Zetsu Critiques Your Prose

[Zetsu]

Hi. Hello. Welcome. Here is where I'll be doing critiques. I will outline expectations, notes, and disclaimers below.

Expectations

• If you want a critique and there are slots open, make a post in this thread with a note on what you'd like critiqued. I will only be taking requests for threads and posts; please do not request a critique for your whole kid!
• Submitted threads must be complete/finished at the time of the request; submitted posts must belong to complete threads.
• If you and your threadmates want me to critique all the writing in a thread--not just yours--feel free to let me know, and I will do so.
• First come, first serve. One request/handler at a time.
• I will be posting critique writeups in this thread unless you ask for something different.
• By default, these critiques are going to focus on granular prose stuff (i.e., the things I would do to at a basic mechanical level to make your prose clearer, more striking, and more interesting). If I notice issues that aren't prose-related (eg characterization, grammar, etc.), though, I'll still point them out unless you specifically request that I not.
• If you want me to address things that aren't exactly prose-related, feel free to request them, and I'll offer any thoughts that I have on the subject. These thoughts aren't always going to be super in-depth, though; sometimes, if a thing isn't in my wheelhouse, I just won't have much to say about it!
• If you have thoughts or questions about my feedback, feel free to DM me, PM me, or @me in the main discord. For the sake of keeping things from getting too cluttered, please don't post those thoughts/questions in this thread.

Disclaimers/Notes on Using My Critiques

• All advice that I give is going, to some extent, be reflective of my personal tastes. As such, you should not necessarily follow all of my advice--if you do so, you'll probably end up producing writing that looks like mine, and, in so doing, lose your own voice. And I'm not the arbiter on what makes for good prose, anyways!
• That said, do give my suggestions a fair shake before dismissing them, even if you disagree with them at first glance. A suggestion here: when you write your next post, try to do so while following my advice--even if you hated the advice! If you still hate it after writing the post, then feel free to disregard from that point on. Just, y'know, be open to the possibility of surprising yourself.
• I will sometimes show you how I would re-write your sentences/paragraphs, in order to illustrate a point. What I said earlier about not following all of my advice goes double here: do not incorporate these re-writes into your posts verbatim.
• One of my personal limitations as a critiquer is that I tend to struggle to find the middle ground between being too harsh/blunt and sugarcoating too much; I've swung too far in both directions in the past. Here I will likely be erring on the side of being too blunt; if the criticism I'm giving you sounds harsh, please don't beat yourself up about it! It's not you, it's me, etc.

And......that's it! At the moment, I will be holding open 4 slots in the queue.

Queue:

1. Deamon
2. Grand Moff Hissa
3. Mara
4. Slam

[Fiori]

Hello. I've felt my prose has been somewhat lacking for a while now, with a tendency towards repetitive sentence structures and over-functionality. Was wondering if you'd be down for having a look at one of Marcy's recent threads? Open to suggestions on how to give my prose a bit of extra zing.

Specifically this one: viewtopic.php?p=99451

[Deamon]

Hi, I don’t have anything new at the moment so here’s something old instead for the time being. Just to get some ideas of what to work on over V9.

[Slam]

Can I be a dickens and throw out this old mini chestnut? Feel like it covers a wide range of contexts for prose to appear in.

Nevermind I need to pick a thread which is representative of my general prose. Which is actually hard to do.

[Zetsu]

Death By Glamour

Heya, Fiori, thanks for being the guinea pig for this style of critique! I want to emphasize again that everything here is just a suggestion, and that a lot of my comments are gonna be *extremely* nitpicky because of the nature of what I focus on. I've done my best to distinguish between stronger suggestions (things you can do that I think would improve stuff in a relatively objective way) and weaker suggestions (things that I would personally do, but, like, I'm just some gal. So, whatever).

