Seven Comments

On my last post I received seven comments (or rejoinders) of varying helpfulness and coherence. For your future reference (okay fine, I admit it just sounded fun) I have decided to score each comment on a scale of 1-10. And the judgement commences.

the snyders said...

I enjoyed it! It drew me in and made me wanting to read more. I think the descriptions were well thought out, and it gave me a good idea of the time period. Looking forward to the final product!

While there is nothing specific in this comment, it does give me impressions, which is nice. And it made me feel warm and fuzzy inside, which is always a worthy endeavor. 7 Points

MLS said...

Look Fhgwhgads, I'm sorry to say I don't like it. Mainly because it's a long freaking opening. I mean in the time it took me to read it I could have done all kinds of stuff. Like paint a picture of a guy, with a big knife...whoa, in fact I'm gonna get started on that right away

Um...right. This one scores very low on coherence and helpfulness, but high on me recognizing the quote. As far as I know, most first pages are about a page long. However, you spelled fhqwgads wrong, so get -3 points and 7 points. Some may question the logic of this, to those I say...Trogdor the Burninator.

the snyders said...

p.s. Mason love your music on here. He keeps dancing around and laughing at himself.

Irrelevant, but awesome. 11 points.

Courtney said...

I ALMOST like it...a couple of things I would polish, which I will talk to you about when I'm not at work....I do like both of the "speech" pieces.

This one gets two scores as well. 5 points for the comment. So low for the vaguery and so high for the compliment of my dialogue. And 9 points for the actual helpfulness after work, which included finding whether or not they had steel in 1016 and pointing out specific problems with paragraph 2.

Blogger's interjection: You do not add points, they are simply two different scores.

Anonymous said...

The first paragraph is confusing. I didnt know if Raban was the strange knight riding on or if it was someone else. Need to establish that Raban is NOT the knight somehow.

Maybe put Raban on his old moldy horse in the first para and use it to juxtapose against the knight's hores. Use their differences as the basis for his unwarranted hatred of the knight.

"Haughty" and "lofty" are trite descriptions. Are there any warhorses that arent "lofty"? How do we know he is haughty if he hasnt done anything?

Raban's attitude is effecting what he sees. Somehow make it come from his perspective. -- Uncle David

Very helpful and specific. I could have sworn I already edited out "lofty". Man, man. I've actually put a lot of thought into how to make the reader understand the angle of narration, the narrator does say things that are Raban's 'opinions' or biased views, and I don't know how to establish that early on. I won't examine everything said in this comment, and it gets 10 points for helpfulness.

MLS said...

I see what he means about the first paragraph not making it clear that Raban is not the knight. Also, it needs to be clear whether Raban thinks the knight is haughty and lofty or whether the narrator is calling him that. I think that is what Uncle David means by making it come from Raban's perspective, because right now it is merely the narrator saying it. The same applies to the word "strange" in the first paragraph I think.
I do think it gave a good introduction to the time period and to Raban's position in society. I agree with Courtney that the dialogue is good.

More on the narrator, which is, as I said, difficult. I'm hoping that a ways into the book it will be clearer that when the narrator says things it comes from Raban, but maybe I can't sell it and will have to change that style a bit. Another dialogue compliment, which is funny because there is so little on the page. 10 points for clarity and helpfulness.

MLS said...

p.s. I left the comment above. Not that you would actually think that was Matt, but I meant to sign it. I have something to add anyway. I really like the third paragraph, and the whole rest of the passage actually. In my opinion, your only major problems are in the first two paragraphs. Of course that is no surprise. If openings are hard the openings of openings are the hardest. Carrie

Yeah, no. I could tell it wasn't Matt somehow. I give this one 10 points, but really that is the score of the last two together.

And there we have it. The seven comments judged and commented upon. And now it is time to announce the winner.

And the winner is...

Me, because I wrote the book.

If anyone has any complaints of the judging methods used in this competition, please contact the blog administrator. The easiest way to do that, is to leave a comment (Rejoinder).