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[Pending] Demotheus's Application - Printable Version

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RE: [Pending] Demotheus's Application - FireDog - 26-05-2014

You're very close demo. If you follow what I say here to cue you should be okay. But it is not yet at what I really want.

Skills:

Still need to remove the "Less than novice" Archery or revise.

Blacksmithing is a job skill regardless of being said so or not by your deems as it is a profession. Either remove this or remove another. If you have black smithing as a skill, it is there as a job skill.

I also want to ask why you want your character to be so...Self sufficient?

Okay, well, regardless. You are going to have to do a few things before this can be right. And you have a few ways to do so.

Drop archery and remove one skill, preferably smithing. Note, we have a smith in setting who is higher skill than your character

Raise archery to novice and drop two other skills.

Change skills to be something with 1 competent and three novice.

Also, I think it may be a good idea to warn you about horse care as we currently have no tamed horses in setting.

Note: I'd ask of you to drop smithing. Particularly because it does not relate to anything else and we have a better smith in setting.

Please revise.

RE: [Pending] Demotheus's Application - Demotheus - 26-05-2014

I could have sworn I deleted archery...
There, done. removed arch+black.

RE: [Pending] Demotheus's Application - FireDog - 29-05-2014

You're making good progress Demo. You got the skills as to something that I feel fit for Mesalia. Now on to the next part.

Backstory:

Quote:She was trained to do many different things that leaked into many different skill sets of many different professions, though never really understood much beyond that in most of them. These things were things such as black smithing nails, knives, and other common and simple tools, cooking food so that it's edible, sewing, and so on and so forth. Every person in the nomadic group would grow to be very versatile and know how to do many things, but be good at very few of them, by the age of twenty, and so she did.
The story states specific things learned although only once. Please revise it to show some training and growth of the skills over time.
Quote:Nekhii was a very quiet girl throughout her entire life
Your story does little to show the progression of your characters personality throughout her life. The way you have it now, your character remains the same. Over time, people change and learn naturally. Nobody remains the same. Please revise as to what she was like as a kid through adulthood.

Quote:This would have confused her greatly, since they never wasted a single morsel of the food she brought them, nor the occasional clothing or blankets she patched together haphazardly with her limited knowledge. She even went so far as to chew the food for some of the more broken people. Those who had lost their teeth, or were otherwise incapable of eating it properly without assistance.
Just why did the elders punish her for taking care of people who seem to be wounded or sick? She's confused as to why, but you should really say so. Otherwise, it comes off as a contraction. Note, you may want to remove this since taking care of others was removed as a skill.

Quote:When she was sixteen she found that she had started to become more womanly in figure. This attracted men and boys alike who would want to woo her. She was overwhelmed with it all. By the time she was twenty she had "made love" with six different men, each one essentially using her and wearing away her tolerance for men in general. After the sixth man stopped associating himself with her, she was distraught. In their group it wasn't unusual for women and men alike to be prolific. It wasn't even frowned upon. Sex was recognized as a normal thing. No religion told them otherwise. However, she wasn't looking for sex with those men. She was hoping for something more, and each of them betrayed her trust.
Why would she continue to go after men and have sex with the men if she's just been betrayed of what she wanted before? If she doesn't want sex, but a full relationship, why would she continue to have sex? Wouldn't she stop before anything went down if that's not what she wants? Please revise.

Quote:One day she could be cooking, while the next she'd be in the smithy forging simple things such as nails and crude knives, using their limited forging capabilities.
Once again, please revise the story with the skill changes.

Revise these and I will see if there is anything else. You're making good progress.

RE: [Pending] Demotheus's Application - Demotheus - 29-05-2014

(29-05-2014, 09:38 PM)FireDog Wrote: -snip-

I was thinking of changing the entire perspective of her backstory to one that's first person so that it better explains her thought's.

I've seen some people do that, and get accepted, but I'm not sure it'll work for me due to some of the feedback referring to things she would not know. How would I go about explaining that while writing in the first person?

RE: [Pending] Demotheus's Application - FireDog - 30-05-2014

Well, I can give some advice but this is mostly out of personal preference.

I'm not one for using first person in Mesalia. It's just something I dislike. Third person has a way of being far easier to capture a story and tell the story without having to worry too much about capturing your character's voice and tone in the writing. Writing first person requires you to adapt your character and write how'd they write or speak, which is fairly difficult at times.

I would just stick to third person narrative. It allows you to use your own voice without complication. Many writers, especially when writing in first person, forget about voice and tone and have a hard time capturing it.

If I am to offer advice, it would be to stick with the third person. Ways around her not knowing things may be to find them out later, in a first person, but usually it can be limiting in how you write.