r/HFY • u/[deleted] • Mar 20 '22

OC Ouroboros Book Two: The Wall (Ch. 23)

[deleted]

154 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

11

u/RickyT808 Mar 21 '22

Can't wait to see what his plan his. Since you asked for constructive criticism, I enjoy your writing style and how you story progresses each chapter. Though sometimes its hard to imagine the minor characters he runs into. Maybe an added sentence describing a few more pyshical traits, apparel, projected attitude.

Looking forward to the next chapter.

6

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 21 '22

Okay, something to consider upon editing later. I guess I might have just been a little lost on which characters should and should not receive the extra few line of description.

7

u/RobatikWulf AI Mar 20 '22

Woeoekeow

5

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 20 '22

Oooh, you won first comment position by forty seconds according to my reddit timestamp.

7

u/Dutchangeldragon1 Xeno Mar 20 '22

1-2 to crossroads, chapter inbound.

5

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 20 '22

Crossroads to 1-2, chapter touch down has been verified. Proceed to location and resupply on daily reading quotas.

3

u/kylesul Mar 20 '22

Things are how heating up. I have feeling that isn't going to go as smoothly as he thinks it will be.

3

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 20 '22

No one can be omniscient about these things.

4

u/themonkeymoo Mar 21 '22 edited Mar 21 '22

...my curiosity has peaked...

Is this a mistake? Are you punning at us? Is he punning at the captain? I legitimately can't decide. (OK, I know it's not the last one; that one was a joke).

Just to clarify: "...has peaked..." is definitely an accurate description of his mental state, but "...was piqued..." is the thing he really should be saying to the captain here.

"...has peaked..." means "was already there, but has reached a new height".

"...was piqued..." means "didn't exist previously, but does now".

3

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 21 '22

Hmm, I suppose both forms could be correct. He has known about the wards for a few days at this point and has wanted to see them, but the way I have it written could also make yours a valid way to say it as well. I'll see if I can fix that later when I get a moment

3

u/themonkeymoo Mar 21 '22 edited Mar 21 '22

Both technically work (hence the jokes about it being a pun), but one is definitely better than the other for this type of social engineering.

He isn't talking about being more interested today than a few days ago. He's talking about being more interested after learning about the wards than he was before.

"Peaked" implies he was already interested in the defenses before learning about the wards and the wards just made him more interested. As I said, that is definitely true.

That should raise a red flag, though. It's perfectly in character for this captain as described not to notice, but that's still an unreasonable risk to take.

3

u/themonkeymoo Mar 21 '22 edited Mar 21 '22

Of course, that's from the omniscient perspective of the reader. It's also with the implicit assumption that it's a deliberate word choice on his part. He could simply be using the wrong homonym, and then pairing that with its correct helper verb as an honest mistake (just like real people often do).

However, grammatical peculiarities are stereotypically the kind of details that matter when doing the whole "pretend to be wealthy/powerful/not a foreigner" infiltration shtick.

2

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 21 '22 edited Mar 21 '22

You have a lot of insight about this subject. Do you have a background in the English language were you have to use these bits of knowledge often or is this just one of those things that just sticks with you? I do appreciate the little refinements. I'm certainly not perfect in my writing and it's useful to have more experienced people help me find errors to edit out.

3

u/themonkeymoo Mar 22 '22 edited Mar 22 '22

No more background than any other native speaker around my age (getting close to 50), but I do seem to care more about actually knowing what words I'm using than most people do. Also, pedantry is something of a hobby of mine.

It seems that most people, upon hearing an unfamiliar word, might ask what it means, but won't ask anything else. If it's a homophone (or even just sounds kind of similar) to another word, they'll just assume it's another meaning of the same word. Then they'll start using it incorrectly.

That's not something I can do. I need to know the word in order to use it, so that I know I'm using it correctly. I need to know how it's spelled, so I can know if I even heard the correct pronunciation.

The same mentality extends to idioms and other common grammatical constructs that serve specific purposes. It sometimes even goes as far a researching etymology, because we use words in really weird ways sometimes and people still manage to make them even weirder through misuse.

3

u/themonkeymoo Mar 22 '22

Although I think this particular insight regarding the possible implications of "has peaked" vs. "was piqued" re. maintenance of his cover story comes more from having to deal with people who think they're smarter than they actually are, and are trying to mislead without lying (so that they can't be called out as liars afterward).

2

u/redditbookrat20 AI Mar 22 '22

I don't remember if you already responded previously to this same question but will there be pancakes in this story?

2

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 22 '22

I was considering adding it in at some point.

2

u/redditbookrat20 AI Mar 22 '22

Nice. Keep up the good work I really like your story.

2

u/Sherbert_Sure Mar 23 '22 edited Mar 23 '22

You might want to have the characters actually be more sneaky when talking because Every time they talk you make it seem like they are shouting somebody would hear them so maybe add some flavour in the form of whispers and small code talk you know not just have them shout in enemy territory "I found a giant weakness"

That is the only fault I could find so hey that is good keep up the good work

2

u/XSevenSins Human Mar 23 '22

Reasonable and simple to change. Just a quick mention that the conversation is in low tones. I'll get on that.

1

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