Critique of ... Yourself!

[Valiens Nantaris]

Since I feel [member="Dune Rhur"] had a point that most folks either don’t like to critique others because they don’t want to offend them, or don’t know about them enough, here’s the alternative.

Tell us what you feel your own strengths and weaknesses are. Tell us where you think you can improve, tell us what your goals are.

Please keep this thread only for such posts, no commenting on them.
Of course, you may feel a writer is completely wrong and that they’re not actually good at X. Well, that’s something for you to comment on next time they post a critique thread!

As for me, I definitely have strengths and weaknesses as a writer, and I’m able to freely admit them.

Strengths:

• I am good at concept, background and lore. When I’m making a species or a planet, all the pieces fit together like clockwork. I could write you an essay on Eldorai history, or a dissertation on the culture of the Qadiri. Fortunately for you all, I won’t.
• I am good at writing female characters, despite not being one (last I checked anyway). I’ve made it my mission to make my characters strong yet have some emotional pull.
• I’m good at making factory and codex items which are pretty well balanced. I pride myself on never having been denied, and that most of my things go through with only needing minor changes.
• I am good at putting references and comments into RPs and characters. In jokes and hidden jokes are my speciality…even if not many people see them.

Weaknesses:

• There are certain types of characters I cannot play or write well. Children, non-humanoid aliens, macho male characters, all them I struggle with, so as a result I do what I can to avoid them.
• PVP. Specifically 1vs1 duels. I’m not good at it and I don’t really like it. It’s hard to tell which comes from the other, but I would rather take part in a fleeting battle, a fight against PVE enemies or virtually anything else. If a duel’s outcome is predetermined I am very happy to go with it because I know what I am aiming for. Which leads me to…
• I like structure and yes, rules. For a forum such as this it causes me problems that you are entirely reliant on the other person to decide how much damage they take. Thus I enjoy fleeting as there’s more strategy there. Thus, my interpretations are sometimes overly legalese and schematic.
• I’m too ‘nice’ with my characters. I used to joke that the easiest way to tell if a writer is female or merely playing female is to see how often they maim their characters. I find it hard to do so, and that’s also a disadvantage when it comes to PVP, because eventually you have to decide to lose.
• I don’t like public threads. The sheer randomness of people coming in makes me want to take control of the story and steer it.
• Related to the above, I like being the GM guiding the story. This is a strength for my threads, but I sometimes have trouble not taking control in other threads if I feel they are lagging.

In summary, I think I am well suited to fleeting, dominions, skirmishes and private threads. However, in doing so I leave out the player combat aspect, which is admittedly a major weakness for an RP forum.

 

[Jsc]

Strengths:

• Post length
• Gusto
• Tech savvy: less is more
• Volume+
• GIF'meister
• Blitz reader
• Artist

Weaknesses:

• Vanity blogger
• Pride
• Crabby'ness
• Unrepentant glam'azon female characters
• What is outside the USA?
• Timing
• Also... Does not live up to [member="Fabula Caromed"] 's standards. *cries inside*

As usual what caused me to succeed in writing is also very similar to what most people complain is holding me back.

 

[James Justice]

Strengths:
++people tell me I am good at moving them, I attempt to make my characters truly deeply emotional with deep plots and sometimes heavy subjects
++With a psychology degree and another that I am working on, I do my very best to put realism in their mental plights--specifically, I give them consequences for their actions.
++Length: I post poetically long me thinks.
++Planets: After Soceras people asked me to make them some. I enjoyed it. Granted I only made Imahalyan and it was basically American South, but I like to think I am fairly good at it.

Weaknesses
--PvP, those who know me know I do not do this. Part of it is because I don't feel comfortable doing it and another is because I don't like the way it makes me feel.
--Computers are my weakness. You ever see a character of mine use one beyond the basics? Nopers. Why? Cause I can barely operate word and it took me three weeks to learn how to use this site.
--Mechanic: yeah I am not too good at those either.
--Melodramatic: sometimes my emotional moments go waaaaaaaay, way over. Like.... How many times has James snapped? Too many.
--monologing: yes my characters can wax too long to the point of preachy I think.
--Holding my tongue: it's a real struggle. I see something I feel is unfair happening to someone else and I open my big mouth. Often times my words can be more scathing than they should be. I realize that.

In totality I am pretty good at PvE, character-driven stories, and contracts (considering that I've done bajillions for Justice Shipping). I'd also like to say that I am able to rock the archetypes to a whole new level--considering how much of a hit James Justice has been.

