[CW: Feedback] The Man Named Agent

[Combat]

(Author's Note: Hello! Welcome to my Feedback page for my "The Man Named Agent" series. If you liked or hated my story, please tell me here so I can improve it in any way. There isn't much else to say, so feel free to let me know what you think!

Link to Original Story: http://www.pokemonreborn.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20309)

Edited April 2, 2016 by Combat Medic

[Halloween]

OKAY i'm on my third can of Monster let's fucking do this

The Man Named Agent

Nice title! Reminds me of, uh, Coulson in Avengers? And something else, I can't place it.

In the far off distance, a bell rung, striking eleven to announce the time to the world.

welp i swear this review isn't gonna be me picking out all lines and referring to some other work something similar has been used, but 1984 is such an iconic opening; "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen."

People, bundled up to avoid the cold night air, walked briskly by a dimly lit bar, eager to get underneath some blankets and to drift off into the realms of sleep.

i also promise not to nitpick on every fucking sense, but this one came off a bit weird to me. first of all "bundled up" makes me think of blankets, not clothes, and then the way it's formulated makes it seem like there should be a connecting between them wanting to get home and sleep and that they're walking by past that bar, which threw me off.

The bar stood there

no shit it did

with a dimly lit lightbulb illuminating the stained “Open” sign, waiting for customers of any sort to enter it, though all of the locals knew that the bar was shady on even the best days. Inside it, ancient lamps tried their best to keep the bar bright, though for better or worse, the stains that it had been given over the years were unnoticeable in the shadow. Two figures could be seen in the bar, the bartender, who had distracted himself by cleaning a glass, and Mike, who was sitting alone at a sticky booth.

THIS is really good though. Good writing. But you're relying a bit too much on what sounds good, rather than giving the bar a proper description - for example, you mentioned the illumination trice now, four times if you count mentioning shadows.

His skin was barely pink

barely... tanned? it sounds like his skin is supposed to be pink.

Mike wore a light blue windbreaker over his uniform, as he was required to never show his uniform in public, that did not complement his unkempt hazel hair.

Mike wore a light blue windbreaker over his uniform – as he was required to never show his uniform in public – that did not complement his unkempt hazel hair.

Signaling the stranger to his booth, Mike said "Jeramy, over here."

This comes off as a bit strange, as Jeramy is clearly not a stranger to Mike, and yet is referred to as "the stranger" even after Mike identifies him. I understand that he's a stranger to the reader, but to me it comes off like he's supposed to be a stranger to Mike too until we get a name. does this make sense? i'm also mentally pronouncing his name "Germany".

Next paragraph. OHOHO. im a fucker sucker for this shit, give me a mysterious cause and big secrets and i'll be leaning in as a stripper smelling money.

"I've been trying to put my life back together Mike. We both know..."

that especially is pure bait and i fucking love it, pulling my blankets higher and shit.

"which had been hiding underneath the table."

see this shit could have been planted earlier. when you described Mike i got a picture of him, sitting there, both elbows on the table, an empty pint of beer in front of him, glaring impatiently, to add a major detail to that later takes away from it, you know?

"Mike's arm had been sliced in half, ranging from where his hand should have been, all the way to where the joint that would have connect the humerus to the rest of his arm would have been. The stump was warned in snow white bandages, which clashed against the dirty interior of the bar. Mike stared at the remains of one of his limbs, before saying "This, is why I called you.""

this was both a very strong image, and a very confusing one. I had a reaction of "oooh shiiie– wait what?" He had one cut ranging from where his hand should have been to where the rest of his arm should have been? is the hand gone and then there's a cut from that stump to "joint that would have connect the humerus" (there's an easy word for that: hint, starts with an e)? but how is that visible with the bandages?

I'm gonna come back to this, but you're great at selling this shit to me

What the type of creature

This just keeps getting better /dreamy sigh

Mike gestured to the bartender

Why would he do that, when "The barkeep had begun to occupy himself far across from them, wiping down the record machine that appeared to be long broken."

Waiting, the bartender approached them

Waiting?

Mike said "It had started like any normal day."

im settling in

no actually shouldn't you wait until the bartender is gone again if it's so important he doesn't hear this?

It was then, when I met HIM..."