General Stuff

• On the whole, I enjoyed this thread! It does a great job of introducing Marcy as a likeably boisterous character, and you do a great job of giving us enough tension and points of intrigue to keep us engaged without ever losing the thread's light-hearted, low-stakes feel.
• Prose-wise, you do a great job of conveying Marcy's voice--your writing is fun, energetic, and it's got plenty of panache.
• One of the main things you can tighten up is that you have a tendency to both show and tell in your prose. Usually, one of these will be redundant in the presence of the other; having both slows down the pace of your writing unnecessarily. Whenever you revise your posts, I'd suggest asking yourself: is this something the reader already knows? Is this something they will automatically infer or assume without needing to be told?
• That said, memories are short. If you've already stated something but it's been a second since that something has been relevant, the reader might need a reminder.
• In a similar vein, sometimes your sentences have a lot of filler words and can be re-written to be more concise. I'm not a strict minimalist--I love long, ornate sentences!--but I do believe in checking to make sure that whenever you do increase your wordcount, you're adding something.
• You use a lot of ellipses, and I think they're a bit of a mis-match for Marcy. Marcy's prose should feel (and generally does feel) fiery, punchy, energetic, and explosive, and ellipses tend to have more of a wishy-washy feel to them. You don't have to remove all of them--some of them work and make sense! Just, like, be a bit more judicious about using them.
• On the other hand, something you can do to ramp up the "punchiness" of the prose is incorporating the more emphatic kinds of mid-sentence punctuation to a greater extent. I'm talking semicolons (you used none), em dashes (you used a couple), and colons (you used one). Harder stops, longer pauses. Breaking sentences in two also works. This has the added benefit of increasing variety in your sentence structure!
• Pay close attention to the words you use to signpost chronology. I might be overthinking this, but I think a lot of the ones you use have a kind of...zooming out effect that's somewhat at-odds with the immediacy of the rest of the prose? A word like "soon," for example, suggests that we're skipping forward in time by at least a little bit, when what makes more sense for the scene is for us to simply move forward in time.

Post-by-Post Breakdown

Breath in.

Breath out.

Breath in.

Breath out.

Breath in...

Marcy Valerio exhaled[Switching to 'exhale' here where you've been using 'breathe out' before feels pointless and produces a bit of a disconnect between the beginning of this paragraph and the previous 'breathe in' 'breathe out' bit], tapping her foot on the floor as she quietly psyched herself up. [She still wasn't used to feeling this anxious before a big performance.]<-[This sentence unnecessarily explains the sentence that comes after it imo.] It wasn't that long ago that she could throw herself into just about anything with minimal prep, just give it her all without a shred of hesitation. [But now she had to deal with these annoying little intrusive thoughts at the back of her head, questioning whether or not she still had it in her to go all out like she used to.] <-[So this is an example of a sentence that has a lot of filler words imo. If I were to re-word the sentence to be more concise, it might look something like "But now the annoying little intrusive thoughts in her head made her question whether she still had it in her to go all out."]

She lifted up her slushie - several flavours mixed together to create a kaleidoscope of clashing colors - and took a quick slurp through a paper straw.

Stupid knee. Who would've thought one little ligament tear could become such a headache. [Even now it continued to haunt her, long after she had recovered from her surgery.] I don't think you need this sentence; I automatically infer these details as a reader.] One awkward misstep, and... Pop. Back on the bench for another six months, maybe even a year.

A sigh escaped her lips. No, she wasn't going to linger on the past, or worry about the future. It was Saturday night damnit, and not just ANY old Saturday night...[I'd personally go for an em-dash instead of an ellipsis] It was the night before her 18th birthday, and she was determined to make it one worth remembering.

Besides, it helped that this wasn't going to be any ordinary performance. She wasn't in a gymnasium, a dance studio or even a football field. Marcy was in an arcade, facing down a Dancerush Stardom scoreboard with a determined glint in her eyes. [I'd put this information much earlier; as a reader, I think I'm left dangling a little too long as to the nature of Marcy's performance. Like, I'm a bit disoriented as to what's actually going on in this scene up until we hit this paragraph, and that's quite awhile to be disoriented!]

She took another defiant slurp of her rainbow slushie, before slamming it down on a nearby pinball machine. "Let's fuckin' go"[You've been omitting punctuation at the end of dialogue here and there; if that's intentional, I don't think it's doing much for you?]

[Feeling all fired up,]<-[You don't need to tell us this; we already know] she stepped out onto an LED dance pad and slipped in an arcade token, looking down as dozens of tiny fluorescent lights lit up beneath her feet. [She watched as] <-[We already know she's looking!] every step created multi-colored ripples, unable to resist skipping on the spot a couple times to make the lights flash like fireworks. But she couldn't let herself get too distracted by the fancy schmancy particle effects,[Breaking this sentence in two by replacing the comma with a period adds a bit of punch and zing imo] not when she had a high score to set. [Only question now was what song...]<-[So. Removing ellipses. Incorporating emphatic punctuation. An example of how to do both here: "Only question: what song?"]

