CLOUDS LOOM IN THE DISTANCE
“Talia, look to the future and you'll do just fine.” She smiled encouragingly at her, then squinted her eyes as she thought, “That sounded more like a fortune cookie... I did say 98%.” Jesse quoted her disclaimer.
Again, I really don’t want to pick on Cendra exclusively (last time, I promise) but Jesse’s demo has the unfortunate distinction of being possibly IMO the weakest demo out of all of them. My exact reaction after reading this was what the fuck was this cold reading bullshit I just witnessed. Using less vulgar language, I feel really let down that all we got were some vague lines that could be easily said by some non-Power Miss Cleo rando psychic. I wasn’t just disappointed, but I felt a little… cheated.
I feel like this one could have been played out much more effectively. I was going to suggest naming a very specific sequence of events that then happen in the exact order they were predicted in, but I misunderstood her power at first glance it seems. Now that I know that her power is actually seeing into multiple timelines, I’m not sure exactly how to do an effective demo. I’d almost suggest not even doing a demo? If played right, as we’ve seen, it has the potential to be even more impactful than if she had done an actual demo.
4. YOU’RE NOT FROM HERE, ARE YOU
Eira and Aodhan decided they rather liked the snug little fort the Mexican girl had made for them.
Sidestepping a flying donut Flint made his way to a desk near the loud Hispanic girl.
A few quick, practiced movements brought the mass of feathers into a wreath of sorts, much like a crown, which she placed around her new Hispanic friends temples.
[EDIT NOTE: I’ve been talking to Lee about this one and it seems he may have already edited out a lot of the examples, but believe me when I say this one was happening at an alarming frequency; it popped up like once every other post and I’m pretty sure every author in the topic did it at least once.]
Real Talk time, Exodus: we cannot keep casually identifying characters by race/nationality as if it’s some kind of personality trait.
Please note that other students like Dalisay and Deandre get some of this too, but I want to zero in on Almudena for a couple of reasons. One, it happens to her the most and so frequently I could easily make a drinking game out of it. And two, I sometimes also find myself the lone Latinx in a group of people. So, unlike Dali and Dre’s experiences, I can tell you firsthand that it is really frustrating to see Almudena constantly being referred to as “the Mexican girl”, “the Latina”, etc., because it happens to me too.
When an author distinguishes a character by race like this, they perpetuate a concept known as “othering”, which in short means you’re singling them out as being different from you. While you may think that’s not such a huge deal, the effect can be really damaging. I noticed that other than Deandre, no other character identifies a white character as being “the white boy”. It’s always just intrinsically assumed that they’re white, and setting white as the default is not something you want to perpetuate.
Solutions? Let the character’s actions speak for themselves. The only time it ever really needs to be mentioned that Almudena is Latina is in her introduction. Any subsequent mentions are just redundant at best, and kind of racist at worst. She already comes off as her own unique Latina self through her actions (especially through her use of Spanish, although I would like to add that there are many Latinxs who cannot speak Spanish for one reason or another, and this does not make them any less valid than Latinxs who do.)
If you don’t use racial descriptors to distinguish a character from the others, your readers won’t really notice or miss a thing. Trust me, I promise.
5. DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO
“Just because none of us can prevent Silumas from manhandling our students does not mean that it’s acceptable behavior for the rest of our faculty,” Thyra put her hand on Marius’ shoulder, and turned towards Garth, who Ben was half-carrying back to his seat. Her voice lowered, her tone hushed.
“Do we really want to teach these children that the best way to get your way is brute physical force? That boy... Your lord, Valon, has actually told me he believes that some day, Garth’s power could even outstrip his own. Do we want to teach him how to merciful and respectful, or do we want to bring up one of the most dangerous Powers in the entire world to think the right approach to any conflict is throwing his weight around and bullying people?
Here it is, here is the single most egregious misstep in all of Dis thusfar. Worse than the copy-pasting, worse even than the racial othering. This one actually made me so furious, I had to stop reading for a few hours and step outside for a smoke. This is it.
There is the regular expectation of suspension of disbelief, and then there’s this. I’ll spare you the explosive rant that actually happened in reaction to this, but do you really expect me to sympathize with Thyra after this??? Like, am I supposed to keep believing that she sincerely has her students’ best interests at heart after this? Silumas is clearly a really bad dude!! And guess what, YOU hired him!!! You knew he was a huge danger to people, and you brought him on board anyway. You have personally witnessed the man actively causing physical harm to another student now, but no, it’s Marius’s little shoulder pat that gets your goat. Bullshit, Thyra, I call almighty cosmic bullsHIT
But hey, if Lee’s plan was to paint this character who’s supposed to be this righteous paragon as actually being kind of super shady, then kudos I suppose because you succeeded in making me very angry?? Can’t say I’m going to be too keen on rating Thyra highly in the character reviews if there isn’t a damn good reason for this, though! Because as of right now, I’m souring on her real quick and I’m gonna need a palate cleanser of utmost quality to get the nasty taste this is leaving in my mouth.
Okay, that’s it for the nadirs of the plot, next post I’ll be doing the highlights, and after that, maybe expect a mini character poll review of all the characters in Dis?