Demon — Peer Review

If you’re interested in the peer review process, this post is for you.  If you’re interested in understanding questions like:

When do you ignore advice on your writing?

or

How do you implement suggested changes?

–this post is for you.  If you want to see the final draft of my demon short story, then this post is not for you.  You’ll have to wait just a little longer.

Today I want to show you a few of the critiques I received and explain the changes I made or didn’t make.

I use a website called Scribophile.  It was the first peer-review site I found, and once I’d started using it, I never bothered to look for anything else.  The most important aspect of any peer-review site should be a log-in process.  No one should be able to read your writing unless they are a member of the site, having to log-in to access the site.  This protects your writing in several ways.  Foremost among them, you will not have breached any of the rules which publications have about first publication rights.

Enough of that.

I’m going to post the original text with suggested corrections (in red).  Below that I’ll show the changes (in blue) or made or explain why I didn’t make any changes.  I’ll post a few specific examples because I don’t want to overwhelm you.

---

Comment 1

“Kill this weakling!” Babo shouted, pointing to a low-level player’s avatar. He still wore rags, equipped during the game’s tutorial. I followed him into the wilds. A single keystroke later, a fireball consumed the avatar. None of it was real, but I still felt guilty.

I think you could add more gravitas to this scene! Maybe reference a real game, or talk about what the low-level player is doing in the game to add some details here. Maybe the player is gathering mushrooms for the first quest and asks the protagonist to point out where they are, and the protagonist does so in order to kill him anyway. I think having him do something mildly worse than just targeting a newbie, in general, would make his guilt make a little bit more sense.

Correction

This critique gave good advice, but I didn’t want to spend any more time describing the game than I had to.  The game wasn’t the focus on this part of the story–it was merely a way to introduce Babo’s constant presence and need for attention.

I also feared that if I spent too much time describing a computer game, it would turn some readers off from the story.  It’s the very beginning of the story, so for all my reader knows, a great portion of the story could be about playing a game.

I decided to ignore these critiques.  If this were a novel, I might have followed their advice.

---

Comment 2

Me: I have a test tomorrow. <pause> Then I’ll be in jail. <pause> Be useful for once. Help me study. <pause> No. <pause> Nevermind. Stop. <pause> Stop!

I’m not personally a fan of how this is formatted! I understand that this is a stylistic choice, and it’s a break from the style of the rest of the story, but I think it doesn’t really need to be separate. I would probably have something like “From my dad’s perspective, he saw me talking to myself. “I have a test tomorrow,” I said, pausing as I scowled into thin air. “If I did that, I’d be in jail.” At this point, I shook my head. “Be useful for once–” etc! These little descriptions would add a lot to imagining what the dad is seeing, and it could be a point for a lot of humor!

Correction

Me: I have a test tomorrow.  

…

Then I’ll be in jail.  

…

Be useful for once.  Help me study.  

…

No. 

…

Nevermind.  Stop.  

…

Stop!

I decided to take the critiquer’s advice here, though a part of me still regrets it.  I liked writing <pause> because it wasn’t a simple ellipse.  It wasn’t quite so easy to skip over.  I wanted that bit of conversation to feel slow and awkward.  For readability’s sake, I changed it, though I’m still considering changing it back.

I also agreed with his comments about movement and reactions being added, which is something I’m doing in the second part of this conversation, though I’m not showing it to you here.

---

Comment 3

“I had hoped I was the last,” he said.

How did he say it? Sadly? Neutrally? Is he saying this to comfort his son?

Correction

“I had hoped I was the last,” he said, disappointed but not worried.  I don’t think it was a conscious effort.  He wasn’t the type to suppress concern for me or put on a tough-guy facade.  For someone who had lived decades with his own demon, Dad made the experience seem mundane.  No big deal.  That attitude reassured me as much as our conversation.

One of the biggest failings in this story was the characters’ feelings and reactions, especially the main character’s.  I almost always skip over that bit of writing and come back to it later.  I’m challenging myself to stay in the moment and spend more time with feelings and reactions from now on, no longer skipping them.  Every time a suggestion like the one above was made, I followed it.

---

Comment 4

Her dimples, deep as meteorite craters, begged to differ. As did her hawkish nose.

I have to confess I don’t find this particular simile extremely attractive, as craters remind me more pockmarks. I like dimples, but I’m not so sure about meteorite craters.

Correction

Her dimples, deep as peach pits, begged to differ.  As did her hawkish nose.

When I write similes, I usually go for a dramatic effect.  Thus, the image of a really deep meteorite crater appealed to me, but it doesn’t fit, just as the comment says.

This simile — He sprayed urine all over the sheet of paper like a baby elephant with limited control over its trunk — doesn’t line up quite right.  One critique explained it sounds like the elephant is urinating from its trunk.  There’s a symmetry lacking.

I don’t care.  I’m keeping it.

Not to be stubborn or vindictive.  I just love the image of Babo peeing, his demon penis flailing around like an out-of-control elephant trunk.  For me, the humor of the image outweighs all else.

---

Comment 5

Eun-Byeol’s eyes widened. She blushed and lowered her face to straw, impaled her cheek on the first try, blushed deeper, then tried to consume her remaining frappe in a single inhalation. I had never seen her flustered. For the first time, the power shifted to me.

Lol. I have to say I think this is a bit too melodramatic, like a Korean drama. I would personally tone this down a bit for verisimilitude’s sake.

Correction

Eun-Byeol’s eyes widened.  She blushed and lowered her face to straw, impaled her lip on the first try, blushed deeper, then tried to consume her remaining frappe in a single sip.  I had never seen her flustered. 

Sometimes a few simple changes are all that’s necessary.  Impaling her lip seemed more realistic, as did “sip” instead of “inhalation.”  I also cut the final sentence, which was the most melodramatic bit, in my opinion.

---

Final Comments

At the end of every critique I receive on Scribophile, there’s a place for the reviewer to write final thoughts.  I wanted to share two of them below:

Peer 1:

I think the main thing I desired more was for characters to be a bit more “natural,” less heavy-handed in their actions, in my humble opinion. That would make this piece a lot more smooth.

–He was 100% right.  Most of the problems occurred in the romantic encounter between my main character and his love interest.  I’ve toned it down a bit.

Peer 2:

So, there’s a lot here to work on. I think your premise is cute, and Babo the demon sounds adorable, if raunchy. I think what you need is just more details, lingering on emotion! Because Babo is primarily in your protagonist’s head, having your protag think and feel things about what’s going on rather than just responding will give the reader something to connect with him about. I want to feel his embarrassment, his shame, his victory! Right now I think the reader is going to connect more to Babo than to the protagonist, just because Babo’s intentions, motivations, and desires are clear as day. Just grounding this whole thing in reality a teensy bit more will make the supernatural elements funnier and stand out more, too!

–Again, he was 100% right.  He wanted a bit more emotion and response than I was willing to write into a short story, but he had highlighted some key places where I needed characters to react.

---

I’ll spend another day or two reviewing the second half of the story, which will begin receiving peer reviews tonight or tomorrow.  Once that’s done, I’ll post the final draft of the story.

If you’ve stayed with me this far into the post, I hope you gained something from our time together.  This was always something I wanted to share for anyone who might be interested, and now I never have to do it again!

From the height of a mind,

Mike