This story is a sequel to I am Octavia
This is the sequel to my 'I am Octavia'. (P.S. You do not need to read it to read this story, but it's recommended.)
EDIT: A threequel is here! A Fall in Fall
After 'I am Octavia', Octavia finally caved in. Not everyone can lose their best friend turned life partner, and not everyone can stand up from it. She leaves Vinyl after a devastating phone call, and she regrets it, but will she be in time to reconcile with her love?
Changed the pic once. Source: http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2013/103/2/6/octascratch_by_donusaur-d61jenn.jpg
Chapters (5)
... lol why doesn't anyone comment? QQ D:
OKAY HERE WE GO
oh god I thought this was a one-shot and then I realized it said "incomplete"
All aboard the feels train. Can't wait for more, gonna follow this
2587383 yay! :) hopefully I'll get chapter 2 by tomorrow. i owe my readers more lol.
2587383 hey man it's updated ;)
2587383
YUS! Great chapter. I loved the whole part with the pebbles, and how it showed Octavia's alone and such. All the little bits of meaning behind the words at parts in this chapter were amazing, was definitely done well. And the "I Knew You Were Treble" thing, that was nice too.
All in all, I enjoyed it. But, I did notice a few minor grammatical errors, nothing serious however. Nice job. :)
2595528 g-g-grammatical mistakes? D:
2597097 Well, I only seen like one or two. There was one near the beginning:
I think you forgot a letter there
But, again, nothing too bad. Didn't ruin the story or anything in the slightest.
Good story! Read the previous story before this, and I'd have to say, you are a good writer.
Still, it was interesting to see something similar to what I wrote.
Thanks for leading me here!
2609840 its quite inteeresting to see various writers tackle the same thing xD everyone writes differently, with their own perception of their characters, setting and plots.. :P
I think that it's still a story for everyone, but the imagery with the pebbles do require some thought. However, I still think it's enjoyable even without the imagery understanding. The feels! Fantastic story, keep going!
Ooh can't wait to read this 'plan' of yours!
2632239 it shall be an interesting one for me to judge where i am at as a writer, and what im good at...
I hate writing endings, that I'll give you.
2632813 An ending is just a new beginning my friend.
2633435 huh, thanks to you, I found my answer to my problem. It worked well.. i think xD
Already feel lik crying... On to Chapter 2!
2697391
Beginnings are my least favorite things to write...
I hate beginnings like I hate drawing back legs.
2703878 This was a very good fic, good job.
2703880 Did you just reply to yourself? LOL. And thanks
2707866 Ya I do that. lol
Greetings on behalf of WRITE! I'm OtterMatt, co-founder and admin, and I'll be taking a look at your story today, as you requested.
Jumping right into this, I'll say that I have not read the original story, and since you've gone about this the right way and not made it mandatory to the enjoyment of the tale, I shall not. A good sequel can always stand on its own feet without the aid of the prior book(s), but they should always add enjoyment to the overall narrative. I'd say you did okay on that front, because I don't feel lost or like I'm missing much of anything. The in medias res opening might confuse some people, but you just need to roll with it.
Overall, your mechanics are right, your sentences are decently constructed, and your word usage is generally correct, so we're on a great track here. I get the overall sense of not only what you're saying, but where you're going with it.
Your pacing was also something you specifically mentioned to be looked at, and really, I think it's fine. I don't feel like the story is getting away from me or dragging, though that is somewhat in conflict with other features of your writing I'm noticing...
Purple Prose
And here we get into the meat of the critique: your writing is catastrophically purple. Purple prose is often a death blow to a fanfic.
This is a very convoluted sentence, and it's quite hard to read. This is part of why your story, on the whole, says very little and moves quickly, but doesn't FEEL rushed. It's because the reader has to spend so much time figuring out what you just said that rushing is physically and mentally impossible. It's all technically correct, as far as the mechanics of writing are concerned, but readability gets lost very quickly in the mire of WORDS. Narrative is a place for things to be said quickly and clearly for the most part. That's not to say that you can't wax eloquently throughout a story, but everything needs to be able to be grasped by the reader.
Much of what this trait comes across as is a mixture of Ice Cream Koans (in which case you use MANY words to say precisely nothing) and Metaphorgotten (in which case we're not sure that even YOU know what you're talking about anymore).
