Description Force!

[Meg_752]

I'm a native English speaker, but I wrote this description today and it seems a little... off. Could someone help me word it a little more clearly?

 

GlitchxCity is known by those close to him as Glitch. However, he is so well known among the other dragons that it can be said that everyone calls him Glitch. Because of his prestigious ancestry, he and his mate Flames are celebrities. Not because of their talents; though Flames's skill with magic is fairly strong, Glitch cannot do anything of the magical variety. He denies that he craves the attention of others, but what other reason could he have to defend his reputation so fiercely? Or to go against the wishes of Flames and his son, 9000 Plus? It would appear that Glitch loves attention more than his own family, when all they want is for him to leave the fame and focus on them a little more. But, all that Glitch really wants is to protect them. He takes all the attention so that they can live in peace. It seems that Glitch did inherit a teeny bit of humility from his parents. Just a little.

 

The other dragons mentioned are also described, but waiting moderation.

Thank you for any suggestions you have!

EDIT: Question marks were removed.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Meg_752

[azazelbunny]

Brief note: In this description, somebody mentioned at one point that it should be *Billie instead of *Blilie.

 

Blilie, the right head, considers himself an artist. He has been known to collect rocks of various sizes and colors, arranging them into elaborate stacks that he calls "sculptures". Some of these sculptures have practical uses as well - Many of the "huts" the younger hatchlings stay in were built by him and his brother, Votolato.

Votolato, the left head that is better known as "Voto", calls himself the brains of the pair. This is mostly true, as he does prefer a logical and rational approach to life. It is worth noting, however, that he is not always right.

The two heads may have very different approaches to life, but they make a great pair. They compliment each others' talents and weaknesses - one possessing what the other lacks.

 

"Blilie" is the last name of a band member from a band I really like, as is "Votolato". I just wanted to clear up that those are the actual names, not a misspelling

[Dimar]

@Meg_752: It looks pretty good! Question marks just don't appear in the description format though, so you need to either use different punctuation or reword those to make them statements.

 

@azazelbunny: I'm pretty sure that was me, and I pointed that out because I thought it said "Billie" in the dragon's name. I must have read it wrong, my apologies. I wouldn't have thought it was a misspelling otherwise.

Edited June 25, 2014 by Dimar

[azazelbunny]

It's alright, I just wanted to clarify it so that future reviewers would also know ^.^

[love_HP]

Overall, it looks good to me. Just a small thing: you should say "After finally finding" instead of "found" in the beginning of the second paragraph. Or, add a pronoun like "After she finally found".

 

Personally, it sounds a bit odd to me to say she chose healing magic "as her major". I know that you mean that like a college major, which is fine in theory but seems weird unless you specify she was at a university or something to give it context. Or choose a different word like "career" instead of "major". You don't have to change that; it was just something that stuck out to me.

Thanks a lot Dimar

(I am still deciding a surname for the dragon, in case anyone wonders why they haven't seen the descrip in the queue )

[Sheriziya]

The load of emotion and aggression in relation too gender is a stereotype. I have a partner (in hetero relationship) and I can say male can be more emotional than females and females more aggressive than males

You're absolutely right about that

 

I wouldn't made them differ that way...

All 6 main summoners of mine ruined a happy, loving GoN family by summoning one of them(later on: 3) to the world with hurtful limitations put on GoNs. So they connected in summoning at least the wife and the youngest child and praying to TJ to change the restrictions he put on all summoned GoNs. It's about cooperating.^^ Not about differing between one another. But the entire situation makes the 6 unique on DC^^

I do agree the situation makes the six of them as a group unique. I just wouldn't see them as acting exactly the same. I'd give them each their own personality despite their group having this unique situation.

But that's just how I ... role (?) or however you say that in English (not my native language )

Heck, I tend to give my avatars in MMORPG's unique character traits, even though I'm not really role playing with them all the time. But maybe that's just my overactive imagination

 

BTW I really hope I'll be able to remove these descriptions in the future... I mean I hope TJ will somewhen change the limit to at least 5 and maybe even let GoNs breed true. If e.g only the limit will be changed, the issue would be about the couple unable to breed together after getting summoned to the world of DC from the GoN world^^;

On that I totally agree with you!

[Ansela Jonla]

Aqum is a dragon without a convencional family. He lives in the beach, reciving visits form a human and other dragons from differnt species. He go to surface a lot of times and leads up tresaures from the ocean, like corals, pearls or strange fishes. He dont talk and his house and intelligence are unknow.

 

There wasn't enough room in the comments to sort this one out. Pointed the scroll owner this way. Fixes will be in red.

 

Aqum is a dragon without a conventional family. He lives on the beach, receiving visits from a human and other dragons from different species. He goes to the surface often and brings up treasures from the ocean, like corals, pearls or strange fishes. He doesn't talk and his house and intelligence are unknown.

 

Am not sure what is meant by the bit highlighted in green. If you read this, Aqum's owner, please explain it?

[Lagie]

Maybe they don't know where he stays when he's not on the beach or how smart he is?

[Meg_752]

This dragon is not so, sane. It eats dirt and thinks it's metal, and that metal is educational for its catapult's ammo. Also that the ammo helps teach the Vampire dragons how to read cooking scrolls to feed this dragon's eyesight to burn down the Lumina dragons' houses so they beat this dragon so hard that he becomes hungry and eats more dirt to continue the cycle, all while becoming fat so that he saves Harvest dragons everywhere from extinction when they are not in trouble by walking an inch everyday. Above all he thinks he has a super even tan when its belly is white.

