Monday, May 23, 2011

Feedback request on a "Character Design"

Hi everyone. Now, this may seem like an odd blog post, and I may not leave it up for very long - but I have a favor to ask you. I'm practicing with descriptions of things. I'd start with sharing the stuff I've done with my dog, cats, house, etc - but I thought it would be more interesting to go all-out and write up a description for a monster that doesn't exist (to my knowledge). This monster is copy-written by me, so please don't steal any of it. As a writer, this is my biggest fear - but I want to learn from this giant "Beastie" thing. I tried to stay away from "It's 7' tall with fangs and..." type description, so I hope this reads okay.

Please, please, please leave feedback of some kind - anonymously or otherwise (though, I can't give you a thank-you card or message without knowing who it's for), or you can send it to my e-mail address: DerringerRegn@Gmail.com

Beastie to the five senses:

It's tall, with broad shoulders that would be difficult to squeeze through a standard doorframe. His head is held low, almost parallel to his shoulders – and forward, like a bird craning its neck to get a closer look at its prey. Its head isn't shaped the way a humans would be, it's mostly triangular, with an incredibly small sunken nose. Its chin leads the direction of its face, protruding sharply wherever the creature appears to be looking. It has no features like a mouth or eyes visible. That is to say, where the eyes or mouth should be there are no sockets or definition to represent an opening for a mouth or placeholders for eyes.

The creatures movements are slow but deliberate, as though each muscle effort is directed by a lagging computer command. Its legs are too short for its approximate 7' tall frame, and the creature seems to lose its balance easily. It's large arms make up for its awkward legs, powerful blows are capable of crumbling cement to dust, if it can get to its target.

If you were to meet his creature face to face, you'd swear you were only looking at a shadow. Only this figure seems a shade darker than a shadow, as though it represented the complete absence of light or color. Its outline seems to shift slightly before it moves, making its movements seemingly predictable – but that's not quite the case. The figures body shape seems as stable as a thunderstorm – its shapes are very indistinct like a series of broken lines sloppily sketched around its outline. Looking directly at it almost makes the figure disappear, as though distorted by a lenticular lens. It's difficult to see anything of this figure, making it incredibly difficult to share accounts of having seen it with others.

This creature is the thing you see out of the corner of your eye, or in a darkness in the shadow that appears to be watching you. It waits for the moment that weakness shows before it strikes. Its strikes aren't direct unless it's entirely necessary. For most, it saps the energy of its victims using the electrical feeling emitting from its body in most cases.

The creature is mostly silent. The only sound that can generally be heard is a quiet crackle that comes from a seemingly electrical current emanating from its body. No growling or roaring can be heard in its presence, though the odd sound of indistinct whispering may originate from somewhere within the beast.

As you get close to it, every hair on your body stands on end as though a thunderstorm is brewing from within its form. The seemingly electrical charge makes you hesitate approaching it for fear of being shocked, but you can't back away as the charge holds your attention. If you're ever in the unfortunate situation where you have to make physical contact with the creature, you'll likely feel layers of hard, leathery skin split and peel in the rough pattern of weathered tree bark.

The various layers create a very course, sandpaper-like feel to the monster, and his touch is the one thing that truly grounds it to our plane of existence. If you touch the creature, you're sure to know you've touched it by the scrapes and cuts left by its skin alone.

Before seeing this creature, or hearing or feeling it – you'll likely catch a whiff of the strange mixture of sulfur and decaying flesh emitting from its body. The sulfur is very faint, like rich bath salts in too-hot water, but the decaying flesh is what will really get your attention. It smells as though the creatures heinously course skin is compiled from the dead flesh of victims - leftovers of whatever this creature does to people. It doesn't appear to eat them, so perhaps sustaining its existence is the goal of torment.

Accompanying the rank smell of this beast, you're likely to taste metal in your mouth when it's nearby. The taste is something akin to biting your tongue and tasting the blood. It's a very subtle taste, but it will give you the feeling of utmost discomfort. Likely caused by the seemingly electrical pull caused by this creature, you'll have felt like your head is in a vice with the taste of coppery metal in your mouth if you get too close – even without realizing what's happened.

An encounter with this beast is enough to cause alarm in the most stable of hearts. The only thing I can recommend to you, is to keep your head and run. The static draw is powerful, but understand what happens if you get close - you won't like it.

EDIT: I've taken all of the feedback into consideration and have rewritten this for myself. That one I won't be sharing, because where's the fun in that? In short I've given the beastie a nickname (to replace "its") from the point of view of my main character (so it's goofy, but meaningful), added more description including the little things that I've managed to leave out, and clarified several points that were muddled by trying to cover all of my senses. Any more feedback is certainly welcome, so please don't hesitate! (I mean it, pretty please!?)

6 comments:

Mitch said...

OK, I have a comments in my head and I will try to get them down in writing.

I was starting to feel disappointed with the beginning of the description. As I was reading, imagery was forming in my mind in real time and I could nearly see it. Then you described that it was darker than shadow, absent of light. The image I had was lost. My minds eye was looking at blackness. BUT as you progressed with the description I was glad. You brought in every sense into play. Not only did I get to see it, but I felt it, heard it and even tasted it. In other words, I sensed it. I experienced it. A+ ^_^

justabaldguy said...

I like this. Initially I wanted more color specifics, but getting to the shadow helped. I think for most the first thing they want is what does it look like. When describing a car, like in a get-away movie, the cop calling dispatch typically starts with color.

Describing the smell was great, and sounds were important, but including the feeling of uncertainly when near the creature's proximity was even better.

What I couldn't figure out was the general look of this creature. Is it bipedal? Upright on two legs? How many arms does it have? If it has no eyes or mouth, is there anything resembling a head at all? The image in my mind is more like a thing from the original Doom game.

My favorite part is how you likened the odd features to comfortable ideas in the reader's mind. The reference to a door frame, stooped head like a crane, these are all things we can use to form a possible match for this thing being described. "The creature's movements are slow but deliberate, as though each muscle effort is directed by a lagging computer command." AWESOME! I TOTALLY see this thing moving now! Best line in the story.

Fantastic work overall.

Janice said...

Definitely got the feeling i think you were after from this. like i should probably check that dark corner of the house, JUST in case. i love all the unique descriptions (the door frame, drive force of computer, etc) that i'd never see or read anywhere else. my only critique is that the sentence structre is a little repetative. a lot of the sentences start with "its blah di blah." you might try to vary that a little bit. Oh, and stalking its "prey", not "pray". unless its a religious bestie, in which case totally! '

definitely enjoyed the pre-work read. thanks dude!

Scotty G said...

I actually really liked this. Gave me a good mental image and did so in a creative way.

And for what it's worth, if someone does steal this then at the least they thought it was better than anything they could come up with. ;)

Shadokat Regn said...

Awesome feedback, everyone! I'm really glad I was able to bounce this around the internet - because man, I missed some pretty obvious things. I guess that's what practice is for. I can't just assume everyone can see what I can, as this image is in my head and wholly inaccessible to everyone else. Unless I get it down properly, that is.

Thanks for taking the time to read and critique! It's really appreciated. :)

Nick Puleo said...

Pretty solid description overall, and I definitely got what you were going for.

From a purely technical standpoint there's a ton of "its" in here which makes it read like a list in some areas. There's also a lot of contradictions in the description - for instance you won't know its coming because you can't see it - but you will know its coming because you can smell it. While it makes sense what you are trying to say, perhaps another comparison factor other than that for one of those would make more sense.

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