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"Guess-the-Author" Analysis and Critiques

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Author 1, Mantua - a good writer doing solid work. This one sets out all the relevant details and drives right ahead to the climax, no plot twists or miraculous deliverance allowed. I suppose Carmagnola's choice of suicide over capture could be called a plot twist, but I see it as in character.

Emotionally, the piece moves in a steady upward slope of increasing tension, right up to the final 'stroke' that resolves the conflict (in more ways than one). I especially noted the use of strong descriptive words - the gates 'shuddered and cracked', the mob roars with bloodlust. This author has a vocabulary and he's not afraid to use it.

With a short piece, the author must make decisions about where to allocate his words: so much for characterization, so much for plot, scenery, and so forth. This author has chosen to concentrate his time on the action of the scene (rightly, I think), distilling what could easily be a chapter into a single passage. Wise use of limited resources here: the author has slashed out a sketch of Carmagnola with a few broad strokes. We may not know much about him, but we know what we need to know.

If there were any errors in spelling, punctuation or grammar, I did not notice them. Capable, professional work from start to finish.

I'm flattered that Amric attributed it to me, and if I had written it I'd be pleased with it.



Author 2, Steiermark

A tribute to MrT or a red herring?

The setting and characters are clearly modeled after MrT's latest work. But when a peg-legged, eye-patched man comes into a bar, I start looking for parrots and treasure...

The dialect didn't bother me, in fact I thought it added to the story. I do appreciate the author's attempt to get assistance on authenticity. I become irate when someone mangles a Southern US accent, and I appreciate that what some of us think is a 'perfect' Scots accent might be quite imperfect.

A nice tale in the tradition of tales told in a bar. I was just a trifle let down by the ending. Bar stories, as a class, usually depend on clever or dramatic plot twists and this story doesn't have them. A nice, human ending - just not what I expected.

Well-crafted, well-told. A straightforward account with no bells, frills or whistles. The author has been attentive to the detail of one character while leaving the others blank, and the details of the bar are very sparse. The result is to center the spotlight firmly on Old John - an effective technique.

Again, no spelling, punctuation of grammatical lapses that I noticed.



I'll talk about authors 3 & 4 in my next post.
 
Review of Author #1, Mantua:

This is a solid piece. I like the short summary of the war to that point. The anger he feels towards the abandonment by the Turk is well written and the hopelessness of his troops against the Venetian forces.

I like the imagery of the use of the sounds of the battering ram. I would have thought that Carmagnola would have felt more anger when the archers abandoned him and am not sure I liked the way he plunged his sword into the back of the coward.

I liked the end where he took his own life rather then allow the others to kill him.

All in all, well done!
 
Review of Author #2:

A tribute to MrT. The characterization of MrT's character Old John is very well done. The style is similar enough that it could pass for passages written by MrT himself.

I had a little trouble with the dialect, but that is not a criticism because if I didn't have a bit of trouble reading it, then it wasn't done right!

The plot itself was ok. It was a bit week, but was ok. The best part of the tale was the paragraph describing the tribulations of the siege. As an aside, would Scots in this period have drank beer? Also, I would think that two Scots drinking in a bar would have mentioned their clan affiliations.

A very strong effort!
 
Review of Author #3:

This offering shows us the revolt through the eyes of a rather clueless General. What we see and what we don’t see are done from this view point. thus, we don’t know why the revolt happened but that doesn’t matter.

I don’t know if the use of rifles in this manner would occur with the use of pikes. I was under the impression that by the time rifles came into use, rather then the earlier arquibuses(spelling?) that the pike was long gone.

The ending was unexpected. I was surprised when a general so silly was made Duke, but then that may have been the purpose. I smiled when he met his appropriate end.

Review of Author #4:

This last offering starts off with a proclamation by the “Emperor of the United States” claiming the land for himself. I like the proclamation and the tone it sets. The name Lincoln is misspelled but that was the only major spelling error I noticed.

After the proclamation we are introduced to the American officer sent to destroy this rebellion, Prickfield. I like the character of Prickfield and smiled in the way he continued to lose battles. He seemed to be a recurring officer in my games where I keep losing armies to little rebellions that I outnumber badly.

I like this humorous little piece.
 
Author 1:
I think this was the best one, and I enjoyed reading it. It gave a very detailed account of the battle and didnt have any "holes" in the plot. Overall A+ work.


Author 2: Good writing, though a little brief. Im still vaguely confused on what happened and what direction you where trying to take it. I think either the boy looking for information on his dad should have been better developed (more questioning about that) or the battle in general.

But it had absoulutely superb dialouge, which did an awful lot too help the post. It was a little breif and a little thin, but what was their was great and I give it a B overall.