After flipping through several options, she settled on a song title that caught her attention: Death by Glamour. It came with a graphic depicting an androgynous android, one she recognised from a game her sister played a couple years ago. Nothing she was too familiar with herself, but... What the hell. It'll do.

Her selection made, she cracked her knuckles as she waited for the game to load, drinking in the virtual cheers as she would any other performance. Before long she could see the vibrant beats approaching, in a manner reminiscent to what one would expect from other rhythm games like Guitar Hero. But whilst Marcy couldn't play a guitar for shit, she was one hell of a mean shuffler. Alright, so this is an example of what I was trying to get at when I said to be careful about how you signpost chronology. "Before long" as a signpost fits decently well, but feels ever-so-slightly-off; it creates a bit of vague nebulous writertime (the time equivalent of writerspace) that you don't really need, and implies that more time passes than I think you intended. If I were to re-word: "Then the screen went dark, and the vibrant beats approached. They weren't much different from what you might see in other rhythm games, like Guitar Hero--but whilst Marcy couldn't play a guitar for shit, she was one hell of a mean shuffler."]

Right, Left, Left, Left, Left, Right, Down, Down... Oh, this is a great use of colored text. Love it.

She matched every move to near perfection...[Me? suggesting trading an ellipsis for an em-dash? It's more likely than you think.] Near being the key word. Truth be told, she was playing with a lot more flourish than she really ought to if she was aiming for a high score. [She couldn't help herself really, unable to resist adding a bit of pizzazz as she got lost in the moment. Shuffling to the beat of the music, speakers blaring jazzy chiptunes mixed in with the cacophonic ambience of a jam packed arcade. All whilst she was surrounded by thousands of vibrant lights, flashing in tune to her every movement...[This is a spot where I'd be willing to sacrifice a bit of detail for some zip. Something like: "She couldn't help herself, really. The speakers were blaring, the arcade was rumbling, and, all around Marcy, thousands of lights flashed in tune with her every movement." I try to always ask myself if a detail does anything aside from fleshing out a scene; if not, and if it's not utterly necessary to setting the stage, it can probably be cut.] For many, the sensory overload would be a living hell. For Marcy, it was paradise.

It certainly helped that she happened to be accompanied by a very special audience that evening, one she was keen to impress...[Probably my favorite ellipsis in this thread. It makes the switch to Finn's POV feel something like a baton pass, which is neat.]

Right, Left, Right, Left, Right, Left, Down...

Full Combo

Marcy wiped her brow with a deep intake of breath, still buzzing with excitement after dancing her socks off. [Another case where your chronology signposts ("still," "after") feel slightly off.]

Hearing a familiar voice, she turned away from the screen as it showed off her score, the corner of her lips curling into a knowing smirk. She could always rely on her Finn to know exactly what she needed after a performance like that, mouthing a silent thank you as she retrieved her drink.

"What can I say, silly game like this ain't no match for - WHAT?!" she gasped, turning back just in time to see how her performance compared to others who had made it onto the scoreboard. ["turning back just in time to see how her performance rated on the scoreboard" would be more concise.]

"SEVENTH PLACE?! After all that?! Are you fuckin' kidding me?!?"

It wasn't a bad score by any stretch, but compared to the scores above her the skill gap was clear as day. As visually impressive as her flourishes were, against competitive professionals who knew these games inside and out she barely made a dint on the leader board. [Again, keep an eye out for redundant and/or superfluous details.]

"UUuuuagh, screw you STEVE! And you too, MIKE! And ESPECIALLY you... ZZzz!?" she groaned, petulantly stamping her foot on the LED dance pad. She couldn't fucking believe this,[trade this comma for an em-dash, babey!] after all the effort she put in! She bet whoever set those high scores figured out some lame exploit, probably the same kinda losers who use the metal bar attached to DDR machines (like a coward).

Well, fuck 'em. Bet none of them have a boyfriend nearly as awesome as her Finn.