Big words are used, florid words, words that are reaching out to tug at our heartstrings—but when you try to explain what the heck it means to someone else, you're just struck dumb. All of that really says nothing to us. It doesn't give the reader any impressions of your character at all. It's all just Meaningless Meaningful Words. Everything you type should have a purpose. It should either advance the plot or reveal something about your characters, setting, plot, etc. Sentences like these just take up space where nothing happens. And where they ARE trying to say something, we get bogged down in Metaphorgotten territory.
This is a mess, frankly. We're okay with the initial metaphor—Vinyl's light is fading. Cool. But then you go off the rails. Fires don't dry up, they're not a liquid. Shattered bulbs don't heal themselves, they get replaced. Is she a fire or a light bulb? Is she a broken bulb or one that just died off? You NEED to keep your metaphors consistent, because the mish-mash of ideas is confusing at best.
This is just pure word/phrase salad. These two phrases have NOTHING to do with each other, and neither of them is even used correctly in the first place.
The bit with the pebble was (ehhhhh) okay, but VERY heavy-handed. To put it in internet terminology; obvious metaphor is obvious.
Your second chapter opens with a LONG block of text, and we don't even get to know who it's about until a whopping 381 words into it. Almost four hundred words where the reader ASSUMES that the story is still following Octavia, only to be pistol-whipped into another character by the long-overdue name drop. It's decisions like this that undermine your writing. If you took this story back—made it easier to read, cut out the purple prose and tamed the metaphors to a reasonable level,—this story would plummet from 16,000 words to about 4,000. Generously.
Final Verdict: 1.5/5 Pinkies
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Closing Remarks:
I should wrap this up now, because I really don't like being overly harsh to a story, but this has some problems. Not the in-the-marrow sort of problems like OOC characters or anything, just problems in delivery, stuff that you can really work on in the future and improve yourself as a writer.
I'm not saying that you've got Delusions of Eloquence, because for the most part the words themselves are correct, but the construction just leaves them stranded. Words can be used to say florid and impressively emotive things, but they need to be tended and structured with a purpose, not loose and scattered. A quality editor/prereader can help you out with this, but honestly, I'd just suggest that you pick your favorite book (as long as it isn't Twilight or Eragon, ye gods...), and read it constructively, really paying attention to why the writing works, and what parts really capture your imagination. Read it multiple times, maybe even underlining stuff if you're that type of person, but study literature. It will make you a better writer to see how the successful ones do it.
- OtterMatt, WRITE Co-Founder and Composer Laureate
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2776173 Thanks :) For the criticism. I understand most of what you're saying but I can't help but disagree on some things you've mentioned. Most illogical things in this story (like the fire and light bulb) often carry double entendres, and much intentional. Fire represents will, passion, her spark to get things going, her source of inspiration. Often, fire is a source of light and heat, and willpower as an imaginary source of strength. Think of source, and you think of batteries and oasis. Combine the three, and you have a well of fire being depleted like water. That was what I was getting at. That Vinyl was losing herself in this madness. Then theres also the obvious 'she lost her way' metaphor there too.
As for 'leap of faith, jump for joy', i know what both meant, but again, it's a play on words, and much intentional. Leap and jump are both verbs that describe some kind of jumping, so i placed them side by side the words 'Faith and Joy'. She had a leap of faith when she left Vinyl, a choice she believed wad right. Joy added that not only did she placed her faith in her actions, she had a 'leap of faith' that she would be happy, too. But at the end, she throws it away, representing that actually, she realised she threw her happiness away when she left Vinyl, and that when it was hoped she'd pick the pebble, not only did it mean her heart (an obvious metaphor) it meant her happiness. Id like to go on as why the pebble is more than a simple metaphor, but thats up to the readers to connect the dots.
If you read it leisurely, then yes, it's with only about 4000 words, but every phrase in there was intentional. Often, it connects to some other part of the story, so i dont ever have to mention things like 'I once had the ability to write, but since she left, I couldn't' and stuffs like that.
Also, iknow most cant see what i meant to convey with the words I carry, and I guess thats something I'd like to work on. It's something that excites me as a writer, and I'd rather write stuff like that than the way i write my other fics... but ill cut and refrain from falling off the rails, as you've described. Paint one picture, and not a couple.
