Gelgarin presents: Kingdom Come Feedback
If you didnt ask before this goes up then you have officially missed the boat. Sucks to be you. In other news, if I dont get a contract after kingdom come after all the effort I have put into showing willing then Gelgarin is going to be pissed off.
For the purposes of my own record keeping, the following people have asked for feedback: General Disarray, Soldier Mysterio, Baller, Dave, Dirty Jose, The Crock, Blade, Red Skull, M. Winters. I'll open for offers against at the last minute, so possibly a couple of other names. If I missed your feedback request
that sucks. Sorry. As usual I will try to be as constructive as possible, Im also going to try and avoid endlessly repeating myself, so if I gave you feedback last cycle dont be surprised if you get less this time around. As usual, dont expect me to understand anything that references your previous work. Im taking these as standalone pieces of writing.
Without further ado, aplomb or delay
feedback away. (an example of poetry right there)
General Disarray
A bunch of superfluous detail in the opening. Is the state of Sals pizza business In any way relevant to the story you are telling; and if not then why are you telling me about it? It didnt assist in setting the scene and just came off as pointless filler. There is no faster way to diminish my interest in a piece of writing than to open it with details I am not expected to care about.
Ive said it for other people already: I dont like untagged dialog. There is a reason that script form and prosaic writing look the way they do, and that is that they are simply easier to read. You only had two characters here so it wasnt too much of a problem. If any more get involved though then it starts to look massy as hell.
Try to avoid telling the reader things when you can just as easily show them. I dont need to be told that Hammond is not the sharpest knife in the draw; his confused expression should put that across perfectly well. It is almost always better to convey something to the reader without the intrusion of narration.
Youve gone in with a recent sense of humour. A couple of amusing phrases turned. Cant say I got much out of reading your piece though. I didnt feel anything of significance happened, or that I got to know either of the characters, or that the upcoming match was built towards. To me it felt like filler, which isnt really what I should be feeling for a Kingdom Come role-play.
As a final point; what the hell is a klunderbunker supposed to be? Aside from an immersion breaking in-joke? Served simply to confuse me.
Soldier Mysterio
I must sound like a broken record at this point, but I dont like the untagged dialog. Towards the end you have five different voices chiming in with nothing beyond a colour scheme to distinguish them. It is messy, disorganised and inefficient and served only to confuse me as a reader. Enough people are writing their stuff in this style that youre probably safe enough ignoring me, but thats my two cents.
Content wise, there are too many people not saying enough. Mister could by totally removed from the text and I dont think anything would be lost. In a dialog heavy piece it is generally advisable to avoid using any more characters than you actually need. Dont throw people into your text simply to show that they exist. Similarly, if you are set on them featuring then give them a purpose. Cameos look like cameos.
You all into the old trap of describing things that the reader cannot aptly visualise. For example, you talk about King having a scene of accomplishment almost radiating off of him. For a start, Im going to assume you meant sense, and second, what is that supposed to mean? What does somebody look/act like if they have a sense of accomplishment radiating off of them? Dont tell me, show me.
Content was OK, like I said, too many characters and too little focus for me to really take much away from it.
Baller
Pronouns. You seem to have some massive aversion to using them. You use Kingdom Come three times, WCZW.com twice and Mr Baller twice in just over a single line of text.
Formatting is nice, I dont think I gave enough credit last cycle on account of yours being the first piece I read, but everything looks clean and is kept tidy and easy to read. I hugely appreciated that.
I had a look at last cycles feedback and all my comments regarding commas still hold true. Far too many of your sentences run on far too long and would benefit from being broken up.
The narrative structure of the first half was interesting and creative. I felt you struggled with it in places, but the concept is strong. What I would say though is if you are going to do the day in the life thing then you need to focus on more interesting events than somebody not finished a sandwich. With this kind of writing, no matter how it is sold, Im not going to be engaged by trivial information.
Second half was a lot more traditional. I felt that the majority of the stage directions were there for their own sake and could have easily been scrapped. The writing was of an unmistakably higher quality, the second half came across as much more inside your comfort zone.
Overall, solid.
Dave
I would have enjoyed this piece a lot more if the text was aligned with the left margin. Centralization is used to make small blocks of text stand out, youve written over two thousand words and simply made them slightly more effort to read. On the subject of structure, I would defiantly have replaced at least fifteen of your sixteen exclamation marks with simple full stops.
