Forgive me for the thoroughness/nitpicking... I serve as a beta reader and application moderator for other play-by-post games. I'll post a quoted section of the roleplay and then respond to that chunk of the piece.
1) Reading the general format of these couple of sentences, it's clear that this is first-person narration; there's no issue there. I suppose what I'm curious about -- what I'm unclear about, I should say -- is whether or not this opening portion of first-person narration is something that is simply for the benefit of the reader, or if the other wrestling characters can also see or hear those words. For first clarification on that, I can only look to
the fed's rules, which state,
"Going along with the topic of roleplays, there is the topic of what is seen during each promo. Think of it as watching a TV show with a narrator. If it is in the roleplay, it is seen. Example, if during your story/character development in a weekly promo your character goes to the movies, we know about it. Think of it as your own personal camera man each week. " So, going by that, the opening narration is fair game. After all, the listener is undefined, other than that King certainly isn't narrating to himself. If you wish these words to be outside of realm of what our characters would know you may consider placing such information into the third person narrative.
2) "Who ever" is a compound word.
3) There is an extra "a" before the word "atmosphere."
4) You may also wish to remove "may have" from this section. TGW has no actual televised product yet, so when speaking about the fan reaction to wrestlers, so to that extent King must speak in the future tense here, even if the narration itself is in the past tense.
5) Your first two sentences become run-on sentences due to the lack of proper punctuation. Assuming that Sebastian is truly speaking the opening half of the roleplay, consider that it should read the way it sounds when you speak. Punctuation breaks are a nice way to insert an appropriate pause for breath or for emphasis and separation of information.
A new atmosphere… A new ring… A new crowd of people chanting for whoever they may despise or love. One thing was for sure: I was in a different atmosphere not too far away from my home in Phoenix, Arizona. But I did know one thing -- my career was about to begin once again, but not in the same promotion I was last seen in; oh, no, sir…I mean, this goes to a point. I did have to respect King's speaking habits here, but you can see that without the punctuation it sounds like he's just talking flatly through the sentence without the proper breaks to highlight topic changes.
While you have commas, this is a run-on sentence. The best way to split this up is to make this two sentences. End the first sentence after the word "eye," while you can partition the second sentence with a semi-colon in place of the comma between the words "was" and "as."
The chants of Holocaust sucks still echoed through my ears as I made my way down the highway in my old 1969 smoky black Dodge Charger which most if not all would consider a gas guzzler, a hog on gas in which it was but I didn’t give a **ck as it was my baby.1) "Holocaust sucks" should be in quotations as I have done at the beginning of this sentence, though you may wish to add an exclamation point there to emphasize the zeal with which the MWA crowd likely chanted those words.
2) While a very minor nitpick, there is a double-space between "old" and "1969."
3) I'm assuming that when you say "smoky" that's a descriptive term for the car emitting thick, visible black clouds of exhaust. The context of the sentence isn't too clear is "smoky black" is a kind of color or if "smoky" is a separate adjective altogether. However, given the mention of the car being a gas guzzler, I presume that's not simply a stand-alone statement but rather a reinforcement of how smoky the car may be.
4) Context of the word "smoky" aside, this sentence is still difficult to read. Not only that, but it's hard to effectively comment on it because I'm not sure if this is how Virus really talks or if it's just a syntax that you've developed in the belief that the more words that are used, the better. There's a point to where stating something as simply as possible has the proper effect, too. And King does speak like this throughout the roleplay, so it's not an isolated thing.
I don't believe that you personally speak that way, I don't know anybody who does, but read the quoted sentence aloud to somebody who's never read your work and I'm certain they'll state that the way that Virus's words are formed are a bit awkward and from my personal point of view, they don't sound "organic" but rather his diction and syntax feel too contrived... as though Sebastian iss not just saying what would come naturally to him, but that he's simply a literal mouthpiece for whatever words that you think will get him the best push. I could be wrong, however; perhaps Virus does truly speak like that, but it's a very unusual grammatical style to follow nonetheless.
I'll just correct it --
"The way she rode down the highway was like a dream; a dream you wouldn’t want to wake up from."Virus knows a lot of "one things." Consider simply stating, "I knew ____" instead of "I knew one thing _____." Repetition of that particular phrase "I knew one thing" seems to stand out as a bit too manufactured a comment that somebody would constantly throw out in the course of about thirty seconds of real time speech.
1) On the word choice -- a slight nitpick about the word "physician." A physician is a general medicine practitioner -- your basic family doctor. It sounds like King was talking to a psychiatrist, who would be specially qualified to speak to him regarding emotional or mental issues. Unless he really was talking to a physician, in which case does he have some injury of which we're not yet aware?
