SCP-3010 / Discussion

This is the discussion related to the wiki page SCP-3010.

page 1 of 41234next »

iznaroth 10 Apr 2017 03:29

Hey. Here's my 3000 entry. Yeah, it's my first post (not my first foray into Foundation writing, but certainly my first time growing the balls to post something), and unfortunately, it was finished so late I didn't have much time to get it edited at all, so it's a cold post too. But I had an idea I really liked that fit the theme pretty well, so I just winged it, revised it like 100 times, and went with it. I know there's probably lots wrong with it. Please tear it apart, so I may learn from my mistakes. Also, lemme know if it feels too same-y to any other creatures. Beyond maybe SCP-966 (which I sort of tried to subvert) I haven't come across anything glaring, but I might've forgotten some. If it's practically identical to one, I'll remove it.

Rant over. Thanks for reading (and rating, if you did), and helping me grow as a writer.

Staf Post: Open

Doctor Cimmerian 17 Apr 2017 23:09

Images used in posted articles must comply with the site's image policy. A source must be provided on the discussion page and the source must be compatible with the site's license. The author will be notified after this posting via Wikidot PM and will have 48 hours to properly source the image before it is edited out of the page. If the images are not wholly your own, please post the image's source as a link (or links) in reply to this post and edit it into your first post in this discussion thread.

Re: Staf Post: Open

iznaroth 18 Apr 2017 23:07

Whoops, thought that website was a stock photo website, the URL was misleading. Image removed. I'll look for one with suitable permissions when the contest is over.

Pythy 10 Apr 2017 05:22

I like this a lot, it's really, really scary. Well done. That being said, there were a fair amount of copy-editing issues that could use a touch-up. I fixed a bunch of "it's" that should have been "its", for instance.

jishwa 10 Apr 2017 13:32

There's a couple capitalization errors in both of the logs (near the end of the first and the beginning of the second), and a 3XXX in the last collapsible. That being said, I really liked this. Easily one of my favorites from this contest. +1

Eraysor 10 Apr 2017 15:04

The final collapsible got me good

Saya-tan 10 Apr 2017 15:04

I like it. +1

If I'm not mistaken, it's policy to use metric units for clinical tone, though, and you have a few spots where you used imperial.

Buttfranklin 10 Apr 2017 17:22

Typed this on my mobile with dodgy WiFi so I hope this gets through/doesn't have too many typos.

I downvoted, but I think you have promise. I'd like to see you write more for the site — you'll only improve with practice! You're good at the aspects of writing which are most difficult to learn.

+ critique

I don't see a good reason for the "dictionary definition" part of the containment procedures to exist. It's a very effective opening from a narrative standpoint, piquing the hell out of my interest; but given that "causal-absent paranoia" seems to be a Foundation-only term, I don't see why it should be mentioned in the public domain at all.

"Feeling of being watched" seems a bit cliché and cheap as a basis for a scip, but I suppose that's the jaded, desensitised SCP addict in me talking.

You've used a lot of "off-tone" language — stuff you wouldn't see in a scientific report. Examples I remember: "as of right now", "luring it in" (on this site, I strongly recommend against using "it" as a pronoun), "injection of a gaseous substance" (plain incorrect use of "injection"), "two things occur"; "adversity" means "a tough situation", and isn't a synonym for "an adverse reaction". And a few grammar errors/offences against my internal style guide, mainly capitalisation (e.g. after colons: what are you, Victorian, lmao, amirite?); also, I'd personally put a minus symbol in the header text of an expanded collapsible. i.e. "+ show" "– hide".

The antisocial/sociopath distinction didn't seem interesting or related to the themes of the underlying anomaly.

You've used a lot of redaction and "we don't know what it looks like". I can't help but see this as lazy writing; there's an infinite number of ways to combine words together to conjure up an image scarier than "we dunno, ooo". Let me put this in a different way: (usually) mystery is a nice breadcrumb trail to a meaty payoff, but it feels dissatisfying to nibble on breadcrumbs all the way through the piece.

The "destruction of all memories" feels tacked on. It doesn't mesh with the other ideas, mostly because you only have that one-off mention and don't develop it.

I'm going to be mean, so apologies in advance: that dialogue is cringeworthy. When was the last time you heard someone say "What is this, a horror movie?" in real life? When was the last time that you said to yourself "What the hell… My head…" when you thought you were completely on your own? You're expecting this guy to narrate every action he takes when you could easily have used some stage directions. A whispered "Fuck…" D-17729 winces and clutches his forehead is more realistic. That lowercase "kill them all" stuff is bad too. Imagine you were transcribing actual audio: what reason would you have to type the words you hear in lowercase?

That last D-class addendum kind of makes sense, but is a bit poorly explained.

Here's what I liked.

