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Post by Caroline O'Hara Burchill on Aug 31, 2016 17:30:40 GMT
╳ Welcome to the Caroline O'Hara Burchill Feedback Thread! ╳
Hello! Danni here! As much as The Immaculate One likes to think that she is perfect, Caroline is just like any other person with flaws. There's always room for improvement, and I've finally took it upon myself to create a thread where all constructive criticism, advice and suggestions are welcomed. I'm actually feeling a little bit nervous as I am writing this to you all because I haven't asked for feedback in almost two years. Still, I know that there are things that I need to improve on and I want to be able to grow with the help of others. Seriously, don't hold back! The more detailed your feedback is, the better.  I will update this post later on to include all the roleplays I have here thus far, including the one that I am working on right now. Caroline's latest RP should be up within a few hours. So... yeah. Thanks for coming by! I hope you all will check in frequently and help me out because I DEFINITELY need all the help that I can get lol. |
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Post by Caroline O'Hara Burchill on Sept 1, 2016 1:22:52 GMT
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Post by Double F C on Sept 1, 2016 17:23:17 GMT
Hello there,
I'll just dive right into it:
The Good: I care about Caroline Burchill. I'm interested in seeing how she develops, and it's a credit to you that I, as a reader, am invested in her.
The interplay between your CD piece and your match role-play was nicely done. You're telling a story over a span, not just in one place, and it shows a level of thought being put into your character. Most role-plays are one-offs. Do the thing, go in, go out, wait for the outcome and depending on that you likely do the same thing the next time and hope for a different, or similar result.
To my mind, you're illustrating a desire to push your character, yourself when you start rolling with the punches in a creative way not just moving from match to match like they're exclusive points on a map. Nice way of saying you're connecting dots, and that's admirable.
You sell your character well. There's a number of paths you could have taken with the cards you're playing with so far in PAW like I said, instead you've rolled with the fact that a formerly dominant star has so far failed to attain their desired level of success.
This, to my mind, is realistic. You're giving Caroline the logical progression of a person wanting to overcome obstacles. This is great. Not only that, but you're selling the events in your matches. I don't think this feud with Hayden was planned, more improvised, but you're working with it as a natural flow rather than beelining right for a title.
Your shoot did a great job of selling the conflict of your match with Ana. That's a cornerstone of this game: sell the match, build hype, make me want to read what happens between you two, and you've done that well.
The Bad:
You repeat ideas in your paragraphs. I'm not sure if it's for the sake of word count, or because you don't think you made your point adequately the first time, or if you're trying to convey weight and depth.
Example:
This isn't necessary, is it? I got the point. This moment in her life sucks. This is like inviting me into your car and driving me all over town to see the sights when all I wanted was a quart of milk at the store down the street, you know?
Advice once given to me by a hard-cased writing teacher in a writer's seminar was, "writing is like producing a dream for the reader. Reading is like dreaming. And the tendency to overstate purpose, or over-flower your prose is like putting up roadblocks and detours that fragment the dream experience for the reader".
Don't fragment the dream, Danni. This is something I'm constantly conscious of in my own writing and always look back and cringe every couple of sentences of mine cause I can feel where I over-authorialized something for the sake of sounding smart, or filling in a space I felt needed filled that really didn't, etc.
Tell me the information I need, and let my mind do the rest. Like you did here:
Simple, crisp sentences. Smooth. In that paragraph, you let me into your car and drove me from point a to point b with no stops in between. More of that.
In terms of your shoot, having read Ana's role-play, I didn't walk away feeling like you had her "pegged" really. You both went down similar lines of attack, which isn't really bad or good. I guess my feeling was you could have gotten to the heart of what makes Ana tick better than you did.
The Nitty-Gritty:
You'll find that I don't have much to take away from your work content-wise because, A) I think it's quite strong. B) As is the case with most writing, your work needs polish more than a drastic overhaul of your thinking and decision-making. You have a nice "car", it just needs a polish.
I applaud you for working at improvement, and I really hope I've helped in some way. The honest truth is I feel awkward giving feedback because I always focus on the most asinine aspects of everything.
The details.But that's where the devil is, they say.
Please take everything and anything I say with a grain of salt. I'm a student, not a teacher, hence feedback feels so difficult to give cause: what the BLEEP do I know?
I like your work, and I hope you continue to develop your style and character in whichever way the winds take her.
~Hannah
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