2) This seems like an interesting thing to just mention offhand and leave that hanging. For people who don't know Virus, that comment raises a lot of questions. And if you didn't intend to delve further into that in subsequent roleplays, the reader would benefit to know what sort of psychological problems that Sebastian King is trying to manage.
Again, the lack of appropriate punctuation makes this run-on sentence quite awkward to read. And that's the fourth "one thing." He seems to know one thing about every ten seconds. The repetition of words here, upon the revelation of some psychological problems, may make a kind of sense. It's unknown to the first-time reader if Virus has a particular mental obsession with certain syntax patterns and words. It's possible, however that needs explicit explanation so that the reader is aware that Virus's speaking habits are something he can't control, rather than being the player's writing style that needs correction.
Oh, come on, now.
This is another run-on sentence.
"I did know one thing, though, and that was that I have come to my senses. No longer would I hide under a mask, or another name. It was time for them to see the man behind the mask; the man known as SEBASTIAN KING!!!"Not only is this paragraph a rather pronounced run-on sentence, but I'm not certain if what Sebastian "told himself" referred to the previous paragraph about not hiding behind a mask or pseudonym, or if he told himself that he wasn't going to get much sleep. The word order and compressing of multiple sentences into one sentence with incorrect comma placement hurts the readability of this part. I can't offer a correction, though, because I'm not sure whether the words "I told myself" belong in this sentence in the first place.
1) Okay, that first sentence definitely smacks of flowery prose for the sake of it. The six words "Clear cold specter of nothing nice" tell me very little. "Cold" is the operative word out of all of that; the first sentence can simply read,
"The outdoor temperature was cool, the trees swaying in the wind." Fewer words, but a clearer picture of what you mean.
2)The repetition of "1969 smoky black Dodge Charger" is unnecessary here given that he already told us the make, model, year and color earlier. Though if the car is off and still smoky, that makes me rethink that the word "smoky" is a further adjective describing the color of the car itself.
3) You have to be careful switching the narrative perspective. You use the word "my," clearly a first-person possessive, however this sentence is located within your roleplay section that is dedicated to third-person narrative.
1) Alright, seeing "1969 smoky black Dodge Charger" for the third time it's clear that this is not just Sebastian's habit of speech but rather the repetition is just a quirk of your writing style. The reader knows by now what kind of car Virus has; you need not continue to remind them. Try not to repeat yourself in roleplays, or it could look like you're just gunning for word count.
2) "Echoed" is the wrong word to use here, because echoing is a very specific behavior of sound waves. Based on the volume of the music in the car, you could say "boomed" or "blared" or "rang" as more appropriate verbiage.
I don't get this simile. Cold is just a reaction to a pathogen; it's not like the virus focuses on particular targets.
1) I'm not certain if you mean "True Glory Wrestling Stadium" or "True Glory Wrestling's stadium." Given the way you've written the sentence, however, "wrestling stadium" seems to be an improper noun.
2) After indicating that drinking and partying would commence with "locals," appending the additional "local" in front of the word "bar" isn't necessary.
3) The word "boarder" refers to somebody lodging in a place and getting meals, or someone who is getting onto a boat. "Border" refers to a geographical boundary. And the word should be "borderline" as it's a compound word.
4) The word order and comma usage make this sentence weird to read. Try
"After a harsh night of drinking and partying with the locals at a bar on the Arizona-California borderline, Sebastian King hit the road early headed to San Diego, California. Sebastian only wished he was already in True Glory Wrestling's stadium, where he’d begin his professional wrestling career anew."5) I haven't said anything about it up to this point, but you should do some internet research on the difference between active voice and passive voice. When you write something such as, "[...] Where he’d begin his career of professional wrestling once again," that is most certainly passive voice. Generally speaking, passive voice lacks a certain dynamic quality to the writing and reading. I know that it's hard to avoid passive voice sometimes, but a lot of your usage of passive voice is easily corrected.
1) The "exit" at which King needed to depart the highway would be the more appropriate word. He's not getting off onto the road; he's getting onto the road, but getting off of the highway on which he's already traveling.
I assume that the phone is on speaker, or simply very loud, that we can hear Goldstein. It's unclear if his introduction is actually necessary and proper given their history, or if that was written up so to answer the inevitable question of "Who is Goldstein?" Although aside from indicating that Goldstein seems to be an agent or a manager, who he is doesn't receive any further explanation. However, as Virus seems to cut off all ties to Goldstein, his identity doesn't need much elaboration.
