D&D Snippets II: The Snippetting

[Lady Moreta]

Winds

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I liked this I think I need to go through and read the entire series, I think I'm missing pieces of what's going on and I do so enjoy mess-with-your-head writing.

We walked into the place, and I found myself alone, and misplaced. You see, as I passed the doorway, I entered the tavern in days when it was lively and populated.

I'm a little confused by this bit... are they just passing by or actually going in? You say they walked in, but then your character is 'passing by the doorway' and entering at what appears to be the same time.

I took a seat, and a drink, and thought about what to do next. Perhaps half an hour later, I glanced up from my drink to see a woman that matched Aileph's dream-woman...for a mere instant before I found myself in the tavern as it is now.

This has me puzzling a little too, though I'm not sure I can articulate why. It's something about the "dream-woman... for a mere instant" it's hard to get a feel for exactly what's going on here.

My compatriots returned later. As far as they were concerned, I had disappeared.

Likewise here... there's just something about the 'returned later' that makes me think this person's companions were with them the whole time, except they obviously weren't, which makes it a bit jarring.

We continued our search, finding nothing until we turned back toward the docks. We saw the ocean was red, and it flooded toward us. I was carried away, again, on a wave of blood. I sat up in the town center, with no sign of what had brought my there.

Creepy. Well done.

I found myself in, of all things, what looked like a young girl's nursery. The red woman was there, only...not. 'She' is a twin. It seems that either of them can grab someone from the 'true' world...but the other decides where they come out.

Yin, as she calls herself, explained this over tea. But there is much to do tomorrow, and I need sleep. More on this later.

I'm with the Doctor on this one, I want more information on what's going on here.

I'm having trouble developing a perspective for the promised Star Wars snippet. I don't want to do it from the PoV of my character specifically because it'd kinda remove from the impact of the scene, and I can't do it from the adversary's PoV because the GM didn't disclose a lot of essential information to me. The unfortunate bit is that due to circumstances that took place at the time the rest of the people (NPC and my fellow PCs) weren't able to act, which might cut from the emotional impact.

Decisions, decisions....

Sounds like the npc/other pcs would be your best bet. And don't discount the impact you can get from telling a story from the point of view of someone who can't do anything and is simply forced to watch. It can be quite emotional. I'm also sure you're up to the challenge

SleepyShadow

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At last, the three investigators were blessed with the dim glow from the tiny flame of the gnomish gadget.

I'd take that last part out. We already know what type of gadget it is.

Lucy held up her hand like a schoolgirl answering the teacher's question and smiled brightly. "The projectors broke."

I do like Lucy. She reminds me of me that is very much something I would do and again it's a beautiful word-picture.

"They are. Projectors aren't supposed to run off of black powder, after all."

I don't know whether to be or Sounds like Dwarves are secretly Mythbusters

Derive shrugged noncommittally. "Anyway, it says here that this place used to be a hideout for a group called The Order of Light and Sound, a group that worshiped something called The Watcher from Beyond. Does that ring any bells?"

Frank shook his head. "Light and sound. Light and sound are what films are made of. It's what everything is made of. It Who Seeks is an unmaker, an antithesis of light and sound ... it is more than darkness and silence, it is nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing but sound and light and void ..."

I'm a bit confused about why we've gone from talking about something called 'The Watcher from Beyond' to 'It Who Seeks'. It sounds like Frank is explaining the contents of the book, but he's using a completely different name with absolutely no context as to why.

"Light and sound and void ... light and sound and void ..." Frank repeated over and over, saliva dribbling down his chin. "The void unmakes all ... but you can't know that ... I will unmake ... I will unmake the three of you!"

Okay... wasn't expecting that. Probably should've, considering, but still... well done I agree with Dr. Bwaa though, if Frank is suddenly an antagonist, I want to know more about him and what he looks like.

So much wriiittiiiiiiiingggggg.

Hey, you re-started the thread

Good thing you guys are doing it though, because I've been in a bit of a slump.

Oh yes I did

It's a good thing you aren't my husband - he gets slapped for making comments like that. Which he does on a daily basis.

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It can always get worse.

He's a paladin... isn't tempting fate a class feature or something?

I think "back and forth between Tanc and Silver" works better to communicate an ongoing focus-switch. "X to Y and back again" doesn't imply "and then back to Y and..." in my opinion, even though that's presumably what's happening here.

Good point. I think you're right.

I've never seen this hyphenated before; I don't think it should be.

I had a reason for that... gimme a minute and I'll remember what it was.

I did it because I was trying to show how he was thinking/saying the words. It was meant to be slower than 'normal', but not so slow as to warrent a 'If. You. Please' type approach. I have a hard time showing pauses in speech and knowing which puncutation to use to describe what I mean. Having re-read it though, I think you're right. It looks silly.

The imagery in this opening is very good. I like how you're conveying Lester's intuition and ability to read people--just be careful with it; you don't want him knowing anything he shouldn't know. I think the earlier "guilty for feeling relief" is the closest to "too much intuition" you get here, though.

