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Help with 2nd person perspective



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110 Reviews



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Wed Nov 20, 2013 3:14 am
Zolen says...



Problem: Reviewers and readers mention confusion sometimes mistaking the girl as the sentinel, thinking the sentinel is human, not realizing the girl is human. I have no idea how I can make it any clearer, I request help. Please


The sky was a dull buzz, reds and greens dancing about in a polluted romance. Before this mound of smog stood a Sentinel of disorder, a monstrous guardian who had gifted the populace with its broken sky. Like so many times before this sentinel, you, would die, a machine die, one last drink of oil to coat your plates, one final moment of peace marred only by your companion, a human girl, the girl who stopped you on your rampage.

She was a tiny war torn creature, born of your battles with her, she gazing among the wretched filth for a means of killing you again. This had been a game the Sentinel had been playing with the small human girl. Each day, the crispest moment she would appear, her hair that bright red, a new toy in hand. A new weapon already stained by the smog, and a focused glare on her face ready to take on her hated enemy.

You were SK-42, a war machine, sentinel from a line of thousands, the last of an era, built by sentient beast who had turned on their human masters. With rockets you tore through their defenses, with guns you crippled their bodies; with your poisons destroyed their sky.Like ever is the cycle the sentinels followed the commands of betters, creators.

In the end of that battle the creators were dead, an army of sentinels, reduced to one, the humans were simply to powerful, there were far too many, to destroy just one city an army is needed, and humans had grown so much that every place was a city, and you and your brothers numbered in the thousands. There was a dull buzz, a polluted romance of shades reflecting in your glass robotic eye and then you were alone.

Enraged as the last sentinel you attacked, planning to die like all the others, charging across the war torn landscape faster than any living creature could hope with your metal frame. But just as the last of that harsh city came into view…this… girl appears, scruffy and small, young enough to have never experienced the world much past her home but those eyes. You stopped when this red headed little creature got in the way, a gun, a rocket, poison so many ways to kill this little creature, but in the end you died thanks to a toy in her little hands, never having used one.

That war was lost, and the battles that raged since against that tiny creature, that girl has gone on for years. Once more she stares, waiting for you to finish your rest, preparing for her part in this violent cycle that she started to stop you forever. With a final gulp you let off a hum from engines hidden within, oil slushes down your carbon steel plates, out the vents and down the joints.

“Ready?” She ask, far older then when you first met her on that fateful day, her harsh eyes staring back into your lens in the same way, ready for the fight to come, revving your engine ever so slightly; oil slushing about within your core, prepared to die again to protect your polluted romance.
Self quoting is the key to sounding wise and all knowing.
  





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Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:30 pm
Rosendorn says...



This is not the place to actually get reviews on your work. If you want reviews, submit it through the publishing centre. If you have, message reviewers about their specific concerns and/or request more reviews from Will Review for Food.

That being said, I will give my comments on the first paragraph:

The sky was a dull buzz, reds and greens dancing about in a polluted romance. Before this mound of smog stood a Sentinel of disorder, a monstrous guardian who had gifted the populace with its broken sky. Like so many times before this sentinel, you, would die, a machine die, one last drink of oil to coat your plates, one final moment of peace marred only by your companion, a human girl, the girl who stopped you on your rampage.


"A sentinel" can be a position. It means watching over things. The fact you say the character is watching a sentinel and will be marred by the only companion, a girl, makes me think the girl is a sentinel. Also the fact you completely butcher the sentence in red with an overuse of commas it is impossible to tell that the sentinel is an outside force. It looks like the sentinel is the job, and you'll die on it by the monstrous being before it. What's especially confusing is the comma after "you", and I don't even know what "a machine die" means in context (you as a machine?).

The rest of the sentence is such a complicated list in a compound sentence (you have three ideas in there: you would die, the imagery of a machine dying, and the girl companion) makes me not sure what in the world it means.

Learn comma rules so you know what is both confusing and not. For example, pretty much all the commas in the red bit look like interrupter commas, making the information they contain look like unimportant bits of the sentence that can be deleted. Interrupter commas are basically brackets; they surround elements of a sentence that are asides of information.

Strip this down. Make every sentence simple: subject, verb, object. Elaborate on each idea. Then you won't have ideas blending together into overly complicated sentences that become a mish-mash of multiple ideas at once, which is where an incredible amount of confusion comes from.
A writer is a world trapped in a person— Victor Hugo

Ink is blood. Paper is bandages. The wounded press books to their heart to know they're not alone.
  





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110 Reviews



Gender: Male
Points: 546
Reviews: 110
Wed Nov 20, 2013 11:45 pm
Zolen says...



Ah, thank you and forgive me, I thought I could ask for help through this section of the forum, delete it as you wish.
Self quoting is the key to sounding wise and all knowing.
  








The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.
— Chinese proverb