Ridgen Sú'ufanán/Cyhallrhim/Water Mage - Tailor

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

Finished, the bilingual part is explained in the history.

[Kalína Dalá'isyrás]

You didn't address my comment about the ears. If there is something you haven't changed, let me know and tell me why, so I know you aren't just ignoring comments, which isn't going to help with getting an approval ^.~

[Deklitch Hardin]

Ridgen,

I can see two places where Valan put comments into the history part of your CD ... I'm not sure which one you are talking about, so I'll put my interpretation on both of them for you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a toddler or something very similar here. The entire sequence of events smacks of not fitting. Especially the speaking

Remember this is an elf you are playing, and elves tend to age a lot slower than humans. That is why we have an elven age calculator. I just put your elven age of 14 into the calculator ... it comes out as the following: Your elf looks like a human about 9 years old, has the aproximate knowledge & training of a 9 year old human, and is 14 years old.

So, 9 years old in human terms. Not exactly a toddler, but still very much developing abilities in reading and writing, IF you had previously been shown how and practiced it. At 9, you'd definitely be able to speak, I'd say.

I'm going to break down Valan's next quote bit by bit, in an attempt to explain what I THINK he is saying ...

Oh! I see what you did there. Yes. Skipping a few centuries. <SNIP> You go on about the age like it's important. It really isn't. And leaving gaps like this only makes it worse.

You have made a sudden jump in your history from 32 to 212. That is 180 years, an awfully long time. You really need to give some indication to events during that time. Surely there must be some things that happened to him during those 180 years! To me, if you are going to have that amount of time with doing nothing other than ... 'And so, for another long and dull one hundred and eighty years, Ridgen studied under the guidance of his tutor, Selod.' ... the age of Ridgen could be decreased by that 180 years. Or, have things that happen to him during that time. Surely there is something he did during that time that didn't involve him being so bored by studying.

If you want to mention how old he was when certain things happen to him, feel free to do so ... however when you do so, and then leave a lot of years in between with nothing happening, it comes across as quite disjointed or as though there is something to hide or something. Even though you are 12, I'm sure you can make it a lot more interesting than that.

When I think of my own life, I can think of something that happens in almost every year that I could write about, from jobs I did, to events I attended, to schools I went to or taught at to holidays I took etc ... I think most people could do the same. Think of someone going for a job. If they have a period of time in which they mention no work, the employer will wonder what's going on during that time, and seek to find out what they were doing so that they weren't potentially hiring someone who had gone to jail or something like that.

The anecdotal way you write you history doesn't work with the "all-knowing author" clause of CD writing.

As the CD Author you know everything about your guy. You need to tell us, the CD Moderators, future story moderators and future RPers all that you know about him. Even if your character loses his memory for 20 years ... you as CD author need to write about that time. It almost is as though you are currently writing the CD history section from the point of view of your character.

And to be fair, the bits with people talking aren't too well written.

When I'm writing speech, I speak it out loud to myself so I can hear whether it sounds like speech or whether it sounds like writing. You might find doing something like that helpful to you as well. Also, you need to more clearly indicate who is saying what ... for example ... the following bit ...

"Then, for doing a couple of things for me, I can teach you how to read."
  "What things?"
"Oh, just... sew me a nice woolen cloak. My old one's disappeared."
  "But I can't sew! And how would I know how, I'm not a girl!"
"My eyes must be failing me. I thought you were some 75 years old. Well then, if I can't get it here there is no reason for me to be in this room."
  "Wait!"

Really gives no indication as to who says what. I'd like to see a bit more of 'the old man said' and Ridgen complained, or 'The young elf shouted'. I am a teacher from Australia and I teach primary school, Ridgen ... I know you would have covered speech in parts of your writing throughout primary school, from at least year 3, if not year 2. And even when you were reading in year 1 and 2, you would have encountered books with speech marks in them. In short, I'm sure you can do better than that, and I'm encouraging you to do better than that.

A bit like we're supposed to be in 16th century France but people are throwing around gang signs and talking about DVDs. They just don't seem to fit.

Ok ... imagine you are reading a fantasy book in which the heroes are going off to fight a dragon. If it has been established that they use swords and such in battle, and then suddenly they pull out some kind of high powered rifle ... it wouldn't fit. Or if you were watching Lord of the Rings, and Gandalf pulled out a mobile phone as part of the movie ... once again that wouldn't fit. You'd know straight away that something was wrong ... and your ability to believe in the environment they are establishing (for the sake of the book/movie) would be destroyed.

One example of this I found in your history section was the following bit ...

Once he had said his goodbyes, he set off for the continent of Sarvonia. That night, he was asleep, and the boat had crashed into some rocks, and smashed to pieces. He was asleep then, but, miraculously, he woke up the next morning washed up on the shore of Northern Sarvonia. What luck!

