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The upgraded writing

Slylandro

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Paranoid Jack said:
What about using the editors version as the dialog choices for the intelligent character builds?

:lol: That's probably the biggest unintentional dig at VD's writing yet.

Incidentally, is the author reading this page? He's obviously talented but I think some of the suggested changes in his/her style are excellent and would give a good idea of what kind of writing he/she should be aiming for.
 

Paranoid Jack

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That's probably the biggest unintentional dig at VD's writing yet.

Nope. If it came across that way it was due to my poorly worded post. What I meant by that is the way the editors version reads to me... well they come across with a bit too much flourish. Overly dramatic, which would fit better while playing a character build with high intellect. A fancy-pants Scholar or whatever.

I for one am more than happy with VD's original version of the dialogs. That is why I ask him to make them available with the final product. I do like what the editor has done with some of the descriptions but some of the liberties taken in the rewrites were a bit heavy handed.
 

YourConscience

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Gambler said:
YourConscience said:
If I say something is a natural mechanism of language, then that is backed by several years of research going into what are mechanisms of language.
Great. Now, would you be so kind to provide references to the actual study, and to explain how "natural mechanisms of language" relate to good literary style?

Well, a good starting point is "The Psychology of Language" by Harley. It's a standard psycholinguistics introductory book. You might also want to check out some sources about 'collocation' (just google for it) or metaphorical usage of language. There are even algorithms that can automatically extract such things from text (see publications from Church and Hanks form the early 90s and any of the successive publications up to the phd of Stefan Evert.

In my point of view this relates to good literary style in at least the following point (even though there are surely many more - I just happen to not be a literary expert): Just as in any other field it is best to use the precise terms for a certain thing. For example in computer science , you'd not say 'receipt of cooking' or 'receipt of programming' - you just say 'algorithm' even though theoretically all three would be more or less understandable. So I think that in literary work it must be similar. You might want to say
- He could only be described as old.

Which looks just like the result of a bot that wants to convey the information to you that 'he' is 'old'.

Or you could say:
- Feng was old. None knew his exact age. Some people called him 'as old as the hills' and others called him 'old as dust'.
From the bots point of view this adds a lot of redundand information. For a human it invokes actual pictures in his imagination of hazy hills on some old picture, which is slightly darkened due to age already. For example.

Basically, the first variant is concise. Yes. But the second variant is more precise in invoking the exact feelings the writer might have wanted to invoke in the reader. The first variant fails to do so.

Now, of course, overusage of such means or unconsciuos usage might invoke all kinds of other stuff, but that's another story.
 

Twinfalls

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YourConscience said:
the second variant is more precise in invoking the exact feelings the writer might have wanted to invoke in the reader. The first variant fails to do so.

Are you sure? This is why it is always important to look for context.

Let's look at the original with its context preserved:

Feng's exact age was undeterminable. He could only be described as old, usually followed by "bastard". It was commonly believed that Feng possessed and improved all sins known to man, but greed was definitely his favourite.

And here's the full replacement:

Feng was old. None knew his exact age. Some people called him 'as old as the hills' and others called him 'old as dust' and everyone called him an 'old bastard'. And he was. Feng was reputed to have tried every sin known to man, mastered most of them, and even improved on some of them.

Is the first one as bereft of characterisation as you claim? No. The picture is of a predominantly avaricious old man, who acts only in self interest. His character is old, yes, but the emphasis is on his untrustworthy, conniving nature.

The second one introduces 'old as the hill's and 'old as dust'. This changes the characterisation. Now, we see the effect of cliche. "Old as the Hills" is a cliched term, and it invokes associations which may not be wanted. It brings to mind a wise old man, perhaps even a kindly old man. Remember, this is an RPG, and one must be wary of what comes with the territory from past experience.

Even worse, 'old as the hills' subtly alters the flavour of the surrounding society. Where people were content to describe someone just as an 'old bastard', now they are using the more florid 'old as the hills'. The former suggests a society more in decay, more self-absorbed. The latter brings to mind some associations with peaceful olde village communities, perhaps one about to be attacked by demons, leaving you, a young shepherd, forced to undertake a grand linear adventure to ultimately defeat the great evil that's threatening the land - in the company of a laconic but strong and loyal warrior, a fat jokester of a magician, and a feisty young lass who is really a princess.
 

