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Issue with critique?

S

savol456

"Woot Woot Raise the taxes." -cheif of partying
Pronoun
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Hello, I was working on a fan fic on another site and asked for critique. For some reason I am skeptical of this person's critique. To me it seems like everyone it telling me to keep all minor details flat as I can but be descriptive evenly and now I'm just confused becuase in my mind this doesn't make sense. They did make some good points but I'm not sure. Are they correct?


... I'm going to put all of my critiques and alterations to the text in blue.
You can take them or leave them. Just trying to help. I will also add an explanation on why I say what I say.

----------------------------------------------
Prologue
Hidden away in a small forest sat the little entrance to a large circular cavern. The entrance was covered in a thicket of vines and bushes for years. A recent storm mustered up ( a recent storm had mustered up) the strength to move this barrier, unblocking the cave. ( This little snippet here seems irrelevant to the whole in my opinion. While the cave is important, the entire explanation concerning how the cave was unblocked seems pointless for quite a few reasons. For one thing, is the entire 'unblocked by the wind' important later on? Will we find out suddenly that the wind it was unblocked by is some sort of some diabolous ex machina? If it is somehow important to the plot other than plain explanation, keep it. If it has no effect on the story, remove it or move it elsewhere. I personally think that explaining this entire hoo-ha in the manetric
that is not the main villain's thoughts in the section that is coming up. )

A passing manectric noticed this cave entrance. Feeling adventurous he slowly wandered in the small cavern. ( Now this is something that relates more to this passage in it's entirety: either describe everything, or describe only that which is important. If you describe something in lavish detail in one paragraph, describe everything with lavish detail. When you fluctuate between an overabundance of description and lack of description, your writing ends up feeling, for lack of better words 'off'. This little snippet in particular seems a bit dry. I am not one who typically asks for one to use padding, but I do believe that you should describe a bit more in this section.)
Inside he saw it was an empty circle colored black with rock. ( 'colored black with rock' is a bit awkward in the terms of wording. I also should talk about the phrase 'he saw it was'. When combined with the earlier phrase. it makes it sound like the entirety of the cave was 'an empty circle'. I personally would suggest something more along the lines of 'Inside he viewed a circle composed entirely of obsidian'
(( Many apologies for my terrible purple prose.)) ) A few vines lay dead throughout the cave.

One thing stood out, though it wasn't easily noticed. ( Now this... This is one of my main problems with this passage. It is an impossibility. You might as well state that 'it was wet, but it was also bone-dry'. You cannot have something stand out and be hard to notice at the same time. It was either hard to notice or easy to notice. You cannot have both. ) A small stone stood alone in the side of the cave where the floor and wall connected. ( so it was in the corner? if not, then you may need to be more specific. ) It was small and partially round, partially pointed like many stones that are found.
It was primarily orange that faded to dark red toward the center. ( Now this section would be greatly helped if you did not make the sentences so choppy. Tell me which sounds better. 'The cat was small. The cat was chubby. The cat was had a mottled pattern of white and black on it's pelt.' or 'The cat was small and chubby, with a mottled pattern of white and black on it's pelt.'
If you chose the second option, then I suggest you attempt to combine the two sentences. )

( I apologize, but I have other things I must do tonight. I will continue my analysis of your work later. Alter your current work, leave it the same, argue for keeping something for one reason or the other... Either way, I shall not be around to respond.
And please remember that I am only trying to help.

;3

Farewell. )
Click to expand...
 
Most of this critique looks perfectly legitimate to me, only I wouldn't say describing everything indiscriminately in lavish detail is a valid alternative to just describing what's important. The point is more that "A passing manectric noticed this cave entrance. Feeling adventurous he slowly wandered in the small cavern." is very summaryish: you tell it like if you were telling a friend about something that happened to you, rather than putting the reader in the moment. Sometimes it's appropriate to summarize, when the details aren't interesting, but here the fact you do it that way just kind of fails to build any kind of suspense or intrigue.

Your prose, from the passage shown in the quote, is awfully dry and choppy in general, just rattling off what's happening and what things look like in the barest of detail, and often too vaguely to even get a clear image of what you mean. Try thinking the story from the Manectric's point of view, describing what it notices in 'real-time', what it was doing out there, why it entered the cave, and so on.

I don't know how much sense this makes to you off the bat; if you're confused, I can explain better what I'm talking about.
 
Okay, I think I understand now. I guess it's just that I've never really gotten much critique on my stories and this must be overwhelming my mind leading to distrust.
 
The worst parts of that critique are the despicable colour choices and the occasional grammar slip-ups. Good grief!

Irrelevantly, good for you for wanting to take critique on board.
 
I agree with what he said for the most part, aside from a couple of comments. One, that Butterfree pointed out, about the Manectric wandering in the cave, is pretty good as it is.

The other, and it might just be me, is where you describe where the stone is, "where the wall and floor meet". I don't really see how that's confusing; it seems fairly self-explanatory to me. It's at the base of the wall, maybe in the corner, maybe not.
 
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