 

[Siobhan Kerrigan]

Strengths:

• Good at meta, historical references and so on. Good at weaving those into plots.
• I'd say that I'm generally good at taking hits in PvP. Maybe because I like my chars getting hurt.
• I'd say I'm good at training threads and teaching. At least I enjoy having Sio teach other chars.
• Char-driven stories and interpersonal, emotional stuff. Really like exploring char psychology.
• Describing carnage and slaughter.
• Post length

Weaknesses:

• There are some chars I'm not good at writing at and thus intentionally avoid. Such as non-humanoid aliens or Jedi. Particularly the latter. As a matter of fact, the only even remotely Light Side char I have is an NPC. All the PCs are varying degrees of darkside, Neutrals or homicidal droids.
• I'm very neurotic with chars, get frustrated easily and go through phases where I want to get rid of this or that char.
• I react poorly to perceived slights and am an attention whore in threads when it comes to my chars.
• I don't like public threads since I like structure and they seem chaotic to me.
• All my Forcers are space wizard types of one sort or the other and usually also rely on guns. Admittedly there's some differences since say Siobhan is a battering ram, whilst Sumiko is an illusionist, but I intentionally stay away from classical things such as lightsabre combat since I suck at writing it.
• Post length. Too long can be a problem sometimes. E.g. in PvP.
• When I want a Factory or Codex sub done, I tend to outsource it.

 

[The Red of Sinner]

Strengths:

- Im always willing to help someone in threads whether it be the bad guy, background news, or a good guy.

- I like to think Im a pretty outgoing person.

- I rock that Dark Jedi swag well.

- I feel like I've always made interesting plots, greats ideas, and write pretty cool characters.


Weaknesses:

- I can't write female characters, I have tried, I also can't write many characters. Two or three at most.

- Sometimes I beat dead horses (muses)

- I don't like being denied when I think something I am doing is an amazing idea. Opinions, they suck sometimes.

- Im hot headed. But not as much as I used to be. Gotta give me that.

- Sometimes taking responsibility, or leadership is hard for me, I dont that on my shoulders, but I will if I must.

- There are people I will never get a long with, ever. I do not make exceptions.

- I'm not used to...the world and it's very many ways of life. I grew in a tight nit christian family, but my mom taught to her best to be accepting. Im misunderstood in my curiosity, and many questions I ask about these ways of life. I just I want to know.

 

[Keira Priest]

Strengths:

• Detail. I can go on and on about the littlest things.
• I'm good at taking hits in PvP, I like to think.
• I love exploring character psychology.
• Long posts.
• Character-driven stories I like to think are backed by solid plot reasons.

Weaknesses:

• Character emotion for some reason has always been a struggle for me, though I think I've gotten better.
• PvP. Maybe it's just me, but I feel like my PvP is super repetitive. Regardless, I still like writing it.
• Detail. Sure, it's great, but sometimes it's not necessary, and I've been known to get a bit carried away.
• Sometimes (read: often) I get too focused on the length of my posts vs. actual content.
• I'm bad at expanding the crowd of people I usually write with, and am doing my best to fix that.

 

[Werah Unon]

Strengths:

Im good at backstory. In the way that every scrap of my gear has a long and complex history.
Submisions to the factory - they're fun.
Solo stuff - no NPC's either. Forever alone.
Using the force - I've got pretty good at describing the inner struggle of light and dark.
Missions across the galaxy, visiting planets for a day, before moving on. - I do this a lot.
Joking around.

Weaknesses:

I can't write droids, or cyborg-characters.
I tend to focus on one character's journey, and forget all the others.
I am too competitive to let myself be injured/lose the battle in PvP. (Though I'm fine with it in PvE.)
I can never think of my reaction if I actually woke up next to some of the characters here.
I find it hard to care for NPC's, though I have built a bond with some of them.
Post length. Too short can be a problem.
Having my faction made minor. (We will return!....eventually...)

 

[Dune Rhur]

Strengths:

• Reasonable knowledge of source materials to reference.
• A fairy broad vocabulary.
• A sense of proportion in my FU characters (Force is unlimited, your powers aren't).
• I can be verbose but I can also rein it in when it suits.

Weaknesses:

• Too much hemming and hawing on my part about what I want my character to be.
• I'm terrible at writing NPCs, goons etc.
• I don't feel nearly as comfortable writing in big, open engagements.
• Keeping track of more than a few characters and their posts drives me nuts.
• I'm bad at writing training threads.

 

[Nyx]

Strengths

• I've been told that I'm good at creating layered characters with good motivations, though not every character is like that.
• It's always been easy for me to write dialogue. It's not always the best, but I feel like all my characters have unique ways of speaking reflecting their past and personalities.
• I love creating Codex stuff. Planets, locations, species, all that stuff is one of my passions. I feel like I do a good job at creating concepts, though I do have some trouble with the fine details, at times.

Weaknesses

• I can't write male characters. I've tried, and they just don't interest me.
• I can't stand PvP in almost any form. It might be why I haven't really gotten anywhere with my characters here, but I just don't enjoy combat.
• My muse is fickle at the best of times.
• I have a glacial posting speed.
• I have a hard time putting a lot of detail into my posts.