Veracity

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YourConscience: yes, cliché-dodging can get borderline pathological, resulting in unnecessarily stilted prose, at which point it's counterproductive. Substituting 'business proposition' for 'offer', presumably to avoid mental images of a cotton-wool-stuffed Brando, is perhaps a case in point - it's too close to the cliché not to recall it, so the substitution just ends up jarring. Wording it altogether differently might be better still, but, if you're going to have the cliché, just put it in and move on. I think Gambler's right, though: scientific or pseudoscientific linguistic analysis is mostly useful only tangentially from a critical point of view. 'Cliché == evil' is an oversimplification, but in the immediate context it's a practical one that beats careening off into largely unimportant considerations. To topic...

Forty-two is 'relatively young'? Mid-life crisis much?

I think the best way to sum up my reaction to the rewrites is probably that they're much more Biowarian. This is good and bad, the ratio depending on just what you were hoping to achieve. They're certainly more readily digestible, but this is tied (probably at least somewhat inextricably) to their being far more formulaic. If I have to pick one set, I'll take the originals, based on this sample. Naturally, the real ideal would be a compromise retaining as many positive aspects of both as possible, but I don't know how much more time you and your editor are planning/able to devote.

I'll echo the sentiment that the rewrites often deviate too far from what seems to be the spirit of the originals; they also veer much more into crufty verbosity. I'm not really a fan of Hemingway as a novelist, but you're writing a game, not a novel; taut, compact prose becomes more valuable in this context, and even the rewrites I do like fare poorly in that respect compared to the originals. The rewrites do feature a far lower incidence of outright clunky phrasing, though, the main benefit it'd be a pity to lose.

The only (I think) objectively undesirable feature of the rewrites is that they're still sporting a bit of ugly redundancy: double 'chasing after' for the randy loremaster, repetition of 'approach' in the changing of the guard encounter. The extent of editorial liberty in added detail and, in some cases, significantly altered character presentation is dodgy, and almost certainly needs reining in for practical reasons; I don't think most of the extra details are objectionable in themselves, though - sure, 'if i wnated to raed id by a book lolz', but touches like the Death personification (assuming going all Gaiman with Death is correct in your setting) are perfectly reasonable, in my opinion, if far from 'editing' in a minimalist sense. The extra detail on the disguise target description is particularly good, since $charname presumably needs maximum possible detail in this context.

Too much vague rambling. Rough attempt at 'merged' examples that'd suit my tastes, for what it's worth - might be simpler than trying to make generalizations:

Cassius was a young loremaster, having recently celebrated his forty-second birthday. His relatively unlined visage and still-black hair stood out among the unkempt gray beards sported by most of his colleagues. His own beard was a stylish black rectangle, a symptom of his preference for the pursuit of women over that of scrolls detailing military and political exploits of long-dead emperors. Cassius had been patiently waiting for one of his senior colleagues to die, when Antidas's emissaries approached him with a proposition too attractive to pass up.
[Or just keep the offer he couldn't refuse; I really don't think it's harmful, here.]

Feng was old. His exact age was indeterminable, but all called him old, usually followed by 'bastard'. He was reputed to have dabbled in every known vice and mastered most, even to have invented some, but his specialization was indisputably Greed. Citing his unique achievement of having talked his way out of two separate assassination attempts, Teron's more superstitious residents muttered that Death was allowing Feng to inflict himself on the world far beyond his allotted appointment with her, that even she was too intimidated by the roll of his sins to attempt a tally. Such rumours, of course, greatly enhanced Feng's loremaster credentials, but dealing with him in his professional capacity was overwhelmingly frustrating. At one moment he would lie unabashedly, at the next appear to have access to information no reasonable explanation could account for. To his unfortunate customers, the difficulty was that he purveyed truths so outlandish they were often indistinguishable from his fabrications.
['vice' isn't quite a synonym for 'sin', but seems reasonable, assuming it's appropriate in the broader context. 'invented' is intentionally even more hyperbolic than 'improved on' - may not be in line with intention. The personfied Death touch is undeniably way overblown, but expands on 'supernatural aura', and I thought it was cute; obviously, I'm assuming it doesn't violate the setting.]

One very general thing that springs to mind: acerbic wit is teh nifty, and seems to be a strength of the original versions; you should probably double-check each case where you're tempted to use it, though, lest you teeter into self-parody.

Minor localization note: 'colourful in the Dellar sample. This is the internet, speak American, dagnabit.

Oh, pet peeve: every time you're tempted to type 'suddenly', scourge yourself with birch. Then type it anyway, but only if you're damned sure you can't do without it.

