Harlequin's 10.1 Feedback

I know, I said I wouldn't do this.

Blame Abel for talking me into it last night.

I will say this however...

While I may always (pretty much) provde feedback regardless of others doing it there is a certainly mentality others should approach this area with.

"Give and ye shall get."

"Give feedback to get feedback."

It isn't a process of sitting down and just writing something. Most people that give feedback read promos indepth and really examine them. For examples of this, wait until Tyrant gives you feedback.

I generally give an overlay of promos and my feelings on them, however if you want a more indepth view, always feel free to PM me or Message me on AIM and I'm always willing to help. There are a lot of people around FMW that can attest to that.

Again, Blame Abel.


Jetstream: I think you're going to end up hearing this a lot this show, but this one just didn't flow for me. I liked the cocky mic swagger at the end of the promo, it was a solid ending segment. That being said the first two segments (Japan and Smitten) just didn't work for me. The dialogue seemed very forced and choppy. Able pointed out a lot of the flaws in sentence format, but that in itself should be a quick fix for you, and you'd noticed a remarkable improvement. With regards to dialogue, I can't stress this enough. Right as if it is a person actually talking. Speak the lines out loud, or at least whisper them under your breath to make sure it sounds okay.

Axel: I'd say this one needs a massive edit for a lot of grammar and punctuation marks. Lots of missing periods, commas, apostrophes. The montage was probably the highlight of the promo. The rest, I just didn't develop much love for the character. I wanted to nto onyl see character development, but character introduction as well. This is the first we are seeing of this character, so let us know who he is, why he is and what he is going to do. You'll notice going forward that I focus a lot of character development as I love a good story being told. You started something with Ralphie, which you can use in the future to create a very nice dynamic between the characters. It was an okay promo, not terrible but not awesome either. From your writing I have a feeling you can do a lot better sir. Here's to hoping next time knocks it out!

Nikko: I'm going to say this and it is a complete compliment. Very Hannibal Frost-esque. In terms of character development Nikko is there. It was a solid outing and a greta debut. We have all of the character traits of Nikko laid out for us, each with their own example, and the over arcing story that is being set up to be told has started. While I would have loved to have read more, I really enjoyed this promo. Nothing negative to say. You've got a unique style of story telling, very Screenplay esq. Almost as if you used FINAL DRAFT to write the promo. I'm looking forward to more.

Kaoru: Your dialogue was great. The ending segment I found was a lot weaker than the start but that may be because I was so immersed in the story. You did a wonderful job creating it and I wanted to read more. That is a huge thing to do and you pulled it off great. As I said the promo did begin to slide after that but that is mainly just personal preference. I just didn't enjoy the whole cutting a promo thing, it took me right out of the writing. That's my main gaff, you seemed to cut so abruptly from one story which hurt the flow, into another story, which I felt didn't carry the same strength.

Gabriel: My one suggestion is you have to do something about the way thoughts are expressed. Either by changing the font so it looks like: Holy shit this is in my head, thought Gabriel, how cool is that? or trying out a new method of entirely seperating the thought area. Something like this:

The words crept from Gabriel's subconcious permeating his thought processes.

Whatever is driving my senses apeshit has to be here, but where is it leading me too.

They may seem like simple changes, but I got hung up the few times that people thought to themselves in the promo, and it was a bit of a sore spot for me. Aside from that, you took the negative out of your last promo and just come out with Aces this time. This story was flushed out, kept me wondering and most importantly kept Gabriel growing. Aside from the thought portions this promo was great and is going to be a huge challenge for BS to try and overcome.

TJ: It's all just crammed together there isn't it? Try a little spacing in between dialogue. Even just a space between each person that talks will make a world of difference. The story was short, but there was something there, there was something to be expanded upon. Who is Karl Sanchez, why is he relevant? Why would he set TJ up? What does this have to do with a story? Where was the character development? It all just seemed thrown together. The match relevance was nice but could have been flushed out a little more. Why are you called the Australian Assailant? Where did you earn the name? Questions like these can be answered in your promos to really shed some light on the character.

I've offered before, but feel free to hit me on AIM if you'd like some help or advice.

