Skip to main content

Forums » RP Discussion » Do me a favor?

Draken901

I would like to see your opinions on a page (or multiple is this is successful.) in my new group I have been working on called Hexxis. What I would like to know on the page(s.) I present to you, is that if you can see any typos in it's text I might have missed, if you can recommend some better wording in any sentences you might think are strange or weird, and what you think about it and your opinions on the page itself. (the third is highly optional, and at some points may not be needed.)

On the plus side, you will get to see it's progress, and may even help me drive the group's development a bit. I might even put a memorial page stating all the people who helped me work on this.

I kindly thank you for providing your input and going out of your way to do this if you choose to do so.

The page I am putting down refers to the continents of Hexxis, and their histories and nations. Please look at what I've done so far. http://www.rprepository.com/group/group.php?gID=2324&page=topic&page2=38673
hey! I'm always down to help someone out. I'll just jump right in.

Sentence Structure, Grammar

Sentence Structure

Something I'm learning to do when I'm writing is check the beginnings of my sentences, because while I'm fine at varying sentence length, I do have a certain knack for writing a bunch of simple sentence starts. It can start to be tedious to read after a while, I've found. I'm gonna list a few examples from your text under the readmore:
x
- The Draconic Empire lies in...
- It features...
- The Founder of the Draconic Empire is...
- It eventually ended...
- The Draconic Empire did not...
I only noticed it near the end of the topography descriptions and the beginning of the Draconic Empire's history, though.


Quite a few of your topographical paragraphs start off with to the southeast or to the north. It's a good transition for every three paragraphs or so, but it stops being a transition when it's used as a sort of paragraphic formula. Maybe use it in the second sentence, or put it as a secondary noun.


Sometimes passive voice can show poor writing form, because it allows the object of an action to be the subject of a sentence. I'm not really good at detecting it, but here're a few sentences that I thought had it:

- "The world of Hexxis is made up of several continents and regions."
- "Which the most noteworthy are listed below."
- "...closely grouped together, which are named under the Isles of Dusk."
- "This continent is known for being much more strange,..."
- "Many parts of the continent are drenched in fog or darkness."
- "...by thick stone walls, which are carved and decorated to resemble beautiful..."
- "The city is decorated with many colors, banners, and bits..."
- "The walls are carved, depicting many deities of..."
- "These can often be used for travel, as they link up to..."
- "...isles", where no man or beast was supposed to tread."
- "...one Elder actually doing so, which was soon assassinated by outside forces (often speculated..."
- "The Istine Union's men were mostly clothed in lamellar, tribal helmets, and..."
Here's a guidebook for it.


Pronunciations of your cities might look/read better to the left of your colons, but I don't actually know.

Grammar

When you do parenthesis, you tend to put a period in them. Like this:
(often speculated to be of Kirsikan origin.)

Parenthesis are like a P.S. note at the bottom of a letter, but take away the idea that they're sentences from that. They're meant to go after the thing they're describing, and are like a footnote that can't be put anywhere else in your writing. They don't need periods, as they aren't really considered a full thought. Here's a grammar guide to them from someone smarter than me and that can explain what I'm getting at better.

You also put a space around colons, like this : and that's not correct, either. Here's the smarter person again for that

You wrote:
"The walls are carved, depicting many deities of afterlife and undeath."
"The walls are carved, depicting many deities of the afterlife and undeath."
'Of' doesn't like being beside nouns without an article adjective

You wrote:
"Having reign over it's shady and humid jungles, and the eastern coasts."
Sentence fragment

You wrote:
"It's capital is Dragon's Tooth, a massive, walled city with it's walls made of charred marble, and it's streets lined decoratively with bronze."
"Its capital is Dragon's Tooth, a massive, walled city. The walls are made of charred marble, and its streets are lined with decorative bronze."
Although 'decoratively' looks like an adverb, with -ly at the end, it's an adjective. Adjectives don't go after nouns, and the sentence sounded like a run-on once that mistake was corrected, so I just split it up. Doesn't quite flow as prettily, but you can pretty it up how you'd like.

You wrote:
"It features four towers, which are also the main gates, at the very north, west, east, and south points of walls."
It features four towers, which are also the main gates, at the very north, west, east, and south points of the walls.
'Of' doesn't like being in front of nouns without an article adjective

You wrote:
"The Founder of the Draconic Empire is a large red Dragon known as Emperor Urstagahn, which resides in the empire's capital."
The Founder of the Draconic Empire is a large red Dragon known as Emperor Urstagahn, who resides in the empire's capital.
Beings aren't referred to with 'which.'