Almost too trivial to type: considering your naming conventions, you might want to check strict rules for possessive apostrophes (Ramses', Apollinas's). Then again, just never using 's's' at all is common enough that even pedants shouldn't much care.
 

ichpokhudezh

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IMO, Veracity's versions are an excellent take on marrying the originals with the rewrite.
Original's characterization of Fen (that people cannot tell apart his lies & truths) is somewhat lost ( "he would lie unabashedly", followed by contradictory "truths...indistinguishable from his fabrications").

A _really_ minor point is that "all called him old" reads a lot like a tongue-twister to me.

I'd argue still that 'a proposition too attractive to pass up' is a direct reference to a worn-out idiom. I would rather see something along the lines of 'a shortcut he couldn't resist' or even 'once-in-a-lifetime opportunity'.
 

Vault Dweller

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Slylandro said:
Incidentally, is the author reading this page?
I'll show it to him if he hasn't seen it already as he's a member of this fine site.

Veracity said:
Forty-two is 'relatively young'? Mid-life crisis much?
For a loremaster. Selective reading?
 
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Original:

Cassius was young for a loremaster, having recently celebrated his 42nd birthday. Contrary to his aged colleagues, with their long beards and gray hair, his visage was relatively unlined, with a thick mane of black hair and a stylishly trimmed goatee. His preference for chasing after women instead of chasing after scrolls about long-gone battles fought by dead emperors was well-known in town. Cassius had been biding his time, waiting for one of his colleagues to retire or die, when Antidas' emissaries made him a business proposition he could not refuse.

New:

Cassius was a young loremaster, just clearing 42. His contemporaries were the ashen, crook-backed remnants of once better men. His relative youth allowed him a mane of thick raven hair and a square beard on his chin compared to their long beards and gray hair. He chased women as often as he chased obscure historical facts and was well known for it. Lately he'd been biding his time, waiting for one of his colleagues to retire or be retired, when Antidas' emissaries made him an intriguing business proposition.



My attempt, just tryed to punch it up a little.

*Edit* Yes , its sucked, so I changed it once I'd woken up.
 

Jim Kata

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Antidas' should be Antidas's or else blah of Antidas. Just a stylistic quibble but one that annoys me because people then tend to pronounce things improperly.

Otherwise, the punctuationa nd sentence structure is much less awkward. I have not read them all, but after skimming I am pretty pleased.
 

Zomg

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@Original before and after: Less stilted, a touch more lard between wordiness and cliches. Net gain.
 

Jim Kata

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Ok, reading more, I dislike that the actual character has been changed in many places. Such as replacing "there's some people need killing" with the stupid social club line.

I think that the editor should not really change actual content, just improve the flow and coherence of the underlying work.
 

Veracity

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ichpokhudezh said:
Original's characterization of Fen (that people cannot tell apart his lies & truths) is somewhat lost ( "he would lie unabashedly", followed by contradictory "truths...indistinguishable from his fabrications").
Yep, struggled with this. What I was shooting for was that 'unabashedly' doesn't necessarily mean the lies are transparently untrue, only that the old bastard is completely shameless, as opposed to the original's 'blatantly', which I would say is even more likely to connote transparency. Agree that it's still at least nearly self-contradictory, though.
A _really_ minor point is that "all called him old" reads a lot like a tongue-twister to me.
The rhyme was intentional, trying to set up expectation of a wee pretentious flight of pomposity, hopefully making the terribly down-to-earth 'usually followed by 'bastard'' land with more of a clang. Not necessarily wise - just substitute 'everyone' for 'all' and the whole thing should flow colloquially, I think.
I'd argue still that 'a proposition too attractive to pass up' is a direct reference to a worn-out idiom.
Agreed.

Anyhow, probably getting a bit too fixated on individual word and phrase choices to be helpful at this point - just thought a couple of examples might communicate more easily what was proving awkward to get across in generalization. Not sure I'd go quite as far as looking out for feisty runaway princesses ('[Disguise] You know, Emil, if it weren't for that moustache, you'd be a dead ringer for Her Imperial Highness Emily Flightygoodheart. It's coming loose on the left, by the way. No, your left.'), but Twinfalls illustrated pretty neatly with reference to specific examples how it's all gone a bit Bioware. If a second pass at the overall job can shake off that issue without losing the much better flow and a few hand-picked embellishments, I think the overall quality gain would be well worth it.

Vault Dweller said:
For a loremaster. Selective reading?
More just that the thought made me smile, but perhaps a little...'projection' might be closest to the mark. I do think introducing him as 'a young loremaster...[blah blah]...he's forty-two' is preferable to 'young for a loremaster' up front, though. Letting readers connect a few dots without explicit instructions makes them believe you trust them, and hopefully ensures they'll pay attention, so you can be more confident they'll pick up anything very important without you needing to belabor it. Makes them feel clevererer, too, which never hurts.