Abel: Long promo, but a very enjoyable read. There was a lot of information to absorb in this promo, but it all worked very well together. There was on mix up with the officer where you have Officer: instead of Steele: but other than that the spelling and grammar errors were minimal. I really enjoyed this promo and the storyline it set up. This is an upper echelon promo for sure, but be careful with length. That may deter a lot of people. I have nothing negative to say here, this was just a rock solid promo all the way through. You won the GCG for a reason sir, congrats.

Alistair: Done via AIM. - Well done sir.

Damien: Done via AIM - Great read.

Syanide: Sy-Sy's back and there's gonna be trouble, ohh-la ohh-la Sy-Sy's back. This was exactly what I wanted from a Syanide promo. Its had that darkness and grit that makes Syanide such a guilty pleasure to enjoy. You want to hate the character so much, but you can't. Also, the ending...GASP! When I mentioned you should throw in some Father/Son bonding with Jo-Jo that wasn't exactly what I meant, but MAN did you ever deliver.

Jaro-Khan: Banhammer on the baby...classic. That's all that needs to be said here. You had great lines from Goromeo, to Eric Scorpion. In fact most of the lines from FMW characters were gold. You are aware of how much I laughed during this so that doesn't need to be said. But I think taking even a look at this it does comment quite well on the impossible mountain that Celt is seemingly always climbing against you. The odds always stacked against him, and you, always pulling the strings at the top. Very well done.

DoubleMummy: From what I can gather Christian must have a very bloody shirt from wiping his knife there. This was a decent promo, but one thing I'd watch out for is the constant use of Christian. Take your time and develop sentence around the character without mentioning him so much. There was a lot of "Christian" did this and "Christian" did that. That is my main criticism. If you tightened that up the rest of the story would flow better as it would become a lot more engaging. Just a few simple things to fix up and you're good to go. If you ever want some help, feel free to ask, VIA PM or AIM.

Skyler: Your intro = the best thing I've ever read from you. That being said the rest of the promo begins to fall off for me. I love the idea of the painkiller addiction first off. It adds a great flaw to Striker. However, and this could just be me but I feel you overplayed your hand. You jumped right into it, and I mean you developed a massive addiction and started destroying parts of your life in an instant. Addictions like that tend to creep up on you and it starts as a slope. slow at first but it builds as it gains speed, slowly things begin to fall apart. Then the snowball effect kicks in and one after another things you care about in your life stop to matter, you hurt them, you neglect them, you lose them. Your life falls to shamble and you become consumed. Addiction is a self destructive path, but it is an eventual path. It doesn't happen overnight or in a week. It takes time. My problem is you didn't. You didn't take the time to develop this story and now it leaves me wondering are we just going to see this for the rest of the cycle? With plot devices like this you have to be careful not to overplay your hand. No need to go All-In with the Pocket Aces, lay your trap first.

Romeo: Feedback done via AIM - fantastic read, great unique idea.

Drewbanger: Feedback done via AIM - great read, still some wooden dialogue, but good promo none the less.

Celt: Good promo, better than your Death Row showing. Though I feel it was still weaker than what I have seen from you. What could be causing that, from my viewpoint, is seeing the same thing. We all love Celt, but seeing him constantly with his head in his hands pleading for the world to stop caving in on him, and then resolving himself to finish the fight is something we've seen for the entire last cycle. I'd just like to see a new element to spice up Celt's life outside the ring. Give us a cool story to act as an overlay.

Sean: Good use of constructive feedback. Looking at advice and seeing where it is applicable to implement and where it is is a good skill to have. This was a good intro to the character this time through FMW. Having the two polar opposite characters as companions should give you a lot of wiggle room for story and character development. This was a good step in a great direction. Just keep at it, focus on telling a story and focus on things flowing and you'll continue to do just fine.

Seth: Feedback done via AIM

Butters: Holy Angry Butters Batman. This was intense. It was short and could of used a whole lot more, but what was there was very intense. I love Angry Butters. That is all.