Italics are better

"In hindsight, I should have just shot him, right then and there..."

that's a weird thing to say if the guy hadn't been acting crazy before

Mike cheered, before saying "Bartender! Another round of drinks on mehh..." before is speech suddenly became slurred. Blood began to pour out of his mouth as Jeramy began to cry out Mike's name, though he too began to sputter in a similar manner after a quarter of a minute

holy shit

one covered in clothing, the other missing his arm.

this just subtracted from that paragraph. we know.

okay summin it up here. You have a really good story, and a near perfect script on how it will happen. like, the anticipation build was as good as it gets - you just kept stacking the goods like a jenga tower only to reveal you had stacked them on a bomb.

BUT you need to work on the execution. a lot of stuff in here was just really lackluster description, generic stuff that subtracts from the overall originality of this piece, like "still warm corpses". We know they're still warm, they died 30 seconds ago. i could be wrong about this, and if i am, i am sorry, but i feel like you pictured the script much more than you pictured the location and characters, and then fell back on familiar phrases to compensate. if you picture people around you - teachers, your dad, co-workers, whatever - as the characters, they will get a new life. i think at least i never tried it i just make up shit as i go along here

everything relating to the agent himself was... a bit over-the-top too. For me - and this, especially, is just my opinion - it would work better if you removed most of his monolog. it's like, semi-not-quite-funny, and the more of it is, the less fun it gets? and this is coming from someone that loved skullpoopl - this kind of slapstick works much better when someone is saying it than it does in written format.

also, some dialog on new lines please. it's just easier to read like that

"That dude who called mom those unflattering names" and with one brisk stroke, crossed it out. The other names on the list ranged from gang leaders, to know war lords, to someone only referred to as "Her Majesty."

and this would have a much stronger effect if you only mentioned named. badass names. names like don giovanni, meathook, lady elinore and that asshole from hellcats. just straight up telling us "oh this guy kills warlords" is just... eh.

i always feel like i go to far in my critiques, so i wanna clarify that holy shit would this make a fucking great short film. i liked it. i really did. it's just easier to point out the bad stuff. but what a plot twist.

and an ot note: i fucking love your team. so many of my absolutely favorite mons. no unnessary shines. shiftry. just ♥

Edited April 2, 2016 by Halloween

[Damage]

Just read the story and it was pretty dark. I'm seeing like a noir vibe with this gritty and bitter man who has a chip on his (lucky to be there) shoulder. There was a lot of setup that led us to seeing someone else who will potentially be our lead. I like the mind games. My only qualm was Mike thinking that his coworker would be hunting him down. That seems odd given the coworker was fired for a very realistic reason. Being bad at his job and almost killing friends. I must say I'm very curious as to where the story goes. The pacing was pretty good, the imagery was nice and the setting worked. I think you can add on a bit more so its more engaging story wise as I felt more went into the place than the people at times. (Like how long has this guy been following him and what kind of job hunt takes you from testing facility to warlord-slayer) I also really want to see the second meeting where they meet meat man in his man cave. I feel like the meeting will be meaty for the story.

Keep on writing bud.

[Combat]

i always feel like i go to far in my critiques, so i wanna clarify that holy shit would this make a fucking great short film. i liked it. i really did. it's just easier to point out the bad stuff. but what a plot twist.

Thank you for your positive and negative feedback! This story is ripe with misspellings and grammatical issue, since it wasn't heavily edited. I probably went a little adjective crazy in this story, and in hindsight, it did have a lot of "extra words," so thank you for letting me know! I hope you enjoy the next story featuring Agent!

Just read the story and it was pretty dark. I'm seeing like a noir vibe with this gritty and bitter man who has a chip on his (lucky to be there) shoulder. There was a lot of setup that led us to seeing someone else who will potentially be our lead. I like the mind games. My only qualm was Mike thinking that his coworker would be hunting him down. That seems odd given the coworker was fired for a very realistic reason. Being bad at his job and almost killing friends. I must say I'm very curious as to where the story goes. The pacing was pretty good, the imagery was nice and the setting worked. I think you can add on a bit more so its more engaging story wise as I felt more went into the place than the people at times. (Like how long has this guy been following him and what kind of job hunt takes you from testing facility to warlord-slayer) I also really want to see the second meeting where they meet meat man in his man cave. I feel like the meeting will be meaty for the story.

Keep on writing bud.