I recommended that this person go here for some suggestions. Could someone suggest some? I don't have any right now.

[Dimar]

Well, that first sentence should not have a comma. "Educational" would be better replaced by "beneficial", and the following sentence is a run-on that needs to be broken up into several sentences. That will help it make more sense, or at least ready for more critique. Finally, the text switches between "he" and "it", so the pronouns should be consistent.

 

Personally, I list as many edits/suggestions into the comment as I can, and if I can't fit them all then that's fine. I know Herk directs people to the thread and some have posted asking about that, but I prefer giving what I can via comment since the author might not even see anything we post here. Not everyone has a forum account nor can go on the forums.

[love_HP]

A bit off topic but I remember there's a thread suggesting a BSA (or just a feature of DC) for people to read others' descriptions, but I couldn't find it.

 

Edit: My apologies. Found it.

http://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=128237

Mind putting it on the first page?

Edited June 27, 2014 by love_HP

[Dimar]

Yep, I was just going through the Suggestions forum and was about to link that thread, but you found it! I will definitely be putting it on the first page: actually, I now have a bunch of tabs open with Suggestion threads that might need to be added to our OP. >.<

 

I'll take a closer look at what's on the OP and update things as needed.

[Descripforce]

Okay, the Suggestion thread links have been reorganized and updated, with some new ones added. As you can see, they have been moved to the third post to prevent clutter/unnecessary length of the OP and FAQ. That third post was originally reserved for a future Dragon Description Writing Month, but as we can't host one of those until the queue is much lower we can figure out how to handle that when the time comes. For now, it works better.

 

I have also added the signatures of some of the new faces who mentioned what they comment as.

 

I'm sorry, I forgot to mark the new links purple. I guess just browse them if you're interested. >.<

 

~Dimar, a.k.a. the Organizational Freak

[azazelbunny]

Ok, have I been visited by the random rejecter or is there actually an issue with the following description?

 

Accept:

Accept:

Reject:

 

The Banni-ghymn, or Holders of the Forgotten Ways, are a guild of powerful mages who use their knowledge of the arcane to help others. Dragons seeking to learn about magic, refine their own natural abilities, or pick up a new form of magic altogether are welcome to attend any of the lectures held by the four guild masters.

Gollor is one of the four guild masters, specializing in Illusion magic. She is the youngest of the four, which shows through in her eager and cheerful attitude. When she first came to the guild, Gollor was already an impressive student. She was capable of casting spells well above her experience level, even being able to create illusory copies of herself that could carry out full conversations with others without anyone realizing it wasn't actually her. To this day, it can still be difficult to tell whether you're speaking with Gollor or one of her many "sisters".

[Dimar]

Nope, it looks totally fine to me. Personally, I completely ignore Rejects that don't have a comment with them especially if other people have Accepted it. *shakes fist at trolls*

 

(Herk, I am Chuck Norris. Of course I ninja you.)

Edited June 28, 2014 by Dimar

[Herk]

I'd judge random rejecter. Someone might take offence at you talking about teh guild and then stop before seeing you are perfectly describing the individal a few sentences later, but aother than that I can find no possible issue.

 

Dimar? Nevermind...

Edited June 28, 2014 by herk

[azazelbunny]

Alright, thank you I guess I get kind of self-conscious about my descriptions when I see Abstains or Rejections with no comments. Like, "Oh geez, was it so bad they couldn't even put into words why they don't like it?"

[Ansela Jonla]

Finding references to other media in descriptions is fun.

 

I think I need to gather my descriptions into a document though. Made a major mistake in one the other night.

 

What's you guys' opinion of a description for an unnamed dragon? To me, you can't really describe a dragon if you haven't even decided on a name for it.

[Lagie]

It's entirely possible the dragon was named at the time the description was written and has since lost its name. If it's a decent description, I accept.

[Ansela Jonla]

It's entirely possible the dragon was named at the time the description was written and has since lost its name. If it's a decent description, I accept.

It was one short sentence stating that the two heads spoke different languages. No reason or explanation or backstory.

[Herk]

Not to speak of code dragons...

XHErK, LHERK, HERKH, vHERQ, ITCHZ, lPERV are all technically unnamed and described.

[Lagie]

That's true, too! Well-coded dragons are sometimes left unnamed.

 

This is cool: http://m.tickld.com/x/proof-that-the-engli...s-so-satisfying

[azazelbunny]

That is pretty cool. I see a lot of descriptions that are made up of tiny, short sentences. They're technically correct in structure, it's just aggravating to read them because somewhere along the way the voice in my brain converts it to a complete monotone.

 

In that same vein; if you're having trouble figuring out how to lengthen a sentence:

 

Telescopic Text

[Lagie]

That is pretty cool. I see a lot of descriptions that are made up of tiny, short sentences. They're technically correct in structure, it's just aggravating to read them because somewhere along the way the voice in my brain converts it to a complete monotone.

 

In that same vein; if you're having trouble figuring out how to lengthen a sentence:

 

Telescopic Text

Ooh, that's fun! *clicks repeatedly*

I did that kind of thing with my students when I was teaching.

[Ansela Jonla]

This Madame belongs to an elite group of highly educated, beautiful dragons and dragonesses whose duties are to act as entertaining companions for rich or powerful dragons. They are all trained in poetry, history, dancing, and at least one musical instrument, so that they are able to join in conversations about various topics without making themselves or their clients look foolish.

 

Dragon geisha are an interesting concept. I like this one.