With a frustrated sigh, she lifted up her slushie and took a long, drawn out slurp... Only to then clap her hand to her forehead, as she found herself stricken with an intense biting headache.

"Aaah, brainfreeze!"

As Finn offered an outstretched hand, Marcy saw it as her cue to stumble melodramatically towards him, head slumping against her boyfriend's chest.

Much better. She could already feel her brainfreeze subsiding, listening to Finn's heartbeat as she pouted and nodded her head in agreement. [So, this is in that gray zone where it hasn't really been *that* long since we've read Finn's line, but it's been long enough that the line is starting to slip from my head. So, I'd slip in a (small) reminder that Finn just spoke to her! Something like "Finn's heartbeat was in her ears, mixing with his words, and as she listened she pouted and nodded her head in agreement."] "Break" [Aside from punctuating "break," I'd also go ahead and make it its own paragraph. Idk why, but as a writer I often find myself trying to justify *not* starting a new paragraph with a new line of dialogue because, idk, my brain is convinced that it'll look choppy or something. But then I look at it a few days later with fresh eyes and I'm like "why didn't I start a new paragraph with that line of dialogue, what was I smoking." So if you've caught the same brainworm that I have, don't listen to it.]

Theatrics aside, tonight had been pretty good thus far. It had been a while since she last swung by Area 52, with or without company. She never really got why so many of her peers were down on it. Sure it was loud, disorientating and gaudy as all hell... But for Marcy, those were positives. She loved it. [You gesture toward a similar idea in your first post ("For many, the sensory overload would be a living hell. For Marcy, it was paradise."), so if you want to include this bit I'd probably put less emphasis on it?]

Only downside really was that she was still too young to do a lot of the fun stuff, like the bars and nightclubs. [I think you meant to transition from talking about Area 52 to Vegas as a whole with this sentence, but atm it sounds like there's multiple bars and nightclubs inside Area 52 or something.] God, some of those cocktails looked delicious. As much as she enjoyed sharing a sneaky drink with Beelie-bubs and the others, she was dying to go out and experience everything the Vegas nightlife had to offer. 

All the more reason to look forward to her big 18th birthday bash tomorrow. She was already planning to drop by a tattoo parlour to get a new piercing, after which it was time to flex her newfound freedoms! [After all,]<-[I don't think you actually need this transitional phrase, so it comes off as filler. Might be worthwhile to do a check-over specifically for transitions, each time asking yourself "do I *need* this transition for the reader to follow me from point A to point B?"] there had to be plenty of fun stuff to do in Vegas once you hit 18, right?

But until then, she had to settle for an evening with her Finn. That alone was more than good enough for her.

"Soooo, see any games you like the look of?" she asks, clinging onto her boyfriend's arm as they made their way through the arcade together.

["HMMmmmm..." Marcy hummed to herself, scanning their surroundings for their next game.

"Do you like fighting games? I'm not super big on 'em myself, but... Oh, is that Time Crisis? How retro!"

Marcy gasped, tightening her grip on Finn's arm as she pointed at a row of driving games. "Oooh, you love cars, right? Maybe we can race each other! That sound fun?"] <- This is something of a personal bugbear for me, but it always throws me off when handlers rewind time the way that you do here--chronologically speaking, this post begins some time before the point at which Medic's post ends. The first way this throws me off is that when I begin reading your post, I naturally expect you to pick up where Medic left off; when you rewind time like this without signposting, that leaves me disoriented, and I have to take a bit to properly situate myself. The other way this throws me off is that when I finish reading Medic's post, I more-or-less already have a clear idea of what that part of the scene looks like; when you re-wind with your additions, that contradicts my existing idea of what the scene looks like and forces me to revise it. I accept that these kinds of micro-rewinds can sometimes be necessary, but you should do your best to 1) signpost the rewind, and 2) make sure that whatever additions to the rewinded canon you make are details that could plausibly be omitted from the POV of the character who posted before you.

The look on Finn's face suggested otherwise. Well, in fairness he always looked like that. Her boyfriend had a resting bitch face par excellence. But much as she adored that scruffy frown of his, it did make it hard to tell sometimes when he was neutral on a thing or genuinely grouchy about it.