There were issues with the writing, most notably in the prose. The grab a random example: The Scene pulls a face that can only be associated with an air of confidence that does not seem out of place for the moron that stands before the audience as they try to make themselves s****** at something that wasn't funny in the first place is horrible phrasing. For one, its far too long for an individual clause, for two, it doesnt make sense and for three it changes focus half way through. Your piece had a lot of moment like this, and as a result I think it was too long.
Unfortunate phrases and clunky sentences are a reality of writing and are always going to happen. In moderation they can easily be overlooked, but this was two thousand words peppered regularly with them, and it started to leave a very negative impression. As I got down the page I was increasingly ignoring the writing, and but for the fact that I was providing feedback I would probably have stopped reading. Thats not good. It was also not helped by your subject not being involved in the first thousand words on your piece. We run through three characters before he shows up, its too much. To use wrestling slag, Constantine is the draw. Hes the reason Im reading and I felt you went too long without him, and lost my interest as a result.
Things did improve somewhat when he appeared. The promo was solid, and built well towards a final crescendo. In the circumstances I was slightly disappointed by your closing statement. After all that build I was expecting something slightly more poignant and memorable, a killer closing line if you will. Was still serviceable however.
Jose
Good. Not a single exclamation mark or square bracket in sight. I can now go to my grave content that in some very small way I have made a difference. It actually did make a difference, everyone else in this match peppered their piece with superfluous exclamations and your writing came of as much more restrained as a result. On the negative side, the first two lines of dialog you use script formatting (something that I personally would have appreciated throughout) and then you completely stop for the rest of the piece. Doesnt make sense.
Dialog was solid and punchy. First half came across and mildly more natural, possibly because of the limitation on extended soliloquies. Everything sold what you were trying to sell, and whilst I dont feel you used this role-play to say anything particularly interesting, you nonetheless got your message across. Formatting was less of a problem for me this time round, mostly because both sections were limited to only two characters. I still dont like it, but it didnt spoil the RP for me like last cycle.
A decent if safe role-play.
Crock
Not to get overly botanical, but real sycamore trees arent native to America no matter what Pocahontas tells us. You guys have something that you call a sycamore, but its not really. This could not be less relevant, but Ive been reading this stuff for well over an hour now so indulge me whilst I take a short break to rant about trees.
Much better. In terms of capturing reader attention, there are few things less engaging that somebody commenting at length about the weather. I get where you were going with the calm before the storm but such an image should be left as overarching metaphor (perhaps indicated by storm clouds in the distance or whatever) as opposed to being explicitly spelled out. Unless your character is running a weatherman gimmick, which is unlikely but possible, I have no idea.
Something Ive noticed a lot of people doing is simply repeating recent history or match stipulations. You do this a bit. At this point we know your match is a number one contenders match. If you want Smith to talk about it then have him actually sell the importance
dont just throw it out there for the sake of it.
The Ghandi quote is nice. Well used and one of the highlights of your piece. I will say this however; dont quote Ghandi one paragraph after saying There are no limits to the punishment I will dish out to you at Kingdom Come it just comes across as false.
You seem to change tone pretty suddenly towards the end when you suddenly go But now, let me take a moment out to talk about how much being on the Kingdom Come card means to me. It read to me like you decided your piece wasnt long enough or that you hadnt covered enough areas and tried to force a couple of paragraphs onto the end. Using the NPCs in an interview situation is a very good way to change subjects without coming across like this.
Blade
Im a little unsure what to say about this. On the one hand, its a guy exchanging banter with a psychiatrist, which is a pretty massive cliché. My instinct is to lambast you for being derivative, and in many areas I think you are. That being said, theres no denying that this is the best RP Ive read since joining the fed (first time included if you like) so fuck it.
Formatting was perfect. Everyone else Ive slagged off on this subject should have Clockwork Orange treatment with this role-play until they get the message.
I dont have much else to say really. Pick an aspect of this and it was good. Like I said, the shrink is just about the most cliché method of recounting back-story outside of a dream sequence, but its a cliché because it works and you used it perfectly.
You win at Kingdom Come. Any other result is beyond comprehension for me. Now stop bugging people for feedback, your stuff if great.