Personally, I don't think Lester is knowing anything he wouldn't be able to figure out. He's been with this group a long time (about a year if I remember rightly) and he has the highest sense motive of any of them (save Silver herself). And as for the guilty thing, he's also just recently watched Rifus (the guilty party in question) go through exactly the same thing. Only in his case, they had to summon a deva to get rid of the demon.

It would be good if the frantic motions were introduced earlier; I had the impression she was kind of sitting on the floor in stunned silence.

Yeah, that didn't work at all did it? Oops.

I want to know what "all this" will be referring to. It's not clear what she's talking about except for "the last two minutes", or why she would be gesturing. If they're in a cave full of baby corpses that weren't there two minutes ago, I need to know! Actually, some time spent earlier on the actual setting--rather than just the characters--would help set this scene a lot better, as right now there's a lot of uncertainty that I don't think is contributing positively to the scene.

It will become clear. I have plans for writing a snippet which will take us up pretty much to this exact moment, and will explain what is going on here. The reason that there's no real description is that they're in a cave and there isn't anything around save them. But now that I say that, I realise you are, of course, completely correct. The reader still needs to know that. I was supposed to be making dinner when I was writing this and I was rushing through it a little. Can I blame it on that?

I'm not sure if I'm explaining this well; it's just a tiny point anyway that probably no one else will ever care about

You're explaining it perfectly well, you're nitpicking () but I'm used to that... and you've got a point too.

Semicolon after "towards her", and I think the parenthetical destracts from the scene.

This was another "I don't know what puncutation to use here" moment. I don't like using parentheses in internal monologue/first-person narration. I don't think it fits, but I wasn't sure how else to write it. It's meant to be a side-thought to his current thoughts and I wasn't sure how to write it. Plus, I didn't want to over-use hyphens, which I felt I was in danger of doing.

I'm not sure what to do with this paragraph; it's a difficult transition you're trying to make here. Partially I think it's a tense issue--you're using three tenses in one paragraph, which is... too many (see below for your requested grammar lesson! ) I think if you split the present-tense stuff into a new paragraph and put rest of the flashback in the same tense, it'll read better: "Of course, we had known that Telia was evil at that point. And it was not long afterward, that her true nature had been revealed, and she had fled. After she had -- exerted control over Silver and drained her of life force… after she had spent all that time with Rifus."

Rewrite it 'cause it's crappy? I reread it myself and I was finding that I was getting confused about what was going on or had gone on and I wrote the damn thing! I know what's going on and what had gone on and I was still confused.

Strictly speaking, we are no longer in the realm of facts.

Shush They are facts in that they are 'things Lester knows' (or at least, is pretty darn sure he knows)

Would they not be? Is there a history of her eyes changing colors?

Noooooo....

Ha ha

I freely admit, the 'snippets' thing was totally deliberate.


Silver

I think you could go more overboard here; Silver obviously has. If it were me, I wouldn't be content with just one "no". I'd definitely get through a full paragraph of "no" before I started having more cohereng thoughts like "I'm possessed the same way Rifus was".

"Oh... Oh no. No.

"No. No, no no no no nononononono..." (or maybe "nooo..."?)

I see what you mean... I just have a passionate hatred for the repeated 'no' thing. I find it looks messy and I just don't like doing it. But you do have a point. I think at this point she was just kind of in shock and slack-jawed essentially. The panic kicks in later.

Deny harder. It's denial time; it's extremes time; no reason to be rational about your writing.

How?

the point is that Silver is obsessing, so unless she's particularly verbose, she's unlikely to spend her time coming up with synonyms.

Silver's not, but I am? seriously, I can't hold to a word limit if my life depends on it.

The dash is a little weird here.

The dash is meant to be another example of self-censorship. She was going to say something else (specifically mention the child in this case) but stopped herself. I think I needed to take that sentence further before cutting her off.

this sort of linear montage doesn't seem natural for someone freaking out so much. I expect something more like the one in the next paragraph, with one scene unraveling in slow, excruciating detail.

Yeah, okay, you can have that one.

Eh? Besides the bold part this is a nice transition back; is Tanc actually hitting her? That doesn't seem plausible, but I can't think of another interpretation.

Of course not! Tanc is a gentleman She was searching for an appropriate metaphor and that's the one she settled on. I think it needs to be clearer that she's kind of mentally wondering aloud.

Oh my God Lester are you for real (I love it)

In my defense, I didn't write that! My husband did. He's the DM for this game and he came up with the idea of forcing Silver to be honest and vulnerable as a way to drive the demon out - it was going to be Lester's 11th hour desperate attempt to fix things (because they can't summon a deva again and they don't have time to do anything else). I asked him what Lester was going to say to begin the 'Silver you have to be honest' conversation. Everything Lester says from "Silver, listen to me..." to the end was actually written by him.

God damnit I had been am such a dork.

Yeah, you really are Doesn't necessarily follow that's a bad thing though.