Still, she'd been dating him long enough to recognise a couple tells, [such as] <- [I am being obnoxiously nitpicky here, but IMO 'such as' feels weirdly detached and formal for Marcy's voice. I'd probably just use "like." I'm an obsessive weirdo when it comes to word choice, but I do think my writing is better for it (but of course I would think that).] the curious glint in his eyes as he spotted the Hologate set-up in the corner. Marcy had only tried VR a couple times, mostly to play rhythm games like Beat Saber. But this one seemed a little different to what she was used to, with the trio of kids currently using it wearing vests alongside their VR goggles, barking at one another as they fired at invisible enemies with their futuristic looking rifles.[Too many commas in this sentence. Go for other kinds of mid-sentence punctuation!] A screen situated above the VR set-up revealed the gameplay, showing off waves of zombies being gunned down as the kids screamed with excitement.

Marcy grinned, turning to her boyfriend with a pleading look in her eyes. "Oh, we are SO playing this next!"

Marcy's avatar turned to Finn, hoisting her gun over her shoulder as she struck something vaguely resembling a pose. "First day on the job!" she laughed, ther avatar shifting awkwardly on the spot. "I dunno if you can tell, but I'm doing a peace sign right now"

Truth be told, seeing her boyfriend represented by a floating torso and helmet did slightly take her out of the experience. Sure that was just because of the game's limitations, but man did it make her wish the technology existed for their player avatars to look a little more human.

Still, the fact that they had actual guns certainly added to the immersion. Well, plastic controller guns, but at least it was something tangible for them to physically interact with. Being able to wield a weapon with some actual weight was more than enough to make up for the questionable graphics, Marcy finding herself unable to resist playing around with it, taking a closer look to examine the finer details...

She was so distracted that by the time the first zombies started approaching, she was startled enough to let out a yelp of fright. [The double "She was [adjective]" structure comes across a bit inelegantly; they're similar enough for the reader to notice the repetition, but not so similar that the repetition feels intentional. The fact that she's startled kinda goes without saying, so you can just write "She was so distracted that, when the first zombies started approaching, she let out a yelp of fright."]

"OH my god, Aah!" she cried out, laughing nervously [Here's a rule of thumb: only use adjectives when they're conveying unexpected information. The kind of laughter that makes the most sense in this context is already nervous laughter, so you don't need to tell us that.] as she clumsily raised her gun to open fire. The lack of kickback was noticeable, but seeing a virtual zombie's head explode into chunky pieces more than made up for it. Said zombie was soon followed by another, and another, the two [it's been a hot second since Finn's come up in the narration, so go ahead and say "she and Finn"] quickly finding themselves surrounded by a virtual horde of the undead.

"HOoooly crap, there's a lot of 'em!"

Things were starting to get a little frantic.

Marcy's aim was hardly any better than Finn's, firing wildly at the oncoming hordes as she struggled to keep a level head. There were just... So fucking MANY of them! And not just regular zombies either, but weird-ass cyber-zombies and... Robots?! What?!? Wasn't this supposed to be a zombie game?! Why were there fucking ROBOTS?!?

"Oh god, oh god, oh shit, oh god, oh..." she stammered, backing away as waves of zombies, robots and robo-zombies started closing in. [Nice bit of deadpan comedy here from just plainly stating the facts] Holy hell, she wasn't expecting the game to feel this intense. [You don't need this sentence, I think. The intensity is already coming through, as is the sense that the intensity is unexpected.]It was one thing blamming zombies on Roblox or something, but once she found herself fully immersed within her virtual surroundings... Marcy didn't consider herself to be squeamish, but fucking hell this was nerve-wracking. So much so that she couldn't help turning to Finn, checking to make sure he was ok.

It was at that point that she finally noticed the red cross rotating above his head. She knew enough about video games to know what that likely meant, eyes widening with shock. Her Finn was in trouble. He was hurt.

Oh. That does it. [Great choice to leave this un-bolded and un-italicized. With a character who's already loud and boisterous, it makes sense for there to be a moment of calm when she's shifting to "seriously pissed off" mode.]

"Get away from him, you-!"[This is a little thing, but a lot of your hypens should really be em-dashes. If you don't want to c+p an em dash from somewhere, you can use a double hyphen "--"] she growled through gritted teeth, raising her rifle to fire a burst into the zombies that were harassing her boyfriend.

