Some initial, broad feedback requested on early script draft

Questions, skill improvement, and respectful critique involving game writing.
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Ezmar
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Some initial, broad feedback requested on early script draft

#1 Post by Ezmar »

So I've been a bit conflicted about this. On the one hand, I'm eager to get feedback on my work like any artist. On the other hand, I fear putting it in the critical eye so soon, as I'm aware that it will be far from perfect. Also because I'm afraid of criticism. So, to that end, I'll put a little disclaimer here.

This is the first draft of the first few chapters of the VN I've been working on for the last few months. I know the broad strokes of the story, and I'm writing this draft primarily as a way to get a handle on the finer details of the plot and characters, as well as putting the story into a more concrete form. As such, I'm not necessarily looking for detailed critiques on things like wording or grammatical structure, not least of all because my ego is fragile. I am, however, looking for any advice that would be helpful to keep in mind as I go forward. I'm sure I'll be at least somewhat aware of many of the criticisms I may receive; for example, I'm trying to be aware of overuse of words and phrases, and there may be some inconsistencies here and there, but I hope it's nothing too bad.

I'm trying to be a bit mindful of pacing, as I'm aware it's already a relatively slow start, or at least not a terribly quick one. That said, I'm mostly trying to translate the story as best I can, without getting too bogged down in how I'm writing it. I'm not really formally a writer, my background being mostly in music and computer science, so I'm mostly following my instincts here. I fully plan on doing a full review with plenty of editing/rewriting revision later on, when I have more/most of the writing done.

In short, please be gentle it's my first time.

All that said, I've actually written a fairly hefty amount thus far, and will not be posting it in the main body of this post. Instead, I'll be posting links to the Google Docs. Comments won't be available, as I'm planning on using a TIPS system to define some terms, and I'm using the comments for that. There's also a few instances when I present a choice, and those are mostly just tests for some systems I may decide to scrap later on if the narrative ends up being more linear. So keep that in mind if you feel like telling me that "X seems out of place". I'm aware of a lot of that, and again, I'm mostly trying to just get something down on virtual paper and check in with the community here to see how badly I'm screwing the whole thing up.

While I could provide a brief synopsis, I think I'll put it in a spoiler tag, since one of the things I'm toying with is being slightly ambiguous as to what the story is actually about at first, and I'm curious as to whether it works or just seems confusing and aimless. If you absolutely must know, it will be in the spoiler tag below, but I'd greatly appreciate if someone could try it blind and let me know how the misdirection comes off. Very broadly speaking, it's a sci-fi/mystery story.

Plot Overview:
A group of college students stumble across an old underground laboratory on their campus while chasing a rumor. They then find themselves trapped in a series of time loops and have to unravel the mystery of the laboratory and the research that took place there decades ago. Another disclaimer, it appears this story will be quite long, as I'm currently in the middle of chapter 3, and I'm still only on the first time loop. The docs linked will only contain up through the end of chapter 2, which is actually only the start of the first loop, so I'm worried a bit that the story hasn't gotten moving enough yet to really get good feedback, but I'm going for it anyway.

I wrote this in the spoiler tag above, but I'll reiterate it here for those of you not reading that. One of my concerns with asking for feedback at this stage is the fact that despite having a fair amount written (over 50,000 words), the meat of the action and intrigue has yet to kick in by the end of chapter 2, which is the last chapter I've "finished". I do plan on tweaking the pacing once I have a fuller version of the story to work with, but I hope that what I've written isn't insufficient for meaningful feedback.

I'll stop pointlessly meandering and preemptively defending and post the links.


As you can probably tell from my long-windedness, I'm kind of nervous about what kind of feedback I'll get on this. Any thoughts, comments, or opinions can be put in this thread, or in my PMs, if you prefer. I know I write a lot, even just in this post, and it's a lot to read, but I'd greatly appreciate it if anyone would take the time to give it a look.

Thanks in advance!

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Curtid21
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Re: Some initial, broad feedback requested on early script draft

#2 Post by Curtid21 »

Hey Ezmar, just finished the Prologue

The first few paragraphs made me smile/laugh, that's when I knew I was in this for the long run. The writing and dialogue are just great. The character's have such distinct personalities. I think you did a really good job of Nick's internal thoughts to express his character.
The only problem I reallllly wanted to know what real, overarching plot was. There were a few hints here and there, but man I was thirsty for more. I cant speak for all readers, but I generally like pacing like this - under the condition it's backed by strong writing anyway.

I'm going to finish Chapter 1 when I get another minute. But I wanted to let you know that someone did enjoy your work! Keep at it!
"Are you ready?"
Ready as I'll ever be.

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Ezmar
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Re: Some initial, broad feedback requested on early script draft

#3 Post by Ezmar »

Whoa, I wasn't expecting a reply at this point.

Part of the idea I was going for when I started was that the true nature of the plot would be a bit less clear until it got rolling, but that may change if it proves to be too frustrating for readers. That said, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

One thing to note is that I largely ended up giving up on offering choices and started primarily focusing on writing the linear story. Only time will tell if I'll go back in and add choices to the rest of the story, or go back and take the early ones out, but the story is largely linear and not branching. I've actually finished chapters 3-5 in the meantime since this was posted, which puts the word count up over 80,000, which is a lot more than I'm willing to publicly ask people to sample, but feel free to PM me if you're interested in the rest.

I suppose the above goes for anyone else interested in donating their time to check out a monster of a story draft.

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