Now, that seems like too big of a coincidence to me. It makes me want to say 'have another go at it, and try to make it sound a bit more plausible'. It is a fairly long way between Sarvonia and your home continent. It would certainly take more than a day ... much much more than a day for a boat that is suitable for one person to make it to Sarvonia ... that is if the boat can survive the rougher tides etc of the oceans betwene the two continents.

A suggestion ...
Maybe he started off the trip with others ... It was plain sailing for a few days, but then, disaster struck the boat in a storm or something, and he alone survived. When he thought he was done for, a ship happened to see him that was bound for Sarvonia somewhere, and that ship took him to the city that you mentioned? Taking pity on him or something because he couldn't speak their tongue, but not wanting him to perish.

To me something like that might be a bit more plausible than the way you've got for him to get there.

Ridgen, I truly hope that assists you somewhat with understanding what Valan meant. Please ask here in your CD thread, or in a Q&A thread if you have further questions.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

Oh, thanks! It's far clearer now. Back to pencil...

[Kalína Dalá'isyrás]

The S&W have an ok from me.

At this point, once the history sections are cleaned up, you may be ready for your first approval.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

All done! *falls over and dies* 

[Kalína Dalá'isyrás]

Because all the areas except history have basically already been approved by the commentors, I give you a FIrst Approval

I will see what Dek has to say about his comments.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

Yay! Thank you Miss!

[Alýr (Rayne)]

I haven't read through your entire profile, but I wanted to note that the qualities below are very uncommon for elves:

Phobias: Elves believe in the interconnectedness of the Dream and natural cycles of life and death, or the seasons, and of all things. What is there to be afraid of? All things happen as they are meant to happen.

Self-esteem issues: This implies a great deal of individuality and individual perspective; however, elves are often community-minded. They don't think about flaws or faults (though they often know their shortcomings), but instead focus on ways to either improve them or get around them in order to best help the community.

Tantrums: Elves are not often riled enough to experience tantrums. They see the true nature of things, the interconnectedness of things, and this prevents them from becoming angry or sad. Anger and sadness are emotions arising out of a lack of acceptance to the true nature of the Dream.

Traditionally the RP board hasn't been too concerned with elves acting elven, but it might be of benefit to know what qualities of your character are atypical for your race (just in case!). Good luck with your approvals!

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

Ok then... removing those and putting in the worse possible weakness I could think of without tipping it off balance (or maybe thinking up of a few things...) 
Thanks miss Rayne.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

And that one new weakness should cover up everything. XD

Thanks for your comments, Miss Rayne!

[Deklitch Hardin]

Your history section still has a lot of problems in it in my opinion. It reads in a very disjointed manner in places. The language spoken by the characters still doesn't sound 'real' to me, and at times it is still quite difficult to work out who is saying what in places.

With speech, it is good to give as much guidance to the reader as possible ... if Ridgen is talking to someone else, please have the speech by each person on a separate line, and with some kind of identification as to who is speaking each time. Either use the person's name who is talking or some identification of which one it is based on looks or something.

Some specific issues I can see ...

'A man opened the door' ... you mean an elf, don't you? And if by man you mean male, say male elf.

Some of the names eg 'Norm' and 'Bleak' don't quite ring true to me ... it is another one of those things that I mentioned in my last post to you. 'Norm' does not really sound like an elven name to me. They make me stop with the suspension of belief needed to believe and enjoy something like this. Especially considering some of the other names you have used throughout it ... please change Norm and Bleak to other names more elf-like.

Please, no animated skeletons. Your history has to fit in with the world as has already been established. And animated skeletons simply will not work.

Silverbards are a Santharian coin. You come from a different continent, so it kind of begs the question, 'How did he get the coins?'

Not to be rude, Ridgen, but your history needs a lot of work. I'd suggest that you do your research into the world of Caelereth, and into your chosen tribe.

As Valan suggested, your way of writing the history does not really fit in with our mode of being the 'all knowing CD writer'. This means that even if YOUR character doesn't know things like who his parents were, you as CD writer knows them. Thus, you need to indicate who his parents are (even if you don't name them by name).

Please consider taking a look at other people's CDs and compare them to what you've done in yours. There are lots of different styles, but your style really jumps around, and the events described don't really seem to flow well together, neither are they very consistent with the established world.

[Malexia Vendu]

Ridgen,

May I suggest also that you try to cut out some of the history that really does not fit. Keep the important, relevant stuff. Or, shorten some of what you have. Just be concise since what you have does jump around a little bit. Elves live a long time, so you will have some gaps in your history and that's ok. You don't have to explain centuries of life in detail.

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

BUMPing this old project and working on it... again. As I read through this, well, I can;'t believe my attitude or my writing skills, actually! Ok... So yeah, i've come back and is completely reconstructing the  history section... XD

[Ridgen Sú'ufanán]

I've finished! And I'm back. Bumping this up and awaiting comments. XD

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