"Oh yeah, you like that? YOU LIKE THAT!" she snapped, spinning back around to start firing into the crowd once more. Her fear and uncertainty were long gone, blood rushing through her veins [as she unloaded into the undead with a ferocity bordering on excessive. ]<- [Yeah, you know what I'm gonna say here: the reader can already tell that she's getting carried away, so you don't need to tell us that.]

"GET SOME!! FUCKING GET SOME!!! Oh, you want some too, huh? Well EAT SHIT MOTHERFUCKER! YEAH! FUCK YOU!! Oh, and FUCK YOU TOO!!"

What Marcy lacked in accuracy, she made up for in sheer fervour. Gunning down zombie after zombie, screaming obscenities as she lost herself in the moment. [Couple things. First, as you've probably already guessed, everything in this paragraph tells us stuff we already know. Second, it's a weirdly zoomed out perspective on Marcy--to me, it'd make more sense for you to be buried in her head, for the prose to mirror the exuberance of the dialogue. Jumping between the intensity of the dialogue and the detachedness of the prose surrounding it produces whiplash that I'm not entirely sure is intentional.]

"YEAH! YEEEAH!!! COME AT ME BITCHES, I'LL TAKE YOU ALL ON!! BRING IT YOU-"

Then all of a sudden, the screen went dark as a large Game Over title appeared. In all the excitement she missed a pair of zombies that reached the computer they were ostensibly protecting, destroying the objective and bringing an end to their game. [To go with my previous comment, I think something you can do here to bring us a little closer to Marcy is to simulate the sense of confusion that comes with an unexpected game over.]

Hands still shaking, Marcy handed her rifle back before reaching up for her VR goggles, slowly prying them off as her eyes adjusted to the gaudy reality that was Area 52...

The first thing she saw was a horrified family of tourists who were waiting in line to go next.

"...oh."

Marcy clung tightly onto Finn's hand, still looking flustered as he swiftly pulled her away.

Her embarrassment didn't last long - it rarely did. They were just tourists after all, wasn't like she blew up in front of her entire class. Again. [A good backstory-building bit here. Very organically done. That said: I think I'd put the contents of this paragraph in the following paragraph, between the first sentence and the second one. That way, her embarrassment fades at around the same time that her heart rate goes back to normal.]

She let out a long sigh, nodding her head in response to Finn's question. Her heart rate returned to normal, or as normal as it could be with her boyfriend's chin on her shoulder, finding herself unable to resist planting a quick peck against his cheek. "Mm-hmm, just got uh... Caught up in the moment, heh... That was fun though, oughta try that again sometime!"

Marcy smiled, affectionately ['affectionate' is an unnecessary adjective imo] rubbing the back of Finn's hand with her thumb. It was weird to think they had only been dating a year at most, times like this it felt like they had been together forever. [You've got a comma splice here, which isn't really a huge deal (I think I spotted a few elsewhere, but I didn't want to get bogged down with grammar). But also, whenever you make a grammar mistake in a sentence involving commas, that's an excuse to think about how you would re-write that sentence with other punctuation! So, yeah.] Sure, they had been acquaintances since 9th grade, but back then she only really knew him as Niall's hot friend. It wasn't until after the accident that they really got to know each other - not to mention Beelz and the rest of the crew. Nowadays she struggled to imagine what life would be like without 'em, especially her Finn.

She gave his hand another gentle squeeze. "Man, dunno 'bout you but I'm staaarving... Wanna go grab a bite?"

((Finn Cooper and Marcy Valerio continued elsewhere.)) [This is a bit of an awkward situation in that it doesn't make much sense for Marcy's post to contain an exit tag, and I like the elegance of having both Finn and Marcy leave the threat in Medic's last post. But there...*should* still be an exit tag for Marcy so that we can follow her to her next thread without needing to navigate to the wiki, ideally. I'm awful at remembering to edit in links to exit tags though, so I can't really judge you there.]

[Grand Moff Hissa]

If we're okay with old pieces, I'd love to get some takes on this one since it's focused on a specific side of prose (dialogue).

[Maraoone]

Hi hello here is a thread from v8 viewtopic.php?t=8857

[Slam]

Hello I picked a new post cause I enjoy writing my reflective one-shots, so I would like your expert input.

Make like one of Magnum's rats and Have at thee