You wrote:
"First, using diplomatic strategies and Ambassadors to try to convince the southern and northern Elders and Chieftains to pledge their allegiance to the Draconic Empire, offering them wealth and status, but ultimately failed, with only one Elder actually doing so, which was soon assassinated by outside forces (often speculated to be of Kirsikan origin.) and replaced with another which refused."
Urstaghan first tried using diplomatic strategies to try to convince the Southern and Northen leaders to pledge their allegiance to the Draconic Empire. One leader - an elder - accepted his offers of wealth in exchange for surrender, but they were soon assassinated by outside forces (often speculated to be of Kirsikan origin). The elder [that took the dead one's seat] then refused the offer. In short, he failed.
I counted fifty-nine words here, so I'd say it was a run-on. A few grammatical errors made it sound okay as one, so I tried to make those sound better and keep the bones of your sentence as much I could. Brackets are stuff that I don't like how I put it and that you could prob make better. Also, I added a bit of a sardonic tone because that's just how I do. Feel free to edit it out.

Word Choice, Paragraph Structure

Word Choice
You wrote:
The many buildings resemble spiky structures littered with coral, with many marble chambers and hallways leading deeper under ground.
Underground
You wrote:
To the east of Surradan lies a large mass of interconnected islands and landmasses known as the Istine Islands...
I'd take out islands here and just leave landmasses and maybe add an adjective for the flow, just because of personal preference. It'd read like this after: "...lies a large outcropping of landmasses..." Outcropping may not be the best word depending on the connotation you're going for, but you get the idea.
You wrote:
Now knowing of these facts, Urstagahn jumped at the opportunity to annex these islands into his Empire.
The preposition "of" is a bit awkward at the beginning, but if you like it for the sort of pretentiousness it holds, then keep it.

Paragraph Structure

A lot of your paragraphs have a very noticeable structure. Here's an example:
You wrote:
With only their druids, shamans, elders, and ancestors to help them, they succeeded against all odds, against a bigger nation. This was about the time when Urstagahn decided to call it quits, and take his leave while he could. The war stopped that evening, with many a Draconic ship retreating back to Surradan. Some say that evening, that you could hear the heaven piercing howls and victorious cries of the Istintani warriors all the way through the night. Currently, The Draconic Empire and The Istine Union are neutral to each other, both not wanting anything to do with each other. Urstagahn treating the islands as an embarrassment to his history, and the Istine Elders considering The Draconic Empire as an old, feeble, defeated nemesis.
If you look at the sentences here, you'll see that there's not one sentence that's not either complex or compound. Sentence variation is very important, else the reader doesn't really take in what's being said and their mind can't slow down enough to process what's been told to them. Constant lengthy sentences can make for rushed reading, too, and reading informational passages like the one above ought to be somewhat relaxed and slow in my opinion.

Sorry if I went on, lmao, I love proofreading
Draken901 Topic Starter

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your efforts are very much appreciated.

I've tried to correct as much as I can, however i'm positive I have not got it all. There are some sentences which I am not sure how I would go about substituting them with active voice variations. I would however love to hear your suggestions. (if you can help me fix it of course.) I also tried to fix some of the paragraphs a bit, but i'm not sure if I actually fixed anything.

Obviously, i'm not an English buff, but I try my best.

Your actions have been commemorated in the group Lexicon.
Draken901 wrote:
Thank you, thank you, thank you! Your efforts are very much appreciated.

I've tried to correct as much as I can, however i'm positive I have not got it all. There are some sentences which I am not sure how I would go about substituting them with active voice variations. I would however love to hear your suggestions. (if you can help me fix it of course.) I also tried to fix some of the paragraphs a bit, but i'm not sure if I actually fixed anything.

Obviously, i'm not an English buff, but I try my best.

Your actions have been commemorated in the group Lexicon.
Ah, thank you! Some of the passive voice sentences are unavoidable; when giving an overview or an introduction, I kind of prefer pv over active. I was just throwing it out there to see if you thought it was a big enough deal to fix or not. You're not exactly going into detail about what happened, though, so passive voice is fine for what you're doing. Personally, I only correct passive voice in RP or when I'm going into enough detail to describe a setting around characters.

Ha! I've just always been interested in linguistics, lmao. Grammar kind of comes with it. I also have a chrome extension - I say chrome extension because I actually don't know if Firefox even lets you have extensions - called Grammarly that checks things. Sometimes it's not right, but it's pretty rare. It's pretty easy to tell when it's wrong, anyway. I've looked over it, and all that's left that's really important is that you can confuse "it's" and "its." Here's yet another guide for that.
Draken901 Topic Starter

Added a bit to the Kirsikan Empire's history if you would like to look at that.

You are on: Forums » RP Discussion » Do me a favor?

Moderators: Mina, Keke, Cass, Claine, Sanne, Dragonfire, Ilmarinen, Darth_Angelus