Detective Tubb and the Case of the Capricious Keter / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page Detective Tubb and the Case of the Capricious Keter.

Detective Tubbs

Jimthevettech 27 Jul 2020 21:00

My first tale ever! It wouldn't have been possible without:
DianaBerry, J Habsburg, KaraKatt, Flopmind, Elunerazim, and Greyve. Special thanks to AbsentmindedNihilist and Deadly Bread for making sure the character stayed on track. Special thanks to Doctor Fullham for suggesting the title.

Last edited on 28 Jul 2020 01:05 by Jimthevettech Show more

gee0765 27 Jul 2020 21:51

The dialogue tags here are overused to the point where they're obnoxious. Not every single line of dialogue needs one, and it really hurts the flow of this piece.

IAmReal 28 Jul 2020 00:15

I'm a simple person I see Tubbioca I upvote

Lt Flops 28 Jul 2020 01:00

I can accept that this Tale's subject matter probably isn't meant for me. But I just found the cutesy-ness too much to handle. I guess I'm also disinterested in the character, too.

I'm in agreement with Gee — the way dialogue tags are used drags this Tale to a halt. And it's obscenely long (nearly 4,000 words!) for what it is.

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http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/floppyphoenix

Last edited on 28 Jul 2020 01:02 by Lt Flops Show more

The Great Hippo 28 Jul 2020 01:09

Feedback!

"Pretty! Someone worked hard," He said.

Should be:

"Pretty! Someone worked hard," he said.

Similarly…

"Do you have munchies?" He asked hopefully nudging it with his head.

Should be:

"Do you have munches?" he asked hopefully, nudging it with his hand.

Your prose seems pretty solid, but the dialogue tags are very distracting, and there's a number of off-putting choices you make in regards to repetition. Take this, for example:

"Hello in there! Why did you hide?" He asked. His only answer was silence.

"Do you have munchies in there?" He asked hopefully. Nothing but silence. Tubby frowned.

…which just reads weird. I'd rewrite it like…

"Hello in there! Why did you hide?" The only answer was silence.

"Do you have munchies in there?" More silence. Toby frowned.

See how the second occurrence of 'silence' makes reference to the previous occurrence (More silence)? The way you have it framed, it's like another instance of silence with no relation whatsoever.

There's a lot of this going on throughout the story. I get the sense you know how to write sentences, and your sentences are good — but you're struggling a bit with how those sentences come together to form paragraphs (and how those paragraphs ultimately interact).

I'm going to be a bit self-indulgent here and refer you to a guide I wrote a few years ago: Essays by a Hack: Writing Tales.

It deals directly with a number of issues I think you're having (parallel construction, use of dialogue tags, proper capitalization of dialogue tags — etc). Hopefully, some of it might help!

Good luck with the tale!

KaraKatt 28 Jul 2020 01:43

I'm gonna echo what Flops, Gee, and Hippo said. Though, a lot of their points were covered in my crit of your draft.

Over all, this feels rushed by the ending and over stayed its welcome with being 4000 words.

I'm sorry, but this was a -1 from me.

Calibri Bold 28 Jul 2020 17:40

I wanted to like this, it's a wonderful concept and had its fun moments. Unfortunately, the execution brought it to a downvote for me.

The previous comments have all summed up most of my issues with the piece, so I won't reiterate those. The other major criticism I have is that it's fairly inconsistent when it comes to its descriptions. You refer to blood as "red liquid," since it's from tubby's point of view, but at the same time, he seems perfectly aware of things like bones and injuries and death. His characterization during the former is nice, but the sheer lack of consistency renders it completely ineffective.

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I can swallow pills without water.

Jimthevettech 28 Jul 2020 17:52

I'll work on that. Hopefully I can get it to where you will change your votes. This is my first tale and I worked hard on it, with many people helping. I'm taking all your crit into account and will be making modifications over time.

Moderator Post - Open

UraniumEmpire 28 Jul 2020 23:37

Author, I removed three improper tags from your article. A full list of tags is available here, and new tags must be submitted in either the general tagging thread or the character tagging thread, depending on the nature of the tag, then approved by a member of Technical Team.

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… and I'm not Robert Frost.

SCP Series 5 - Tales Edition

Panda_of_Green 29 Jul 2020 06:52

I've add your tale to the SCP Series 5 - Tales Edition underneath SCP-4966. Your tale has more than +10 rating and is primarily focused on this particular SCP. That was enough for me to add it the list.

Last edited on 29 Jul 2020 07:18 by Panda_of_Green Show more

renwalden 13 Aug 2020 11:56

This is so cute! I love it though I think it was a little long in the middle.