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Commenting time frame (CST): Nov 11 to Nov 20

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#1: Thanksgiving is creeping up, and like last year we will be having a one week holiday from Nov 18 to 24 to enjoy those sumptuous turkeys and pies! Yum! The next round will resume on Nov 25. For our non-celebrating thanksgiving members, we hope you enjoy the short break and if you are looking for reading material head over to the November prompt and vote for your favorite short story. 

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Moderator: mokbook

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Champion Round

We are very proud of SamSchloesing for becoming our newest CR

Comment Topic: There isn't one but, there is a bonus question from Sam- My ultimate goal, like many writers, is to see my story published. I already have a precise idea of how Tales of a Pirate Crew will be presented in the printed version: there will be no chapters like on Wattpad, but several long parts (the first one will be called "Puerto Seguro"). Inside each of these long parts, the "chapters" will succeed one another without number nor title. Basically, it will look like the parts you just read (without the awesome titles). So I wanted to know if I should regroup my chapters (by two or three) on Wattpad to be closer to what the Tales will be in "real life". In my opinion, it could help new readers to make the crew acquaintance and grasp the plot more easily. Let me know what you think about it!

Author for all chapters: SamSchloesing

Book Title: Tales of a Pirate Crew

In-line Comment Preference: Welcome

Genre: Adventure

Chapter Ratings: Disclaimer for the faint of heart: this is a story about pirates! Expect swearing, allusions to sexual practices, violence, blood and guts, rum, etc... This is not an expression of the author's habits or opinions (except for the sex, the swearing and the booze). As US ratings are alien to me (I grew up in a liberal and decadent society), let's say it's somewhere closing in on R...

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Author #1: SamSchloesing

Book Title: Tales of a Pirate Crew

Specified Chapter: The ambushed, the drunkards and the shadow

Summary Thus Far in Book: Alexandra just rescued Savy from a would-be rapist. Lady Lesya's First Mate and her ward leave their aggressor bleeding on the ground and try to return to the ship—but they find themselves chased by vengeful men. In the meantime, an innkeeper, ready to go to bed after a long day, has to change his plans when the door of his tavern is kicked in by Captain Desjours's men.

Author's Note: I should have remembered to never say never... But this is one hell of a surprise! Here I was, thinking I would never be picked as best reviewer, having lost all hope of becoming a triple crowner, having been close to quitting NBR completely... And today, I'm the new Champion Reviewer! Don't get me wrong, here, it's not bragging—it's bewilderment! And happiness! I hope that you'll like what you read from the Tales this week (because you'll read quite a lot, sorry ^^). And if you don't, please tell me why!

1/ Some of you found difficult to follow my first chapter due the number of characters. So I wanted to know if these parts made things more clear, for example: if my many main characters start to take shape in your mind, if their voices, habits and specificities let you understand who's who, if you have a favorite, etc... What is your opinion on my anti-heroes?

2/ Tales of a Pirate Crew mixes a lot of genres under the label "Adventure", darker parts (sometimes violent and gory) following lighter ones (that I hope to be fun and humorous). Are the different tones well balanced?

Winning Comment: 

Hi Sam, very pleased to see you are the current CR and am glad that it is your writing that we get to take a triple bite out of this week. I remember your first chapter, have recently benefited from your comprehensive reviewing technique and am eager to do my best in return. So here goes...

1/ Characters:

Yes, I found this chapter much easier to follow. The previous one had strong characters, it was just that identifying them by hats etc. instead of names was really confusing. I know the hooker on the steps saw hats and not name-tags. Sucks to be an author...

You've given each of them a consistent personality, clearly different from each other, believably complimentary to that group, and done so without making it awkward. Instead of choosing odd moments to tell us about them, you work their personality and descriptions in naturally to the story unfolding.

My favourite is Stalker. He's dark and dangerous, moody, capable, and still has a sense of humour. If anyone is going to successfully mutiny it will be stalker. But he'd have to get the affable and charismatic Ooma on side and use him as his mouth piece. Stalker is like a jack-in-the-box full of knives, just hoping someone will come along and wind him up.

My only suggestion regarding characterisation is to recognise that as the author you already know who is doing what, but a reader can get lost in pronouns in you aren't really careful. If there is room for doubt in a pronoun, name the character instead.

You've also worked hard on giving them distinctive voices. Accents are a great tool for this and you're doing fine in my opinion

2/ Genre?

Horror and humour are great bedfellows. And neither is at sea in a pirate tale. So you have nothing to worry about in trying to combine them. Tension causes things to be funnier but it also has the effect of destroying the tension it benefited from.

Humour can also rob a scene, even a whole novel, of its weight, it's impact. But this is a different type of humour to what you employ. Puns, pop-culture references, repeated gags, extreme exaggeration are all forms of humour that weaken the tone of writing. But your humour is observational, personality driven, and derived from the story, not layered over the top.

