Rip apart my OC's like they're a roasted chicken

Posted 4 years, 11 months ago by elegy

Please pick apart my OCs, I want to hear every flaw or things that could be improved.

Boyfriend

Hold up, first off, you have the prettiest page I've ever seen. And your writing is wonderful. I'm writing this critique as if these characters are going to be used in literature, not roleplay. I only say that because the pages you have are perfect to role-play the character with, but if you're writing a high fantasy narrative, I believe you give too much information away too matter-of-factly to really have a connection to the characters. An example I would give is your introductions on Auric's and Seolfor's page. In the very first paragraphs tragedy happens, but it's delivered with little to no suspense, so it reads as flat and non-engaging.

When he was twelve, a horrible plague swept through the village, prematurely robbing him of his father and half of his siblings. Auric was then forced to fill his late father’s shoes and provide for his family. While he struggled with the loss more so than the work, he had a steadfast friend in Seolfor, another outcast just a few years younger than himself. (I would make these prosier such as;)

Gaunt faces, horrid retching keeping the house up all throughout the night, twelve year old Auric would never forget the nights that led up to the death of his father and half the family. Stricken with the miserable ailment of grief he suffered from this tragedy, work provided him an outlet to release the deep emotional pain he felt. Another outcast, Seolfor, kept him company to ward off the thoughts that the mundane everyday life plagued him with.

Not gonna lie my grammar and other areas of my English need some serious work, but hopefully the idea comes through.

I think you could benefit highly with having a map or an introduction to your world on your front page. I don't think you'd need to give too much away, just enough to unify your characters into the same high fantasy world environment you're going for. Your page aesthetics are already extremely engaging and successful, the only thing that lacks in engagement is the lack of prose, or suspense, that leads to major character development arches.

elegy

VoidChild (Hope you don't mind the ping!)
First off: I want to thank you for your complements, and most of all your very in depth reply. I apologize for taking so long for getting back with you, I've been unable to get to my computer for a few days now. 

I agree that most of my bios haven't been great, but wasn't really able to identify why before, so your detailed example is greatly appreciated.

I have a few questions about some pre existing things first before I get to rewriting. First of all, I'm curious if this bio suffers from the same problem as you mentioned, or if the style I wrote it in isn't suitable for a bio, if you don't mind taking a look? Secondly, I don't think I've seen anything like a map or introduction like you've suggester prior, do you happen to have any examples of what you mean?

Thank you so much for your time!

Boyfriend

Pings are no problem with me! I apologize for the delayed reply also, I wanted to wait until I had enough time to read your profile. The intro you have on Laurence's page is perfect, and exactly what I'm talking about. Picking up context clues about characters and having to fill in the gaps makes a character page interesting and engaging to read, and Laurence's intro is super interesting!

The map suggestion would be a very neat addition, not necessarily necessary, but I always believed it would be cool to see one of the fantasy artists here serve their main page as a map based directory around their world building and their characters. I can doodle a little thumbnail of what I mean (or I might just take this idea for myself muahahahaha┏( .-. ┏ ) ┓ I haven't seen it done on TH but I've seen it on world building sites before like World Anvil)

elegy

Thank you! All of my bios are super ancient, his is a tad newer so I was curious if that was a good direction to go with as I work on revamping these.
Ah I see what you mean now, and I think that'd be a bit hard to impliment with my characters seeing as they end up all living together under the same roof?? It's a great concept though and I appreciate your clarification tremendously.