Author 3: Good beggining with the confused General and decent way of describing the battle. Howeverit was filled with historical flaws (pikes vs rifles?) and seemed to end quick, quite abruptly. I give it a C

Author 3: Another nice piece, setup the battle well, with reasons. It developed the main character quite nicely. It didn't describe the fight, but didn't need too either. It ended well and Began well, A-
 
Stroph1 said:
I was surprised when a general so silly was made Duke, but then that may have been the purpose. I smiled when he met his appropriate end.
Click to expand...
But as I read it...it isn't necessarily the General...pretty obvious inference, but still a mystery ending...
 
No 1, a very competnet piece, I couldn't find any flaws in it, smooth riding all the way with a nice twist in the end, a fine stadalone piece.

No 2, A very nice dialoque and credible mangling of the language ;) I had however slight trouble finding the "rythm" of the piece. While it was flawlessly executed I couldn't shed the feeling it had been cut down to size??

No 3, Left me puzzled at first, how could he be both commander of the last defence and then find hilself survivng, but reading it again made me smile at the reality in Italian politics :) A few well placed sentences prolonging or "expanding" the battle might do the trick, but I must admit I failed in trying to create them :)

No 4, Made me grit my teeth saying "Yes, thats how it is in the new patches", and i smiled over Norton, having read the comicbook Lucky Luke I had this clear picture of the wayward Emperor :D

As to the writing it self it gives a very nice dry commentary to it, not quite newspaper style, not quite narrative, but I like it, a refreshing view on rebels.

V
 
Author 3, Siena - I think the author knew where he wanted to go but wasn't certain of the route. (This is a problem I often have and I think I recognize the symptoms).

Again, let us remember the constraint on length - the authors are not free to ramble on until they get the story told. Their submission must fit within certain limits.

Author 3 chose to relate the course of the battle, and he does a good job of outlining a character who has lost whatever grasp he had of the course of the battle. The 'punch line' to the joke is left for the last paragraphs, which form a sort of 'where are they now' capstone.

May I suggest that the author took the assignment too literally? Instead of concentrating on the lost battle, perhaps a shift in emphasis or a change of artistic conception would have been of benefit. For example, sketching out the 'lost battle' and detailing how the General, surrounded by furious rebels, saved his own life and became Duke by putting himself at their head and leading them to victory against his former troops.

The process of General becoming rebel leader and then Duke is, for me, the focal point of the story. I think the author saw that, but after spending words on the battle he just didn't have enough words to spare for the 'real' plot-point. A case, if you will, of insufficient planning - something to which I am also prone.



Author 4, California - OK, a quibble here: [whine]can we spell Lincoln, please?[/whine] (To be fair, it's correctly spelled elsewhere in the piece).

That aside, this is solidly written. The information that the reader needs is delivered, and the character of 'poor Prickfield' is worth a wry smile.

My advice to the author would be to turn up the amount of 'detail' and sharpen the descriptive terms and modifiers. Instead of telling us Prickfield is incompetent, describe his absent-mindedness, or nearsightedness, or senile dementia - and let us reach the conclusion that he is incompetent.

Now, this is personal - I hate endless pages dwelling on the color of the wallpaper. But I like crisp descriptions that help my 'mind's eye' see the landscape, weather, faces... things that make the picture vivid. Don't just tell me Prickfield was incompetent... show me. Tell me what, when, who, how! Describe who was there when the Emperor's proclamation was read. Tell me how they reacted. Who were the men of the Madman's Militia? Why did they march and fight? Above all, how did they win?

'So!' Author 4 says, 'You want all this in the few words we're allowed to spend on this?' Yeah, in a perfect world, I do want it all. In this imperfect world, I just want more.

To use an artistic metaphor, this piece is a good sketch that lacks shading, color and texture. But it is a good sketch.

The 'history book' style is well chosen and well executed. I did find myself wishing that Trederr had been played up as more of a heroic figure, to contrast and accent the hapless Prickfield.
 
Now that Director has finished his critique, how much longer before the authors take our bows? Anyone else thinking of chiming in (Lord Durham, perhaps?)

Hajji, you haven't set a time limit on the critiques, what's the guideline?
 
According to Article XVII, Section 47, Line 263, "whenever I feel like it":

AND OUR AUTHORS WERE...

AUTHOR #1: Prufrock451

AUTHOR #2: richvh

AUTHOR #3: Hajji Giray I

AUTHOR #4: J. Passepartout

(Recommended Reading selected by quality, length, and (in Passepartout's case) how long it lasted before it got abandoned :D :D)
 
J. Passepartout said:
I don't think anything I wrote was ever an OscAAR winner.
Click to expand...
Timid Timurids, third place, Funniest AAR, May 2003. It's in the LibrAARy.