I don't think in your case, you will need to worry about balance, because one doesn't detract from the other. Don't wonder if the joke you tell is funny, because that's not your style of humour. If the situation you create makes you laugh, it will most likely make us all laugh. And if it misses, it doesn't matter because it wasn't the distracting narrator playing comedian it was just an event that some laughed at and other's read through. No problem.

As for adventure and horror, well pirates are horror so that will be accepted by anyone who jumped on-board. Being able to use horror to generate fear will make the adventure aspect more exciting. My only suggestion would be to set a level of gore and stick with it. Not that I'm saying make every scene as gory as the worst one, but if you going there at all, don't hold back at some other time just for the reader.

Inconsistencies:

After the innkeeper brings their drinks and a bottle of rum, in a carefree manner, he's asked with a smile to bring another bottle. But he doesn't just bring a bottle, he brings another five cups and a bottle. But after serving them and getting a smile the first time, why is he 'trembling' when doing it again, moments later?

Okay, I've now got to the part where stalker is in the dark corner with a bottle. I read the 'he' as the subject of the sentence, the innkeeper. If you want it to be Stalker who takes the bottle, you're going to have to name him instead of using 'he' in that sentence. So the first time the innkeeper served them he would have been nervous, but we weren't told about it. And it was stalker who was calm and got smiled at. I left the previous note so you could see my thoughts transition.]

Grammar:

"door widely but slowly" This would feel better as "door slowly but widely". I think this is because the first word is the process and the second word is the result.

"came back, the lost son" Unless he left as one person, while over the horizon became the lost son, then returned, I would recommend that comma be a period.

"faster.< >Tiago"

It seems that you prefer not to use the Oxford-comma. If you are doing this to meet a style requirement, fine. But be aware that it has value in clarifying the meaning of a sentence and a style that avoids it also avoids this clarity. There is one sentence where I feel it works better to avoid the possible Oxford-comma. "As for Steagle, he hiccupped, burped and threw up between his bare feet." By not preceding the 'and' with a comma in this sentence, you rightly indicate that the burping and throwing up were concurrent, not successive. If this was the intent, I would recommend swapping the previous comma for 'then'.

All other occurrences where you excluded it would have added clarity if it was used, but none were critical or undecipherable, so I haven't mentioned them specifically. If there is a real problem in later reviews this week, I will highlight them, but otherwise not mention this again.

"For now, time was (about) getting away." if you mean they were running out of time. Or "For now, it was time to run." I know this phrasing fails to emphasise the dual purposes of time, but I don't know a better way to phrase it without causing confusion.

"to look up and discover(ed) four" Current tense because of the 'had -- to' combination. The same has 'had looked up to see.'

"clubs.< >She swore"

["But I..." stumbled Savy] I think 'stammered' would work better than 'stumbled' in this case.

"As the innkeeper arrived with their drinks on a heavy tray, he nipped the bottle of rum, spat on the floor and disappeared in a dark corner of the room." Your prepositions make everything happen simultaneously. Maybe consider, "As the innkeeper arrived with their drinks on a heavy tray, Stalker nipped the bottle of rum, spat on the floor, then disappeared into a dark corner of the room."

Notes:

"Do you really have to do that?" Made me laugh.

"Ooma cleared his throat and almost shouted:" I read this as if he considered or tried to shout. But he did it in 'almost a shout'. Maybe swap "almost shouted" with "declared", "announced", or "called out".

"bowed dramatically." I like this whole paragraph and it functions well to confirm Ooma's flare for the dramatic. I would consider swapping 'dramatically' for 'with a flourish', because the emotional content of the bow is minimal, but I picture him really hamming it up with exaggerated gestures.

I know this review is about you, not me, but I'd really like to know why you chose to use brackets around the aside about (the "Queen") instead of the em-dashes you use so well. Also, hard call on not putting the inverted commas around ("The Queen") instead, hope you got good advice there.

After reading on further, I realised I had misread this paragraph. This is most likely because I'm not familiar with the characters, but it read to me as if 'Alexandra' was 'the princess' and not the 'First Mate'. This was because it can be read that way and I assumed that 'First Mate' was a male. If these names are recently and clearly understood by the reader, no problem here.

"But she had been the one to make it flow this time." Using 'had been' to indicate that blood had already flown at the current point in the narrative, then bringing us to the current point where they were being chased by four men, but not bleeding, didn't work. "would be" might work better there.

"She had stopped between two stairs" I wasn't sure of what you meant here because it is an unusual way to say it. Did you mean "She had stopped mid-staircase" or "stopped on the landing between two staircases" I know 'steps' are the treads of stairs, but you seem to have already recognised that it fails to indicate a staircase at all, so I understand you avoiding that word.