Thank you! The whole idea of this story was supposed to be establishing two characters, then suddenly introducing the main character in an unexpected way. I have to agree, I feel like I should have elaborated on Mike's (reasonable) paranoia, so it felt like more of a call to action. Like I said, I probably put in an excess of adjective instead of establishing the characters, but at the time, my only thought was how they were doomed from the start. Thank you for the feedback, and I hope you look forward to the next story! (And unfortunately, we won't be seeing Meat Man again anytime soon.)

[jodieee]

WOO! I actually read it a week ago, stopped when I saw Jeramy spelled Jeramy but, after seeing the feedback you've gotten, decided to continue again. And boy am I glad I did! Look, this has been really interesting so far. Written from Samantha's perspective, the writing was very natural and casual and I loved it. It was very smooth and I liked it way better than the omniscient narrative (although I am just biased like that). I LOVE THIS! It's so interesting! And I agree with Halloween above; that caught me off-guard, man, I was not expecting the bartender to be the MC of this show.

Also, thanks for making me like Agent against my natural reaction to people who just shoot blindly even at their allies. (Cue my horror when he killed Jeramy and Mike OAO") I particularly enjoyed the little bit about him ringing the bell and giving such a generous tip at the diner, and also his writing style in the chatroom with Sam--that was great characterization; made him likable. That really makes a piece of writing enjoyable More, please! That was so amazingly intriguing.

Swooning aside(oh god I can't wait for the next chapter; hope it's good), I second Halloween's feedback on formatting your story properly; I generally only read stories that are formatted well, and it kind of distracts me from the actual writing (so it's a big thing that I really like this btw, enough to overcome my aversion to poor formatting). Big walls of text = bad. Here, every time someone new says something, you should start a new paragraph.

Example:

The sound of his subordinate, Agent Jackin, picking up his own phone entered Harson's ear. "Agent Harson, sir! What do you need?" Harson tried to contain his sigh, wishing Jackin would drop the sir habit he had picked up in the military. "We've just sent Ms. Glawson to the safe house, and I'm preparing to send in my interview with her to the director. Have you made any progress with the unintelligible text?" Agent Harson could hear the sound of paper being shuffled through from the other side of the receiver, before Jackin said "Unfortunately Agent Tethers hasn't been able to make any progress on this "puzzle" as he calls it. I will keep you posted, sir."

should instead be

The sound of his subordinate, Agent Jackin, picking up his own phone entered Harson's ear. "Agent Harson, sir! What do you need?"

Harson tried to contain his sigh, wishing Jackin would drop the sir habit he had picked up in the military. "We've just sent Ms. Glawson to the safe house, and I'm preparing to send in my interview with her to the director. Have you made any progress with the unintelligible text?"

Agent Harson could hear the sound of paper being shuffled through from the other side of the receiver, before Jackin said "Unfortunately Agent Tethers hasn't been able to make any progress on this "puzzle" as he calls it. I will keep you posted, sir."

So, when Jackin stops talking and it's Harson's turn, Harson gets a new paragraph for his dialogue.

Dialogue tags are also important to note, btw. Dialogue tags are things like "he said" "he snapped" "he retorted", basically anything that attributes the speech to the action of the person saying it. Utterances that can't be used with verbs that don't actually cause them directly can't be used as dialogue tags. I'll give examples.

["Sir, it's time to transfer her." A heavily set guard said.] should be ["Sir, it's time to transfer her," a heavily set guard said.] -> comma at the end of the sentence if you're using a dialogue tag, small letters for the first word unless it's a proper noun.

[Jackin said "Unfortunately Agent Tethers..."] should be [Jackin said, "Unfortunately Agent Tethers...] -> with dialogue tags, use commas before giving the dialogue. With non-dialogue tags, use full-stops. (Example for non-dialogue tag: Jackin sighed. "Unfortunately..." -> "sighed" is a non-dialogue tag because you can't "sigh" words.)

Of course, for non-dialogue tags, the first letter of the first word following the utterance should be capitalized: "Sir, it's time to transfer her." A heavily set guard bowed. (you can't "bow" words)

If I was unclear on anything, please feel free to clarify. I like your story so much (and it's only just started, LOL.) that if you're actively looking for a beta reader, I'm available. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Edit: also, whoa, I'm an English major and also turning twenty-one this year!

