My Review of Daetrin's "Apotheosis" (Part 1) · 11:50pm Jan 5th, 2015
Author: Daetrin
Story: "Apotheosis"
Completion: Up to chapter 4 (of 8)
Introduction
Heh.
Heh-heh... hehehe!
*rubs hands*
MWA-HA-HA*snort*HA-HA!!!
Technical Issues
Paragraphs often bleed between characters. The focus switches from one person to the next with little or no warning. There's a rule that each new speaker should start a new paragraph. I don't know if that's exactly the rule being broken here, but it's very similar: one character's dialogue is often followed by a description of what a different character is doing/thinking/feeling.
The alicorn didn't reply, and Twilight looked over at her. "Princess Luna?"
This sentence starts out with a focus on what "the alicorn" is doing, but the dialogue belongs to Twilight. Consider the following, instead:
Twilight heard no reply from the alicorn, and looked over at her. "Princess Luna?"
I know it must seem like nitpicking... but this happens all the time. Combined with the extravagant vocabulary, it's very disorienting.
"Where are we?" Luna had the faintest edge of panic in her voice, and Twilight had to admit it wasn't unwarranted, or that she didn't share it.
This dialogue is obviously being spoken by Luna... but who's doing the narration? This feels like it's being taken from Twilight's perspective. She's the one noticing the panic in her voice, so surely she's the narrator. But if that's the case, why not just make her the narrator? You could at least put the description on its own line.
Birds escaped from the trees, milling about, disturbed by a sound more felt than heard, flat, sharp, and without an echo. Luna dived. Her landing was rough and unpracticed, and Twilight rushed over her before she'd gotten properly settled. "I heard that!" The unicorn was looking as disturbed as she felt. "What was it?"
This example feels ambiguous to me. The paragraph includes descriptions of what Twilight and Luna are both doing, but there's no concrete attribution here. The phrase "The unicorn was looking as disturbed as she felt" doesn't tell us who's talking: is it the unicorn, or the character presumably looking at the unicorn? My assumption is that, since Twilight is the last name that appears before the dialogue starts, she's the one talking. I guess this works well enough in a pinch... but I still think the description and the dialogue should go on seperate lines.
"I suppose we should." Luna's smile was not as spontaneous as Twilight's, but it at least came easier than usual.
Here's a good example. The first name we see here is "Luna," so we assume that the preceding dialogue is being spoken by Luna... which it is. If Twilight's name had appeared before Luna's, we'd naturally assume that Twilight was speaking.
Naturally, it's possible to break this rule with flair and pizazz. Take the following quote:
"You have got to be completely insane, Twilight Sparkle."
Stripped of all context, this makes it sound like somebody is speaking to Twilight Sparkle. When you read it in the story, however, you instantly understand that she's talking to herself. In that instance, the intended message comes across clearly.
Style and Voice Issues
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh said-isms everywhere! Kill them with fire!
I can tolerate a few of these, sprinkled here and there. But when every single line of dialogue has to be spiced up, it becomes fatiguing.
She added into the silence, quietly, "I'm sorry. For what I said to you."
Really? Really?
This leads to my main problem with the story: It has an extremely rich vocabulary and style, but very little subtlety. We're constantly being instructed in how the characters feel... which makes me feel like I'm being instructed in how I should feel about the story. Don't just tell me how to feel: make me feel! I prefer it when the characters simply speak or act, allowing me to interpret their inner thoughts and feelings for myself. The vocabulary is extremely rich and dense--and I will make one thing perfectly clear: I actually love the vocabulary here. The author used a couple of very uncommon words, including a few that I had to look up in a dictionary, but each of them fit the story perfectly. But when you have the thesaurus turned up all the way to eleven, all the time, it becomes fatiguing. When I'm wading hip-deep through a sea of verbiage, it becomes harder to make the climactic moments stand out. It also makes it easy for me to skim over important details: "Blah, blah... wait. We're outside now? When did that happen?" More than once, I had to backtrack because vital details got lost in the language.
I have complained about this in many other stories. I'm starting to think I may have a problem. This is compounded by the fact that I don't read a lot of romance... and by "not a lot" I mean "none whatsoever"... so I have no idea if this sort of writing is simply par for the genre. Rich prose, dense vocabulary, and powerful emotions being presented straight-up on a silver platter. So, instead of saying "this is wrong and bad," I will settle for saying "this bothered me, but others may enjoy it, and that's perfectly okay." I will be very curious to see what the RCL review has to say about this particular issue.
Another thing I've just noticed... these descriptions only bother me when they involve the characters and their feelings. Whenever the author describes things by their physical properties, the prose is truly magnificent: the scenery is lush and vibrant, and actions and events are vivid and effective (especially That One Scene comprising the last quarter of chapter 3, and its strategic repetition of the words 'tick tock' and 'impossible'... and That One Moment in particular took my breath away. Read it. You'll know what I'm talking about). I only dislike the purple prose when it's applied to their inner thoughts and feelings... and it's not even the purpleness that bothers me, but the bluntness. If these things felt more "internal," then their revelation would feel more natural and effective to me.