Thanks once again :)
I'm sorry for not really getting to this. I'm going to try to write up a proper critique for you.
I am also a member of WRITE, but this review will not go in the archive.
2781257 Aye. No worries :) Be forewarned though. Like your pal described here, its full of purple-prose-ness. However, I feel the need to defend and say its much intentional actually.
Howdy! Sorry about the delays, but here is the review I promised you. It is rather short.
As OtterMat said, your prose is garishly, nauseatingly, purple. It's not the worst example I've ever seen, but it is pretty bad. I'm pretty sure that your Thesaurus is strongly considering taking out a restraining order against you. Other than that, it can create unintentional hilarity, such as with a passage describing Vinly Scratch assaulting a sidewalk. It's meant to be an angry scene, but it instead comes across as funny because the frilly writing creates a tone so over the top that it's silly. It's like biting into what looks like a delicious steak only to discover that it's actually just some paper surrounding styrofoam and sawdust that somebody's done a really nice drawing of a steak on.
Your mechanics need work more badly than the Greek economy. Go back over it after freshers in both punctuation and grammar. Also, check your dictionary, because you make a number of absolutely mind-boggling diction choices. Crashing into stallions doesn't cause them "temporal confusion". The word you want is "temporary". You don't "demand a room this instance". You say "demand a room this instant". Finally, check your pronouns. Neither Octavia nor Vinyl should ever be reffered to as a "he" or "him", and nothing they have should ever be called "his".
The characters are... bombastic, to say the least. Given that they never speak in the show, I honestly, cannot say that they are out of character compared to canon. However, they certainly behave strangely. At least you did put in effort to develop their personalities somewhat, and it shows, particularly at the ending. DJ N30N was certainly the most entertaining and memorable character in it and was great fun to read. It was quite good and refreshing to see a story that actually created a relationship that existed for a reason, as well as gave backstory and perspective into the relationship. Taking the time to make sure that events in the story make sense, especially when the story is character-driven like this one, is a good thing. Despite the unorthodox treatment you gave Octavia and Vinyl, I'm giving your characterization a pass.
Pacing was actually good. Granted, you used so many unecessary section breaks that I was occaionally confussed as to who was where doing what. The narrative took place over a short time, but it's somewhat difficult to tell. I did feel genuine suspense at the end of chapter three and genuine heartwarming at the resolution of chapter four. The story got better as it went along.
I found it hard to figure out the tone and mood of the story. Often, I couldn't figure out if you wanted sadness or tension or regret, or whatever. The frequent jumps around will murder any sort of flow and mood you have going on. As soon as we're nice and comfortably settled into one thing, we hit a section break and all that work is lost. It's generally considered better to use transitions to cut between scenes instead of sections breaks or suddenly jumping around. The mood was inconsistent. It starts out with a breakup, then a bit of moping, then some drama, and then a bit of a mindscrew before going into heartwarming mode. It is possible to write an emotional rollercoaster. However, you do not yet have that ability. Also, it fatigues the audience if you throw too many things at them too rapidly. This can be a concern given your writing style, which uses a lot of grand gestures and goes all out to convey emotions.
Your story is fine and enjoyable. However, the purple prose and odd syntax makes it at times awkward and unintentionally hilarious. I personally liked it, though partially because of how cheesy it could be. It definitely improved as it went along. My advice to you is to get yourself a skilled editor and keep on writing. This story was not highly memorable, but it was pleasant and harmless enough to be an okay read. The points that Otter brought up stand. However, I have a different final result from him. You win 4/10 flutteryays, which is on the low end of average (5/10). Fix your delivery and heed what Otter said, and you will be much better off.
This was brilliant! I just read it and I love it!
Vinyl and Octavia deserve to be together.
I love this fic and your previous one much more than i do the fic that caused me to find it which was i am octavia the aftermath, You sir have caused a tidal wave of feelz to wash over my soul by writing these fics and as i go to read the final one i can only hope that it lives up to or maybe even exceeds the magnificence that is this one, 9/10 solid.
Dang this is a Complicated situation
Man the way Octavia Almost given up to the cold was really heartbroken
Wow what a story it was such a rollercoaster of emotion nice job man