1) "Said" is a descriptive word for declarative sentences, not suitable for interrogative quotations.
2) I won't beat a dead horse at this point but you really have to watch the phrase repetition.
3) With the addition of Goldstein, it seems that the same weird speech patterns persist in this character as well. Their speech still doesn't sound natural. Richard, especially, seems to explain things too much to somebody he presumably knows already, and has known for a while. Mr. Goldstein's words are not organic to the actual nature of their former business relationship... there's too much transparency in the selection of Goldstein's words solely for the purpose of you as the player reiterating Virus's past as Holocaust in MWA. That's the interesting thing -- the introduction of Richard Goldstein has not actually introduced any new information for me other than that there exists some guy named Richard Goldstein.
This paragraph is confusing. Certainly King had to know what he was getting himself into when he got into wrestling. All the televised promos don't really lend to much privacy. And it also begs the question as far as what's changed? Is Sebastian going without the mask because there's just no point in trying to hide when people know about him already?
By your own words, he's been gone 3 weeks. For somebody with some money, that sounds like a nice vacation. Virus speaks as though he's out of the sport for 4 years like Franchise.
I figure you mean a couple hours of driving, but your wording here must be clearer.
1) I'm not sure what Richard Goldstein could possibly do to hold back Sebastian King from anything.
2) Actually, I just thought of something. While I could be quite presumptuous about the name, I'm guessing a guy with the surname "Goldstein" is Jewish. In which case, how could any self-respecting Jewish man represent a client named
Holocaust? That's like a hardcore feminist representing a client called "Wifebeater Jim."
3) Was there any particular reason why Sebastian shouted the name of the federation at the top of his lungs? I perceive all caps with an exclamation mark to signify shouting. Does TGW mean something more to King than being just another federation to work? If so, should not such feelings of inspired loyalty receive more focus in the roleplay?
4) There are far more words to describe speech than "said." I won't list them here; you'll easily find a number of online thesaurus material through Google or Bing, or any other search engine.
1) You've got two more run-on sentences here, but you also have the third sentence, which is a bona fide fragment.
2) So, does Sebastian drive with a camera crew sitting in the car with him? Did this crew sleep in the car with King? It could be the case that TGW had Sebastian King's 1969 smoky black Dodge Charger
outfitted with hidden cameras. If other characters could "see" this roleplay, how would they? Try to think about that, in terms of the way that you present a scene to the readers and to the in-character audience. With the way that the scene ends, we could say that Virus staged the entire phone conversation just to sound like a good "company man" for TGW. It's unclear if such an assumption could be true, but the scene does not suggest that anything viewed by the reader (not to mention the IC fans or other characters within the fed's fourth wall) happened spontaneously.
This seems like a style-line signature that may be placed at the bottom of every roleplay. If so, change "nobodies" to "nobody's" for the proper grammatical use of the contraction for "nobody is."
Overall, for one thousand and nine words that you've used in this roleplay, here's what I've "learned."
1) Virus used to be called Holocaust.
2) Virus used to work for Millenium Wrestling Alliance.
3) Virus used to have a manager named Richard Goldstein.
4) Virus has some mental issues, possibly stemming from a bad childhood.
5) Virus has a 1969 smoky black Dodge Charger.Now, what I'll do is take out all of the redundant information that I already learned days ago when I read Sebastian's bio in the
TGW Roster Pages forum so that we see what truly unique information I received from this roleplay.
1) Virus used to have a manager named Richard Goldstein.
2) Virus has a 1969 smoky black Dodge Charger.You used 1110 words to tell us those two new, yet incredibly minor things about Sebastian King. For a character development roleplay, very little development actually took place. I think the problem might be that the character takes his own past for granted and just doesn't talk about it. Of course, this is compounded by the fact that he doesn't want to let any information about his past get out to the public in the first place. I would suggest that you not even mention his past if you, or the character, intend not to discuss it in detail -- better to avoid a topic altogether than to brush by it and raise unanswered questions.
I'd highly recommend switching to use of the third-person narrative that at least allows the readers to learn more about Virus, even if other wrestlers are not supposed to learn anything about him. By doing that, you can safely go into more detail without the character feeling as though he's giving away all his secrets.
Overall... you've got the potential to really portray a fractured soul, and I'd like to see more genuine study of his psyche... but speaking frankly, you're quite fortunate that you didn't post this as a competitive roleplay because your opponent would have to unequivocally suck in order to lose based upon the quality of the content.