Getting back into gear of chopping off that C&C...
I'm aware that I've personally promised two people (Shade, Steve T.)
commentary on their drafts(?) out of the rest of what's in my box. If you
got an "I'll critique it" from me, and still want it, would you be dear
enough to mail me and say so? It would be a good help to me.
But to the meat and potatoes.
##The following commentary not of the original author is merely
opinion to be used or not used at the original authors leisure.
I've been looking forward to publishing this story for a while. It's an
original story in the magical girl genre, but the tone is closer to
Gunslinger Girl meets Alien Nine. In other words, there's no sappy love
angle or other artificial source of warm fuzzy feelings... just real
life, magical girl style. Enjoy.
Just to reference, afraid I haven't seen either of those.
I'm breaking my usual convention of scouring for grammar and whatnot,
because the majority of what I read was pretty streamlined.
In the area of description,the story is weak. Allowing for generic setting
can
only go so far in an original story. Until she transformed, Amber was as
blank
to me as a sheet of paper. Moreso for her friends, enemies, and, as scenes
progressed, the background themselves.
The second weakspot comes in characterization. The reader is supposed to
be able to feel the stresses and frustrations, the sadness and insecurities
that
go along with being a magic girl. Amber does not sell this idea well.
Rather,
her comrades, teacher, and mother feed that information to the reader,
instead of situations arrising where she's actually forced into a decision
all of her
own. This becomes much more heavy handed after the exam scene.
Amber's first battle makes the forced prose apparent. She casually
disregards
the death of a classmate, seemingly more concerned with her own wounds,
while her friends later feed and goad any guilt and indicision out of her.
By the
time her final conflict comes around, I felt wholely dettached from any of
her
emotions, writing them off as superficial, which made the conlclusion all
that
more hollow and disjointed. Racheal's epilogue cheapened it even more, as
it somehow converted the story from an opening chapter to a broody oneshot
right before my eyes.
Which leads to the most critical weakness: Setting. There's not enough
forshadowing or detail about this world to give the reader a beginning clue
as
to why either of these forces would be around. Instead, it's placed to the
wayside to allow for the disjointed and slow death of one of the many(?)
protagonists in this tale. Without a better view into what this world is,
even if it's just where Amber is residing, or a reasoning of why magical
girls exist within this world, I can't draw any potential pictures of what
could
be a followup for this story. Amber might have helped, but she's out of
commission.
For one more slight issue:
*************************************************
The moment of choice was rapidly approaching. And she didn't even
know what the choices were.
*************************************************
This is an unecessary scene. I would suggest writing out a trasitional
scene
firming Amber's resolve.
But that's my view. Without a better hinted setup, and a stronger viewpoint
than merely a faceless soilder in war, I don't see how it could continue,
which
is a shame, because you're playing with a VERY interesting concept
(interesting
enough to have me think up a crossover or two about it in the past).
Hope some of this helps.
- Kenji M. (nexuspost@hotmail.com)
_________________________________________________________________
MSN Toolbar provides one-click access to Hotmail from any Web page � FREE
download! http://toolbar.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200413ave/direct/01/
.---Anime/Manga Fanfiction Mailing List----.
| Administrators - ffml-admins@anifics.com |
| Unsubscribing - ffml-request@anifics.com |
| Put 'unsubscribe' in the subject |
`---- http://ffml.anifics.com/faq.txt -----'