Talk:Speewaa's Story

Official NRC Review
Three NRC reviews in one day? This is probably a new record or something.

Okay, so this time around I'm reviewing Speewaa's Story, a collaborative story written by brother and sister and. It follows the adventures of two Matoran, Speewaa and Jorbyy. The plot, so far, is basically like this: Speewaa and Jorbyy wake up, go exploring, which involves finding pets and fighting Torshurrr and Baterra, which eventually gets them stranded on Bota Magna.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting much of this. To be brutally honest, it's not terribly good. At all. The plot, characterization, descriptions, and characters all need a lot of work. To be fair, Baterra1202 has improved since he wrote this, his stories Fate of the Skrall: Baterra Lair and Mind of the Monster are both at least somewhat better then this.

I don't think much of the plot as of yet, I find it, honestly, directionless and plodding. The action scenes don't seem at all tense or engaging, but is scattered and not very well-written. It's not the concept that's bad, exploration stories can be quite interesting, but there's very little description of anything in this story. The authors appear to be telling, not showing, at most (No, let's be honest, all) points in this story, but since we're all beginning authors, and that problem is fairly common on here, it can be somewhat excused.

Only somewhat, though. When you consider the rest of the stories' problems, such as the complete lack of anything resembling character development. Speewaa and Jorbyy do not come across as interesting characters to read. They're flat, one-dimensional, and more often then not, boring. Nothing really has been said or shown about Speewaa's personality beyond the fact she likes keeping pets, and I know nothing about Jorbyy. N-70's lack of development can be excused, (he's a robot, after all), but the fact that both the titular characters are barely not at all fleshed out damages this story even further.

Now, this story is probably far from finished, as far as I know. But from what I have so far, this doesn't look very promising. The plot is devoid of description, the writer's proverb "show, don't tell" is not used in this story at all, and the characters are not at all well-written or developed in the slightest.

They only act as the (poorly written) plot tells them to, nothing more. Because there's no description, you can't even gain insight into what they're really thinking, so we can't even empathize with them. Even the fight scenes are barely described and poorly written

Normally I'd also write a section on the mood and characterization, but there really is little or none of either here. Like Slice pointed out in his review of Mind of the Monster, the characters in Speewaa's Story only act as the plot tells them to, and it makes sense for them to do those things, because they haven't been fleshed out and I have no idea of knowing how they would or could act.

Also, the dialogue needs a lot of improvement. There's barely any in the story at all, and when it does appear, it sounds fake and poorly done, not at all how someone would talk in real life, or even in canon BIONICLE. It needs a lot of improvement, along with everything else I've pointed out above.

Now, I could go on pointing out all of the other things that the writer expects us to know already or don't make sense because there's not enough description or character development, but I think I'll leave it at what I've said above.

I'm sorry if I sounded overly harsh here, or if I've hurt either of the author's feelings in this review. We're all beginning authors here, so nothing on here is extraordinarily outstanding. But this story needs a lot of improvement, and right now I certainly can't grade this highly.

Overall, The story is choppily and unprofessionally written, with no real character development or pacing, and certainly nothing approaching a mood or feel. This story really doesn't have very many redeeming qualities. However, Baterra, I know you've improved since you wrote this, and so I won't go on any further. But I'd recommend on improving on this. It needs a lot of work before it's close to good.

Overall Grade: D