Register a SA Forums Account here!
JOINING THE SA FORUMS WILL REMOVE THIS BIG AD, THE ANNOYING UNDERLINED ADS, AND STUPID INTERSTITIAL ADS!!!

You can: log in, read the tech support FAQ, or request your lost password. This dumb message (and those ads) will appear on every screen until you register! Get rid of this crap by registering your own SA Forums Account and joining roughly 150,000 Goons, for the one-time price of $9.95! We charge money because it costs us money per month for bills, and since we don't believe in showing ads to our users, we try to make the money back through forum registrations.
 
anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
crit for exmond since it was asked for:
Okay I had to think about your story like four different times to try and understand the original intent, correct me if I'm wrong:
Homeless person wants to inspire others with... acting? It's very, very hard to understand what this person is doing.

The stakes are horrible and this is ultimately what makes the goal of the story fail. I think (and again, this an assumption, it's hard to really say because there's so many problems with how unclear everything is), is ultimately the two character arcs:
Protag doesn't want to teach person to inspire others because of tragic backstory involving seeing a loved one of some kind die from it.
Sara wants to inspire people no matter what because she finds beauty in humanity.

The stakes are not clear. Here is what Sara undersatnds about performing or whatever it is:
""In the City I inspired thousands, but I found out that there is a fine line between inspiration and obsession." Memories of a blood-red gown surfaced in my mind. A dead seamstress, her face writhed in agony, followed. "I found out just how far people will go for inspiration.""

Not a good warning. You could make this vastly more interesting by having Sara know this is a life or death situation but chooses to perform anyway. Instead we are vaguely given an idea of maybe a tragic situation which could have easily been an unlucky turn of fate. In addition, the protag here just starts teaching Sara without much reservation. "Oh no she might die... ah gently caress it." is the feeling I got. Does this make the absolute lack of moral dillemmia clear?

In addition, this story is incredibly intangible. After several rereads it sounds like inspiring people is done through acting of some kind. You should be more loving clear about this and if it's not acting i have no idea what it is which is even worse. Ignore the setting making no sense. There's a city and a homeless encampment. There's very few words that make me understand the setting. I wrote a story a long time ago that lost that had a similar problem where I just said "the character is a gentleman". It's okay to use shorthand when you need to, but if that's the only description you have "homeless encampment" the idea here changes entirely from person to person and that's the only set of words I have to understand the majority of your setting besides it's near a frozen lake. It's a pretty clear case of tell and not show to an extreme degree. I don't know if they live in the alley or go to it every once in a while or if it's an alley outside the city or in it and if the lake is in the city and holy poo poo like yeah just be more clear.

So the biggest three fixes would be:
Why is inspiration so important to this world and why would people die to inspire others? What is the definition of inspiration and how do people inspire others?
Making both the protag and Sara understand the risks of inspiring people and then having Sara die because she thought the moral choice of inspiring people was far more important than her life. A tragic and inevitable conclusion. There's other ways to end the story but I'm trying to think along your mindset here.
Showing and not telling (outside of the idea of what the definition of inspiration here is). EX: Describe the sight and smell of the homeless camp. Describe the protag fitting in in some fashion (owning the same tent as everyone else? The same attitude of having given up hope? etc Calling something "The City" is also like the single most obvious example. Give the city a name. The City tells me nothing other than its a city! Using a name for the city "Glamway" as stupid as this sounds, is a way better name in this context because it tells us something. Anything.

Adbot
ADBOT LOVES YOU

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
also, hey yall, its been a while.

im in

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
The Two-Door Machine 820 Words







anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool

Exmond posted:

Practice what you preach. If you want to get rid of the narrative structure you should be accepting of other forms of stories.

i too get jokes

anime was right
Jun 27, 2008

death is certain
keep yr cool
tanks for the crits

  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5