 

[Matreya]

Strengths:

• Combat. I generally can see a situation reversed, or even if allowed to continue, I am descriptive.
• Power. I can make some darn powerful characters throughout garnered threads.

Weaknesses:

• Zaiden. Yup. I still love the character. But I have seen that for whatever reason, the masses have made sure to let me know one thing: No.
• Andoliths. Again, love this. Even got told kudos by Jon I believe it was, for it being a perfect adaptation from a separate series into Star Wars. But again, the masses have taken to this to provide yet another response: Hahaha
• Women. I can write them... just not without making everything a 'Im so sexy' style lmao

 

[Tycho Amnen]

(From my phone so please forgive me.)

My strengths which of course are entirely my own opinion and are probably fewer and farther between than I'm admiting here would be:

Conceptualization: I'd like to think I'm okay at coming up with stories and characters.

Taking hits: I've not had many PVP encounters here but in the encounters I have had here and other places I'm more than willing to give more ground than I take.

Going with the flow: I don't get married to ideas and am always happy to just go where the story takes me

Self deprecation: I do not take myself as a writer or any of my characters too seriously.

Dialog: this is where I find myself stretching, on one hand I'm sure people have a more realistic opinion of my skill in this area, on the other hand it is the one area of my RPing that I feel most proud, I'd like to think through dialog or inner monologue I'm most capable at creating my characters.

My weaknesses are far easier to find and believe me when I say I probably forgot to list a few:

Procrastination: I put things off always

Prose: mine lacks severely and it hurts me everytime

Detail: I think this goes along with prose but my posts tend to lack satisfying discriptions of set-pieces, wardrobe or physical appearance.

Muse tends to die easily: self explainatory I think

Lack of confidence/need to satisfy my own expectation: this covers a lot of what was previously said but as much as I love this game we play, I tend to not think I'm very good or at the least not good enough at it. That leaning often has me look at posts and throw them away in disgust thus leading to procrastination so I can "perfect" the post, which often never happens and generally leads to the death of my muse.

Not enough variety: I could stand to expand my horizons in more ways than one.

Space things: not great at describing space travel or combat

Actualizing my concepts: I can think of them but I struggle to make anything happen.

 

[Lysle of the Hydian Way]

I'll keep it simple

I'm good at making themes in my writing
I have too many ideas, and I drop just about all of them. Ravens I left so others could lead because I didn't have the motivation to continue. I came up with the idea of the Primeval and helped Sam write some of its lore, once it got started I bailed, leaving Sam to run the faction alone.

 

[Ellie Mors]

Pros:

• I'm pretty good at writing, really with any kind of character, so I don't generally have to worry about whether or not someone else will be able to come up with a response.
• Being taught in the "detail is everything" era of US public schooling, I tend to use as many different words as possible to describe what is basically the same word. This ties in with the above, only it doesn't seem like I'm repeating myself half a dozen times. (e.g, exclaimed, shouted, yelled, vs. said.)
• I'm pretty analytic so picking apart someone's actions to come up with a response comes naturally. That doesn't always translate to a very thought-out decision, mostly because I try to handicap myself as I'm a little over-confident in regards to this, so it can be quite hit-or-miss in practice.
• I'm a very objective person, which is actually why I'm referred to as a robot by several people. This comes up in my writing pretty often - I can convey emotion fairly well, I think, but when I'm not actively pursuing that I tend to be ridiculously monotonous. I don't write what I feel should happen, rather what would probably happen. Kind of something you'd have to see done to really grasp, I guess, but I figured I'd include it. I'm super objective with how I act OOCly, too.
• I don't need to talk out something with another writer to move on, I'm big on organic, random, development (more than miss dice-roll [member="Cira"], though I'm sure she will probably say otherwise) so I can roll with whatever someone else writes, within reason.
• I think I have several mental issues, or at least one, on top of the single confirmed one, which makes writing crazy, evil, villains incredibly easy for me.
• Being highly emotional makes writing emotional scenes pretty easy, though I avoid them because then I feel bad IRL

​​Cons:

• I'm conceited.
• I'm pretty shallow, just ask anyone I write with.
• I don't have a free schedule, so posting happens between midnight and 5:30 AM most days. I work at around noon, so that means less sleep and consequently days that I go to bed earlier and skip posts.
• Work picks up and I drop everything. People get really upset over this, and that's understandable, but I'm going to choose work and sleep and my sanity over trying to post to anyone. Even if it infuriated me to give up a character.
• If you don't water me daily I get nervous and upset. After a few days I start to wilt. A week and you no longer have my attention.
• I tend to overreact. I once put a fifty-million credit bounty on an annoying Orange Twi'lek for implying/stating that my character was undesirable to her husband.
• If I'm depressed IRL or under a lot of stress I won't tell anyone but the amount of posts I give drop considerably. Happened pretty recently after my parent's divorce and constant fighting/bickering, plus the added disappearance of someone I had basically been writing alone with in order to stay involved with RP during that period.
• Don't add me to skype.
• #SelfEsteemProbs