"passed from one hand to another" Great phrase and it really painted a clear scene for me.

Did you mean? "Letting go of the princess' hand to plunge her own into her boot, the ferocious woman withdrew a long knife." Or "Letting go of Alexandra's hand to plunge her own into her boot. The ferocious woman, Alexandra, came back with a long knife." Either way, if Alexandra is the POV character, it feels odd for her to describe herself in third person as well as calling herself a 'ferocious woman'. And I prefer 'withdrew' to 'came back with'.

The paragraph starting with "The tip of the whip..." was exceptionally clear and had a solid POV. Fantastic.

"the racket finally" I had thought that the tavern was very quiet. Was the racket the thump of boots on the table? If so, maybe "Thump, thud, or similar" would be less confusing.

"Gabrielle had vanished upstairs" She came out of the blue here. I would have thought that if they'd been staring at her behind, it would have been mentioned by someone earlier.

"Under his ever frowning" Dune has already been established as the subject of this paragraph. So 'his' will be assumed to refer to him. Even in this sentence, if you had used 'watch' instead of "bushy brow" I would have assumed it was still Dune. I think it is worth swapping the 'his' for the person's name.

"cup of rum before sitting around a table" I think it takes more than two people to sit 'around' a table. In this case I think it should be 'at' instead. Not certain though.

"In his dark secluded..." My favourite paragraph.

Has Cap (POV) met Steve before? If so, then I know how he knows his name, but not why he was not named earlier. If not, then naming him from Cap's perspective is odd until they are introduced. Actually, the same goes for the innkeeper and the bed-maker's names. Knowing any of them felt odd.

"lifted (a)<the> kicking fury." 'the' because there is only one kicking fury.

Network With This Winner: TimothyMarsh

First runner up: mamoritai

Second runner up: PassengersOfWind

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Author #2: SamSchloesing

Book Title: Tales of a Pirate Crew

Specified Chapter: The Hangover

Summary Thus Far in Book: Some things happen between the previous spotlighted chapter and this one, but I really think that you can understand what follows without any summary. The only important thing to know is that the dark figure is a woman, and that she will kill Stanley after Joseph helps him get home.

Author's Note: 1/ As the tempo slows, my chapters get longer. I take some time for more thorough descriptions, hoping it doesn't damage the action. Is my style still coherent with the previous chapters?

2/ I introduce two more characters here (and focus a bit more on Steagle). What is your opinion on them and, more importantly, do these new characters (and the situations) help to merge the distinct plot lines like I intended?

Winning Comment: 

Hey Sam! Back again

I'll hop straight into your questions:

1. While the tempo is a lot slower due to the amount of description that this chapter introduced, I'd definitely say your style is still coherent with the previous one. If anything, I'd say the only real difference is more detail. The previous chapter was a bit more dialogue-intensive, with patches of detail, while "The Hangover" seemed to have a greater balance between setting and characterization. For example, Jade's attention to the water and sunrise, and the way Steagle's point of view painted a more vivid picture of the town ("bursting with people..." "the gentle slope of the hill where Puerto Seguro had spread like an ugly tumor", "carts and crates and trunks were everywhere..."). Nevertheless, there is still that distinct attention to the uniqueness of each character; Jade's love of science and medicine – perhaps even books in general – and the Don Juan's attention to detail and his practical, Sherlock-like approach to the crime scene ("Don Juan counted to ten. When he opened his eyes, he didn't see scattered body parts anymore, only a puzzle to be pieced together.) Steagle is still as quirky as ever.

Incidentally, I think the slower tempo coincides well with the chapter title; "The Hangover". It almost immediately suggests a slower, calmer tone after the storm of a night that took place previously; from Alexandra and Savy (what happened to her by the way?) getting attacked by would-be rapists to Cap and his at points rowdy men at the bar. What I'm saying is, maybe the morning after does call for a slower tempo.

2. Interesting new characters, though I think that hinges on your portrayal of each. (You're very good at creating distinct personalities and I really enjoy that aspect of your writing). Jade is clearly very intelligent and level-headed and I think those are perfect traits for someone tasked with tending to the medical needs of a crew known for getting into their fair share of trouble. She wasn't even surprised when Alexandra returned injured. As for the constable, he's clearly an intelligent man too and seemingly very good at his job, based on the way he takes his time in dissecting the crime scene. I found it impressive – maybe even intriguing – the way he was able to allow himself to become emotionally detached so he could view the scene more objectively. They definitely help in merging the distinct plot lines. It's clearly just a matter of time before they all collide.