:)
 
I'm flattered to have been mistaken for Mr. T, but plead innocence to having made a tribute to him - I don't believe I've read any of his AARs yet. The accent was meant to be thick but not incomprehensible, and as accurate as I, an American with little exposure to genuine Scots, could make it. (I once attended a military school with a Scot, whose accent was so thick as to make him incomprehensible the first day. After that, either he toned down the accent or my ears adjusted, probably the former, and I had little problem understanding him.) If anyone found it too thick to understand, I can provide a translation into standard English. If any Britons, especially Scots, want to critique the accent/vocabulary of Old John, such critique is welcome.

The inspiration was a revolt in Steiermark in which Styria briefly gained its independence, and Scotland being annexed by England, twice, both in my Roman 'Round the Med game. I was originally going to have an ending like the story of the old Indian fighter - "And there we was, surrounded by ten thousand Injuns." "What happened then?" "Why, they killed us." (Is that the type of twist ending you were looking for, Director?) - and the man looking for Old John was sort of vaguely some sort of government official, but by the time I finished writing the battle scene that didn't seem right, so I made Giovanni the son of Old John's colleagues, searching for someone who could tell him how his father died.

I left out the background because that, I thought, would most likely point out my identity too easily. The Empire in question is, of course, Roman, and the inn is somewhere in the Empire, where Old John settled after his disability discharge, probably northern Italy or southern Germany (but probably not Venice, else Giovanni likely would have run into him while growing up).

Note that Giovanni, despite the McTavish surname, is Italian by birth and upbringing, presumably Venetian, so Scottish clans likely wouldn't mean much to him, and I conceived of Old John as a Lowlander, who I don't think are as clannish as the Highlanders were. As for if period Scots would drink beer or not, I have no idea, but beer is all I thought of as being served in an inn.

Considering that I don't really think my creative writing skills as being strong, I'm pleased to have been graded so highly. I'll take the B!
 
Thanks to everyone for their kind reviews!

The inspiration for my piece was a recent game of mine as The Turk. You'll be happy to know that I did come back and retake Mantua, as part of my insane and completely accidental "build a ring around Hungary" strategy.

It did work out nicely, mind you.
 
Time to say something myself:

I didn't intend to write my piece; we had a fourth author, but he backed out so I wrote up a quickie replacement.

The piece was not based on any game experiences at all (ditto for one of my AARs).

Hope you guys liked the first round...we had some very good authors join us :cool:
 
Hajji Giray I said:
we had some very good authors join us :cool:
Click to expand...

Looks around wildly
Where? Where? Jeez, did they leave already? I didn't even get an autograph! :( :)
 
So what will be the next topic?
 
I wrote the above before seeing who the authors were.

With the numbers of writers on the forum it would work best to give the names of the authors and see if the readers can match them with the stories.

Author #1 My favorite of the four selections. He clearly set the stage with a single paragraph and then moved on to the characters in the story. The story is filled with vivid descriptions of the siege, which allowed me to feel the increasing desperation of the trapped men. The alternating of character introspective verses plot movement was first class. A minor problem was with the ending. I don’t know if I believe that Carmagnola would kill himself as opposed to going down fighting but that is as I said a minor problem.

Author #2 Although reminiscent of MrT it is quite different in style. I had no problem reading the dialect. It added to the story and I’m envious since I suck at it. The story the old John told was believable in a gritty no nonsense way. I say this because the beginning led me to think that there might be a "tall tale" headed our way. I thought the ending fit the mood of the story.

Author #3 A completely different approach from the first two. Little character development but it didn’t need it. It came across as a tongue in cheek look at the way rebellions are handle in the game. I had a smile on my face while reading it and especially liked the twist at the end.

Author #4 Since I lived in San Francisco some years ago I was delighted to see Emperor Norton’s name show up. And by the way contrary to rumors I’m not old enough to have known him personally.

I did have a problem with this:

"Prickfield was a bit of a sissy, and had joined the army to show his acquaintances he was man enough. The only reason he had a rank was because his father had a bit of, shall we say, influence."

With a short story there is always the pressure to get out the facts with as few words as possible. Sometimes you have to just tell the reader a fact or two. However in this case I think it was a mistake. A few sentences sprinkle in the story could have demonstrated Prickfiled’s incompetence well enough. Maybe for example leading a charge against the rebels (from the rear). For this reason these two sentences jarred with the rest of the story for me. However I thought the rest was very well done.

Congratulations Prufrock451, richvh, Hajji Giray I and Passepartout.


Joe
 
By the way the authors shouldn't hesitate if they want in responding to any of the comments. Sometimes the reader is the one who misses the point. ;)


Joe
 
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