Kids N' Vigs: Feedback

[Lightfoot]

Hey, I thought I was supposed to show up and set off the bomb in my trunk?

What a rip off!

[Redline Fox]

This has been a test of the emergency attention span network, repeat, this has been only a test.

[Grey Fox [FD]]

IT HAD BETTER FUCKIN' BE ONLY A TEST!!! (sorry, abrupt emotional response kick-in...)


That's a rather anti-climactic ending for such a good read. I sure hope your smiling Kitty. The last thing I expected to read about was our governator taking out the midwest witha nuke...

That was an alternate, not the real ending this time ending, right?!?

[Redline Fox]

Grey ICQ me sometime damn you and maybe you'll find out.

[Fnork]

We've reached the end of the story, but we're not finished yet.

Redline and I have been working on all sorts of extras that we will release along with the zipfile containing the master copy of the story itself.

It will include both alternate endings, a Director's Commentary, a full cast list, and a few other surprises.


We hope everyone has enjoyed the story.

[Lightfoot]

That was a great story!

I especially like the part where Oni turned into a cyborg and destroyed all the humans!

[Fnork]

What you didn't know, is that the Oni cyborg was actually the REAL Death Machine, returned from the depths of hell...


As you could see, he was pretty upset about being "impostered" for all those years...

[Grey Fox [FD]]

(applauding) A standing ovation gentlemen! Damn fine job you've done on this story! I can't wait for the extras...

[Ace English]

Short feedback.

Longer feedback to follow. Stayed up late to finish reading it, so there's nothing bad here.

[Ace English]

Longer feedback. I must qualify these comments by stating that I don't actually know what I'm talking about when it comes to writing fiction.

I won't post spoilers, but I'll say that the outline story was a very good idea, that built on the characters from the previous story, in a broadly reaonable manner. There were some good interactions between characters, but I had to raise an eyebrow in a few places- I think these may have been more continuity based, where previous incidents haven't been fully accounted for. The only real example, is when Dante apologises for allowing Redline's car to get torched. This whole scene struck me as odd, because I'd read about the damage inflicted on Dante's store in an earlier chapter. If anything, Redline would have been apologising for bringing this mess down on Dante's place of business in the first place!

The next two criticisms are kind of related. In each chapter, or even sub-chapter, I'd prefer it if the narrative forcused only on one character. That is to say, I don't want to read the inner thoughts of two or more people in the same number of sentences. If the motivations of a number of chatacters *needs* to be explained, I'd think it's best done so either after the fact (in reflection) or, if necessary, by repeating the action from the other perspective. I think, on balance, that it's better to leave the reader guessing the thoughts of a character, than explain everything in the scene. There was a bit too much justification and explanation of the behaviour of the characters- their actions and words should speak for them, not the internal narrator.

There is an occasional obsession with minute detail (something which I have fallen for in my own work). I think that such detail is only relevant when it's due to the character(s) noticing it. We, as the reader, don't need everything described to us- we can imagine the rest, even if it means our vision differs from the authors' slightly. Again, there's I felt at times there was a little too much detail in the combat scenes. I know this is a story in which autocombat-erotica is a key element, but again, some abstraction may have helped with the pacing of these scenes.

It's clearly been a monumental effort to create a story with such an ensemble cast, with such a huge wordcount (how many is it?), so I can only admire you guys for putting so much into it. However, I do think the story would work better by going back over it, and chopping out about a 1/3 of the text- not 1/3 of the story, but the (I feel) extraneous prose.

I did enjoy reading the story, but I will admit to skim reading a couple of chapters looking for the key dramatic events.

This has been quite a negative feedback in reflection, I can only balance that by saying, again, that I did enjoy the story, and if none of my comments are deemed valid or applicable, then I'm sure I'd enjoy the next story just as well.

I *will* contribute some interstate fiction of some kind in the near future, so I'm not just throwing peanuts from the gallery

[Fnork]

It's about time someone posted some "negative" feedback. When all the posts focus on what people liked, it's difficult to know what needs to be improved.


We did run into quite a few continuity hurdles along the way, and did occasionally have to go out of our way to get things to fit right. A few things did still slip through, but we tried to avoid anything intentional. Of course, sometimes that meant we had to "cheat" a little by tweaking something that had been written much earlier.

One that springs to mind is the scene when Colleen pulls a spare tire from the torched Piranha. When we first wrote it (and i think when it got posted) she only grabbed the one tire, but way at the end of the story she loses another tire, but shows up with four intact tires a few scenes later -- so i went back and added a line about her tossing the extra tire in the trunk


The character jumping was a bit of a problem too, but at least in the parts i wrote, most of it was done to reveal things in a way i wanted it to be revealed, so any small "secrets" wouldn't be spoiled too soon. We did try indicate character jumps or minor scene changes by seperating them with an extra line or two of blank space, but it didn't always translate well to the forum.


I'm glad you enjoyed it, and i'll be looking forward to your own fan fiction



oh, btw - the word count is 89,943 (according to MS Word)

[Ace English]

I wasn't confused by the character jumping, I just felt it broke the flow of the story- part of that being because I felt there was too much explanation of every action. I don't remember ever reading a book which used a similar technique, so I'd consider you pioneers in that regard. A series which uses the method of scene repetition to cover all the characters personal involvements, is Steven Donaldson's "Gap" series. For key moments, we'll read up to three or four chapters which cover the same part of the story, often involving interacting characters. That series is a bit of a chew to read though, so I wouldn't automatically recommend such an approach. That's why I feel the best compromise is to either trust your characterisation, and credit the reader with being able to make their own assumptions, or else to cover important thoughts in recall in the next chapter.

I don't want to rag on the story though, as I recognise it for the outstanding achievement that it is, and at the end of the day, I don't think any of us here make our living writing this stuff

I have a couple of outline stories I made a start on a couple of years back, but I've lost all but one (I think) of my (semi) completed fictions, so I'll be approaching them from scratch. I expect a thorough, and incisive critique when I post them, though