Red Skull
Pretty much every comment I made last cycle can still be applied here. You get the award this week for person whose role play was totally destroyed for me on account of formatting. You have at least six voices in this piece, and you dont tag any of them.
Actually its worse than that, because sometime you do and sometimes you dont. Tags appear randomly but not nearly enough for them to serve any purpose. Italics are used seemingly at random. Colours are missed once or twice and one character used a shade of green that is highly unpleasant to read. Im sorry but this was a complete mess format wise and any merit the content might have had was lost.
I didnt read this the whole way through. That should tell you everything you need to know.
Winters
Aqua blue is not a nice colour to read. Dont use it.
Im also not sure why half your text has to be in italics. Whats the point? It already stands out on account of being a different colour. Sorry, I get more and more pissed off about formatting as a write these and you were near the very end of the list. Not to say it isnt a problem, you dont actually make any effort whatsoever to indicate which voice is tied to which colour which is a bloody nuisance when youre relying on colour to differentiate your dialog.
I came out of this a bit unsure as to your status as a face or heel. Almost all of your actions said face, but then you were stood up in front of a church talking about how you are a champion and how God wants you to step on people. If its a complexity of the character then its interesting. If its not then watch out, because you come across as somewhat warped or insincere.
An interesting character. Most of the writing is above average, the soliloquies are solid and I like the fact that they are placed in an appropriate setting. Overall it was good. One of the stronger efforts.
Phoenix
Oh gods, I remember now. Youre not actually Phoenix in this fed are you? Thats a fucking pain, trade character this instant.
Now to channel Lance Storm and be serious for a minute: five voices with no effort at dialog tagging. Three guesses what Im going to say? Thats right. Whilst Im busy parroting the same things I write for everyone, you really dont need to end 50% of your sentences with exclamation marks, its unnecessary. Most of the time its not even in the context of an exclamation and it makes things seem less intense by taking me out of the story to think about punctuation.
Writing was OK but nothing special. I didnt feel either Dave or Ace exhibited enough unique character for me to properly distinguish them. It was just people saying things to each other. That thought would be considerably better organised if you were higher up the page methinks.
A waterlog rollercoaster sounds bloody dangerous to me.
I felt things bordered on the long side. The focus shifted quite a lot and it felt like I was reading a couple of shorter role plays instead of one epic one. By the time I was at the bottom most of the top had simply been discarded from memory. Interaction with Ricky was interesting, I dont know any of the history there but its nice to see the seeds being planted for something to potentially happen in the future.
Comedy was a bit hit and miss for me, I just dont think it has a major place in big match builds. Thats just one mans opinion though.
Falkon
If youre going to use colour like that then try and pick two shades that differ slightly more that lilac and magenta. Its a confusing enough way of formatting things as it is.
Quite a few of the things youve written dont make sense to me. It feels as if you haven't with the lack of communication., Ah, but how is one supposed to insert themselves in conversation of a monologue?. I dont know what these lines are trying to say; but I didnt understand a word of it. There are more examples later on as well and it does detract from the piece.
Im burned out completely at this point. I have very little constructive to say about your content. It was alright. I didnt think there was enough personality in the dialog, a lot of it was simply recounting events without really showing me who your character is. If I looked at most of what youve written out of context I would have few clues as to who was speaking.
Lee
Interesting concept. In isolation I like it, Id hate to see it on a regular basis, but as a one off it comes across as quite epic in scale and does a better job of building your upcoming match that almost anyone else has managed.
I am conscious that this didnt actually involve much writing however; at least not for this show. Im not sure how I feel about that, actually fuck it, Im not judging these contests so I liked it. If I was trying to pick a winner I might hold it against you though.
Formatting was very neat which was very important for this kind of piece. Good.
Not much else to write, very hard to judge really on account of its nature. For what its worth, I liked it.
Right. That is me done. Sorry to those at the bottom of the page, I was burned out and your feedback is somewhat substandard. Im sure youll all find the strength to carry on. If you want to discuss anything in detail then PM me. If you want to tell me how brilliant my observations are then public flattery is my idea of a good time. I hope somebody finds something helpful anyway.
Fade to black.
Unintentional, I know but I still smirked when I read that. Anyway, the mystery about the guy following you, is ok but nothing majorly engrossing at this point in time but to me, this is the first time I've read an RP with this sub text of yours. I'm sure you have an idea of what's to come with that story.