Network With This Winner: raphoenix23

First Runner-Up: LLMontez

Second Runner-Up: mamoritai

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Author #3: SamSchloesing

Book Title: Tales of a Pirate Crew

Specified Chapter: Ponder the past, assault the present

Summary Thus Far in Book: Captain Desjours dreams about the past, wakes up in jail and finds out that he has a chatty neighbor. Savy reappears on the ship, safe and sound, to Alexandra's shocked surprise. Ooma, Tiago and Stalker, standing in front of the prison, have a debate about how to rescue their captain.

Author's Note: 1/ I reveal more about the past of several characters in this part, trying to make it relatable, realistic, and coherent with who they are now. Is it catchy, interesting enough and does it make you want to know more (care more) about them?

2/ As all of these parts are supposed to be focusing on character PoVs, is there any ugly telling? (I'm actually wondering about that for the entire story...)

Winning Comment: 

Before I start the review, I'd like to say that for some reason, I really like the title of this chapter :)

Also, sorry for the late comment.

1. I was actually going to mention this even before I read this question, but I absolutely loved the insight you gave us about the characters in this chapter.

It starts of with Lesya, I believe. This part was written in Savy's point of view, and even though I doubt that Savy was very close to her (or even if Savy *knew* her), you've done a really good job showing the effect of Lesya's loss. Especially on the captain.

By using phrases like 'Lesya (...) had been beautiful', 'she was everywhere', and 'heart aching for Etienne', you've really managed to create sympathy in the reader for Cap. And the part wasn't even in his POV!

You've also told us a little bit more about Savy through her thoughts. At first, she thinks of one of the men who threatened her as a 'poor man', telling us that she's a very kind-hearted person who believes that no one (close to no one, anyway) deserves a very harsh death. You then go on to showing us that she's cutting off her own thoughts of his being 'poor', telling us that though she is very kind and 'soft', she also knows to be practical. I especially liked the way you ended her part ("Right?") because it really shows us how much she's doubting her own (and Alexandra's) philosophy and she isn't sure whether or not her life is worth another's. If that doesn't make a reader care for a character, then I don't know what will.

I would suggest giving us more insight into Savy's own backstory, but I think that'd be best saved for another chapter. Over here, you've told us that she was 'an abused upper class bride' and left it at that. Personally, I think it really fits in like that :)

That one line serves to kind of tease the readers and hint at her past. Adding in her back story over here would make the chapter seem kind of like an info-dump since you've already added things about Steagle's past.

Steagle's character stood out and was emphasized on a lot in this chapter. The back-story you gave about him really helps us understand him better as a character and (obviously) care for him more.

2. As far as 'ugly telling' goes (I'm assuming by that you meant 'telling each character's story rather than showing it'), I think you've done a pretty good job avoiding it.

Most of the characters' emotions were portrayed through their actions, so no worries there. As far as back-stories go, you can't exactly *show* characters' pasts, so there were no problems with the way you revealed things here.

While the different POVs can be a little confusing upon first glance, I think as you go on reading the story, you become more used to them, and they really start to grow on you. It's fairly easy to distinguish between all the different characters' stories, and you've managed to portray each character very well. I like how you've showed us each of their separate personalities, and how even though many of them have that side of them that screams "pirate", all of them also have their own personality traits which set them apart from the rest.

The only reason any of the parts would feel a little "telling" would be if they were slightly shorter and didn't give off all the details that they could have. I didn't really see that problem in this one. (The first spotlighted chapter, I believe, had more shorter parts--and more parts in general--but I'm pretty sure that's because that chapter was a combination of more chapters, so it's not too much of a problem.)

You're descriptions in both this chapter and the last were very well done, and I was able to visualise everything very clearly. I didn't spot any major issues with 'telling' in the descriptions.

I think running through the in-line comments once and perhaps shortening some of the overly long sentences could help out in the flow a bit so that it's easier to portray things.

Overall, this was a very interesting chapter (and story)! You've got a very well-developed and unique plot, as well as characters who stand out a lot, so I think you've done a great job with it!

Just out of curiosity, what do you plan on doing with the asterisked (I doubt that's actually a word) parts? Most of them are very interesting/funny, so it would be a shame if you cut them out.

(Also, this is completely off-topic, but is Desjours an actual French last name? I'm always stuck thinking of who to address things to in French class--I've used 'Dubois' way too many times xP)

Network With This Winner: infinitysbeyond

First Runner-Up: raphoenix23

Second Runner-Up: mamoritai

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Final Author's Note: I know, I took my time! But I finally chose my winner reviewers. And if you had the chance to be spotlighted, you know how hard it is! So believe me when I tell you that going through so many awesome comments to chose the best on three chapters was an herculean task. And yet, the hardest part is ahead, edit my chapters (and the Tales) following your comments. Of course, I often disagreed (but it's your fault, you were so supportive that I'll remain full of myself! Sorry!^^). But a lot of pointers were definitely worse giving a thought or two about it!

Thank you all for such an intense week and long live NBR!

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