You obviously have a good idea of what effect your words will have on a reader. This seems a stupidly basic thing to say, what with it being the foundation of any kind of writing, but you read a lot of people's first attempts on this site and it's obvious they've fallen at that first hurdle. You have the ability to get out of your own head and into your reader's, which is a great skill for writing and hard to teach. I can't offer any specific lines as evidence for this, but it is evidenced by another thing I like:

You've structured the piece really well, one-off, undeveloped throwaway ideas aside. The paragraphs flow smoothly, and you've clearly thought about the order in which to present your information to keep the reader interested and unconfused. That highest-level, macro planning of fiction is hard, so well done for getting that down.

Finally, there are a few lines of flair which show you've got a good grasp of language. "eyes in the back of their mouth" was nice and spooky.

Final thoughts: I can tell you're influenced by the plain ol' creepypasta of this site's early days, which is both a blessing and a curse. On the downside, our current batch of SCP writers are more into the complex, thematic pieces that knowingly subvert tropes etc, so you're not going to get much kudos from them by keeping it old school. On the plus side, it's a welcome break from the artsy-fartsy stuff, and a lot of the audience of this site aren't writers. Also, I think you should think a little harder and more critically about the stuff you write, particularly in terms of whether it's too similar to stuff which has been written before, and whether any particular idea/section is strictly necessary or useful for what you've written.

iznaroth 10 Apr 2017 18:04

Thanks for the feedback.

response

You don't need to apologize about criticism, I'm pretty aware that dialogue isn't my strong suit. I have a sort of comfort zone when writing characters, and the D-Class & Captain were pretty far outside of it, so it felt sort of weak.

Beyond that, the grammatical stuff (using wrong words) mostly seems to come from the fact that I really never got enough criticism on this sort of writing from people experienced with it, since I always shy away from posting. I'll probably need to look a little closer at that on my next attempt.

Capitalization was a bit erratic, it's a stupid habit of mine I've been trying to break for years.

I guess for the whole [REDACTED] thing, it felt like it was an entity/anomaly that wasn't supposed to be defined by it's appearance. I get it, it's lazy writing, but I dunno. I have a crystal clear image of what they're supposed to look like (written down on a google doc with my other stuff), so it's not a cop-out at least. For the antisocial/sociopathic section, it was definitely more of a plot device. Antisocial was so I had a way to contain the entity without much risk of a reactive event, and sociopathic for the D-17729 log/last collapsible. It's not the best, but I'm not sure how to circumvent that.

Destruction of all memories was a bit unnecessary, but now it's kind of integral for the exploration log, and I can't quite figure out how to get rid of it without the exploration log falling apart. I always saw entities that destroy memories as a sort of self-preservation tactic to avoid being caught/detected. But it's definitely a bit of a throwaway, and in retrospect a couple of ideas like that seem to crop up in the piece.

The last addendum was a pure stream-of-consciousness, but I think that it might need a little work. I just don't know what would be best to change about it for the sake of impact without accidentally ruining it's tempo.

Thanks a bunch for the criticisms. I'm not sure how much I'm gonna tear up in the article yet (I tried to change the basic errors, but I'm pondering how I could amend the D-17729 section's prose.) but I'll try.

Last edited on 10 Apr 2017 18:12 by iznaroth Show more

Buttfranklin 10 Apr 2017 18:17

Don't feel the need to rebuild it from scratch! It's doing pretty well in terms of votes, and don't let the length of my comment fool you: I'm just one person, listing one person's set of criticisms.

I see you're hung up on logic. I get obsessed with whether my pieces make sense when put under a microscope too. We shouldn't be. Barely anyone notices if your writing contains some minor logical flaw. After all, how many movies become blockbuster successes with nine-figure profits despite being riddled with plot holes? If you're writing and come across a toss-up between logic and impact, err on the side of the latter.

Last edited on 10 Apr 2017 18:18 by Buttfranklin Show more

(account deleted) 10 Apr 2017 22:16

This is stellar for an author's first post on the site (and for a major contest, at that; props to you) but I did hold some issue with a few parts. I honestly think that Buttfranklin covered those points fully (I second all of them) but I'd also like to add that a good half or so of Addendum SCP-3000-A felt like stuff that should have gone in the Description. No-vote for those reasons, but it's definitely far from 'bad'.

TL333s 10 Apr 2017 22:36

This isn't too bad, though I feel it suffers from a few similarities to other contest entries. I'm not sure the ending had much of an effect, and I'm sort of lost as to the precise origin, though it seems the Foundation is, too, so that's maybe not so bad. (I mean, I've never felt someone watching me in my life; I always assumed that was just literary convenience, like love at first sight.) Couple things:

Often times those who experience SCP-3000 tend to report it from ‘behind’. If their back is to the wall, wherever the nearest window or darkest corner in their sight is, they tend to avoid.

Doesn't make sense as worded.

it stole my light, but I have me! Cannot stop me now, fool. need weapon. combat them. destroy them.

Capitalization. "I have me"? I mean, he's distinctly delirious, just making sure that was what you meant to put there.

Novote, but I agree with others, this has great potential.

