[FFML] Mobile Suit Gundam Storm, Ch. 6

[Andrew Dynon]

Ouch.  Yeah, as I've said, I'm aware that descriptiveness is one of my
weaknesses (and part of this is not being aware when I need to go into more
detail until it's pointed out to me).  I do want to build better emotional
intensity, and would appreciate any advice on how to go about it.  Nothing
against you for pointing this out.  

As for the first-person perspective, I have seen it used in various books
(and I'm not into the detective genre), although I'll grant that those books
usually followed a single character for their entire length, with no
perspective shifts.  I did originally try to write the first chapter in
third-person perspective, but didn't feel like it was gelling for me and
ended up switching.

I should try and proofread my emails better to try and make sure
autoformatting hasn't done weird things.

Thanks for the C&C.

-----Original Message-----
From: Arthur Hansen [mailto:arthurh3535 at gmail.com] 
Sent: Thursday, 26 May 2011 7:54 AM
To: The Fanfiction Mailing List; Andrew Dynon
Subject: Re: [FFML] Mobile Suit Gundam Storm, Ch. 6
On Thu, May 19, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Andrew Dynon <adynon at internode.on.net>
wrote:
{snip}

I know I'm going to sound like a broken record... but the descriptiveness in
this chapter went beyond minimalism. And then the shifting first person
perspective didn't help. I've always been a believer in 3rd person narration
unless the *scene* needs first person narration. Really, the only time I've
seen 1st person narration work is usually pulp private investigators
introducing important plot points in a vaguely interesting way of Info-Dump
or if it you use it to show why someone is apparently going nuts and making
insane decisions, to let you understand their POV that can not be easily
explained in their person.

But even gum-shoe detective stories usually switch to 3rd person narration
when there's more than three people around.

"We returned to our ship."

This is incredibly dull and doesn't really show us anything about the ships.
Is it a big, ominous black ship with MS bays on its back and shaped like a
preying mantis? Or does it evoke a flat-angled ocean-going missile cruiser
and is covered in long range bombardment cannons?


We are getting a lot of names thrown at us at times and nothing that
triggers 'oh, that's the nervous doctor that wears glasses as an affection'
or the slightly tubby commander with a crew-cut and mustache that is
desperately trying to not show he's too old to command.

I saw some other formatting bugs, but I think that was 'smart'
punctuation copying of "..." that defaulted to a single "." and disrupted
the flow of the conversation.

While there is definitely supposed to be some very intense emotions shown,
it didn't *evoke* those emotions to me that well.

YMMV!

--
Arthur Hansen