AHHH NO COLORED TEXT I TAKE IT ALL BACK! SO CHEESY!!!
Plot And Story Issues (So Far)
Let's get one thing straight: so far, I like everything that happens in this story. Even if I don't agree with how it was presented, the events are original, imaginative, vivid, powerful, and just plain damn neat. The story has a mythic quality about it, suitable to the character arc it contains. It also visits a lot of profound connections between a former villain and the young, fresh-faced hero responsible for her defeat.
Angry, bitter reviews are common on the internet, because it's easy to write about what you don't like. It's easy to describe things that are wrong. It's much harder to talk about what you like, or about how a problem can be fixed. This section on plot is going to be very short, because A) I haven't finished the story quite yet, and B) I can find no fault with what I've read so far.
But I still hate it. For... very good reasons. That I'm sure I'll come up with.
Yep. Any moment now.
Aaaaaany mome--MOVING ON
Final Verdict
I can explain what this story needs in one simple equasion:
SIMPLICITY + EFFECTIVENESS = ELEGANCE
It feels wierd to say that a story is both too verbose, and too straightforward, but... that's kind of how I feel about it.
But despite the difficulty I had wading through the knee-deep layer of half-melted poetic wax that suffuses this fic, I eventually acclimated myself enough to sit back and enjoy myself. The story truly is vivid and magnificent, but it helps if you pretend it's being written in first-person omniscient. Yes, that's right. I said it. I really like this story.
Sooo...
...Why was this story not written in first-person omniscient?
It already feels pretty omniscient, on an emotional and expressive level. Just swap all the "she"s and "they"s for "I"s and "we"s. Then you'd have a perfectly good excuse to spell out the narrator's personal thoughts and feelings, while still hiding those of the other characters, giving the reader something to deduce on their own via subtle behavioral hints. Best of both worlds, right? That's what I'd do.
Sigh. Subjectivity rears its ugly head again. My final verdict (on the writing style) is this: "There's a fantastic and heartfelt character arc here, but if you don't like extravagant prose, you'll never stick around long enough to enjoy it." Which is another way of saying "If you hate this story, you'll hate this story." I find it very interesting that, despite having almost identical titles, this story is nearly the polar opposite of my own. My writing often relies on blunt, straightforward language, while hinting at complex emotions and relationships under the surface... or at least, that's what I try to do. I apply this line of reasoning to the little moments: the nitty, gritty, nuts-and-bolts. The small-scale events that build up into the grand scheme of things.
This story scales back a distance, and limits its discovery to large-scale plot elements. It explains the moment-to-moment elements in excruciating detail, but it still has plenty of big plot points to surprise us with. And where this story shines, my own story fails: it contains a few big, beefy paragraphs of rich, vibrant description, but the vast majority of my story is casual dialogue... and because the descriptions are lacking, it often succumbs to "empty white room" syndrome.
But enough about me. Go take a look at this story, and give it a try. If you can follow the writing without any trouble, I'm certain you'll find a real gem worth treasuring. My only regret is that the complexity often made it difficult for me to keep focused. I'm not suggesting the language should be dumbed down or predigested, since I love the vocabulary and imagery. I guess it's just a shame I wasn't intelligent or focused enough as a reader to absorb it effortlessly.
I MEAN... I'M NOT DUMB! i'M SMART! sHUT UP!!1
*bolts out of his chair and runs out of the room*
aaaaaitwasntsupposedtobelikethiiiiis
To Be Continued, In Part 2: Plot and Characterization
2703304 I think I know what he's saying.
Third person hot and first person are very similar. However, I have written in first person and I think it's actually inferior to third person hot for most stories. There's only two reasons to write in first person, in my opinion - you have a very snappy character voice (Dresden Files) or your narrator is unreliable in some way (my book, or Soon I Will Be Invincible).
So far as the prose being rough? Yeah. It is. I warned you about Apotheosis being old and creaky! Fortunately I've had years to improve...
Bumped into Duncan here via Daetrin's Appletheosis review. I'm glad I made the effort to explore.
Now, I am become Gluttony, devourer of... backlogged blogs, reviews, and such. I'm always in the market for good advice.
2707222 Also third person limited sometimes.
Third person hot is a phrase I took from...some other author, I don't remember, to describe when you're still using third person, but very much using a specific character as the lens through which you view the world. You can only see inside the head of a specific character, so it's not omniscient.
2707222
2707253
Argh... Limited omniscient is what I meant. Not the same thing!
Wait. Hold on.
At the risk of drawing further embarrassment to myself... would First Person Limited Omniscient be the proper term for a story that takes the form of a journal that was written after the fact? Let's say the author was present during the events of the story and now, through the gift of hindsight, knows everything that was going on at the time. Does that qualify?
2708647 That would be a bit weird to do since you can't really go beyond the narrator's perspective without breaking the first person perspective. You can see some first person narrators talking about other stuff going on that they didn't see immediately but it's still done within the realm of "little did I know that someone else was plotting too!" or whatever.