Edited April 26, 2016 by jodieee

[Combat]

WOO! I actually read it a week ago, stopped when I saw Jeramy spelled Jeramy but, after seeing the feedback you've gotten, decided to continue again. And boy am I glad I did! Look, this has been really interesting so far. Written from Samantha's perspective, the writing was very natural and casual and I loved it. It was very smooth and I liked it way better than the omniscient narrative (although I am just biased like that). I LOVE THIS! It's so interesting! And I agree with Halloween above; that caught me off-guard, man, I was not expecting the bartender to be the MC of this show.

Also, thanks for making me like Agent against my natural reaction to people who just shoot blindly even at their allies. (Cue my horror when he killed Jeramy and Mike OAO") I particularly enjoyed the little bit about him ringing the bell and giving such a generous tip at the diner, and also his writing style in the chatroom with Sam--that was great characterization; made him likable. That really makes a piece of writing enjoyable More, please! That was so amazingly intriguing.

Thank you very much! I'm glad you enjoyed it, as writing these things is pretty freaking fun. Agent is such a fun character to write about, since not even I know what his intentions are. He just does whatever he wants. I plan on keeping the series going, so look forward for the next chapter!

Swooning aside(oh god I can't wait for the next chapter; hope it's good), I second Halloween's feedback on formatting your story properly; I generally only read stories that are formatted well, and it kind of distracts me from the actual writing (so it's a big thing that I really like this btw, enough to overcome my aversion to poor formatting). Big walls of text = bad. Here, every time someone new says something, you should start a new paragraph.

Example:

The sound of his subordinate, Agent Jackin, picking up his own phone entered Harson's ear. "Agent Harson, sir! What do you need?" Harson tried to contain his sigh, wishing Jackin would drop the sir habit he had picked up in the military. "We've just sent Ms. Glawson to the safe house, and I'm preparing to send in my interview with her to the director. Have you made any progress with the unintelligible text?" Agent Harson could hear the sound of paper being shuffled through from the other side of the receiver, before Jackin said "Unfortunately Agent Tethers hasn't been able to make any progress on this "puzzle" as he calls it. I will keep you posted, sir."

should instead be

The sound of his subordinate, Agent Jackin, picking up his own phone entered Harson's ear. "Agent Harson, sir! What do you need?"

Harson tried to contain his sigh, wishing Jackin would drop the sir habit he had picked up in the military. "We've just sent Ms. Glawson to the safe house, and I'm preparing to send in my interview with her to the director. Have you made any progress with the unintelligible text?"

Agent Harson could hear the sound of paper being shuffled through from the other side of the receiver, before Jackin said "Unfortunately Agent Tethers hasn't been able to make any progress on this "puzzle" as he calls it. I will keep you posted, sir."

So, when Jackin stops talking and it's Harson's turn, Harson gets a new paragraph for his dialogue.

Dialogue tags are also important to note, btw. Dialogue tags are things like "he said" "he snapped" "he retorted", basically anything that attributes the speech to the action of the person saying it. Utterances that can't be used with verbs that don't actually cause them directly can't be used as dialogue tags. I'll give examples.

["Sir, it's time to transfer her." A heavily set guard said.] should be ["Sir, it's time to transfer her," a heavily set guard said.] -> comma at the end of the sentence if you're using a dialogue tag, small letters for the first word unless it's a proper noun.

[Jackin said "Unfortunately Agent Tethers..."] should be [Jackin said, "Unfortunately Agent Tethers...] -> with dialogue tags, use commas before giving the dialogue. With non-dialogue tags, use full-stops. (Example for non-dialogue tag: Jackin sighed. "Unfortunately..." -> "sighed" is a non-dialogue tag because you can't "sigh" words.)

Of course, for non-dialogue tags, the first letter of the first word following the utterance should be capitalized: "Sir, it's time to transfer her." A heavily set guard bowed. (you can't "bow" words)

If I was unclear on anything, please feel free to clarify. I like your story so much (and it's only just started, LOL.) that if you're actively looking for a beta reader, I'm available. Thanks for sharing it with us!

Edit: also, whoa, I'm an English major and also turning twenty-one this year!

Confession time. I don't actually edit my stories too much, and usually get them edited by my sister. Now, I usually prefer having larger chunks of text, but if it were to become overwhelming, I generally can't tell, since I do it on a tablet. I will, however, be looking into that for now on, as in hindsight, it does look a little bad. Among other things, dialog is one of my biggest weakness when writing, but I will be taking your advice into account. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Also, on a random note, I put in about five Easter eggs in chapter two. Feel free to look for them, most of them are pretty obvious.