Leon: As I said in the V&P thread this promo was probably the strongest I have ever seen out of you. What actually killed it for me was Syanide in the promo. He verbally bested you in your own promo. He made you look weak and silly, which plays really well for Syanide. This is your promo, you may not always want to be the victor, but you gotta be on top of your opponents when you bring them into your own promo. Your descriptions and dialogue have improved by leaps and bounds, simply fantastic.

Mark: The asteroids part was kinda a miss for me. With that out of the way this promo was all over the place and I was like "WTF?". Then I read it again and it all flowed so rapidly between reality and the dreams, well done. Virus has a problem on his hands if he shows.

Clarke wrote:

Kaoru: Your dialogue was great. The ending segment I found was a lot weaker than the start but that may be because I was so immersed in the story. You did a wonderful job creating it and I wanted to read more. That is a huge thing to do and you pulled it off great. As I said the promo did begin to slide after that but that is mainly just personal preference. I just didn't enjoy the whole cutting a promo thing, it took me right out of the writing. That's my main gaff, you seemed to cut so abruptly from one story which hurt the flow, into another story, which I felt didn't carry the same strength.

This feedback really got me thinking.

The only reason I posted a "shoot" section was to get a feel for what people wanted from a promo in FMW. The Hanayama character wasn't really made to "shoot" with. After looking through more Death Row promos I notice that a lot of the top guys here don't shoot at all, which plays into it perfectly.

I had written the 2nd part of the story for next week, but since I ended up agreeing with your criticism so wholeheartedly, I threw the entire shoot section out and just put it into this week. That way, it is a coherent story in one RP.

Thanks man. That's probably the most useful RP feedback I've gotten in a while.

I like the changes, the finalization of the introduction was well done. This raises the bar of the promo alot in my mind. However (and you're going to hate me for this), in the future try to work some angle of match relevance in. I tend to favor more symbolic relevance in my writing. IE I design some present characters around certain aspect of an opponents personality.

It's always nice to have some match relevance worked in there somewhere. It didn't fault you this time around, but the further you go, you may want to look into methods of incorporating it without slowly your story progressions.

Clarke wrote:

I like the changes, the finalization of the introduction was well done. This raises the bar of the promo alot in my mind. However (and you're going to hate me for this), in the future try to work some angle of match relevance in. I tend to favor more symbolic relevance in my writing. IE I design some present characters around certain aspect of an opponents personality.

It's always nice to have some match relevance worked in there somewhere. It didn't fault you this time around, but the further you go, you may want to look into methods of incorporating it without slowly your story progressions.

I don't hate you for that. I had intended on doing that in the future before you said anything, actually. This was just more of an intro promo.

Axel: I'd say this one needs a massive edit for a lot of grammar and punctuation marks. Lots of missing periods, commas, apostrophes. The montage was probably the highlight of the promo. The rest, I just didn't develop much love for the character. I wanted to nto onyl see character development, but character introduction as well. This is the first we are seeing of this character, so let us know who he is, why he is and what he is going to do. You'll notice going forward that I focus a lot of character development as I love a good story being told. You started something with Ralphie, which you can use in the future to create a very nice dynamic between the characters. It was an okay promo, not terrible but not awesome either. From your writing I have a feeling you can do a lot better sir. Here's to hoping next time knocks it out!


Thank you very much for the words I do appreciate anything and everything I get. I know I can do better and like I have said to others before I was used to a certain style with my old Fed and now I have to get used to this one. I can't wait for the next opportunity I know you guys will be impressed. And I do intend to keep Ralphie around as like the Burgess Merdith character in Rocky...Someone to keep me focused and pumped. I will delve more into Axel and who is with next promo working on a definate beginning middle and end....

I took your words to heart and since I had the time I totally reworked the beginning into more of an intro even setting up stuff for later promos....Please let me know what you think of the rewrite

Thankyou feedback nazi

Length is my struggle it would seem. I already culled 5 pages before posting

I seem to recall some really good stuff by Dalby (I think???) on the old site that I would like to have another look at around active dialogue that I think would have helped me here.... oh well.

Wow, I guess I never noticed all of that stuff. There is a lot of stuff I have to work on.

You know why I'm here in this here thread


Please?