Incidentally, what's the in-game context of the loremaster biographies? The fact they look narrated and use past tense seems odd - NPC database?
 

Twinfalls

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Okay, my turn.

Before:

Cassius was a relatively young loremaster, having recently celebrated his 42nd birthday. Unlike his gray-haired colleagues with long beards symbolizing wisdom, Cassius' hair was still black and his beard was a stylish black rectangle, symbolizing more interest in the opposite sex than in the dusty scrolls describing the tactical brilliance and numerious victories of one of the long dead emperors. Cassius had been waiting patiently for one of his gainfully employed colleagues to die, when Antidas' emissaries made him an offer he couldn't refuse.

After:

Blackhart was a relatively young whoremaster; he'd recently celebrated his 18th birthday. Unlike his beady-eyed colleagues with long ponytails symbolising active sleaze, Blackhart's eyes were disturbing black rectangles, symbolising more interest in images of the opposite sex, images of his own sex, images of his own sex having sex with members of other species, and images of the opposite sex having sex with the opposite sex while members of other species mill about in the background providing a rustic 'barnyard' flavour. Blackhart had been waiting as an inmate in a facility for the criminally sex-obsessed for his painfully distended gland to die, when Antidas's emissaries made him an offer he couldn't refuse.
 

Pseudofool

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I'll post my reply since I'm getting a Doctorate in English with Creative Writing...not that should give me or any one a license on authority in this subject matter, because, this is a matter of TASTE, not one of VALUE, or EFFECTIVENESS.

The editor (or should I say ghost writer), while talented, failed to keep VDs original voice intact in REWRITING (not editing) his prose. VD's prose while somewhat cliched and awkward is punchy, and geared for a specific audience in mind. The editor usurped the prose and cutesifying it--by using common tricks of craft, whcih ultimately make the prose sound much more pendantic and formulaic than VDs original prose.

This seems to be the general feel of the thread that rewrites are both verbose and insert the editors voice over VDs. A good editor, one that does their job, takes a very light hand in rewriting, working to bring out the orginal writers voice, not improve to some idyllic state in the editor's head; the editor should focus on clarity, awkwardness, and fix some of the more generalized description.

For instance: the rewrite of "He could only be described as old, usually followed by "bastard"" to "Some people called him 'as old as the hills' and others called him 'old as dust' and everyone called him an 'old bastard'." is an abhorrent overstep of editing protocal. Not only did the editor insert two worse cliches, but he did so in a formulaic jokey way. Yes there's a punch when we get "to everyone thought he was an old bastard" but it's only the result of tried-and-true fomula, some "this cliche" others "that cliche" everyone "this funny statement". Really a good editor would simply rewrite it as "He was best described when called an "old bastard"." Or "In short, he was an "old bastard"" Or some light touch like that, to try to preserve the voice of the original.

I think that the editor should not really change actual content, just improve the flow and coherence of the underlying work.
Indeed.

Any professional editor for a literary magazine or publisihing house, no matter how crappy the novel/story is, goes with the light touch. What your "editor" has done is "ghost write" which is akin, in my book, and some literary circles, to sacrilidge. Give me a soapbox, let me show the world how smart I am.
 

sheek

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I prefer the originals although they're far from perfect. VD's descriptions were more Glen Cook, the rewriter is more Robert Jordan or Raymond E Feist or something.
 

Pussycat669

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Just wanted to add to the Feng example that using romantic images and elements for characterisation might not be that bad of an idea at all.
Since the storyline tells about a world in decline it could be an accenting move to take those (positive) images and systematically destroy them step by step as a mark of decadence.

My go would look something like this:

Feng's exact age was undeterminable. On first sight you might have called him 'a crumbly old rock' but everyone who knew him closer just called him (/refered to him as) 'an (/the) old bastard'. It was believed that Feng commited most of the sins know to man while even improving on some. But in his vast collection of human flaws greed was definetly his favourite.

As for the writing I like the first one more even though I sometimes stumbled over unnecessary dodgy sentences in my reading flow. The edit sounds more like the standardised writing techniques I've read over and over again. While it is certainly easier to read I find it both quiet uninspired (could be me, sorry) and long winded.
Plus I also believe, like it was mentioned before, that the new text alters the impression the reader receives. But whenever this is a bad thing is the designers to decide.
 