 

[Cira]

Pros:

• I love char dev. I'm super easy with organic writing and just going with the flow.
• I will happily write mundane rp scenes: daily life, having breakfast, etc.... which brings me to.
• I will happily write hundreds upon hundreds of posts to rp these mundane things and typical normal stuff. PVP and adventure can be nice, but my bread and butter is character development, which i think develops in these mundane scenes.
• I have loads of characters with loads of different personalities and can rp with anyone and anything. Have a character idea? I prob have it in my excel sheet already >.>
• I'm a pretty damn consistent writing partner xD

Cons

• I have so many alts and love to rp that I need to learn time management and proper alt circulation. I've been getting better, but with work being super busy now, it makes staying a fast poster a bit more difficult.
• I need to have a semi timeline going on. Because i get heavily involved with my chars and others, what happens with one char can affect mine and other storylines.
• The on going joke is that it takes almost 700 posts before my girls become romantically linked has a measure of truth. I am very picky and don't take potential romances in a wishy washy manner. I want romances to make sense... so they tend to take a lot of posts to get there. That tends to frustrate other writers who may want something faster, but I am firm in not budging.
• I like creating new characters almost on a weekly basis.
• I can get a bit too into my characters stories, so when something bad happens or depresses me, it actually makes me reach for the ben and jerry's. I can get super excited for a storyline and get too clingy, so maybe that can be annoying to others ( i end up talking about it non stop and anxiously await posts for the storyline) But if i don't get a bit of the same excitement in turn, i start to think that perhaps they aren't enjoying the thread as much as me.
• I really want to work on my narrative and scenes. Sometimes i feel like i forget how important these are in my rush to post -- which also brings me to the fact i always forget to proof read.

Uhh.. I'll think of more later on.

 

[Ellie Mors]

I am very picky and don't take potential romances in a wishy washy manner. I want romances to make sense...

Just wanted to add an addendum to this (In [member="Cira"]'s voice):

• And if I tease about relationship opportunities between characters beforehand with someone you can almost guarantee this was done to pull your interest in alone.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

And if I tease about relationship opportunities between characters beforehand with someone you can almost guarantee this was done to pull your interest in alone.

I fell for it.

forever regrets

 

[Cira]

I fell for it.

forever regrets

DON'T EVEN!

I TOLD YOU SHE'S A HARD WOMAN TO LOVE! SHE HAS ISSUES WITH RELATIONSHIPS AND PEOPLE! I TOLD YOU TO GO ELSE WHERE!

*Flips table*

The force choke when they first met and the threat to toss over the balcony should have been warning enough!

 

[Ellie Mors]

DON'T EVEN!

I TOLD YOU SHE'S A HARD WOMAN TO LOVE! SHE HAS ISSUES WITH RELATIONSHIPS AND PEOPLE! I TOLD YOU TO GO ELSE WHERE!

*Flips table*

The force choke when they first met and the threat to toss over the balcony should have been warning enough!

I think the difference here is that a post had to be made for someone to be choked.

 

[Sarge Potteiger]

The force choke when they first met and the threat to toss over the balcony should have been warning enough!

foreplay

 

[Allyson Locke]

Yay.

Pros:

• I love story.
• I can string sentences together most days
• I think I have pretty interesting characters
• I'm a hopeless romantic and I enjoy writing romances above most other genres or whatever
• I'm always open to just about anything
• I like to RP

Cons:

• I work a lot so I tend to forget when and where to post. Poking me always helps
• I tend to stick with one posting partner and that one person 99% of the time (Totally working on this after [member="Cira"] slapped me around a bit)
• I'm a hopeless romantic
• I seemed to have found myself only writing my characters attracted to women, I can't help it.
• I struggle bouncing around characters again trying to get better at this
• I tie my characters personalities to close to my own so they all see the same person. Trying to work on this.
• I'm not the best at having a lot of variety with words so I tend to repeat the same cool word I learned about 20 minutes ago
• I never promote my characters rank wise, if I had it my way I'd have all padawans.
• I write a mentalist who gets ignored by the newest of acolytes :L
• I like romances, give me that mushy stuff and I'm all over it
• I take time to reply, mostly because I'm re-reading and hoping that its up to par
• I'm easily intimated by good writers so I tend to be slower to respond to them
• My characters struggle to stay single...
• I run the Factory and at times the stresses of it kill muse.
• I really really like romances.
• I don't really have great ideas for RPs I'm a better secondary character writer.
• I struggle branching out to new writing partners

There's probably a bunch more I just can't fully think of them all - will add later.