Sound Chaser 10 Apr 2017 22:41

I had a more specific comment lined up, but Buttfranklin basically covered most of my points first, so eh.

I will say that this has a bunch of different effects, some of which (like the memory thing and it messing with space) seem to be there without rhyme or reason. I like the idea of something erasing people to cover its tracks, but there's very little indication of that in the article (then again, I suppose it'd be difficult for the Foundation to work that out).

Also, I'm not really sure how much the second log works at all. To me, at least, it doesn't do anything that a reader couldn't infer from the first addendum, and whilst that's not necessarily a killer, the dodgy dialogue hampers its creepiness.

There's also a couple of stylistic things; the "zero (0)" stuff is kinda pointless, and I feel like 'his' and the like in the containment procedures should be gender-neutral. On the other hand, the "eyes in the back of their mouth" is a really good line, and form some reason I like the idea of something necessitating a house 'set' to be built to contain it. There's good stuff in here, and you've structured and paced it well, it just doesn't really do it for me, I'm afraid.

Also, probably dumb question, is 3000-1 what's cancelling the edit at the end?

iznaroth 10 Apr 2017 22:56

For the ending, I think it was definitely an open to interpretation thing. I initally thought it to be a sort of "if the d-class on the other end said goodbye, what's trying to make edits" thing, and you're the one that locks it (since I had no real way to allow you to input Y/N to my knowledge), but the idea that the editor PC is being locked by the entity is another way to look at it.

I'm definitely debating over what to do with log 2. It's pretty obviously bad, but I dunno if I wanna just totally cut it out, remove all the dialogue and just describe the scenario for a little clarity, or rewrite it more carefully.

For the sort of incoherent effects, the memory effect really was a plot device for the exploration log. The spatial anomaly was less so, because there's definitely an origin for it but it's not particularly original, so I'm thinking about rewriting it. I kind of feel like I'm running into a wall of what I want to change before the editing deadline versus what I want to just do after the voting's over. I'm a little hesitant to make a ton of major changes, but I'm still considering it.

Thanks for the feedback.

Petrograd 10 Apr 2017 23:57

I liked a lot of this. The containment procedures being trapping someone in a haunted house was very neat.

I actually like the dictionary definition thing. One important thing to note from a psychology standpoint, antisocial personality disorder IS sociopathy. If you're looking for people who avoid social contact, that's avoidant personality disorder.

The real weakest part was the MTF exploration log. The dialogue with a couple of people disappearing was ok, and it's definitely interesting that they're immediately exploring a ruined site, but it really mostly just rehashed what happens in just about every MTF exploration log. Edit: Actually, you know, it's fine.

Other than that, all the DATA EXPUNGED violence is pretty cliche, as is it erasing people. I like the whole "murder after three times" thing because it really tied this back into making ghost stories/superstitions true thing. I just think it would be way more interesting to give a real answer that had some thought about the beings rather than "EXPUNGED carved bones EXPUNGED."

Last edited on 11 Apr 2017 00:13 by Petrograd Show more

iznaroth 11 Apr 2017 04:22

After a little internal debate, I'd say you're right, and I made an edit to show it. Feels a bit risky since it was done like 1 minute off the deadline, but whatever. I was iffy about redacting stuff, so I swiped a couple of chunks from the procedure on my notes and tried to stitch it in a way that left some stuff up for interpretation while still giving enough to say "Yeah, it's bad". If the change sucks, lemme know, though, I'm not sure if I went too far or not far enough.

Thanks for the feedback.

Petrograd 15 Apr 2017 10:05

I know we're talking edits for after the contest here, but yeah, it's still (as of edit 31) kinda iffy.

+ show block

Think about it this way: the violence works on two levels. There's the weird/unexpected/gross factor, and then there's the fact that it serves to communicate info about these critters. We can infer from the rest of the article that they follow you but don't like being noticed, or noticing them breaks a "rule," and the sheer violence of their response supports that. The fact that the procedure is so perfectly described and uniform (exactly 117.2 sec, they always do the skin thing etc) suggests that either they are creatures of unchanging habit or inflexible rule-following, or that their response is a ritual intended to accomplish a specific task or send a specific message. The bone-carving and shaping remains into a pattern support these ideas.

So on the information end, what are they trying to accomplish? All I've got is that maybe the bone carving and such is a ritual that results in the erasure. I only got that idea just now, like 5 days later, so it's not exactly front and center. That, or this is just "what they do."

On the gross-out/weird end, [DATA EXPUNGED] and [REDACTED] (when used well) are generally placed so that the reader already had a good idea of what's in the box, but leaving them to work out the horrific details. You're already saying the gross stuff out loud, so the expungements aren't doing you much good.

So, basically, it's not hitting either purpose hard enough. I'm not saying you need to 100% spell out the motivations of the beings (you shouldn't) or that there's a particular way I think you should use your redactions. I'm just saying pick your reveals and concealments in this section to maximize both of those factors.

Last edited on 15 Apr 2017 10:06 by Petrograd Show more

page 1 of 41234next »