MF

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I like the original writing much better. That wasn't editing, it was rewriting. Rewriting in a style full of words that a lot of people would need a thesaurus handy with to read. Very bad, that.

VD, your sense of linguistic style is not perfect, nor is your grammar, but you are creative. You are probably better in conveying emotions and occurrences than the editor, especially subtle humor. In your writing, the juxtaposition between a bunch of old bearded scholars and a suave womanizing lore-master was excellent. After being rewritten, it came across as bland. Sure, the sentence had slightly better flow, but the image did not come across as well.
 

Jim Kata

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Pseudofool said:
I'll post my reply since I'm getting a Doctorate in English with Creative Writing...not that should give me or any one a license on authority in this subject matter, because, this is a matter of TASTE, not one of VALUE, or EFFECTIVENESS.

The editor (or should I say ghost writer), while talented, failed to keep VDs original voice intact in REWRITING (not editing) his prose. VD's prose while somewhat cliched and awkward is punchy, and geared for a specific audience in mind. The editor usurped the prose and cutesifying it--by using common tricks of craft, whcih ultimately make the prose sound much more pendantic and formulaic than VDs original prose.

This seems to be the general feel of the thread that rewrites are both verbose and insert the editors voice over VDs. A good editor, one that does their job, takes a very light hand in rewriting, working to bring out the orginal writers voice, not improve to some idyllic state in the editor's head; the editor should focus on clarity, awkwardness, and fix some of the more generalized description.

For instance: the rewrite of "He could only be described as old, usually followed by "bastard"" to "Some people called him 'as old as the hills' and others called him 'old as dust' and everyone called him an 'old bastard'." is an abhorrent overstep of editing protocal. Not only did the editor insert two worse cliches, but he did so in a formulaic jokey way. Yes there's a punch when we get "to everyone thought he was an old bastard" but it's only the result of tried-and-true fomula, some "this cliche" others "that cliche" everyone "this funny statement". Really a good editor would simply rewrite it as "He was best described when called an "old bastard"." Or "In short, he was an "old bastard"" Or some light touch like that, to try to preserve the voice of the original.

I think that the editor should not really change actual content, just improve the flow and coherence of the underlying work.
Indeed.

Any professional editor for a literary magazine or publisihing house, no matter how crappy the novel/story is, goes with the light touch. What your "editor" has done is "ghost write" which is akin, in my book, and some literary circles, to sacrilidge. Give me a soapbox, let me show the world how smart I am.

I agree completely. I am glad someone here could articulate what I was feeling for me.
 

Gambler

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Pseudofool said:
A good editor, one that does their job, takes a very light hand in rewriting, working to bring out the orginal writers voice, not improve to some idyllic state in the editor's head
A good editor is the one that makes the final text to be up to the standards, whatever they are. Not the one who soothes author's vanity. In this particular case the editor was absolutely right to resort to heavy rewriting. His biggest mistake was not the rewriting, but the addition of "padding" phrases into the text.

Any professional editor for a literary magazine or publisihing house, no matter how crappy the novel/story is, goes with the light touch.
That's because professional editors don't usually work with text below a certain level of quality. And if they do, there is no reason for them to put some extraordinary effort into the text, since the author will get all the blame and credit anyway.

...

To VD:

Some of your texts have more than just stylistic problems, but logical inconsistencies as well. Only you can fix those.

Half of the time Feng blatantly lied, half of the time he seemed to know what very few people did.
You assume that those two actions are mutually exclusive. In fact, they are not. You can lie AND seem to have some rare knowledge. Moreover, the notion of "the time" in this sentence is meaningless. Half of what time? Half of all the time he spoke? So, this sentence doesn't really make much sense.

BTW, how can you talk you way out of assassination attempt? Hitmen don't usually chat with their victims.

It was that his lies were indistinguishable from his truths.
Indistinguishable? From "his truths"?

1. Approach
2. [streetwise] *you realize that you are completely off guard now, feeling safe... perhaps, too safe and off guard. You draw your weapons quickly just to see the reaction*
3. Leave
Approach and leave are imperative. "You draw your weapons" is a description. On of the problems with both texts is that style, tense and perspective constantly shift. You should try to make it more consistent.

Anyway, both versions are not really impressive. I would probably use yours, because it's not much worse, it's more concise and, if I'm not mistaken, it's already done. Well, I realize this in not the most pleasant comment to read, but it's what I think.
 
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I think all of the dialogue should be replaced with sims style universal pictograms to make things easier on everyone. Then you should replace the storyline with interpretive dance and te graphics with shadow puppets.
 

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